D&D 5E (2014) Do NPCs in your game have PHB classes?

[Jester David]

There was plenty of rules support for NPC fighters and mages, but it was all in the PHB. In the absence of any indication otherwise, there's zero reason to expect that an NPC would be any different from a PC. If a given elf happens to be a fifth-level mage, then we have the rules for what a fifth-level mage is.

True, but 2e was a little quick and loose with content like that and assigning monster experience, since that was primarily tied to Hit Dice modified slightly by special abilities. Not a lot of thought or advice was given to DMs in regard to NPC opponents.
That you could use the monster creation rules to make NPC opponents was tangential, almost accidental rather than purposeful.

That's not handwaving, though. Monsters in 3E had a thing in their stat block which described their advancement, saying what sort of hit die and save progressions they used, and how big such a creature could actually get. If this Bulette is bigger and stronger than a typical one, then you just need to figure out how much bigger and tougher it is, and the formulas would tell you how all of its numbers change to reflect that different reality.

If you used the monster advancement as written. But, as I said, templates also existed.
The difference between my handwavy example of a few extra HD with a bonus feat and a template is really presentation, as the template is formally written down. It would be completely and 100% in line with the spirit of the rules to just slap said HD and a bonus feat onto a creature and give it a label, calling the variance a template. "The Blessed Chosen Champion of Handwavia" template.

For an example, check out the very first Pathfinder Adventure Path volume, Burnt Offerings where the author has a medium-sized three-armed goblin with fast healing. Who breathes acid. Totally not following the RAW advancement rules, yet totally fair and within the spirit of the game because it has higher xp total.

Provided the DM is still following The Math, the only time they can "cheat" is at the gametable.
The "monster advancement" rules were meant to encourage people to modify monsters even if they didn't feel comfortable with game designing. It was meant to open up customization, not limit it.

No, humanoid races advancing by class rather than as monsters was one of the great successes of 3E - it was integral to creating a consistent and unbiased world. Orcs and dwarves really are similar enough, in terms of how they work, that they should be represented in the same ways. An orc is not a giant frog, or a demon, or even a dragon; it's a person, with a particular set of physical and social traits, whose capabilities are primarily derived from skill and knowledge. And likewise, their abilities had to be balanced for a PC because they were just learned abilities - if an orc witch-doctor could raise dead once per hour, then you would need a good reason for why a PC cleric with the death domain (or whatever) couldn't do the same.

Yes and no.

I completely agree that any martial maneuver a orc warrior or gnoll raider or NPC can do should be something accomplishable by a human fighter. Within reason.
It might not be easy though. The trick could be a specialized fighting style, a technique kept secret and can only learned with extensive training. But, if the ability is reasonably balanced, it could be added as a maneuver or a feat or as part of a subclass. The difference between a unique homebrew NPC ability and a feat is formatting and publication.
Of course, this makes the assumption the NPC trick is equal to a fighter's. It could just as easily be limited or weaker. An example of this in the Monster Manual is the enemies with the Surprise Attack trait, that is basically weaker Sneak Attack. Monster NPCs don't have to be as effective as a PC: they're not an adventurer, just a gifted amateur.
There could be other limits. Such as requiring allies with the same ability. A phalanx fighting fighter ability isn't very useful if no one else in the party has a shield or wants to just sit and block a doorway. We really don't need pages of hyper situational feats and subclasses that are really only fun for a DM to use in an encounter but no player would touch with a requisition length 10-foot pole. Neither should DMs be limited to only what is published in the physical books.

Similarly, the NPC monster doesn't need the exact same wording and details as a player power. The orc boss you want to challenge the party as a CR 5 creature really doesn't need all the class features of a 7th or 8th level character: that just bloats their statblock with dozens of options that will never be used. And if they're going to die after three rounds, an ability they can use a half-dozen times in a combat is functionally at-will. When the party is facing two orc warriors using the battle masters rules, the DM doesn't really need to track each one's superiority dice, since the orcs will be long dead before they can use all four. That's needless bookkeeping. Neither do they need all 3 maneuvers, when just two gives them some variety. Just give each orc a single maneuver as a trait and some extra HD. All the feel of an orc fighter with 70% less work.
(You can see Pathfinder doing this as well with the simple class templates from the Monster Codex book.)

I'm more okay with unique magical tricks.That makes sense from a story perspective, and a mechanical perspective, and a play perspective.
First, the unique supernatural abilities granted by an orc god to their most ardent followers can and should be different from the abilities given to an elf by the elf god and such. Plus, seeing a spell performed doesn't confer the same knowledge as seeing someone swing a sword in a particular way (otherwise you wouldn't need to capture enemy spellbooks).
Second, as mentioned above, what you can fit into the a spell or onto a character sheet doesn't always work in a monster statblock that has to fit on a single page.
Giving monsters their own powers means players can be surprised. They can't just memorize the spells and prestige classes to know what a classed monster is capable of. The orc warrior can surprise the regular fighter player. Which is fun.

Like 3e went too far with the symmetry I think 4e went too far with the unique variants. We don't need 30 different types of orc, each that work as special snowflakes. But the really different and iconic orcs should have abilities that are uniquely orcish. Like the aforementioned Eye of Gruumsh. Or a kobold wyrmpriest.
And, with bounded accuracy, we really don't need classed orcs to the same degree as 3e. A DM can just have more orcs in their orc encounter rather than a few classed orcs required for math reasons.
The orc fighter becomes special rather than mandated.

Granted, there were a lot of special feats or prestige classes for them, and that was annoying. It wasn't necessary, though, and it wasn't even part of the core game. It's just a problem of having too many supplements. Don't blame a good game for falling apart in supplements. The same can be said for Pathfinder.

The Eye of Gruumsh prestige class was in Complete Warrior. It was in one of the first if not the first splatbooks for 3.5. Right out of the gate there was NPC/DM content in a player book.

To say nothing of the NPC prestige classes in the DMG.

During my 3e days I converted the original Dragonlance adventures to 3e and classed NPCs were a pain, even just using core rules options. Because to keep up with The Math I had to keep adding fighter and warrior levels. Plus the assorted NPC gear. Pain in the butt just to make some mook monsters.
I really should have just "cheated" and buffed all their numbers. It would have had an identical effect as far as my players were concerned.

There is nothing about having only one character per person that necessitates gaining a new ability at each level. Fighters were fine in early D&D, even though they had no special abilities. Additional complexity makes it difficult for a DM to run a party full of such characters, but any gain from having complex classes is nebulous.

Yeah, but people like getting something each level. That was a lesson learned from 3e. Dead levels are less fun. When you get a level and just get some hit points or skill points it isn't very exciting and takes some of the thrill out of reaching that new level. That was reinforced during the public playtest.

As it is, the fighter is a little simple for a lot of people. Lotta complaints that it needs more at-will options.

 

[pemerton]

What is your question, Pemerton?

I thought that you were saying considerations of consistency for tangible in-world phenomena gave a reason to build using classes/levels rather than the MM-style NPCs.

 

[GlassJaw]

Behind the screen, class levels are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what the NPC will bring to bear in a fight against the PCs. Anything else is a waste of time to stat.

Hence the beauty of the 5E NPC statblocks.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The difference between my handwavy example of a few extra HD with a bonus feat and a template is really presentation, as the template is formally written down. It would be completely and 100% in line with the spirit of the rules to just slap said HD and a bonus feat onto a creature and give it a label, calling the variance a template. "The Blessed Chosen Champion of Handwavia" template.

The important thing is that the in-game explanation comes first, and then the rules follow directly from that. If this creature has a few extra HD and a bonus feat, then it's because is has been blessed as the chosen champion of Handwavia. If it has a few more racial Hit Dice, with all of the bells and whistles that go along with it, then it's because it's a bigger and tougher thing through the natural methods in which the creature grows.

First, the unique supernatural abilities granted by an orc god to their most ardent followers can and should be different from the abilities given to an elf by the elf god and such.

I agree with you, in spirit, and it is how things work in practice, in either 3E or 5E. An orc god should grant different blessings than an elf god, but the mechanic for representing that is just in the domain selection.

In 2E, they could get away with some unique abilities for evil humanoids, because they were making the assumption that those evil humanoids would never be playable. So some of them could have cool tricks that were balanced as monster abilities, and that's just the way the world worked - this evil race was special, and they had a powerful ability, and they would still have that powerful ability if they were PCs (but we're going to assume that they'll never be played as PCs, for whatever reason).

Of course, they changed their mind on that in time to churn out The Complete Book of Humanoids, and by the time 3E came around it was probably assumed that most evil humanoids would eventually need to be playable as PCs, so they just avoided handing out abilities that would be broken for the PCs to have. (And when that was insufficient, they had the whole Level Adjustment mechanic to keep things in line, which didn't work out so well due to various reasons that are only tangentially related to the topic at hand.)

They never entertained the idea that it would be okay for an NPC to have a spell or ability, but that the same individual would lack that ability merely by virtue of becoming a PC. That would be ridiculous.

The Eye of Gruumsh prestige class was in Complete Warrior. It was in one of the first if not the first splatbooks for 3.5. Right out of the gate there was NPC/DM content in a player book.

To say nothing of the NPC prestige classes in the DMG.

Yeah, they did reverse course pretty quickly on their idea that prestige classes were supposed to be an entirely optional way for a DM to customize their setting by adding unique organizations and here are some examples. I think what happened was that they realized that feats and prestige classes were the easiest content to create, so they pursued the line of greatest profitability. Of note, though, that was one of the first supplements for 3.5 - by that point, their course had been pretty well-set from 3.0, so they knew where they were headed long before Complete Warrior came out.

And it still wasn't a core product. You could play the game just fine with the three books, and only add supplements if you really wanted them. The Eye of Gruumsh isn't there unless you really want to add it.

Yeah, but people like getting something each level. That was a lesson learned from 3e. Dead levels are less fun. When you get a level and just get some hit points or skill points it isn't very exciting and takes some of the thrill out of reaching that new level. That was reinforced during the public playtest.

It's also directly responsible for the rise of players who are only focused on gaining a new ability at the next level, or a few levels down the line, instead of focusing on the game-at-hand which is what their character is going to do now. People say they want this, but they don't understand the cost associated with it.

And so you end up with shiny abilities at each level, and at-will magic, and fast-healing; heedless of the costs associated with these, in making NPCs too complicated to play, and making magic less effective over all, and requiring six-to-eight combats each day in order to provide a challenge.

 

[Valetudo]

Behind the screen, class levels are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what the NPC will bring to bear in a fight against the PCs. Anything else is a waste of time to stat.

Hence the beauty of the 5E NPC statblocks.

Yes but if you look at the npcs like the knight or guard, they arent to far off from pcs. Maybe a couple less powers is all.But they work well as henchmen, just throw some hd for ooc healing to let them keep up with th e pcs. Where as dragon not so much.

 

[GlassJaw]

Yes but if you look at the npcs like the knight or guard, they arent to far off from pcs. Maybe a couple less powers is all.But they work well as henchmen, just throw some hd for ooc healing to let them keep up with th e pcs. Where as dragon not so much.

Still don't need to add class levels to the dragon. Just give it the spellcasting ability you want it to have. I would even go so far as to cherry-pick the exact spells you want with little regard to the "class level" needed to cast those spells. It's a freaking dragon after all.

And you can always bump a monster's proficiency bonus, AC or hit points a bit if you want it to be more powerful.

 

[Valetudo]

Still don't need to add class levels to the dragon. Just give it the spellcasting ability you want it to have. I would even go so far as to cherry-pick the exact spells you want with little regard to the "class level" needed to cast those spells. It's a freaking dragon after all.

And you can always bump a monster's proficiency bonus, AC or hit points a bit if you want it to be more powerful.

Like i wrote earlier, i wouldnt use a pc class for a dragon. I agree with you that adding the spells you want is just fine.

 

[Jediking]

The way i always looked at it, you have two type of opponents . People and monsters. People , even if they aren't using a pc class should follow similar guidelines, so basically no solo style. Monsters on the other hand can come in all sorts of styles. So you can have a human or demihuman boss that uses a pc class, or a monster that is solo style. At least that's how i run my homemade npc and villains.

I'm completely different. My only distinction is between PCs and NPCs. All my giant spiders and village blacksmiths and demiliches all fall under the 'NPC' distinction. PCs get class levels, and I use stat blocks for all NPCs. I often steal a lot of features or inspiration from the PHB classes when making or adjusting NPCs, but don't give any actual class levels.

I treat all creatures, from Oozes to Archmages to Dragons, as NPCs. Even a Wolf will have basic instinct and goals, and keeping that in mind helps me roleplay them. It also helps players to think of things to do besides 'kill the enemy'. A Wolf might attack out of hunger, fear, or to protect its pack, but it isn't suicidal. And personally I have found in my play that there are a lot of suicidal (or stupidly brave?) creatures that charge at a party for no discernible reason.

 

[Valetudo]

I'm completely different. My only distinction is between PCs and NPCs. All my giant spiders and village blacksmiths and demiliches all fall under the 'NPC' distinction. PCs get class levels, and I use stat blocks for all NPCs. I often steal a lot of features or inspiration from the PHB classes when making or adjusting NPCs, but don't give any actual class levels.

I treat all creatures, from Oozes to Archmages to Dragons, as NPCs. Even a Wolf will have basic instinct and goals, and keeping that in mind helps me roleplay them. It also helps players to think of things to do besides 'kill the enemy'. A Wolf might attack out of hunger, fear, or to protect its pack, but it isn't suicidal. And personally I have found in my play that there are a lot of suicidal (or stupidly brave?) creatures that charge at a party for no discernible reason.

That fine. Think of it this way mike the pally is questing after tom the evil merc. Creation wise tom is a martial warrior who if i felt was important enough, i might stat him as a fighter. Or if he is just some mook, i might just use the guardsmen and maybe upgrade if needed. Now if im using a dragon, im going to use him as a major boss or npc for a group. Im never gonna stat him as a fighter.

 

[Jediking]

That said, I completely understand why the Mage has a higher CR than the Cult Fanatic - the CR is based on their offensive output, which means a Fireball-lobbing NPC will always have a higher CR.

Spells of the same level are ~roughly~ seen as equal. If you have a CR 5 with X spells available, it should be fine to just pick appropriate level spells. By the math, swapping one Mage's Fireball and giving him Animate Dead would change the CR based on the change in offensive CR, but I think it would be close enough and open up other options to balance it out. Different Mages will learn different spells; different cults will teach their Fanatics different spells, but being able to generalize certain NPCs can save so much time.

I just want the CR to be slapped on last...

...Then dead last, we look at his offense and slap a CR onto the finished statblock

I think choosing the CR first is more important. Selecting your spells at the end becomes a good way to fine tune the offensive CR if you need to.