Do you use Npc classes for your Npcs?

[Ashrum the Black]

Warriors, and nobles get used, but not much else.

I can see the utility of having the other classes for a professional product where you can't just say to the DM to fudge it. So you put some basic stats in for the NPC merchants they'll be dealing with and making it a class gives it some hard and fast rules to follow.

But if my PC's walked up to a standard merchant to buy something in my homebrewed module, I'd just fudge the numbers on the fly, the same for commoners and such.

-Ashrum

 

[Arnwyn]

"On occasion", with clarification.

If combat is ever expected, then I'll never use an NPC class. If combat is not expected, then I'll never stat the NPC up in the first place (though I might know that the well-known blacksmith is a LG hm Exp8 - but even that's not common).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

If you look at any generic adventure, the vast majority of NPCs who will oppose the PCs will be combatants or spellcasters, using heroic class levels. It seems like using NPC classes is quite rare, even in WotC-published material. Eberron adventures are the exceptions, and even then the important villains are almost certainly going to be heroic.

Let's compare the Adept to the Wizard, when a GM is writing an adventure.

If the mage is 5th-level, he can cast 3rd-level spells (at most). If the adept is 5th-level, he can cast 2nd-level spells (at most). I think. I'm not sure. There's little incentive to memorize those details.

Same at pretty much any caster level.

Now for spells. For primary spellcasting classes, I memorized the most useful spells at each spell level. I've had to do that for all those classes, and it took time. There's no incentive to do so for the Adept. If I were to create an Adept NPC, I would have to open up the DMG and look at the tables and spell list every single time. For the primary spellcasters, I only need to look up spells/day and spells known (for sorcerers).

 

[WhatGravitas]

"On occasion": I've stat out some average mooks at the beginning of my campaigns (guards, average citizens, thugs/troublemakers in cities) and use them as handy reference, and usually I use NPC-classes.

Recurring villains don't deserve NPC-classes, however, some allies do (the helpful watchman in their hometown a.s.o.), when the PCs are getting into trouble in a city (tavern brawl, thieves, improvised adventures within a city), then I pull the mooks out of by binder (and they've got NPC-classes).

 

[lukelightning]

I'm far more likely to slap on warrior levels to a monster than a PC fighting class.

 

[Voadam]

Warrior class gets used a bunch, especially when using humanoids straight out of the Monster books.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Commoners are everywhere, but no one pays much attention to them.

Experts are very common for PCs to deal with; just all of the PCs who have taken Leadership have bothered to stat up one or more expert followers, because they come into play. Examples include agents (to buy and sell for the party) and one character's theologian (expert with Skill Focus (Knowledge (religion)) and max ranks, since the PC had a bad score).

Warriors are common in militias and some armies, but PCs don't generally deal directly with them.

Most nobles are aristocrats, and dealing with them is common even if they're a tiny fraction of the population.

I don't really use adepts, though I have statted a few from time to time.

I've had several PCs with NPC class levels because they were appropriate for the background story. Sometimes the player will ask me ("Hey, should I take some Expert levels since...") and sometimes I'll suggest it to the player ("Hmm, how about you drop a level of fighter for two commoner levels to represent your time as...").