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<blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7289564" data-attributes="member: 6778044">Why is that annoying? I consider it an option when appropriate. I find it a bit annoying that in 5e they have NPC &quot;archetypes&quot; and yet they don't have the same abilities as the same PC archetype of that level. I also find it annoying that they've opted out of the template approach in most cases, even when it makes much more sense (skeleton, zombie, etc), and yet they have templates for other creatures.While it's not impossible, I'd agree to some degree with [MENTION=6918252]Aspects07[/MENTION] that it's difficult to stat out famous NPCs the same way, although that has been an issue with each change in edition as well. Where it fails, though, is the hard cap at 20th level for a character, not for a specific class. A hard cap for a class has an impact too.When you get right down to it, RAW stats for the most famous NPCs have usually been less than optimal even in the edition that was current when the NPC was first published. Different authors had differing understandings of the rules themselves when developing their characters, but the FR was far more liberal in their character descriptions than say, Dragonlance, which followed the AD&amp;D ruleset pretty closely if I recall.Regardless, I don't think statting out famous NPCs was in any way a priority for the design team. More importantly, I find that one of the most frequent complaints about the FR is the large number of famous NPCs, particularly powerful ones, and that might have had a part in the design not catering to them either. Since I've very, very, very rarely had any of those characters be anything more than a comment in a campaign, I don't really care anyway. In my case, PCs rarely get about 10th level (that's been the case for decades), so I still have a buffer for high level NPCs to be perpetual challenges.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ilbranteloth, post: 7289564, member: 6778044"] Why is that annoying? I consider it an option when appropriate. I find it a bit annoying that in 5e they have NPC "archetypes" and yet they don't have the same abilities as the same PC archetype of that level. I also find it annoying that they've opted out of the template approach in most cases, even when it makes much more sense (skeleton, zombie, etc), and yet they have templates for other creatures. While it's not impossible, I'd agree to some degree with [MENTION=6918252]Aspects07[/MENTION] that it's difficult to stat out famous NPCs the same way, although that has been an issue with each change in edition as well. Where it fails, though, is the hard cap at 20th level for a character, not for a specific class. A hard cap for a class has an impact too. When you get right down to it, RAW stats for the most famous NPCs have usually been less than optimal even in the edition that was current when the NPC was first published. Different authors had differing understandings of the rules themselves when developing their characters, but the FR was far more liberal in their character descriptions than say, Dragonlance, which followed the AD&D ruleset pretty closely if I recall. Regardless, I don't think statting out famous NPCs was in any way a priority for the design team. More importantly, I find that one of the most frequent complaints about the FR is the large number of famous NPCs, particularly powerful ones, and that might have had a part in the design not catering to them either. Since I've very, very, very rarely had any of those characters be anything more than a comment in a campaign, I don't really care anyway. In my case, PCs rarely get about 10th level (that's been the case for decades), so I still have a buffer for high level NPCs to be perpetual challenges. [/QUOTE]

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