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<blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 8569522" data-attributes="member: 6704184">Template NPCs refers to stuff like Guard?That’s largely what I do in 5e D&amp;D, because the low end common folk stats are basically worthless anyway. Why bother looking up an acolyte? They’re gonna have 1 skill and 10HP, and nothing interesting going for them. Absolutely. Those characters deserve a kind of depth that is very different from what PCs need. In 5e terms, it’s worth giving them a full background, including personality traits, but detailing combat stats? Nah. A secret (or personal quest hook of some kind), a flaw, and some other personality traits, absolutely. Is this true regardless of game, if you run multiple different games?Yeah I’m thinking the “soft” parts of CharGen might as well be mirrored in NPCs, but for instance I’ve no desire to give them attributes or skill specialties. The just have fewer skills, with comparable total ranks to PCs using a specialty. I honestly might even just rank the 3 categories of skills, and say that they have journeyman or expert ranks in one, a couple less in another, and 1-2 ranks in the third. At least for very minor NPCs.&nbsp; &nbsp;I might also leverage templates or “NPC Archetypes” to allow for quickly taking a basic Teacher and turning it into a Teacher (hidden Void Witch).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="doctorbadwolf, post: 8569522, member: 6704184"] Template NPCs refers to stuff like Guard? That’s largely what I do in 5e D&D, because the low end common folk stats are basically worthless anyway. Why bother looking up an acolyte? They’re gonna have 1 skill and 10HP, and nothing interesting going for them. Absolutely. Those characters deserve a kind of depth that is very different from what PCs need. In 5e terms, it’s worth giving them a full background, including personality traits, but detailing combat stats? Nah. A secret (or personal quest hook of some kind), a flaw, and some other personality traits, absolutely. Is this true regardless of game, if you run multiple different games? Yeah I’m thinking the “soft” parts of CharGen might as well be mirrored in NPCs, but for instance I’ve no desire to give them attributes or skill specialties. The just have fewer skills, with comparable total ranks to PCs using a specialty. I honestly might even just rank the 3 categories of skills, and say that they have journeyman or expert ranks in one, a couple less in another, and 1-2 ranks in the third. At least for very minor NPCs. I might also leverage templates or “NPC Archetypes” to allow for quickly taking a basic Teacher and turning it into a Teacher (hidden Void Witch). [/QUOTE]

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