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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8175677" data-attributes="member: 29398">Yes, 3e did go a bit overboard with that. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />None of those are commonly playable as PCs, though.  It goes both ways: if a player wants to roll up and write down the details of a PC's warhorse I'll step that player through the MM process (which pretty much just means making notes and rolling the hit dice).Yes.  What he fails to mention, though, and what is IMO absolutely paramount when generating NPCs of PC-playable races, is something like this: "whatever you-as-GM assign or stipulate should be within the parameters achievable by generating the character using the Player's Handbook". I've always seen this omission as a rather glaring error.What 3e failed to do, in its IMO foolish quest to make just about everything PC-playable, was differentiate between PC-playable races (which should be consistent within the game world no matter who is playing them) and monsters (which can be whatever).  4e, perhaps as a reaction to this, failed by going way too far in the opposite direction and having PCs and NPCs of the same race, class and level rest on different foundations.If, for example, Duergar aren't a PC-playable creature in your game then who really cares how you design 'em as long as whatever you come up with vaguely suits the genre etc. and makes for a worthy opponent or interaction or whatever purpose you put them to in play.  Ditto for a Zombie - who's ever gonna want to play one of those?  They're monsters, and thus there's no need to worry about being consistent with their PC versions.Common Dwarves, on the other hand, are in nearly all D&D games a PC-playable creature.  And so with these, it shouldn't make any mechanical difference whether this Dwarf Thief here is my PC or that otherwise-identical Dwarf Thief over there is: internal consistency expects that they should be completely interchangeable from PC to NPC and back again.</blockquote>

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