GlassJaw said:
It usually takes the most time to allocate skill points, and it's also one of the things that has the least impact on gameplay.
I've seen that statement before and I've been wondering about that. When I create npcs this is the part that takes the least time.
What takes the most time for me are spells and feats. For lesser npcs spells don't take as long since I tend to pick them from the PHB only (sometimes using the lists at the back of PHB2). Wizard npcs are almost unheard of in my campaign since I hate picking spells for their spellbooks. It's definitely the least DM-friendly class (well, Archivists are probably worse but I've never created one of those, so far).
But feats ALWAYS take a lot of time. I believe this is mainly because feats are completely unintuitive. Prerequisites and power/usefulness differ wildly and they're scattered over dozens of books. Often I remember a certain feat that would be ideal for an npc, but I just can't seem to find the frigging thing...
The next thing that takes a lot of time is selecting equipment. I mostly choose from the big five (seven?!) but make it a point to also add some disposables and at least one item from MIC to add some variety.
Creating the BBEG for my last longer adventure, a 12th level wizard, took the better part of a week (at 1-2 hours a day)! And I consider it time well spent, or rather time I really had to spend to make the adventure and the bossfight work:
The final fight against the BBEG and his cronies took almost 6 hours (8 players) to resolve (totalling 8 rounds of combat) AND the BBEG managed to get away in the end, though the party gained entry to his lab and got hold of most of his equipment, library, and a copy of his spellbook.
I strongly doubt there would have been a way to pull something like this off with a 15 minute npc.