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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5032013" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, first to directly answer the question. The DMG does not provide a way to calculate an XP value for NPCs. We can presume they have a baseline XP value as per a monster of the same level. They certainly are more capable than normal monsters, so you may want to grant XP as per an Elite, but its really just not an area covered by the rules.My guess is that the designers of that section of the DMG assumed NPCs of this type would only be used either as incidental combatants or temporary allies. I think they didn't create an XP rule for exactly this reason, NPCs shouldn't be opponents.Further I think we can consider DMG1 NPCs to be obsolete in effect. Consider the use cases:1) Story NPC: something that doesn't fight. Doesn't need stats at all. At best maybe needs some skill bonus numbers for social interaction.2) Allied NPC: Use the Companion Characters rules in DMG2, they work better. 3) Opponent: Use the monster design rules, they work better.There isn't really a strong use case for the NPC rules and if you notice, DMG2 doesn't even provide templates to let you generate PHB2 classes as NPCs. So even WotC isn't really supporting this section of the DMG anymore. Notice too that WotC has never published in any of their material a single stat block generated using this section of the rules to the best of my knowledge. All the NPCs in Fallcrest for example use monster style stat blocks. To be honest I don't really know why NPC rules were published in the first place. I think it was more a failure on the part of the DMG authors to grasp that such a thing was really unneeded, combined with the fact that Companion Characters didn't exist at the time so there was at least one use case for them (as permanent allies). Really, NPCs do make lousey opponents. Elite monsters work better (or even standards for more minor sidekicks and such).</blockquote>

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