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<blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 2860135" data-attributes="member: 1757">Interesting question, difficult poll structure IMHO.To me, it depends on genre, player and GM expectations, and the kind of story the players and GM are hoping to create. I can see very good reasons why PCs in hard scifi, military, and horror RPGs would be exactly on par with (or less powerful than) NPCs in terms of stats, level, etc. For heroic fantasy, my preference is &quot;much better.&quot; If the campaign is built around the underdog triumphing by dint of superior insight and hard work, then I can see PCs and NPCs being built with equal stats and PCs either using NPC classes, or vice versa. But in the vast majority of the high fantasy, pulp, and mythological stories on which D&amp;D is built, the heroes are better than the average Joe in some way, either through innate ability (Conan, Aragorn, Sparrowhawk, Elric, Lancelot, Achilles, Corwin of Amber, etc etc), a specific fate or destiny (Arthur, Corum) or both (Belgarion, Merlin, etc.). Thus, I tend to prefer the Iron Heroes approach: Members of PC classes are rare, and NPC classes are significantly weaker than PC classes. Then, of course, there's the question of what constitutes an &quot;NPC.&quot; In general, my (humanoid) PCs will have better stats than (humanoid) NPCs; that doesn't mean that when fiends, dread sorcerers, or dragons come along that those NPCs won't have better stats and cool powers. However, compared to a core-race NPC of equal level, PCs in my campaigns are likely to have better stats and a much stronger set of class levels.&nbsp; Of course, at low levels, the PCs are still going to be the low men on the totem pole, as more experienced adventurers, eccentric archmages, grizzled mercenaries, and scheming merchant lords of much higher level certainly do exist, but once the PCs hit 10th+ level, they're likely to be the king pimps of their locality, with only major threats capable of matching them.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ruleslawyer, post: 2860135, member: 1757"] Interesting question, difficult poll structure IMHO. To me, it depends on genre, player and GM expectations, and the kind of story the players and GM are hoping to create. I can see very good reasons why PCs in hard scifi, military, and horror RPGs would be exactly on par with (or less powerful than) NPCs in terms of stats, level, etc. For heroic fantasy, my preference is "much better." If the campaign is built around the underdog triumphing by dint of superior insight and hard work, then I can see PCs and NPCs being built with equal stats and PCs either using NPC classes, or vice versa. But in the vast majority of the high fantasy, pulp, and mythological stories on which D&D is built, the heroes [i]are[/i] better than the average Joe in some way, either through innate ability (Conan, Aragorn, Sparrowhawk, Elric, Lancelot, Achilles, Corwin of Amber, etc etc), a specific fate or destiny (Arthur, Corum) or both (Belgarion, Merlin, etc.). Thus, I tend to prefer the Iron Heroes approach: Members of PC classes are rare, and NPC classes are significantly weaker than PC classes. Then, of course, there's the question of what constitutes an "NPC." In general, my (humanoid) PCs will have better stats than (humanoid) NPCs; that doesn't mean that when fiends, dread sorcerers, or dragons come along that [i]those[/i] NPCs won't have better stats and cool powers. However, compared to a core-race NPC of equal level, PCs in my campaigns are likely to have better stats and a much stronger set of class levels. Of course, at low levels, the PCs are still going to be the low men on the totem pole, as more experienced adventurers, eccentric archmages, grizzled mercenaries, and scheming merchant lords of much higher level certainly do exist, but once the PCs hit 10th+ level, they're likely to be the king pimps of their locality, with only major threats capable of matching them. [/QUOTE]

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