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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 7744453">I'd like to state, for the record that "building monsters" or NPCs in 3.X or Pathfinder is one of the most boring exercises in gaming I have ever experienced.And yet, I still love to run 3.5 and Pathfinder.  How do I reconcile this?  By ignoring the instructions on the back of the box.  I have two sets of NPCs"Generic humanoids" (did this for 5E too, and it's notably faster).  Consisting of several of the base classes (Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Barbarian, Wizard) levels 1-20.  These are moderately well-built (as in: I followed online build-guides) NPCs designed to have a sex and a race (and sometimes a name) slapped on them when the players need to fight someone or encounter someone who could be fought but is otherwise a generic NPC.  These make up the vast majority of Town Guards, Bandits, Cooky Old Shopkeeps, Local Priests and so forth.  I did this ages ago, and part of it was simply experimenting with character building for myself, so I figured if I was doing the work anyway, I might as well put it to use.I have, since oh, probably 2014 never remade these.  My second set of NPCs are "Custom Baddies", which I threw build instructions to the wind and built monsters designed around two variables: How hard do I want them to hit?andHow long do I want them to last?With an optional third variable of:How cool do I want them to be?For example, I built several Slivers from MTG into monsters.  For those unfamiliar, slivers are highly synergistic monsters who share their specific abilities with other slivers while they are in play (in a D&D context: in range).[ATTACH]97010[/ATTACH]There were no feats to this monster, no classes, just high offense and high defense and two special abilities.  In 4E terms, you'd probably call this an Elite Solo Leader.  I find this approach exceedingly fun (I hate plug-and-play monsters) as I love custom-building monsters.  I also find it simple and just as compatible with 3.5/PF1 as it was with 4E.  I find the idea that people are stating up NPCs for each individual combat to be a little preposterous.  Isn't that what the Bestiaries are for?</blockquote>

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