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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6074712" data-attributes="member: 22424">Yep, like others have said, you've managed to hit just about the worst possible combination of level and encounter type.3.5e most definitely has a sweet spot in the level range, where play is at its best. Playing at levels below this is okay (but tends to feel quite limiting), while play at higher levels gets bogged down in a morass of options and maths. IMO, the sweet spot runs from about level 4 to about level 12, but only if you play Core Rules Only (if using supplements, chop a few levels off the top). So, you're right at the top of that range.Additionally, not all encounters are created equally, and as you have noticed, the absolute worst are encounters against humanoid NPCs, precisely because these do level up in exactly the same way as PCs (with all the options to juggle, skills to assign, and so on). And, even worse, encounters against NPCs tend to give out much more loot than do more traditional 'monster' encounters, so you'll quickly start finding a balance issue there, too.If you're still keen on the urban adventure/humanoid monsters thing, my serious recommendation would be to reset your campaign to levels 4-6, and go from there. That way, characters will still have a decent range of options without being painful, and you'll have plenty of room to grow before the system really becomes a burden.However, I appreciate that you may not want to do 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=":)" />As a fallback suggestion, you should probably look at Hero Lab, which seems to help speed the generation process, so should hopefully get you somewhere along the road. And, as others have suggested, look for various sources of pregen NPC stats - the DMG has some, Dungeon magazine has more, there are quite a lot online. Oh, and you can almost certainly get away with using Pathfinder NPCs almost as-is - the systems are close enough that they pretty much fit.One final thing: never, ever throw away NPC stats! Keep a big file of those stats, and reuse as often as you can. Bear in mind that that sneaky assassin that the PCs just killed almost certainly had a whole raft of abilities your players never saw him use. So, keep the stats, and next time you need a master thief, reuse the stats (perhaps with half a dozen changes). Short term, this sort of reuse won't make a massive amouont of difference. However, the longer you play, and more stats you accumulate, the more you can reuse - it's a resource that only ever grows in value!</blockquote>

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