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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6225075" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>That's a pretty nice warlord example. I agree, the DMG1 NPC system wasn't that great. I think it was sort of a holdover from older edition thinking. Its interesting because even WotC never used it. There isn't even one NPC built with those rules in any module or publication. In fact I've never seen a statblock of an NPC made that way, period. Even in DMG1 they provided 'class templates' that allow you to just build a monster straight up as a 'classed NPC' in effect, and that tool was extended to support PHB2 classes in DMG2 (though it has never been subsequently extended to PHB3 or later classes the truth is most of those classes are pretty specialized and in any case its not exactly rocket-science to do it yourself, the templates are really not a huge help). Likewise DMG2 introduced 'Companion Characters' to provide an official implementation of friendly NPCs. My conclusion is that none of the developers at WotC ever really considered the classed NPC rules to be useful and they were included more as a nod to tradition than as a really useful tool. Maybe they didn't quite trust the whole &quot;everything is a monster with a statblock&quot; design of 4e entirely at that point. Obviously they learned quickly!</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 6225075, member: 82106"] That's a pretty nice warlord example. I agree, the DMG1 NPC system wasn't that great. I think it was sort of a holdover from older edition thinking. Its interesting because even WotC never used it. There isn't even one NPC built with those rules in any module or publication. In fact I've never seen a statblock of an NPC made that way, period. Even in DMG1 they provided 'class templates' that allow you to just build a monster straight up as a 'classed NPC' in effect, and that tool was extended to support PHB2 classes in DMG2 (though it has never been subsequently extended to PHB3 or later classes the truth is most of those classes are pretty specialized and in any case its not exactly rocket-science to do it yourself, the templates are really not a huge help). Likewise DMG2 introduced 'Companion Characters' to provide an official implementation of friendly NPCs. My conclusion is that none of the developers at WotC ever really considered the classed NPC rules to be useful and they were included more as a nod to tradition than as a really useful tool. Maybe they didn't quite trust the whole "everything is a monster with a statblock" design of 4e entirely at that point. Obviously they learned quickly! [/QUOTE]

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