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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tormyr" data-source="post: 6373297" data-attributes="member: 6776887">I have not seen a monster manual yet, but I keep on hearing that there are not examples of different levels when this question has been raised in the past.  In the HotDQ supplement it says that adding racial traits to a NPC or changing its spells does not change the CR but changing weapons/armor/magic items can.  Which is not what you are looking for.The best thing I can say is to use what you have so far, pick an NPC, change it as necessary, and guess at the new CR if significant changes have been made.  The HotDQ book has a few pages of additional named NPCs, but I whether spending $20+ on that is worth it for you is up to you. I have used several of the entries in that book in my prep for the upcoming chapter of my campaign (which is not HotDQ).Between the starter set, basic DMG pdf, HotDQ pdf and HotDQ book there are a few examples out there.  Most NPCs of a given CR are within a few hit dice of each other.  If you increased their armor, you could drop a hit die or vice versa.  Wizard NPCs have fewer hit dice than other classes of the same CR.  Wizards are also much higher level than their CR.  CR5 cleric can be a 9th level spellcaster.  A CR6 wizard is a 9th level spellcaster.  This is a far cry from 3.0/3.5 where NPC character levels pretty much matched their CR.  I had to make a CR4 lizardfolk druid.  So I used the 5th level cleric mentioned before (from the HotDQ book) dropped her hit dice down to something appropriate for CR4 made her a 7th level spellcaster instead of 9th level and added the lizardfolk traits.  The last thing I had to do was figure out what additional spells would be appropriate for her since I was converting the 3.5 NPC to 5e and she went from being a 3rd level druid to a 7th level druid.If you have any specific questions on making an appropriate NPC, I am sure there are plenty of people here who could help.  Remember, the NPCs don't have to be statted perfectly.  They just have to be close enough.  When the DMG comes out, this will be easier and we will have the guidance we are looking for.</blockquote>

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