One thing that sort of bothers me on 4e occasionally is the different rules governing Heroes from Monsters. Well...more exactly, heroes from NPC's, and even more exactly...HUMAN, ELF, DWARF, etc...player races PC's vs Player Races NPCs.
I can buy the idea that Monsters are monsters. They have limited abilities. They are...afterall...Monsters. IT isn't like your dog is suddenly going to develop the ability to become a Master Arch Sorcerer (well...unless you play 3.X in which case you may have your dog become an Arch Mage). Differences in how monsters have their abilities and hp figured are just fine...however then you come to the same types of species. Drizzt is a good example from what I've seen. He's an NPC with 700+ HP, and only a few powers. However...in truth he should be a Dark Elf Ranger that had the same stats as a PC in older editions.
No.
There are several problems with these statements.
First of all, humanoid "monsters" generally have the race-specific traits found in the PH. For instance, halfling "monsters" often have Second Chance, dwarves often have Steady-Footed and +5 to save vs poison, and so forth.
Second, there are no official stats for Drizzt. You read something bad, maybe a fanboy's "re-creation". (Even a Drizzt fan could simply throw Drizzt at a lower-level "evil" party; the PCs couldn't hit him, he couldn't miss, it'd be just like reading a Salvatore novel!)
Third, the only way Drizzt gets 700 hit points is if he's a solo. There's no way a standard skirmisher of any level gets that many hit points.
Fourth, there
are NPC rules you can use instead of monster rules, and they even work well, but they're complicated.
Look at this 5th-level ranger. Then try picturing him at 16th-level or more to simulate Drizzt. (He would have at least three more abilities.)
Soveliss, elf archer ranger
Level 5 Skirmisher (really Artillery) 5; XP 200
HP 60 (30)
Initiative +6
AC 20; Fort 17, Ref 19, Will 16
Perception +11, low-light vision
Speed 7
Traits
Defensive Mobility: The ranger gains a +2 bonus to AC against opportunity attacks.
Group Awareness * Aura 5. Non-elf allies in the aura gain a +1 racial bonus bonus to Perception checks.
Wild Step: The elf ignores difficult terrain when it shifts.
Standard Actions
Short Sword (weapon) * At-Will. Attack: +7 vs AC. Hit: 1d6+3 damage.
Nimble Strike (martial, weapon) * At-Will. Attack: Ranged 20.40; +10 vs AC. Hit: 1d10+6 damage (+1d6 on crit). Effect: The ranger may shift 1 square before or after the attack.
Cut and Run (martial, weapon) * Encounter. Attack: Ranged 20/40 (1 or 2 enemies); +10 vs AC. Hit: 1d10+6 damage (+1d6 on crit). Effect: After the first or second attack, the ranger may shift 3 squares.
Second Wind (healing) * Encounter. The ranger spends a healing surge and regains 15 hit points. The ranger gains a +2 bonus to all defenses until the start of their next turn.
Splintering Shot (martial, weapon) * Daily. Attack: Ranged 20/40; +10 vs AC. Hit: 3d10+6 damage (+1d6 on crit), and the target takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls until the end of the encounter. Miss: Half damage, and the target takes a -1 penalty to attack rolls until the end of the encounter.
Minor Actions
Hunter's Quarry * At-Will (1/round). Targets nearest enemy; the ranger deals +1d8 damage once per turn against it's quarry. Only one creature can be the ranger's quarry at a time.
Triggered Actions
Elven Accuracy * Encounter. Trigger: The elf misses with an attack roll. Effect (Free Action): The elf rerolls the attack roll, and must use the second roll.
Yield Ground (martial) * Encounter. Trigger: An enemy damages the ranger with a melee attack. Effect (Immediate Reaction): The ranger shifts 2 squares and gains a +2 power bonus to all defenses until the end of their next turn.
Skills: Nature +10, Stealth +11
Str 15, Dex 19, Wis 15
Con 12, Int 11, Cha 10
Equipment: +1 longbow, 20 arrows, short sword, +1 leather armor, +1 cloak of protection.
If you were to "Drizzt" this guy up, you'd run into a few problems. Drizzt has a lot more equipment than a 16th-22nd level ranger is likely to have, and some (his leg bracers) would be really hard to stat out. He has a bunch of abilities (hunter's "rage", for instance) that aren't part of the ranger class. And then you end up with a character who is
very complicated to run in combat.
This comes into play even moreso when PC's retire and become NPC's. Should they suddenly have a HUGE boost in power, gain a TON more HP...and keep their powers...and suddenly JUST ONE of them could threaten the ENTIRE GROUP from before...simply because they became an NPC?
Wrong.
If you compare the 5th-level ranger I have above to a 5th-level ranger PC, you'll find they're a lot weaker. They have fewer abilities and probably less equipment. Their hit point total isn't the same. They have fewer healing surges (NPCs get 1 surge per tier, period). If anything, he's getting nerfed.
Taking Orcus as an example from MM1 and backtracking his stats...as a PC he should only have around 300 HP. OF course that isn't going to be the threat to a party of NPC's like an Orcus with 1500+ HP, but it seems that one could scale the power of solos MUCH better by decalculating their HP and abilities and then recalculating as if they were PC's.
Orcus is a solo. That's a very bad example.
In some ways, it's almost as if they take the PC class and multiply HP and abilities by not much at Heroic, by x3 at Paragon, and x6 at Epic. Or by the rules...5x HP with applicable powers (via the MM1 method) for Solo monsters etc.
Again, wrong. You've been told already by other people, NPCs are rarely solos, and classed NPCs (if they use the template rather than the "base" NPC rules I used above would still be elites, no more).
For example...in epic play some players say...hey...this guy is a Ranger in the books, and WE KNOW how Rangers are built according to the rules...something wrong is going on with your Ranger Mr. DM...
Drizzt never followed the ranger rules in
any edition, and I've read quite a few Drizzt books. He just gets called that.
