D&D 5E monsters with feat and class abilities

[CapnZapp]

Is it just me, or does the world feel more belivable to you too when exceptional monsters gain similar awesome powers as player characters do?

I find that when players notice how few or no NPCs can match their abilities, this fosters a sense of superiority - that NPCs are somehow beneath you since their abilities are worse, their saves are (much) worse, they have no feats and very little of class abilities...

I mean Scouts and Acolytes and so on have very unimpressive means to change their surroundings. And "monster" stat blocks such as Dwarf or Goblin are almost a waste of space (since they're incredibly alike).

I'm thinking WotC could do well in adding a couple of very easy templates to be applied to mainly humanoid monsters but also NPCs.

A NPC could come across as much more competent at its job with just the addition of a single feat or class feature. Sure we have some of that already, but I mean Dwarfs getting +2 to hit and +5 to damage on heavy crossbow shots, or Orcs adding +2d6 damage to one attack each round. (Examples lifted from my houserule feats)

Or a Tracker (Scout) with a +4 Wisdom modifer and a total skill bonus of +10 (from expertise and a +3 proficiency modifier).

Or actually giving the Berserker Greatweapon Fighting (the standard one) to leverage that sweet Reckless attack (the advantage roughly negating the -5) for some serious damage (1d12+13) that really makes players respect its fearsome brutality. (That the rages have been simplified into mainly "double hp" I can live with).

Too often my players find that any NPC they recruit or ally with can't even do their One Thing™ better than the characters themselves, despite the PCs being far superior in doing everything else.

 

[Satyrn]

The keepers of Eternity (An Isaac Asimov reference) tweaked the timeline so that WotC published those templates that you suggested. It did not stop us from reaching the stars, and you still created a thread at 3:01 today; except instead of complaining about your players outshining the NPCs, you complained about the NPCs outshining your players.

 

[CapnZapp]

Another example is the questing Knight, who in more than one occurrence is described as travelling alone, or with no other protection than a retainer/squire. That's official modules, mind you.

This can't be right. Unless that NPC has plot armor, it can do diddly squat against the random encounters of the adventures itself, much less accomplish the deeds commonly associated with this trope.

If a questing knight is to be able to vanquish even non-legendary monsters (a manticore or wyvern, say) or even more mundane threats (such as a gaggle of bandits or cult fanatics) its stat block simply doesn't cut it.

This Knight is challenge rating 3, people. Hello? If Knights were described as riding around in squadrons it could be believable, but a single questing Knight (even with a retainer)? Even adventurers have the common sense to do their murderhoboing in groups of four to six!

Needs to be more like CR 5 to stand a chance of credibly claiming to do the job it is assumed to be doing. And if you look at a CR 5 non-spellcaster such as the Gladiator, that's a massive difference in Hit Dice and damage output. Even then, it becomes outright preposterous when a module claims a Knight did combat to a Frost Giant (without losing pitifully).

Tldr - questing knights need the War Priest or Champion stat block (from Volo's) to -- all by itself -- credibly pull of victories even tier II heroes might struggle with.

 

[Cyvris]

Of the 5e games I have run, almost every monster has gained some form of abilities like this. Most get the Fighter's Maneuvers since they are easy to implement and decently balanced. This is mostly in an effort to make the game more like 4e though, so it's certainly not for everyone.

 

[SkidAce]

This is a good idea.

I tweak the NPC blocks with feats or abilities pretty often. Gave the Battlemaster feat to a group of npcs, made the maneuvers Evasive Footwork, Precision Attack, Riposte., and voila, a school of swordmasters.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Not just NPCs, but monsters as well. Not only do I tweak them to fit whatever I want, I even decided to share my methodology in how granting feats impacts the CR, and added a whole bunch of new feats just for them right here.

Funny thing about D&D. It's super easy to tweak things. No one is married to a statblock, even if it's as easy as just giving them better armor and weapons.

 

[Jester David]

I'm thinking WotC could do well in adding a couple of very easy templates to be applied to mainly humanoid monsters but also NPCs.

Or... you just add the benefits of the feat to the monster.
Possibly with a few class levels.
Then just adjust CR as you see fit.

The catch with "class templates" is that not every monster benefits from the class equally. So hard rules don't work as well. You can't just say "this feat adds +1 to CR" when adding Sharpshooter to a goblin triples their damage but adding it to a Mind Flayer has no significant impact.
Pathfinder had this funky formula where you decided on the role of the monster and use that to determine how much the CR increases: +1 every level or +1 every 2 levels (IIRC). But this meant you could add some classes to monsters without boosting their CR. Like the monk: +4 hp, +2 all saves, a feat, Unarmed Strike, and the ability to Flurry for - by RAW - no increase to CR. (I saw this a LOT in Living Greyhawk. In 3e, adding levels of an NPC class to a monster were +1/2 CR, so adding a warrior level meant a free boost to challenge.)

 

[Jester David]

(Although, the idea of a collection of small unique racial bonus Traits that can be applied to NPCs is fun. Write it and throw it on the DMsGuild and I promise to buy it!)

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think the default design for NPCs and Monsters assumes no Feats for PCs. I thibk if you use Feats (which I think the majority of groups appear to do), then yes, PCs may outshine NPCs and Monsters. Adding Feats or Classes or Class Abilities to a Monster or NPC would help reaolve that.

Depending on your desired effect, if you want an NPC to clearly excel beyond the PCs in one particular area, you can achieve that in a variety of ways. Depending on how complex you want to be, you can add a Class or a Feat, or even design an ability unique to that NPC. Or, to keep it simpler, you can just raise the relevant modifier or grant the NPC Advantage on all rolls using the rrlevant ability or skill.

I use Hero Lab to help modify monsters easily, and I also use full PC generation rules for my important NPCs. I eecommend Hero Lab as a simple yet robust system for tweaking the game.

 

[Coroc]

Is it just me, or does the world feel more belivable to you too when exceptional monsters gain similar awesome powers as player characters do?

I find that when players notice how few or no NPCs can match their abilities, this fosters a sense of superiority - that NPCs are somehow beneath you since their abilities are worse, their saves are (much) worse, they have no feats and very little of class abilities...

I mean Scouts and Acolytes and so on have very unimpressive means to change their surroundings. And "monster" stat blocks such as Dwarf or Goblin are almost a waste of space (since they're incredibly alike).

I'm thinking WotC could do well in adding a couple of very easy templates to be applied to mainly humanoid monsters but also NPCs.

A NPC could come across as much more competent at its job with just the addition of a single feat or class feature. Sure we have some of that already, but I mean Dwarfs getting +2 to hit and +5 to damage on heavy crossbow shots, or Orcs adding +2d6 damage to one attack each round. (Examples lifted from my houserule feats)

Or a Tracker (Scout) with a +4 Wisdom modifer and a total skill bonus of +10 (from expertise and a +3 proficiency modifier).

Or actually giving the Berserker Greatweapon Fighting (the standard one) to leverage that sweet Reckless attack (the advantage roughly negating the -5) for some serious damage (1d12+13) that really makes players respect its fearsome brutality. (That the rages have been simplified into mainly "double hp" I can live with).

Too often my players find that any NPC they recruit or ally with can't even do their One Thing™ better than the characters themselves, despite the PCs being far superior in doing everything else.

For humanoid mobs I run them as player characters rather than mobs. That means they get stats, a hitpoint range based on hit die and con, weapons and armor. For damage: they do it per weapon.

I find it more unbelievable, if you got a mob, say an orc captain whatever (this is not accurate but you' ll get what I want to say), he is armed with say a with a longsword and deals 3d8 damage. Wtf? he is stronger ok, he should get 1d8+x, he attacks more than once because high level, ok he gets two attacks. But he is no cloud giant just an orc. so no way he gets 3d8. You find some of these examples within the humanoid opponents in the MC.
The main prob I have with this is not even the simplified mob creation leading to these absurdities, it is rather how do I scale up or down from that?
Does every acolyte have to be of 5th level? what if I need a 6th level acolyte? By creating them as PCs it is easier.

If a mob needs some featlike property for whatever reason it gets it. But that's to much effort normally, I just readjust number and strength of mobs rather than putting up with feats (e.g. GWM) I might do this with unique foes though but not for trash.