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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6234711" data-attributes="member: 4937">In general, I agree with this in principle.  By the time the PC's are fifth level, a typical peasant simple offers no combat challenge to even a single PC much less a party.  I'd still like to derive the chance that the seamstress hits the PC with a frying pan, and what happens in that event.   Even if my expectation is that the PC takes no or trivial damage, there is still a cinematic event that needs a description and a possible minor negative outcome.I'm pretty good at winging stats on the fly using a class based system.  In general for example, an unknown skill check can be assumed  to be equivalent to an ability check, which will usually be +/- 1.   For an unskilled character making a skill check within the prevue of their background, say a fishermen predicting the weather, haggling over a price, lying about his catch, the skill check is going to be near to 1/2 character level +1.   And for a skilled character making a check within their prevue, it's going to be near character level +3.   I can do that on the fly in my head, and be fairly sure that after the session I can retroactively justify it during the minute or so I use to formalize the stat block of the newly important NPC.  However, there is no math-free way of deriving stats.   There are a couple of options:a) A 'monster manual' of stat blocks, including things like 'Shop Keeper', 'Peasant', 'Craftsman', 'Bandit', etc.  There is a lot of value in this because it communicates the hopefully well thought out demographic expectations of the system to a novice DM.b) A table based on the challenge rating of the character.   My simply formula above could be quickly generalized to provide such a table.c) A system for detailing complex NPCs as needed, where the assumption is that DMs can carry out the creation to the desired granularity.   That is to say, I frequently at the table wing half complete stat blocks figuring that if I'm wrong +/- 1, it's not a big deal and only matters 5% of the time compared to he fully detailed 'corrected' stat block.   For example, I recently winged an unexpected fight with a 4th level rogue, filling in the stat block as I went based on basic assumptions about demographics, starting with the level  - 4th represents a fairly elite character and about as high as I ever go on a 'mook', 16 Dex was chosen as prime attribute on an skilled NPC (which implied immediately an array similar to 16 12 10 10 10 8) and I assigned Improved Initiative as a first feat when I rolled Init, and just went from there.  I only had to work out one number at a time, and working it out and jotting it mentally or on paper only took a second or so in each case.  All the above involve math.  The advantage of 'a' is that someone does the math for you, but then you are stuck with their assumptions unless you are willing to 'correct' their math on the fly.</blockquote>

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