NPC Gear

[chriton227]

I was working on adapting a published adventure to fit my current party and stumbled into a mess in the rules. The party is a bit large (7 players), so I was going to bump up some of the NPCs by a level or two. I went to the books to find out what their new gear value should be, and that's where I found the mess.

In the Monster Manual, Chapter 4, under "Monsters and Class Levels" (emphesis mine):

If you choose to equip a monster with gear, use its ECL as its character level for purposes of determining how much equipment it can purchase. Generally, only monsters with an Advancement entry of “By character class” receive NPC gear; other creatures adding character levels should be treated as monsters of the appropriate CR and assigned treasure, not equipment.

Also in the Monster Manual, Chapter 4, under "Advancing Monster Challenge Rating" (again, emphesis mine):

If you add a class level that doesn’t directly play to a creature’s strength (such as adding a sorcerer level to a frost giant), the class level is considered nonassociated, and things get a little more complicated. Adding a nonassociated class level to a monster increases its CR by 1/2 per level until one of its nonassociated class levels equals its original Hit Dice. At that point, each additional level of the same class or a similar one is considered associated and increases the monster’s CR by 1.
...
Levels in NPC classes are always treated as nonassociated.

The way to determing ECL is defined in Chapter 6 of the DMG as:

Add a monster’s level adjustment to its Hit Dice and class levels to get the creature’s effective character level, or ECL

If I'm reading this correctly, NPC Class levels are always considered non-associated, overriding the rule that non-associated class levels become associated class levels once they equal the original HD, otherwise for a 1HD humanoid (like humans, dwarves, orcs, etc) NPC Class levels would never be non-associated, which doesn't match with the MM entries which list Hobgoblin, Dwarf, and Orc Warrior 1s as CR 1/2.

If this is the case, then a Hobgoblin (LA+1) Warrior 16 would be a CR 8, would be an ECL 17 (16 HD + 1 LA), and would have gear valued at 100,000 gp (per the NPC Gear Value table 4-23 in the DMG). A Hobgoblin Fighter 8 would also be a CR 8, but would be an ECL 9 and would have 12,000 gp in gear. Something there seems really out of whack. The War16 will have worse ability scores (being on the nonelite array instead of the elite array like a PC classed NPC), but the 88,000gp difference is more than enough to pick up some stat boosters to compensate for that, it will have a BAB of +16 instead of +8, better saves, more HP, but 2 fewer feats. While the War16 would be a bigger threat than the Ftr8, I don't know if it would be enough bigger to warrant getting over 8 times the treasure (and no more xp).

The specific occurance that really called this out to me was looking at a Hob War6 (CR3, ECL7) vs. a Hob Ftr5 (CR5, ECL6) and realizing that the warrior "mooks" were going to be better equiped than their fighter leader.

My gut instinct to correct this (assuming that it needs correcting) would be to consider NPC Class Levels as only 1/2 HD for the purpose of gear, after all it would make sense that a Fighter 6 would be better equipped than a Warrior 6 (and definitely better than a Commoner 6).

 

[frankthedm]

IIRC Somewhere in the DMG is contradicts the MM, calling out a classed monster has gear equal to Player Character Class Levels in NPC Gear and has it's CR in Treasure.

IMHO some copy and paste errors were made when making the sections of Classed monstrous NPCs and Classed monstrous PCs.

NPC Minotaur has a CR6 treasure
PC Minotaur has elite or better ability scores and 8th level PC Gear
NPC Minotaur Barbarian 1 has Elite ability scores, Gear of a first level NPC {900] and a CR7 treasure.
PC Minotaur Barbarian 1 has elite or better ability scores and 9th level PC Gear

 

[chriton227]

IIRC Somewhere in the DMG is contradicts the MM, calling out a classed monster has gear equal to Player Character Class Levels in NPC Gear and has it's CR in Treasure.

Yeah, I noticed that too.

DMG, Ch. 2, Treasure section:

Monsters with Classes
Many monsters advance by adding class levels (see the Monster Manual). To determine treasure for monsters with class levels, first give them equipment. Use Table 4–23: NPC Gear Value (page 127) and use just their class levels to determine the value of their equipment. Then generate their treasure according to their monster entry and the rules under Building a Treasure, below. This may generate more items that the monster can use, and that’s fine (see Custom Treasures, below).

MM, Ch. 4, Monsters and Class Levels:

If you choose to equip a monster with gear, use its ECL as its character level for purposes of determining how much equipment it can purchase. Generally, only monsters with an Advancement entry of “By character class” receive NPC gear; other creatures adding character levels should be treated as monsters of the appropriate CR and assigned treasure, not equipment.

So now not only are there inconsistancies between how PC and NPC classes are treated (CR vs ECL gear amount), but there are also inconsistancies between how monsters with class levels are treated based on their whether or not their advancement is "by character class" and also whether using the DMG (treasure for base creature plus gear for levels only) or the MM (gear based on ECL).

Take an Ogre Barbarian 1 (Base CR3, +1 for Brb1; ECL 7 [4HD+2LA+Brb1]). By the MM, it would have gear equivalent to a Level 7 NPC (7,200 gp). By the MM, it would have gear equivalent to a L1 NPC (900 gp) plus treasure for a CR3 (900 gp), or a total of 1,800 gp. A CR 4 encounter would normally be about 1,200 gp. The DMG mentions that an NPC's gear is usually worth about 3 times as much as an encounter of their level, but because the gear can be used against the party it all balances out. A CR 7 treasure is 2,600 gp, which is just a little over 1/3 the gear value for a Level 7 NPC, but that proportion completely breaks down if you look at the actual CR compared to any of the methods for calculating how much gear (CR4 = 1,200 gp, ECL Gear = 7,200 gp [6x as much], Lvl Gear+Treasure = 1,800 [1.5x as much]).

The Gear for Level Plus Treasure for Base model breaks down badly at the higher levels. A creature with a base CR of 14 would be about 17,000 gp in treasure, adding 1 level brings it up to a CR 15 with 17,900 gp. A normal CR 15 would be about 22,000 gp, so the CR 14 plus a class level is effectively short 4,100 gp (18.6%) compared to a normal creature of the same CR. CR 8 is actually the break-over point where adding a class level hurts the treasure values (a CR8+1Lvl is 200 gp short of a CR9, a CR7+1Lvl is 100 gp over a CR8).

 

[frankthedm]

By the MM, it would have gear equivalent to a L1 NPC (900 gp) plus treasure for a CR3 (900 gp), or a total of 1,800 gp.

No, I believe it would have a CR 4 Treasure. If the critter has a "standard" treasure entry, you use the monster's current CR to determine that treasure. At least that is how I read;

Then generate their treasure according to their monster entry and the rules under Building a Treasure, below.

 

[chriton227]

No, I believe it would have a CR 4 Treasure. If the critter has a "standard" treasure entry, you use the monster's current CR to determine that treasure. At least that is how I read;

I'd have to disagree with you there.

Many monsters advance by adding class levels (see the Monster Manual). To determine treasure for monsters with class levels, first give them equipment. Use Table 4–23: NPC Gear Value (page 127) and use just their class levels to determine the value of their equipment. Then generate their treasure according to their monster entry and the rules under Building a Treasure, below. This may generate more items that the monster can use, and that’s fine (see Custom Treasures, below).

Ogres are listed as advancing "by character class". I read that section as "if the monster advances by character class, first give them equipment for their class levels, then give them treasure according to their MM entry". If they were only intended to get equipment and treasure based on their CR, there would be no section about first giving them equipment based on their level. Also note that it mentions that generating the treasure "may generate more items that the monster can use" (emphesis mine). The use of "more" there makes no sense unless you have also given them gear before generating the normal CR based treasure.

 

[Jhaelen]

MM5 has the following to say on this matter (p.7, Typical Treasure):

a creature that has been advanced by class levels has treasure equal to an npc of its challenge rating.

I've also noticed that the 'advancement' sections in the monster descriptions now explicitly mention which classes are to be considered associated. For most monsters it's just one or two.

 

[eamon]

Whatever you do, don't regard the rules as set in stone, the whole adding class levels to monsters bit is very odd. Make sure to do a sanity check before actually using an improved monster following those rules.

After about 6/7 levels my best estimate is:
I'd say a NPC using the elite array and PC class progression with NPC-level gear is a CR of about it's level -1 (and NOT simply CR == level)
An NPC warrior is again 2 behind that - other NPC classes are completely ad hoc.

The equipment value estimate of the MM5 is probably the wisest, i.e. by CR.

Notice that if you fight against many NPC's your wealth will rise more quickly than normal.

 

[javcs]

Nonassociated HD add as 1/2 until equal to associated+original, then are treated as associated.
That's part of your problem - you forgot to take that into account.

 

[chriton227]

Nonassociated HD add as 1/2 until equal to associated+original, then are treated as associated.
That's part of your problem - you forgot to take that into account.

Unfortunately that doesn't work with base 1HD Humanoids. Because they have no original HD once you start adding class levels, you end up with a the first level of an NPC class being associated by that guideline, so there would be no difference between adding levels of fighter or warrior, or between adept or cleric, except that applying the PC Class levels gives a free bump up to elite stats. This is why I had interpreted "Levels in NPC Classes are always considered nonassociated" as absolute.

I like the guideline from MM5 that Jhaelen posted, that makes sense to me and is a simple guideling to apply. There is still question about how NPC Class levels work towards CR, but I can ballpark that through playtesting. Looking at the raw numbers, a Hob War 16 really isn't really any more challenging than the Young Adult Red Dragon Skeleton listed as a CR8 in the MM, so I'll probably stick with NPCLevels/2 for the CR as a starting point.

 

[eamon]

Again, I wouldn't follow either the DMG or MM, as those guidelines are off. Predicted challenge rating for humanoids with class levels are too high; predicted CR for monsters which advance by class level (such as a giants) are too low (considering the amount of wealth and the elite stats).

You simply can't get around a bit of comparison to normal monsters.