D&D 5E NPCs With Class Levels?

[Celebrim]

But, because of the way 3.5 monsters work, you end up with this huge mess of stats justifying the stats that you're actually using and then a bunch of other stats based on those justifications so you get... garbage, really, or at least more noise than signal.

It's possible. In theory at least though, the 3.5 monster building system was intended to produce reliable results and to encourage creativity. It took a leap of imagination for me to realize in 1e that I could create a 18HD manticore. In 3e, not only is that 'obvious', but its also obvious what happens when you make the manticore the size of an elephant. And it is meaningful to change the creatures size in that way, in a way that it wasn't necessarily in 1e. What this means is that 3e gives the DM a construction kit, should he choose to use it, that has at its end result (ideally, but of course in practice never perfectly) a stat block that can be judged in terms of challenge and reward, and from which it is possible to answer any mechanical question about the monster, and which is meaningfully different from other similar monsters.

What is maybe less obvious is that 1e also had this sort of construction kit approach, but since the toolkit was much less robust you didn't achieve the same results. In 1e, the designer basically only chose a HD, and selected some attack forms, and you were done. You also could judge this creation in terms of challenge and reward, albiet with more subjectiveness, but notably mechanical questions about the monster were left open. What was the chance of a cat 'hiding in shadows'? How high could it jump? These questions can be left open because they don't come up often, but if our model is the 1e model, if they do come up we then have to engage in a further step of subcreation - figuring out what the reasonable answer is for this monster in a way that is appropriate for its challenge and color.

Taking that one further, you can do the same thing in 3e. You can just select a HD, monster type, a few attacks and eyeball some modifiers and be done. It's always possible to retroactively justify all of that using the tool kit if it comes up because there are so many fudge factors built into the system. And like 1e, you can fill in the details about jumping and hiding and so forth if and when they come up. The thing about 3e is that it simply provides the framework for doing all the work before hand without leaving open questions. In otherwords, it attempts to be comprehensive. And that is I think on the whole a good thing, but it can be and often was misused.

I just need the monster's stats.

Well, what do you mean by that? Do you mean, "What is the chance that this monster can forge a copy of a famous painter's work?" That is strictly speaking part of the monsters 'stats'. It's just a stat that for most monsters is irrelevant and for many can be assumed to be zero. A comprehensive framework lets you answer those questions. I think it more likely that what you really mean is, "I need just the stats that are likely to come up in play, where there is a 95% chance that the only thing I need to know about the monster is how it performs in a straight up combat."

But I do believe that building enemies using the PC rules reaches the level of being a bad idea above and beyond personal preference. Using other techniques, you can build a more interesting enemy faster that will run more easily in play.

I'm not sure if I agree with that completely, but I do agree that maybe what we need is more than one toolkit. We need a toolkit like 3e provides, but we also need a more generic toolkit for making more generic enemies on the fly the way that 4e had at its core generic 'lurkers', 'soldiers', and the like. These generic enemies would require fleshing out to make them interesting, but it should be hard to have a list of generic abilities to pick from.

I can't speak specifically towards your Tharizdun fight...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?272495-Help-me-stat-out-Tharizdun

Sadly the pretty graphically rich stat block that someone worked up from the rough ideas no longer appears in the thread.

But I don't think building the boss with PC classes will make the fight better (even if the boss is nominally a wizard or whatever). In my experience, you get a ton of abilities you don't need and, after all that work, still have to add the features that make the fight epic.

I think it is possible to obtain that result. It's also possible that an NPC built with PC class abilities will make for an epic fight. (I've done it.) However, even in 3e, building a monster with PC classes was just one separate possibility in the tool kit. You could take a manticore and add 5 levels of fighter to it, or you could just up its HD by 5. Or you could add a template. Or you could tweak it at a more basic level, shifting attributes around or granting it unique abilities.

For me, the ideal solution to the 3e toolkit would have been electronic. So far as I know, a good one never came out, at least not one with the features I wanted. And now that I'm thinking about creating the 'monster manual' of my game, I may just have to do that.

For 5e, I'd like to see a 'basic' and 'advanced' monster builder. The advanced one would work a lot like 3e, and the basic one would work a lot like 4e. The problem with the 4e one is that it wasn't compatible with the 3e one. Presumably, a 5e system could bring the two into a large degree of harmony. Not that I'm interested in 5e. At this point, if I wanted a 'basic' monster builder, I'd write my own.

 

[Kinak]

Well, what do you mean by that? Do you mean, "What is the chance that this monster can forge a copy of famous painter's work?" That is strictly speaking part of the monsters 'stats'. It's just a stat that for most monsters is irrelevant and for many can be assumed to be zero. A comprehensive framework lets you answer those questions. I think it more likely that what you really mean is, "I need just the stats that are likely to come up in play, where there is a 95% chance that the only thing I need to know about the monster is how it performs in a straight up combat."

More or less. I'm willing to accept whatever stats they want to throw in there until it impedes the primary intended purpose.

When every creature needs its level/2 or level/3 feats, it becomes way less obvious when it has a feat that actually effects the flow of battle. Similarly with spells: PC-style spellcasting is a pain to manage when it's the only thing you're focusing on, let alone if your NPC wizard has some minions or summons.

But when we accept that monsters aren't PCs, we can have stat blocks that aren't filled with justifications for other things in the stat blocks. If bugbears are sneaky, awesome, include that. But I don't want to see their hit dice go up so they can justify a higher skill rating or every monster needing a bunch of skills because that's how many skills "the rules say they have."

I'm not sure if I agree with that completely, but I do agree that maybe what we need is more than one toolkit. We need a toolkit like 3e provides, but we also need a more generic toolkit for making more generic enemies on the fly the way that 4e had at its core generic 'lurkers', 'soldiers', and the like. These generic enemies would require fleshing out to make them interesting, but it should be hard to have a list of generic abilities to pick from.

Yeah, I think they can coexist to some degree and I really don't care at all how people build their monsters for home.

It only really bothers me in professional products. As long as they end up with stat blocks that aren't a pain to use, I'm set.

I think it is possible to obtain that result. It's also possible that an NPC built with PC class abilities will make for an epic fight. (I've done it.) However, even in 3e, building a monster with PC classes was just one separate possibility in the tool kit. You could take a manticore and add 5 levels of fighter to it, or you could just up its HD by 5. Or you could add a template. Or you could tweak it at a more basic level, shifting attributes around or granting it unique abilities.

Yeah, I've had some epic NPC fights too but, at the end of the day, they took longer to build and run than ones where I made stuff up and weren't any more epic. I'm sure not everyone shares my experience, though.

For me, the ideal solution to the 3e toolkit would have been electronic. So far as I know, a good one never came out, at least not one with the features I wanted. And now that I'm thinking about creating the 'monster manual' of my game, I may just have to do that.

For 5e, I'd like to see a 'basic' and 'advanced' monster builder. The advanced one would work a lot like 3e, and the basic one would work a lot like 4e. The problem with the 4e one is that it wasn't compatible with the 3e one. Presumably, a 5e system could bring the two into a large degree of harmony. Not that I'm interested in 5e. At this point, if I wanted a 'basic' monster builder, I'd write my own.

Yeah, an electronic 3e builder would have been pretty epic.

I've actually been thinking about basic monster building in Pathfinder a lot recently, since it's looking less and less like 5e will do what I need. We'll see how that goes.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Li Shenron]

In theory at least though, the 3.5 monster building system was intended to produce reliable results and to encourage creativity.

...

What this means is that 3e gives the DM a construction kit, should he choose to use it, that has at its end result (ideally, but of course in practice never perfectly) a stat block that can be judged in terms of challenge and reward, and from which it is possible to answer any mechanical question about the monster, and which is meaningfully different from other similar monsters.

...

The thing about 3e is that it simply provides the framework for doing all the work before hand without leaving open questions. In otherwords, it attempts to be comprehensive. And that is I think on the whole a good thing, but it can be and often was misused.

I agree thoroughly.

The idea behind 3e monster creation was exactly that of providing a framework of common rules, that would result in monsters of a certain complexity level (see below) and power level, the latter of which was fundamental in order to assign an appropriate CR to a monster so that you would expect that monster to have attack and defense numbers in line with those of a party of PC of appropriate level.

First of all this framework was meant to be used by game designers to produce consistent monster entries in books. The secondary purpose was that of being used by DMs to create their own monsters.

Now unfortunately the problem was that 3e made huge assumptions about monsters, and actually about anything... the PCs were assumed e.g. to have a certain worth amount of equipment with certain +X weapons at a certain level. Another big assumption was that the complexity level of the game had to increase at high levels, both for PCs and for monsters, and that players and DM just had to eat this up and accept the complexity... which clearly is not what a lot of people wanted, but still they wanted to play/run high level games including making their own monsters.

Within the 3e principle of "system mastery", the fact that designing a monster from scratch required a large effort of the DM made a lot of sense. It was supposed to be an achievement for a DM to learn to create high level monsters just in the same way as it was supposed to be an achievent for a player to learn to play a high level character with all its stuff, and therefore there was nothing wrong (within the assumed "system mastery" gamestyle) to require the DM to spend an hour to create a new monster type, and then presumably use it for one memorable end-of-adventure encounter OR re-use it as a setting-defining race of monsters that comes up often. 3ed totally assumed that this was a rewarding work for those who accepted the edition's defining gamestyle.

Then it didn't work, because it turned out that such gamestyle (mostly probably coming from Monte Cook) is not so popular. People still wanted to play high level PCs and run high level campaigns, but not running high-complexity monsters. IMHO this is because most gaming groups like changing the monsters very frequently, so that they hardly fight the same kind of monster twice in the same campaign. But then, the work of creating new monsters all the time becomes too much of a burden.

For me, the ideal solution to the 3e toolkit would have been electronic. So far as I know, a good one never came out, at least not one with the features I wanted. And now that I'm thinking about creating the 'monster manual' of my game, I may just have to do that.

Absolutely! I was actually going to post the same comment

3ed monster creation process is so logical and robust (but then at the same tedious in all the details to remember and numbers to re-calculate), that what would have really make it shine would have been a simple "monster advancement/creation tool" program that would take care of all those calculations, and would have easily presented the stats in a way that the user cannot forget to assign feats, skills etc.

WotC had included a simple PC-generator on a CD in early prints of the 3.0 PHB, which sadly was never continued in its development. They should have included an equivalent for monsters in the MM, and maybe something also to generate encounters and treasures in the DMG.

 

[Li Shenron]

But when we accept that monsters aren't PCs, we can have stat blocks that aren't filled with justifications for other things in the stat blocks.

IMHO it's not really a matter of accepting that monsters aren't PCs, but rather of realizing that "accepting that monsters aren't PCs" is just the consequence of us (DMs) not being able to handle monsters of the same complexity of a PC in a combat.

 

[Dausuul]

3ed monster creation process is so logical and robust (but then at the same tedious in all the details to remember and numbers to re-calculate), that what would have really make it shine would have been a simple "monster advancement/creation tool" program that would take care of all those calculations, and would have easily presented the stats in a way that the user cannot forget to assign feats, skills etc.

Robust in what way? The word implies that the system reliably does what it's intended to do, even in unusual circumstances. What is it intended to do, that it does robustly?

I can think of several things one might want a monster creation/advancement system to do:

• Produce monsters with a well-defined power level, so the DM can accurately assess encounter difficulty.
• Produce monsters whose mechanics accurately match the fiction of the game world.
• Produce monsters that are fun, interesting, and challenging to fight.
• Produce usable monsters quickly on the fly.

It seems like people feel the first one (accurate power level) was the main goal. I haven't found it does terribly well at this, or indeed at any of the others. Power level is all over the map, the mechanics often require "fudge factors" such as natural AC and racial skill mods to bring them in line with the fiction, it does nothing to encourage or facilitate the creation of interesting monsters, and it's terrible at producing anything quickly on the fly.

What it does reliably do* is produce monsters that are consistent with the 3E monster creation rules. That's a rather self-referential goal.

[SIZE=-2]*Unless used by human beings without a sophisticated spreadsheet, in which case it doesn't do this reliably either.[/SIZE]

 

[Kinak]

IMHO it's not really a matter of accepting that monsters aren't PCs, but rather of realizing that "accepting that monsters aren't PCs" is just the consequence of us (DMs) not being able to handle monsters of the same complexity of a PC in a combat.

This is absolutely spot-on. Thank you.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Li Shenron]

• Produce monsters with a well-defined power level, so the DM can accurately assess encounter difficulty.
• Produce monsters whose mechanics accurately match the fiction of the game world.
• Produce monsters that are fun, interesting, and challenging to fight.
• Produce usable monsters quickly on the fly.

Only the first one is what I would call "robustness". The others are something else.

And I think it does quite well until a certain level. When it starts to fall apart, it's typically because of specific magical effects that tend to throw balance away, the same effects that make everything fall apart, and the CR resulting from the system means less than at low levels, so then it is when it ceases to be robust.

With regard to point 2, the only obstacle that the 3e monster creation rules create IMO is the fact that they force you to increase many (in fact, all) different facets of a monster, so you cannot have a monster that is both huge with HP and low with attack bonus, or has one very challenging superpower but low HP, if it is matches with the fiction. I am not familiar with 4e system but I doubt it allows these either.

Point 3, I don't know what to say. I run many 3e adventures using monsters from the books, and they were usually fun, interesting and challenging, and so were the (few) monsters I advanced or templated. Maybe you think 3e monsters were boring and unchallenging, but that was not my experience.

Point 4 no, definitely this is what 3e did not achieve. As I wrote before, it didn't even try to achieve this because the starting concept of the whole edition was "system mastery".

 

[Dausuul]

Only the first one is what I would call "robustness". The others are something else.

And I think it does quite well until a certain level. When it starts to fall apart, it's typically because of specific magical effects that tend to throw balance away, the same effects that make everything fall apart, and the CR resulting from the system means less than at low levels, so then it is when it ceases to be robust.

That's kind of what I mean when I say it's not robust; it works tolerably well if you do things the normal way, but when you start doing unusual stuff or pushing the boundaries, you can't count on it. Because it prescribes a process instead of an outcome, it's fragile any time you include an unusual element. This is where I draw an unfavorable comparison with 4E; 4E tells you what outcome, in terms of hit points and damage output and so forth, to expect for a monster of a given level and role. You just have to check that you get close to that outcome and your monster works pretty much as expected.

Of course, there is a downside to the 4E approach...

With regard to point 2, the only obstacle that the 3e monster creation rules create IMO is the fact that they force you to increase many (in fact, all) different facets of a monster, so you cannot have a monster that is both huge with HP and low with attack bonus, or has one very challenging superpower but low HP, if it is matches with the fiction. I am not familiar with 4e system but I doubt it allows these either.

And this would be that downside. 4E is even worse, because of the across-the-board half level bonus and the tightly constrained attack and defense values. One hopes that the "bounded accuracy" of D&DN will avoid this problem.

Point 3, I don't know what to say. I run many 3e adventures using monsters from the books, and they were usually fun, interesting and challenging, and so were the (few) monsters I advanced or templated. Maybe you think 3e monsters were boring and unchallenging, but that was not my experience.

I didn't mean that 3E monsters were inherently boring, but that the system did nothing to encourage the creation of interesting monsters. It could be used for that, but it could just as easily be used to create boring sacks of hit points. (4E is the same way. Offhand I'm not aware of any monster creation system that guides designers toward "interesting" and away from "boring," but it'd be a fun challenge to try and devise one.)

 

[Derren]

Yes because anything else would again promote combat/hack & slash over all other forms of gameplay. And while some people are likely ok with that I am not.

 

[the Jester]

Exactly who could take this option away from you?

What I mean is that I want solid mechanical support for multiple paths of advancement. 3e is the poster child for this- you have mechanical support for advancing monsters by HD, by class (including by prestige class), with templates, etc. (Did 3e have monster themes? I don't recall them. But you get the idea.) I like the idea of monster advancement having all of these as options, tied together with the solid math chassis that 4e used to ensure a rough balance between monsters of the same level (this is one area where 3e fell apart in the advanced monster department).

Sure, without rules for it, I can custom-craft advanced monsters and eyeball the balance. Nonetheless, I want good rules for all of these forms of advancement. I want 5e to support all these forms of advancement- from scratch homebrewing, templates, classes, advancement by HD or size- with rules that are easy to apply and fun to use as a dm.