D&D 5E NPCs With Class Levels?

[AnotherPerson]

Monsters and PCs are not the same and do not serve the same purpose in the game. They should not be treated the same mechanically where treating them differently makes things easier. I see class as a meta-game construct not an in-game descriptor anyway - I didn't play a sorcerer, I played the victim of magical experiments who could now bend magic, for example.

I would like to see guidance on how to create a monster/NPC version of a character with a class, akin to the way 4th edition did it - take these things from the class and modify them in these ways, then do this to create a functional "monster"

That's why I voted no.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No, PC rules are for defining how the PLAYERS are allowed to build their player characters, they are crappy world building tools and don't work well at all for NPCs/Monsters.

 

[Jester David]

It sounds like you want the 4E system, plus the 3E system. Is that more or less correct?

I want the good bits of both.

4e monster themes were quick and simple, as was adjusting level. I'd like to keep that as much as possible.
But templates were terrible in 4e. They were a horrible way of making a monster elite or adding class levels.

While I don't think we need the full 3e version of adding class levels, you could emulate it easily enough.
And a system like Pathfinder where not every class level is treated the same in terms of XP increase would be nice.

 

[Alphastream]

And a system like Pathfinder where not every class level is treated the same in terms of XP increase would be nice.

Sounds like they tweaked the "non-associated class levels" 3E concept. How does this work in Pathfinder?

What do you see as ways to emulate the 3E system without getting into the details? Even 4E's simplicity had some drawbacks. Monster themes were never in the Compendium or Monster Builder, so I can't easily see all the options (I have folder on a hard drive where every DDI article is stored, and then I check the few books that had them).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I want the good bits of both.

4e monster themes were quick and simple, as was adjusting level. I'd like to keep that as much as possible.
But templates were terrible in 4e. They were a horrible way of making a monster elite or adding class levels.

While I don't think we need the full 3e version of adding class levels, you could emulate it easily enough.
And a system like Pathfinder where not every class level is treated the same in terms of XP increase would be nice.

Templates were just an idea that was carried over from 3e but had little use in 4e's system. I think the devs didn't fully appreciate the degree to which 4e's power design made monsters easily reskinnable. There just wasn't a HUGE amount of reason to need to graft a whole template onto a creature to make it be what you wanted. Monster themes were more useful, a way to tweak a whole group of monsters to work together and convey a feel.

Of course that's a lot of the issue I have now with DDN monsters, the lack of a coherent power system means the beating heart was kinda ripped out of the whole monster concept. Cross-referencing PC spells and abilities is just not the same thing, its far less refluffable and not nearly as agile a system. 4e's monsters are component-built little kits that you can quickly strip down and build back up or just repaint. DDN's monsters currently feel more like AD&D monsters. Not bad, but its harder to really tweak them and many of them seem fairly one-dimensional.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

I don't want it hard-coded ('cuz there's nothing more onerous than HAVING to make your orc take druid levels to be an orc shaman and getting a bunch of pointless noise on the way to the three spells you wanted it to have), but I don't see any reason it shouldn't be an option (because when you have a particular orc villain in mind, it can be fun to pull out all the tricks that class levels can give).

Dirt simple options for every class need to be there regardless of this approach.

pretty much my sentiments. I like being able to class-up monsters, but wouldn't want to do it all the time

 

[Dwimmerlied]

I want individual dms to have the option of advancing monsters in any number of ways.

Yes please.

 

[zoroaster100]

NPCs and monsters "with player character classes" should be handled like any other monster, in that it should be balanced and designed as a monster. That is the single most important advancement of Fourth Edition, in my opinion, and as a DM I'd hate to lose that in 5th edition. However, we need a way to modify standard monsters so that they feel like a monster with levels in a class, with iconic powers and abilities of that class to give it the right flavor.

 

[MichaelSomething]

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[Li Shenron]

Monsters and PCs are not the same and do not serve the same purpose in the game.

The limit of this view, is that many people want to play monstrous characters, even more today that we have had popular games like World of Warcraft set in a high-fantasy world with orcs, goblins, minotaurs-like, werewolves-like, undead and other PC races.

Some way must be found in 5e to allow those sort of creatures (and a few more like Drow, Vampires and Hobgoblin) to be playable. I don't care what way they choose, but it clearly implies using classes. Then whether they provide a "race version" of those monsters in the MM or some other solution, it's fine for me.

But it cannot be delayed until a later product* because those monstrous characters are just too popular nowadays, and casual gamers especially would just love to be allowed such PCs. There has to be a way in core, to allow for these, so that fans of those characters can look at D&D as a game that supports them, rather than looking at another game!

This is just to say, that the line between the traditional 4 (or 7) PC races and monsters is blurred.

Then of course, when used by the DM as cannon fodder (they are just going to be slaughtered 99% of the times in the first fight anyway) they don't have to follow the same rules as PCs, but this is already the case for anything that has a MM entry, it can be used as-is (except templates, by definition). But we also need something beyond that.

*a book like 3e Savage Species can still be published for monsters that are much more complicated to handle as PCs because of their wacky abilities or high complexity