This will be my last post on this subject since it seems to have devolved into the same posters postiting why designing NPC's as PC's is a bad idea and it seems that everyone is fairly entrenched in their own beliefs on the matter. All I'll say is there has to be a reason that the industry standard for the most popular games such as WoD, WH40K, Dragon Age, Pathfinder, BRP, etc. all have a system where designing NPC's is the same as designing a PC. Whereas I find it hard to think of a game that isn't niche that uses seperate rules for NPC and PC construction (besides D&D 4e)... I wonder why?
At this point you may be wondering, do NPCs have character classes? The answer is that they can, but they don't have to. Classes provide a framework for advancement that is necessary for the Player Characters, but not for NPCs. If you want to use the rules in the Player's Guide to build NPCs, you certainly can do that, but you are equally welcome to give NPCs whatever ability focuses, talents, and so on that seem appropriate.
Dragon Age Game Master's Guide, page 25
The PCs will meet many people in their travels, and you needn't provide full stat blocks for all of them. Oftentimes, NPCs will only appear in the game for a single roleplaying encounter. Many of them don't need stats at all...
Dragon Age Game Master's Guide, page 26
Now, it does go on to say that it can be useful to have an abbreviated statblock for such characters, but gives no sign that you are expected to generate such by using the same system provided for PCs. In fact, doing so would be quite absurd, because PC generation is so heavily randomized that an attempt to produce an NPC to suit the situation you need it for would produce unsuitable results far more often than suitable ones. The abbreviated statblock for the Innkeeper provided on page 26 contains only ability scores and focuses (in Drinking, Tasting, Bargaining, Persuasion, Evaluation, and Morale). No level is given to justify having so many focuses. In fact, it's flat-out impossible for a first-box-set PC to
have that many. Nor is there an NPC-generating system that justifies an increase in the number of focuses available. No listed NPC or monster statblock lists a level of any sort.
There is basically nothing at all separating
Dragon Age's approach to NPCs from 4E's. They both say you
can use the PC method for generating them, if you want to, but that most of the time you needn't bother.
Pathfinder, in pretty much all respects, is another iteration of 3E, the only edition of D&D that ever had NPC-specific classes. It treats NPCs the way it does because D&D 3E treated them the way it does. The very fact that those systems
have NPC-specific classes (rather than having all NPCs statted up using the same classes the PCs use)
is having separate rules for NPC construction.
Others have already talked about how earlier editions handled NPCs, but it clearly wasn't the same as it handled PCs, nor was it by having classes set aside for NPCs to take. OD&D only had three classes to work with, to start, and assuming that every single person in the world is a Fighting-Man, Cleric, or Magic-User would create an...
interesting world, but one that most would consider quite absurd. Especially given that the level 1 Fighting-Man is explicitly a Veteran, implying that there was a point at which he, like most people, was not a level 1 character of any stripe.
3E and its derivatives are the odd ones out in the D&D lineage on the NPC front, not 4E: No other D&D has NPC classes.
Don't mistake sharing some of the same trappings with PC generation and statblocks for being the same system. The 3E third-level commoner* blacksmith is no more following the same system as a 3E fighter than a 4E villager-picked-at-random is following the same system as a 4E fighter. Nobody played that Commoner through two levels slaying goblins to earn the XP he needed to reach the skill bonus that the DM wanted him to have. The DM picked the bonus he wanted, and set the level to where it needed to be to justify it... when all he needed in the first place was the bonus (or, as I've suggested before, the yes/no answer to the question "Can he do what the PCs want him to do?").
If, in my campaign, the players suddenly have a burning need to arm-wrestle the baker, I don't need to know what class and level the baker is. I just decide whether I want him to be a easy, medium, or hard challenge for the person who wants to arm-wrestle him, and find the number on the table. If I want to make it an opposed roll, I subtract 10 and use the result as a modifier to a d20 roll. Easy as the pie that I don't need to know how skilled he is at baking.
I can't state with 100% certainty why people are attracted to these systems that "force" them to waste so much time and do unnecessary work (maybe because it's a hobby for enjoyment and everyone isn't necessarily looking for the most efficient or streamlined process... maybe some find building NPC's out as fun... I honestly don't know)... but I would say it appeals to a sizeable chunk of the market. It was one of th earliest complaints about 4e and regardless of how much people try to show why their way is better... I think D&D not having a NPC built as PC's system in place will hurt it in the long run as far as popularity and sales. But who knows, I could be wrong and people could secretly loathe these games they are playing right now... Guess time will tell.
There is absolutely nothing in 4E that prevents one from building an NPC as a PC. In fact, they give you advice on how to go about it in the DMG, if I recall correctly.
*
I know we've used expert for it in places upthread, but the 3.5 Character Class Index on the WotC site specifically lists blacksmiths as one of the kinds of character covered by Commoner.
