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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6049213" data-attributes="member: 42582">That's not true. In B/X and 1st ed AD&D, for instance, most NPCs don't have classes.Huh? In HERO, you can build your NPC however you like. Of course it can then be costed in HERO points, but what does that prove, other than that everything in HERO can be costed in HERO points.A GM who can't work out what skill bonus to give an NPC baker is not going to overcome that problem by using the NPC class rules! How would s/he know what level to give the baker? Or how to allocate skill points for the NPC?What GMs need are good challenge/encounter design guidelines. The NPC build rules are relevant only insofar as they serve that purpose. It's a strength of 4e that it recognises this and explicity designs with it in mind.A weird feature of HeroQuest revised is that it is generally written under the assumption that difficulties will be assigned by the GM in accordance with the pass/fail system, but from time to time canvasses NPCs having abilities assigned in some other fashion (what fashion is never spelled out - maybe the PC build rules?). In this respect, at least, WotC managed to make a more coherent game than Robin Laws - +1 for WotC!</blockquote>