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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 5773909" data-attributes="member: 17106">I think that PCs should only have the mechanics necessary to interact with what they interact with as well. I think that is a significant, but not burdensome amount.Here is a good issue, and one I meant to bring up earlier. We're not talking about presentation of the statblock at this point, we're talking about how we got there.Sometimes, it's necessary to break the rules and make exceptions, for NPCs and PCs. That being said, in general I think it's necessary that the PCs and NPCs follow the same rules, to give a sense of fairness.To give an example, I once had a DM who tormented us with an illusive mage who kept disappearing whenever we got near him. It seemed incredibly unfair because his actions seemed like things that no PC mage would ever be allowed to get away with-he wasn't required to roll initiative before acting, for instance. I don't know everything that went on behind the scenes, but it was a negative experience and one that shaped my DMing when I started. In a movie, a mysterious mage with unknown power might be cool, but it's hard to make that work in the game. I've run plenty of powerful mages myself, but I always made sure their actions were possible under the rules.I think my players would call BS on me if I tried to pit them against an opponent whose capabilities were outside the boundaries of their character creation rules. I think they'd be right to do so. They do sometimes ask how a monster/NPC was able to perform a certain action, and I feel obligated to provide an answer to demonstrate that I am not just making the stuff up or setting the numbers at whatever seems convenient.To give another example, once I needed to kill a character and make the death final to give a sense of completeness to the campaign. The available spells and feats weren't final enough, so I wrote up an artifact sword on the day of the session and used it. This was a bit cheesy, but artifacts give me a wide range of acceptable options and the game ran fine. I'm not above compromise in the name of a good story. That being said, I've also made arbitrarily powerful artifacts for PCs (far more often, really), so the sense of fairness remains. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.So at the end of the day, I firmly believe that NPC mages should follow the rules for spellcasting, that enemy monsters should get ability increases at the same rate that players do, and that any ability used by a character in the game should be describable under one set of rules (feats, spells, etc.) that apply to everyone.</blockquote>

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