D&D General Should NPCs be built using the same rules as PCs?

[Lanefan]

The point is less "gotcha" and more "but you do not seem to take into account the fact that the distinction between people and monsters is arbitrary."

Not for me.

If it's a standard PC-playable species in that campaign, it's "people". If it's not, it's "monster".

 

[Lanefan]

No. No. No. Never. Well sometimes. If I want a shaman which casts Heals and fireballs it should be no problem.

So after we meet this Shaman who casts heals and fireballs, I-as-player say I should be able to play one as my PC. Now what?

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

If the constable's one of the world's foremost masters of the halberd, that tells me he's got a lot of Fighter levels under his belt; be they from adventuring (the fast track way of levelling) or a whole lot of soldiering or similar (the very slow-track way of levelling).

Or maybe he's just spent a whole lot of time practicing with the halberd, unlike say, an adventuring fighter who spends most of his time traveling from place to place.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I will go for: it depends.

Factors to consider:

1) As DM, do you keep stat blocks behind the curtain, or are they public?

2) Is the NPC likely to fight the PCs? Fight alongside the PCs? Offer out of combat aid to the PCs?

The drawback of PC statblocks is they are complicated, and have lots of abilities that are unlikely ever to be relevant. Monster statblocks are better for NPCs who's only interaction with the party is going to be a single fight, and if you "curtain" NPC stats the players won't know the difference anyway.

 

[Fanaelialae]

If the constable's one of the world's foremost masters of the halberd, that tells me he's got a lot of Fighter levels under his belt; be they from adventuring (the fast track way of levelling) or a whole lot of soldiering or similar (the very slow-track way of levelling).

That's just it: I don't feel that freedom should exist nearly to the extent it does now, mostly because exercising it often means not being fair to the players.

I'm sorry, but from a world building perspective, that doesn't make sense to me. If I want to make a man who's trained 20 years with the halberd but has never laid eyes on plate mail, I need to give him proficiency in plate mail (even if he's never even seen a suit of plate)? Or make him a barbarian or monk, with all the additional things those entail (rage/ki)?

Fairness exists in the CR guidelines. If I make the constable a CR 10 NPC, then I know he's not a fair encounter for a level 1 party. Whether he's a high level fighter or a custom NPC doesn't enter into the fairness equation, IMO. Am I suddenly required to let the PCs play a fire breathing lizard before I'm allowed to have them face a dragon?

FWIW, IMCs, if it makes sense that a PC could learn something, they technically can. The fighter PC could potentially convince the constable to train him. It would likely take years, where the fighter devotes himself to training with the halberd and not adventuring, and there's no guarantee that the campaign wouldn't end before that happens (and I'm always transparent on those points) but it is an option.

Another good example that was mentioned in this thread was priests. If I want to make a spellcasting priest, I need to give them weapon and armor proficiencies, even if the priest has never had a day of such training in their lives? That doesn't make sense to me.

If you really think it's unfair, there's nothing stopping you from making NPC classes for every type of NPC, like a single-weapon-master for the constable or a cloistered-cleric for the priest, and allow players take those classes (despite the fact that they'd largely be trap options that are overall worse than the existing classes). To me, that seems like a huge waste of time that I could otherwise invest into other elements of my campaigns. I prefer bespoke NPCs as the default.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The point is less "gotcha" and more "but you do not seem to take into account the fact that the distinction between people and monsters is arbitrary."

It is and monsters can be people too, but I think the point is mainly that it is less weird if things that never could be PCs in the first place have capabilities that the PCs cannot get, than if just some random basic members of the PC species do.

 

[The Stray]

So after we meet this Shaman who casts heals and fireballs, I-as-player say I should be able to play one as my PC. Now what?

I say, "You can't. Sorry."

The role of NPCs and PCs is fundamentally different to the game experience. NPCs are either allies and force multipliers for the PCs, or they are opposition, or they are representative of the teeming mass of demihumanity which makes up the common clay of the setting. They are, fundamentally, building blocks for a game experience, and building them out of the same process that builds PCs is going to lead to a lot of pointless spinning wheels.

A PC is a player avatar, and is meant to function as a part of a unit, because team-based play in which each character have a specific niche in which they excel is the engine that has kept this hobby running since the 70's. RPGs are not about individual characters, and if you-as-a-player meet a mystic who can both heal and fireball and ask why you cannot do the same, I will gladly drop out of Watsonian dialectic and give you the straight Doyalist explanation -- you are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are part of a team-based tactical squad engaged in overcoming challenges, and your tools are thus limited to those within the role you have chosen to play.

This is, of course, assuming we're running a system where that is not, in fact, an option. Different game will have different conceits and be chasing different play experiences.

 

[Aldarc]

I don't care about screwing up balance but I very much do care about screwing up in-setting consistency. Thus, I do my best to make sure my ad-hoc NPCs (and many of them are) still fit within what the char-gen rules allow.

The setting of my games remains consistent even if PCs and NPCs are built using different rules. IMHO, consistency in the setting is formed through applying the rules of the game in a consistent manner rather than demanding that NPCs be built by the same char-gen rules and mechanics as PCs. Consistency of the fiction matters more than the consistency of the mechanics.

I also think that the idea that NPCs must follow the same char-gen rules as PCs is unnecessarily limiting on NPCs or even the setting. I don't think that the character options provided to players represent the grand totality of human or mortal existence so it is perfectly fine if NPCs, even those from the same ancestry, have abilities outside of their available character options.

 

[Oligopsony]

So after we meet this Shaman who casts heals and fireballs, I-as-player say I should be able to play one as my PC. Now what?

Same as if they want to play a dragon: ask them questions to clarify their intent, put the mechanical work on them, and give it a shot.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Simple enough question. What are your thoughts?

No. Emphatically no.

PCs need to have the resources to complete a full day of adventure, with all sorts of tricks and tools to make use of. NPCs only need to exist for however long they appear (usually only one scene/battle/situation at a time, and often only one such scene/battle/situation ever).

It's a wonderful idea, making everything work by exactly the same rules. The siren song of beautiful symmetry, verisimilitude, simplicity. All of those hide the actual in-game effect, which makes designing and running non-player characters (mooks/minions, soldiers, bosses, monsters, allies, etc.) dramatically more difficult. Any time or headspace savings you might get from building NPCs like PCs will be completely overwhelmed by the balance and complexity issues that arise from building monsters exactly the same as PCs.

3rd edition proved that this approach was unworkable. It is a seductively beautiful but fatal design choice. Build your monster-design-rules to make fun, interesting, easy-to-run, engaging monsters. If that requires that they work by somewhat different rules compared to PCs, so be it. They are game constructs designed to produce a particular feeling in the audience.

It's the same as asking, "Should extras get the same presence in a movie as the main characters?" Doing so would be the ruin of almost every existing good movie out there.