Should NPCs Have to Follow the Same Rules as PCs?

[SavageRobby]

I'm a big believer in the idea that the only rule the DM has to follow is "Do whatever is best and most fun for the adventure and the campaign."

So if the adventure calls for a kobold who can create artifacts and cast raise dead, but is otherwise the equivalent of a 2nd-level character, that's what I'm going to create.

I'm with the Mouse on this (and with this other points throughout the thread).

I find that character creation rules are for player characters. They are to provide a framework for player characters to be on relatively level ground. Thats usually why they are in the Player's Handbook (or Player's Guides in other game systems).

As a DM, I am not bound the player restrictions for NPCs. For one, they're not (or, IMO, shouldn't be) the stars of the show. I don't need detailed construction rules for NPCs anymore than I need detailed construction rules for creating the Forest of Gloom or the Hellpeak Mountains or the Swamp of Really Nasty Smells.

What I need to know about most NPCs are: What are their goals? How will they deal with the PCs? What will they do if/when the PCs aren't around? THAT is where I want to spend my construction time with NPCs. Occasionally, I'll need to know: How do they fight? What are their special powers?

One of the things that turned me off of 3x was the mentality that all PCs/NPCs/monsters are created equal. In my eyes, they're just not.


I will add one thing (something I think that ties in with Nifft's point about badly designed monsters). Freedom of design comes with a certain DM responsibility. My feelings on NPC (and monster) design are more about spending my time on the interesting parts (for both me and later, the players) and less time on purely mechanical, highly brain-numbing prep time. It isn't an excuse to poorly design NPCs, monsters or encounters. It is occasionally enjoyable (for both sides of the table) when the players run up against something they aren't expecting/aren't familiar with and go "Whoa! What was that?" but its not fun if every other monster is like that, or all NPCs are built to screw with player expectations.

 

[Aria Silverhands]

I'm hoping once people get used to the system. (re used to the system) it will once again get back to: "Oh man, watch out, he can do something nasty..."

This shift is quite apparent in the extended encounters for KotS. Specifically the one with Maw and the zombie rotters.

 

[IanArgent]

This is something that I think is a "big shift" in 4e, and one that I also think is a big shift back to the original way of the game...

3e's almost "obsessed" need to have a rules explanation for almost everything that could be done, seemed to force people in a way to "metagme think."

Oh, he can cast raise dead? We'd better be carefull... Became "He can cast raise dead? he must be an X level priest, so we'd better watch out for X abilities.

One of the things that really peved me off about 3e actually... it let the "rules lawyers" assume too much power.

"He can't do that he's obviously not an X level kobold priest!!!"

I'm hoping once people get used to the system. (re used to the system) it will once again get back to: "Oh man, watch out, he can do something nasty..."

I love this post and want to bear its children.

This is where "the mystery" that some complainers about having the magic items in the PHB is hiding. It's not in the rules (the most common rules should be known by all). It's in the things that break the rules. And 4E tells you what the "unbreakable" rules are (table at the bottom of p 42 DMG, every other bit of math in the game is predicated on those numbers; and the action economy and the at-will/encounter/daily economy in combat). Everything else, make it up as you go along if you have to.

 

[seankreynolds]

Everyone should have the same potential -- at least NPCs and PCs, in general. It's okay to use different rules to build them, though.

NPCs shouldn't necessarily follow the rules, but they should maintain the illusion that they do. They certainly shouldn't violate them so flagrantly that the players can't help but notice.

Thank you, Mercule and AltF4, for nicely summing up my position on this issue.

Yes, building NPCs with the PC rules is time consuming. (And I'm specifically saying NPCs rather than monsters, as players are more likely to give you leeway when New Monster X has a weird ability than when Clearly A Human Fighter Y has a weird ability).
Yes, taking shortcuts can help a lot. You don't need to know every single 1st-level spell an evil Wiz20 has prepared, for example, or even every 1st-level spell in his spellbook, or what Knowledge skills he spent all his skillpoints on.
But creating NPCs that can do things that no PC can ever learn to do is unfair to the players; it's like the DM telling them, "my characters are more special than you because they can do things your characters can never do."

So if you give an NPC Mnk10 an ability to make 6 attacks per round once per day, you should realize the PCs are going to see that and the PC monk is going to want to learn how, and you should plan ahead for questions on how the PC monk can achieve that.
I'm not saying you have to stat out every unique NPC ability in a PC-friendly format, but when a player asks "how can my character learn to do what that character just did" and your answer is "he can't," that's ... sorta mean.

It doesn't have to be easy for the PC to learn or accomplish, but if they really want it you should provide a way for them to achieve it (though feats, skills, substitution levels, a year in meditation, a special quest, etc.).

After all, if you give an NPC a cool ability, and the PCs think it's cool enough to want to be able to do it, that's a complement.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

All I know is that sometimes reading high-level NPC statblocks in older versions gave me a headache, and forget about making one myself, so I'm happy with how 4e does it.

I'm sure lots of people really enjoyed doing full character generation for NPCs -- I used to do it all the time when I was a lot younger -- but I gotta go with a method that makes it fast to stat up NPCs.

 

[Obryn]

But creating NPCs that can do things that no PC can ever learn to do is unfair to the players; it's like the DM telling them, "my characters are more special than you because they can do things your characters can never do."

I really don't think it is... I mean, I'm not creating NPCs in competition with the PCs like it's some kind of one-upsmanship.

The PCs are the most special characters in the campaign. They get the most screen time and will tend to be capable of overcoming anything, given time. They don't need to be special in exactly the same ways as the NPCs are, and vice versa.

I'm not talking wacky, crazy stuff, mind you - like your 6-attack monk - but if there's an NPC who's a virtuouso and the best in the world at playing mandolin... I don't really think I need to express that in game terms, per se, by settling on a class and level for them.

-O

 

[Barastrondo]

But creating NPCs that can do things that no PC can ever learn to do is unfair to the players; it's like the DM telling them, "my characters are more special than you because they can do things your characters can never do."

I've never really gotten that in D&D, because so often the NPCs that can do things that the player characters can "never do" are there to die. They're placed with the explicit intention of the PCs, barring ill luck or stupidity, putting swords in their gullets and making pithy soliloquies over their corpses. There might be story hooks giving the PCs advantages over the NPCs, like the traditional "hey, some guy just warned us about the trouble at the next town over; if they hadn't, we might not have thought to kill these jerks."

Being an NPC villain in one of my D&D games is pretty rough. I wouldn't want to be one.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I've never really gotten that in D&D, because so often the NPCs that can do things that the player characters can "never do" are there to die. They're placed with the explicit intention of the PCs, barring ill luck or stupidity, putting swords in their gullets and making pithy soliloquies over their corpses. There might be story hooks giving the PCs advantages over the NPCs, like the traditional "hey, some guy just warned us about the trouble at the next town over; if they hadn't, we might not have thought to kill these jerks."

Being an NPC villain in one of my D&D games is pretty rough. I wouldn't want to be one.

There's this. Plus there's the fact that "the villain empowered by the ancient ritual/evil god/unholy artifact/forgotten lore/vile mutation," and thus able to do something nobody else can, is an absolute trope of fantasy.

While I agree that the average NPC should probably not be able to do things that the PCs absolutely never could, I don't think allowing such an exception where appropriate is at all a bad thing.

 

[Psion]

But creating NPCs that can do things that no PC can ever learn to do is unfair to the players; it's like the DM telling them, "my characters are more special than you because they can do things your characters can never do."

What are we talking here?

It's not fair if NPCs can have the vampire template and PCs can't?
It's not fair if NPCs can have a demonic prestige class and PCs can't?

I'm really not seeing how "fair" comes into it. Between PCs, I can see the point of enforcing balance. But when you are talking NPCs, they can exist with vastly different levels, have different possessions, followers, and allies than the PCs. I'm not seeing how "fair" really has much meaning in this context.

Consistency, fairness that an NPC with the same situation as a PC have the same available options is something I would agree with.

 

[Derren]

What are we talking here?

It's not fair if NPCs can have the vampire template and PCs can't?
It's not fair if NPCs can have a demonic prestige class and PCs can't?

More like:
It's not fair if NPCs wizards can raise undead and PCs can't?
It's not fair if NPCs soldiers can use their halberd to trip every round and PCs can't? (Not sure if that is correct as I can't find the preview document here anymore)