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<blockquote data-quote="seankreynolds" data-source="post: 4340379" data-attributes="member: 3029">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, &quot;my characters are more special than you because they can do things your characters can never do.&quot;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 &quot;how can my character learn to do what that character just did&quot; and your answer is &quot;he can't,&quot; 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.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="seankreynolds, post: 4340379, member: 3029"] 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 [B]ever[/B] 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 [B]never[/B] 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 [B]easy[/B] 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. [/QUOTE]

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