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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 8202584" data-attributes="member: 6915329">What they're suggesting is that NPCs only have the traits the DM wants them to have. If the DM doesn't bother to give an NPC dragonborn a breathweapon, it doesn't have one. Or, if the DM wants the NPC dragonborn Commoner to have a breathweapon that does 6d8 damage, or only 1d4 damage, it does. Or if you want to say that this NPC dragonborn is actually an iron dragonborn (remember the ferrous dragons?) and its breath weapon is 1d6 fire damage and 1d6 lightning damage, and it is resistant to both fire and lightning damage, that's also fine.* In the MM, it says at the start of the chapter on NPCs, "You can add racial traits to an NPC. For example, a halfling druid might have a speed of 25 feet and the Lucky trait. Adding racial traits to an NPC doesn't alter its challenge rating. For more on racial traits, see the Player's Handbook." Note the word can. Note that it doesn't say stat increases--which in fact could end up altering its challenge rating. A higher Strength or Dex affects to-hit and damage rolls, a higher Dex affects AC, a higher Con affects hit points, and higher mental stats affect spell save DCs. You might consider that pedantic of me, but I've converted scores of monsters to 5e and believe me, at lower CRs, even a point or two can make a huge difference.Or, as another example, take a look at the entry for Lycanthropes. There's a sidebar which reads "The statistics presented in this section assume a base creature of human. However, you can also use the statistics to represent nonhuman lycanthropes, adding verisimilitude by allowing a nonhuman lycanthrope to retain one or more of its humanoid racial traits. For example, an elf werewolf might have the Fey Ancestry trait."One or more. It doesn't say, "you must increase the lycanthrope's stats according to their ASIs," nor does it say "you must give them all of their racial traits." Instead, it says you can add verisimilitude--note the word--and that an elf werewolf might have Fey Ancestry.  Which means that no, an elven werewolf might in fact not have Darkvision, and it might actually have to sleep. What I'm saying here is that NPCs are built much more like monsters than they are like PCs in this edition. They're not required to have all the exact scores that PCs are. If you want a strong blacksmith, you give that blacksmith a Strength of 16 or 18 or 20, because it's likely that the NPC's role as a blacksmith, and what they are used to making, is more important to the game than its race will be. You might decide that this one blacksmith is used to making cooking pots and horseshoes and can't make a sword to save his life and that's great, but that doesn't have anything to do with race; it's just that this one blacksmith is from a tiny, peaceful village. You can also decide that this one blacksmith isn't as good at his job because he's a halfling and halflings are physically weak, and that's also fine. But that has nothing to do with the PC stats.--* In case you don't remember the ferrous dragons, they were from Dragon Mag issue #170 and reprinted for 3e in #365. Iron dragons had a breath weapon of "superheated sparks," as well as a sleep breath weapon. I'd allow iron dragonborn, but say the player gets to pick between fire and lightning for its breath and resistance, and they don't have to be the same.</blockquote>

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