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<blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 8640303" data-attributes="member: 6704184">You don't think that would feel forced and weird? I'm all for giving NPCs magic items, a lot of the magic items I give out are taken from people who used them against the party first. But that isn't a Champion thing, it's just an NPC thing. Give the Veteran a collection of magic crossbow bolts. Give the Archer a magic bow or boots of flying. Go nuts. Or don't. But the solution to thinking the Champion is boring isn't to have the game say, &quot;If you want engaging NPCs, load them up with magic items!&quot; A much better way to handle the fact that some DMs/groups (certainly not all) want more complexity in monsters, is to introduce a good set of templates covering a wide range of themes and &quot;combat roles&quot;, and a set of group templates, and giving advice on how to use them.What I mean by group templates is, treat the entire encounter's worth of enemies as A Thing, in that there are certain special actions and traits they have as a group. So the highly trained unit of hoplites have legendary actions they can do to move as a unit, attack an area, force movement in an area, regroup when things turn south, etc, and a boost of some kind that they lose when enough of them are taken out. Each goblin doesn't need to have pack tactics, if you make a Goblin War Band template that gives the group pack tactics, and the ability to move without opportunity attacks on initiative 20.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="doctorbadwolf, post: 8640303, member: 6704184"] You don't think that would feel forced and weird? I'm all for giving NPCs magic items, a lot of the magic items I give out are taken from people who used them against the party first. But that isn't a Champion thing, it's just an NPC thing. Give the Veteran a collection of magic crossbow bolts. Give the Archer a magic bow or boots of flying. Go nuts. Or don't. But the solution to thinking the Champion is boring isn't to have the game say, "If you want engaging NPCs, load them up with magic items!" A much better way to handle the fact that some DMs/groups (certainly not all) want more complexity in monsters, is to introduce a good set of templates covering a wide range of themes and "combat roles", and a set of group templates, and giving advice on how to use them. What I mean by group templates is, treat the entire encounter's worth of enemies as A Thing, in that there are certain special actions and traits they have [I]as a group[/I]. So the highly trained unit of hoplites have legendary actions they can do to move as a unit, attack an area, force movement in an area, regroup when things turn south, etc, and a boost of some kind that they lose when enough of them are taken out. Each goblin doesn't need to have pack tactics, if you make a Goblin War Band template that gives the group pack tactics, and the ability to move without opportunity attacks on initiative 20. [/QUOTE]

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