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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5412972" data-attributes="member: 4937">Very good question.The answer is that DM's almost always pad NPC's with excessively high attributes.  For most purposes, NPC's exist only to thwart PC's.  In order to maximize the challenge of an NPC, DM's tend to use 'elite stat arrays' or the equivalent even when the NPC's in question are rather ordinary - like common soldiers, caravan gaurds, low-life thugs, bandits and the like.One of the upshots of this is that while the stat array theoretically goes from 3-18, the average tends to be around 14.  It's not that unusual to in some campaigns to see NPC's sporting 2-3 18's and no stat under a 12.And the result of that is for players to have a tendency to see attributes of 8 or 10 not as 'average' but rather as 'really weak', so that a character with 8 dexterity is 'clumsy' or one with a 10 intelligence is 'stupid' even though both attributes are sufficiently within the range of 'ordinary' that they probably wouldn't stand out immediately.   I make a conscious effort not to inflate my stats because IMO it cheats the players out of the experience of being special.  NPC's generally tend to be weaker opponents than their level would otherwise suggest because they don't have elite stat arrays and aren't decked out like magical christmas trees.  Likewise, a PC tends to have an importance to the community much higher than their level would suggest because they do.  Granted, I don't stat out alot of simpletons, fools, and commoners who are ineffectual at virtually everything, but I do make a particular point of making my average characters average and of reducing any attribute unnecessary for the character concept to as low as can be believed.  There is no reason why a merchant or craftsman with a job that doesn't involve some amount of manual labor needs more than a 6-7 strength or 6-7 dexterity or both.   A maid or a noblewoman might well get by with a 4 or 5 strength.   Most noncombatant characters tend to have 8 constitution or less, and there is no reason that a brute laborer or enforcer needs more than 6-8 in any of his social or mental attributes.   It's not usual for me to stat out some 'senior citizen' that has a combined strength, dexterity, and constitution of 12-14.   The fact that they hobble about and are in frail health in no way means that they aren't respected and experienced members of the community.   It may seem like a waste to have a 9th level character with 9 hit points, but it goes a long way toward explaining why the low level adventures are having the adventures and not the town elders.</blockquote>

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