Should allied NPCs that travel with the party (I.e. one PC rescues his father who was turned to stone in a dungeon long ago, he fights alongside the party to finish off the Medusa that petrified him) be built like player characters, or like NPCs? This is in D&D 5e of course. In D&D 3.5 all characters were built as PCs were, with minor changes. 5e NPCs are basically built like monsters. I've seen DMs try to use PC built NPCs with class levels as antagonists and it never ends well. But this would be for an allied NPC. Do you believe that the PCs should be the only ones in the world to have levels in character classes? Seems a bit odd and solipsistic, but that's basically what the game is based around. Could also use those sidekick rules from one of the splatbooks but that doesn't really fit here.
>>98922157>This is in D&D 5enogive him the veteran statblock or something similarPCs get too much random bullshit to keep track of in 5e that NPCs really don't need and serves solely to slow things down>In D&D 3.5 all characters were built as PCs were, with minor changes.because classes were extremely simple in 3.5 (or at least, they were in comparison to the later editions)
>>98922178Alright I'll probably just give him veteran statblock with some sneak attack since he is a rogue. It just gets weird to apply racial traits to NPCs, stuff like Dwarf in 2024 doesn't really translate well. The whole system is a fucking mess and I wish there was a version of DnD that:>supported miniature grid combat>didn't have arbitrary different risks for PCs and NPCs >had balanced combat >no special snowflake gimmick rules (most DnD imitators fail this simple task)
>>98922157Give the NPC a magical item that has a degree of failure built in that anyone can use, so if the NPC served their purpose in the story then the players can maintain their utility at the cost of spending their limited resources when it comes to action economy.Otherwise, use a generic statblock and don't try to save the character in a sticky situation, with the NPC playing on the side of caution thanks to their limited health pool.
>>98922157All of my statblocks in 5e are incredibly truncated, the way 5e does npc/enemy statblocks is fucking idiotic.
>>98922157iirc there are simplified sidekick classes for this purpose, but just using an npc one would probably still be better
>>98922157Nah just build them like monsters, makes it easier and faster.
Crazy how times changeback at the tail end of 3.5 the idea of NPCs not following PC rules was like a major sin for a system to do.
>>98923779>>98923631>>98923599>>98923400Alright sounds like a plan. >>98923970Yeah it really fucks with the world and internal consistency to do it the way 5e does it. I know that 3.5e saying a level 10 warrior was CR 9, when he would die in 1 round against a level 9 party, was stupid, but in some ways this is even worse.
>>98922178This
>>98923970It is one of the stupider things to come out of that era of ttrpg. And, I mean, it was actually the 90s (vampire, shadowrun and cyberpunk are all guilty of this shit.) NPCS fill a completely different niche than PCs, they should be built with an eye for ease of creation and ease to run during the game.
