I'm trying to use DDB to document and organize everything about my campaign. What's the best way to handle NPCs in DDB campaigns? I've thought about creating the significant NPCs as characters in the campaign, but I don't wan't players to be able to see the details. Would the encounter builder help? It would also be helpful to be able to export stat blocks for companion creatures and monsters. I have players who will adopt anything.
If you create the NPCs using the character builder, you would either need to not add them to a campaign, or create a separate campaign for only you to store them in.
The challenge with the encounter builder/combat tracker in this regard is that at the moment there is no way to assign NPCs built as characters as opponents. (Nor is there a way to assign monsters or NPCs built as monsters as allies). And there's not an easy way to convert levels to CR and back for encounter difficulty calculations.
So, you are better off doing what others have suggested: use the monster homebrew tools to homebrew your npcs. Note that if you want to use them in the combat tracker, they have to be in your collection, not just your creations. So in theory your players could find them through the extras menu on their sheets, but they wouldn't be as easy to find as if they were built as PCs as added to the campaign.
To each their own, I guess. I use a separate campaign I set up, for NPCs of XHSTED Campaign. Set up the NPC's I consider to be relevant and away I go. Most of them are not intended to be a combat encounter anyway, so I tend to make them much higher level than my players characters are at the time of meeting. I am also, in their newest campaign, which I expect to be epic, creating a few "assisting" types, from flat mercenaries (who will be basic fighters with lower levels than my players) to actual characters in the story, who can join the party if the group wants them to.
Initially I didn't bother much with stats and stuff for the NPC's, they had a basic outline. My layers decided to get more involved and interactive on a few of them (charm, persuade, attempts at theft) so I had to make my prominent NPC's have some kind of stats. With nothing viable out there (that I found) rolling a character was quick, easy and worked perfectly for my needs.
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I'm trying to use DDB to document and organize everything about my campaign. What's the best way to handle NPCs in DDB campaigns? I've thought about creating the significant NPCs as characters in the campaign, but I don't wan't players to be able to see the details. Would the encounter builder help? It would also be helpful to be able to export stat blocks for companion creatures and monsters. I have players who will adopt anything.
If you remove them from 'your collection', they don't show up even if you share homebrew within the campaign.
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If you create the NPCs using the character builder, you would either need to not add them to a campaign, or create a separate campaign for only you to store them in.
The challenge with the encounter builder/combat tracker in this regard is that at the moment there is no way to assign NPCs built as characters as opponents. (Nor is there a way to assign monsters or NPCs built as monsters as allies). And there's not an easy way to convert levels to CR and back for encounter difficulty calculations.
So, you are better off doing what others have suggested: use the monster homebrew tools to homebrew your npcs. Note that if you want to use them in the combat tracker, they have to be in your collection, not just your creations. So in theory your players could find them through the extras menu on their sheets, but they wouldn't be as easy to find as if they were built as PCs as added to the campaign.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
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To each their own, I guess. I use a separate campaign I set up, for NPCs of XHSTED Campaign. Set up the NPC's I consider to be relevant and away I go. Most of them are not intended to be a combat encounter anyway, so I tend to make them much higher level than my players characters are at the time of meeting. I am also, in their newest campaign, which I expect to be epic, creating a few "assisting" types, from flat mercenaries (who will be basic fighters with lower levels than my players) to actual characters in the story, who can join the party if the group wants them to.
Initially I didn't bother much with stats and stuff for the NPC's, they had a basic outline. My layers decided to get more involved and interactive on a few of them (charm, persuade, attempts at theft) so I had to make my prominent NPC's have some kind of stats. With nothing viable out there (that I found) rolling a character was quick, easy and worked perfectly for my needs.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.