I am an experienced GM but new to running DND. I am switching my group to DND partially because of the wealth of existing tools that let me develop adventures very quickly.
The one issue I am running into is that I like to have whole teams of NPCs in my games that go toe to toe with the PCs. The story I have in mind involves multiple competing squads of adventurers.
The problem I am running into is that humanoid NPCs found in the monster manuals are at a fixed CR. There are ways to adjust the CR, but they seem to require making a custom monster and spending a good bit of time leveling them up or down.
So far, my only idea is to build the NPCs as characters using DND Beyond, but that also seems pretty time-consuming.
I also see there are so many great home brew characters I could go with to get NPCs of different levels, but if I want a squad to level up alongside the PCs so they can be a constant team of rivals, I just do not see a fast way to accomplish this.
The answer is likely there isn't a way to do what I want to do without a considerable expenditure of time, but I thought I would ask the wise GMs on this forum if they had any tips.
There are a couple of websites I used to use for this, you could generate an NOC really quickly, not sure how up to date they are. Will try and hunt them out when I am not at work but if you google DnD NPC generator it should give you something to look at.
If you think of anything, that would be fantastic. All the NPCs generators I found were more just basic stats and personality rather than fleshed-out characters the PCs could fully interact with or have a tussle with. I will keep looking too.
I know I'm a tad late to the thread, but I didn't see this answer yet. If you're looking to quickly generate player characters, simply use this website's character builder! It has a "randomize" and "quick build" feature that lets you do exactly what you're looking to do.
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Panda-wat (I hate my username) is somehow convinced that he is objectively right about everything D&D related even though he obviously is not. Considering that, he'd probably make a great D&D youtuber.
"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair
The 'Rival PC' party, while a common theme, is not something 5e encourages -- using PC builds as monsters is extremely complicated and time consuming for the DM, and results in rocket tag type encounters because almost all PC builds are glass cannons by monster standards.
I wish I could send you pregen min maxed versions of rivals from call of the neverdeep I also have few mages that can give any party trouble there really hard to kill . I made numerous things my players had to fight over the years.
That is a great tip. I didn't notice those options. I see that quick build is just 1st level, but random can be any level. It looks like I could generate something quickly this way and then just tweak it a little.
I think that will handle what I need to do. However, I would still love to see what ThorukDuckSlayer comes up with in the future.
Thank you so much, and I hope you had a great weekend.
That is a good point. It may make it hard to manage the encounters. I might stick to more martial builds for this since they are easier to manage, maybe with just a small number of spell casters mixed in.
I also will be careful to keep the battles to ones that thematically would work ok as rocket launcher tags with in the narrative.
I wish I could send you pregen min maxed versions of rivals from call of the neverdeep I also have few mages that can give any party trouble there really hard to kill . I made numerous things my players had to fight over the years.
Hi Rammsorrow
To your point here, I was wondering if there were any archives of character sheets with level-by-level improvements to them I could pull on. I will try to look for this too at some point.
I found a good solution for this. Here is a website that generates full NPCs, ready to be used in battle for pretty much any race/class combo. You have to use the Hit Dice drop-down to change the level of the NPCs generated (which threw me at first -- I was expecting a level drop-down).
"...or you can find the secret tunnel that leads to the Vault of Dickish DM which is filled with 10,000,000 copper coins and a 5,000 pound solid gold statue of a middle finger that is too big to fit through the door."
Hi All
I am an experienced GM but new to running DND. I am switching my group to DND partially because of the wealth of existing tools that let me develop adventures very quickly.
The one issue I am running into is that I like to have whole teams of NPCs in my games that go toe to toe with the PCs. The story I have in mind involves multiple competing squads of adventurers.
The problem I am running into is that humanoid NPCs found in the monster manuals are at a fixed CR. There are ways to adjust the CR, but they seem to require making a custom monster and spending a good bit of time leveling them up or down.
So far, my only idea is to build the NPCs as characters using DND Beyond, but that also seems pretty time-consuming.
I also see there are so many great home brew characters I could go with to get NPCs of different levels, but if I want a squad to level up alongside the PCs so they can be a constant team of rivals, I just do not see a fast way to accomplish this.
The answer is likely there isn't a way to do what I want to do without a considerable expenditure of time, but I thought I would ask the wise GMs on this forum if they had any tips.
Thanks very much
Will
This is actually a good point, I've not thought about how well you can scale an NPCs stat block to keep them relevant.
I don't know of anything at present, but now the gears are turning it'll only take so long before I make something!
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There are a couple of websites I used to use for this, you could generate an NOC really quickly, not sure how up to date they are. Will try and hunt them out when I am not at work but if you google DnD NPC generator it should give you something to look at.
Hi ThorukDuckSlayer
That sounds really awesome. Thanks for considering putting something together.
I will check out your current stuff in your links.
Much appreciated and have a wonderful weekend.
Will
Thanks, Scarloc_Stormcall.
If you think of anything, that would be fantastic. All the NPCs generators I found were more just basic stats and personality rather than fleshed-out characters the PCs could fully interact with or have a tussle with. I will keep looking too.
All the best
Will
I know I'm a tad late to the thread, but I didn't see this answer yet. If you're looking to quickly generate player characters, simply use this website's character builder! It has a "randomize" and "quick build" feature that lets you do exactly what you're looking to do.
Panda-wat (I hate my username) is somehow convinced that he is objectively right about everything D&D related even though he obviously is not. Considering that, he'd probably make a great D&D youtuber.
"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair
The 'Rival PC' party, while a common theme, is not something 5e encourages -- using PC builds as monsters is extremely complicated and time consuming for the DM, and results in rocket tag type encounters because almost all PC builds are glass cannons by monster standards.
I wish I could send you pregen min maxed versions of rivals from call of the neverdeep I also have few mages that can give any party trouble there really hard to kill . I made numerous things my players had to fight over the years.
Hi Panda
That is a great tip. I didn't notice those options. I see that quick build is just 1st level, but random can be any level. It looks like I could generate something quickly this way and then just tweak it a little.
I think that will handle what I need to do. However, I would still love to see what ThorukDuckSlayer comes up with in the future.
Thank you so much, and I hope you had a great weekend.
Will
Hi Pantagruel666
That is a good point. It may make it hard to manage the encounters. I might stick to more martial builds for this since they are easier to manage, maybe with just a small number of spell casters mixed in.
I also will be careful to keep the battles to ones that thematically would work ok as rocket launcher tags with in the narrative.
Thanks very much, and all the best
Will
Hi Rammsorrow
To your point here, I was wondering if there were any archives of character sheets with level-by-level improvements to them I could pull on. I will try to look for this too at some point.
Thanks very much and all the best
Will
Hi All
I found a good solution for this. Here is a website that generates full NPCs, ready to be used in battle for pretty much any race/class combo. You have to use the Hit Dice drop-down to change the level of the NPCs generated (which threw me at first -- I was expecting a level drop-down).
RPG Tinker - D&D 5e NPC Generator
I hope that helps anyone else that ran into the same issue as me.
Will
Paging @Sposta (IamSposta) who has a quick generator for NPCs that I
can't seem to find readily...found:- Sposta’s Quick Custom Commoners - Homebrew & House Rules - Dungeons & Dragons Discussion - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
- Quick Customized NPCs - Homebrew & House Rules - Dungeons & Dragons Discussion - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
#OpenD&D #ORC
"...or you can find the secret tunnel that leads to the Vault of Dickish DM which is filled with 10,000,000 copper coins and a 5,000 pound solid gold statue of a middle finger that is too big to fit through the door."
Thank you for the help!
Will