I feel like there should be "Level [X] [CLASS]" that you can just pick and so that I don't have to make the character and add it to my group. Especially for new characters it's a great way to show them what the classes can do with their RAW abilities.
Am I missing something?
Also does anyone find that anything less than a "deadly" encounter is a breeze for their group?
NPCs don’t have classes is the big thing. There are generic cultists, bandits, mages, etc. Are you just looking for sample PCs? There’s a button for premade characters in the character builder, is that what you mean?
Encounter design is much discussed topic. The main thing to remember is the game assumes 6-8 encounters per adventuring day. So if you only throw 1 at the party, they’ll be able to unload all their resources at it, and they’ll just steamroll it. Start giving more encounters, so they have to save some of their resources for future fights.
I'm talking about when you're building an encounter. There are very limited options for levelled humanoid "monsters". I would like to select "Level 8 sorcerer" or "level 6 totem barbarian" and add it to the group of enemies the party will be facing, but the encounter builder is largely just monsters.
That's by design. PCs and Monsters are built differently. For one, since most combats last 3-5 rounds, running a PC will leave you with a lot of powers you won't actually use on the DM side of the screen and can just bog things down. (For example, will it really matter that the sorcerer can cast mending? or that the barbarian has proficiency in carpenter's tools? It may matter for bigger, re-occurring villains, but most monsters aren't going to live through the fight.) For two, the math is designed with different hit point-to-AC-to-damage ratios in mind for PCs and monsters, to give PCs a mathematical advantage in most fights. Throwing PCs against other PCs can lead to accidental tpks, monsters are a bit more forgiving. And, also, level does not equal CR. As imperfect a tool as CR is, it falls apart when applied to PCs.
Your best bet is to find something like a cultist or bandit and tweak it to get close to the effect you want. Or just re-skin a non-humanoid monster.
A lot of the legacy humanoid monsters based on a player character and turned into something more suitable for an NPC. For example the warlock of the archfey is clearly an 11th level warlock, with features like the abilty to cast disguise self at will implying the mask of many faces invocation, but does not have anything like all the features of a PC.
You can do the reverse to get he NPC you want. For a 6th level sorcerer give them give them a few spells up to level 3 from the sorcerer list and a couple of meta magic options at it will be clearly recogised as a sorcerer of around 6th level. You may or may not decide to give them the same HP as a PC sorcerer of that level and Con.
Yes, I've noticed that NPC humanoids have, on average, more hit points but fewer attack options that a PC of similar hit points (using the HP to backward calculate the level). I assume this is because PCs are usually better at doing damage than NPCs, most of whom don't have bonus actions are and aren't optimized. So i would suggest that if you want NPCs with similar abilities to PCs, to bulk up their hit points regardless unless you want to see them go down in 1.5 rounds.
Combat is not balanced for Player vs Player as mentioned above, so applying player rules to NPC's would make balancing combat encounters more difficult and boggy. What you CAN do is take the different kinds of humanoid NPC's and modify them slightly. Say you wanted an Eldritch Knight NPC; you would start with a Veteran or a Bandit Captain, and all you would need to do is add on a few combat cantrips and one or two levelled spells they might use in combat. Any more than that and you might start to bog yourself down with options you might not even use, but you can easily convey the idea of an Eldritch Knight with those few modificiations.
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I feel like there should be "Level [X] [CLASS]" that you can just pick and so that I don't have to make the character and add it to my group. Especially for new characters it's a great way to show them what the classes can do with their RAW abilities.
Am I missing something?
Also does anyone find that anything less than a "deadly" encounter is a breeze for their group?
NPCs don’t have classes is the big thing. There are generic cultists, bandits, mages, etc. Are you just looking for sample PCs? There’s a button for premade characters in the character builder, is that what you mean?
Encounter design is much discussed topic. The main thing to remember is the game assumes 6-8 encounters per adventuring day. So if you only throw 1 at the party, they’ll be able to unload all their resources at it, and they’ll just steamroll it. Start giving more encounters, so they have to save some of their resources for future fights.
I'm talking about when you're building an encounter. There are very limited options for levelled humanoid "monsters". I would like to select "Level 8 sorcerer" or "level 6 totem barbarian" and add it to the group of enemies the party will be facing, but the encounter builder is largely just monsters.
That's by design. PCs and Monsters are built differently. For one, since most combats last 3-5 rounds, running a PC will leave you with a lot of powers you won't actually use on the DM side of the screen and can just bog things down. (For example, will it really matter that the sorcerer can cast mending? or that the barbarian has proficiency in carpenter's tools? It may matter for bigger, re-occurring villains, but most monsters aren't going to live through the fight.) For two, the math is designed with different hit point-to-AC-to-damage ratios in mind for PCs and monsters, to give PCs a mathematical advantage in most fights. Throwing PCs against other PCs can lead to accidental tpks, monsters are a bit more forgiving. And, also, level does not equal CR. As imperfect a tool as CR is, it falls apart when applied to PCs.
Your best bet is to find something like a cultist or bandit and tweak it to get close to the effect you want. Or just re-skin a non-humanoid monster.
Assuming you are talking about NPCs
A lot of the legacy humanoid monsters based on a player character and turned into something more suitable for an NPC. For example the warlock of the archfey is clearly an 11th level warlock, with features like the abilty to cast disguise self at will implying the mask of many faces invocation, but does not have anything like all the features of a PC.
You can do the reverse to get he NPC you want. For a 6th level sorcerer give them give them a few spells up to level 3 from the sorcerer list and a couple of meta magic options at it will be clearly recogised as a sorcerer of around 6th level. You may or may not decide to give them the same HP as a PC sorcerer of that level and Con.
Yes, I've noticed that NPC humanoids have, on average, more hit points but fewer attack options that a PC of similar hit points (using the HP to backward calculate the level). I assume this is because PCs are usually better at doing damage than NPCs, most of whom don't have bonus actions are and aren't optimized. So i would suggest that if you want NPCs with similar abilities to PCs, to bulk up their hit points regardless unless you want to see them go down in 1.5 rounds.
There are roughly 317 human NPC's prebuilt in the books.
Granted to add them to your campaign you would have to use the character creator. Conversely you can print out their stat block and run with it
Combat is not balanced for Player vs Player as mentioned above, so applying player rules to NPC's would make balancing combat encounters more difficult and boggy. What you CAN do is take the different kinds of humanoid NPC's and modify them slightly. Say you wanted an Eldritch Knight NPC; you would start with a Veteran or a Bandit Captain, and all you would need to do is add on a few combat cantrips and one or two levelled spells they might use in combat. Any more than that and you might start to bog yourself down with options you might not even use, but you can easily convey the idea of an Eldritch Knight with those few modificiations.