Re: NPC classes

On 4/2/2024 1:58 AM, Kyonshi wrote:

I recently was rethinking the use of NPC classes in my (mostly OSR-style) games. Previously I had dismissed them as unsuccessful attempts at making overpowered PC classes. But reading them "as written" they make much more sense as human boss monsters in a lot of cases.
 I specifically mean stuff like e.g. Lew Pulsipher's Necromancer class, which is a terrible class for players (it demands human sacrifices of increasing specificity to advance), but does actually make more sense when used as a maybe recurring human antagonist who keeps getting stronger as over the course of a PCs career.
 I also looked at the Witch class from Dragon magazine but find that one oddly lacking.
 What are your preferred NPC classes, if any?

I never used any in AD&D.  Pretty much whatever's fair for the PCs is fair for the NPCs as well and vice versa.  I do think I remember letting someone use the Archer one time, but that didn't turn out well, because of course it was the resident rules-lawyer/power-gamer.
I only even let any of the UA classes be used one time, not so much because Barbarian and Cavalier were overpowered, but because they were written in such a way that they didn't work well with the normal makeup of a party (Barbarians hating magic users and cavaliers having to Leroy Jenkins all threats.)
The races I didn't like as they were obviously power creep.
I did use the 3e NPC classes a few times for NPCs, but it was rare and not particularly memorable.  Those NPC classes were far less dangerous than a normal PC of the same level though.
5e NPC monsters are kind of like/hate.  I like that they're easier to handle than full characters, hate that we have to use pared down versions of PCs because PCs are too complicated.
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-Justisaur
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