Sure it can. I mean, you can make NPCs that are like PCs in 4E pretty easily. If you want you can give them fighter powers and do all the math, or you can use the default NPC system.
It's actually quite a bit of work, for much the same reason you dislike creating a spellcaster NPC in 3E - lots of choices for every level, and there's no simple alternative like just giving them "warrior" levels because that class doesn't exist anymore - they need all of those encounter and daily powers, which means they have to be selected and tracked, and in the end you wind up with something with insufficient attack and defense numbers unless you give them all of the magic items that the PCs need in order to "keep up with the monsters"; that's not even going into the issues with NPCs who have PC-equivalent healing surges.
I'm not saying that it's impossible; merely that it is not easy, and the system is not designed for it.
The thing about nature and nurture stays - does a bonus represent a nature (genes) or a nurture (culture in this context)? Imho it shouldn't do both since again, there are exceptions.
The more modern view is that all racial features should only represent fundamental characteristics of that creature (nature), specifically to cover situations where an elf could be raised by dwarves and wouldn't grow up to practice archery (any more than an Englishman raised in France would be subject to that royal decree). The thing is, going back to the guiding principles of D&D, race and culture are assumed to be the same thing... and if you're playing an exception, then run it by the DM, because the DM is empowered by the players to change those rules where they don't make sense (and the designers know that the DM has this power).
I'm not saying that they can't explicitly change that for 5E, but it goes against the established convention and thus we cannot use previous editions as a guideline for such.
In your terms, it's simply something our current map is not representing yet.
I'm definitely open to leaving more things undefined, especially where a more accurate map would lead to an unplayable game. That's where I would simplify my 3E spellcasting NPC by saying that most of his lower-level spell slots were spent on things that aren't relevant and are unlikely to come up. The down side to that is where people see anything that is open to interpretation and just dismiss it as "DM fiat".
My only real issue is where they try to use two conflicting maps to describe the same phenomenon. We get that there are intermediate magics that fall somewhere between at-will and daily-use, but to say that some characters have an Encounter power that refreshes when you take a short rest, and others have a Re-charge power which may or may not refresh every 6 seconds, it creates confusion as to the true nature of the territory.
It's like the old saying, "a person with a watch knows what time it is; a person with two watches is never sure." I do not care nearly as much as to what the time actually is, so long as we have consistent information around which to plan.
It's actually quite a bit of work, for much the same reason you dislike creating a spellcaster NPC in 3E - lots of choices for every level, and there's no simple alternative like just giving them "warrior" levels because that class doesn't exist anymore - they need all of those encounter and daily powers, which means they have to be selected and tracked, and in the end you wind up with something with insufficient attack and defense numbers unless you give them all of the magic items that the PCs need in order to "keep up with the monsters"; that's not even going into the issues with NPCs who have PC-equivalent healing surges.
I'm not saying that it's impossible; merely that it is not easy, and the system is not designed for it.
Well yeah, it is a lot of work doing monsters as PCs. But lets face it, PCs are a lot of work to create, so if you're using an optional system to design monsters that way, well, that's a natural consequence, unless you actually just want to make PCs really simple, which would involve stripping them down a lot.
I'm definitely open to leaving more things undefined, especially where a more accurate map would lead to an unplayable game. That's where I would simplify my 3E spellcasting NPC by saying that most of his lower-level spell slots were spent on things that aren't relevant and are unlikely to come up. The down side to that is where people see anything that is open to interpretation and just dismiss it as "DM fiat".
Ultimately that's sort of the style of any separate NPC system. For instance in 4E, a lot of the stuff like rituals and things like that are just assumed. Like the NPC necromancer animates undead through some manner of DM fiat, and the lich that charms the town works the same way. I dont' particularly see a big problem with that, because it's an obvious compromise to make things simpler. So you only really put down spells that are particularly relevant, and eliminate ones that aren't.
My only real issue is where they try to use two conflicting maps to describe the same phenomenon. We get that there are intermediate magics that fall somewhere between at-will and daily-use, but to say that some characters have an Encounter power that refreshes when you take a short rest, and others have a Re-charge power which may or may not refresh every 6 seconds, it creates confusion as to the true nature of the territory.
It's like the old saying, "a person with a watch knows what time it is; a person with two watches is never sure." I do not care nearly as much as to what the time actually is, so long as we have consistent information around which to plan.
Well the problem is that ultimately in D&D verse, there are competing explanations for any phenomenon. There are tons of classes with similar abilities and spell lists. Monsters get spell-like abilities with no consistent model for how often they can be used. That is, when you see a fireball, you aren't really sure of how many more fireballs the caster has behind it, or even how much damage that fireball does in the case of the scaling pre-4E fireballs.
Having consistent information isn't really something you ever had in D&D. Short of actually looking at an NPC statblock, you really don't know a hell of a lot about the NPC's casting method, or can't draw any conlcusions about what it can or can't do.
But lets face it, PCs are a lot of work to create, so if you're using an optional system to design monsters that way, well, that's a natural consequence, unless you actually just want to make PCs really simple, which would involve stripping them down a lot.
One thing that AD&D had going for it was that making any character, whether PC or NPC, was really pretty simple. It took longer if you wanted to fill out the spellbook of an NPC wizard, which could occasionally be a major hassle, but I would be all in favor of limiting the number of spells known to something like the 4E model.
Well the problem is that ultimately in D&D verse, there are competing explanations for any phenomenon. There are tons of classes with similar abilities and spell lists. Monsters get spell-like abilities with no consistent model for how often they can be used. That is, when you see a fireball, you aren't really sure of how many more fireballs the caster has behind it, or even how much damage that fireball does in the case of the scaling pre-4E fireballs.
Monsters are their own thing, and no PC should have any expectation for growing up to become a unicorn. Likewise, if we're not going to go into any details on how the necromancer animates the dead, then that's fine - we have limited page count, and we can say that it's not important because it's unlikely that any PC is ever going to do it (and when they do, the DM can just fiat the same way).
As for casting methods, though, it's important to me that what rules we do have are internally consistent. (All rules should be internally consistent, but this is just the most obvious break). A 3E wizard may have cast their fireball spells differently from a sorcerer or a fire-domain cleric, but they could all sit down together and rationally discuss their different philosophies, and anyone could change class to gain access to those new mechanics (if they found the right teacher). If enemy wizards are all re-charge based, and PC wizards are AEDU, then it had better be because the enemy wizards are from a different culture where they learned how to cast spells differently - there needs to be a good, in-game reason for why one arbitrary sub-set of characters is restricted to one casting method, while another sub-set is forced to use a different method.
Sure it can. I mean, you can make NPCs that are like PCs in 4E pretty easily. If you want you can give them fighter powers and do all the math, or you can use the default NPC system.
It's actually quite a bit of work, for much the same reason you dislike creating a spellcaster NPC in 3E - lots of choices for every level, ..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" class="mceContentBody " contenteditable="true" />
Incorrect. 4e NPCs using a PC template do not get feats, don't need magic items, and get 1 at-will, 1 encounter, and 1 daily. It is nowhere near as complicated as making and managing a full-fledged PC.
One thing that AD&D had going for it was that making any character, whether PC or NPC, was really pretty simple. It took longer if you wanted to fill out the spellbook of an NPC wizard, which could occasionally be a major hassle, but I would be all in favor of limiting the number of spells known to something like the 4E model.
Yeah, so long as you weren't making an NPC rogue, doing stuff in AD&D was fairly easy. Mainly because there weren't a lot of modifiers to apply and no class abilities.
A fighter was pretty much a matter of giving him weapon spec, and that's it. For a wizard, you didn't have bonus spells from intelligence or any of that, and if you really wanted to you could DM fiat his spells memorized as you went along.
Rogues were the only tough ones, becasue you had dex modifiers to thier skills and you had to spend points on their thief abilities (at least the 2E rogues had to do that).
As for casting methods, though, it's important to me that what rules we do have are internally consistent. (All rules should be internally consistent, but this is just the most obvious break). A 3E wizard may have cast their fireball spells differently from a sorcerer or a fire-domain cleric, but they could all sit down together and rationally discuss their different philosophies, and anyone could change class to gain access to those new mechanics (if they found the right teacher). If enemy wizards are all re-charge based, and PC wizards are AEDU, then it had better be because the enemy wizards are from a different culture where they learned how to cast spells differently - there needs to be a good, in-game reason for why one arbitrary sub-set of characters is restricted to one casting method, while another sub-set is forced to use a different method.
Well in my mind, it only really becomes a problem if the NPC way is better than the PC way. I mean 3E lived with NPC classes like Adepts taht were flat out worse than PC classes, and you could honestly just abstract those and say that your NPC casters tend to work the same way. Care should be taken that the NPC casting method isn't better than the PC one, but I figure that's probably not a big concern anyway, since generally NPCs are supposed to be simplified and nerfed in many ways. You only have a problem when you have a PC that would rather be the NPC style, since now the PC feels like he's being cheated out of something as opposed to being superior. One of the main issues where PCs tended to complain about the 4E NPC system is simply because 4E NPCs got more hit points and did more damage on basic attacks.
But arguably a PC probably isn't going to care if the NPC figther has 1 manuever compared to 3 for his fighter, or if the NPC wizard onyl has 1 spell instead of 2.
Incorrect. 4e NPCs using a PC template do not get feats, don't need magic items, and get 1 at-will, 1 encounter, and 1 daily. It is nowhere near as complicated as making and managing a full-fledged PC.
Mind-boggling. Are you telling me that they heard my grievance, and actually printed some rules in an attempt to reconcile these differences? And still had to hand-wave past feats and magic items and all that?
Well, at least the player characters should be less confused, since things would appear to be more consistent.
