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Jul 24, 2012 -- 4:49AM, Orzel wrote:

I think one way to handle source material spellcasters is to bring back and empower NPC classes. Make a set of adventurer classes and nonadventurer classes and distribute the many class features attributed the archetypes between them.

I think the archetypal characters that we imagine in D&D are not simply members of the same class. The wizard with their stacks of spell and ritual books, a laboratory filled with magic items and arcane foci, and decades of adventuring experience is not just a wizard. The fighter who quested for a famed weapon, used it to save a kingdom, and later retired in a self made keep with his small band of loyal men is not just a fighter.

The first is a wizard who is a tough adventuring arcanist who collects spells and a mage who is a stay-at-tower arcanist who (given time) can discover spells on his own. The second is a fighter/aristocrat.

Your "wizard" can attempt to learn some of the powerful arcane spell he snagged from the lich she destroyed but it would be a very difficult process with with many all or nothing attempts and failures. But with a few levels of "mage", a few lower HD, a slower spell slot gain, and a couple months; she can copy and learn the whole thing.

So the super powerful helper wizard is not a wizard, he or she is a high level mage or mage/wizard multiclass.

I'm not fond of the concept of NPC classes personally. I was never fond of the concept that "everyone has a class" from the start. I don't see class or character mechanics are rules of the WORLD, just as the rules that PLAYERS follow in order to create appropriately powered characters and advance them, and establish them conceptually within an archetype.

NPCs can of course conform to the various archetypes, but there's no need for them to conform to class rules that are just intended to allow the players to make up their PCs (IE if there were no class rules then the DM would have to decide what things each PC could do, clearly having rules for this that the players can follow is better).

4e is of course the poster child for this sort of design. Technically you could make an NPC using PC rules or the simpler NPC rules from DMG1, but I would note that there is not even one single example of that subsystem being used in any official WotC product (and they never even bothered to provide the necessary templates for classes after PHB2). All 4e NPCs in published material are either monster stat blocks, or just RP descriptions where you wouldn't actually ever fight them. Personally I find this much less constraining. I can simply create a 'support wizard' type NPC however I want to. I can use a level assignment to give me combat stats if I ever need them, and gauge generally what sorts of stuff he can do to be more or less capable than a PC in specific ways. Beyond that I can just do whatever I want, assign them any ability or power, make up rituals and lore for them to know, etc.

Frankly I'd find the 3.x concept where everyone is some sort of class to be quite tedious and constraining. It was less of an issue perhaps in AD&D, but generally it still felt a bit awkward and the concept that "every baron is a 9th level fighter" that was implied by NPCs with classes wasn't that useful to me. So, I'd not bother with NPC classes, either dedicated ones nor using the PC ones, except as sort of guidelines for what an NPC MIGHT do.

Jul 24, 2012 -- 9:51AM, viper5 wrote:

Jul 24, 2012 -- 7:36AM, SleepsInTraffic wrote:

Jul 23, 2012 -- 8:55PM, thestoryteller wrote:

Harry Dresden (mostly--the cop isn't supernatural, but she's pretty much the only character that matters who isn't)

Waldo Butters
Michael Carpenter(a paladin, but not a caster)
Charity Carpenter (Used to be a caster but gave it up and is now a pure fighter)
Sanya (a paladin, but not a caster)
Karin Murphy
Father Forthill
Johnny Marcone
Hendricks

None of them are casters.  A couple of them have magic items.
Spoiler: Show

Michael doesn't even have the magic weapon anymore, but his family does enjoy protection perks for him having been such a good wielder of the sword for so long.

All of them contribute to the story in their own way.  Dresden himself regularly needs these people's help because he can't do everything on his own.  He has a daily limit on what he can do, and personal limits on what he can do (Specializes in evocation, and thaumaturgy, but fine control has always been a problem for him so his illusions hardly ever work, moreover he is somewhat restricted by his foci, and what he is prepared for).  Every so often he digs past these limitations but often at great personal cost to himself.  In my mind dresden is sorta the best example of what a wizard should be like.

 

They all help contribute to the story, but the story in unequivocally Dresden's - they are helpers. It works great for the story, and it is interesting seeing all their interactions and places where a character that hasn't done much comes out and has a presence for a bit, but that is radically not the scenario one could apply to a dnd game.

When you sit down with the players at a dnd game, everyone is the main character - there really shouldn't be much differentiation of importance between the players. The major goal of the game - as with any game - is so that each player has a roughly equal impact on the game, whether through combat or socializing or utility or what. That's the problem: you can't have your casters be the powerful mages from literature while keeping your mundanes as realistic as possible and have both exist in the same party.

Or you explain that relationship between the characters.  I see no problem with someone playing the "Gandalf"  role either as a DM or a fellow player.  It in fact sounds like a desireable character to play.  Just explain how to properly write for those types of characters at your table though.  Make it so the gandalf character needs to go off and do stuff on his own to help the party kinda like gandalf did.