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The NPC Handbook: How to build Quality NPCs for your Dungeons and Dragons Stories
D&D: How to Create an NPC
No NPC needs the depth of background, personality, and statistics that a well-crafted player character has. Many NPCs just need a name, a couple of skills, and a word or two about their place in the world and how it relates to the characters. For example, the town priest Volund worships Mielikki and has a number of magic scrolls that he can use: scroll of spike growth, scroll of conjure animals, scroll of lesser restoration, and scroll of cure wounds (6th level).
We discuss a simple seven-step guide to summarize an NPC’s essential elements so that they can interact with the player characters in a meaningful and memorable way.
Better D&D 5e Boss Battles with Home Field Advantage!
Homefield Advantage!
Lair actions, introduced in D&D 5th Edition, give shape to epic battles by introducing new gameplay mechanics which the players will associate with a boss monster for years to come. However, despite the fact that player characters face off against boss monsters at every tier of play, only a small portion of creatures, most of which in the 3rd and 4th tiers of play, were given lair actions.
Homefield Advantage provides a collection of over 250 unique sets of lair actions, covering more than 320 of the most iconic D&D creatures, so that you can create thrilling boss battles for every tier of play, and breathe new life into some of your old favorites.
Make Monsters Scary Again using Lair Actions!
Are you sick of your epic villains dying in just a few turns as the party surrounds and splats them?
Do you get frustrated that your boss fights turn into boring slug fests where everyone involved just stands still and wallops each other?
Do you want to fill your players with dread anticipation with only two words?
“Lair Action. Skeletal hands burst from the floor and walls around you grasping and clawing.”
“Lair Action. The cave ceiling cracks, covering the ground with uneven rubble, it looks like the section above your head is about to collapse.”
“Lair Action. Maddening whispers fill your mind, urging, demanding, screaming that you turn on your allies and kill.”