One of the more challenging aspects of being a Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master is preparing NPCs for the party to interact with. A good NPC not only has their own ambitions, flaws, and personalities, but they also need to be ready to fight with or against your players. After all, every social encounter is just one murderhobo PC away from becoming a full-blown combat encounter.
If you're struggling to build an NPC with unique but balanced abilities, you might want to check out Adaptable NPCs, a new supplement published on DMs Guild. Adaptable NPCs contains a collection of 70 NPCs with diverse backgrounds and abilities. Each of the NPCs has its own statblock along with brief summaries about their general personalities and potential uses in a campaign. As the supplement's name suggests, all of the NPCs can be used in a variety of situations, whether it's acting as a quest giver for the party, a temporary companion, or just a foe for the party to overcome.
Although many of the NPCs are geared for combat, the real strength of Adaptable NPCs are the NPCs made to either assist or hinder players in social and non-combat encounters. For instance, the Mediator has advantage on all Charisma, Intelligence, and Wisdom skill checks, while the King has advantage on Charisma checks involving his (or her) subjects. Other NPCs are built around popular character builds, so that players can interact with a Bladesinger or an Oathbound Paladin.
In addition to the actual NPCs, Adaptable NPCs comes with eight mini-adventures that feature the NPCs in different roles. Like the NPCs themselves, all eight adventures can be adapted for use in just about any campaign and serve as any easy way to introduce NPCs into your campaign with minimal preparation.
A DM always needs more NPCs in their pocket and Adaptable NPCs is a fantastic resource to help DMs in a pinch. Don't be surprised if some of these NPCs become the foundations for the most memorable characters in your Dungeons & Dragons campaign!
Adaptable NPCs is available for $9.95 on DMs Guild.
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Source: https://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/12/29/dungeons-and-dragons-adaptable-npcs/
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