Finding Npc villager stats

[Drkman85024]

Hi everyone I am hoping you can help me with a problem. Years ago I found a 3.5 book that listed all the different stats for basic NPCs you would find in places like villages and cities but it's been so long I don't remember the books name. Would any of you know the book by chance and I know it's not Enemies and Allies. Please any help finding this book or a comparable book would amazing and I would be most grateful.

[Mike Miller]

The DMG has some npc stats. Maybe Cityscape?

[Kelb_Panthera]

The DMG has several tables for quick-gen'ing NPCs of the five NPC classes, complete with standard gear, in one of the later chapters.

[Thurbane]

If you can obtain a copy of Librum Ceteri, Everyone Else: A Book of Innkeepers, Farmers & More, it's an excellent 3rd party supplement that has tons of pre-gen NPC stats, for peasants, cooks, farmers, smiths etc. Extremely useful.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16606/Everyone-Else-A-Book-of-Innkeepers-Farmers--More?it=1

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/16606/Everyone-Else-A-Book-of-Innkeepers-Farmers--More?it=1

[zlefin]

if none of the better options work out you could use the pathfinder NPC sources:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/npc-s/

[Fizban]

The DMG has several tables for quick-gen'ing NPCs of the five NPC classes, complete with standard gear, in one of the later chapters.
I only see PC classes there.

There are multiple books, both first and third party, but the quality/usefulness of the statblocks is often questionable. Just like a lot of adventures, a lot of NPC compilations assume far more high 2nd+ level NPCs than there are. Further, each book will have a different idea of what is normal or optimized.

For example, Cityscape has basic statblocks for guards, craftsmen, nobles, and a couple others. It names a 1st level expert an "apprentice," 5th level a "journeyman," and 10th level a "master," gives them a mix of skills, and has them take Skill Focus: Craft multiple times for different crafts. But a 1st level expert with skill focus and masterwork tools can take 10 to hit DC 20, allowing them to craft masterwork items without fail- shouldn't that mean they're already a master? And you don't need to be an expert to do that at all, since even a commoner has 2 skill points per level and craft in-class. While the 10th level expert has enough diplomacy to become anyone's friend on a nat 1, or 50/50 anyone into "helpful" without so much as flashing a coin, and enough bluff to 50/50 most people even on a nat 1. And these are all human stats, so if you want a different race you have to strip out the human feat and skill points and apply all the racial modifiers and then double check that it makes sense, as the suggested skill point changes are all over the place prioritizing the preservation of all of them rather than removing one.

But over in DMG2, the table says a 1st level specialist starts with a total +13 in their main skill, unless its concentration, craft, knowledge, perform, or profession which lack the extra +2s in core feats, but then what about non-core feats, and once again the non-humans?

If all you want is full monsterized statbock you can use right this second and screw the details, Cityscape is probably the easiest 1st party. But if you want your stock NPCs to make any amount of sense, it's best to build them to suit your tastes. Personally I think it would make a lot more sense to build the statblocks with no race at all and leave any skills not directly linked to the job unspent: not every mid-level smith is going to be a master negotiator, the only thing they need have in common is *smithing*, so assign the required number of skills and feats to meet your expectations of smithing or diplomat or whatever and leave the rest blank so you can slap those on whatever a specific NPC leans towards. This also leaves room for NPCs with extra skill points to pile on more related skills and be better, so that you can have a "master" of something, and a "master" of multiple things, or a "master" who's better than most thanks to having more skill points to buy more related skills.

In some ways the ability to take 10 on crafts, which also tend to cap out at DC 20, skews the system into looking like any bonus past +10 doesn't matter. This can be solved by prohibiting crafts from taking 10 so that a +19 is needed to be a truly reliable master, but this means those 1st level NPCs that make up the bulk of society can't make a lot of standard things. If a master is instead graded on how fast they can make a thing, having a +20 so you can take +10 DC to craft faster becomes a new benchmark (which keeps going up by +10's), and +20 is a lot closer to the required bonus for reliability in skills where you can't take 10.

And what constitutes a "master" depends entirely on what they do. For crafts, +10 lets you hit masterwork when you take 10. But for diplomacy you can't take 10, and the question of what attitude to what attitude at what reliability counts as a master is up to the DM. What sort of obstacles is a master sailor expected to overcome with reliability, and how much bonus do they need for that? If a master lockpicker must overcome a superior lock, they need +20 even when taking 20. And so on.