Design question

[FateAce]

So I'm setting up a random monster table to an upcoming campaign, and I wanted to put bandits on the chart, but noticed that there weren't any monster entries for any of the major races. Later in the book I read about NPC parties and saw that bandits should just be level 1 fighters.

I guess that makes sense but I was curious why this decision was made. Why use the character creation rules for enemies? Are the power levels of PC's so low that opponents can be the same and still be reasonably defeated? Is it a commentary no not killing people because only monsters are evil enough to deserve such a fate and therefore people are just all around harder to kill?( I'm joking about that last one, but as I type, I realize that could be an interesting storytelling detail for a campaign setting in general. I may need to experiment with my pathfinder group...).

In any case, I'm cool with with just custom making a stat block for the purposes of larger encounters, but I wouldn't mind some insight on these design decisions.

[Solomoriah]

I guess I don't understand your question. How would a level 1 fighter differ fundamentally from a 1 hit die monster? How does it matter if a bandit is one or the other?

[Dimirag]

I think the questions is "why npcs don't use the monster data template?"

To me, it is because npc are characters and thus follows the creation for characters, plus, monsters tend to be the same on their type, skeletons are all the same for ex, but npc exist in greater variety, even two 1st level bandits could be extremely different.

[chiisu81]

Similar to many other things, because that's how the original game did it.

NPCs (of any race) will have HD/HP depending on what their class is (pages 7&8 of BFRPG Core), rather than a flat xd8 like monsters. Also, an NPC's AC will depend on what they're wearing (non-magical or magical). If you look at any of the adventures, you'll see an NPC's entry is pretty similar to a monster's, with the addition of listing any ability scores that grant a penalty or bonus along with their equipment they carry.

[Solomoriah]

Actually, the original game circa 1981 (the "coverage target" edition) did have monster entries for the character races. This was a carryover from similar usage in even earlier works. It actually made some of them tougher than if you created them as average NPCs.

[FateAce]

To answer the question, I was primarily asking why having a combat opponent that's a playable race (like humans) must use the same rules as PC's for combat. Though the other posts here have answered that question. I was just confused since that makes creating those particular combatants harder to add to a wandering monster table.

I assume I can skip rolling attributes for them though, correct?

[Solomoriah]

You can, in fact, skip rolling stats.

Or just use the NPC generator in the Tools section (see the navigation bar above).