I have owned this document for a few years and it is one of my most-used bestiaries. It has been especially useful in my current "goblin" campaign where the party is fighting a lot of humanoids.

This product might not be fancy but it has been a workhorse of mine for quite a while.

Make no mistake: This product is no Versatile NPCs, with its custom, exciting new abilities. The rules provided expand the foes already present on your MM to more diverse (and specially higher) challenge ratings. With this product in hand you won't have to face the horror of seeing that the Knight is CR 3 and that's it, anything else is up to you. I understand that DMs with more prep time can easily create their own stats, or even level up the stats on the MM, but for me since I got little prep time and my games are very open ended my options are usually limited to either quick reskin of something CR appropriate or surprise bunch of knights! So one may understand why I like this product so much, being able to open the Fighters section to pick a middle ground CR appropriate npc and add some lower level lieutanants on the fly.

All in all this is one of those "everyone should own a copy of this" kind of product.

I'm really into this set. I love that it's based around the NPCs from the MM, which are good, versatile subtypes that can be stuck in just about any situation (I'm using some of the bandit and scout entries to flesh out some of the barbarian tribes in Storm King's Thunder).

Would love to see an expansion that also included some of the NPC types from Volo's!

I really like this short-but-sweet supplement from Scott Metzger, which provides expanded (i.e., different CR) versions of the various types of NPC’s found in the 5th edition Monster Manual. I definitely give it a thumbs-up!

That being said, take my feedback with a grain of salt. I’m fairly new at DM’ing. I did play a descent amount of 1st edition back in high school, as well as 3rd edition during the Living Greyhawk RPGA days. I recently took up DM’ing 5th edition to get my teenage son and his friends into D&D. About a year ago, I started a Temple of Elemental Evil campaign for them (using the 1st edition module converted to 5th edition). At that time, I found myself heavily leaning on the handful of NPC’s detailed in the Monster Manual (i.e., Commoner, Guard, Bandit, Bandit Captain, Thug, Cultist, Scout, Druid, Priest, Veteran). Having those NPC stat blocks made things so easy!

But the need for an expanded set of NPC stat blocks arose when we decided to take a break and do a brief Tomb of Horrors campaign (again converting the 1st edition module to 5th edition). The plan is for their pre-generated high-level party to spend several weeks traveling from their starting city all the way down to where the Tomb of Horrors is located. Naturally, this means random encounters! — which will help them get familiar with their characters’ abilities before entering the tomb. I’m using the extensive encounter tables available in the old World of Greyhawk boxed set, and I’m correlating those results with the 1st edition Monster Manual, where it suggests the “number of creatures appearing” for each type of creature they encounter. So far, most of the encounters are with humans, specifically pirates (as the party is sailing down the coast). On top of that, they are hitching a ride on a merchant vessel, which means even more NPC’s (albeit on their side!), especially the array of guards that the merchants employ.

All this to say, these encounters are requiring me to have stat blocks for a range of NPC’s — or more precisely, a range of NPC’s of various levels. For instance, the description of pirates in the 1st edition Monster Manual suggests that, aside from the standard 50-300 pirates encountered, there will be a 3rd level fighter for every 50 pirates, a 5th level fighter for every 100 fighters, as well as an 8th or 10th level captain, a 6th or 7th level lieutenant, and 4 other 4th level mates. When it comes to the 50-300 merchants (80% of which are guards), the Monster Manual says the guards will be led by a 6th-11th level fighter and a lieutenant 1 level lower (i.e., 5th-10th).

With this in mind, Scott Metzger’s NPC expansion supplement is a boon for me! It gives me a progression for each of the NPC categories from the Monster Manual. This means that, for the guard captain and his lieutenant, I have some higher level options in the guard category than just the Monster Manual’s 2 HD Guard to draw upon — namely, the 6 HD Guard Sergeant and the 12 HD Guardian from Metzger’s expansion. If I need them to be slightly stronger or slightly weaker, I can just start with one of those NPC’s as a base, and then increase or decrease the hit dice and associated hit points (as well as possibly adjusting an ability score or two). Likewise, while the Monster Manual gives be a 10 HD Bandit Captain to use for my pirate captain, I can now draw on Metzger’s 6 HD Brigand for the lieutenant to the pirate captain. For the 4 mates, I can start with the 6 HD Brigand as base, and then reduce it down to a 4 HD Brigand.

Anyways, I hope this review of how I benefitted from Metzger’s NPC expansion is useful to others who are considering it.

I've been using this supplement for over a year now. It just dawned on me how much I actually use it and like it, so I came here to write this review. Without a doubt this is an essential part of my D&D campaigns, and I use it for almost every session. There just seems to be a lack of variety in stats for NPCs in the Monster Manual, which this NPC Foe Expansion fills perfectly. Especially for some stonger / higher level NPCs. Highly recommended.

This document is really helpful when PCs go "off script." I can use it to easily provide diversity to the NPCs that my players encounter.

I recently used a couple of NPCs from this collection. After a near TPK, I looked at the npcs and compared them to the rules in the DMG for creating a monster and found that the ratings were a tad lower than they should have been.

Nice work. Some NPC have a lot of features and this can reduce to more meaning full features.

This pdf is awesome and incredibly utile.

The 5e MM contains a run of monsters that feel all over the map: assassins and mages, but only at the top of their game; guards but no sergeants; nobles but not popes.

I use this book in most of my games: it produces a version of most of the "types" of humanoid enemies at a range of CRs from 1/4 to a bunch at 12.

It adds low level apprentices for my archmages, high level champions for my guards, mid level sentinels for my scouts, and many many more.

I'm so fond of this book, I would love it if it were released under the SRD as well, so that I could index it alongside the MM NPC entries.

Absolutely fantasic! Really opens up the progression of certain orders and can help keep certain factions a threat for longer periods of time. These NPCs can be used with other humanoids (Orcs, Hobgolbins, etc) to really open up the world.

AWSOME!!! this thing is realy good please make something like this agian! seriously, good work!!!

Super-helpful. Offers higher-level challenge rating versions of some of the standard NPCs in the Monster Manual. A great time-saver for DMs. I purchased it just a few days ago and in prepping for a session this weekend I've already used it a bunch of times. While you can build high-level NPCs from the Player's Handbook, these ready-to-go statblocks are the ticket when you need a quick drop-in, and the standard statblock format is easy to use at the table.