You did it. Your traitor PC did what traitor PCs do and finally turned their back on theDungeons & Dragonsparty forever, monologuing about how friendshipisn’tmagic, actually. They’re going to crush their former companions now that they’ve taken the Hand of Whoever and ascended to BBEG-dom. Yay!

Your player rolls up a new character, and you realize that you have a fun new NPC to play with. But… how? It might feel weird to use your player’s old sheet, or the confines of the sheet limit what you’re able to add to the character without risking balance issues. So, how do you go about making the switch?

Dungeons and Dragons Rime of the Frostmaiden

Don’t Just Make (Or Use) A Character Sheet

You should useamonster’s stat blockinstead of a character sheet.

There are fundamental design differences between monsters and PCs, especially relating to abilities. You can really mess up your challenge rating of an encounter by not accounting for these differences. Here are a couple more to keep in mind:

Built to withstand back-to-back combative encounters

DND Adventurer in a cloak running through a maze of brain matter.

Built to attack in groups

Text-heavy and designed to hold various backstory and combat notes

A barbarian intimidating a guard in D&D

Less text helps streamline combat for quicker encounters

Higher AC, more variety with action economy, and higher damage output

Dungeons & Dragons art of rogue stealing a magical crown.

More hit points and legendary actions for higher-level bosses

PC vs. PC combat works better one-on-one but becomes uneven if you pit three PCs against a single character sheet

Dungeons & Dragons image From Tasha’s Cauldron Of Everything, an Orc Monk Of the Four Elements unleashes a Ki-Fueled Attack.

Created to handle groups of PCs lobbing themselves at them

Hours can go into calculating a sheet without a Virtual Table Top to help, and it’s wasted time and efforton your part to build a character sheet for something your players are likely meant to defeat.

You’re already managing an entire world and a party. Don’t make life harder for yourself!

You also don’t want to outshine your players. Sure, it’s fun to take the wind out of a player’s sails sometimes, but it’s no fun to watch your DM overshadow you with what many would consider to be a DMNPC.

Use The Monster Manual

Go through one of the manysourcebooksthat provide stat blocks, or find a source online from the many talented creators in the Dungeons & Dragons sphere.

Most published resources are pretty well-balanced, and you can find something you like that matches up with the challenge rating you want.

If the player character was a wizard, find a stat block that matches up with the player’s abilities. You may use the Mage stat block, but you could also use the Lich and tweak it. You can alsolook in the manual for stat blocks with higher CR ratings.

Using a stat block will helpstreamline your combat, which can be helpful in bloated parties.

You can always go in andchange what you don’t likeabout the stat block, butconsider using an NPC stat block as a springboard.You can always build on it, and it stands as a pretty reasonable template.

Mix And Match

Feel free to combine abilities from other monsters to see what fits. Just be sure tokeep balance in mindand notoversaturate your stat blockwith wild abilities.

You can also add in-character feats if you don’t want to pull directly from a stat block.

Use Old Class Features

Barbarian/Intimidation by Mark Behm

When converting a character sheet to a stat block,look at the player’s features.

What stands out as quintessentially ‘that character?‘Was the Battlemaster known for using Trip Attack liberally? Was the drow warlock castingDarknessas a means of crowd control? You canadd that to the stat block.

Adding player abilities to stat blocks is far easier than building the whole thing from scratch,and can help make the NPC feel more personal to the players or give them a unique feeling.

Regardless of any nostalgia the party may or may not feel concerning the character, sometimes adding one or two player abilities can help shake things up andmake the players approach the character differently.

For example, their tactics may entirely shift when they realize the NPC that they thought was a Fighter can use the Gloomstalker’sDread Ambusherability.

Consider usingTasha’s Cauldron of Everything’s sidekick rules, if your players are bringing along the NPC.

These few player character abilities will allow them to keep pace while still letting the party have their moments to shine.

Converting An NPC Statblock To A Character Sheet

Of course, there may always be the reverse.A player may join the game too late to justify a new characterentering the scene, such as in modules like Curse of Strahd.

Oftentimes, a DM will give a player an NPC to play, but as the sessions go on, the player becomes more permanent.

This creates a problem, asthe player will now forever be lagging behind the player charactersin terms of ability. So, you canconvert the stat block to a character sheet.

Talk It Out

First, get together with the player and find a class that matches with the NPC. Because theNPC is preexisting, yourplayer will beworking within a world’s continuity.

This means they have less inherent freedom than your other players before their session zero.

For instance, if the stat block was a Dryad, look for nature-themed classes: ranger, druid, or cleric.

Replace Feats

If it’s balanced,consider replacing one of the player’s featswith one of thestat block’scapabilities. If the player is playing a wizard that formerly used the Archmage stat block, you can give them the Archmage’s six languages or resistance to non-magical bludgeoning.

Spells

A lot of stat blocks come with inherent spells. One idea to incorporate them would be toswap a preexisting spell slot for the stat block’s spell.So, in the case of the dryad, letting the player have access toShillelagh.

You can also let this function as afeat, letting them have a once-per-day cast of whatever iconic spell the NPC had. This aligns with preexisting feats in the game, so it shouldn’t cause too much of a stir.

Reconfigure Stats

If the game is far enough along that having higher stats works, don’t worry about rerolling the former NPC’s stats.

Stats make up what and who the character is.Unless you’re working with a class far out of the bounds of what the NPC is already predispositioned towards,you should likely keep their stats where they are.

However,if your other players are fairly low-level, you should reapportion them.In the case of the former archmage, you may either employ thepoint-buy systemor take some of the points out of their highest stat and plug them into a weaker one.

Make sure you’re only letting the playerkeep one or two abilitiesand that your entire table is okay with converting the stat block to the sheet.