Hey, what are your methods for creating NPC's (monsters, and just normal people.) Do you basically roll a character sheet for them? I am trying to find a super easy way to do this mainly for minion type creatures. Any ideas/ help?

The easy way is simply to give them whatever characteristics, skills and talents they require to fulfill their role in the adventure.

Unlike D&D, there is no hard and fast mechanic for the generation of NPCs and (if you look at the templates in the back of the book) they expressly do not follow the rules for PC character creation.

Agreed with Lucius here. When I make npcs I decide what role they are going to play in the adventure then give them a couple talents and skills to reflect this. I don't bother worrying about what level they should need to be if they were actually a member of a profession, nor do I concern myself with peripheral details. I jot down the important stats (ws or bs, willpower, toughness) the AP of their armor, Wounds, weapon basics, and usually about 4 talent/skill mix and that's it aside from a quick description to remind me who they are. Takes about five minutes. Putting any more work into it is usually unnecessary and will only frustrate you quickly.

page 336- 355 in the main rule book has a plethora of personae available for use!

This might be going on to the 'too far' method, but when I run PCs of some major plot- or event-related importance, I usually roll them out fully as characters.

I find this works relatively well, as I can build some well-rounded characters over a dual-moded approach of taking skills/talents I think are appropriate to the character, and building on the character through more skills and talents. Then I just chuck on any suitable equipment, disorders/malignancies, and longlasting injuries (I usually roll once or twice on the critical tables for any lasting injuries if they're a heavily combat-scarred character).

I've found that having these "NPC PCs" built in the same way as the PCs gives thema real challenge, as they have to face off against characters who are effectively their equal in whatever field(s) the character does well in. Most of my stuff revolves around inter-inquisition infighting, so the character classes don't feel too forced to me.

Some of the best combat encounters I've run have been the actual PCs vs fully NPC PCs. The fight vs the other rank 4 cell on top of the long-destroyed Imperator titan, where Plagueface killed an enemy with his own severed arm firing a lasgun, for example. The fight between our moritat assassin and an inquisitorial arbitrator on a catwalk above a busy highway, where she shockmauled him and then kicked him off the edge. Or our campaign finale, where our other melee assassin faced off against a melee cleric, ending when the cleric finally succumbed to blood loss and collapsed trying to pick up his own Eviscerator again.

There was plenty of noncombat stuff too, mind you, but these are just the moments that really stick out with fully-designed NPCs. Then again, I have a *lot* of time on my hands so it's not really a hassle.

I hardly ever write up full stats. For NPCs that the PCs run around with for extended periods I just record, like Jack of Tears, the most relevant numbers and improvise the rest. This has served me well in my campaign, which is heavy on investigation and social interaction.

Most of the time my NPCs are concocted on the fly, roughly according to the formula below:

1. A brief description with at least one distinctive feature
2. Come up with a name if I haven't already
3. If stats become relevant I decide them on the fly by placing the character in one of a number of broad categories in respect to that stat: incapable 10; incompetent 15; untrained 25; average/trained 30; well-trained 35; expert 40; masterful 50;excellent 60; and so on, in 10 point increments. I apply these categories to both attributes and skills. Talents I assign based on the NPC's profession or focus (eg. Takedown for law enforcers, Master Chirurgoen for surgeons, Unshakable Faith for the deeply religious).
4. Make brief notes about the character for sake of future consistency.

A simple system like this makes improvisation so much easier than writing up full stats or leafing through bestiaries. A fact all GMs are aware of, but always stands repeating.

The rulebooks' character generation is so focused on the character in question being an Acolyte that its usefulness is quite limited for most NPCs. What I do like to use, though, are the random generation tables (home worlds, etc). They can be mined for tons of ideas for NPCs. This is not to say I don't use basic character generations at all - in fact, I very much like to play around with them. Any characters I create thus hardly ever and up in my campaign, except as inspiration. I just don't like having to juggle numbers or notes.

I've been using mostly modules so far, complete with stats. I'm not averse to changing those stats, adding talents here and there, and improving on the characters based on the fluff about them.

Other than that I reccomend assigning stats based on what's approriate rather than using a character creation system.

For guidelines, remember the average human range of 25 to 35 in most characteristics. Otherwise I base mine on the ones in the main book.

For creatures there is a xeno generator in the gamemaster companion (gm screen with one adventure and the generator). I've tried it once, and generated two monstrous xeno creatures that can tear apart normal acolytes with ease. But you can also make fairly weak ones with it if you want to.

I make use of the pre-written NPCs in the adventures, sometimes tweaked to suit the power level of my group. For the more "generic" NPCs I will make use of one of the "templates" in the back of my DH core book/RT/Other source books. For more significant yet still non-focal NPCs I will generally start with one of the existing templates and then add-on or modify it: Simply tweaking a stat block to account for homeworld and then adding a few skills and talents really does work wonders! If I intend the NPC to play a more important role then I will go to the trouble of doing a detailed write-up for them complete with a full custom build. If as sometimes happens one of your "background" NPCs takes on more importance (say, a PC takes an interest in them that does not involve brutal, horrible death!) then I will come up with a few quick details to make them stand out on the fly and then stat them out further before the next session.

Having NAMES and a basic description are really the most important things here, as well as a few distinctive traits or quirks. One of the most notorious NPCs in my game is still the unstatted local guide from Maggots in the Meat who prattles endlessly on about the "miracles of saltwater". Psy (our team's Techpriest) still shudders at the very mention of saltwater! Mind you, he was still capable of bouyancy back then and never actually ended up in the water... Just the mere Al Gore level of junk science that vomited forth in an endless stream from their too-useful-to-kill guide. Ahh, such joys of the GM.

Thank you guys so much, made making my npc's so much easier.

Dark Heresy is a game that makes extrapolation easy. Once you know the basic template for something (say, a Tech-Priest), you can up- or down-power them quite easily depending on the needs of the game being played. As long as you have a good base to work from (I used the Marine in Purge the Unclean for my Marine NPC's, the Tech-Priest career for any Tech-Priests, an Assassin/Desperado combo for the Throne Agent that sometimes helps the players, and so on) it is quite easy to extrapolate the skills they need.

In the current part of the campaign we're playing, I've got 7 NPC's. Two of them remain stat-less, as they won't be getting into combat or involved with any tests. Another just has the bare minimum of what he needs (WS, BS, S, T, Wounds, Armour, Ammo), and the rest have truncated character sheets that show all the various stats, skills, talents, traits and gear they have, all done in a manner that allows me to keep track of them without cluttering everything up.

BYE