An NPC collection is a difficult sort of product to do. With such a book, you have to provide NPCs that are useful in anyone's campaign, yet original enough to be interesting. Wizards of the Coast's Enemies and Allies does both well, leaning a little more toward the interesting than the universally applicable.

The book is very well written and well organized, with engaging character descriptions. It has five chapters: Crime, Religion, Mages, the Law, and Adventurers. Each of the first four has some "typical" NPCs (guards, thugs, etc.) as well as individual personalities. All characters have lengthy text descriptions as well as thorough stats. The stats are solid (which is really refreshing for this reviewer), but overall I think the descriptions of the characters are a bit longer than needed. I would rather have seen another NPC (at least) in each section at the expense of trimming some of this text.

There are also two appendices. The first is the "one-minute NPC," a rather forgettable randomizer for determining the class of a villain, a patron, a sage, etc. The second includes stats for all the iconic characters. (The iconics are characters of each class used in examples and art in the core D&D books.) Each is presented at 5th, 10th, and 15th level. This is useful, because these characters are so very generic. Need a paladin quick? Pull out Alhandra and you're good to go (one of those three levels should work for you, right?). I like this appendix. What I really miss from it is any mention of the iconics' personalities or anything about their background. This product would have been a great opportunity to flesh these characters out a bit, and the designers did not seize it. (I wish they had merged the style of the main part of the book with this appendix -- lots of useful stat blocks with only a moderate amount of descriptive text.) It looks as though someone told the authors: "...and stick in the stats for the iconics somewhere in this book." So they did what they were told, and nothing more.

But let's look at the book as a whole and see if it really does what a DM needs it to do. The descriptions are written assuming that you'll make these characters into longstanding NPCs in your game, and thus are too long (but I said that already). Personally, I look at this more as an "I need an NPC, quick!" sort of book. I know that, when I DM, that need crops up fairly often.

So, the PCs wander into the woods and start making trouble. You want a druid or a ranger who watches over the woods to show up. Does the book have what you need? Abrian is just such a druid. Chandra Skyreaver will work as the ranger. Hopefully their levels suit your campaign, but if not, you can pull out the iconics for these classes, Vadania and Soveliss, at 5th, 10th, or 15th. Because Enemies and Allies fills most basic niches like this, I think DMs will find it useful. I wouldn't use every character in this book, but I'd use a lot of them, just to fill holes in my game when they crept up on me.

One interesting bonus in this product is that the writers did not design the stats for the NPCs in either the simplest or the most straightforward manner. Instead, they really show off multiclassing possibilities in the game. Rosal the paladin/sorcerer is one of my favorites. And the book goes beyond the standard races as well, like Yarrick Zan, the mind flayer assassin, and Blind Jak, the umber hulk monk.

On the down side, I wish some sections had been given more thought. The typical city guards presented are fine, but where are the elite guards? Every large D&D city would naturally recruit individuals able to deal with invisible thieves, a rampaging minotaur, or an evil cultist summoning monsters all over the place. But they're not here.

I was also disappointed to find that at least two of the NPCs were characters from previous products (two of the undead adventurers are from the module Heart of Nightfang Spire). An unfortunate waste of space for anyone who picked up that great adventure (and you should).

But those are pretty minor quibbles. I think you'll get a lot of use out of this book. I know I will. Could you just download Jamis Buck's NPC generator and use that instead? Sure. (And whether or not you get Enemies and Allies, I think you should download the generator, because it's wonderful and free -- although you can and should send Jamis a few bucks in gratitude.) But the NPCs in this book have the bonus of being interestingly fleshed out and well equipped, not randomly generated rogues who spend all their skill points on Craft and Rope Use.

Plus, you simply might not have thought to give the local cleric of Heironeous some fighter and expert levels or create an ettercap cleric.

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