PDA

View Full Version : What is the point of monster classes?



Doppelganger
2010-02-15, 03:43 PM
I was flipping through the Libris Mortis, and paused at the monster classes section. At first it seems vauguel like a cool "so you wanted to be a vampire" sort of thing, but is there any crunch at all behing this?

Take the Mohrg. 20 level class, 14 HD, OK skills (every third level) +7 BAB, +14 to various stats, paralyzing touch, +9 natural armor. The end result is, by level 20, you perfectly re-create... (get ready)

A 6TH LEVEL SPELL! YAY!

Geez, the wizard fights better (and gets nicer saves) in an AM field, and the cleric can churn out three bodygaurds as strong (or stronger if he has corpsecrafting feats) as you.

Oh yah, if you go toe-to-toe with a REAL mohrg at level 8, when you're supposed to, it will kill you in about four rounds.

Can you please explain why you would do this?

-Pixie

Sinfire Titan
2010-02-15, 03:45 PM
To allow high-powered (HA!) templates and races without upsetting the campaign.

Mikeavelli
2010-02-15, 03:49 PM
In a campaign run by a friend, he gave us Monster class levels (Usually the really powerful ones, outsiders and such) - at a rate of two levels worth of abilities for each level we raised.

We'd get one additional hit die each time we leveled up, and all the stats\abilities of a first and second level (then third and fourth, etc) monster. These were "reward" levels intended to be flavorful and slightly more powerful than advancing as normal classes.

Sort of like how Prestige Classes were supposed to be.

It worked out fine. Slightly overpowered compared to the heavily underpowered normal way, but all in all very fun.

Doppelganger
2010-02-15, 03:50 PM
@SinfireTitan

Ok, but if a level 20 monster breathes on you, you will die. The end. This is balanced?

Am I missing something? Do these classes stack with regular levels(that is if you are a level 20 fighter,are you also a level 20 morgh)? If they do, I can see the point. But as far as I can tell, it looks like a good way to end up with a character who dies every encounter if he gets his hands dirty.

-Pixie

FishAreWet
2010-02-15, 03:55 PM
They're options. The high level ones are horrible, you're right. Wizards way overpriced them, and many of the abilities don't even scale.

The_Snark
2010-02-15, 03:58 PM
Specifically, the point of monster classes is to allow players to pick a monster they like and begin playing it from level 1. Without that, you cannot play, say, a mind flayer unless the DM would normally let you play a level 15 character.

The larger problem with playing as monsters is that most of them have too much LA. A few lucky ones manage to be equivalent to standard characters with class levels (ogres and minotaurs are solid melee characters, succubi make good beguiler-types), but most monster characters then run into the further problem that they've got to take a different class once they're done with their HD and LA. Rather than build on their natural abilities, they have to start picking up level 1 class abilities. For melee characters and other sneaky types, this isn't so bad, but spellcasters (or psions, or binders, or incarnates...) usually do pretty poorly. It's a lot like building a multiclass character—if your two classes (or in this case, your class and monstrous abilities) don't help one another at all, then the character isn't going to do too well.

Making this problem worse are cases like the mohrg, where the monster's abilities aren't nearly worth the level adjustment that the developers gave it. You are correct: playing that mohrg class is simply a bad idea. Unfortunately, a lot of monsters are like this—it's rarely that bad because most of them don't take up 20 levels, but many monsters end up fragile and/or weak when used as player characters.

Starbuck_II
2010-02-15, 04:01 PM
I was flipping through the Libris Mortis, and paused at the monster classes section. At first it seems vauguel like a cool "so you wanted to be a vampire" sort of thing, but is there any crunch at all behing this?

Take the Mohrg. 20 level class, 14 HD, OK skills (every third level) +7 BAB, +14 to various stats, paralyzing touch, +9 natural armor. The end result is, by level 20, you perfectly re-create... (get ready)

A 6TH LEVEL SPELL! YAY!

Geez, the wizard fights better (and gets nicer saves) in an AM field, and the cleric can churn out three bodygaurds as strong (or stronger if he has corpsecrafting feats) as you.

Oh yah, if you go toe-to-toe with a REAL mohrg at level 8, when you're supposed to, it will kill you in about four rounds.

Can you please explain why you would do this?

-Pixie

You have 14 HD and 6 LA, what is threre not to get?
M's don't have a zombie control limit (they can get a million zombies): they get free animate dead spells.
Remember it doesn't matter how they kill them. If he kills the dragon enemy (you get a dragon zombie, aka Dragonomicon version).

When you full attack, use your tongue as a secondary (touch attack): free paralyzing effect.

They get good stat bonus: +10 Str, +8 Dex, +9 NA, but lose Con.

They work better in gestalt: monster on one side/class on another. When you finish the monster class you can get another class.

Volthawk
2010-02-15, 04:01 PM
They're there so even if the campaign starts at level 1, you can still play a monster with HD and LA.

magic9mushroom
2010-02-15, 04:02 PM
Indeed, most LAs are far too high.

Sinfire Titan
2010-02-15, 04:03 PM
@SinfireTitan

Ok, but if a level 20 monster breathes on you, you will die. The end. This is balanced?

Am I missing something? Do these classes stack with regular levels(that is if you are a level 20 fighter,are you also a level 20 morgh)? If they do, I can see the point. But as far as I can tell, it looks like a good way to end up with a character who dies every encounter if he gets his hands dirty.

-Pixie

It's more a problem with LA and CR in general. The concepts of both are fairly clunky (if a decent idea). Put them together and it just gets worse.

Doppelganger
2010-02-15, 04:10 PM
@Starbuck II

Yes, you do get free animated dead. With one tiny little exeption.

It only applies to monsters you kill.

No it doesn't matter if you die, the dragon turns into a zomby. Who will attack the rest party since you can't tell it to leave them alone. Oh yes, and you aren't going to hit the dragon exept on a natural 20 by the time you get that ability.

So in sumary, the only monsters you can kill won't be able to hurt your opponents, and if the party ties up all the people they subdue/you masacer a large cities worth of innocents, it won't make any difference on combat. anyone who you fight is going to have DR of some sort or flight. You aren't trying to fight armies, your'e trying to fight Dragons. Who will fly 6ft in the air the whole fight.

-Pixie

Starbuck_II
2010-02-15, 04:16 PM
@Starbuck II

Yes, you do get free animated dead. With one tiny little exeption.

It only applies to monsters you kill.

No it doesn't matter if you die, the dragon turns into a zomby. Who will attack the rest party since you can't tell it to leave them alone. Oh yes, and you aren't going to hit the dragon exept on a natural 20 by the time you get that ability.

So in sumary, the only monsters you can kill won't be able to hurt your opponents, and if the party ties up all the people they subdue/you masacer a large cities worth of innocents, it won't make any difference on combat. anyone who you fight is going to have DR of some sort or flight. You aren't trying to fight armies, your'e trying to fight Dragons. Who will fly 6ft in the air the whole fight.

-Pixie
First, ghouls are intelligent attacking other zombie-like undead. Zombies are unable to do anything till given a order.

Also, the party knocks down to -1 or lower hps, then you finish it off: boom you killed it.
Then you get a free zombie dragon.

erikun
2010-02-15, 05:01 PM
As Snark pointed out, the reason for monster classes is to play monsterous characters at lower levels. Yes, Racial Hit Dice normally suck and LA is frequently overstated. However, even with a "reasonable" RHD and LA, you normally wouldn't be able to play a Vampire or Mummy at level 1.

I've been curious as to how well a Class//Monster gestalt game would play - using a normal class on one side and monster class on the other.

Otodetu
2010-02-15, 05:44 PM
I was flipping through the Libris Mortis, and paused at the monster classes section. At first it seems vauguel like a cool "so you wanted to be a vampire" sort of thing, but is there any crunch at all behing this?

Take the Mohrg. 20 level class, 14 HD, OK skills (every third level) +7 BAB, +14 to various stats, paralyzing touch, +9 natural armor. The end result is, by level 20, you perfectly re-create... (get ready)

A 6TH LEVEL SPELL! YAY!

Geez, the wizard fights better (and gets nicer saves) in an AM field, and the cleric can churn out three bodygaurds as strong (or stronger if he has corpsecrafting feats) as you.

Oh yah, if you go toe-to-toe with a REAL mohrg at level 8, when you're supposed to, it will kill you in about four rounds.

Can you please explain why you would do this?

-Pixie

Thanks, I was thinking about putting up a "I hate libris mortis" monster classes thread the other day but decided not to and here is a thread ready and served.

Yes you are right, the classes as presented are borderline useless, and devils advocate here seem to miss that the mohrg gets create spawn at level 20... making his point moot as it is the single thing the class might have going for it; using badly worded abilities to create silly hd zombies.

Vizzerdrix
2010-02-15, 07:38 PM
Not to be a thread jacker, but is their a yuan ti racial class anywhere?

Doppelganger
2010-02-15, 08:14 PM
@Starbuck II

Yes, you can make unlimeted spawn. So can every other caster in the party who knows create undead/can buy and use a scroll of it. All of these arguements basicaly boil down to: the mohrgs get some nice stuff, but two levels before you reach peak performance the cleric (heck, even the rogue) can churn out You, and probably more of you. You are a monster desined to fight level 8 characters fighting level 20 monsters. It's sort of like the fighter lossing twenty levels to get a bad version of a moderatly expensive level 6 spell.

Thurbane
2010-02-15, 08:20 PM
Monster classes are there so that people can play creatures with racial HD and/or LA right from 1st level, without being vastly overpowered compared to "standard" 1st level characters.

This does not change the fundamental fact, though, that most Racial HD/LA creatures completely suck when compared to an equal level character of medium to high levels.

...not all of them are as horrible as the Morg, though...the Centuar monster class isn't too bad for someone wanting to play a Centaur right from 1st level (but still, not great).

Runestar
2010-02-15, 08:25 PM
Who in their right mind believes the mhorg is comparable to a 20th lv PC? It seems an ECL14 at least, and only because I try not to let ECL < HD. :smallyuk:

Jarveiyan
2010-02-15, 10:10 PM
The other purpose behind the monster classes was to give the gm a way to introduce monsters earlier by way of giving levels a cr rating(seen in SS). This allowed the GM to make a weaker version of said monster.