PDA

View Full Version : A thought on Advancing Monsters [3.5]



alchemyprime
2010-06-09, 06:49 PM
Crazy idea, but I was thinking...

What if I made Monsters advance via Generic classes? As in the Warrior, Spellcasters and Expert in Unearthed Arcana, and maybe a few other classes I have lying around. Make these into the "Monster Classes" and say what monsters are related to what class.

So that Ilithid? It's related to the Psionicist and Weird monster classes. The Nymph? Spellcaster. The frost giant? Warrior. And maybe make a list of monster abilities that they can use in place of the feats.

Thoughts?

demidracolich
2010-06-09, 07:20 PM
There are already monster classes in savage species and those made by Olsecamo.

Mulletmanalive
2010-06-09, 07:23 PM
i use this already. Not core D&D but if youd like my current set of notes to strip for parts, you're welcome to PM me an email address. For worked examples, check out the "MV Version" entries in my Fae-o-Matic thread.

I'll put that in my signature in a sec...

flabort
2010-06-09, 07:36 PM
wait, are you talking about adding hit dice TO a monster, or making the monsters into classes? because if the latter, savage speices and, as demidracolich said, olsecamo have beaten you to the punch. Blam!

Oslecamo
2010-06-09, 08:15 PM
Thoughts?

Why not simply give them regular class levels? Or heck prestige classes? It's not like you haven't got hundreds to choose from. There's even prestige classes specifically designed for monsters.

As for special abilities as feats, books like savage species, lords of madness and libris mortis offer plenty of feats to boost monster abilities.

After all, there's hundreds of monsters out there, and many of them don't really fall in any particular "stereotype" (cough dragons cough). You would need to make hundreds of "advancing monster" classes to cover the whole spectrum.

PersonMan
2010-06-09, 09:22 PM
Oslecamo: I'm pretty sure that he means the...ah, 'stupid' monsters. You know, the ones with
Advancement: C-D(Size), E-F(Size+1)
instead of
Advancement: Class name
.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-06-09, 09:59 PM
I'm contemplating something similar in the 3e rewrite I'm working on in my spare time. There are 4 normal classes (Priest, Wizard, Fighter, Rogue) and 4 creature classes (Beast, Elemental, Humanoid, Outsider) and everything else is based on those (Ranger is a Fighter with ACFs/PrCs or the equivalent, for instance). Races are changed such that every race has 3 inherent traits (physical or mental abilities intrinsic to a race, e.g. darkvision or save bonuses) and 3 cultural traits (societal benefits, e.g. bonus skill points or weapon familiarity). You can never have more than 3, so templates and subraces and such swap out, rather than add, traits.

Thus, advancing monsters, LA and ECL, and similar advancement/creation issues are simplified. Dragons, for example, would have a breath weapon, DR/SR/defenses, and unique SLAs as physical traits and quirks like sound imitation, skill bonuses, and frightful presence as cultural traits. Then their actual hit dice are levels in Beast and Elemental (or Beast and Outsider for planar dragons), and their traits scale based on those. Want to increase or decrease hit dice? All traits already reference number of HD and which kind advance which traits. A player wants to start as a dragon? No LA or RHD needed; just take the traits with 0 monster HD and it's balanced with any other race, and they can take monster levels if they want to improve those abilities. Want to make the dragon a lycanthrope? Simply swap out some of the non-Beast levels and trade dragon traits for lycanthrope traits.

Every single possible monster or template is defined by 6 abilities, with ability score adjustments prevalent but optional. No CR/LA/RHD to worry about, no separate monster progression classes needed, no issues with PCs getting templates, no oodles of racial abilities to keep track of.

Converting existing monsters to a similar system is straightforward, if time-consuming. Doing this would basically require rewriting every monster in 3.5, which isn't at all worth it unless you're doing that anyway, but I hope this gave you some ideas.

PersonMan
2010-06-09, 10:03 PM
Really cool stuff

That sounds awesome. I think you should post this once it's finished.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-06-09, 10:05 PM
That sounds awesome. I think you should post this once it's finished.

Oh, I will. The system's pretty much done except for spells and items, and finishing the monsters...but it's on hold because I'm DMing 4 PbP games and 1 PnP game and playing in 1 other (possibly soon to be 3 others) which is just about as much D&Ding as I can take at once. :smallbiggrin:

alchemyprime
2010-06-10, 03:09 PM
Why not simply give them regular class levels? Or heck prestige classes? It's not like you haven't got hundreds to choose from. There's even prestige classes specifically designed for monsters.

As for special abilities as feats, books like savage species, lords of madness and libris mortis offer plenty of feats to boost monster abilities.

After all, there's hundreds of monsters out there, and many of them don't really fall in any particular "stereotype" (cough dragons cough). You would need to make hundreds of "advancing monster" classes to cover the whole spectrum.

See, I was saying that I hate the whole Advance By Hit Die thing, and I didn't want to have to wade through EVERY class unless it was going to be a special monster.

So that Frost Giant cheiftain? I may make him a barbarian or a druid and give him the appropriate abilities. But the standard Frost Giant, if I just want him to be a little stronger? Level or two of Warrior. That way I get to pick the abilities I want, not having to worry about useless levels or powers I'll never use.

And dragons... they're a whole different beast entirely. I just let them advance by age category and build their feats. I have to build the dragons anyway.

I was just trying to find a quick patch for what I wanted to do, because I hate advancing by HD, and I don't like to think of classes when I do monsters unless it's built in. To the point where I print spells out onto cards for reference with SLAs for monsters.

I'm a little nuts, I know, but its worked for me.

Oslecamo
2010-06-10, 05:12 PM
See, I was saying that I hate the whole Advance By Hit Die thing, and I didn't want to have to wade through EVERY class unless it was going to be a special monster.

...

I was just trying to find a quick patch for what I wanted to do, because I hate advancing by HD, and I don't like to think of classes when I do monsters unless it's built in. To the point where I print spells out onto cards for reference with SLAs for monsters.

I'm a little nuts, I know, but its worked for me.

Well, that may explain it. Personally speaking, I just LOVE advancing HD on monsters, and I also have like to pick up obscure classes, templates and Prc, put them on the monsters and laugh madly as my players struggle against ninja frogs with sleep-inducing arrows that can perfectly see trough smoke, or giant zombies that breath ice and can leap fifty foot in the blink of an eye.:smallbiggrin:

I must however ask you how the vanilla frost giant can't be made stronger by HD advancing. When I need to do stronger brute mooks I just add them some extra HD and it works pretty well. More HP, saves, Bab, what else did you want in a frost giant warrior that's a little stronger than normal?:smallconfused:

alchemyprime
2010-06-11, 01:20 AM
Well, that may explain it. Personally speaking, I just LOVE advancing HD on monsters, and I also have like to pick up obscure classes, templates and Prc, put them on the monsters and laugh madly as my players struggle against ninja frogs with sleep-inducing arrows that can perfectly see trough smoke, or giant zombies that breath ice and can leap fifty foot in the blink of an eye.:smallbiggrin:

I must however ask you how the vanilla frost giant can't be made stronger by HD advancing. When I need to do stronger brute mooks I just add them some extra HD and it works pretty well. More HP, saves, Bab, what else did you want in a frost giant warrior that's a little stronger than normal?:smallconfused:

Feats out the wazoo and sneak attacks. Obviously. :smalltongue:

I just find that at the power curve I run my players, +1 HD isn't worth +1 CR. But a level in Fighter normally does the trick. With warrior, I'm much less restricted in feat choice, and I can give monsters my favorite thing ever: Abyssal Heritor feats... :smallbiggrin:

Beyond that I do enjoy me some templates, and those work well too. I just find HD to be too... milk flavored. I'm not insulting my favorite ice cream by saying HD advancement is vanilla.

Oslecamo
2010-06-11, 04:14 PM
I just find that at the power curve I run my players, +1 HD isn't worth +1 CR. But a level in Fighter normally does the trick. With warrior, I'm much less restricted in feat choice, and I can give monsters my favorite thing ever: Abyssal Heritor feats... :smallbiggrin:


Eeerr, HD advancement doesn't work that way. You need multiple HDs to increase one CR.

So for example the giant? He adds giant HDs, wich meands he only increases +1Cr for each 3HD you give him.

And guess what you get every 3HD? A feat! Any feat you qualify for actually.

At worst, advancing HD increases CR by +1 for each two HD for the strongest races like outsiders and dragons, and at best it increases CR by +1 for every 4HD.

So, perhaps it's just that you were using monster advacenment wrong before?

Deathdarken
2010-06-11, 05:41 PM
you know, you can do that is 4.0 with little to no problems