Balance Fix: Remove the Monsters

[Urpriest]

Disclaimer: I am not crazy enough to think that this could solve all the balance problems of 3.5. It is however amusing to think about just how much it solves.

Pun-Pun. Wightocalypse. Angel-Summoner (of BMX bandit fame). Planar Shepherd.
Efreets. Nightmares. Dire Tortoises. Chokers.

What do all these things have in common? All of them are somewhere on the broken-overpowered spectrum, and all of them involve the appropriation of monster abilities for PC use. Some of the most commonly cited powerful spells, prestige classes, and class abilities involve turning into, summoning, creating, or controlling monsters to gain their more interesting abilities. The Alter Self line and the Planar Binding line both lead to many broken tricks, while the Summon Monster line is enough to move a Tier 3 class (the Binder) up to Tier 2.

Also to be considered is the effect monsters have on optimization levels. A Monk can deal useful damage at times: but in order to deal that useful damage, it has to eat a full attack from a Hydra. Fighters can't fly without a Wizard's help, but you can't fight an intelligently played Dragon without flight. The existence of Basilisks means your party must either contain a powerful Tier 1 or 2 or a boring Tier 5.

Removing monsters would fix all these problems. Imagine a game where every creature was a member of a Core Race. Animals are purely offscreen to make the setting work, and have no stats. Sure, battlefield control still exists, but it's not even as necessary when all of your foes are NPCs. And yeah, there are still a few ways for the Tier 1s to steal the roles of their lessers. Still, it's interesting to think about just how much of an effect this would have on 3.5's balance.

[gkathellar]

You are absolutely correct — and to a significant degree, it solves other problems. Flight, for example, becomes dramatically less essential if you cut out flying monsters.

Also? Frankly, the role of monsters in a setting tends not to make any sense at all. They're too powerful and too numerous for humanoids to logically rule the setting.

[Larpus]

To be honest, I rather agree.

My DM perfers to throw humanoids and the such at us and, overall, those are the best battles, because strategy plays a bigger role. When it's a monster, however, unless we can pass the Knowledge check to know what that thing is and what does it do (except for a few that are common lore, such as "Dragons fly and breath pain"), then we have no (in character and sometimes out of it) clue of what is going on and simply can't plan accordingly or trick the thing, usually ending up with most of the party nearly dead by the end of combat.

[Piggy Knowles]

Also agreed. It won't perfectly balance the game, but it will make things a heck of a lot easier.

[Greenish]

Of course, without illithids, beguilers, bulettes and, well, dragons running around, would it even be D&D?

[Zombimode]

For me, fantastical and horrific creatures are the core of the kind of fantasy experience I am looking for. Removing them would completely destroy my interesst in the game.

But each to their own.

[sonofzeal]

Monsters rely on their stats to be powerful.

PCs and NPCs rely partially on their stats, but largely on their gear; non-monster NPCs who don't have lots of gear won't be able to threaten even a mid-level party unless ridiculously overlevelled.

Therefore, a monster-less campaign will leave the PCs positively swimming in very valuable items after just about every single fight.




(Also, Druids would be pretty much useless; Companion is gone, Wildshape is gone, and half their spells are gone.)

[erikun]

Well, it will certainly remove the most abusive and infinite-chain ideas from classes. You can't get infinite Candles of Invocation from a wishing Efreeti if Efreeti don't exist.

However, I'm not quite sure that it really solves many problems outside that. The reason that the fighter cannot combat a flying gold dragon with spellcasting has nothing to do with it being a dragon or casting spells, but with it flying. Shadows are dangerous because they are incorporeal and deal ability damage. How is a wizard with Fly and Gaseous Form and Shivering Touch much different?

[Elitarismo]

He is right though, but in the wrong way. If you make your campaign incredibly easy, even the weakest of classes won't die in it. Think of it like one of those "everyone is a winner" type deals where no matter how good or bad you do it doesn't matter.

[HunterOfJello]

As a DM, I normally use monsters in most situations since I don't have a list of npcs with preset stats. There are a few statted npcs in the DMG and Cityscape, but those are the only resources I can quickly set up for that stuff.

Does anyone here have a list of premade npcs that can be used on the fly for battle purposes?

[Cieyrin]

Removing monsters from the equation, with their varying degrees of brokenness, would remove a major source of inbalance but it replaces it with increasing the workload on the DM, in that they have to build every character and opponent from scratch. Published monsters are a necessary evil for many games to run on a semblance of a regular schedule, so I'd say if you cut player interaction with monsters by removing polymorph and summoning magics from the pool, that would create the same effect without increasing DM frustration and the likelihood of ragequits b/c of it.

Now, this isn't to say that humanoid-only games can't work and are quite fun, just that every game shouldn't have to be. It's just we all know that monsters aren't designed with players in mind, however frivolous WotC's attempts at limiting it were, especially given how often the polymorph subschool and Alter Form got changed.


Does anyone here have a list of premade npcs that can be used on the fly for battle purposes?

There was a thread in Homebrew that was a repository of NPCs, though it's kinda drifted into obscurity. Google NPC Bank and you should be able to find it.

[JaronK]

I've played humanoid only games... the issue is that the creatures then all need appropriate level gear to be a threat. But you can't give them that, or else the party gets over geared. So the DM had to reduce the gear on the NPC enemies. The DM got frustrated that we still steamrollered over them. Then he finally threw two level appropriate monsters at us, nothing terrible fancy... and TPK'd.

Humanoid opponents aren't the solution. PC appropriation of their abilities is the problem. Nerf the Polymorph line so it explicitly gives a few things (instead of implicitly giving tons of things). Nerf Planar Binding and Gate too. And then things will work much better.

JaronK

[Fouredged Sword]

I say this works better in E6 or E8. Now you have a world that resembles midevil europe with no dragons or such, where the main problems are people driven comflicts and war.

The E6 system removes some of the complication of building NPC's and massive wealth is less of an issue if items are all capped at CL6. Yes, you have losts of swords that are +1 x effect swords, but you can only use one, so other than having the right blade at the right time and carrying a ton of bane weapons it doesn't matter.

Still some issues though, but most of them are noteably toned down. Wizards still fly (but potions of fly are cheep becuse of high wealth).

This would be a good system for telling aurthirian style legends of knights and wizards.

[Seerow]

Why not just do it halfway: Monster's are off limits to PCs. No Monstrous characters, nothing that turns you into a monster, nothing that summons monsters, or controls monsters. All of those abilities vanish.

Basically remove monsters as a tool of player abuse, but leave them in the setting as challenges for your party to have to deal with.

[Frosty]

Humanoid opponents aren't the solution. PC appropriation of their abilities is the problem. Nerf the Polymorph line so it explicitly gives a few things (instead of implicitly giving tons of things). Nerf Planar Binding and Gate too. And then things will work much better.

JaronK

Do you think Pathfinder nerfed the Polymorph line enough?

[JaronK]

I haven't looked at PF's polymorph fix, so, I don't know.

JaronK

[shadow_archmagi]

All of them are somewhere on the broken-overpowered spectrum, and all of them involve the appropriation of monster abilities for PC use.

I'm not sure Pun-Pun is really a problem that needs to be considered. I mean, the saving grace of D&D, for me, is that you have an intelligent mind that can make decisions on the fly, not that it is a perfect system with rules for every contingency. Mass Effect might have insane infinite power combos because the devs got the numbers wrong, but my D&D game has a gentleman who is capable of saying "No. That's stupid."

[Gavinfoxx]

What about the various mob templates or Military Unit templates or the various templates to do with people working together? Would those help? And aren't there some builds that work REALLY well as a small team in formation?

[BlueInc]

I haven't looked at PF's polymorph fix, so, I don't know.

JaronK

See for yourself (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/polymorph).

[Cieyrin]

Why not just do it halfway: Monster's are off limits to PCs. No Monstrous characters, nothing that turns you into a monster, nothing that summons monsters, or controls monsters. All of those abilities vanish.

Basically remove monsters as a tool of player abuse, but leave them in the setting as challenges for your party to have to deal with.

That's what I said in not so many words. So +1! Hurray concise arguments b/c I'm too damn wordy. :smallwink:

[Prime32]

I've played humanoid only games... the issue is that the creatures then all need appropriate level gear to be a threat. But you can't give them that, or else the party gets over geared. So the DM had to reduce the gear on the NPC enemies. The DM got frustrated that we still steamrollered over them. Then he finally threw two level appropriate monsters at us, nothing terrible fancy... and TPK'd.So refluff magic items as innate powers which can't be looted.

[Piggy Knowles]

I'm not sure Pun-Pun is really a problem that needs to be considered. I mean, the saving grace of D&D, for me, is that you have an intelligent mind that can make decisions on the fly, not that it is a perfect system with rules for every contingency. Mass Effect might have insane infinite power combos because the devs got the numbers wrong, but my D&D game has a gentleman who is capable of saying "No. That's stupid."

Pun-Pun is a really good example, because it shows what happens when a PC gets hold of a really cool ability that was never intended for PCs (Manipulate Form, in this case). However, it's still a problem even if you take away the extreme end of Pun-Pun.

Nor is it just an issue of intentional game-breaking. Sure, if you use Lesser Planar Binding to pull in a Mirror Mephit, and attempt to use its component-less Simulacrum SLA to make simulacrums of things you've never even met, a DM can reasonably step in. But what happens when a 9th-level wizard decides it would be really cool to ride around on a Nightmare, binds one via Lesser Planar Binding?

This is nothing remotely unlikely, and it's practically the whole point of having spells like Planar Binding. But suddenly this 9th-level wizard has access to abilities he shouldn't be able to touch for another 8 levels. He's not doing anything crazy abusive or really out of the ordinary. He's just summoning the coolest horse he can think of for his level, which happens to have two 9th-level spells as at-will SLAs. Does the DM step in there, too?

[Tvtyrant]

You could just give everyone VoP, and then remove magic items all together. Now there isn't a simple versus martial clause; you can use any object with VoP, but they only go up to Masterwork.

[DeAnno]

This is nice for closing a lot of player exploits, but it won't help with Tier balance any. A fighter still needs to fly because all the Tier 1 and 2s that he fights can fly, and they will fly to keep away. A monk is still useless because any PC that can't teleport or tumble away from him has a full attack just as nasty as his own. The only reason BFC isn't as necessary is that monsters have lots of HD and Con compared to class levels, so total hp is down and DD is more practical and lethal than it usually is. For some parties, BFC actually makes a comeback as it's the only way for the fight to last longer than a round as you're murdered by a party of alpha strikers.

And back on the subject of exploits, monster tricks are typically the province of TO (and Druids). PO tends to use spell, feat, and class ability combinations to get what it wants.

[shadow_archmagi]

But what happens when a 9th-level wizard decides it would be really cool to ride around on a Nightmare, binds one via Lesser Planar Binding?

Does the DM step in there, too?

If the player's actions are clearly making the game less fun for the rest of the party, then yes.

[TOZ]

Easiest implementation of this is to make all monsters 20 level base classes.

Seriously.

No more 'this monster has spellcasting of a 13th level cleric'. It gets cleric spellcasting equal to it's level, because that is part of its class progression.

Now, of course this is a horribly space-consuming endeavor, which is why it isn't done. But it makes it easier to balance against the 20 level PC classes, AND allows players to play monsters from 1 to 20.

[Kol Korran]

hhhhmmmm... it makes an interesting idea, but i think it has it'sproblems:

1) the gear issue that has been mentioned, i won't go into that again, but it's a valid point. refluffing their equipment as innate abilities that can't be looted only makes them monsters in humanoid form, and i think PCs will kind of resent that.

2) to many people (myself included) the existence of monsters is a staple of a fantasy setting, and it's part of why we're attracted to it, and want to play it. if you go with humanoids only, why not just go with d20 modern? (with tech replacing magic).

i think you're going on correcting the problem the wrong way. compared to the whole range of monsters, the problematic monsters are (though not a few) still only a very small minority. your solution is... way overkill. for some game balance, you're obliterating a fun and interesting part of the game. my solution would be comprised of two methods:

- "fix"/ housrule the most common offendrs. either the monsters doesn't exist, it doesn't have specific abilities, or the abiliites work differently, or the spell/ abuilityto get it works differently.

- the most important thing is: don't play with players which are jerks who seeks to break the game. talk to the players beforehand- "the game has it's loopholes, it's broken points, sure- those can be taken advantage of. however, we're all here for mutual fun, aren't we? so play nice..." if you got mature players, this works surprisingly well, and solves so many more problems and headaches, from min maxing to the gazoo, rules lawyering, and more. most of all, it removes the stupid, boring, annoying arms race between GM and players.

those are my thoughts, take them as you wish.
Kol.

[dextercorvia]

You can fix the wealth vs. challenge problem by giving many humanoid enemies the VoP (refluffed with no alignment issues). That would give opponents an appropriate level of abilities without being gear dependent. O, wait....

Yes, this is a joke. Yes, I know it's hard to tell on the internet.

[Frosty]

If I were to throw mostly humanoid enemies at my party, I'd talkt o my players beforehand and tell them that the treasure and equipment system will be altered. My players should expect enemy equipment to break upon enemy death...a LOT...and that their own equipment needs repairing on a regular basis, requiring pieces of loot they find...kind of like the Fallout 3 system.

[Seerow]

Easiest implementation of this is to make all monsters 20 level base classes.

Seriously.

No more 'this monster has spellcasting of a 13th level cleric'. It gets cleric spellcasting equal to it's level, because that is part of its class progression.

Now, of course this is a horribly space-consuming endeavor, which is why it isn't done. But it makes it easier to balance against the 20 level PC classes, AND allows players to play monsters from 1 to 20.

How does that actually balance anything? If you give it cleric casting equal to its level, either its HD are going to be lowered severely, making it much squishier, and just a cleric with more class features, or it's going to have everything it already has, but a higher level spell casting. And in that case god forbid you have any monster above 20 HD.

This suggestion not only runs completely counter to the OP's post, but also unbalances **** even further.

[Vladislav]

I don't think removing the monsters will negate the value of spellcasters. An NPC (or PC) who can Fly, Dimension Door and employ Gaseous Form will still have a huge advantage over one who can't.

[Urpriest]

How does that actually balance anything? If you give it cleric casting equal to its level, either its HD are going to be lowered severely, making it much squishier, and just a cleric with more class features, or it's going to have everything it already has, but a higher level spell casting. And in that case god forbid you have any monster above 20 HD.

This suggestion not only runs completely counter to the OP's post, but also unbalances **** even further.

I think the idea is to give it cleric casting equal to its level because the enemy, ruleswise, is a cleric. (Maybe a cleric with a few ACFs or PrCs, but basically a cleric.

As to the people mentioning treasure, before level 10 you can use traps, and at any level you can use roleplaying encounters. I admit the ratio isn't great: you need two treasureless encounters to balance out one encounter with NPCs. Still, that seems fairly doable in a game that's built for it.

As for those who think monsters are fundamental to the setting, why do they have to have non-humanoid stats? Why can't they just be totemists and Psychic Warriors?

[Kol Korran]

As for those who think monsters are fundamental to the setting, why do they have to have non-humanoid stats? Why can't they just be totemists and Psychic Warriors?

... not sure i understand you there... what do you mean by "non-humanoid stats"? i assume you're not talking about the ability scores, so do you mean their special abilities and such? if so, then sure- you can have monsters with abilities that all the humanoids can have access to, but... i think this is kind o the point of monsters- they are different enough, they can do things that you can't (and you plausiability can do things they can't. i always found that attaching whatever class to whatever monster seemed silly. some monsters could take some class levels, but on the whole, that was MOSTLY humanoid territory). do you have the tremor sense of elephants and moles? the scent of dogs? the eyesight and navigation and flight of most avians? it makes them odd, strange, partly alien, but also wonderful, intriguing, interesting. and since we have these in our real world, i'd like a fantasy world to have something even more interesting.

good examples might be undead,magical beasts, and aberrations.- the first deal with our fascination of death, what comes after it, can it be cheated, and the cost. from the amount of literature and media that exists about them, and the immense popularity they have in D&D i just think you'll miss a great deal not having them. both from fluff reasons, and mechanic reasons- they present a unique type of enemy for the DM to use, interesting tools for the players with all the animating spells and classes, and they can affect a campaign setting in numerous ways.

magical beasts represent both the iconic mythological beasts, which draw many people to D&D, and often interesting fights, but with one singular them, which is often exotic, sometime challenging, and usually a staple of fantasy. from the hydra, to the manticore, even the lowly Krenshar, they seem to me quite integral to most "general" D&D settings.

and Aberrations- they weird array of powers, their often "alien and unexplained" mind, and their strange grotesque forms... how would you replicate that using humanoids only? they bring the strange, fearsome, alien, unfathomable to the table. sure, you can play without them, they are really a staple (well, to some people they are, but that's not the point) i just think that taking them off the table completely (especially since i don't know of many ways players abuse them) is somewhat of a loss..

the abilities are not always balanced, true (MM2) and some are exploitable. but for that i return you to my previous post.

those are my thoughts,
kol.

[TOZ]

How does that actually balance anything? If you give it cleric casting equal to its level, either its HD are going to be lowered severely, making it much squishier, and just a cleric with more class features, or it's going to have everything it already has, but a higher level spell casting. And in that case god forbid you have any monster above 20 HD.

This suggestion not only runs completely counter to the OP's post, but also unbalances **** even further.

You misunderstand. I mean you write a 20 level class progression for the monster. Just like a PC class. Thus, class level = HD = CR.

Because 'supposedly' a level 10 Fighter is on the same power level as a level 10 Cleric. So a level 10 Gargoyle should be too.

If you can make 20 level classes balanced against each other, you can make monsters the same way.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Reminds me of how Legend treats monsters. Too bad I can't get anyone to play it.

[Seerow]

You misunderstand. I mean you write a 20 level class progression for the monster. Just like a PC class. Thus, class level = HD = CR.

Because 'supposedly' a level 10 Fighter is on the same power level as a level 10 Cleric. So a level 10 Gargoyle should be too.

If you can make 20 level classes balanced against each other, you can make monsters the same way.

Except classes already aren't balanced. And now you want to make every monster ever capable of being played at every level, which involves writing about 100 new classes for these monsters, and if you have trouble balancing 20 classes, try balancing 120.

It's way too work intensive to get set up, and still almost certainly leaves glaring imbalances. And it doesn't change the fact that shapechanging into a monster of level X is basically giving you access to another entire class worth of abilities, or summoning Y monsters is a huge advantage, or planar ally and the lead to all sorts of silly shenanigans.

Making 1 monster == 1 pc is laudable, but doing so doesn't really address any of the problems the OP brought up, and as mentioned takes a ton of work. What you want is basically a solution to a completely different set of problems.

[TOZ]

Except classes already aren't balanced. And now you want to make every monster ever capable of being played at every level, which involves writing about 100 new classes for these monsters, and if you have trouble balancing 20 classes, try balancing 120.

It's way too work intensive to get set up, and still almost certainly leaves glaring imbalances. And it doesn't change the fact that shapechanging into a monster of level X is basically giving you access to another entire class worth of abilities, or summoning Y monsters is a huge advantage, or planar ally and the lead to all sorts of silly shenanigans.

Making 1 monster == 1 pc is laudable, but doing so doesn't really address any of the problems the OP brought up, and as mentioned takes a ton of work. What you want is basically a solution to a completely different set of problems.

Which is why I qualified it with statements like 'if you can balance one class with another' and 'it is extremely writing intensive, which is why it isn't done'.

Shapechange would just trade Level X PC class for Level X Monster class. Summon would probably summon lower level monsters rather than equal level monsters.

But I can agree it probably wouldn't work for the OP.

[Seerow]

Which is why I qualified it with statements like 'if you can balance one class with another' and 'it is extremely writing intensive, which is why it isn't done'.

Shapechange would just trade Level X PC class for Level X Monster class. Summon would probably summon lower level monsters rather than equal level monsters.

But I can agree it probably wouldn't work for the OP.


And summoning a level -X monster isn't gamebreaking? Or binding a on level monster? Or shapechange letting you shift between completely different classes at will isn't broken?

Point is even if you can perfectly balance every monster in existence, and every class in existence, on a 20 level spectrum, those options will STILL be overpowered. Those options aren't necessarily overpowered because monsters are so strong (though many of them do have unique abilities which get silly in player hands... those unique abilities would likely be translated into a mid-high level ability for the monster classes), but because they break the **** out of action and ability economy.

[TOZ]

When did I say it wouldn't?

[Endarire]

Remember, formulaic balance, total balance, or near-perfect balance doesn't equate to equal amounts of fun. Sometimes it helps.