alchemyprime
2012-03-12, 01:03 AM
So I was thinking to myself "Self, you know what sure made advancing monsters easy? The monster roles in 4e." Then I remembered those nifty Generic Classes due to another thread here today, and I got to thinking.
What if we made Generic Monster classes? Like every so many levels, a monster gained a bonus feat or ability to that, on top of their base stats we'd just add levels in a Monster Class.
So classes that would be made and used would be:
Aberration (Which may need some PsiLAs)
Animal
Construct
Dragon (for all those Not True Dragons)
Elemental (though, in Pathfinder, this would just be Outsider)
Expert
Fey (Which I think needs some sort of spell progression or SLA progresion, since they are Fey)
Giant (though I don't see the point in this one, maybe it'll make the giant more Jotunhiem-y)
Magical Beast
Monstrous Humanoid
Ooze
Outsider
Plant
Psionicist
Spellcaster
Undead
Vermin
Warrior
I mean, that way instead of just thinking "Oh, how many hit dice do they go up" or "what class levels do I want to advance this guy" one could just pick either a role or their creature type and add them on. That way the characters still feel unique (and humanoids should still advance by PC and NPC classes), while say the Mind Flayers progress either as Aberrations or as Psionicists, and rarely as Spellcasters or Warriors. Or someone could decide that their weird idea of a gnoll that gets more like a hyena and gets a maddening laugh could just keep advancing him as a Monstrous Humanoid, and add on some sort of burst effect.
Then that also brings up the idea of how much certain class features/creature abilities would be worth. Some powers and spells would be much more useful than others. A beholder's Disintegrating Eye Beam? Much more useful than a breath weapon in one on one, but that breath weapon can be evil...
Just tossing ideas around Playground. Fevers and stress make me think funny things.
What if we made Generic Monster classes? Like every so many levels, a monster gained a bonus feat or ability to that, on top of their base stats we'd just add levels in a Monster Class.
So classes that would be made and used would be:
Aberration (Which may need some PsiLAs)
Animal
Construct
Dragon (for all those Not True Dragons)
Elemental (though, in Pathfinder, this would just be Outsider)
Expert
Fey (Which I think needs some sort of spell progression or SLA progresion, since they are Fey)
Giant (though I don't see the point in this one, maybe it'll make the giant more Jotunhiem-y)
Magical Beast
Monstrous Humanoid
Ooze
Outsider
Plant
Psionicist
Spellcaster
Undead
Vermin
Warrior
I mean, that way instead of just thinking "Oh, how many hit dice do they go up" or "what class levels do I want to advance this guy" one could just pick either a role or their creature type and add them on. That way the characters still feel unique (and humanoids should still advance by PC and NPC classes), while say the Mind Flayers progress either as Aberrations or as Psionicists, and rarely as Spellcasters or Warriors. Or someone could decide that their weird idea of a gnoll that gets more like a hyena and gets a maddening laugh could just keep advancing him as a Monstrous Humanoid, and add on some sort of burst effect.
Then that also brings up the idea of how much certain class features/creature abilities would be worth. Some powers and spells would be much more useful than others. A beholder's Disintegrating Eye Beam? Much more useful than a breath weapon in one on one, but that breath weapon can be evil...
Just tossing ideas around Playground. Fevers and stress make me think funny things.