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Mystic Muse
2012-03-22, 12:31 AM
GITP Community Monster Class Competition VII: One Level Wonders

Voting Thread

You will vote for two things on this thread, the monster class from last month's competion that you think is the best, and a theme for the next contest. The deadline for this voting thread will (tentatively) be the end of this month.

Rules

1) First, you will vote for one monster class entry that you think is the best.


Contest Entries

Drow By DeAnno (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12827441&postcount=2)

Kaorti by TheGeckoKing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12831974&postcount=3)

Lizardfolk by NineThePuma (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12835086&postcount=4)

Petal by Igneel (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12843408&postcount=5)

Thri-Keen by The Winter King (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12858984&postcount=6)

MuckDweller by Soft Serve (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12865179&postcount=7)

If you are unsure how to judge a monster class, following these guidelines:

Originality - The monster class should be unique. It should stand out from the rest, as a class.
Playability - The monster should allow for fluid, engaging, amusing and uninterrupted play at the table.
Balance - The monster should be balanced enough that it's not going to hold the group back or dominate everything without even trying, both overall and at a given stage in its development.
Elegance - The page which details the monster for the player should look good and be easy to understand.
Flavor - Last but certainly not least, we want to preserve the flavor and the atmosphere of the monster the monster class is based off of.

Feel free to explain your vote, even using the guidelines as an explanation if you want. You can vote for your own monster class creation if you truly feel that it is the best entry. In the case of a tie, I will vote on the disputed themes.

2) Second, you will vote for the theme of the upcoming contest. I am not offering any suggestions for a theme this month; I want to see what you guys can collaborate on. I suggest offering many ideas for a theme when you post, in order to get the ball rolling. that way, others can tell you which ideas they like from your list, and add to it.

Whichever theme has the most votes by the end of the month will be used for next month's contest. In the case of a tie, I will vote on the disputed themes. In the case of no votes, I'll go with a previously suggested theme.

Igneel
2012-03-22, 11:36 AM
Ugh, this is a tough one to vote for as I like several of the entries and I'm not one for voting for myself as that is just cliche. Guess I will try to get the ball rolling as most people don't want to be the first to go. Watch me fail at this horribly and others do better. :smalltongue:


Originality - The monster class should be unique. It should stand out from the rest, as a class.
Playability - The monster should allow for fluid, engaging, amusing and uninterrupted play at the table.
Balance - The monster should be balanced enough that it's not going to hold the group back or dominate everything without even trying, both overall and at a given stage in its development.
Elegance - The page which details the monster for the player should look good and be easy to understand.
Flavor - Last but certainly not least, we want to preserve the flavor and the atmosphere of the monster the monster class is based off of.

I'm placing my vote on the Kaorti.
Originality- Truthfully outside of the Fiend Folio how often do you see this monster played by players besides as a Fiend of Possession easy entry? Not much. I've seen it only one other place (here (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1860.msg18896#msg18896)) and I have to say yours is better.
Playability- As a class it more or less offers everything the original race/template had (SLA, Vulnerability, Transformation) but not overpowering (stat increases are decreased dramatically). Nothing dramatically changes for the worse or better as you level save for the increasing spellcasting ability, but that's nothing new for a spellcaster.
Balance- Only things that come to mind that people would go out of the way to do is use it for Fiend of Possession, or Polymorph abuse. Anything else build-wise I see as being okay.
Elegance- Easy to read, organized and comes with a picture I've never seen of Kaorti despite looking using extensive google-fu.
Flavor- Keeps to its Far Realms fluff, including the ability to deform residents of the Material Plane to better suit them.

====

Hmm... Ideas for the next one...

Yin and Yang- Creatures of Good and/or Evil?
Zodiac of the (East/West)- Creatures that represent zodiac?
Burn Everything!- Pyro themed
Cute n' Cuddly
Crypt Things- Undead?

Hyudra
2012-03-22, 03:36 PM
Deciding between Drow and Petal, I'm giving my vote to Drow.

Some comments:

Drow - I like that the creator went out of his way to make semi-original abilities to pick from. It does feel a bit more like a class than most other entries, rather than a LA+1 race. It gets a bit too much and suffers some from trying too hard to match the original creature, and I do take some issue with the awkward post construction (monster details first, ambiguous implementation of such, etc). Still, Altogether? It comes together as a decent monster class that I'd allow people to use at my table, maybe with a tweak here or there.

Petal - I really like it, but I think that the sleep song list/advancement is maybe a bit too redundant, there's playability issues in the fact that you can hit allies with it, and it doesn't quite scale enough to match increasing monster HD.

Muckdweller - Spit's good, but it perhaps scales a bit too well (Level 10, 120' spit for 1 round blind and 1d4/1d4 con damage poison, repeat each round). Another case of too much monster, not enough class, perhaps.

Kaorti - Serious playablity issues in that the material vulnerability really costs a PC a lot of gold if enemies start passing knowledge checks and targeting that weakness with sunder attempts. The other class feature, creating another kaorti, is a mess of playability issues I won't get into here, leaving only the SLAs, which are mild & don't scale that well in effectiveness, while overscaling in # of uses. A case of being too much monster, not enough class.

Thri-Keen - I feel like this had the highest potential to be an awesome monster class, as initially presented, but it's got some real balance issues (it -really- peaks at levels 3-6, then starts sliding downhill after that) and suffers some of the monk's core issues as a mobile warrior that has to stand still to actually contribute (via full attack, in Thri-keen's case).

Lizardfolk - Same post template issues I took with drow, but the underlying class has some major flaws. Abilities are uninteresting, bland, and too passive. Probably the biggest offender here in terms of 'too much monster, not enough class'. Lack of scaling on all but one ability (and it doesn't scale enough), to boot.

Mystic Muse
2012-04-02, 01:15 AM
I'm closing voting now. Sorry, my subscription didn't update for whatever reason. I've mentioned in my signature that this has probably happened with other threads too.

I'm going to give the win to the Drow this month. Deanno, you may claim your prize at any time.

This month's competition will be up at some point tomorrow. I really need to go to bed.