Monster Campaign [3.5]

[Phylion]

Okay, so I'm looking to start a Monster Campaign w/ my D&D group. (They all play as monsters as characters.) I was looking for some advice.

What I have so far:
1. Possible restriction to monsters with int scores above three or w/ sections specifically about them as characters...But, I might just take the base stats of the monster and turn their modifiers based on that into racial modifiers to scores. i.e. A monster w/ 20 STR receives a +5 racial bonus to STR...etc. I am not sure if the DMG covers things like this.
2. The point of the campaign will likely be for the PCs to defend a dungeon against adventurers, almost like a reverse campaign.

Would appreciate any advice!

[Zombulian]

Savage Species has monster progression classes. Making the entire party monsters makes those classes way more playable. Check em out.

[HolyCouncilMagi]

First off, adventuring is more fun than dungeon-protecting. The plot can be started by defending from a dungeon raid, but it should turn into a town raid-type scenario at one point or another. I agree with no monsters whose base intelligence is below 3, but I ALSO agree with your stat method for ability scores. Another thing to note: monsters and templates whose CR may be reasonably low can have disastrous RHD and LA problems when converted to PCs, so I personally recommend either personally revising their races, or more reasonably, simply remove LA on creatures with more than one RHD. That doesn't cancel out perfectly on EVERY occasion, but it's been a good balancing rule that's worked for me. Give them storyline purpose, too; they shouldn't just be "born in the dungeon, part of the dungeon."

[Phylion]

The reason I wavered from the standard method of determining racial bonuses to stats is because, well...the normal ones suck. By the normal rules, a monster with 20 INT gets a +10 racial bonus to INT, which makes little sense to me. Obviously the entire purpose of the PCs would not be to live in the dungeon, jus that wold be a fun starter, almost like a, "GOSH DARN IT I AM TIRED OF THESE ADVENTURERS COMING IN TO MY DUNGEON LETS GO ERADICATE SOCIETY WITH ALL OF OUR MONSTER FRIENDS!" kind of thing. I am going to try to stay far away from templates, as I feel like these would overcomplicate things. I don't know about ditching LA, however.


One more question: What if a monster has no listed LA in the Monster Manual. i.e. Nightwalkers: INT score of 20 so definite candidate, but no listed LA. What do I do, treat it as LA +0? I don't think so.

[Kazemi]

1) The monsters need to have a goal. They need to have a long-term goal for what they want to do beyond "murder everyone who travels through our swamp". This can be wanting to enact a ritual to gain access to the True Resurrection Spell, recreate one's pack with only the strongest subjects, track down and murder the madman who created you, sample blood from each member of the royal family and take that person as your personal blood-factory, etc. It makes it more interesting for players to have a mix.

2) Oakspar (http://community.wizards.com/forum/whats-dm-do/threads/1004776) over on the Wizards forum did this previously, so his efforts may prove to be interesting for you.

3) Make sure you have some interesting adventurers go after them. It's worth considering using a BBGG or two that are focusing on thwarting the players as a cohesive organization (ie the Inquisition) rather than ragtag groups of Heroes that pop in out of nowhere.

[AzureKnight]

Just because their race is monsterous, they dont have be be bad guys. I never believe that line that says always evil because of one thing, free will. A very good example of this is the infamous drow ranger Drizzt.

As a whole the drow are a sinister race whom worship an even more sinister goddess. But hey they are all individuals and have their own set of morals, be they evil or benevolent. Perhaps this group of outcasts of their race have found a common goal and decided to stop skulking in the shadows, awaiting the next adventuring party to test their metal.

Also, it could be they are evil as hell and want to set out to obtain power and riches to beniefit their rise to greatness as they slowly discover their powers and abilities. Even or the less creative aspect, they are bored as hell and want to sate the urge to eat some dwarves, while having a contest to see who can throw a halfling the furthest.

[Kennisiou]

Rather than outright ditching LA, you could choose to reduce the LA on all of the players by the amount of the player with the lowest LA, that way they're still comparatively adjusted roughly the same amount, but weaker monsters still get more levels to compensate.

Of course you'd want to make sure you're still keeping in mind what the player's actual ECLs are so you can adjust encounters accordingly.

[Zombulian]

Just gon a say it again... Monster classes