How broken are the Monsters as PCs rules?

[Milo v3]

As the title suggests, I'm curious about how broken the bestiary's "Monsters as PCs" rules are. My setting is a planar one and I want to allow players to be outsiders like Hound Archons, Dandasuka, and Kolyarut, but I haven't really seen material for that in Third Party.

[Sayt]

It... can work, if everyone is doing it and you lay down some ground rules like capping CR and HD, and reviewing player selections.

There are a few concerns, however:
1. some monsters wI'll advance casting faster than humanoid PC'S. Off the top of my head Drider does this once you get your "refund" levels, Lammasu may do this as well.

2. Monsters like fey and giants get many HD for their CR, meaning they get many feats from RHD.


On the other hand, there are some monsters which seem to have been somewhat designed for monsters as PCs, such as serpentfolk, which actually include scaling info.

[grarrrg]

Good enough as "quick and dirty" guidelines go.
But guidelines, not hard set rules.
The DM very much needs to be aware of what the players are wanting/trying to play, as there are plenty enough monster abilities that are stupid good in player hands.

[ATHATH]

Some high-HD, low-CR monsters might be able to reach the skill-requirements of some PrCs early.

[Endarire]

Ensure your group clarifies whether character level is class level or total hit dice. (In 3.5, it was usually total hit dice.)

[Milo v3]

Ensure your group clarifies whether character level is class level or total hit dice. (In 3.5, it was usually total hit dice.)
Using these PF monster rules, it is neither of those.

[Florian]

As the title suggests, I'm curious about how broken the bestiary's "Monsters as PCs" rules are. My setting is a planar one and I want to allow players to be outsiders like Hound Archons, Dandasuka, and Kolyarut, but I haven't really seen material for that in Third Party.

Tough topic to answer. Do yourself the favor and check the topic "Adding class levels and CR calculation" in the Bestiary appendix. You´ll find that CR calculations differ on whether you add a complementary class or not.

When using monsters as PCs, you´ll find that complementary monster-class-combos actually work pretty well, especially if the base monster already has an "acts as class X" clause, while non-complementary combos perform pretty bad, to put it mildly.

The system tends to break when it comes to the major outsider races, especially the good ones. It´s not too uncommon to find angels that cast as cleric. Check and compare CR to CL, they´re one and the same. So by the rules, you´d fare better with a Trumpet Archon than a Human Cleric 14, which should be equal. (Consider that you will probably progress with cleric levels for said Trumpet Archon, you´ll add the missing domains and domain slots the instant to hit level 15).

Something to keep an eye on is the HD-CR-difference. For example, take a look at the servitor races in Inner Sea Gods, which are designed around being able to be bound or summoned. Take, for example, a look at the Burleev, which is CR4 and acts as a Sorcerer 5.

Last point to consider is classes and possibly PrC. Some monsters can skip classes entirely and start progressing with a PrC. That´s important in this context as PrC generally progress to their capstones faster than a regular class does, especially if you allow swapping feats.
I think the Venedaemon is the most brutal example here. CR 5, acts as sorcerer 6, could qualify for mystic theurge after taking one level of oracle.
Broadly speaking, when a monster doesn´t have an "Acts like class X" feature, it generally meshes better with the lower tier classes like Fighter.

So, ultimately, I´d say go for it, but prepare clear guidelines for your players. Example´d be "No HD over CR", "No CR over 5" and so on.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, I would go with "Works ok, needs a close eye and adjusting on the fly." Some monsters will work just fine. Others will require adjusting to correct problems. Mostly, if CR=HD, then the creature will likely work just fine. If the creature has HD>>CR then you are going to run into the issue of skill ranks and access to PRC's and feats higher than the party would normally have access to. I suggest adding to such creatures by filling in class features from a class of the player's choice's class features until the CR is roughly equal to HD.

Other things to watch out for. Casting should never be higher than CR. Add HD to balance this out. This happens in some creatures and makes them silly powerful casters in player hands. Some creatures, like dragons, have low CR for their power level due to design bias that dragons are supposed to be dangerous.

[Lazymancer]

As the title suggests, I'm curious about how broken the bestiary's "Monsters as PCs" rules are. My setting is a planar one and I want to allow players to be outsiders like Hound Archons, Dandasuka, and Kolyarut, but I haven't really seen material for that in Third Party.
Not very.

That said, I fully agree that you shouldn't have more HD than the effective level of the character (and not less either; but that's rarely the case). I.e. tell players that they can alter abilities of the monster with pointbuy, but monster's HD will be reduced so that it will be equal to CR. Common sense should be enough for the rest.

[Zanos]

Some of them are hilariously busted. A Planetar is CR 16, casts as a 16th level cleric, and is also a Planetar. Many monsters have poor CR assignments even as monsters, and weren't intended to be used as PCs when they were originally written.

[Calthropstu]

On a scale of commoner to pun-pun, I'd rate their broken level as bard.
Pathfinder does not actually HAVE LA, which allows huge room for abuse. It does let you treat cr as a form of la, but it's not exactly enforced. General rule of thumb is to have players use relatively equal cr creatures for pcs, giving extra levels to lower cr creatures to allow them to match, treating the difference as levels using la buyoff rules.

[Necroticplague]

Normally, they're not too bad, but care should be taken on edge cases. The main edge cases are 'casts as a caster of it's CR or only a bit less' and 'Has significantly more HD than it's CR'.