Suggestions for making monsters with class levels/PrCs?

[danielxcutter]

Anyone have ideas? I'm not asking for VC levels of creative, but I would like ideas better than "giant with levels in Barbarian" and "monsters with racial casting".

No TO cheese or rules-lawyer stuff, please. Just don't.

Also non-associated class levels are in play. Use your common sense.

[zlefin]

monsters for what purpose?
there's tons of things you can do; the question is what is your goal in so doing?
the creation of interesting monsters for a campaign? the creation of PC chars?
what optimization level is sought?

how will non-associated be determined? after all many things can be finagled to be more useful than would be otherwise expected; and just getting lots of levels is worth something, especially with good feat choice.
what target CRs are being looked for?

basically, you need to provide more info on what you're looking for.

[danielxcutter]

monsters for what purpose?

Interesting, decent-to-fairly-highly optimized encounters.[/quote]


how will non-associated be determined? after all many things can be finagled to be more useful than would be otherwise expected; and just getting lots of levels is worth something, especially with good feat choice.

If there's something that plays straight with the monster's abilities, then it's associated. For example, martial classes are associated for brutes, but caster classes probably wouldn't. However, hybrid classes count as both - for example, Mystic Theurge would be associated for monsters with arcane *or* divine racial casting, and gish PrCs would be associated for both brutes and casters. Get it?


what target CRs are being looked for?

Oh, things that can be brought up to CR 20 preferably, but anything works really.


basically, you need to provide more info on what you're looking for.

That enough?

[ZamielVanWeber]

A quick warning: the non-associated class levels are evil if you are not careful. A ghoul cleric 20 will be CR 11. Without items it's Wis will only be 19, but that is enough to make your players miserable. Heck, 2 of those is a CR 12 encounter.

[danielxcutter]

A quick warning: the non-associated class levels are evil if you are not careful. A ghoul cleric 20 will be CR 11. Without items it's Wis will only be 19, but that is enough to make your players miserable. Heck, 2 of those is a CR 12 encounter.

Which is why I said decent-to-fairly high optimization. That's practically TO.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Which is why I said decent-to-fairly high optimization. That's practically TO.

It is actually just a basic use of the rules. The CR rules for advancing monsters get bored quickly and it is something you always need to be aware of.

[danielxcutter]

It is actually just a basic use of the rules. The CR rules for advancing monsters get bored quickly and it is something you always need to be aware of.

I meant power levels. I'm obviously not going to those extremes.

[zlefin]

A quick warning: the non-associated class levels are evil if you are not careful. A ghoul cleric 20 will be CR 11. Without items it's Wis will only be 19, but that is enough to make your players miserable. Heck, 2 of those is a CR 12 encounter.

that's not right:
" Adding a nonassociated class level to a monster increases its CR by ½ per level until one of its nonassociated class levels equals its original Hit Dice."


danielx ->
from an optimization perspective, many straight caster classes can be a strong buff. classifying them as non-associated mostly means adding piles of caster levels to people that woudln't get them, which adds a lot of buffs and utility.
in a practical sense, levels of clerics can go well with anything. hence my query on that.


are you looking more for info on how to do the builds mechanical and optimization-wise; or on general, flavorful concepts, whereupon you woudl flesh out the build yourself?

[danielxcutter]

that's not right:
" Adding a nonassociated class level to a monster increases its CR by ½ per level until one of its nonassociated class levels equals its original Hit Dice."

Yes, this. A Ghoul Cleric would be CR 20. Not that weak, but still.


danielx ->
from an optimization perspective, many straight caster classes can be a strong buff. classifying them as non-associated mostly means adding piles of caster levels to people that woudln't get them, which adds a lot of buffs and utility.
in a practical sense, levels of clerics can go well with anything. hence my query on that.


Good point. Blood Wind for one is quite good for natural weapons, for one.



are you looking more for info on how to do the builds mechanical and optimization-wise; or on general, flavorful concepts, whereupon you woudl flesh out the build yourself?

Hmm... I know *how* to do it. I want to know what I *could* do. Succubus Blackguard, for example, is pretty tough to take down, especially if you add Divine Shield and Parrying Shield. Or a giant with Swordsage levels specializing in Setting Sun maneuvers. Or... oh you should get the idea by now.

Note: PrCs are fair game.

[zlefin]

In terms of notes on what you *could* do, here's some thoughts:
when adding martial class levels, it's nearly always better to splash a whole bunch of different things due to how frontloaded most are. in particular monsters often have some very high stats, and can make excellent use of things which boost based on stats. especially since giving them class levels lets you use the elite stat array.

adding one or two levels of something ToB is very often helpful, you can pick up some high levels maneuvers, and get the diamond mind saves.
there's a lot of great buff spells even for low levels of caster, and practiced spellcaster can be used to get the spellcaster up enough ot make the duration decent.


aside from that I can'[t think of much specific; as what you can do wtih monsters would be as wide as what you can dow tih classes in general, which is a huge and varied list.

[danielxcutter]

In terms of notes on what you *could* do, here's some thoughts:
when adding martial class levels, it's nearly always better to splash a whole bunch of different things due to how frontloaded most are. in particular monsters often have some very high stats, and can make excellent use of things which boost based on stats. especially since giving them class levels lets you use the elite stat array.

adding one or two levels of something ToB is very often helpful, you can pick up some high levels maneuvers, and get the diamond mind saves.
there's a lot of great buff spells even for low levels of caster, and practiced spellcaster can be used to get the spellcaster up enough ot make the duration decent.


aside from that I can'[t think of much specific; as what you can do wtih monsters would be as wide as what you can dow tih classes in general, which is a huge and varied list.

Hmm... something that's either monster-specific or is otherwise rare for PCs being used quite well and creatively, like that Succubus Blackguard idea I had. Charisma to saves and shield AC, and shield AC to touch AC.

[Crake]

A succubus with the lawful subtype via a ritual (done by some crazy wizard experimenting with savage species ritual of alignment) with 1 monk level, aescetic mage (to convert monk AC from wis to cha), a couple of levels in blackguard Paladin of Tyranny for cha to saves, and 5 levels in iaijutsu master for cha to each damage dice of your iaijutsu focus. 8 class levels, all non-associated, with no single class going above the succubus' 6HD, so all add only 1/2 a CR. 14HD, CR 11, for it's equipment, all it really needs is slippers of battledancing for cha to hit/damage when you move in the same round (useful since you're only getting 1 iaijutsu strike off anyway). Tough as nails to kill, and deals enough damage to potentially one shot most PCs around it's CR range.

I actually run that as an NPC in my campaign setting, she runs the yakuza in the japanese-esque region of my world.

[danielxcutter]

A succubus with the lawful subtype via a ritual (done by some crazy wizard experimenting with savage species ritual of alignment) with 1 monk level, aescetic mage (to convert monk AC from wis to cha), a couple of levels in blackguard for cha to saves, and 5 levels in iaijutsu master for cha to each damage dice of your iaijutsu focus. 8 class levels, all non-associated, with no single class going above the succubus' 6HD, so all add only 1/2 a CR. 14HD, CR 11, for it's equipment, all it really needs is slippers of battledancing for cha to hit/damage when you move in the same round (useful since you're only getting 1 iaijutsu strike off anyway). Tough as nails to kill, and deals enough damage to potentially one shot most PCs around it's CR range.

I actually run that as an NPC in my campaign setting, she runs the yakuza in the japanese-esque region of my world.

Hey, what did I say about not doing TO?

[Crake]

Hey, what did I say about not doing TO?

Uhh, is that TO? I wasn't aware, it seemed quite firmly PO to me. About on par with an ubercharger, right?

[danielxcutter]

Uhh, is that TO? I wasn't aware, it seemed quite firmly PO to me. About on par with an ubercharger, right?

Ubercharger *is* TO, silly. You should have guessed when you said "deals enough damage to potentially one shot most PCs around it's CR range."

[Rebel7284]

I like how Gloura can so quickly and flavorfully enter Sublime Chord and only has 2LA. (Last part less relevant to NPCs)
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e
They are also an excellent candidates for stacking Charisma to X due to having Charisma to AC and Saves already.

Lycanthrope HD can be used to qualify for Ur Priest and they even get Iron Will as a bonus feat! I prefer Savage Bard 1/Were-Fleshraker (animal HD) 4

[danielxcutter]

I like how Gloura can so quickly and flavorfully enter Sublime Chord and only has 2LA. (Last part less relevant to NPCs)
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e
They are also an excellent candidates for stacking Charisma to X due to having Charisma to AC and Saves already.

Lycanthrope HD can be used to qualify for Ur Priest and they even get Iron Will as a bonus feat! I prefer Savage Bard 1/Were-Fleshraker (animal HD) 4

I knew about Gloura, but that Lycanthrope idea is neat.

[Crake]

Ubercharger *is* TO, silly. You should have guessed when you said "deals enough damage to potentially one shot most PCs around it's CR range."

I think most people consider ubercharger to be decidedly PO, but it's your thread I suppose.

With regards to one shotting, well there's already plenty of monsters with one shot abilities out there: save or dies. A melee based one shot isn' any more powerful, especially when it requires some level of setup (the target must be flat footed, so either stunning fist, or feint, both of which can fail, and require another round of setting up), and can still miss due to a poor roll, or even an average roll against opponents with high AC. Ubercharger on the other hand attacks round after round for massive damage, so I suppose it was a poor comparison.

That is where the high defenses come in, since it could potentially take a few rounds to set up the ideal conditions to execute and connect with an iaijutsu strike, wheras other similar monsters would have been just hitting round after round, and would likely come out with the same dps overall. The only big difference is the iaijutsu master delivers all the damage in one go, wheras a fire giant for example, would simply be hitting twice or so a round for 6d6+30 damage. Over, say, 2.5 rounds average setup time, that's 15d6+75 damage vs 1d10+6d6+90 on an average iaijutsu focus roll. Still think it's TO?

[danielxcutter]

I think most people consider ubercharger to be decidedly PO, but it's your thread I suppose.

With regards to one shotting, well there's already plenty of monsters with one shot abilities out there: save or dies. A melee based one shot isn' any more powerful, especially when it requires some level of setup (the target must be flat footed, so either stunning fist, or feint, both of which can fail, and require another round of setting up), and can still miss due to a poor roll, or even an average roll against opponents with high AC. Ubercharger on the other hand attacks round after round for massive damage, so I suppose it was a poor comparison.

That is where the high defenses come in, since it could potentially take a few rounds to set up the ideal conditions to execute and connect with an iaijutsu strike, wheras other similar monsters would have been just hitting round after round, and would likely come out with the same dps overall. The only big difference is the iaijutsu master delivers all the damage in one go, wheras a fire giant for example, would simply be hitting twice or so a round for 6d6+30 damage. Over, say, 2.5 rounds average setup time, that's 15d6+75 damage vs 1d10+6d6+90 on an average iaijutsu focus roll. Still think it's TO?

...Yes, I actually do. A wand of Swift Invisibility is good enough for the flat-footed part, or maybe a weapon with the Blurstrike enhancement. Heck, if your PCs don't have 5 ranks in Balance marbles are enough. Also, Fire Giants are big brutes, whereas your build is almost impossible to kill.

As for the comparison to save-or-dies, those aren't a good example because pumping saves is easy as well as getting immunity to the nastier ones. Your build *will* kill a PC every few rounds at minimum.

Plus, anything that kills

[AlanBruce]

I have always found adding classes and PrC to monsters to be a lot of fun since they tend to catch players and PCs alike by surprise, expecting one thing and then getting smacked by something they did not expect.

That being said, the campaign I ran these NPCs was a high level game. The NPCs presented here had their stats rolled, but Elite or Non Elite Array is obviously the better choice depending on the power level of your party.

These were found at an ancient elven wizard tower, after a Gate spell went awry and had them kill the resident wizard and take over the tower and surrounding forest.

Most of these are found in the Monster Manual. Others are found in Fiendish Codex 2.

Erinyes Ranger 2/ Deepwood Sniper 2/Order of the Bow Initiate 2

Amnizu Wizard 3/ Diabolist 8

Osyluth Paladin of Tyranny 2/Blackguard 2/Pious Templar 2

Orthon Crusader 8

Dogai Beguiler1/Unseen Seer 4

Gulthir Soul Eater 10

Hamatula Swordsage 4/Master of Nine 5

Note that these were done a long time ago and some builds might not be able to work, but some of these were put to good use and turned out to be rather deadly for a well optimized party.

[DrKerosene]

Edit: Would some weird high level undead Drowned/Emancipated Spawn/retro-active Class Levels combo be what you are looking for?

I'm not sure how a toned-down uber-charger isn't an acceptable option, if put on something neat like a fully advanced Barghest (CR 9 with BAB 18 and all around good stats). If ubercharging is unacceptable, how about a Martial Adept dip and PrC? Or just Warshaper? Or just the good old Mortal Hunter prc.

The Lunar Ravager is a CR 7 fey with 14 hit dice worth of skill points, as well as nice gear. I don't see why they couldn't enter the Divine Crusader prc with a change to the Weapon Focus feat and 2 ranks in Kn.Planes. With a one level dip in Barbarian (and maybe feat swapping) you can enter Bear Warrior or Frenzied Berserker. I really like a Bear running off with a trophy (PC) and the Party tracking it to some clouds. Or any pseudo-Ranger/Fighter PrC that requires Track.

An Abiel Queen could probably enter Holt Warden, or other Druid casting prcs.

A lot of things could enter the Fiend of Possession prc. Like an Unholy Scion Sawtooth Titan. But psionics is better for FoP.

A Rakshasa could enter Blood Magus, may require one level of Sorcerer depending on your game rules. With a level of Sorc the Rakshasa could definately enter Iot7FV.

I'm pretty sure most things can enter Cancer Mage too.

How about stuffing a Fiend of Possession inside a Cancer Mage who is inside a Blood Magus?

[Crake]

...Yes, I actually do. A wand of Swift Invisibility is good enough for the flat-footed part, or maybe a weapon with the Blurstrike enhancement. Heck, if your PCs don't have 5 ranks in Balance marbles are enough. Also, Fire Giants are big brutes, whereas your build is almost impossible to kill.

As for the comparison to save-or-dies, those aren't a good example because pumping saves is easy as well as getting immunity to the nastier ones. Your build *will* kill a PC every few rounds at minimum.

Plus, anything that kills

Marbles take a standard action to deploy, so you can't use them and attack in the same round, and a player could just move out of the area before the next round to avoid getting iaijutsu struck, the build has no ranks in UMD to try and use a wand of swift invis, or any kind of casting that would allow them to use it, and it doesn't have enough NPC wealth to have both slippers of battledancing AND a +3 equivilent weapon at CR11, so no blurstrike. Besides, marbles are tacky, what kind of elegant yakuza boss would use those.

As for save or dies being easy to boost saves (isn't AC even easier to boost? :smallconfused:), well, what about when the save or die is an aoe gaze attack that the players need to save against every round of combat, like a medusa, or a bodak? And the DCs are also easy to boost, hell, just giving a monster class levels lets you boost it's save based ability by +2 with the elite array, more if you use whatever standard character ability generation is available to players (32 pb or whatnot). You could combine a medusa with bard levels to get fascinate and force the players to sit idly by, staring at you while they slowly, one by one, all turn to stone, plus the cha synergy with bard and perform stacks with the cha based DC on the medusa's gaze attack.

A medusa with 6 bard levels would be CR10, with the elite array you could get 20 cha, with ability focus for +2, resulting in a save DC of 23 every round, and with a vest of legends would count as an 11th level bard, allowing her to fascinate all 4 party members for 11 rounds at an average DC of 37 vs the fascinate. You try making a DC23 fort save every round for 11 rounds at level 6-10 and get back to me :smalltongue:

Edit: As a bonus, throw in a disguise self before battle courtesy of your bard casting to make "Being approached by the comely lady" not count as a potential threat.

[danielxcutter]

I have always found adding classes and PrC to monsters to be a lot of fun since they tend to catch players and PCs alike by surprise, expecting one thing and then getting smacked by something they did not expect.

That being said, the campaign I ran these NPCs was a high level game. The NPCs presented here had their stats rolled, but Elite or Non Elite Array is obviously the better choice depending on the power level of your party.

These were found at an ancient elven wizard tower, after a Gate spell went awry and had them kill the resident wizard and take over the tower and surrounding forest.

Most of these are found in the Monster Manual. Others are found in Fiendish Codex 2.

Erinyes Ranger 2/ Deepwood Sniper 2/Order of the Bow Initiate 2

Amnizu Wizard 3/ Diabolist 8

Osyluth Paladin of Tyranny 2/Blackguard 2/Pious Templar 2

Orthon Crusader 8

Dogai Beguiler1/Unseen Seer 4

Gulthir Soul Eater 10

Hamatula Swordsage 4/Master of Nine 5

Note that these were done a long time ago and some builds might not be able to work, but some of these were put to good use and turned out to be rather deadly for a well optimized party.

Pretty neat. Yeah this is kind of on the lines of what I'm looking for.

[danielxcutter]

I'm not sure how a toned-down uber-charger isn't an acceptable option, if put on something neat like a fully advanced Barghest (CR 9 with BAB 18 and all around good stats). If ubercharging is unacceptable, how about a Martial Adept dip and PrC? Or just Warshaper? Or just the good old Mortal Hunter prc.

The phrase "toned-down ubercharger" is an oxymoron. A charger build is acceptable, yes, but not something that can kill things 2~3 CR higher every charge. At least Barghest don't do that.

The other ideas work quite well, though. Haven't heard of Mortal Hunter before, but that sounds neat.


The Lunar Ravager is a CR 7 fey with 14 hit dice worth of skill points, as well as nice gear. I don't see why they couldn't enter the Divine Crusader prc with a change to the Weapon Focus feat and 2 ranks in Kn.Planes. With a one level dip in Barbarian (and maybe feat swapping) you can enter Bear Warrior or Frenzied Berserker. I really like a Bear running off with a trophy (PC) and the Party tracking it to some clouds. Or any pseudo-Ranger/Fighter PrC that requires Track.

An Abiel Queen could probably enter Holt Warden, or other Druid casting prcs.

A lot of things could enter the Fiend of Possession prc. Like an Unholy Scion Sawtooth Titan. But psionics is better for FoP.

A Rakshasa could enter Blood Magus, may require one level of Sorcerer depending on your game rules. With a level of Sorc the Rakshasa could definately enter Iot7FV.

I'm pretty sure most things can enter Cancer Mage too.

Yeah, like this. Good job.


How about stuffing a Fiend of Possession inside a Cancer Mage who is inside a Blood Magus?

Okay this is kinda silly, but who cares.


Marbles take a standard action to deploy, so you can't use them and attack in the same round, and a player could just move out of the area before the next round to avoid getting iaijutsu struck, the build has no ranks in UMD to try and use a wand of swift invis, or any kind of casting that would allow them to use it, and it doesn't have enough NPC wealth to have both slippers of battledancing AND a +3 equivilent weapon at CR11, so no blurstrike. Besides, marbles are tacky, what kind of elegant yakuza boss would use those.

Eternal wands are a thing. Still anything that can one-shot PCs isn't really a good thing.


As for save or dies being easy to boost saves (isn't AC even easier to boost? :smallconfused:), well, what about when the save or die is an aoe gaze attack that the players need to save against every round of combat, like a medusa, or a bodak? And the DCs are also easy to boost, hell, just giving a monster class levels lets you boost it's save based ability by +2 with the elite array, more if you use whatever standard character ability generation is available to players (32 pb or whatnot). You could combine a medusa with bard levels to get fascinate and force the players to sit idly by, staring at you while they slowly, one by one, all turn to stone, plus the cha synergy with bard and perform stacks with the cha based DC on the medusa's gaze attack.

A medusa with 6 bard levels would be CR10, with the elite array you could get 20 cha, with ability focus for +2, resulting in a save DC of 23 every round, and with a vest of legends would count as an 11th level bard, allowing her to fascinate all 4 party members for 11 rounds at an average DC of 37 vs the fascinate. You try making a DC23 fort save every round for 11 rounds at level 6-10 and get back to me :smalltongue:

Edit: As a bonus, throw in a disguise self before battle courtesy of your bard casting to make "Being approached by the comely lady" not count as a potential threat.

Well, I get it about the SoDs, but I don't really like SoD-centric monsters in general since a bad roll is more disastrous compared to attack rolls. And that sucks if your character died, since it's just plain bad luck.

Edit: tl;dr Your stuff is too heavily optimized for my taste, sorry. I just prefer lower levels of optimization, and less damage for that matter.

[RoboEmperor]

I think most people consider ubercharger to be decidedly PO, but it's your thread I suppose.

It's on the border between PO and TO. To noob DMs its TO. To experienced DMs its PO. It's above DMM:Persist.

To answer the OP's question, since monsters are already very strong without class levels, use class levels to add something fun.

Levels in Fighter for Spiked Chain related feats. Have a demon flailing around a spiked chain, with all its reach and trip attack glory instead of using its claws.

Levels in Fighter for humongous weapon related feats. Have a creature wield a colossal sized weapon.

Levels in spellcaster for wraithstrike is very scary.

Fatespinner is always fun. Forcing players to reroll is not gamebreaking, but requires a **** ton of spellcaster levels to qualify.

Have a Shadowcraft Mage as a NPC. Fighting Shadow Creatures in a shadow terrain is always fun and creepy.

[DrKerosene]

The phrase "toned-down ubercharger" is an oxymoron. A charger build is acceptable, yes, but not something that can kill things 2~3 CR higher every charge. At least Barghest don't do that.

Example, Pinball Brother build: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?471330-Weekly-Optimization-Showcase-Pinball-Brothers-(Tempest_Stormwind)

If you just take the first 7 levels of the build, and do other things with the remaining class levels, it's "toned down". How is it hard to remove one of the elements from an ubercharger so it's just a deadly charger? It seems aboit as hard as adding class levels to a monster.

Also, I like the idea of an evil spirit possessing a disease that can travel great distance through blood. If your campaign has rooms for such horror elements.

How do you feel about DM Fiat origins? Like a Plane of Mirrors/Mirror of Opposition double who stays after killing the original? That would open up some weird options.