Monsters as player characters; Multiattack?

[johniemi]

I'm starting a D&D 5th monster campaign. We are pretty aware of the rules (me and one of the players combined have over 50 years of experience with different editions of D&D) but we are now facing a dilemma. We are trying to balance the PARTY, as in make the four characters pretty much equal. We don't (yet) need to adjust the party to the CR's of monsters and traps etc. (although if someone wants to give their opinion on that, please do).

One of the players is a Quickiling, one is a Troll, one is a Pixie and one is an Ogre.

The real problem is; What to do with the Multiattack ability (Troll and Quicking)? Now everything is pretty much balanced except the Troll and Quickling are just too good and this is because of the Multiattack ability.

My suggestion is to remove Multiattack completely and then use the good(?) old rules of Level Adjustment as below to get the party balanced between each character;
Ogre LA 0
Pixie LA 0
Quickling LA 1
Troll LA 2

Of course the Quicking player disagrees as he seems to think that removing multiattack completely nerfs his character, and I told that yes, it does, but this is a matter of nerfing to make the party balanced.

So what would you do in regards of Multiattack and Level Adjustment? Note again that we are level adjusting just between these characters first, then i'll just upscale the encounters when we have played a few test battles. So this is not a matter of "true" level adjustment to get the party balanced to the CR's, just to get the four party characters balanced between themselves.

[Lombra]

Will they gain class levels? If so it's reasonable to remove multiattack entirely. How do you deal with the lifespan of a quckling? Will you just ignore it?

Will the level adjustment only affect virtual level for the purpose of calculating level-up xp or is it an actual level difference?

[johniemi]

Yes, they will gain class levels.

For example the Ogre (LA 0) starts as an Ogre at level zero and can then level up as a Barbarian like this:
XP 2,700; character level 4: Ogre 0 / Barbarian 4
XP 335,000; character level 20: Ogre 0 / Barbarian 20

Whereas the Troll is LA 2 and thus levels like this, so he effectively takes two levels just to be a troll from the Monster Manual and is always 2 class levels behind the Ogre, assuming they get the same XP everytime:
XP 2,700; character level 4: Troll 2 / Barbarian 2
XP 335,000; character level 20: Troll 2 / Barbarian 18

And yes, the Quickling lives only about 15 years (11+1d6, rolled by the player) and he starts his adventuring career around age 3. Of course if the player starts to pursue longevity thru magical means or other ways via roleplaying then things might work out different/better for him... :)

[Unoriginal]

Ogre is CR 2, Pixie is CR 1/4, Quickling is CR 1 and Troll is CR 5.

Sorry, but I don't see how your Level Adjustment is taking this into account.

Also, one point in CR is roughly equivalent to 2-4 PC levels, though since CR is calculated for a single encounter and not an adventuring day you could say it's worth 2 levels plainly.

Which still put the Ogre at equivalent of level 4, the Quickling at lvl 2, the Troll at lvl 10 and the Pixie at lvl 1/2.


Keep in mind the Multiattack is a good part of the Troll's and the Quickling's CRs.

Without the Multiattack, a Quickling would probably hardly be CR 1/2.

Meanwhile the Ogre still has increased damages due to using Large weapons.

My suggestion is to remove the Troll's multiattack, but not the Quickling.

With the understanding that you don't gain more attacks with the Extra Attack feature if you're using the Multiattack action, of course (since Extra Attack is strictly for the Attack action, which differs from the Multiattack one).