removing racial hit dice for pc monsters: reasonable?

[King of Nowhere]

I was looking at some monster stats, and was thinking how some of them could make decent pcs. except that their equivalent level would be way too high. And I was thinking of ways around that.

Let's start with the ogre (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogre.htm). Its racial stats are +10 STR, -2 DEX, +5 CON, -4 INT, -4 CHA, darkvision, large size. Seems reasonable for a LA +2.
But it also has 4 racial hit dice. So the rest of the part would be 7th level by the time you could grab your first class level. It's definitely not worth it for what you get.
On the other hand, giving all those boosts, racial hit dice included, for just two levels, would be overpowered. Everyone would want to pick an ogre, if you could start at level 2 with 4 hit dice.

So I thought, let's remove those 4 racial hit dice, and make ogre a race playable fro level 1, with 1 hit dice and LA +2. And now the level adjustment seems way more reasonable.

I also considered nymph (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/nymph.htm), because I like to have high AC and saving throws, and unhearty grace is the kind of stuff I want to put my hands on. Again, not worth it if you start as a regular nymph for a level 13 party. But swapping out those 6 fey hit dice for whatever class hit dice you'd like, again I feel it would be roughly balanced. Though I'd want to lower the LA at higher levels, when those 7 levels of druid spellcasting don't matter anymore.

What do you think? Would swapping racial hit dice with pc class levels make monsters playable? Or would it lead to broken combos?
Note: if a couple monsters would lead to broken combos, that's only to be expected, as there are many of those. Right now, I don't know a single playable monster. If most monsters would become playable, then a few broken ones could be easily banned or houseruled to fix them, and I'd still consider it a good thing.

[OgresAreCute]

There are definitely going to be some where you get too much if you just take the LA and not the RHD. On the other hand, some are going to be completely unplayable still (erinyes has +7 LA... those stat boosts are nice, but not 7 levels of nothing nice). I'd rather suggest lowering the LA and potentially removing some of the RHD as well or maybe lowering the LA and giving a limited gestalt with a crappy class to make up for how terrible most RHD are.

[Falontani]

Upon first reading, I thought that the idea was dumb and probably would not work, however most creatures it can work on (with those that have statted LAs) however there will be a lot of creatures that will probably still be very powerful.


Suggestion: You may not start a character until you have reached their RHD+LA, but once you are able to start the character you can swap out up to 1/2 it's racial HD and it's LA worth of RHD (to a max of their total RHD) for class levels. This would make most if not all creatures that have statted LAs playable.


12 RHD 8 LA. Can't start play until level 20. That hurts. However half RHD is 6, with an 8 LA means you can turn all 12 of the RHD into full class levels.
100 ft good fly speed, 50 ft land speed, 15 Natural Armor, DR 10, immunities, resistances, good SR; with +12 str, +8 dex, +8 con, +8 int, +8 wis, +10 cha gives you a very balanced spread of stats and a huge slew of spell likes abilities really means you are very broad in what you can do. Going full initiator 12 would make you a very respectable melee, however with the LA of 8 you would have a shortcoming on health at level 20. Really hard to decide with the Astral Deva
3 RHD, 4 LA. Couldn't start play until level 7, however would start with full class levels as well.
Poison, web, climb speed of 25 ft, and 1 NA are all pretty meh for level 7. Their Change Form is nice, however the true draw to playing an Aranea would be it's 3 racial sorcerer casting. Plop some sorcerer levels instead of its RHD and it would start at level 7 with 3 HD and 6 sorcerer casting along with all that it already had. This means that the tradeoff for a sorcerer is effectively 1 LA for +4 dex, +4 con, +4 int, +2 wis, +4 cha, which is all very nice to grab. Another thing you could do is grab 1 sorc level, 2 other RHD. I would make that trade

realized I don't have enough time to go through all of the monster manual, however up until the Dragons there isn't a single creature with an LA that wouldn't have all their RHD changed to normal class levels. It pushes a lot of creatures towards playable and didn't make any of the ones I actually looked at too overpowered.


The biggest concern with the whole thing I would make sure to look at is any creature with racial spellcasting. Browse Inevitable's LA reassignment thread for more inspiration on what creatures are already powerful enough to warrant an LA with nothing else changed on them, those are the creatures you should worry about PCs taking. Usually.

[NerdHut]

This can work, but it's not a One-Size-Fits-All solution. I wouldn't have a problem with dropping the RHD from an Ogre and calling it good. But there are other monsters that I'd want to tweak their abilities, or at the very least keep some of the RHD. Rakshasa comes to mind. If you dropped all the RHD for free, you're basically playing a crazy powerful sorcerer at level 8 (though one level of sorcerer with LA +7 makes your hitpoints quite low). You'd need to adapt monsters' RHD and LA to fit the power level of your campaign.

In a previous campaign I ran, someone played and Anthropomorphic Black Bear and we dropped the RHD but kept the LA. She was playing a barbarian, so she was hitting pretty hard and did a great job of taking the hits. But the delayed class features from the LA helped balance her out.

I'd say if you're planning on doing this for a campaign you're running, tell the players it can be allowed, but on a case-by-case basis, for obvious reasons.

[Jon_Dahl]

I think this is a good idea. I have nothing more to say on this matter.

[DeTess]

I think this is a good idea. I have nothing more to say on this matter.

I'd personally start with removing the LA, and then reduce the monster HD to taste. This should be easier to eye-ball as you can basically just go 'how many class levels are this monster's abilities worth?' and use that as the amount of HD you use.

Edit: in the LA assignment thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?569969-The-LA-assignment-thread-V-Escape-from-LA) it is occasionally discussed at how many HD a certain monster would be worth playing, so you could look through there for advice.

[Necroticplague]

What do you think? Would swapping racial hit dice with pc class levels make monsters playable? Or would it lead to broken combos?
not just broken combos, but flat out broken monsters. Especially as you move to higher and higher levels of monster power, more and more of their ECL is RHD. Heck, some monsters have negative LA to compensate for them having an absolute boatload of RHD. So while this might work out if you stick to lover-level monsters, trying to use stronger ones will shatter it in half. Like many with racial spellcasting. And not to mention that for most martial characters, the pile of stats and racial abilities with almost certainly outweigh the lost class levels. So now the pendulum has swung the other way: There's basically no reason for anyone to be human now.


Note: if a couple monsters would lead to broken combos, that's only to be expected, as there are many of those. Right now, I don't know a single playable monster. If most monsters would become playable, then a few broken ones could be easily banned or houseruled to fix them, and I'd still consider it a good thing.1.Why should most monsters be playable? The point of monsters is to have enemies to fight. Having them be possible party members just muddies things up and creates RP difficulties. So it's good of the system to encourage everybody to be human, anyway.

2. There are plenty of playable monsters. Templates produce all sorts of useful monsters.

[Telonius]

Depends on the setting, I think. If you're going for more of a plane-hopping thing, or something where you have some monstrous races existing in the same city as humans, making monsters playable would support the theme. (I'm thinking things like Robert Asprin's Myth series, or Discworld). It's not the standard setting, but with a little tinkering the rules could probably support that sort of a game. At the very least it means the high-RHD player won't seek out the nearest energy-draining undead and fail some saves deliberately.

I do think that removing the racial hit dice would generally be a sensible thing, but you would have to watch the individual cases. There are examples of monsters with high LA/low RHD for their ECL, and low LA/high RHD for the ECL.

[Troacctid]

I much prefer creating monster classes on demand. The great thing about savage progressions is that they make it easy to bring monsters in line with standard races while still offering players the option of gaining the more powerful abilities if they're willing to commit.

[King of Nowhere]

The biggest concern with the whole thing I would make sure to look at is any creature with racial spellcasting. Browse Inevitable's LA reassignment thread for more inspiration on what creatures are already powerful enough to warrant an LA with nothing else changed on them, those are the creatures you should worry about PCs taking. Usually.

Racial spellcasting, as I said, is one big problem here, because it is overpowered at low levels, but useless later. In the given example of a nymph, starting at level 1 with 7 levels worth of druid spells is stupid, but at high levels, being able to cast a few low level spells isn't going to matter at all.

In that case, I'd probably retool racial spellcasting as "your racial spells increase with your hit dice", and judge on a case-by-case basis. For the aformentioned hymph, spellcasting as a druid of half her ECL seems fine; if nothing else because she'd then cast as a 7th level druid once she had 6 hit dice, and could progress to 10th level druid at ECL 20 - not game breaking, but at least useful.

I'm not directly planning that at the moment, except maybe to better balance some npcs - there is a nymph with some power and relevance in my campaign world, and I was wondering of reasonable ways to stat her. but it probably won't be needed. It was mostly a thought experiment

[liquidformat]

I much prefer creating monster classes on demand. The great thing about savage progressions is that they make it easy to bring monsters in line with standard races while still offering players the option of gaining the more powerful abilities if they're willing to commit.

I agree with you that savage progressions are great; however, they don't solve the problem of 'this monster sucks hard because its hd/la are too high'. OP gives us two examples of trying to fix this, the first, dropping the rhd on an ogre works and doesn't have much of a change to power level. The second is just broken and doesn't work in any way what so ever because Nymph's have 7 caster levels with 6 hd. I think going with the changed LA presented in the LA assessment thread linked above is a good choice for the Nymph the above works well enough for the ogre.

[Falontani]

Racial spellcasting, as I said, is one big problem here, because it is overpowered at low levels, but useless later. In the given example of a nymph, starting at level 1 with 7 levels worth of druid spells is stupid, but at high levels, being able to cast a few low level spells isn't going to matter at all.

In that case, I'd probably retool racial spellcasting as "your racial spells increase with your hit dice", and judge on a case-by-case basis. For the aformentioned hymph, spellcasting as a druid of half her ECL seems fine; if nothing else because she'd then cast as a 7th level druid once she had 6 hit dice, and could progress to 10th level druid at ECL 20 - not game breaking, but at least useful.

I'm not directly planning that at the moment, except maybe to better balance some npcs - there is a nymph with some power and relevance in my campaign world, and I was wondering of reasonable ways to stat her. but it probably won't be needed. It was mostly a thought experiment

A racial spellcasting (like rhakshasa) can be progressed. They usually say you cast spells as an x leveled class. If you take that class then you progress it just as normal. Then prestige classes can progress it as well. Iirc in the villainous competition there is a creature that took advantage of that aspect, although it still hasn't been judged...

[Troacctid]

I agree with you that savage progressions are great; however, they don't solve the problem of 'this monster sucks hard because its hd/la are too high'.
How does making the HD/LA optional not solve the problem?

[liquidformat]

A racial spellcasting (like rhakshasa) can be progressed. They usually say you cast spells as an x leveled class. If you take that class then you progress it just as normal. Then prestige classes can progress it as well. Iirc in the villainous competition there is a creature that took advantage of that aspect, although it still hasn't been judged...
That is only true if you start with rhd, if you are scrapping the RHD and only leaving LA you are a screwy spot do to the differences between your hd and cl...

[Remuko]

Racial spellcasting, as I said, is one big problem here, because it is overpowered at low levels, but useless later. In the given example of a nymph, starting at level 1 with 7 levels worth of druid spells is stupid, but at high levels, being able to cast a few low level spells isn't going to matter at all.

In that case, I'd probably retool racial spellcasting as "your racial spells increase with your hit dice", and judge on a case-by-case basis. For the aformentioned hymph, spellcasting as a druid of half her ECL seems fine; if nothing else because she'd then cast as a 7th level druid once she had 6 hit dice, and could progress to 10th level druid at ECL 20 - not game breaking, but at least useful.

I'm not directly planning that at the moment, except maybe to better balance some npcs - there is a nymph with some power and relevance in my campaign world, and I was wondering of reasonable ways to stat her. but it probably won't be needed. It was mostly a thought experiment

Yeah as Falontani said this becomes a problem because the Nymph for example can become a Druid and the Druid levels stack with racial spellcasting. So yeah at level 1 shes a lvl 7 druid caster in your original example, but later on she would be casting as a Druid 20 at lvl 14.

[Necroticplague]

How does making the HD/LA optional not solve the problem?
Because taking a whole monster class and taking the template/race whole-sale have the same end result. The only point in which there's a difference is if the class is front-loaded, or if the higher level abilities are junk enough that you're willing to just never get them. In which case, you're not really using that race or template. You're just using a different template that's better than the original, and shares some of its traits.

For example, the Ghost template class is flat out better than the Ghost template, because the Template Class lets you, at least, shave out a level to make it an ECL 4 template (since there's basically no reason to get that fith level). And if all you want is the undead and incorporeal goodies, well, it's merely an ECL 1 template that's leagues better than the ECL 5 ghost template. This does nothing to improve the actual ECL 5 template, just largely supplanting it with a better ECL 1 template.

Or, in other words, it doesn't solve the problem of the original template being crap. It just makes other templates that might not be crap, and disingenuously dresses them up as being the same thing.

[Quertus]

Balance to the table. If "Ogre" is only worth 2 levels at 0 HD, and players are cool with 0HD Ogres, allow it to be statted that way at your table. If "Ogre" is only worth 1 level even with the 4 HD (ie, LA -3) at your table, then allow it to be statted that way.

If the player is as crazy as I am, and wants to play an Ogre Psion, give that particular Ogre the 4 HD and LA -6 or something.

Whatever it takes to make that particular character balanced at your table.

If, you know, your table cares about balance.

[Troacctid]

Because taking a whole monster class and taking the template/race whole-sale have the same end result. The only point in which there's a difference is if the class is front-loaded, or if the higher level abilities are junk enough that you're willing to just never get them. In which case, you're not really using that race or template. You're just using a different template that's better than the original, and shares some of its traits.
Being able to intersperse the levels throughout your build rather than frontloading them at the start is a big advantage even if you take all the levels.


For example, the Ghost template class is flat out better than the Ghost template, because the Template Class lets you, at least, shave out a level to make it an ECL 4 template (since there's basically no reason to get that fith level). And if all you want is the undead and incorporeal goodies, well, it's merely an ECL 1 template that's leagues better than the ECL 5 ghost template. This does nothing to improve the actual ECL 5 template, just largely supplanting it with a better ECL 1 template.

Or, in other words, it doesn't solve the problem of the original template being crap. It just makes other templates that might not be crap, and disingenuously dresses them up as being the same thing.
If you want to use the race as written, then why are you trying to fix it in the first place? Just play the ECL 6 ogre. Any buff you give it is going to result in supplanting the original with a better version. That's kinda the point of buffing it.

[King of Nowhere]

Yeah as Falontani said this becomes a problem because the Nymph for example can become a Druid and the Druid levels stack with racial spellcasting. So yeah at level 1 shes a lvl 7 druid caster in your original example, but later on she would be casting as a Druid 20 at lvl 14.

well, with LA +7, at level 14 she's ECL 21, so casting as druid 20 is fine.

Unless you meant ECL 14 (7th level)?
In that case, with the adjustment I proposed, she'd have 7 levels of druid, and she would get extra levels of druid equal to half her ECL, so 7 more, getting exactly... spells as a 14th level druid. Shows that the system can work! :smallcool:

At ECL 20 (level 13) she'd cast as a druid 23, but without any epic stuff, and at the cost of less hit points and no high level class abilities. If she invested heavily in boosting charisma, survivability won't be a problem, with such a nice boost to AC and saving throw. But losing all the higher level alternate forms, and still being more vulnerable to threats that bypass AC or savving throws, should make up for it. Again, the system can work! :smallsmile:

[Sword Magess]

Racial spellcasting, as I said, is one big problem here, because it is overpowered at low levels, but useless later. In the given example of a nymph, starting at level 1 with 7 levels worth of druid spells is stupid, but at high levels, being able to cast a few low level spells isn't going to matter at all.
Racial spellcasting is an ad-hoc property that does not relate to the power of the monster particularly well, with the result that you can get power levels all over the place. Examples from the SRD:

Nymph: Casts as a level 7 druid and is LA+7. A nymph druid 1 under your system would be ECL 8 and cast as a level 8 druid. But she would be 7 levels behind on hp, skill ranks, wild shape, animal companions, feats, and other class features (and potentially PrC progression). That is a lot to sacrifice for a druid, much of whose power comes from class features other than spellcasting.

Rakhasa: Casts as a level 7 sorcerer and is LA+7. A rakhasa sorcerer 1 under your system would be ECL 8 and cast as a level 8 sorcerer. He would be 7 levels behind on hp, skill ranks, feats, and class features. But because sorcerers have no real class features, it is a matter of accepting a higher risk of dying for more power.

Trumpet archon: Casts as a level 14 cleric and is LA+8. A trumpet archon cleric 1 under your system would be ECL 9 and cast as a level 15 cleric. She would be 8 levels behind on hp, skill ranks, feats, and class features, but who cares when she is 3 full spell levels ahead of the standard races?

[Troacctid]

Racial spellcasting is an ad-hoc property that does not relate to the power of the monster particularly well, with the result that you can get power levels all over the place. Examples from the SRD:

[...]
Other notable examples from splatbooks include the gloura (+2 LA, casts as a 7th level bard), hobgoblin warsoul (+4 LA, casts as a 9th level wizard), marrutact (+3 LA, casts as a 5th level wizard), jackal lord (+4 LA, casts as an 8th level cleric), and the egregious black ethergaunt (+4 LA, casts as a 17th level wizard).

[Mike Miller]

I was looking at some monster stats, and was thinking how some of them could make decent pcs. except that their equivalent level would be way too high. And I was thinking of ways around that.

...etc...

What do you think? Would swapping racial hit dice with pc class levels make monsters playable? Or would it lead to broken combos?
Note: if a couple monsters would lead to broken combos, that's only to be expected, as there are many of those. Right now, I don't know a single playable monster. If most monsters would become playable, then a few broken ones could be easily banned or houseruled to fix them, and I'd still consider it a good thing.

This is very interesting to me, as I was planning on doing almost this exact thing with my next campaign. If you give it a go, I would like to know how it works out. My plan was to remove the RHD and adjust the printed stats for their removal. As for LA, I generally am very lenient with removing LA. I planned on examining the resulting stats after the RHD were removed based on PC choices to see how much LA would be needed for balance.

(Probably irrelevant, but I also planned on restricting it to small and medium creatures. This is strictly a campaign thing, though. I could see it working for other sized creatures. Also, there are certainly small and medium creatures that would be overpowered with this setup.)