Improving Monsters rules

[AvatarVecna]

The "Improving Monsters" rules has a lot of strong recommendations but not so many hard rules. The only hard rule relating to what I'm wanting to do is this:


Intelligent creatures that are not humanoid in shape, and nonintelligent monsters, can advance by increasing their Hit Dice.

As far as I can tell, this is the only thing that comes close to being a hard and fast rule: creatures that are this or that can advance by HD, and (logically), creatures that are neither this nor that cannot advance by HD. Now, I'm not asking whether you think this is a hard rule or not; if it's not a hard rule, but rather another guideline, than what I'm intending to do is fully legal and I don't need to worry. But supposing that it is a hard limit on what can and cannot be advanced by Hit Dice, then what counts as this and what counts as that?


Intelligent creatures that are not humanoid in shape

All this hard rule would exclude is "intelligence creatures that are humanoid in shape". What does that mean to you?

[Kayblis]

There are two pieces of information on that phrase, intelligence and shape. This creates effectively 3 groups, which advance differently:

1) Intelligent humanoids advance by class levels. These are your playable races.
2) Monsters and intelligent non-humanoids advance by racial hit dice. These are your dragons and animals.
3) Non-conscient creatures don't advance. "Non-conscient" usually refers to unintelligent undead and constructs, but some other creatures with no INT score are included and don't advance either.

[OgresAreCute]

There are two pieces of information on that phrase, intelligence and shape. This creates effectively 3 groups, which advance differently:

1) Intelligent humanoids advance by class levels. These are your playable races.
2) Monsters and intelligent non-humanoids advance by racial hit dice. These are your dragons and animals.
3) Non-conscient creatures don't advance. "Non-conscient" usually refers to unintelligent undead and constructs, but other creatures with no INT score are included and don't advance either.

Pretty sure 3) is wrong, because the Black Pudding (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ooze.htm) and Giant Bombardier Beetle (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/giantBombardierBeetle.htm) are both mindless, yet still advance (by hit dice). Unless I misunderstood something. Most creatures that don't advance at all are probably mindless constructs and undead that can't gain class levels (since they're unintelligent) and can't grow physically (because they are unliving).

and then you ninja-edited in that sneaky "some" there. Nevermind, I guess.:smalltongue:

[Kayblis]

Sorry for that, sent the message and then remembered about oozes and such. Yeah, IIRC there's no way for mindless undead and constructs to advance at all on their own, so this is an actual category.

[AvatarVecna]

"Intelligent" seems pretty clear on what it can refer to. I'm more interested in gathering opinions on what you think does or doesn't count as "humanoid shaped". Like, it's probably not referring to just the Humanoid type, otherwise they would've done that, but how human-like is too human-like to advance by increasing HD? Thus far, I've been thinking through a few possible definitions trying to see how consistent they are.

[OgresAreCute]

"Intelligent" seems pretty clear on what it can refer to. I'm more interested in gathering opinions on what you think does or doesn't count as "humanoid shaped". Like, it's probably not referring to just the Humanoid type, otherwise they would've done that, but how human-like is too human-like to advance by increasing HD? Thus far, I've been thinking through a few possible definitions trying to see how consistent they are.

Who knows, really. I'd say anything that has 2 arms, 2 legs and a discernable head and torso are probably well on their way to being considered "humanoid" in that sense. Then again, creatures like Centaurs and Driders advance by class, I believe. I don't really think there's anything wrong with advancing a "advances by class" creature by hit dice instead, seeing as they added CR adjustments for advancing things like Giants and Humanoids by HD, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find a giant or humanoid that isn't nominally intelligent and humanoid-shaped.

[King of Nowhere]

golems can advance, an advanced golem with extra hit dice would simply represent a bigger golem.

so there are only two categories: intelligent humanoids, that advance by levels, and everything else, that advances by hit dice.

I don't see any reason dragons could not get class levels, though. it certainly makes sense for them.

[Ashtagon]

In a lot of cases, "advance by HD" represents closely related species of creature that aside from differences in physical size (affecting HDD and potentially size class), use the same stat block. In such cases, they don't actually represent a single individual's growth and development.

Of course, in some cases, they represent exactly that kind of single individual growing (dragons being the most notable example; many oozes could go either or both ways on this).

[AvatarVecna]

Who knows, really. I'd say anything that has 2 arms, 2 legs and a discernable head and torso are probably well on their way to being considered "humanoid" in that sense. Then again, creatures like Centaurs and Driders advance by class, I believe. I don't really think there's anything wrong with advancing a "advances by class" creature by hit dice instead, seeing as they added CR adjustments for advancing things like Giants and Humanoids by HD, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find a giant or humanoid that isn't nominally intelligent and humanoid-shaped.

FWIW, the rules on "what can advance by class levels" is another vague, strong suggestion (and is just "intelligent creatures usually advance this way" but doesn't itself forbid nonintelligent creatures from advancing in this manner - although I think there's a rule to that effect elsewhere). Additionally, another strong-suggestion-that-isn't-a-hard-rule is that you can only advance one way, but the rules explicitly call out that advancing by HD, class level, and template are all perfectly viable on the same being, if rare, so it's hardly a "either HD or class levels" situation. In fact, what I'm looking to do is put together a build that advances by both, and I'm trying to get my ducks in a row making sure I'm not double-advancing something that's breaking the rules on what's allowed to advance by HD.

"2 arms, 2 legs, discernible head/torso" seems like it's pretty solid. It covers basically all humanoids, monstrous humanoids, most outsiders that can be played as PCs, most intelligent undead that can be played as PCs. Giants tend to be...well, giant humanoids, but they basically all advance by class instead of HD according to their statblocks so that actually checks out - size isn't an issue, just general shape. Where it gets weird is some races that have extra arms, but that just means that such a race could advance by both HD and class levels


golems can advance, an advanced golem with extra hit dice would simply represent a bigger golem.

so there are only two categories: intelligent humanoids, that advance by levels, and everything else, that advances by hit dice.

I don't see any reason dragons could not get class levels, though. it certainly makes sense for them.

Fortunately, it's not actually an either-or case like you're presenting, even though that's generally the case. This hard rule is only whether you can advance by HD or not, but advancing by HD does not itself prevent you from advancing by class levels, or vice versa. Additionally, the rules for what can advance by class levels is another strong-suggestion-that's-not-a-hard-rule:


Intelligent creatures that are reasonably humanoid in shape most commonly advance by adding class levels.

It doesn't really talk about who's allowed to or not allowed to advance by class levels, just that all examples of intelligent humanoid-shaped creatures have a tendency towards advancing by class levels, while a random sampling of creatures advancing by class levels will naturally have the vast majority of them being intelligent humanoid-shaped creatures. And the rules explicitly call out advancing by more than one method as an option, so dragons with class levels is totally kosher.

[OgresAreCute]

FWIW, the rules on "what can advance by class levels" is another vague, strong suggestion (and is just "intelligent creatures usually advance this way" but doesn't itself forbid nonintelligent creatures from advancing in this manner - although I think there's a rule to that effect elsewhere). Additionally, another strong-suggestion-that-isn't-a-hard-rule is that you can only advance one way, but the rules explicitly call out that advancing by HD, class level, and template are all perfectly viable on the same being, if rare, so it's hardly a "either HD or class levels" situation. In fact, what I'm looking to do is put together a build that advances by both, and I'm trying to get my ducks in a row making sure I'm not double-advancing something that's breaking the rules on what's allowed to advance by HD.

"2 arms, 2 legs, discernible head/torso" seems like it's pretty solid. It covers basically all humanoids, monstrous humanoids, most outsiders that can be played as PCs, most intelligent undead that can be played as PCs. Giants tend to be...well, giant humanoids, but they basically all advance by class instead of HD according to their statblocks so that actually checks out - size isn't an issue, just general shape. Where it gets weird is some races that have extra arms, but that just means that such a race could advance by both HD and class levels



Fortunately, it's not actually an either-or case like you're presenting, even though that's generally the case. This hard rule is only whether you can advance by HD or not, but advancing by HD does not itself prevent you from advancing by class levels, or vice versa. Additionally, the rules for what can advance by class levels is another strong-suggestion-that's-not-a-hard-rule:



It doesn't really talk about who's allowed to or not allowed to advance by class levels, just that all examples of intelligent humanoid-shaped creatures have a tendency towards advancing by class levels, while a random sampling of creatures advancing by class levels will naturally have the vast majority of them being intelligent humanoid-shaped creatures. And the rules explicitly call out advancing by more than one method as an option, so dragons with class levels is totally kosher.

I don't really think there's going to be much proper RAW on this subject, especially since the DM doesn't always play by the rules. Maybe you could give an example of what you were planning to do with this? Doubt it's gonna be a problem to throw on 4 RHD and a couple class levels on a monster to make it a bit beefier.

[zlefin]

the main other type that applies to is Giant. looking at giants on the SRD, they all seem to have 'by character class' in their entry for advancement.

hmm, another thouhgt: it could also apply to some intelligent undead; though from looking at the srd it's less clear, as some can explicitly advance by HD despite being humanoid form and intelligent. (ghouls)
some of them, like liches and vampires, do say they just advance by character class.

[Telonius]

I'd say that it's not a hard and fast rule. There are intelligent creatures that are generally humanoid in shape that advance by hit dice; Genies, Barbed Devils, Pixies, Nixies, Satyrs, and Mephits, for example, just from the Monster Manual. Mephits in particular are described like this:

All mephits appear as small, winged creatures with more or less humanoid features.

I'm sure you could find a lot of other examples.

[liquidformat]

"Intelligent" seems pretty clear on what it can refer to. I'm more interested in gathering opinions on what you think does or doesn't count as "humanoid shaped". Like, it's probably not referring to just the Humanoid type, otherwise they would've done that, but how human-like is too human-like to advance by increasing HD? Thus far, I've been thinking through a few possible definitions trying to see how consistent they are.

Well clearly a unicorn is humanoid enough to advance by class levels asit is presented with cleric levels in MM, and dragons as well given that there is an entire book mostly devoted to such. So I don't see much of an issue with giving anything class levels that has more than 2 int. And everything with 2 int or less advances by rhd only.

[AvatarVecna]

Well clearly a unicorn is humanoid enough to advance by class levels asit is presented with cleric levels in MM, and dragons as well given that there is an entire book mostly devoted to such. So I don't see much of an issue with giving anything class levels that has more than 2 int. And everything with 2 int or less advances by rhd only.

Ahain, this isn't about whether it can advance by class levels - basically anything can do that. This is about whether creatures are too humanoid-ish to advance by HD.

[liquidformat]

Ahain, this isn't about whether it can advance by class levels - basically anything can do that. This is about whether creatures are too humanoid-ish to advance by HD.

Ah, gotcha, it seems to me anything that doesn't say advancement 'by class levels' in the monster entry is not too humanoid to advance by rhd.