Monster Campaign 3.5

[Zaile]

Edit: After a lot of feedback I have narrowed it down to the following. I was initially worried about min-maxing, but maybe went too far and took away from the fun and creativity we should play with.
I eased up a lot of the rules and encouraged flavor over mechanics.


Neither Hit Dice nor Challenge Rating can be over 12. Ideally not over 10, but higher will be considered if they don't have too powerful of secondary abilities.
Must have free will and be intelligent enough to act on it's own beyond instinct
Must have all ability scores and can't have a "--" non-ability score. So intelligent undead like vampires would be OK, but they will have a Con score! (total side note, but this site spell-checks "undead" lol)
I wanted to challenge them, but also, to me, having a Con (really all) scores, means you have a soul. They still get all those juicy creature-type resistances and immensities.
The Wish/Miracle/Gate level powers just need to be level appropriate. Anything a lvl 10 X couldn't have they will lose probably temporarily, or have it changed to a "good-er" version
No incorporeal, not because of the movement freedom, but because most or these have ability drain and negative level powers with a mere touch. A level 10 caster can do it a couple times a day, but not with every touch while always untouchable. I may allow it if someone has an idea, but have to change energy drain powers.



I am a long-time player, but relatively new DM. I've only run a few short campaigns and one-shots.

I want to try this, but it may be too crazy to work. This is NOT an evil campaign.

The PCs will all play monsters who are part of an invading horde under a very powerful Elder Demon or Dracolich (haven't decided yet). These guys were effectively Lieutenants in an army commanding regiments. The campaign will start after the demonic horde has conquered most of the kingdom and the PCs are laying siege to one of the last strongholds the mortal races have. They win the battle, but something happens at the end. By the end of the first session, they will no longer be evil, alignments flip to mirror opposites, and the PCs motivations and missions will change. Their monster characters are powerful, but once the PCs former employer learns of their new leanings, he knows all of their old tricks and powers and will counter accordingly. On top of this, the good creatures of the realm will be outright hostile most of the time, so there will be a good bit of creativity, RP, & skill checks as engaging in combat with good creatures will be a divine no-no.

The campaign will start at effectively level 10, and I'm looking at allowing monsters with the highest between CR/HD/LA is 9 or lower. I will be ignoring ECL. Each PC will have at least one base class level, but for players those that choose weaker monsters, I plan to offset it with base class levels that bring CR/HD/LA up to 10. This group has a few optimizers, me being one, but we have a lot of younger players and they are good at toning down. This will be much less toned by default.

The books I'm leaving open for monster race selection al all the Monster Manuals and the sourcebooks for Forgotten Realms. For simplicity sake and the purposes of this thread CR=HD=LA and can be used interchangeably.

I put a few restrictions in place. I may add more, but I need some input. Especially anyone with experience in this type of game. One or two may be flexible depending on the abilities and character.


None of Challenge Rating, Hit Dice, or Level Adjustment may be higher than 9
Generic MM entries only. No named, elite, versions of monsters like Drizzt or those you find in the DM section of sourcebooks
Small, Medium or Large size only
The creatures alignment must be: LE, CN, NE or CE
The monster must have an Intelligence score of 8 or higher
Must have a Con score and may not have a "--" in any other score
Cannot be incorporeal
Cannot be an animated or intelligent object and must be able to move and act freely on it's own
May use templates, but templates will be limited to low CR monsters. Templates must also abide alignment restrictions LE, CN, NE or CE
Monsters who have spellcasting ability, like the Nymph's "casts as 7th level Druid" will be a case-by-case basis
Creatures with powerful supernatural or spell like abilities like Summon Monster V+, Teleport, Wish, Miracle, Gate, Planar binding etc. are OK, but they will lose those abilities
Flight, burrow, swim speed, etc. are OK
Possible feats, total skill ranks, race (class) skills, etc. are the same as the entry


Players all start with the equipment in the monster's entry, but any additional starting gold or magic items are determined by class levels.

Limits I'm pretty sure to add:

Any use of a power that goes against new alignment just doesn't work
No mind-control powers
Also thinking about toning down abilities like SR, DR, and Supernatural or Spell-like abilities, or forgo them entirely as they are no longer the evil being that fueled their abilities


Is this just crazy? Or is it crazy enough to work?

Edit: Clarified that CR, HD, and LA are the only limits. Ignoring ECL

Edit: These are examples of the direction I'd like the campaign and RP to go.
In order from bottom to top https://www.reddit.com/r/HowToBeAMindReaver/new/
Always gets me https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/2mjhz9/what_would_happen_if_an_intelligent_greatsword/

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

Doesn’t sound crazy at all. Sounds fun. It’s all supposed to be about fun after all, so if everyone is having fun with your house rules there’s nothing wrong with them.
Couple things I would say:
First MMII is notoriously bad with its CRs. There’s a thread here somewhere that has CR revisions based on how the,entries HD and abilities “should be” assigned a CR based on patterns in other books. I’ll try to find it and link it for you.

Edit: here it is That’s Only CR9?!? (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?187046-That-s-ONLY-CR-9-Let-s-Read-The-Monster-Manual-II)

Second, I’d say it’s probably not necessary to force players to use the crappy feats that monsters usually have. The players are supposed to be elite lieutenants after all.

[Endarire]

Why remove summons from creatures? Other spells I understand.

+1 to letting people change feats and skills to other legal ones.

[Zaile]

Doesn’t sound crazy at all. Sounds fun. It’s all supposed to be about fun after all, so if everyone is having fun with your house rules there’s nothing wrong with them.
Couple things I would say:
First MMIII is notoriously bad with its CRs. There’s a thread here somewhere that has CR revisions based on how the,entries HD and abilities “should be” assigned a CR based on patterns in other books. I’ll try to find it and link it for you.
Second, I’d say it’s probably not necessary to force players to use the crappy feats that monsters usually have. The players are supposed to be elite lieutenants after all.

Edit: Thanks for the link! Gonna take a while to go through it.

Thanks for the feedback. I will have to look at each monster individually, but I know some of the later MMs had more abilities for less CR & HD. I fully expect this group to optimize on various levels. I will allow them to change out feats and skill ranks, but overall skill points and racial skills will still be limited to the base monster. Maybe a few points in a few cross-class if the backstory calls for it.

Because of the setting normally broken feats like Leadership are going to be useless for quite some time.

[Zaile]

Why remove summons from creatures? Other spells I understand.

+1 to letting people change feats and skills to other legal ones.

Good question.

Some summons can be really powerful and SU/SP summons always had the flavor to me of being "I can call in my evil friends/minions for backup" The PCs are losing all connections to their previous evil lives, and some of the evil abilities. SU/SP summoning tends to be calling in more targeted monster, sometimes with higher HD/CR than the PCs, so losing access to this is a flavor and mechanical choice for me. I'm also anticipating having to balance PCs choosing stronger monsters with those that select "weaker" ones. Think succubus vs. orc or bugbear.

A succubus can summon a Vrock in addition to being able to charm damn near everything. The summon on top of the latter is just a bit too OP.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Zaile
Is this just crazy? Or is it crazy enough to work?

Sounds awesome. I’m wishing I could play in this.

Also, seconding the concerns about MM2. And even with the other four, there may be a lot of unintended consequences if you leave the monster selection wide open. It might be worth coming up with a pool of preselected monsters for your players to work with. That might sound restrictive, but putting a little thought into that now could save some unexpected headaches later on.

[Endarire]

Class levels make up for racial abilities, at least to some degree.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

With all the restrictions and removed abilities, it sounds like the only real option is to go with extremely low ECL monsters like kobolds, since all the players' abilities will be removed anyways. So why bother even allowing high ECL stuff? It's not like high-ECL monsters are typically worthwhile to play anyways, as they tend to be vastly over-LA'd (especially those with tons of racial HD), and you're making it much, much worse.

So everyone's going to play kobolds, orcs, and similar, taking Dragonwrought and Otherworldly, and refluffing to being "demons" or whatever, then taking class levels to actually be appropriate level for their ECL. At least, if they don't want to be screwed on their abilities.

I mean, that's better than "PHB races only," but not by much.

[Zaile]

Sounds awesome. I’m wishing I could play in this.

Also, seconding the concerns about MM2. And even with the other four, there may be a lot of unintended consequences if you leave the monster selection wide open. It might be worth coming up with a pool of preselected monsters for your players to work with. That might sound restrictive, but putting a little thought into that now could save some unexpected headaches later on.

Good point. I want to encourage the group to be creative, but the busted CR concerns make me think this could be a good idea. We won't be starting for a while, so I think giving the players some freedom to choose, then if only 1 or 2 pick a busted monster, I can work with them. I am one of the guys the group tends to come to when they want to build a particular concept and optimize it, relying a lot on reasearch on these forums. Finding alternatives should be easy, weather it's just limiting or removing an ability or changing it. Maybe I could tie "busted" to being connected to alingnment?

[Zaile]

With all the restrictions and removed abilities, it sounds like the only real option is to go with extremely low ECL monsters like kobolds, since all the players' abilities will be removed anyways. So why bother even allowing high ECL stuff? It's not like high-ECL monsters are typically worthwhile to play anyways, as they tend to be vastly over-LA'd (especially those with tons of racial HD), and you're making it much, much worse.

So everyone's going to play kobolds, orcs, and similar, taking Dragonwrought and Otherworldly, and refluffing to being "demons" or whatever, then taking class levels to actually be appropriate level for their ECL. At least, if they don't want to be screwed on their abilities.

I mean, that's better than "PHB races only," but not by much.

Thanks, and you're right. However for this campaign I am ignoring ECL. The only restriction is the highest between Hit dice, Level adjust or CR, not a combination of HD+LA. I remain convinced Wizards over-LA'd a lot of monsters to discourage this kind of play in normal games, but this is not normal.

But should I go up? Maybe to 10 or 11? There are a Lot of mid-level monsters that have given my groups problems in the past.

Any suggestions on restrictions to ease?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Thanks, and you're right. However for this campaign I am ignoring ECL. The only restriction is the highest between Hit dice, Level adjust or CR, not a combination of HD+LA. I remain convinced Wizards over-LA'd a lot of monsters to discourage this kind of play in normal games, but this is not normal.

But should I go up? Maybe to 10 or 11? There are a Lot of mid-level monsters that have given my groups problems in the past.

Any suggestions on restrictions to ease?Why don't you ask your players what they want, then come up with some reasonable savage progressions for them? Maybe homebrew some monsters similar to what they want but with somewhat more limited abilities and a decent progression? Work with them to get an idea of what kind of characters they want and what kinds of abilities go with them.

Alternately, just encourage them to fluff their class abilities as racial abilities. Psionics, incarnum, binding, and maneuvers are all fantastic for this, and they're (relatively) well-balanced, when it comes down to it. Maybe give a few extra skills and skill points, and maybe boost HD up by a step or two for everyone.

Gestalt is also a very good option for building your own monsters out of classes (or just gestalting savage progressions + classes).

[Zaile]

Why don't you ask your players what they want, then come up with some reasonable savage progressions for them? Maybe homebrew some monsters similar to what they want but with somewhat more limited abilities and a decent progression? Work with them to get an idea of what kind of characters they want and what kinds of abilities go with them.

Alternately, just encourage them to fluff their class abilities as racial abilities. Psionics, incarnum, binding, and maneuvers are all fantastic for this, and they're (relatively) well-balanced, when it comes down to it. Maybe give a few extra skills and skill points, and maybe boost HD up by a step or two for everyone.

Gestalt is also a very good option for building your own monsters out of classes (or just gestalting savage progressions + classes).

I really like the gestalt savage progression idea, but have never used progressions. The campaign will begin at level 10 equivalent, so would giving them their full HD, then adding base class levels up to 10HD have the same effect?

I'd like them to be able to deal with challenges encounter level 10 right off the bat. They need to be strong enough to deal with BBEG's other monsters and have the resources to be able to deal with likely hostile good creatures and the challenges that come with being viewed as monsters.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I really like the gestalt savage progression idea, but have never used progressions. The campaign will begin at level 10 equivalent, so would giving them their full HD, then adding base class levels up to 10HD have the same effect?

I'd like them to be able to deal with challenges encounter level 10 right off the bat. They need to be strong enough to deal with BBEG's other monsters and have the resources to be able to deal with likely hostile good creatures and the challenges that come with being viewed as monsters.If you want to gestalt monster class + base class up to 10, then allow regular gestalt after, all I can say is that you need to look at each type of player individually, see what they want out of their character, then build something equivalent to whatever tier of class you want to run for. I'd suggest aiming for T3, if possible, because they gestalt well.

Maybe just give everyone outsider HD all the way up, then give abilities based on what they want to do. +1 to an ability score of their choice every level to boost up to CR 10, plus bard/psychic warrior progression on their choice of a T1 casting/manifesting list, plus all skills as class skills, a bonus feat every couple of levels chosen from the generic class list (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm) plus maybe some psionic/incarnum/etc feats and racial traits they could choose from instead of generic feats. It seems like a lot, but it's around T3, and it gives a lot of flexibility for "racial" levels.

[Zaile]

If you want to gestalt monster class + base class up to 10, then allow regular gestalt after, all I can say is that you need to look at each type of player individually, see what they want out of their character, then build something equivalent to whatever tier of class you want to run for. I'd suggest aiming for T3, if possible, because they gestalt well.

Maybe just give everyone outsider HD all the way up, then give abilities based on what they want to do. +1 to an ability score of their choice every level to boost up to CR 10, plus bard/psychic warrior progression on their choice of a T1 casting/manifesting list, plus all skills as class skills, a bonus feat every couple of levels chosen from the generic class list (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm) plus maybe some racial traits they could choose from instead of those feats. It seems like a lot, but it's around T3, and it gives a lot of flexibility for "racial" levels.

Good suggestions, thanks. I like the T3 idea. There isn't much room for T1 casters as I currently have it, so I might ease up on races with inherent casting could fill the caster gap, but there are far fewer of those than races with SU/SP abilities. I'm leaning more toward HD as the benchmark along with the relative power of the other monster abilities.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Good suggestions, thanks. I like the T3 idea. There isn't much room for T1 casters as I currently have it, so I might ease up on races with inherent casting could fill the caster gap, but there are far fewer of those than races with SU/SP abilities. I'm leaning more toward HD as the benchmark along with the relative power of the other monster abilities.Note that the casting abilities are bard-level but with T1 spells from a list of the player's choice. That's about the same as the adept gets, and it's an NPC class.

The psychic warrior gets about the same, and it's T3.

Giving everyone casting abilities helps keep everyone on an even keel. They get access to the goodies that magic gives, so everyone can have plenty of utility in any way they want it to manifest (possibly literally). Feel free to allow incarnum, binding, or maneuvers on the list, as well.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Probably worth checking out the Level Adjustment threads, which are aimed at coming up with reasonable ECLs for all those monstrous races (as the official LAs are notoriously high or nonexistant, but ignoring LA entirely will likely result in balance problems).

Here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?518086-The-LA-assignment-archive&p=24152951)'s the archive of all the creatures and sourcebooks they've done so far.

[Zaile]

Probably worth checking out the Level Adjustment threads, which are aimed at coming up with reasonable ECLs for all those monstrous races (as the official LAs are notoriously high or nonexistant, but ignoring LA entirely will likely result in balance problems).

Here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?518086-The-LA-assignment-archive&p=24152951)'s the archive of all the creatures and sourcebooks they've done so far.

Supper-thanks for the link! Will cross-reference for sure.

As long as, at the end, the players re getting to play close their ideal character and power-level between the members comes out around ECL 10-12 I will be happy. I want this campaign to have a descent amount of RP/Story as the PCs are taking the hardest road possible to restore balance to the realm, or something.