Monsters with classes???

Something that keeps troubling me to no end is how to deal with monsters that also have levels in classes.

For example, in AD&D 2nd edition, kuo-toa are described as being led by (among others) 8th level fighters and 3rd level fighter/3rd level thieves, and their HD are listed as "2 or more".

Frost giants can have 3rd level shamans.

But to my knowledge, no Dungeon Masters Guide or Monster Manual ever had any explainations for how that works.

How many HD does a kuo-toa 8th level fighter fighter have? What are his attack and save values?
Does he have 8d10 hp and attacks and saves like an 8th level fighter? Or does he have 8d10+2d8 hp and who knows what attack and save values?

Even many modules simply say "3rd level frost giant shaman" without ever writing down what that means.

Yeah, that's always been an odd one. I would suggest doing one of two things, depending on the situation:

- Build the character as a levelled human and then apply some modifications for the race. I would do this if the "8th level Fighter" bit is considered more important to the character than the "Orc" bit.

- Start with the monster and then add some or all of the levels that are descibed. I would do this if the "Fire Giant" bit is more important than the "8th level Fighter" bit.

But, of course, that's purely in the realm of house rules. As you said, official rules are a bit thin on the ground.

I can't speak specifically for 2e, but the DM has a lot of options there for mixing monsters and class levels.

The problem with a DIY approach, is of course that you can't be exactly sure what is the power level of the resulting creature.

Which is why every self-respecting game/edition needs at least one official method for combining monsters and class levels and properly estimate the level (or CR, XP, whatever the edition uses as a power gauge) of the result.

I just found a clue in the description of orcs. It says a 5th level orc shaman has 1d8+4d4 hit points. Which means they gain full abilities of the class but keep their monster HD. Only if the class has more levels than the creature has monster HD do the excess levels provide additional HD to the monster.

So a 3rd level frost giant shaman would still be a 14 HD monster but with 3rd level spellcasting on top.

The entry for orcs does have rules how to calculate THAC0 and saves for orc shamans, but I think in practice it would be the easiest solution to either use the standard values for the monster, or the values coresponding to the class level, whichever is higher.

So (under that system), the 5th level orc shaman would have the THAC0 and saves of a cleric, and the 3rd level frost giant shaman those of a normal frost giant shaman.

And at the end, you calculate XP just like for any homebrew creature.

Which I think is also quite practical. In 3rd edition it's always a problem that you can't really make spellcasting monsters that have decent spells without boosting their HD up by a lot as well. A frost giant with 14 HD and three levels of cleric just can't compete with his 2nd level spells against the 9th level spells of a 17th level human cleric.

Yora said:

But to my knowledge, no Dungeon Masters Guide or Monster Manual ever had any explainations for how that works.

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Sure they have, albeit perhaps not a complete explanation.

The 1e DMG discusses shamans and witch doctors for monster types, which you can apply to both 1e and 2e. The 3.5 MM goes into great detail on how monsters with classes work in 3e.

I'd go into detail on the 1e rules, but am not at home; IDHMBIFOM. Sorry. I'll try to remember after I get home tomorrow or Monday.

I believe it only says what the maximum level limits and spell-lists for shamans and witch doctors are. Nothing about hit dice, hit points, spellbooks, turning undead, weapons, armor, and so on.

Yora said:

I believe it only says what the maximum level limits and spell-lists for shamans and witch doctors are. Nothing about hit dice, hit points, spellbooks, turning undead, weapons, armor, and so on.

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I could be wrong, but I think it does address hps and HD- specifically setting humanoid spellcaster HD at d4s.

I don't recall anything specific about spellbooks or turning undead, though, and I may be misremembering.

Sorry, I focused on the mention of 2e AD&D but, are you actually asking in general for any edition, or for some edition in particular?

Since the problem affects all edition equally, answers from any one edition should be aplicable to all the others. 2nd Ed. orcs and those four lines in 1st Ed. DMG are just the only two cases I am aware of that ever say anything in regard to the issue.

Yora said:

Since the problem affects all edition equally, answers from any one edition should be aplicable to all the others. 2nd Ed. orcs and those four lines in 1st Ed. DMG are just the only two cases I am aware of that ever say anything in regard to the issue.

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Ok, but you also mentioned a very practical problem in 3e with spellcasting levels... so you should already know that 3e had indeed a default method for monsters with classes

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#monstersAndClassLevels

Basically 3e applies the same mechanics of stacking levels that is used for multiclassing, only that a monster's HD work like a class in this regard.

It's a simple method, but it has its own shortcomings. CR calculation is not always reliable in 3e, and (as you mention yourself) adding wizard levels to a monster can have a very different effect than adding fighter levels, especially if the monster already starts with many HD.

It might actually work better in 5e thanks to bounded accuracy but I'm not sure.

Perhaps the problem has no ultimate solution, considering that we would like all of the following:

- player character classes with plenty of "stuff" per level, so that every time you level up there's something crunchy to gain
- simple monsters, not too much "stuff", so that the DM doesn't go nuts when running them or designing her own
- monsters with classes, so that the DM can easily create monster societies in her campaign (or even if just wanting a small group of monsters with different roles for a single fight)

Generally speaking, I think one approach that might work better, is a gestalt approach, or a method that replaces some of HD with class levels. Such is never going to be as simple as stacking levels, but in this case I'd give up simplicity for reliability (i.e. reliably calculating level/XP) and flexibility.