Monsters with classes

Do monster "races" have a similar, but not identical, distribution of class levels as humans and their allies? I mean that you can pull out the DMG and find out how many fighters there are in a illithid community or sorcerers in a kobold burrow or how many nymphs of the area are clerics.

What keeps monsters from taking levels? (Other than the DM of course.) One would expect the violent ones to have combat related classes for most of their population.

Why don't dragons take levels in barbarian and sorcerer and, with their high level barbarian and cleric orc and goblin slaves, drive humans back into the stone age?

Reason dragons don't take class levels?

Are you serious?

Considering they already can a) cast spells like sorcerers AND can cast divine spells, b) have the base attack powers and strengths superior to balors and pit fiends, and c) generally only want what ever their alignments might dictate, why WOULD they "lower" themselves to get class levels?

Now the OTHER ones, like Illithids, goblins and the rest...probably DO have some class levels in their hieracheries...but they probably have enough trouble getting along with EACH other much less trying to work as a community to gain class levels, fight natural predators OR have anything remotely resembling leadership. (Gobliniods anyway.)

Point is while Illithids can and DO get class levels, they have a longevity that allows them to "experiment" with their own racial powers well before they start looking at the benefits of taking classes.

That help?

What's to stop every human from having fighter or wizard class levels? Why would anyone say "hey, commoner sounds good enough for me"?

I suspect dragons and mind flayers spend a great deal of time honing their abilities. Given that monstrous races tend to be less numerous, and less given to the spirit of adventure, it's no wonder there are fewer with PHB class levels.

Any monster that goes out and tries to "earn XP" is quickly set upon by ravenous adventurers with the same goal.

DMH said:

Do monster "races" have a similar, but not identical, distribution of class levels as humans and their allies? I mean that you can pull out the DMG and find out how many fighters there are in a illithid community or sorcerers in a kobold burrow or how many nymphs of the area are clerics.

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Ignoring the other half of the question for the moment, I'd say it really depends on the monster. You are much less likely to see a nymph fighter and much more likely to see one as a bard or sorcerer imc... I mean, they're going to try to emphasize their natural abilities, right? They sure do in my game!

Let's look at hill giants as an example. In my opinion, those hill giants with classes are prolly almost all barbarians or fighters, with a small number of druids, rangers, clerics and rogues, and very few... anything else.

Of course, imho, imc, ymmv, and so forth.

IMC 1% of humans are PC-class; maybe 1% of Frost Giants are PC-class too but that's not very many...

DMH said:

Do monster "races" have a similar, but not identical, distribution of class levels as humans and their allies? I mean that you can pull out the DMG and find out how many fighters there are in a illithid community or sorcerers in a kobold burrow or how many nymphs of the area are clerics.

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1. Monster can have classes. The monsters in MM are only average examples of their kin. They are like the commmon commoner level 1. You can boost them with higher attributes or giving a class.
IIRC in Savage Species the favorite class for each monster is listed.
2. You can not pull out the DMG to find out how many fighter in an illithid community are because every race is different and has a different favorite class and a different number of fighters. In a dwarven community is it more likely to find fighters than in e.g. a grimlock community. In the grimlock community you will find more barbarians than fighter.

The percent of a monster race that will be an adventuring class, and what that breakdown is, seems like a natural addition to the Ecology articles in Dragon, if they weren't so player-specific now.

Felon said:

What's to stop every human from having fighter or wizard class levels? Why would anyone say "hey, commoner sounds good enough for me"?

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There is a big difference between a human spending years to become a wizard and an orc learning barbarian levels doing what he does every day. Orcs, goblinoids, ogres, trolls, gnolls and such are described as violent as a normal part of their society. Doesn't violence net you xp in D&D?

Why would dragons lower themselves and gain levels?

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Because they want to become more powerful and be able to kill the other dragons that want their lair and hoard.

2. You can not pull out the DMG to find out how many fighter in an illithid community are because every race is different and has a different favorite class and a different number of fighters. In a dwarven community is it more likely to find fighters than in e.g. a grimlock community. In the grimlock community you will find more barbarians than fighter.

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Okay. So distrubution charts should be written up for various OGC and SRD monsters. I will have to mention that in the pdf publishers forum.

Any monster that goes out and tries to "earn XP" is quickly set upon by ravenous adventurers with the same goal.

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True, but how many adventuring groups die from taking on monsters much more powerful than themselves? The PCs are just a tiny number of the whole population and the only reason many monsters even have any treasure is that they killed the former owners.

Thank you all for your responces.

(Not quite answering your question) I'm of the opinion that 4th edition D&D should ditch multiple HD monsters in favor of "monster classes". Each monster would have a base set of abilities (which may or may not be balanced for +0 LA), and would gain HD from these monster classes.
The system is about 3/4s of the way there already with the types -- d8 HD, 2+ skill points, 1 (or 2) good saves.

Nell.