Essentialism and a solution to replacing the LA system

[Dannyalcatraz]

Dagnabbit! I accidentally closed the tab in which I was composing my reply!

..."I can fly" isn't worth taking 4 class levels, I can just use the feat to get wings. Or I can buy an item that lets me fly all the time. Why not just expend a few of those resources (feats, wealth, spells known, whatever) in order to represent this scant handfull of extra capabilities rather than creating a whole new class? It's far easier, and has the same outcome.

Just looking at wings, natural wings and the flight they give don't fail you when you interact with some kind of magic-nullification effect or region.

(I'm also not aware of any feat that grants wings- template, yes, but not feat.)

And wings don't have to be a simple binary "got 'em, don't got 'em" design decision. At creation, perhaps the PC can only Glide 20' in light encumbrance (and maybe a bonus to Jump and/or Run due to wing-assisted efforts). A couple of monster levels later, that becomes Fly 30' in light encumbrance. At peak levels, such a PC might even have Fly 40' in Heavy encumbrance...or a different flying species might have Perfect Maneuverability. Whatever.

OTOH, if he decided never to take levels in his racial class, the resulting atrophy would bar him from ever making full use of his wings.

Other abilities could also be eased in- perhaps the baseline of an ability required a Concentration check (probably low DC) to activate. A few level later, no check would be required.

So what's a minotaur then? The only trait you're giving them is "Large." I don't need to spend a few levels in order to make someone Large. Heck, the resident Psychic Warrior seems to hang out in that size category or greater pretty much 100% of the time... I can take a few feats with a level prerequisite, or I can buy an item with a permanent enlarge effect, or etc etc. If you wanted to include it: Being able to find your way in a maze is worth less than 1 feat and could just be your basic racial ability without you spending anything. Being strong is just represented by buying higher strength.

Were I to build a Minotaur class (I haven't yet), they'd probably be size M to start off with, have a natural 1d4 gore attack, have +4Str, + 2-+4 Con, some minuses to Int and Wis...Weapon Familiarity with axes...perhaps some bonuses to perceptual skills. Ftr BAB & saves?

As they'd advance, they might have +2Str per 2 levels (soon outstripping the natural strength of lesser races), and become Large perhaps 1/3 of the way up their racial progression- with the attendant adjustments to Reach, Str, AC and damage to their Gore attack, of course.

+1 Natural Armor per 3 levels?

And of course, each level gets its share of skill points, etc.

Could many creature abilities be simulated by feats? Sure- as I recall, many creature abilities ARE mimicked by Feats, albeit in an inferior form. For example, Monkey Grip mimics the racial ability Powerful Build. In building a monster racial class for a species with that build, the base form of the creature would get Monkey Grip as a bonus feat. A couple of monster racial class levels later, the MG penalties disappear, meaning the PC has fully effective Powerful Build.

And so forth- this is more art than science, but it worked pretty well for Monte Cook's AU/AE game. This is essentially how he set up his Litorians, Giants, Mohj, Faen, Dracha and Sibeccai.

So... why make the Minotaur Artificer lose a few precious caster levels to make him forever suck compared to his "normal" compatriots? Your system doesn't avoid that problem.

As I've said in other threads, what you're seeing as a problem I see as a feature. I have absolutely ZERO problem with losing caster levels & spells etc. if you want to multiclass- in fact, I actually like it.

 

[Kerrick]

Similarly, each species has potential to be essentially identical to their MM entries, but only if that is what they concentrate on. The MM entry is the stereotype, but not the only type.

So effectively, you're multiclassing monster levels and class levels. The main problem I can see with this system, beyond the borked multiclassing rules, is that you'd have to come up with class levels for each monster. Of course, unless everyone in the group wants to play some oddball race, it shouldn't be too hard for the DM to make up 1-2 monster races, but still... that's more work than I'd want to make.

The Minotaur who eschews his race's natural gifts and spends his life as an Artificer might be large in stature, but wouldn't be physically imposing. He wouldn't have any more facility in a maze than a human. But he would have all those wonderful toys...

I agree with Angel here - not getting lost in a maze is an innate racial ability, like a dwarf's stonecunning. At 1st level, he'd likely have that, Large size, and a Str/Con boost.

*flashbulb* You know... it just hit me that this is a lot like what I did for the races in my project - they get their base racial abilities as normal, then they get scaling bonuses, usually in skills - elves get +1/5 levels to Search and Spot checks, humans gain an extra feat every 10 levels, etc. I borrowed the idea from Pathfinder. So what you do for monster races is give them a basic suite of abilities, then state "At x character level, you gain y ability". I think this is what Angel was trying to explain and I was failing to understand.

Technically, that's wrong - ECL is CR + LA, so the stone giant with 12 class levels is ECL 16, not 18. I'm not sure I'd want to mess with a stone giant with 12 levels in anything at equal level.

Nope, it's actually HD + LA, not CR + LA. Biiig difference. You're the one that's wrong, I'm afraid.

No, we're both wrong, though you were closer to being right. The Monster Manual (p 7, "Level Adjustment") says that ECL = LA + HD + class levels, and the DMG (p 209) supports this. So that stone giant with 12 levels is ECL 30, which is patently absurd.

 

[Kerrick]

So I played around a bit with some ideas, and this is what I came up with.

Let's start with the bugbear - it's pretty basic. Bugbears get +4 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, and -2 Cha; darkvision; a +3 natural armor bonus, and a +4 racial bonus to MS checks. The darkvision and skill bonus are basic racial abilities, so we can give those at first level. As far as stat bonuses, we'll give them +2 Str, +2 Dex, and -2 Cha to start. Natural armor bonus? +1 to start.

At 4th and 8th levels, when he gets his stat boosts, he also gets +1 Str. At 4th level and every 4 levels thereafter, he gets a +1 bonus to natural armor (as HD increase, so does natural armor).

And there you have the bugbear, sans LA.


Let's do something a little harder - the minotaur, since someone brought it up. Minotaurs get +8 Str, +4 Con, -4 Int, -2 Cha, Large size, darkvision, racial proficiency with greataxe, a gore attack, +5 natural armor, and natural cunning. They lose the powerful charge ability (which is basically an altered form of the charge attack).

Size, darkvision, WP, proficiency with natural attacks, and natural cunning are basics. This might sound like a lot, but it's not - Large size is actually a penalty, darkvision isn't worth much, and he gains a single WP and a gore attack. Natural cunning is basically the same (valuewise) as any core racial ability.

Starting stats: +4 Str, +2 Con, -4 Int, -2 Cha. At 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th levels, he gains +1 Str. He starts with +2 NA and gains +1/4 levels.

 

[Angrydad]

So I played around a bit with some ideas, and this is what I came up with.

Let's start with the bugbear - it's pretty basic. Bugbears get +4 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, and -2 Cha; darkvision; a +3 natural armor bonus, and a +4 racial bonus to MS checks. The darkvision and skill bonus are basic racial abilities, so we can give those at first level. As far as stat bonuses, we'll give them +2 Str, +2 Dex, and -2 Cha to start. Natural armor bonus? +1 to start.

At 4th and 8th levels, when he gets his stat boosts, he also gets +1 Str. At 4th level and every 4 levels thereafter, he gets a +1 bonus to natural armor (as HD increase, so does natural armor).

And there you have the bugbear, sans LA.


Let's do something a little harder - the minotaur, since someone brought it up. Minotaurs get +8 Str, +4 Con, -4 Int, -2 Cha, Large size, darkvision, racial proficiency with greataxe, a gore attack, +5 natural armor, and natural cunning. They lose the powerful charge ability (which is basically an altered form of the charge attack).

Size, darkvision, WP, proficiency with natural attacks, and natural cunning are basics. This might sound like a lot, but it's not - Large size is actually a penalty, darkvision isn't worth much, and he gains a single WP and a gore attack. Natural cunning is basically the same (valuewise) as any core racial ability.

Starting stats: +4 Str, +2 Con, -4 Int, -2 Cha. At 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th levels, he gains +1 Str. He starts with +2 NA and gains +1/4 levels.

So, when you say that a character who is a bugbear, or minotaur, starts at first level you give them the simplified stat blocks. As they advance in a heroic class they also gain the remainder of their racial abilities too? You realize all this has done is spread out the LA over about 8 levels? They still have the LA abilities, it just took them longer to get said abilities, plus they have whatever abilities their class has granted. You didn't really get rid of the LA at all, in my opinion. Just spread it out like jam on toast. Instead of big chunks of strawberries, I now have strawberry mush all over my minotaur.
Also, I think most people would disagree about size Large being a penalty. +4 to grapple checks and other opposed checks like it, 2x lifting and carrying capacity, less likelihood of being swallowed whole by some rampaging monster later on, better weapon damage, etc. I'll take being size Large at 1st level just about any day (unless I'm going for a stealthy rogue type).

 

[Kerrick]

So, when you say that a character who is a bugbear, or minotaur, starts at first level you give them the simplified stat blocks. As they advance in a heroic class they also gain the remainder of their racial abilities too? You realize all this has done is spread out the LA over about 8 levels? They still have the LA abilities, it just took them longer to get said abilities, plus they have whatever abilities their class has granted.

Yeah, it's not a very good solution. I did, however, find a better one (see below).

You didn't really get rid of the LA at all, in my opinion. Just spread it out like jam on toast. Instead of big chunks of strawberries, I now have strawberry mush all over my minotaur.

"You got peanut butter in my chocolate!" Heh. Sorry, had to do it.

Also, I think most people would disagree about size Large being a penalty. +4 to grapple checks and other opposed checks like it, 2x lifting and carrying capacity, less likelihood of being swallowed whole by some rampaging monster later on, better weapon damage, etc. I'll take being size Large at 1st level just about any day (unless I'm going for a stealthy rogue type).

You also get -1 AC, you make a bigger target (and are easier to see), can't squeeze through spaces that your companions can, and pay twice as much for armor. So it all kind of balances out.

Anyway... I was reading the Pathfinder boards this morning, and I came across a discussion of (you guessed it) LA. Someone there had come up with another system to do it (link here) and I thought about adapting part of that for my system.

To wit: If you have a monster with class levels, start it off with the heroic array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) instead of the basic array (11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10). Match the highest stat with the 15, the next highest with the 14, etc. The example they give, oddly enough, is the minotaur:

Minotaur. Its Base CR is 4, and add +1 for being a PC. Its stat mods are (monster-elite array) Str 19-15=+4, Con 15-14=+0(rounded down) Dex 10-13=-2 (rounded) Wis 10-12= -2 Int 10, Cha 8-10= -2 Int 8-7=+0, for a total of +4 Str, -2 Dex, -2 Int, -2, Cha -2 Wis, which is perfectly reasonable. It’s a level 5 PC with skill rank maxes of 8 and 6 monster HD.

Frankly, it's a warrior class with a little bit of punch from natural armor, small stat mods from its size, and some fun but not good noncombat abilities. It's nothing to write home about as a 5th level character, and that's much more reasonable than the ECL 8 the MM would have you play it at.

So for starting stat bonuses, we end up with Str +4, Dex -2, Wis -2, Cha -2 (there's no -2 Int... I'm not sure where he came up with that). You can apply those to either a point buy system OR a random generation system equally. There are no level-based stat boosts, and you dump the HD.

Now, if I applied that to the bugbear, we'd have...

Str 15 - 15 (+0), Dex 13 - 12 (+1), Con 14 - 13 (+1), Int 12 - 10 (-2), Wis 10 - 10 (+0), Cha 8 - 9 (+1).

Odd, that... they're supposed to get +4 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, and -2 Cha. Obviously their stats need a bit of rearranging. I wouldn't give them more than +2 to Str, though, since they're only Medium. Rogue being a favored class for a race that averages 7 feet tall is an odd choice - fighter or barbarian would be much better, IMO. Then we could ditch the Dex bonus (which also makes little sense), and keep the Con bonus and Cha penalty. A sample stat array would then look something like this:

Str 17 (15+2), Con 16 (14+2), Dex 13 (13+0), Int 12 (12+0), Wis 8 (8+0), Cha 8 (10-2).

This hews fairly closely to the description (tactics are solid but not brilliant - indicating decent Int but lacking Wis to back it up), and they are willing to parley on occasion to gain something they want, but are short-tempered and have little patience - also low Wis and Cha).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The main problem I can see with this system, beyond the borked multiclassing rules, is that you'd have to come up with class levels for each monster.

Yep.

Of course, unless everyone in the group wants to play some oddball race, it shouldn't be too hard for the DM to make up 1-2 monster races, but still... that's more work than I'd want to make.

The good news is that at least some of the work has been done for you in Savage Species and AU/AE. The ones in SS mainly have the baggage of the rule that a monster PC must take all of his racial class levels first, before taking a single standard base class.

In AU/AE, no such rule exists, but there are only a few races statted out.

In both cases, you can easily adapt what you'd want to change.

And after you see a couple and tweek a couple, it actually gets pretty easy.

I agree with Angel here - not getting lost in a maze is an innate racial ability, like a dwarf's stonecunning. At 1st level, he'd likely have that, Large size, and a Str/Con boost

I'd disagree in the case of the Minotaur. The original from the legend who inspired the D&D monster didn't get lost in the Labyrinth of Crete (designed by Daedelus) because he had lived in it nearly all of his life.

It wasn't an innate racial ability, it was a lifetime of familiarity with his environment.

Even so, with monster levels, you could still give the Minotaur bonuses to finding his way, with further bonuses accruing until, say, Minotaur4, after which they never get lost in mazes.

You realize all this has done is spread out the LA over about 8 levels?

Yes and no- if you do it with full monster levels, they're also accumulating BAB, Save bonuses, and skill points like all other classes- something you don't necessarily get with LA.

 

[Kerrick]

The good news is that at least some of the work has been done for you in Savage Species and AU/AE. The ones in SS mainly have the baggage of the rule that a monster PC must take all of his racial class levels first, before taking a single standard base class.

In AU/AE, no such rule exists, but there are only a few races statted out.

In both cases, you can easily adapt what you'd want to change.

And after you see a couple and tweek a couple, it actually gets pretty easy.

But you still have racial levels, right? Isn't that what we're trying to get rid of, because they make PCs with them lag behind others without them?

I'd disagree in the case of the Minotaur. The original from the legend who inspired the D&D monster didn't get lost in the Labyrinth of Crete (designed by Daedelus) because he had lived in it nearly all of his life.

True, but the monsters in D&D are only loosely based on legend - there was not, obviously, an entire race of minotaurs in Greek mythology. That being said, it is kind of strange that they would get that ability, now that I think about it...

Yes and no- if you do it with full monster levels, they're also accumulating BAB, Save bonuses, and skill points like all other classes- something you don't necessarily get with LA.

Actually, you would get that with LA, if you add the racial HD.

 

[OneWinged4ngel]

I agree with Angel here - not getting lost in a maze is an innate racial ability, like a dwarf's stonecunning.

Wait, what? I never said anything like that. I said that you could easily provide it as a racial ability without having to use classes or anything, not that it necessarily should be one.

But you still have racial levels, right? Isn't that what we're trying to get rid of, because they make PCs with them lag behind others without them?

My system, at least, has no monster levels. Zero, zilch, none. Problems solved.

If you do want to have monster classes for some reason, though (why would you want to? I thought it was progress when they made elf stop being a character class. Maybe that's just me?), you need to fix the multiclassing system as well. A good place to start would be to give a system of class-level-independent qualification for primary ability sets, a la Tome of Battle qualification for maneuvers.

 

[Kerrick]

Wait, what? I never said anything like that. I said that you could easily provide it as a racial ability without having to use classes or anything, not that it necessarily should be one.

Oops, my fault.

My system, at least, has no monster levels. Zero, zilch, none. Problems solved.

Exactly. Danny's proposal retained the monster levels for some reason.

I was thinking about this on the way home from work, and I wondered: why do some humanoids have racial HD and some don't? You can't advance a humanoid like you do other monsters; their "advancement" entry reads "by character class", which lends a good bit of support to the solution of just rolling the HD into class levels to begin with. There are two problems:

First, what do you do if you have a (monstrous) humanoid/giant that suddenly wants to gain class levels? Does he suddenly lose all his racial HD, feats, and skills and start over?

Second, what about nonhumanoid creatures? There are a few (unicorn, lammasu, dragons) who can take class levels. I can't really see dropping their racial HD like you do with humanoids; some sort of LA would come in really handy here, because nonhumanoids often get extra ablities that humanoids don't - supernatural, SLAs, flight, etc.

If you do want to have monster classes for some reason, though (why would you want to? I thought it was progress when they made elf stop being a character class. Maybe that's just me?) you need to fix the multiclassing system as well.

Amen. Multiclassing needs to be fixed, regardless, but several people are working on that. I've come up with my own system that I think will work just fine.

A good place to start would be to give a system of class-level-independent qualification for primary ability sets, a la Tome of Battle qualification for maneuvers.

Prerequisites, in other words. It could be an interesting idea, depending how it's implemented.

 

[OneWinged4ngel]

Prerequisites, in other words.

Uhm... What do you think class levels are? Post-requisites?
Drawing a distinction where there is no difference is a logical fallacy. Either that, or you're just stating the blatantly obvious to the point where I want to go get my "Master of the Obvious" sign XD

Anyways, more accurately, it means "class-level-independent requirements" (which is what I already said). Or, in other words, prerequisites that are not directly linked to a single class, such as BAB or Universal Caster Level, which multiple, if not all, classes have access to. A class-level-dependent requirement would be the feat that says "Prerequisite: Paladin 6." As is, all the spells work this way, and that's kinda stupid.