Excerpt: Humans as Monsters

[Scalding]

Battle Fury (free, when first bloodied; encounter)

Why is this not an immediate reaction?

 

[Heselbine]

I suspect like you that I'm feeling a sense of guilt about how easy DM preparation is going to be.

Surely if I haven't sweated over it for hours on end it's not a proper adventure?

 

[Heselbine]

D'you know I was thinking that very same thing myself.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I think it's fantastic that it's that easy!

Although part of me is still looking forward to creating an entirely new Solo Halfling with enough kick-ass power to take on the whole group.

 

[AlexS]

I would like to see a human wizard SOLO npc. There is no SOLO template in the DM and I would like to have a Solo Mage as the boss in my first story arc.

Well, you could use one of the templates to modify him into a solo/elite, or you could throw in some sort of environmental hazard/trap, or perhaps you could use allies flavoured as spell effects- have some monsters appear in a puff of smoke as a spell the wizard casts- maybe the necromancer finishes animating a bunch of zombies as the PCs bust in, or a conjurer summons something weird, or something along those lines.

Still fighting the wizard on his own, fluff-wise; it's just that the wizard is prepared and has used his magic to create some speedbumps!

 

[Baka no Hentai]

Im disappointed by the lack of human npc:s. Clerics (leaders), knights (defenders) and a slew of other standard human npc:s is missing. I guess you can use the other humanoids (kobolds/orcs whatever) stats and call them humans but the MM fails in giving me as a gm a easy time.

Perhaps my memory is failing me in my old age (almost 30! ) but I dont seem to remember humans even having an entry in the Monster Manual of 3.5, or if they did it was fairly sparse.

They could put literally hundreds of human archetypes in and still not cover the needs of every DM... so like most of the MM entries, they give you a few sample types to get you started, and let you rely on the easy monster creation rules to tailor things to your exact needs.

 

[Heselbine]

Why is this not an immediate reaction?

Does anyone have an answer to this one?

 

[Grazzt]

It can't be that simple! I... I feel CHEATED!

I know. Me too. I'm burning my books today as a protest to almost making monster/npc design as easy as it was pre 3.x

 

[LostInTheMists]

I was a little disappointed in the article. Yes, I know it's supposed to be simple to use humans as adversaries, but that's pretty much all they told us. Take the human, change it to what you need... simple, right?

Personally, I would have liked to see an example of one of the Class Templates as a way to modify a base human into a "classed" human, and how to scale the level appropriately. Want to make this base human a Wizard that's around level 14? Here's how you do it!

You know, that sort of thing.

Don't suppose anyone who's been lucky enough to get their books early might be willing to share a (legal) summary of how one of these templates work?

 

[JohnRTroy]

If you're real old-school, anybody who remembers Basic and 1e AD&D will remember the human entries. No classes, just entries for various types of NPCs, pilgrims, berserkers, barbarians, pirates, savages, etc.

This is a return to that classic viewpoint.