Monster Towns?

[iwatt]

Are there any official rules for generating Monster Communities?

What are the rules for determining number of warriors and higher level NPCs for a monstrous community?

What is the effect of EL for Monstrous races?

I don´t really picture any paladins or Monks or Wizards in an Ogre town, so what happens to these leveled NPCs?

Thanks in advance

 

[Zephalon]

There are no rules except the "organisation" entries in the monster manual.

WOTC did use the normal town generation rules for monster towns (in the Forgotten Realms Silver Marches Supplement), which I didn't like at all. Hobgoblin town with monks? I don't think so, especially not in a northern setting.

The official rules for generating towns/cities do not take things like predominant race, culture, climate or terrain into account (which would require a really big ruleset). At least, they could have used the favored class mechanic for races and regions...

 

[iwatt]

That´s what I thought. Most of the "savage" monstrous races have too many special characteristics to be correctly applied by just shifting the population percentage tables to Monster XX 97%, Humans 2%, etc. My Initial concerns are:

1) Effects of Racial Favored Class on NPC Demographic´s.
- Higher possible levels for Racial Favored Class?
- Multiclassing

2) Barred classes.
- Ogre Wizards? Come on, this is OK for specific DM
related characters, but having most generic Ogre hamlets
have 3rd Level Wizards seems ridiculous.


3) Racial Modification to population sizes.
- Town Sizes reflect many factors, but mostly they are related
to resource availability. Continuing with the Ogre example,
one of these suckers easily eat´s 2-3 times as much as a
human. Does that mean that a village of Ogres should have
a third of the population of a corresponding human village?
- Fertility and reproduction cycles. How to estimate how many
young ones exist, or how viable a population size is. If you
kill 300 orcs, according to normal practice, the buggers are
replaced in about 5 years. If you kill 300 dwarves, you´ve
just decimated a clan, and it will probably take them 200
years to recover, if ever.


Right now I can´t think of any other important parameters used to afect the demographic´s of a monster town. I know I could probably eyeball many of these doubts, but before I comit myself I´d like to get a brainstorming going.

Maybe these ideas will generate some interest in the topic.

 

[Zephalon]

1) Effects of Racial Favored Class on NPC Demographic´s.
- Higher possible levels for Racial Favored Class?
- Multiclassing

- Add a modifier to highest class level for a race's favored class (+2)
- For this purpose treat the races as different populations in the town/city and calculate their class levels accordingly
- Add a modifier to the regions favored classes (+1)
- Multiclassing should not exceed the highest class level for either class.

2) Barred classes.
- Ogre Wizards? Come on, this is OK for specific DM
related characters, but having most generic Ogre hamlets
have 3rd Level Wizards seems ridiculous.

- Add/subtract the ability modifier for a class from the highest level.

Str: fighter, ranger, barbarian, warrior
Dex: rogue, expert
Con: -
Int: wizard
Wis: cleric, druid, paladin, monk, adept
Cha: bard, sorceror, aristocrat

3) Racial Modification to population sizes.
- Town Sizes reflect many factors, but mostly they are related
to resource availability. Continuing with the Ogre example,
one of these suckers easily eat´s 2-3 times as much as a
human. Does that mean that a village of Ogres should have
a third of the population of a corresponding human village?
- Fertility and reproduction cycles. How to estimate how many
young ones exist, or how viable a population size is. If you
kill 300 orcs, according to normal practice, the buggers are
replaced in about 5 years. If you kill 300 dwarves, you´ve
just decimated a clan, and it will probably take them 200
years to recover, if ever.

- I wouldn't change this. Different races need more or less resources, which only affects how many of them can exist in a given area. An ogre metropolis would need a huge rural backland.

- Add a modifier for the populations culture

for example:
nomadic: rangers (+1), barbarians (+1), warriors (+1), wizards (-2)
urban: rangers (-1), barbarians (-2), wizards (+1), clerics (+1)
rural: rangers (+1)
...

This is of course house rule territory

 

[kigmatzomat]

Are there any official rules for generating Monster Communities?

Nope. Time to wing it.

What is the effect of EL for Monstrous races?
I don´t really picture any paladins or Monks or Wizards in an Ogre town, so what happens to these leveled NPCs?

EL will have an impact, but only towards the skills. Fact is, you're going to need the same distribution of non-combat NPCs in most situations where the determination is skill points. IIRC, most default NPCs get @ 10 points at 1st level and 4 each additional; this will give you a "Community ECL" (CECL) for the race.

I'd also do casters as normal unless there's a particular bias against magic. Casters aren't very common and I'd think monstrous communities will be fairly small. Even big cities rarely have more than a few dozen casters; if you've got hundreds of ECL3+ in a town, the few 5th level casters shouldn't be your big worry.

Combat classes could be a trouble spot, but I doubt it. Just roll for them normally and apply the Barbarian/Monk adjustment as needed for a given race and have their CECL match their ECL.

Let's use a Frost Giant community. From my quick perusal, a typical MM Frost Giant has about as many skill points as a 1st level human commoner. So calculate all the non-combats as normal-1 as Joe Giant (class 0th) is eqivalent to Human Bob (commoner 1st). So if you roll a 5th level commoner, that's really a Frost Giant with 4 levels of commoner.

When you hit the combats, roll normally. Anything less than the ECL of the race you ignore. Frost Giants are ECL 14 I think, so any roll less than 14 on fighters, warriors, rangers, paladins, etc, means you have none specifically. After all, any Joe Frost Giant can fill that role. If you get a Fighter:16 give the giant 2 levels of fighter and have 2 Fighter 1sts as well.

Yes, this means that there will probably be lots of combat-capable expert/aristocrat NPC monsters. So? They were combat capable monsters before you gave them classes.

Naturally things like warbands and raiding parties ignore this. But any self-sufficient tribe unit that has had several generations of natural selection applied to it should follow the community guildelines; even if they are nomadic.

 

[Wolv0rine]

- I wouldn't change this. Different races need more or less resources, which only affects how many of them can exist in a given area. An ogre metropolis would need a huge rural backland.

I'm noit sure about that really, because much of the rural land that tends to supposrt a community is farmlands. And the concept of acres of ogre farms just makes my brain rise up with a pitchfork and threaten to kill me.

 

[Zephalon]

I'm noit sure about that really, because much of the rural land that tends to supposrt a community is farmlands. And the concept of acres of ogre farms just makes my brain rise up with a pitchfork and threaten to kill me.

No, no... Ogres don't farm. They herd and breed livestock, which could be nearly anything living for an ogre (goblins, humans, elves, dwarves...). Obviously due to their long reproduction cycles dwarfes and elves are poor choices. Goblins are probably the "bread and butter" for an ogre city

 

[Wolv0rine]

No, no... Ogres don't farm. They herd and breed livestock, which could be nearly anything living for an ogre (goblins, humans, elves, dwarves...). Obviously due to their long reproduction cycles dwarfes and elves are poor choices. Goblins are probably the "bread and butter" for an ogre city

Hmm, but golbins are good fodder troops. Now halflings, that I could see. Halfling farms, hehehe