D&D 5E Monsters as PCs for 5th?

[Psyga315]

It had occurred to me when reading the Cambion's entry that, because 5E is doing a throwback to the old D&D, it might be possible for them to do something akin to what 3.5 and Pathfinder did and have options for players to play as monsters. The Monsters as PCs idea.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think this is a possibility?

 

[GX.Sigma]

Should players be allowed to play monsters as characters? That's up to each DM and their individual campaign.

Should there be a supplement (or DMG section) defining how to play monsters as characters? Well, all supplements are about presenting options that the player/GM can decide to use or not. So, I'll go with yes.

 

[Tormyr]

I chose yes, although I am not quite that excited. I think PCs as non-traditional races should be rare and have a good story-based reason for occurring.

When we got ready to start our 5e campaign in April (starting under the September 2013 play test rules). One of my players came up with the idea for a half-gnoll paladin. While I would normally not go for this, in our last campaign the player had played a male human druid who had attracted the attention of a chaotic good female gnoll from a gnoll aasimar tribe. At the end of our set of adventures, the druid received word that he needed to return to the village to discuss matters of a personal nature. The half-gnoll paladin was the result of their union. I liked it so much that we worked together on how to make it work. During the pre PHB time, we reskinned the half-orc and had him use that. When the PHB came out and the Gnoll race in the basic MM pdf came out, we had enough to make a race similar to what you would find in the PHB.

He ended up with the following:
+2 strength
+1 dexterity
darkvision
Languages: Gnoll and Common
Rampage: take a creature down to 0 hp, may take a bonus action to move up to half of speed and make another single melee attack.

He is a little light on racial features. If the higher CR Gnolls in the MM have other features, I will probably give those to the character as well.

I think you can make a player character out of most creatures in the MM. Using the MM entry as a guide:
+2 to the highest ability in the MM entry
+1 to the next highest ability
Darkvision and senses as noted
Common and the creature's primary language
Creature's speed
Any features that are not overpowered.

I think the new race should be mechanically equivalent to the races in the PHB or even a tiny bit worse. It should not be better overall than any other race in the PHB. I think playing a non-standard race should be part of the reward in itself.

 

[aramis erak]

It had occurred to me when reading the Cambion's entry that, because 5E is doing a throwback to the old D&D, it might be possible for them to do something akin to what 3.5 and Pathfinder did and have options for players to play as monsters. The Monsters as PCs idea.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think this is a possibility?

I think it worked really well in the PC series modules for the Mentzer and Alston/Denning editions of D&D...

I think the same approach can be worked for Next...

Base monster is level=HD
Figure out stat mods by reverse engineering back to get a 1 HD version (remembering that HD 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19 were 2 point mods to attribute totals)
Figure out which special abilities should be stepped back, fit them into the "class"...
Fill in with whatever class feels closest.

Or just make the player not level up until character level earned equals HD, then add PC classes as a multiclass after that.

 

[Li Shenron]

It depends on what kind of monsters...

It would have been possible (and better) to have humanoids as PC already in the MM.
Designing a simple framework for doing it yourself would have been fine and easy (at least for 1HD monsters), if they thought that it would have taken too much space to provide a ready-to-use race for each humanoid PC.

Then higher-HD monsters, non-humanoid monsters, or monsters with tricky special features, are probably much harder to do right, and the risk of a catch-all framework is that it might fall apart, either with some race that is way too powerful or with too many races underwhelming. So at least for those, perhaps a one-on-one approach would be best. They are also however much more rarely wanted as PC, compared to humanoids or near-humanoids.

 

[Steely Dan]

Hell yeah; this already has a legacy, with Basic Ed Tall Tales of the Wee Folk (sleeper accessory), 2nd Ed Humanoids Handbook, 3rd Ed Savage Species, etc.

 

[aramis erak]

Hell yeah; this already has a legacy, with Basic Ed Tall Tales of the Wee Folk (sleeper accessory), 2nd Ed Humanoids Handbook, 3rd Ed Savage Species, etc.

Tall Tales of the Wee Folk is module PC1. Fey and Woodland races...
There are more in that series.
PC2 Top Ballista (various flyers and cloud-island dwellers)
PC3 The Sea People (aquatics)
PC4 Night Howlers (lycanthropes)

Plus, there was the GAZ module Orcs of Thar... The early 90's were great era for monsters as PC's... but note that they were various racial classes.

Which isn't really a bad way to go for most of them.

 

[ccooke]

I don't really want to use monsters as PCs myself, but they should definitely be in the core rules. If nothing else, you never know when one of your players is going to surprise you with a great idea for a backstory.

Besides, I'm waiting for a 5e Pun-pun... Hopefully for a very long time.

 

[Grimstaff]

Nah. The Star Wars Cantina scene was a cool backdrop, but not really what I'd like to see a whole campaign / adventuring party look like.

 

[Tormyr]

Nah. The Star Wars Cantina scene was a cool backdrop, but not really what I'd like to see a whole campaign / adventuring party look like.

What, a human, an elf, a halfling, a gnome, a dwarf, a tiefling and a dragonborn walk into a bar isn't a motley enough crew for you?