D&D 5E 5e Monster design and monster PCs

[Advilaar]

I like monster design. the monster design section of any edition unlocks the sheer power of a RPG. Want to be a dragon? If the campaign is that power level and everyone is cool about it, yes.

Not only just a monster, but one that grows with the story. A playable monster. The dragon that is a cleric of Tiamat. The Angel who is an undercover rogue in the city of Dis.

Now, in 3.5, they had a book called Savage Species. With it, anything was possible. Although, the higher stuff tended to devolve into endless lists of +1 here, +2 there feats you could equip and level your ogre magi or intellegent awakened golem to your heat's content.

In 4.0, they simplified things a bit. Classes were now templates to the monster. Unfortunately, because of the intentional abstract nature of the creation and monster roles, it made it harder to build true canon monster characters. No, in 4e you can not be a dragon (easily).

How do you think the monster design process will go? I want to see ogres in +5 plate that are advanced in level. BUT - without the calculus of 3e or 2e.

What about ya'lls thoughts?

 

[Kobold Stew]

This is something I look at too. It's a very hard thing to balance because of the diversity that is involved.

For me, the best treatment in D+D has been the level-adjustment mechanic in 3.0/3.5. I know it had problems (and was hugely unpopular) but it felt right:

(monster hit dice) + (level adjustment) + (class levels)

Nobody wanted the mandatory monster hit-dice/levels, but it provided a way to distinguish a tiny magical fey PC (just level adjustment) from larger-and-tougher humanoids (two or three humanoid dice and a +1 LA) from a dragon (big LA and dice).

There may have been some mistakes on the balancing of some, but the idea was right, because it made it a hard choice to play a monster -- you gave up something real (class levels).

 

[slobo777]

It worked in 3E because monsters and PCs were built using the same units. In 5E it will need to be similar to 4E - someone will need to convert the monster to it can work in a separate PC race/class system.

As a player I really liked the lego-brick "you can build anything" approach of 3E. However, as DM I really disliked it, as it took much longer than I wanted to build NPCs.

 

[howandwhy99]

I think world design / adventure design unlocks the sheer power of a RPG. But monster building is definitely in there.

Bounded accuracy also means a limited scope of playable races. Few people will want the adventures of a dustmite with the INT of a dustmite. And while Galacticus can be that one time universe ending threat, it gets old after awhile. Playing god is just boring as you have to create everything yourself.

I expect we will see a lot of monsters and playable creature types to satisfy most anyone who likes fantasy games. I cross my fingers that we will see a lot of other details in the game for depth of play and weightiness of content.

 

[Mattachine]

I really hope monsters-as-characters is a well thought out, but separate, module.

 

[tlantl]

I really hope monsters-as-characters is a well thought out, but separate, module.

In their Dm seminar at gen con they spoke about this. The idea is that those creatures that they think of as playable races would have that aspect of the creature noted in the monster manual. Something along the lines of having separate stat blocks for combat and interaction and world building.

Such as the number of creatures encountered in a lair, how common or unique a creature might be and how appropriate they would be as player characters.

I'm personally not a big fan of monsters as player characters but since I'm only one of five or six sitting at the table I wind up running a campaign with a group comprised of monsters.

 

[Yora]

I think it depends on the type of monster.

A gnoll, goblin, or even ogre? Sure, why not, they are "normal people" and just called monsters because they are the evil guys and not the good guys.
But I don't think an RPG need to have rules to play a djinn, dragon, giant, or pixie and gain class levels like normal characters.

 

[slobo777]

I think it depends on the type of monster.

A gnoll, goblin, or even ogre? Sure, why not, they are "normal people" and just called monsters because they are the evil guys and not the good guys.
But I don't think an RPG need to have rules to play a djinn, dragon, giant, or pixie and gain class levels like normal characters.

Doesn't have to, but it being possible (via a sourcebook like Savage Species) is a nice addition. Pretty much anything sentient that you can imagine would make a nice fantasy game character to somebody, provided the rules don't creak too much.

 

[Yora]

And that's the point. Gnolls and goblins have no special abilities, so coming up with a PC race that mimics all their traits is easy. Since monsters are different from PCs, a PC gnoll does not have to be identical to a monster gnoll.
Just say "+4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha, Scent, Low-light vision, +1 AC" and you have a playable gnoll.

But when you have to deal with invisibility at will, nonmagical flight, and spell-like abilities, the rules are starting to creak quite considerably very soon. Then you need to compensate at other points and you're right back at the trouble with level adjustment, which players of primary spellcasters are always complaining about.
I'd rather have the designers accept "we don't have any good solution to this, sorry to the 0,2% of players who want that", than to bend and break the system in lots of other places only to make it possible.

 

[Sunseeker]

I think it should be reasonable to be able to strip down any given monster to get it within a +1 to +5 LA(using 3e terms). That is: the basic nature of the monster is so so above and beyond that of any other creature. Perhaps you might have to start as a younger version of a creature, one that has not developed the might and powers of it's fearsome adventurer-killing kin.

Take the Erinyes for example, it's basically an evil humanoid with wings, de-level it from level 8, toss it a few "monster feats" it can have access to as it advances and you've basically got a playable race.

With some spice of monster themes, backgrounds or even classes, we could see progression as say, Fighter 3/Medusa 4 or Drider 5/Warlock 8, heck, we could even have humanoid PC's become monsters through multiclassing later in the game.

I hope that in 5e, monsters are playable in one form or another.

 

[zoroaster100]

As a DM, what I want from monster design is ease of constructing balanced, interesting monsters that fufill their roles as threats and challenges for the PCs and that are easy to scale for use against PCs of different levels.

I am not opposed to having "monster" PCs but that is but I don't see that as being part of monster design at all, but rather part of having a very flexible character creation system with varied PC races that can include "monster" races like a dragon. That should be handled with a totally different set of rules from monster design (in the sense of PC adversary design).

 

[Stasis_Delirium]

I'm wondering if perhaps it would be easier with 5e than it was with 3rd at least (4th was fairly easy to just make monsters into playable races).

The reason might lie in the fact that stats are capped in 5e. Sure, the ogre might get a +4 to strength when creating him, but he can only have up to a 20 strength no matter what. The limitations, in fact, might be the freedom here, since most humanoid races are bound to the same caps on statistics as player characters are.

Then again, dragons and other such massive, or abberant beings might have stats that are much higher, but honestly the problems of playing a hill-giant character might outweigh the benefits. Never being able to enter towns, being the target of mobs formed to chase you down, etc.

-T.J.

 

[Sunseeker]

I am not opposed to having "monster" PCs but that is but I don't see that as being part of monster design at all, but rather part of having a very flexible character creation system with varied PC races that can include "monster" races like a dragon. That should be handled with a totally different set of rules from monster design (in the sense of PC adversary design).

This is a good point, even though monstrous PCs should emulate their monster counterparts, there's a different math to desgining a PC than there is to designing a monster, and while it would be beneficial to know how to break down a monster into a playable class, it is more important to have a clear and understandable formula for how races are built to begin with in order to better serve players and DMs in the creation of custom races.

 

[Advilaar]

There was one approach in 4e that really bugged me. Monster as class. Prime example would be the vampire in the Heroes of Shadow supplement.

Yeah, it looked balanced and 4e is about balance. But, come on. Something like vapirism is aquired. It should be a template.

Now I guess there is a sort of rationale because in 3e, extra hit dice was "sort of" a class, but I viewed it more as an increased toughness thing or sheer size thing as part of a racial benefit.

I guess if you look at monsters as races, it makes better sense. The only exception are thinks like undead, werewolves, vampires, and liches which are just additional templates. Now is your 5th level fighter going to be stronger than the other PCs because he is now a werewolf? Of course. He is a werewolf now. He is supposed to be more badass.

So my suggestion would be to give us a way to break it down with good templates.

I also would not worry about the "galactus" scenario of it being boring being godlike if the players want that power level. Even an ancient green dragon cleric of tiamat has to deal with pesky epic adventurers that want it's epic horde, powerful good dragons, the emporer's epic wizard and army, and other issues that would make a compelling story in addition to lair and follower management and dragon politics.

 

[Asatru]

Having it be an addition module would be a great idea. I hope that they include Undead creatures in it though because I had fun playing as them and you could create an entire back story as to how you became that way and if you were trying to become Un-Undead.

 

[Stalker0]

4e got this right imo.

Monsters at their core are made for fighting, not for playing. It is hard enough to balance monsters to fight a wide array of pcs, it is nearly impossible to do so and balance them as playable characters.

Now, I'm all for a book that provides rules and guidelines to create playable monsters, but out of the gate.....keep the monsters in their manual and out of the PHB

 

[Transformer]

4e got this right imo.

Monsters at their core are made for fighting, not for playing. It is hard enough to balance monsters to fight a wide array of pcs, it is nearly impossible to do so and balance them as playable characters.

Now, I'm all for a book that provides rules and guidelines to create playable monsters, but out of the gate.....keep the monsters in their manual and out of the PHB

Yeah, the basic fact of the matter is, the standard monster creation rules have got to follow 4th edition's lead over 3rd's. This is one of the few areas where I would dare to say that 4th edition's way is simply objectively better. Having to build high level monstrous NPCs by giving them class levels was insanely time consuming and finnicky. The sheer amount of weight lifted off the DM's shoulders by 4th edition's "monsters are designed like monsters in a simple and straightforward and quick system" justifies that route all by itself. We can't go back.

Now, a book with a new system for player character dragons and ogres and djinns and oozes and awakened pieces of furniture: obviously a great idea. Making the PC version of oozes and the monster version of oozes reasonably consistent (so that, i.e., monstrous oozes can't consistently do something important that PC oozes can't) is a design problem, but only a small one.

 

[GX.Sigma]

In 4.0, they simplified things a bit. Classes were now templates to the monster. Unfortunately, because of the intentional abstract nature of the creation and monster roles, it made it harder to build true canon monster characters. No, in 4e you can not be a dragon (easily).

Really? I would have thought it would be easier in 4e than ever, because of its rules to level up (or down) monsters, and come up with stats based on level and role. It won't have a PC class, but it'll be a dragon with appropriate stats to the party's level.

In 5e, it'll be even easier--monsters have stats by level, and you can add PC class levels on top of that. So you have a dragon, which is a level 10 monster, and then you can have it gain levels and advance as a Sorcerer (or whatever).

the vampire in the Heroes of Shadow supplement...come on. Something like vapirism is aquired. It should be a template.

You could take it as a feat.

A multiclass feat.

 

[KidSnide]

4e got this right imo.

Monsters at their core are made for fighting, not for playing. It is hard enough to balance monsters to fight a wide array of pcs, it is nearly impossible to do so and balance them as playable characters.

Now, I'm all for a book that provides rules and guidelines to create playable monsters, but out of the gate.....keep the monsters in their manual and out of the PHB

Damn straight. Monster PCs are a fun way to kit bash the system, but monsters have to serve as NPC combat fodder first.

Rules for allowing balanced (or arguably balanced) PC monsters has to be a secondary consideration. Even 3.x took years before it provided that particular functionality.

-KS

 

[The Shadow]

So you have a dragon, which is a level 10 monster, and then you can have it gain levels and advance as a Sorcerer (or whatever).

Which raises the interesting question: The dragon sorcerer presumably doesn't get draconic bloodline powers, since it's *already* a dragon. What does it get instead?