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.