Classed Monsters in the Monster Manual

[Jester David]

The correct answer to the OP's question is "YES! ... Sometimes"

The Strength of 3e
Every splatbook became a DM resources. That, no matter the broken combinations and synergies a clever party could manage, the DM had a counter.
It was also very space efficient. Rather than a dozen orcs, each taking half or a third of a page, there was one orc entry that could be customized.

The Strength of 4e
Monsters were quicker. You had a couple orcs at your fingertips. You didn't need to customize if you didn't want to. You could run a multi-orc encounter straight from the book.

Neither way was perfect. 3e made it long and slow to build an orc encounter with lots of customization and math. 4e added unique snowflake orc on top of unique snowflake orc. There's no way you need 88 different types of orc (let alone 6 types of roper, 4 purple worms,

* We need 3-4 orcs in the MM tops. 1 very basic an a couple leaders.
* We then need very, very simple templates (ala 4e monster themes or 5e specialities) to add generic flavour onto humanoid monsters. A "berserker" is the same be it a dwarf or a human or an orc. We just need to add "berserker".
* We need simple rules to add class options onto monsters. This should work better than the horrible 4e templates (elites? no thank you.)

The best of all worlds.

 

[Scribble]

The correct answer to the OP's question is "YES! ... Sometimes"

The Strength of 3e
Every splatbook became a DM resources. That, no matter the broken combinations and synergies a clever party could manage, the DM had a counter.

See I found it to be a great in theory, poor in practice idea... In that in order to do anything I had to comb through various splatbooks and find effective class/template combos.

4e returned the easy for me. Monsters just worked well, and were easy to build and update. I didn't need to bother looking for a good class or template, I just added a power that felt right.

They also returned a little of the mystery/fear factor as since they didn't always use the same powers as the PCs the players didn't know what to expect.

 

[Jester David]

See I found it to be a great in theory, poor in practice idea... In that in order to do anything I had to comb through various splatbooks and find effective class/template combos.

4e returned the easy for me. Monsters just worked well, and were easy to build and update. I didn't need to bother looking for a good class or template, I just added a power that felt right.

The advantage of going for a middle-ground approach is that those people who want to comb through books can, those who don't can just use book monsters or the simple templates to customize.

They also returned a little of the mystery/fear factor as since they didn't always use the same powers as the PCs the players didn't know what to expect.

Which is a mixed blessing. It can certainly add some surprise to an encounter.
However, when every monster is unique and does something unique, all the powers blend together. Unless it's really interesting (or really sucks) it's seldom memorable.

Mystery powers work best when they can be applied to well known monsters, as a nasty add-on. When players know it's something special and aren't ready for it.

And sometimes it's nice to use standard powers. When you know how nasty a spell is, it's much more terrifying. And name spells don't need to be described. There's a lovely narrative ease to just saying "the wizard casts fireball."

 

[Minigiant]

I'd prefer:

1 basic representative of the humanoid
1-4 alternative versions (leaders, casters, subraces, castes, etc, some with class features when appropriate)
Monster as Race rules (to help carve out what part is the core of the creature)
Quick Monster Class Guides
Full Monster Class Cuides

Basic Hobgoblin
Hobgoblin leader
Hobgoblin warcaster (with spells)
Hobgoblin duelist (with 2d6 expertise dice)
Hobgoblins as race
Guides for adding class features to monsters

BTW humanoids are not the only ones who could get class features. A marilith with 6d8 expertise dice would be great.

 

[Ratskinner]

This kind of thing has been rumbling around in the back of my head lately. I'm coming to the idea that we need two, or possibly three different ways to build monsters.

Firstly, I think there needs to be a distinction between "classable" monsters and "critter" monsters. I mean, we don't have too much trouble imagining a goblin NPC stacking on the same kinds of expertise and abilities that PCs do, but I have a lot of trepidation with the idea that I need to build a catoblepas in the same way just in case it picks up a few levels of bard. Then, there is the 3e problem of spending half and hour to make an NPC...to watch him die in 3 rounds or less.

So, without further ado...
Method I: For "critters", basically do the 4e thing.

Method II: For "critters" or "classables" Very much like 4e, but a little different. Start with a monster core (possibly with a "racial" bit), and then apply a "theme" to attain diversity. These monster Cores should follow the mathematical lines of "roles" in Method I.

Method III: Strictly for "classables". Start with a "base" level NPC (i.e. a plain goblin, orc, hill giant, etc.) and add levels of classes to reach the difficulty you need.

Either Method should produce roughly equivalent combat strengths for roughly equivalent monsters, but they should have different levels of detail. So, for DM A, who needs a level 4 henchmen that he want to be a little memorable, he might create a Method II Orc Thug = Orc(4) & Bruiser(theme). DM B, in the same spot, might use an Orc (2HD) + Barbarian(2). DM C, who is just using the Orc as filler, whips out a Soldier(4) with "orcish" trappings. All those monsters should be about the same effectiveness in combat, but with different levels of detail.

As for whether any of the Method III monsters should appear in the MM. I would say "no", but not very forcefully. I tend to think of customizing monsters at that level of detail as something that should appear in the DMG. I certainly want to consider them as more NPCs than monsters. If it does appear in the MM, it should be as examples. On the other hand, I can imagine a re-tasked MM, that includes less monsters, but more advice on building them and using them. I'm not saying I think that it would be best, but it could be done.

 

[Steely_Dan]

None, but with the option to slap a class (or features thereof) on any monster I like; Treant Monks rock.

 

[GX.Sigma]

For spellcasters? Totally. Maybe not literally exactly the PC wizard class, but if you have an enemy spellcaster, they should throw magic missiles all the time and have a few fireballs, and they should be the same magic missile and the same fireball that the PCs have access to.

For fighters? Almost never. I don't want to have to keep track of 10 sets of expertise dice for a single battle. They can do it more elegantly with monster-side mechanics, like a trait that has them deal damage on a miss or whatever.

Based on what Mike Mearls said in the recent PA podcasts, DMs may have access to some simpler, "monster" versions of PC classes, and might give important NPCs/villains class levels. That sounds about right to me.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Sure if it fits. Absolutely if it is a character race "humans, elves ect" are built basically as a PC.

For me having an NPC human and a PC human that by story and background are the same sort of character (fighter 3rd level or something), but are built with different rules - one for PCs one for monster/NPC, and have differing abilities because of that just kills my ability to buy into the fiction of the world.

 

[tlantl]

I wouldn't mind there being a section in the DMG or monster manual that described using monsters with classes but I wouldn't want them designed the way they were in 3e where everything that wasn't outfitted with natural weapons being an npc classed character.

I would like for there to be a supplement published later with a lot of these monsters using classed levels or some more streamlined version of the classes. There could be several versions of these monsters ready for use at different levels.


I really liked that the humanoid monsters in 3e were built with character classes. I didn't like the way they worked in practice .

My enthusiasm for the system waned quickly once I had to sit down and build nearly all of the monsters for every encounter I designed. Thousands of hours pouring over characters, classes and filling out what amounted to several folders full of creations, all of which were killed off to be discarded was unacceptable. I missed AD&D's simple monsters and even simpler stat blocks, most of which were no more than a single line of shorthand notes and an array of hitpoints. Leader types had slightly higher attack and hd numbers and that was that. In 3rd even a simple animal or magical beast took up a quarter of a page. Believe it or not having an attack matrix and a saving throw chart was so much easier than having a half dozen different modified attacks and saving throws written on each monster. I firmly believe that having only one armor class is the best way to go.

 

[Li Shenron]

For me having an NPC human and a PC human that by story and background are the same sort of character (fighter 3rd level or something), but are built with different rules - one for PCs one for monster/NPC, and have differing abilities because of that just kills my ability to buy into the fiction of the world.

I've always felt the same. For me the fantasy world is and will always be an environment of its own, not built around the PCs. The gaming action is, but not the world.

So for me the idea of having the possibility to use the same rules for monsters as I use for PCs is very important.

Then the truth is, that I don't always use them! I use them when I want to, but actually the majority of times I fudge those rules... I definitely didn't really need to pick all the skills and feats for classed monsters in 3ed, if all I needed was to setup a more powerful Ogre that the PCs will kill in 4-5 rounds of combat. But I was glad that I could add levels of Fighter or Cleric on such Ogre and present it as an Ogre Fighter or Ogre Cleric.

It really didn't matter for me to design it "perfectly" according to the rules (that is mostly important only with monsters as PC), but that was my choice.

But if the game instead doesn't give me the choice, because other DMs thinks they don't need it, then for me it's a huge disappointment.