Creating Monster Classes

[Erinyes of Tartach]

For my newest character I was wanting something out of the ordinary and possibly evil so I started with looking for monster races that could be made characters. The Erinyes (MMI) entry caught my eye first. I liked how several contradictions came together, beauty in a devil, temptation and lies in a lawful, and playfulness along with malice. To me the main fun parts of this race seemed to be the extraordinary ability entangle, combined with charm monster as a spell like ability, a high charisma, with wings to top it off. However it is too powerful for the campaign that is starting and probably any campaign to start with. I found the section in Savage Species on lowering ecl by breaking creatures down into levels. They give examples of many creatures, and I can agree with the finished product, but I have no idea how to get there. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

First, welcome to the boards!

Monster Classes are as much art as anything else, seemingly meant for players to sit down with their DMs and figure out how to balance them together. You'll need both SS and a Monster Manual to give you details on what abilities your character should have.

Another (IMHO, superior) take on them is found in the racial class levels of the PC races from Monte Cook's AU/AE game. Those treat monster levels as equivalent to normal class levels, and structure them as such. Taking a look at those might give you further insight as to how to balance things out.

 

[rgard]

Hi, here are two other possibilities...

1. Class Construction Engine. It's somewhere on the web (maybe somebody reading this has a link.) It breaks down the core classes by points for each relevant class characteristic (saves, hd, bab) and gives the direction on how to create your own classes.

2. Buy The Numbers. I think it's sold at the affiliate on-line store here. This is another method of building classes. Again, you can build your own classes with this, but IIRC you allocate experience points to 'buy' differenent class features.

You could use either of these as the basis for building the monster class you want.

And welcome to the boards too!

Thanks,
Rich