The new freebie from Expeditious Retreat Press got me to thinking about the categories d20 places monsters into. Something I'd done before, and need to get back to. This time around I'm posting this here to get some feedback on my scheme.
Which works like this: A creature falls into one of five base categories. They are; animal, plant, aberration, outsider, and spirit. Each is further defined by additional, secondary categories. Mammal, undead, and magical for example. In my scheme of things a Dragon Earth vampire basilisk would be categorized as a Magical/Undead/Avian/Animal.
Clarification: Animal or Plant refers to any natural life form. In the case of Animals it incorporates the old categories of Beast and Magical Beast.
An Abberration is an unnatural creature. Sometimes created through a curse or malevolent magic. In the dictionary sense of the word, a monster
An Outsider is any creature that comes from outside our plane of existence. demons and devas for example.
A spirit is a disembodied creature. It may have been an animal, a plant, an abberration, or even an outsider, but once sans corpus it becomes a spirit. (And I'm going to leave it at that, because the subject can get a bit touchy. )
The questions I have for you are: Does it make sense? Can it be improved? In terms of secondary categories which ones would be useful?
Your thoughts.
Which works like this: A creature falls into one of five base categories. They are; animal, plant, aberration, outsider, and spirit. Each is further defined by additional, secondary categories. Mammal, undead, and magical for example. In my scheme of things a Dragon Earth vampire basilisk would be categorized as a Magical/Undead/Avian/Animal.
Clarification: Animal or Plant refers to any natural life form. In the case of Animals it incorporates the old categories of Beast and Magical Beast.
An Abberration is an unnatural creature. Sometimes created through a curse or malevolent magic. In the dictionary sense of the word, a monster
An Outsider is any creature that comes from outside our plane of existence. demons and devas for example.
A spirit is a disembodied creature. It may have been an animal, a plant, an abberration, or even an outsider, but once sans corpus it becomes a spirit. (And I'm going to leave it at that, because the subject can get a bit touchy. )
The questions I have for you are: Does it make sense? Can it be improved? In terms of secondary categories which ones would be useful?
Your thoughts.
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