ECL of monsters: Playtest of a centaur

[chilibean]

LightPhoenix's point is closer to my real point here, even though I'm sure he isn't endorsing my point of view. My apologies that I am not an effective enough communicator to get that across.

Disregarding the obvious pointlessness of discussing this with people that seem only interested in the min/maxed abilities of a single class, I do actually have 1 real question and a couple little technical quibbles.

A fighter 12 gets +12 BAB, correct?

A centaur has a +7 attack bonus according to my MM. 4 of which come from it's 18 strength, correct?

Thus 12+3=15. Thats 3 attacks + 1 from speed wpn = 4 attacks. Or is this another oversight on my part?

There are a couple other minor quibbles:

A barded creature is only capable of carrying a rider and saddlebags. No other gear, regardless of carrying capacity. I assume this is being ignored because saddlebags of holding are on sale again in the Walmart magic shop for cheap at every village. Or maybe you have modified suits of barding that have a cargo platform instead of a saddle and still allow for full dex bonus. I heard they are 25% off clearance at Foley's.

The barded centaur has an astounding movement rate of 35. That's impressive! Definately makes up for being severly hampered in dungeons. The first time it falls into a 20' deep pit trap and is stuck for good because no one can pull it out, the human fighter will laugh all the way to the treasure room down the corridor. No, never mind, wizards always have extra levitate spells for that mem'ed, so it's not a real disadvantage.

I will conceed the mithril trick was pretty nice. But any DM that would allow this is over generous IMO. Those master armorors that can make such a suit of exotic full plate that allows for that kind of ease of movement, despite the terribly complicated ariticulation that would probably be needed between the human torso and horse torso are apparently growing on trees in most campaign worlds.

I guess the games I like to play in are much different than those of the people on this board. I was under the impression that just getting a suit of halfling full plate in a human city ought to be a little challenging and more expensive ...

 

[Vuron]

I think Mal and CR are dead on with thier analysis I would go a bit farther and suggest the following.

Certain Monster types are equivalent to certain class types.

I think it's a fair assumption that 90% of rare character types will be of the following monster types: Fey, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrous Humanoid and Shapechanger. Other monster types either are largely unplayable such as the plants, oozes, etc or ridicolously hard to balance such as several outsiders, undead, etc.

Using the 5 before mentioned Character Types I would suggest that Giant, Humanoid and Monstrous Humanoid most closely resemble warriors or fighters. I think that few would doubt that a Ogre Fighter 1 would be weaker than Human Warrior 8/Fighter 1.
The Fey and Shapechangers more closely resemble either rogues or adepts. I don't have my Dragon Mag here but the thought of a Pixie Rogue pretty much seems similar to a human adept rogue.

ECLs seem pretty damned balanced for the commonly played types with munchkin players liable to be disappointed (which IMHO isn't a bad thing at all) for the more unusual monster types such a a beholder etc I'm not sure the ECLs are correct but lets be honest a Beholder Psion might be pretty wacky in your campaign anyway.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Every time a thread like this comes up, people ask things like "But the Centaur Wizard! He's at a disadvantage! A 10th level wizard is better than a 3rd level Centaur Wizard!"

This ignores the point. Centaur is worth about 7 levels. That's 7 Fighter levels. Of course a Centaur Wizard isn't a very good wizard, in the same way that a human Fighter 7/Wizard 3 isn't a very good wizard. Exactly the same, in fact. The Centaur/Wizard is a far better fighter than wizard at 10th level overall. Isn't that worth something?

Not exactly the same. Monster ECLs most definitely do NOT equal Fighter levels. It's just the closest reasonable comparison.

As for the Centaur Wizard - it's hard to tell if you're agreeing with me, or not, but that's exactly what I stated. The question that needs to be asked is whether a Centaur / Class 3 (or 13, or whatever) equal in ability to a 10th (or 20th, etc.) level character? I personally don't know, and I won't be presumptuous enough to make a guess. It's something that every DM needs to answer when he/she lets a player play a character with an ECL.

Everyone knows that diluting wizard levels (or cleric, or sorcerer, or monk, or whatever) is a bad idea.

A point I have to address, but IMO really isn't pertinent to this discussion. It's in a similar discussion with how best to do spellcasting prestige classes, and also IMHO hints at something not quite right with the spellcasters.

LightPhoenix

 

[CRGreathouse]

A fighter 12 gets +12 BAB, correct?

A centaur has a +7 attack bonus according to my MM. 4 of which come from it's 18 strength, correct?

Thus 12+3=15. Thats 3 attacks + 1 from speed wpn = 4 attacks. Or is this another oversight on my part?

Centaurs are monstrous humanoids and thus have fighter BAB (+4 BAB for 4 HD). Their attack bonus, as listed, is +7 (+4 BAB, +4 Str, -1 size). Thus, a centaur Ftr12 has a BAB of +16.

The barded centaur has an astounding movement rate of 35. That's impressive! Definately makes up for being severly hampered in dungeons. The first time it falls into a 20' deep pit trap and is stuck for good because no one can pull it out, the human fighter will laugh all the way to the treasure room down the corridor. No, never mind, wizards always have extra levitate spells for that mem'ed, so it's not a real disadvantage.

A speed of 35 is quite impressive, compared to the human's 20. As for falling in a pit, the centaur should have no trouble getting out. It could throw a rope and have a party member tie it onto a solid structure and pull itself out (max pull = 13.8 tons) with no trouble. It could easily have a spellcaster get it out (Tenser's floating disk, levitate, wind walk, polymorph other, polymorph any object, Otiluke's telekinetic sphere, phase door, fly, mass fly, telekinesis, rope trick, ...), or have a creature pull it out - the fighter-types will surely have magically-enhanced strength, and the casters have sommon monster and summon nature's ally.

I will conceed the mithril trick was pretty nice. But any DM that would allow this is over generous IMO. Those master armorors that can make such a suit of exotic full plate that allows for that kind of ease of movement, despite the terribly complicated ariticulation that would probably be needed between the human torso and horse torso are apparently growing on trees in most campaign worlds.

They should be much more common than 12th level centaur fighters.

Really, working mithral isn't that hard - with a decent Int, Skill Focus (Craft (armorsmith)), and masterwork tools, it wouldn't even take a high-level character. Good smiths are more common than adventurers.

I guess the games I like to play in are much different than those of the people on this board. I was under the impression that just getting a suit of halfling full plate in a human city ought to be a little challenging and more expensive ...

It's challenging, but not terribly expensive - it must be custom made, but there's much less metal to be shaped. The centaur paid tens of thousands[/i] of gold pieces to have armor made special for him - and that doesn't include the magical protection.

 

[Axiomatic Unicorn]

And the Ref has stopped the Fight!!!!!

CRGreathouse wins with a TKO in the 5th round.

You know, Joe, this may be a controversial call, but I really think it was the right call to make. Some people may try to say it wasn't really over, but it is always best to step in before somebody gets really hurt.