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<blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 1386582" data-attributes="member: 8158"><p><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f621.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":mad:" title="Mad :mad:" data-smilie="4"data-shortname=":mad:" /> Hmm. There are tons of things I'd love to see fixed. First and foremost, however, the designers really need to get their sh--err, their <em>act</em> together concerning monsters as PC's. There should be some attempt to build monsters along the same principles that character classes are, rather than blithely assume that an arbitrary level adjustment balances things out. </p><p></p><p>For instance, while a PC's major abilities are limited to a certain number of uses per day based on factors like level (rage, smite) or ability scores (turning), a monster's spell-like or supernatural abilities are usually available in one of three flat increments: <em>1/day</em>, <em>3/day</em>, or <em>at will</em>. The logic at work there being that if a monster can use an ability more than three times a day, then it may just as well function at will. Well, that doesn't work so great for PC's, because an "at will" ability by itself necessitates a huge level adjustment (LA). While some monsters like beholders pretty clearly need their abilities to be available whenever they need them, other creatures like mind flayers and ogre mages seem to be unecessarily laden with high LA's just because it was decided that there'd be no harm in being abile to launch infinite mind blasts or being able to turn everything and everyone around them invisible--after all, who cares about the abuse potential of a monster's abilities, since they'll only be around for a single encounter, right? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown :(" data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> </p><p></p><p>Also, there should no such thing as "humanoid hit dice". They are pointless and wasteful since, pretty much by definition, every and any humanoid should be able to take levels in a PC or NPC class. A bugbear's 3 hit dice supposedly makes it tougher than a gnoll's 2 hit dice, which in turn is supposed to be tougher than a 1 hit-die orc. But in practice, a player who tries to build one of these as, say, a fighter, quickly finds the reverse to be true. That's because he has to give up one character level fore each hit die the monster has (if it has more than one), and those humanoid hit dice absolutely suck when compared to what a character could be doing with those levels. Just assign a flat level adjustment.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Felon, post: 1386582, member: 8158"] :mad: Hmm. There are tons of things I'd love to see fixed. First and foremost, however, the designers really need to get their sh--err, their [I]act[/I] together concerning monsters as PC's. There should be some attempt to build monsters along the same principles that character classes are, rather than blithely assume that an arbitrary level adjustment balances things out. For instance, while a PC's major abilities are limited to a certain number of uses per day based on factors like level (rage, smite) or ability scores (turning), a monster's spell-like or supernatural abilities are usually available in one of three flat increments: [I]1/day[/I], [I]3/day[/I], or [I]at will[/I]. The logic at work there being that if a monster can use an ability more than three times a day, then it may just as well function at will. Well, that doesn't work so great for PC's, because an "at will" ability by itself necessitates a huge level adjustment (LA). While some monsters like beholders pretty clearly need their abilities to be available whenever they need them, other creatures like mind flayers and ogre mages seem to be unecessarily laden with high LA's just because it was decided that there'd be no harm in being abile to launch infinite mind blasts or being able to turn everything and everyone around them invisible--after all, who cares about the abuse potential of a monster's abilities, since they'll only be around for a single encounter, right? :( Also, there should no such thing as "humanoid hit dice". They are pointless and wasteful since, pretty much by definition, every and any humanoid should be able to take levels in a PC or NPC class. A bugbear's 3 hit dice supposedly makes it tougher than a gnoll's 2 hit dice, which in turn is supposed to be tougher than a 1 hit-die orc. But in practice, a player who tries to build one of these as, say, a fighter, quickly finds the reverse to be true. That's because he has to give up one character level fore each hit die the monster has (if it has more than one), and those humanoid hit dice absolutely suck when compared to what a character could be doing with those levels. Just assign a flat level adjustment. [/QUOTE]
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