D&D 3.x Monster Types, did you like them?

[aco175]

I seem to recall that the ranger could take 'humanoid' as a favored enemy, which seemed to cover a lot. Or was it just human and orc and goblin were split.

 

[Alzrius]

I seem to recall that the ranger could take 'humanoid' as a favored enemy, which seemed to cover a lot. Or was it just human and orc and goblin were split.

Rangers were required to choose a subtype of Humanoid such as human, elf, orc, goblinoid, reptilian, etc. There was a similar stipulation for Outsiders.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It was helpful for stuff like banes and spell effects, but 3E, as with a lot of its systemization, got a bit carried away with it.

Monster types should include info about typical members of that type, but not constrain monster designers or DMs from creating creatures that broke the rules.

Every fey had to work this way. Every fiend had to work this way. Every undead had to have certain traits.

No thanks.

 

[Lanefan]

I think that monster types were a great invention, and really helped make sense of a lot of things. By outlining the qualities of each category, you eliminated a lot of ambiguity; no more asking if a troll was a "person" for the purposes of casting hold person on them, for instance.

I'm fine with it not being quite so hard-coded. For example, instead of saying large humanoid creature X is a "person" while large humanoid creature Y is not, just give them both huge saving throw bonuses if someone casts a "person"-affecting spell on one.

As to @billd91 's point re wildshape and polymorph, IMO the only way to rein wildshape in is to simply state that if it doesn't exist on Earth you can't wildshape into it. Ordinary owl? Sure. 20-foot-tall owl? Not a chance.

3e broke polymorph beyond repair by combining 1e-2e's poly self (utility) and poly other (purely offensive) into one spell; IMO it can't be fixed without splitting those out again such that polymorphing someone else is always an attack.

 

[Voadam]

I liked them as a categorization and conceptual tool, being clear on what was an undead or not for turning purposes was useful. Over time I became really disenchanted with things like the monster racial hd specific mechanics or undead having no con bonus so actually tough death knights were hard to design. I also think there should have been fewer types with more things shoved to subtypes. Animal, beast, magical beast, dragon, and vermin should all be a beast type possibly with subtypes. Humanoid should include humanoids, giants, and monstrous humanoids.

There was a bit of type mischaracterization to get specific mechanical outputs from the type HD calculations in some core monsters, gnolls are humanoids and not monstrous humanoids despite being animal headed furred humanoids, and ropers are not aberrations but magical beasts, because then they get 1/1 BAB instead 3/4, despite being tentacle monsters that are not really animals with magical powers the way magical beasts say they are.

Mechanically I do not care for the all or nothing uses of types for things like ranger favored enemy and bane items. With so many types it is easy enough for many favored enemy choices to be rarely or never relevant.

I got great use out of 3.5 alignment subtypes and over time applied them to more things as a house rule, undead became subtype evil to match up to the detect evil weirdness and then I expanded that to constructs being law, fey being chaos, and planetouched and fiendish/celestials being their accompanying alignment subtype. It was my favorite mechanical use of alignment in any edition of the game.

4e and 5e types were generally improvements on the monster type categories for me but get used for so very little mechanically that it mostly does not matter, similar to alignment. Wildshape being a big exception. Since 3e types got used though they are still what I think of for monsters now even though I run 5e.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I loved the types. It was a wonderful shorthand for all kinds of things, which reduced redundant word count and allowed for more content. For RP it meant skills were more clear about what they could cover, what languages could work and it provided some in-built lore. It simplified spells, class features, even magic item usage.

I honestly couldn't tell if there were too many or not enough, which meant for me it was in the right ballpark.

Yes, it could seem constraining because it was The Rules. But GMs have lots of house rules and to me the Types were just another rule you would bend/amend/tweak when you needed something out of the ordinary. You didn't break some parts of it (e.g. undead immune to turning is out) but you could add modifiers those things (Undead that acts like they have +10hd or something)

As for the "no Con" being an issue for hit points....again, just a rule and there are plenty of others you can leverage. Give them more AC or Damage Reduction or Regen or a source of Bonus HP or all those things if you want to make them tougher By The Rules.

Or house rule in a Con score con modifier or just give an undead as many hit points as you feel they need. Kind of like whatever spell you dislike and house ruled.

Or make them extra hard to kill a different way. Exceptional creatures are, almost by definition, not formulaic or rote. They are the exceptions to the rules. They should be rare and they should still have rules to follow, just not the same rules as others. I gave my exceptional 3e death knight the ability to "respawn" in a a nearby skeleton under their control, regaining 25% of their HP each round, -10% lost to respawn which needs days to recover. So the 100hp undead can play like having closer to 400hp and still be able to flee at 50hp after five verrry irritating respawns.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I liked all the various Prestige Classes that granted a type change at the end. Really made you feel like your character had changed a lot on their journey and granted the benefits (and drawbacks!) that came with the new type.

 

[ErisIndomina]

I like the idea of grouping monster types for the sake of easy reference, and interactions with items/spells/abilities and such, but not as a "every creature of the Wahoozit type must have the Wongus Bobule supernatural ability, and be allergic to lemons" set of design limitations.
Also, there shouldn't have been a split between Humanoid/Monstrous Humanoid, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Alzrius]

As for the "no Con" being an issue for hit points....again, just a rule and there are plenty of others you can leverage. Give them more AC or Damage Reduction or Regen or a source of Bonus HP or all those things if you want to make them tougher By The Rules.

Or house rule in a Con score con modifier or just give an undead as many hit points as you feel they need. Kind of like whatever spell you dislike and house ruled.

As early as the Monster Manual III, WotC had started giving undead creatures the "unholy toughness" special ability, which gave them bonus hit points equal to their Charisma modifier multiplied by their Hit Dice. By the time Pathfinder 1E came out, using Charisma in place of Constitution for hit points (and Fort saves) was standard (PF1 also shrank their Hit Dice accordingly, reducing it from a d12 to a d8).

I find that to be an example of how a TTRPG game engine is, in some ways, like a computer's operating system. The devs do the best they can, but there's still going to be bugs that only show up once enough people have been using it for a long enough time, at which point the publishers try to patch it as best they can.

 

[Moonmover]

I appreciate it.

I don't want to go back to the days when rangers had a bonus to hit against deep breath....bugbears, ettins, giants, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, ogres, ogre magi, orcs, and trolls.