D&D 5E Monsters as characters?

[Fanaelialae]

Our group has recently encountered several lucky streaks wherein we were rewarded with a wish spell. Much to our surprise, the DM basically set no limits on the wish and as such some of our group as now monsters.

Has anyone else attempted play with monsters characters? Giants? Dragons? Efreets? etc... How did you handle experience and leveling? Were these options even available to monster characters? Could these creatures take classes? If it was a transformation of an already-created character, did they retain their stats and class levels?

Or is my group charting new territory in 5E?

I've had a player who is running a Minotaur for several sessions now. He just took his first level of rogue. So far it's been working fine. He's much tougher than the other PCs, but his lack of special abilities leaves him roughly on par with the rest of the PCs.

I convert non-legendary monsters straight from the MM, so they tend to be the opposite of glass cannons. I created a chart that's generally based on PEL, for determining a monster's ECL from its CR.

|Level CR|
|1 1/4|
|2 1/2|
|3 1|
|4 2|
|5 3|
|6 3|
|7 4|
|8 4|
|9 5|
|10 5|
|11 6|
|12 7|
|13 7|
|14 8|
|15 8|
|16 9|
|17 9|
|18 10|
|19 11|
|20 12|

Then I space ability score bonuses and special abilities out among the level progression as appropriate. Most monsters will get multiple HD per level. If a monster has a long and extremely uninteresting level progression (giants), I might throw in a weak but potentially interesting ability here or there to spice it up.

I give them starting proficiencies as appropriate for what they are. Good saves are determined by highest stats but are always one strong save (Dex, Con, Wis) and one weak save (Str, Int, Cha). I gave adult dragons more than 2 good saves, as befits their entry.

With multiple attacks, they get them when appropriate for a warrior of their level (or at the end of their level progression).

The only change I make is with weapon resistance. If a creature has resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing, then I convert it to extra HP instead (DMG 277). I also tack on the ability to penetrate that type of resistance. I'd rather not deal with having to custom tailor encounters because the PCs are resistant or immune to 90% of the MM.

Once they've completed their monster levels, they're free to multiclass into a regular class.

I also turned lycanthrope and vampire into classes. These work slightly differently. The idea is that the PC doesn't become a generic member of that monster type, since they're fighting the curse (otherwise they'd become an NPC). Since they're transformations, the PC gets the level 0 benefits and drawbacks of that monster race. They then have the option to take levels. The drawbacks tend to include the chance to lose control during combat (vampires, the scent of blood; werewolves, injury especially if the moon is full). As they level up the monster race they gain abilities that help them retain or regain control. Once they complete the class, they've mastered their curse and are no longer in danger of losing control.


EDIT: I forgot to mention. For creatures that deal multiple dice of damage with their attacks, I convert it to an ability I call Brutality. This allows them to add one weapon die of damage to an attack that hits X times per round. The number of uses per round is equal to the number of attacks the creature gets. For example, a fully leveled Hill Giant can use Brutality to deal +2[W] damage twice per round.

 

[Sunseeker]

I've had a player who is running a Minotaur for several sessions now. He just took his first level of rogue. So far it's been working fine. He's much tougher than the other PCs, but his lack of special abilities leaves him roughly on par with the rest of the PCs.

This is what I generally feel is the case, monsters seem on par with a character who lacks most of any classes given special abilities. I definitely feel like I'm on par with a character but I do feel like I'm lacking compared to a class.

I also turned lycanthrope and vampire into classes. These work slightly differently. The idea is that the PC doesn't become a generic member of that monster type, since they're fighting the curse (otherwise they'd become an NPC). Since they're transformations, the PC gets the level 0 benefits and drawbacks of that monster race. They then have the option to take levels. The drawbacks tend to include the chance to lose control during combat (vampires, the scent of blood; werewolves, injury especially if the moon is full). As they level up the monster race they gain abilities that help them retain or regain control. Once they complete the class, they've mastered their curse and are no longer in danger of losing control.

That's sort of an interesting way to do it. I came up with a lycanthropy progression some time ago that I still use but follows the same basic rules. You either "beat" the curse at the end or you fall prey to it and lose control of your character. How that happens really depends on how you play.

 

[MechaPilot]

I feel it's important to point out two things from the DMG:

1) There are stats for some monster races in the DMG. The stats are intended as modifiers to NPC stat blocks, and I think several of them need modification to fit with a PC race, but it's not a bad place to start or to draw inspiration from.

2) The DMG says, and quite reasonably too, that adding some PC levels to certain monsters doesn't appreciably improve the monster. Adding 5 levels of wizard to a dragon is virtually meaningless, while adding those same levels to a kobold is a big change. This is an important thing to consider when deciding if a character should have to count its monstrous race as part of its levels.

 

[JEB]

For an approach to designing monsters-as-races closest to the way Wizards does it, your three best places to start would be the drow, the deep gnome, and the aarakocra. These are the three we have so far in both character race and monster flavors. Each handles its stronger-than-level-1 features in different ways:
- The drow gets a delayed access to its innate spellcasting (to level 3 and level 5). The tiefling, aasimar, and water/fire genasi also follow this approach; the dragonborn has a similar approach, stretched out further (to level 16).
- The aarakocra loses some features their monster version had (the dive attack). So you can treat some features as not actually being part of the monster's baseline.
- The deep gnome breaks off most of its innate spellcasting into a race-specific feat they can take at level 4+. This approach is a little odd to me, but might be a good example for really strong races.

 

[MechaPilot]

- The deep gnome breaks off most of its innate spellcasting into a race-specific feat they can take at level 4+. This approach is a little odd to me, but might be a good example for really strong races.

I am using a similar approach for a Medusa race I am creating. They will begin with a weaker version of the usual Medusa petrifying gaze (it's basically Ray of Frost reskinned as being damaged and slowed by being partially turned to stone). Upon reaching a certain level, the Medusa character will be able to spend a feat (or forego a magic item of X or greater rarity) in order to upgrade to the normal petrifying gaze.

 

[Sunseeker]

It seems from what I'm reading that everyone who is trying this is making an effort to adjust and tune monsters to work at the table. I'm not really hearing that anyone has taken a stat-block from the book and plopped it down on a character sheet. Since that is essentially what my table is doing it will be interesting to see how the experience differs. I suppose it is worth noting that we all were about level 10 to begin with and a little OP, so I'll try to factor that into my play report, it's certainly not dropping a dragon in as a 1st-level player.

 

[MechaPilot]

It seems from what I'm reading that everyone who is trying this is making an effort to adjust and tune monsters to work at the table. I'm not really hearing that anyone has taken a stat-block from the book and plopped it down on a character sheet. Since that is essentially what my table is doing it will be interesting to see how the experience differs. I suppose it is worth noting that we all were about level 10 to begin with and a little OP, so I'll try to factor that into my play report, it's certainly not dropping a dragon in as a 1st-level player.

At levels beyond starting, I think it's certainly possible to just plop a monster's stats on a character sheet. The only real question in my mind at that point is "what PC level does a given monster CR approximately equate to?" With the variation in monster abilities, I know that one can't map CRs directly to PC levels, but I think it might be possible to map the CRs to PC levels with maybe a two CR swing in either direction.

 

[Derren]

Sadly in their quest to simplify things WotC abandoned the practice from 3E that all creatures are build by the same rules and used a more video game design were everything not a PC, with some exceptions, are crated by a completely different set of rules or just rather arbitrary guidelines.

Sadly that means that playing monsters or anything WotC didn't deem to be appropriate rather hard. Better switch to 3E for that.

 

[77IM]

If wish can replicate the effects of other spells, why not just treat this as a casting of true polymorph that has become permanent as per the spell description? So you could all become monsters of CR10 or lower.

Then I'd use the DMG rules for adding classes since you are PCs. Good luck and please let us know how this balances out!



...
Also, I made a 20-level class for dragon PCs which you may be interested in:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?438478-Dragon-Player-Characters

 

[MechaPilot]

Sadly in their quest to simplify things WotC abandoned the practice from 3E that all creatures are build by the same rules and used a more video game design were everything not a PC, with some exceptions, are crated by a completely different set of rules or just rather arbitrary guidelines.

Sadly that means that playing monsters or anything WotC didn't deem to be appropriate rather hard. Better switch to 3E for that.

No thank you. 3e was pretty bad for playing monster characters as well because of the way level adjustment interacted with the rest of the PC mechanics.

Edit: I like to play unconventional characters, including monster characters, so I have quite a bit of experience with the problems that LA caused. 3e was not a bad version of D&D (I had fun with it for the years that I played it) but I was never able to play a decent monster character going "by the rules."