S
Sunseeker
Guest
Update:
So, first session where we really got to see how monsters work with a party:
Breath Weapon is highly situational, much like it is for dragonborn and a line in my case made it even more so. I got 3 recharges in a row, which was nice since we were up against 3 Chimeras in 3-dimensional terrain. The fluff says they are strong rivals of dragons so the DM gave them advantage against me, that hurt. Legendary Actions are a lifesaver! Knocking another flying creature prone with a wing buffet is hilariously fun. The rules don't explicitly include facing, but it makes sense that Tail Slap is RAI for use against things behind you, which was very helpful when the fight hit the ground. Overall I did on-par with someone who gets 3 Greatsword swings per turn, probably the heaviest hitter in our group, but our game is more critical thinking based than damage based.
Short story: a dragon alone is dead meat. Once the party caught up to me and the guy I had taken off to save the fight went a lot smoother. Aside from having roughly double a comparable character's HP, I didn't feel significantly more powerful than I was before. (level 12, slightly op, Monk). There's a distinct lack of utility in the Dragon and since I wasn't a spellcaster the DM only gave me one innate spell to cast (of my choice, Control Water, certainly there are more damage and defense oriented ones, but it's good utility).
Biggest benefit: travel, 160ft per 6 seconds translates to 18mph, running away was easy!
Mind Flayer showed up late to the party, didn't use a single one of his monster abilities until he ate the brain of a shapeshifted Slaad, which the DM decided remained humanoid enough to be edible (the Slaad is an aberration whose brain technically would not count). The fact that he was a Mind Flayer was entirely irrelevant to play, except for some in-town shenanigans involving masks and Alter Self.
In our second combat encounter for the "day", I got to have some fun with Control Water, Mr. Flayer sliced a ship in half with Wall of Force...which he didn't need to be a Flayer to do. Dominate Monster came up once in which he MCed the Slaad mentioned earlier in order to save a party member. Once again my biggest help was in carrying people to safety as the sinking slaveship was overrun by the Slaad army.
By-the-book monsters, especially high CR ones, need backup. Variant-humanoid monsters aren't particularly better or worse than their playable counterparts. Anything that stands on two legs I could reasonably allow someone to play straight-from-the book in place of a base race if they are at or higher than the CR of the monster, in addition to their class because the class features will replace several elements of the monster stat block. Fighter-types who take physical-based creatures will not gain much beyond resistances and stats. Casters who take spell-oriented creatures will fare about the same. Those who take creatures that offer the opposite of what they are: ie: Mind Flayer fighters, Str-based casters are going to gain options but at the cost of being good at what their class does (fight/cast).
The Action Economy of 5E is very preventative to abuse with monsters most racial abilities costing your whole Action. You're basically forced to choose between being a really awesome monster and being a really awesome *class*. Classes with a lot of passive features such as Monk and Barbarian are probably going to make monsters a bigger deal than classes whose features have an action cost.
So, first session where we really got to see how monsters work with a party:
Breath Weapon is highly situational, much like it is for dragonborn and a line in my case made it even more so. I got 3 recharges in a row, which was nice since we were up against 3 Chimeras in 3-dimensional terrain. The fluff says they are strong rivals of dragons so the DM gave them advantage against me, that hurt. Legendary Actions are a lifesaver! Knocking another flying creature prone with a wing buffet is hilariously fun. The rules don't explicitly include facing, but it makes sense that Tail Slap is RAI for use against things behind you, which was very helpful when the fight hit the ground. Overall I did on-par with someone who gets 3 Greatsword swings per turn, probably the heaviest hitter in our group, but our game is more critical thinking based than damage based.
Short story: a dragon alone is dead meat. Once the party caught up to me and the guy I had taken off to save the fight went a lot smoother. Aside from having roughly double a comparable character's HP, I didn't feel significantly more powerful than I was before. (level 12, slightly op, Monk). There's a distinct lack of utility in the Dragon and since I wasn't a spellcaster the DM only gave me one innate spell to cast (of my choice, Control Water, certainly there are more damage and defense oriented ones, but it's good utility).
Biggest benefit: travel, 160ft per 6 seconds translates to 18mph, running away was easy!
Mind Flayer showed up late to the party, didn't use a single one of his monster abilities until he ate the brain of a shapeshifted Slaad, which the DM decided remained humanoid enough to be edible (the Slaad is an aberration whose brain technically would not count). The fact that he was a Mind Flayer was entirely irrelevant to play, except for some in-town shenanigans involving masks and Alter Self.
In our second combat encounter for the "day", I got to have some fun with Control Water, Mr. Flayer sliced a ship in half with Wall of Force...which he didn't need to be a Flayer to do. Dominate Monster came up once in which he MCed the Slaad mentioned earlier in order to save a party member. Once again my biggest help was in carrying people to safety as the sinking slaveship was overrun by the Slaad army.
By-the-book monsters, especially high CR ones, need backup. Variant-humanoid monsters aren't particularly better or worse than their playable counterparts. Anything that stands on two legs I could reasonably allow someone to play straight-from-the book in place of a base race if they are at or higher than the CR of the monster, in addition to their class because the class features will replace several elements of the monster stat block. Fighter-types who take physical-based creatures will not gain much beyond resistances and stats. Casters who take spell-oriented creatures will fare about the same. Those who take creatures that offer the opposite of what they are: ie: Mind Flayer fighters, Str-based casters are going to gain options but at the cost of being good at what their class does (fight/cast).
The Action Economy of 5E is very preventative to abuse with monsters most racial abilities costing your whole Action. You're basically forced to choose between being a really awesome monster and being a really awesome *class*. Classes with a lot of passive features such as Monk and Barbarian are probably going to make monsters a bigger deal than classes whose features have an action cost.
