Monstrous PCs

[MerricB]

Are Monstrous PCs allowed in your campaigns? What sort of characters walk the world.

By Monstrous, I mean any non-core PHB race, especially orcs, ogres, giants, centaurs or the like.

I am not so much talking about the effect of prestige classes (e.g. Dragon Disciple) that turn you into a monster.

Can you start play as a monstrous PC?

Cheers!

 

[Nightfall]

Well I already said when I started calling for players, I'd like to have some Slitheren/Ratmen. Might let a gnoll in perhaps, if I lose a player.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Gnolls eh? Has someone being inspired by a new gazatteer?

 

[Nightfall]

Only slightly. I figured that gnolls deserve their own empire. Just not under Chardun. Vangal works for me! Or maybe just a gnollish empire with no gods involved period.

Besides transplanting gnolls is a lot easier than gnomes.

 

[AereonBlaze]

I'd be fine with pretty much any Monstrous PC in my games as long as it fits in and the characters have a decent background. I'd also hope the monstrous class is played with the appropriate ECL.

-Aereon

 

[MerricB]

As a sidelight, give examples of the monstrous PCs.

Also, what ECL is about the highest you'd allow?

Cheers!

 

[Nightfall]

Highest ELC: Depends on the party level. I would say a +5 or +7 probably is the best for a high level party.

Examples: I have a character, Thex the Slayer that I've now made into an NPC. I think he'd definately qualify for pretty interesting monsterous PC. (I gave him three more levels in ranger, where the ELC was +4 [I felt] for a Slitheren,Stalker Ranger.

 

[AereonBlaze]

Anything that's either humanoid or goblinoid I'd say would work (again - provided theres decent reasoning).

Anything else than that and I'd see it a bit of a difficulty to work in unless I'm running a very specific setting or the player(s) have something big planned and work it out beforehand. Like, I would probably have a bit of a problem with someone playing a Rust Monster or Allip without a deal of prior consultation, etc

The exception? I might allow some Large sized Giants since aside from their size they seem humanoid enough.

ECL's...I think pretty much anything works as long as their effective level is on par with the rest of the party.

I haven't had too much experience running games with Monstrous PC's, though maybe one of my players will surprise me with one in the next campaign.

 

[the Jester]

Depends on the situation, but I've got orcs as a pc race (but they're civilized orcs...) I've let people play half-dragons and other, stranger things from time to time. In general, with the ECL system, I think letting players play monstrous pcs is much more viable than ever before mechanically. As for whether it's viable in the context of the campaign, well, that depends on the campaign.

 

[hong]

Our group just doesn't show much interest in playing anything other than humans. The current party in the high-level FR campaign consists of 7 humans, and the low-level Britannian one has 5 humans. At various times in the past we've had a half-orc, half-elf, halfling, and spirit folk (PC race from OA).