PC's as monsters?

[TheGreatWar]

i recently wrote and dm'd a one day quest where i made my players use kobold characters. i had them fight the undead and horses and even orphans. it was great and everyone had fun. i used the kobold racial template out of the back of the monster manual which made it pretty easy. the problem is that i want to dm another one day adventure for a monster based party but..... well i dont like any of the other monster racial templates in the back of the moster manual. so i need some help either making an easy to use monster racial template for a fun one day thing or at least you could suggest monsters it would be fun to play as for just a one shot adventure. (exceptin kobolds and dragons) i also suggest dming a one shot like this because it was crazy fun.
thanx for the help

 

[Sporemine]

The drow are fun to play (assasinate the king!) but you already said you wanted a non monster manual race.
you could make normal characters that are strangely mutated or have strange powers. (glow blue, hunchback)
It is also fun to play as the undead give a normal char resist 5 necrotic, veaulnreaubility (BAD SPELLING) 5 to radiant, immunity to cold, a strange shuffling step, hated by society. Try that.

I hope I helped

-Sporemine

 

[Mesh Hong]

For a one shot, combat heavy adventure I think Trolls could be a lot of fun.

Single-minded, regenerating killing machines with PC classes could be very amusing and easy to get into character.

I'm not sure what the plot could be. Maybe adventurers have looted your holy shrine and taken your jade idol. Go and get it back.

step 1: At the shrine
discovering the idol is missing, a bit of a skill challange to piece together the clues of what has happened.

step 2: travel to the human village
small encounter with some monsters to get used to your troll combat prowess.

step 3: Human village
Attack the village looking for the adventurers or the jade idol. Discover that they have moved on the the local fortified manor house.

step 4: Fortified manor house grounds
Assault the fortified position and gain entry to the house

step 5: Final show down
Fight the scum-dog Adventuring party who stole your holy stuff. Get it back take it back to teh temple. Job done.

This seems like a straight forward, no nonsense one shot adventure.

 

[TheGreatWar]

thanks for the ideas. i think i will use the troll and zombie ones for sure. my players are a more hack-n-slash type of group anyway so those two options will work out nicely. anyone else have any suggestions? just monsters you would enjoy playing as? i can make my own race templates if i have to but ideas would be nice.

 

[Fede]

Maybe some of my suggestion tend to be high on power level, but if it is for a one-shot adventure it shouldn't be a problem....

Every kind of monster that is intelligent and serves some kind of powerful being is perfect for what you want to do. So, i suggest:

Angels - It could be a party of angels of the same deity, tasked by their patron god to accomplish a specific mission; or maybe a group composed by angels from different gods could be interesting, but i have no idea on how to make a plot for this one

Archons - the monster manual says that archons are militaristic and "serve powerful primordial entities as well as various elemental lords and princelings", so it should be easy to make a straightforward, combat heavy plot

Mind flayers - they could be on a mission on behalf of the elder brains

Undead - zombies, skeletons, ghouls, wights, maybe ghosts or wraiths... every one of them (or better yet, a mixed group) is interesting for what you want to do. Bonus points if one of the players is the necromancer that animated the rest of the party (if your players agree with this kind of arrangement, of course)

Also lycanthropes could be a good choice.

Be sure to tell us how this one-shot goes!