player controled monsters

[pulptric]

what is your opinion on a player creating monsters to use as playable characters in 1ed 2ed or even 3.5 i myself have a centaur in 3.5 that no dm will allow me to use just looking for peoples opinions

 

[IronWolf]

what is your opinion on a player creating monsters to use as playable characters in 1ed 2ed or even 3.5 i myself have a centaur in 3.5 that no dm will allow me to use just looking for peoples opinions

I am not a fan of it. Maybe for a one-shot or mini-campaign arc for a few sessions, but not for a long running campaign. It just doesn't "feel" right to me. I know that is pretty subjective...

 

[parinho7]

takes the game to a new level. it's good to have freedom with your character creation

 

[Dandu]

what is your opinion on a player creating monsters to use as playable characters in 1ed 2ed or even 3.5 i myself have a centaur in 3.5 that no dm will allow me to use just looking for peoples opinions

If he wants to shoot himself in the foot, who am I to say no?

 

[Dross]

1ed (and maybe 2nd ed which I only played a couple of sessions) does not really scale that well for monster PC, unless as mentioned it is a short run or all PCs are in a similar position.

There is Savage Species for using monsters as PC, even if it is 3.0. I'd consider the centaur based on several things (fits with the theme/"logically" fits in under a back story, was on a par with the other PCs). But a monster, even "pet/prisoner" of another PC would face a lot of problems in many environments (civilized, humanoid lands, PC horses, natural predators/prey).

Reactions of others may be what Dandu means by shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[Jhaelen]

what is your opinion on a player creating monsters to use as playable characters in 1ed 2ed or even 3.5 i myself have a centaur in 3.5 that no dm will allow me to use just looking for peoples opinions

Monster races are always problematic. Centaurs come with an extra set of problems, since they're helpless in the face of mundane tasks, like climbing a wall.

I only ever allow a subset of races in my campaigns. Every campaign comes with a player's guide that details what is allowed and what isn't. E.g. in my current campaign, elves and gnomes aren't allowed (since they're Fey creatures in my campaign).
However, I do allow a number of lycanthropic races.

It's a DM's call, but I'd guess the majority of DMs will prefer pcs with 'standard' races.

 

[irdeggman]

3.5 has rules for using monster races as PCs - they are generally incluced in the MM entry.

As pointed out Savage Species has rules also.

So does a series of article in the old WotC site called "Savage Progressions" which detailed how to handle Level Adjusted races and templates.

In general I have not found any 3.5 DMs that have problems with using non-standard races as long as the ECLs were handled properly and the player was ready to deal with the role-playing aspects/problems associated with it. Now there are some settings where certain races just don't fit, but that is a different issue.

We did some playing of monster races as PCs in 2nd ed too - a tad more difficult because monsters weren't blanced as well with PC as they are in 3.5 (well at least there is more of a deliberate attempt to handle this issue in 3.5).

 

[Runestar]

The key issue I have with playing monster characters is that their LA tends to make them too weak compared to what you could have been playing using a LA+0 race and class lvs (even without much optimization).

 

[FEADIN]

what is your opinion on a player creating monsters to use as playable characters in 1ed 2ed or even 3.5 i myself have a centaur in 3.5 that no dm will allow me to use just looking for peoples opinions

Centaur
Hit Dice:4d8+8 (26 hp)
Advancement:By character classLevel Adjustment:+2

Weak, you start as a 1st level something in a 7th level adventure....
As said above if everybody is like you it's fine but if you're the only one

 

[Starbuck_II]

Three ways:
Use MM version
Savage Species
Use Balanced versions (using CR with reduced benefits but having enough to fit theme): [3.5]Improved monster classes: adapting creatures for player use-taking requests! - Giant in the Playground Forums

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