Bagpuss said:
Hmm you can't take a class level until you've finished all the monster levels? That's a real pain, I wonder what the reasons are for that restriction.
As I have heard, I don't like very much the concept of monster class progression. Imagine you want to play a Troll. Once you are a "complete troll" you will have:
Giant type
Large size (and reach)
6 hit dice
+12 Str, +4 Dex, +12 Con
-4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha
Natural weapons: claw + bite
Natural armor: +7
Special attack: rend
Darkvision
Scent
Regeneration 5
I can't find ECL in the SRD, let's imagine it's something between +4 and +8, likely not less than +4. So for example let's imagine you need 4 levels worth of progression to "become" a Troll. What do you get?
I suppose TYPE is got from the start, but SIZE? Are you really a Giant if you are still medium-sized? Also, being large has both advantages and disadvantages (including stats changes? not sure if the same table for ol' HD advancing applies here), so I think you may get both TYPE and SIZE from the start.
But then, let's look at Darkvision+Scent+Regeneration: they look too good to get all 3 from the start, but does a Troll without Regeneration makes sense at all? Not to me. Very likely you get it first 1 and then it increases up to 5.
How are you going to explain that your monster does not have its full abilities? Because he's still a puppy? But you don't get Xp just by aging. The mechanics are probably very fine, my problem is just in what sense it makes the whole thing of "developing" mosters abilities with time as it is with classes abilities, which indeed represent a very different thing. And after all, what's the need of playing a low-level game with monsters, if playing monstrous character is anyway suggested to experienced players/DMs only? Is any expert player willing to go back to play 1st level adventures starting as a Troll1, when often they don't even want to start below 10th??
Please let me know your opinion!
