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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sylrae" data-source="post: 4989297" data-attributes="member: 48520">I'm hating ENWorld right now it logged me out after I wrote a big post. OKay: Instead of LA + Racial HD (Which makes characters tend to suck, especially as casters) Try Breaking the monster down into LA 0 Race + Racial Levels. I Attached an example of how I broke down the Satyr. It has all of the explanations plus the math. (I use UK's CR Rules for the numbers). > If you wanted to use the Racebuilder's or Classbuilder's cookbooks, or some other point-buy d20 rules for prices, you might be able to more accurately prce things not in the UK Rules. Also, UK stated that in his v5 rules (the newest), he overvalued iterative attacks. each subsequent attack is worth half of the previous, which isnt how he priced them in his guide. If you want it to have less racial levels, then take your ability bonuses gained from levels into account for the monster and remove them based on levels gained accordingly, giving less ability bonuses to the monster race. Also, since you mentioned players and ability bonuses by level, here is the rule I use for that very situation. Feats: 1 every odd level, as in pathfinder (I use pathfinder RPG as my base ruleset). Ability Bonuses: 1 to 2 different ability scores every 3rd Level (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18). Eg. So at L3, you get your first increase. Pick 2 abilities. each gets a +1, but they HAVE to be different ability scores. If you work the higher ability gain rates into your level calculations, you'll be able to make the monsters have less racial levels. If after you break it down, you can't get the power level to be right, having it either much over at one level, or much under if you add another HD, try increasing the HD size, increasing skills per level, or increasing saves or BAB. You can usually tweak one of these just a lil bit and get the racial class at the power level you are looking for. Then Racial Levels are 100% optional. While most monsters encountered will have all of those levels, players may not be typical and may have other abilities instead (such as the minotaur wizard, *wink wink*) I've been using this variant I thought of for the past 2 campaigns, and it really makes a difference. Monster Characters are around the same power level as regular characters. In the current game we have an Erinyes Druid, level 2. (An Erinyes is normally like ECL 12). Every level she can either take levels in Erinyes, or she can level in Druid. Also, if you're trying to lower necessary Monster Levels, you can change immunities to resistances (most monsters with immunities should really only have large resistances anyways)~IE: In our games, Elves don't get sleep immunity. They get a +10 vs sleep effects. Demons and Devils usually don't get poison immunity, just resistances. For monsters with spell resistances, if you're trying to make a weaker version, try giving them a saving throw bonus instead, such as the one dwarves get. Even if you want to give them their full bonus, things like this can scale,from the lower powered ones I just mentioned to the more powerful abilities, and this can let you give them the immunities or whatnot gradually. Another thing to do to lower power levels, is to change many of the at-will SLAs per day into a more limited quantity. ------- I'm slowly working on a change that puts caster classes on Par with eachother for free multiclassing, so a Cleric 5 Wizard 5 Casts spells like a 10th level caster in terms of spells per day and spells known and caster level, but has to divide spell slots between classes. (it's coming along slowly). This would allow monster classes which have lots of spell like abilities to instead give spellcaster bonuses and have their own spell lists instead. So the succubus Wizard at L20 with full succubus abilities would still be as effective as a straight wizard at L20 (which I see as logical and useful, if hard to implement). The Dryad Druid L20 would be as effective as the Druid L20. A Druid/Wizard with any combination of levels would be around as useful as either one single classed (that is the idea, anyways~harder to work out the details).</blockquote>

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