What monster classes do you want?

[KidSnide]

I think monsters like werewolves and yuan-ti work fine with the new racial mechanics in Heroes of Shadow. You need a basic racial power and some abilities and, if you want more, you can choose racial utilities (and maybe some attacks) instead of your class abilities.

Vampires are different because they have a much wider range of powers, so you need to have the powers associated with the class to make the character work. You could use a racial basis for a vampire (that's effectively what the Vryloka is), but it just wouldn't have all the blood-sucking-attack abilities that should be in the hands of a powerful vampire.

So, yes, I agree that werewolves and yuan-ti are good examples for unusual PCs. (And, incidentally minotaurs, warforged, wilden and an number of other established PC races are equally good examples of "weird PCs".)

However, a good monster class requires a wider and weirder range of powers. I think dragons are the obvious example - not because I want dozens of dragon PCs wandering around my gameworld - but because it's a race that you could only play in a satisfying way if nearly all of your character's abilities were dedicated to "dragon-y" things.

I think angel, fiend and beholder would be other reasonable examples...

-KS

 

[Incenjucar]

Beholders are a bit of a stretch, as is anything else that isn't at least mostly humanoid. A foulspawn PC race that could evolve features resembling more specific aberrants could be interesting. Say they have a paragon path where their mouth moves to their stomach (midroff armor!), their head ends up on a stalk, a central eye appears on their chest (cleavage window!), and a bunch of eye stalks sprout from their shoulders.

I can't imagine they'd be welcome in the local village though.

 

[Tony Vargas]

No 'monster classes,' at all, thanks.

I've barely ever seen the apeal of the non-/demi- human races. Monsters as PCs have always seemed a bit silly, and I've rarely seen them work out well. It's not just that the mechanics are hard to get right, it's that the concept ... well, doesn't bring out the best in the players who seem to want to use it.

 

[Incenjucar]

So I went through the Adventure Tools monster database, looked over monster abilities for humanoids (and a few non-humanoids), and came to some rough conclusions. I ignored undead and werecreatures, since these have pretty distinct abilities that can be easily made into classes. I also ignored broad classes of monsters, like angels, demons, and golems because they tend to have only minor features in common, which are overwhelmed by complex, specific abilities.

I found that many humanoid monster races don't have enough going, as a race, to make them into a class. Monsters like kuo-toa, sahuagin, quagoths, and troglodytes are better left as races. Most I'm sure already came to this conclusion. Moreover, many of these could very easily just be alterations of existing races, perhaps as a "racial kit." The biggest thing that a lot of monstrous races really need is access to claw attacks, aquatic features, and sometimes climbing or flight. Making these available as a universal, permanent feature in some way, instead of forcing people into certain classes, would make for a lot less homebrew work.

The monsters that I found were at all worth looking at were as follows:

Gargoyle (Flight, Stone Form, Flyby Attack)
Harpy (Flight, Pulling Attack, Dazing Arrack)
Mind Flayer (Tentacle Grab, Mind Blast, Domination)
Medusa (Poison Bite, Petrifying Gaze)
Umber Hulk (Burrowing, Grab, Dazing Gaze)
Yuan-Ti (Climb, Poison Bite, Grab)
Dryad (Forest Walk, Tree Teleport, Disguise, Thorns/Hedges)
Nymph (Forest Walk, Daze Attack, Charm Defense, Blinding Attack)

It's interesting to note that these monsters use a relatively narrow range of abilities. Grab, daze, poison, dominate, nasty gazes, and a special movement type.

Overall, I would love to see a hexblade-like monster class that combines melee at-wills using unarmed attacks, movement and defense utilities, and encounter and daily powers that focus on popular effects that monsters spit out. Basically a hexblade/monk hybrid.

HOWEVER, all things considered, I think it would be very easy to just design some options that allow you to "monsterfy" a PC without getting into complex mechanical expansions. My ideal situation would be to have the generic "hexmonk" class with an MC feat that gives the character an unarmed attack and a ki focus (and at least one other MC feat for the monks and swordmages and such ). For those who don't want to waste their MC to become a monster (rarr), a feat that gives them unarmed attacks and the ability to empower their unarmed attacks with any item they can normally wield (A wizard's bite attack might utilize the bonuses of a Staff of Ruin).

I'm all for giving players access to monstrous PCs, but I think it needs to be done in the cleanest, most self-contained, and broadly usable way available so that WotC doesn't have to expend vast amounts of support on what will always be a niche audience. It's also important for the option to be perfectly usable for non-monstrous PCs, because many people really get turned off by Freakshow parties.

While I do still find the "Why isn't anyone writing articles on reskinning!?" thing funny, it may actually be worthwhile for someone to write an article going over ways that existing abilities can be used to simulate things that are in heavy demand, but which wouldn't add much to the game in and of themselves, especially with suggestions for homebrewing.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

While I do still find the "Why isn't anyone writing articles on reskinning!?" thing funny, it may actually be worthwhile for someone to write an article going over ways that existing abilities can be used to simulate things that are in heavy demand, but which wouldn't add much to the game in and of themselves, especially with suggestions for homebrewing.

There was one a while back but I'm a little too lazy now to look for it.

 

[Incenjucar]

I was referring to the Letters to the Editor article where said Editor seemed baffled by the fact that they weren't getting lots of "In D&D, you can use your imagination!" essays.

--

Going slightly deeper on the hexmonk/monster class thing, it could work out as a Con primary class with Str, Dex, and Cha builds to cover brutish monsters, sly/venomous monsters, and charming/dominating monsters. Keep it a type of warlock, and you can use a significant number of pre-existing powers.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I guess ravenloft is not needed anymore, as the shadowfell is ravenloft in disguise...

If you are familiar with ravenloft, you can easily do that with all the support for shadow.

 

[Incenjucar]

Ravenloft would be to the Shadowfell what Neverwinter will be for Forgotten Realms, I suspect. It's a perfectly valid book concept.

 

[hipnotode]

i dont know about monsters becoming classes, maybe just humans from the MM's, but anything else i think should be a race.
maybe stuff like were-[creature] should be like a PP ED or theme...
id more like to see a FF style bluemage, maybe where they roll a D100 every time a mob uses an attack and they gain the power to there book if they roll like a 80+ for an atwill and a 95+ for an encounter or something like that, then have to prepare X amount of spells/powers each extended/short rest.

 

[Incenjucar]

The closest you can get to a blue mage in D&D is probably to play a warlock. Also, d100s do not exist in 4E.