General Discussion and Sugestions

[ketaro]

Pre-existing character archetypes were never intended for monsters. You work off what the monster is good at, not the other way around.

[Versatility_Nut]

Pre-existing character archetypes were never intended for monsters. You work off what the monster is good at, not the other way around.

And stuff like Arcane Trickster is well within what Aranea is good at. But they have even worse entry prospects than normal Sorcerers, because they still have 1/2 BAB and then have reduced casting.

[ketaro]

Yeah but what does an Aranea have that a human sorcerer doesn't have?

[Versatility_Nut]

Yeah but what does an Aranea have that a human sorcerer doesn't have?

Change Shape, which just lets them pass as human, +3 Cha, a variant of Web with uses-per-day and poison. Yes, this covers being a spider well, but that's what Monstrous Spider is for. Aranea is about the Magic. A considerably better question is "what does an Aranea have that a Monstrous Spider doesn't?" And the answer to that is... Spider Sense, and casting. Oh, and Charisma instead of Strength.

Monstrous Spider has full BAB. Monstrous Spider becomes Large at level 2. Monstrous Spider, by 4th level, gets two improvements to Spider-things, both the webs and poison that Aranea get over Sorcerers. Or (Ex) Summon Swarm for spiders once per minute.

Oh, wait, Aranea can hold weapons. And coat said weapons with poison. Which is awfully useful if you can make more than one weapon attack per round, and, indeed, only makes sense when you can actually hit things with weapons. Losing 2 BAB is not conductive to this goal.

If a Sorcerer wants to have Spider things and is willing to give up a level of casting, they get better mileage out of a level of Awakened Monstrous Spider than four levels of Aranea. If they want Spider things to be a Gish, then Aranea is extremely counterproductive to this because Monstrous Spider has twice the BAB. And gives Strength. And considerably more effective Spider-type things.

Aranea should be a Spider-gish in a can, not just "sorcerer, with a web and some poison in exchange for 1 level of casting." Particularly given that it has a Gish ability to coat it's weapons in poison already. 3/4 or 1/2 casting and 3/4 BAB, with spider things being more coherently magic-linked, would be a world better than Aranea. Because at this point, all it gives for a spider-Gish over Monstrous Spider is +3 Cha, not even +2 save DC or a 2nd level slot, and the ability to use their poison on their weapon attacks.

[ketaro]

Aranea should be a Spider-gish in a can

No, I'm pretty sure an Aranea is suppose to be a magical spider. It's about being a monster. You're still thinking of all of this as suppose to be for PCs but these are all monsters first and player options second. The only thing this project really does is make it a lot less rough for a player to play as something that isn't a regular person. But they're still monsters. And thus still clunky to put into a build intended for regular persons.

[Raineh Daze]

Aranea should be a Spider-gish in a can

No, I'm pretty sure an Aranea is suppose to be a magical spider. It's about being a monster. You're still thinking of all of this as suppose to be for PCs but these are all monsters first and player options second. The only thing this project really does is make it a lot less rough for a player to play as something that isn't a regular person. But they're still monsters. And thus still clunky to put into a build intended for regular persons.

I mean, I'm sure they're still for PC's first, but they were never meant to just randomly fill in PrC or build requirements for extra bonuses at no downside. They're meant to take Racial HD and LA as a guide for how many levels said monster should be worth, then fill them with actual class features and progression rather than, generally, a handful of abilities, some minor stat boosts, stat penalties, and an exorbitant XP pricetag.

[Versatility_Nut]

No, I'm pretty sure an Aranea is suppose to be a magical spider. It's about being a monster. You're still thinking of all of this as suppose to be for PCs but these are all monsters first and player options second. The only thing this project really does is make it a lot less rough for a player to play as something that isn't a regular person. But they're still monsters. And thus still clunky to put into a build intended for regular persons.

Magical Spider means, essentially, spider-gish in a can. By spider-gish, I mean martial capacity by Spider abilities alongside magic. By means of Webs and Poisons, rather than swording things well. Being able to slot Aranea in place of, say, Rogue on Arcane Archer builds ought to be doable. 1/2 Sorcerer casting for getting gishable Spider abilities with 3/4 BAB.

My complaint isn't it being clunky, as much as it is impossible in quite a few cases people might want it. The Hydra has 1/2 BAB, for God's sake!

I mean, I'm sure they're still for PC's first, but they were never meant to just randomly fill in PrC or build requirements for extra bonuses at no downside. They're meant to take Racial HD and LA as a guide for how many levels said monster should be worth, then fill them with actual class features and progression rather than, generally, a handful of abilities, some minor stat boosts, stat penalties, and an exorbitant XP pricetag.

Given how horrible the first-party full BAB classes are beyond the rare gish-in-a-can that functions, the lack of creatures doing so for BAB requirements is kinda crazy. Like, anything with full BAB and any amount of stacking casting is doing it better than the official stuff.

[ketaro]

Hydras have 1/2 BAB here? Okay, okay, fair concern there. Because Magical Beasts (i.e. Hydras) should be Full Bab.....

Like, anything with full BAB and any amount of stacking casting is doing it better than the official stuff.

 
Its like there was an expectation for official D&D to be good and balanced?


Anyways, look, in what way is the Arcane Archer PrC meant to be entered by an Aranea? Official PrCs were made with the intent to be entered by specific classes. Where in anything is an Aranea on that list? And what reason would an Aranea become an Arcane Archer for just cause a couple of its stuff could maybe work with it.
Like, shoot, of course you COULD make an Aranea go into Arcane Archer, not sayin' ya can't. Hell, it can enter easier than a Rogue could, or rather you get a hell of a lot more out of using Aranea in such a build than you would from a Rogue so actually I don't understand your point here.

[Raineh Daze]

I mean, I'm sure they're still for PC's first, but they were never meant to just randomly fill in PrC or build requirements for extra bonuses at no downside. They're meant to take Racial HD and LA as a guide for how many levels said monster should be worth, then fill them with actual class features and progression rather than, generally, a handful of abilities, some minor stat boosts, stat penalties, and an exorbitant XP pricetag.

Given how horrible the first-party full BAB classes are beyond the rare gish-in-a-can that functions, the lack of creatures doing so for BAB requirements is kinda crazy. Like, anything with full BAB and any amount of stacking casting is doing it better than the official stuff.

... then I don't get your issue.

[Versatility_Nut]

Hydras have 1/2 BAB here? Okay, okay, fair concern there. Because Magical Beasts (i.e. Hydras) should be Full Bab.....

Actually, the guidelines say to ignore the racial chassis:

2-If it's not an undead or construct, then ignore the basic monster saves, skills, proefeciencies and Bab progression. The monster class will have those based on the extra abilities they have. The more and/or better abilities, the worst saves/skills/Bab/proefeciencies the monster should have.

... then I don't get your issue.

The inability to use many of these classes with many previous builds as substitution. In most builds, Fighter and Barbarian are interchangeable for prerequisites. There's a few times when feats are needed, but it's extremely rare for a build to not be able to have some Fighter levels replacable with Barbarian ones. Martial Rogue can swap for Fighter in many of those cases where BAB isn't on a hard schedule, and level-shuffling can often solve that problem.

Aranea can replace the role of Sorcerer only in builds with an excess level of Sorcerer early on, and cannot replace 3/4 BAB, which several of it's features suffer for, relative to other monster classes, as their Dex bonuses don't even bring them up to 3/4 BAB's total attack bonus. Unlike Hydra, which gets enough extra Strength to be a little over 3/4 BAB equivalent.

Contrast Tome Dragon, the single most egregious exception to this problem by being one in an opposite direction. You have Fighter in there just for full BAB levels? Swap and replace with 3/4 Wizard casting and piles of actual features. Literally always better beyond feat prerequisites.

[ketaro]

Huh, yanno I didn't know about that rule about ignoring the racial chassis ya quoted, but reading it now makes me feel I definitely read that before so......

As for the Aranea stuff. Look, if it doesn't work for the build in mind, you go find something else that fits in better. That's pretty much how every choice in this game works, no?

As for Tome Dragon.....I checked it and it has 3/4 BAB, not full BAB, but for a heavily casting focused kind of dragon I suppose that is pretty high and might be better lower.
On the other hand, dragons are literally dragons and thems, like, suppose to be some if not the most powerful creatures so it's simple enough to let that pass... *shrugs*

[Raineh Daze]

So... your issue is that you can't simply take a more powerful class and slot it into a pre-existing build without downsides? That's lazy.

[Versatility_Nut]

So... your issue is that you can't simply take a more powerful class and slot it into a pre-existing build without downsides? That's lazy.

It's that I can't do it at all for a bunch of them. Due to full BAB being unavailable on a lot of things I'd want it on, and quite a few bruisers using stat bonuses instead of having BAB, which I'm actually fine with mechanically beyond the prerequisites screwing it causes.

Like, half-BAB Hydras are unable to use the majority of the prexisting content that would help them. 3/4 BAB would give them the equivalent attack bonus of full BAB due to their strength bonuses, which would make their damage output insane because every attack is made at full BAB.

[Versatility_Nut]

So, I'm working on racial substitution levels for Psychic Warrior for my Crysmal monster class. This made me remember that Monstrous Spiders of 16 or more HD actually have to give regular class levels to their Monstrous Spider spawn, restricting them to Fighter and Barbarian levels. This is making me thing of having class variants or substitution levels for the basic Martials to have them support Monster classes better, like redefining Monk's Unarmed Strike as increasing the damage die size of natural weapons instead of unarmed strikes.

One of the things I'm doing for PsyWar substitution levels is having ability score increases that cut off if you don't take one of the substitution levels at a lower pace than Crysmal gets them. I'm also giving Sting damage dice increases that need only the first substitution level which motivate me to have only 11th level offer Crysmal growth. Because it hits 2d6 for Tiny Crysmals at 17th level, which means 4d6 at Medium size. Which is attainable by taking three levels of Crysmal and 17 levels of Psychic Warrior, and Expansion allows for 8d6 per hit at Huge size.

...Okay, scrapping the bit where only the first substitution level is needed for the damage increases. Four size increases for damage dice and +9 Con/+6 Str is well worth three feats. Because Crysmal Growth is basically a weird bonus feat, I'm not counting that as a lost bonus feat.

But yeah. What do you people think about making some semi-generalized Monster variants of existing classes? Like a set of Fighter substitution levels that gives a bundle of natural attack benefits and boosts Str a bunch in exchange for lost bonus feats. Or Rogue swapping some Sneak Attack dice for improvements to poison. It can give some rather strong help to classes that need it by giving them a significantly more useful focus.

[oslecamo]

There's still a bunch of other things here to reply to but something now demands a bit more priority.

...Okay, scrapping the bit where only the first substitution level is needed for the damage increases. Four size increases for damage dice and +9 Con/+6 Str is well worth three feats. Because Crysmal Growth is basically a weird bonus feat, I'm not counting that as a lost bonus feat.

Growth alone is well worth one feat, as per the Titanic Creature and Extra Option feat here. You can't even do it in official D&D. For ability scores you get +1 per feat as per Monster Blooded or an epic feat going for official D&D. A feat that grants 4/3 of a size increase with +3 Con and +2 Str on top is way out of scale with everything else here.

But yeah. What do you people think about making some semi-generalized Monster variants of existing classes? Like a set of Fighter substitution levels that gives a bundle of natural attack benefits and boosts Str a bunch in exchange for lost bonus feats. Or Rogue swapping some Sneak Attack dice for improvements to poison. It can give some rather strong help to classes that need it by giving them a significantly more useful focus.

Then you're missing the point. Fighter/barbarian are used in things like the monsterous spider because they're simple and not too strong-perfect for mass produced expendable mooks. Making the process more complicated and powerful is thus kinda against the whole point of mooks.

For non-mook monster builds, that's what template classes are for. The Paragon in particular just happens to be the most popular piece of work here. Then the already mentioned Titanic Creature, Monster of Legend, Evolved Undead, Elder Eidolong, Half-Whatever, etc.

Well I guess I can't exactly stop you if that's your motivation, but I'll ask to at least take in account what's already done.

[Versatility_Nut]

There's still a bunch of other things here to reply to but something now demands a bit more priority.

Referring to my mechanical blunders? Or something you're doing on a different sub-forum?

Growth alone is well worth one feat, as per the Titanic Creature and Extra Option feat here. You can't even do it in official D&D. For ability scores you get +1 per feat as per Monster Blooded or an epic feat going for official D&D. A feat that grants 4/3 of a size increase with +3 Con and +2 Str on top is way out of scale with everything else here.

...Cross-referencing with other mechanics, including some of the overwhelming potential for rocket-tagging I found in the PsyWar power list, I agree. I keep thinking of how overwhelming builds can get and keep overcompensating for the mechanical failings I see, so I keep having inflated numbers for the sake of dragging closer to functional status. Downed the scaling to one Con per 3 levels and one Str per 4 levels, so level 17 is down to +5/+4 rather than the previous +8/+5.

Then you're missing the point. Fighter/barbarian are used in things like the monsterous spider because they're simple and not too strong-perfect for mass produced expendable mooks. Making the process more complicated and powerful is thus kinda against the whole point of mooks.

It'd add just one more step to the process of making the mook, that of choosing replacement levels. Which is kinda already an option, given the lack of wording against it. Designing it to not increase active play complexity would take some effort, but replacing Fighter bonus feats with static bonuses built to be generic monster-friendly improvements reduces complexity of the mook creation and makes playing them much more straightforward. Similarly, rendering stuff like Totem Barbarian, primary source of Pounce for Uberchargers, inaccessible reduces complexity of play and potential power at the same time.

For non-mook monster builds, that's what template classes are for. The Paragon in particular just happens to be the most popular piece of work here. Then the already mentioned Titanic Creature, Monster of Legend, Evolved Undead, Elder Eidolong, Half-Whatever, etc.

I fully understand that. But sometimes, you really want generic progression for broad categories to prevent extensive decision making. Because sometimes, people don't want to dig through all the creatures and templates to progress the thing they picked one for in the first place, so they want a clean, generic, progressing option for that thing. Like Poison.

Well I guess I can't exactly stop you if that's your motivation, but I'll ask to at least take in account what's already done.

Will do. Or at least try to do.

[ketaro]

There's no wording against ACFs for Fighter/Barbarian levels for mooks likely because all of this content is highly suggested to not reference anything official outside Core for ease of play. Which means it could also be likely that all mooks restricted to Fighter/Barbarian weren't intended to have feats/ACFs/ect from sources outside Core but that's a point for clarification

[Versatility_Nut]

There's no wording against ACFs for Fighter/Barbarian levels for mooks likely because all of this content is highly suggested to not reference anything official outside Core for ease of play. Which means it could also be likely that all mooks restricted to Fighter/Barbarian weren't intended to have feats/ACFs/ect from sources outside Core but that's a point for clarification

Well, reducing overall feat numbers on Fighter still reduces complexity a bunch, so it's still useful. Reworking Barbarian to have less complexity is a bit hard, due to the utter lack of it they have, but there's ways to do that. Rendering things into more statblock focus over finicky triggers like Trap Sense would be just about the only thing. I suppose this could include overhauling Rage into something with only in the moment bookkeeping.

Really, it works best for stuff that has option-heavy building, like anything Psionic, particularly PsyWar due to bonus feats. Reducing options reduces complexity significantly, and streamlining play is vital with minion-heavy setups.

[Yasahiro]

I must ask a few questions.

1. Why is there no Entropic creature template class? There's Vivacious but negative energy is discriminated? Is it because it's dark colored?

2. Ye guys have all fiends but no Kluchirir who is even stronger than balor, eh?

3. Finally, I just want to ask. Growth in classes like Giants where HD is mentioned use character level and racial HD, right? Not class level? And so if one were to gestalt two giant classes, the increases in size stack?

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

I must ask a few questions.

1. Why is there no Entropic creature template class? There's Vivacious but negative energy is discriminated? Is it because it's dark colored?

2. Ye guys have all fiends but no Kluchirir who is even stronger than balor, eh?

3. Finally, I just want to ask. Growth in classes like Giants where HD is mentioned use character level and racial HD, right? Not class level? And so if one were to gestalt two giant classes, the increases in size stack?

1. Well the only reason I made Vivacious is because I wanted my murder healer. I might also be racist, or at least thats what the far left tells me when I laugh at people training their Dogs to do Nazi Salutes. Who really knows.

2. What source are Kluchirir from? Non-Core stuff is (as one might expect) a little rarer, so that's probably why it hasnt been done yet. The more prominent stuff (or the stuff creators like) tends to be made more often.

3. As far as I know any class features that mentions scaling based off HD should scale after taking levels of said class, but I would wait for Osle to confirm anything specific. As for my stuff they certainly do, but I dont have any Giants (besides unfinished Oni) so they are not to relevant regardless. Its probably not a problem regardless, as far as Gestalt is concerned there is an expectation you can do some crazy stuff like dual Monsters (as far as Monster classes are concerned) If not 2 Giants stacking then any other monster that grows in size could replace the later I think. How early are said Giants getting the growth class feature though? Growth is usually not okay at Lv1 unless you have some major penalty associated with it. If you got to take a few levels to pick up scaling growth it is probably fine. Also remember that outside of monster classes, most standard classes dont grant bonuses to ability scores, which as far as Growth is concerned which doesnt have ability score bonuses for getting bigger, offsets the growing penalties you get from size. Within the system you also usually can't multiclass 2 base monsters without the hybrid feat or the hybrid Prc (forget what they are specificlly called, but they are there.