Author Topic: General Discussion and Sugestions  (Read 205426 times)

Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #580 on: September 22, 2017, 04:51:02 AM »
Osle, I'd like you to edit your first post here so Tortoise, Dire, is in the Animals Spoiler as Dire Tortoise. Just so all the animals are in the same place.
Fixed, thanks!

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. Because nobody requested it and I didn't even knew it existed.
2. See above.  :P
3. HD gained from class levels counts just as HD gained from monster class levels. In a gestalt guess they would stack since despite they basically being the same ability with the same exact name, there's a bit of variance. Like you can't stack two sources of sneak attack, but you can stack sneak attack with sudden strike.

(click to show/hide)

Offline Yasahiro

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #581 on: September 22, 2017, 04:45:26 PM »
Osle, I'd like you to edit your first post here so Tortoise, Dire, is in the Animals Spoiler as Dire Tortoise. Just so all the animals are in the same place.
Fixed, thanks!

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. Because nobody requested it and I didn't even knew it existed.
2. See above.  :P
3. HD gained from class levels counts just as HD gained from monster class levels. In a gestalt guess they would stack since despite they basically being the same ability with the same exact name, there's a bit of variance. Like you can't stack two sources of sneak attack, but you can stack sneak attack with sudden strike.

(click to show/hide)

Oh, so gestalt or multiclass with two giant classes amounts to Colossal++ at 20 HD. Got it right.

Well then I request Entropic and Kluchirir :P would ask for possible PRC that requires both Entropic and Vivacious but feel like it's might be too much to ask.

I DO want to ask for Jungle Giants, though!


Edit: Just now my brain realized there is specific topic for requests... Although it feels like it's underused or underviewed
« Last Edit: September 22, 2017, 08:36:14 PM by Yasahiro »
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Offline Versatility_Nut

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #582 on: October 21, 2017, 12:18:53 AM »
An idea that popped into my head because of an abysmally-designed class over on GiantITP is having a few Construct classes that have a short list of options at first level, then the rest of the class advances those abilities selected at first level. Fixed hardware, but advancing software.

The actual context was a lazily-overhauled Warlock being used to represent Mei from Overwatch. Now, there's a guy, theperfect25, who's done a bunch of 3.5 classes for Overwatch characters, themed on the characters rather than specifically representing the associated character. For example, Torbjiorn's turret having a bundle of support options and Reaper having a melee weapon available(even though the idea of fixed-weapon martials is something that pisses me off to no end...)

The ones I was thinking about were Orisa and Bastion. The actual character Bastion is literally malfunctioning, because it has a mind of its own. Bastion units are intended to be autonomous drones with no free will, managed by a central AI. This bit everyone in the ass when the super-AIs made to micromanage all the processing-intensive stuff decided to take over the world... At any rate, Bastion has an utterly fixed design with hardware, with no room for changing it outside of shenanigans with self-repair to non-standard blueprints. But altering software, like overriding fire governors for burst fire instead of rapid fire or forcing the "self repair" systems to weld on more armor plating and external weapons, offers significant customization options.

In Orisa's case, there's manipulating the barriers to have very different effects, like reducing its value as cover to make it deal Electricity damage to anything going through it, projectiles included. So physical, theoretically-Sunderable projectiles are incinerated on the way through... Manipulating the firing mechanism for the shield projector and shape means it can be used to directly improvise a Reinhardt shield to give one-way line of effect blocking. Of course, it can be more useful to use it with a Run and dealing damage to anything that "passes through" it to turn your Runs into supercharged Chain Lightnings. Overriding whatever forces only one of the four barrels to fire at a time means being able to do harsh burst fire instead of rapid fire, allowing for multiple attacks per Standard Action, thus leaving the Move Action open after a larger amount of damage. Full Attacks would take a hit in damage while in that firing mode, but sometimes mobility is worth lower DPR.

For Bastion, you get significantly less if you don't do shenanigans with the self-repair system. Fortunately, shenanigans with self-repair systems have enough of a gradient for them to be a major aspect of progression. At the most basic, there's nothing preventing the use of the self-repair systems for welding on more armor plating other than not having the firmware to do it. This means being able to use normal armor, probably gated behind a Craft check, in the same way Bardic Music is gated behind a Perform check. You need the ranks to do it, and some functions require an actual check, but most of the time it's just needing ranks. Altering the energy type of inbuilt weapons could be a use for magical weapons to deconstruct, while precise fire saturation could be used for reduced or even inverted Iterative Attack penalties, making attack spam workable. Some of the stuff that was used for Bastion in beta makes for lovely openings, like the access to an explosive drone that can be given a lot of weirdness with minor changes in construction.

First level picks basically amount to model type, like a Bastion being given an energy weapon instead of a machine gun and explosive cannon(how the hell do both fit?), or an OR series being given a different kind of projector in replacement of the Supercharger. A Bastion has much more shenanigans in this territory due to being a three-mode transformer with three different devices. The tank mode can carry a shield projector, or a healing zone, or a portal that summons bound Fiends straight from the front lines of the Blood War... What? It'd be a D&D Monster Class, getting the D&D cosmology involved is perfectly valid... The OR-series has a bit more than just replacing the buff of the Supercharger with a healing device or a shield projector. It can be debuffs, too, and the shield can be made into a single-target buffer or an auto-healer. Or a personal shield generator to protect a target. Or a plasma explosive, if you want a pure offensive option.

Pointing more towards D&D, stuff like Clockwork Horrors and Ruin Elementals, and various other fixed-though-variable composition Constructs, Elementals and Undead, can have options to expand the uses of the stuff they were initially made with. Some of the Alchemist Homunculi could be options... and I now realize most of those things haven't been given monster classes. Probably because balancing the things for Artificers becomes nigh impossible.

Offline Anomander

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #583 on: October 22, 2017, 11:48:09 PM »
There is a faq answer for growing, but if you get a monster class that makes you smaller, but want to keep your current size. What happens?

Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #584 on: October 23, 2017, 11:39:45 PM »
There is a faq answer for growing, but if you get a monster class that makes you smaller, but want to keep your current size. What happens?
Nothing, because the only monster class right now that reduces size is the Miniature creature. If you don't want to go smaller, you can just don't pick the prc whose main purpose is making you smaller.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #585 on: November 02, 2017, 08:35:59 AM »
An idea that popped into my head because of an abysmally-designed class over on GiantITP is having a few Construct classes that have a short list of options at first level, then the rest of the class advances those abilities selected at first level. Fixed hardware, but advancing software.

The actual context was a lazily-overhauled Warlock being used to represent Mei from Overwatch. Now, there's a guy, theperfect25, who's done a bunch of 3.5 classes for Overwatch characters, themed on the characters rather than specifically representing the associated character. For example, Torbjiorn's turret having a bundle of support options and Reaper having a melee weapon available(even though the idea of fixed-weapon martials is something that pisses me off to no end...)

Overwatch is a game I don't play, but some monster classes like the centaur follows the "short list of options at first level, then the rest of the class advances those abilities selected at first level" design pattern. It's a perfectly valid way of doing things.

Offline Versatility_Nut

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #586 on: November 03, 2017, 01:41:16 AM »
Overwatch is a game I don't play, but some monster classes like the centaur follows the "short list of options at first level, then the rest of the class advances those abilities selected at first level" design pattern. It's a perfectly valid way of doing things.

Yea, it does model subspecies pretty well... Temptation to make a Drider PRC that runs with this idea for spider-type selection is pretty strong, as is making a few Monstrous Spider AFCs that makes the Hunter/Weaver seperation more pronounced by removing access to certain tricks, and adds a dedicated "broodmother" option to the blatant focus. Two focuses could work for that, given that there's some spiders that actively hunt using thrown web to catch and reel in prey, while there's sedentary spiders that don't actually have much use for webs outside setting up their home and instead rely on stupidly powerful poison to actually accomplish things.

Edit: As an aside, I've been thinking about what to do for other Crysmal substitution levels. What to swap for Artificer and Wilder, as those are the two main things I'm thinking of as "natural" progressions beyond the existing setup. Wilder gives much better blasting potential, Artificer is fluffery and feat use access. Of course, I'd need a decent Psionic Artificer overhaul for that...
« Last Edit: November 03, 2017, 01:49:23 AM by Versatility_Nut »

Offline Versatility_Nut

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #587 on: November 09, 2017, 09:43:46 AM »
I do apoligise for the double post(even though it's been almost a week), but I'm kind working out some of the basics of AFCs and/or substitution levels for various "simple" classes for use with stuff like the Monstrous Spider's spawning. At a glance, these are the things I'm considering:

Rogue: Swap Sneak Attack with ability DC increases, removing extra rolls and boosting reliability of something that typically has issues at higher levels, even with the 10+1/2 HD baseline.
Fighter: Automatic improvement to Natural Attacks based on the Weapon Focus tree, with flat numbers where multipliers would be. Also flat improvements to critical range and Con damage.
Barbarian: Shift Rage to be more like Power Attack/Shock Trooper, with the scaling being how much you get per AC lost and having the maximum penalty to AC be based on Con or HD.

Basically, cut out the various extra rolls, daily uses, option lists and so on.

---

Also, more on possible Crysmal substitution levels:

(Psionic) Artificer: Likely to homebrew the class used to be a proper Psionic Artificer, alongside some additional Psionic constructs, making Astral Construct more versatile to compete with Summon Monster and generally making Psionics better compete with Magic in this corner of the game. Alternative features centering on making the WBL-mancer playstyle more viable, cutting out the Homunculus access for a set of abnormal Psionic constructs of similar fluff on the basic version of the class and swapping that for an improved version of the Crysmal Crafting feat I whipped up. Item recharge, too. Basically, dump everything into massive Djore, Drilbuu and Psicrown power.

Wilder: Probably going to be a rather heavily blaster focused version of the class, probably altering Wild Surge to have a different, less long-term punishing, backlash effect while changing it from over-augment to discount. And obviously use Crysmal levels for some Manifesting progression. 3/4 BAB does make it lightly gish, but the Gish role is clearly occupied by Psychic Warrior already. Maybe shift to buff/debuff focus, so that it could gish if wanted.

---

While I'm at it with this post, there's some things I'd like to bring up regarding the current standard for the monster classes. A lot of these monster classes have some pretty nice things come out of hit dice advancement. For example, Worgs become Large at 7 HD and have full BAB the whole way there. A three or four level Worg class that gets growth at the last level would make a lot of sense, because it then becomes usable as a mount for a standard-size character. Quite a few of the Medium Animals and Magical Beasts are effective mounts once you give them a few more HD.

Maybe solve this issue by having one of those acquirable templates literally everyone puts on their mount whenever possible as a PRC that gives a size increase and Ideal Cohort. Something to solve this awkward situation where you have so many Medium Animals and Magical Beasts that would be absolutely amazing mounts if only they were Large.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2017, 09:54:29 AM by Versatility_Nut »

Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #588 on: November 15, 2017, 08:16:17 PM »
I do apoligise for the double post(even though it's been almost a week), but I'm kind working out some of the basics of AFCs and/or substitution levels for various "simple" classes for use with stuff like the Monstrous Spider's spawning. At a glance, these are the things I'm considering:

Rogue: Swap Sneak Attack with ability DC increases, removing extra rolls and boosting reliability of something that typically has issues at higher levels, even with the 10+1/2 HD baseline.
Fighter: Automatic improvement to Natural Attacks based on the Weapon Focus tree, with flat numbers where multipliers would be. Also flat improvements to critical range and Con damage.
Barbarian: Shift Rage to be more like Power Attack/Shock Trooper, with the scaling being how much you get per AC lost and having the maximum penalty to AC be based on Con or HD.

Basically, cut out the various extra rolls, daily uses, option lists and so on.

Rogue isn't really one of the options for monster minion levels, in particular it brings a lot of extra baggage in the form of buckets of skill points and whatnot.

Poison with two different damage types isn't exactly simplifying things. Extra rolls, extra things to keep track of. Also thematically bad since D&D monstrous spiders would like the targets still healthy and juicy for eating. Why not just slap the flat bonuses acf in the fighter? It's kinda the main stick of that class.

Power Attack/Shock Trooper by any other name means it stacks with power Attack/Shock Trooper and also means even more work on the form of needing to re-calculate things every round.

While I'm at it with this post, there's some things I'd like to bring up regarding the current standard for the monster classes. A lot of these monster classes have some pretty nice things come out of hit dice advancement. For example, Worgs become Large at 7 HD and have full BAB the whole way there. A three or four level Worg class that gets growth at the last level would make a lot of sense, because it then becomes usable as a mount for a standard-size character. Quite a few of the Medium Animals and Magical Beasts are effective mounts once you give them a few more HD.

Maybe solve this issue by having one of those acquirable templates literally everyone puts on their mount whenever possible as a PRC that gives a size increase and Ideal Cohort. Something to solve this awkward situation where you have so many Medium Animals and Magical Beasts that would be absolutely amazing mounts if only they were Large.
If a class is meant to be a glorified pet, then it already gets Ideal Cohort by default. For getting bigger, that's literally the whole reason of existence for Titanic Creature.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2017, 11:19:09 AM by oslecamo »

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #589 on: November 16, 2017, 10:35:17 AM »
Quote
Also thematically bad since spiders would like the targets still healthy and juicy for eating.

Well, no, they'd rather that your insides were already a pre-digested soup. That's what their venom does.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #590 on: November 16, 2017, 11:22:03 AM »
I stand corrected, D&D monstrous spiders want their victims still healthy and juicy for eating, dealing Str damage. It's also not thematic if the smaller minion's poison ends more deadly than the mother's.

Offline Versatility_Nut

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #591 on: November 16, 2017, 02:02:36 PM »
Rogue isn't really one of the options for monster minion levels, in particular it brings a lot of extra baggage in the form of buckets of skill points and whatnot.
...How I forgot about the bloated to hell and back skill points of Rogue, I'm not sure. Pretty big reason to avoid using Rogue at all, if it's avoidable.

Quote
Poison with two different damage types isn't exactly simplifying things. Extra rolls, extra things to keep track of. Also thematically bad since spiders would like the targets still healthy and juicy for eating. Why not just slap the flat bonuses acf in the fighter? It's kinda the main stick of that class.
Not another Poison damage type, more like Wounding where it's a flat amount of Con damage. And this isn't just for the Spiders, really, it's for all such things. Including the eventual . Monk has so many abilities to track that can't be purely ignored(save bonuses, extra health, fiddly uses-per-day) that using that to progress a Natural Attack spam monster runs into overcomplication fairly quickly.

Quote
Power Attack/Shock Trooper by any other name means it stacks with power Attack/Shock Trooper and also means even more work on the form of needing to re-calculate things every round.
Some number-crunching on the penalties to make it harshly unlikely to get away with stacking mostly works around the issue with stacking, and the stacking issue is largely a problem for when it's in use by players. The round-to-round recalculation is kinda silly coming from the guy who gives 7 or so choices from a list including 15 or more options, several being unlimited repicks, for a CR 5 creature that's only going to see 5 rounds of combat.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it'd be better making better generic progression PRCs, like just a general-use poison improvement option, or flight tricks for keeping flying enemies annoying past 7th level(yes, Fly comes in at 5th level, but the slots are only enough for the whole party at 7th and above)

And again, the more I think about it, the more I want to set to work overhauling a lot of the basic monsters to be more realistically usable as monsters. As-is, they just have too many options among them for serious use as NPCs or as just actual monsters, unless you're using a premade setup. And none of the threads have example builds, so DMs wanting to use these classes for their monsters have to make all those choices themselves. They're very much making the appearance of being made for PC use, is what I'm saying, and this poses a problem due to the fact that they're supposed to be used for monsters.

Quote
If a class is meant to be a glorified pet, then it already gets Ideal Cohort by default. For getting bigger, that's literally the whole reason of existence for Titanic Creature.
The thing is that a lot of the Ideal Cohort monsters cap out at Medium. Because their Large size is in the HD progression the vast majority of these classes ignore. A Worg Cohort can't be a mount to a Medium player without either crazy penalties or burning a feat. Same for a lot of the other Magical Beats and Animals with the Ideal Cohort feature. And then there's the kickass Animals and Magical Beasts that don't have Ideal Cohort, cap out at Medium, and have stuff really, really useful for being a mount. Whether it's flight, being able to avoid getting splattered, having a burrow speed to just lolnope being in line of effect of any hazards or having lots of Charge assistance, there's quite a few Medium-sized quadropeds that'd be kickass mounts, and a lot of the existing kickass mounts have the problem of only reaching Large size when you give them two or three more hit dice.

Offline ketaro

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #592 on: November 17, 2017, 01:11:41 AM »
Quote
And again, the more I think about it, the more I want to set to work overhauling a lot of the basic monsters to be more realistically usable as monsters. As-is, they just have too many options among them for serious use as NPCs or as just actual monsters, unless you're using a premade setup. And none of the threads have example builds, so DMs wanting to use these classes for their monsters have to make all those choices themselves. They're very much making the appearance of being made for PC use, is what I'm saying, and this poses a problem due to the fact that they're supposed to be used for monsters.

Hey VN, I'm pretty sure we've said before that, yes, Oslecamo's Improved Monster Classes are intended for PC (player) use first and everything else second. It's pretty straight-forwardly said so in the Introduction & FAQ thread in this subforum... -_-'

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #593 on: November 17, 2017, 01:20:03 AM »
Quote
They're very much making the appearance of being made for PC use, is what I'm saying, and this poses a problem due to the fact that they're supposed to be used for monsters.

As said, the point of monster classes is to be used for PC's. For monsters, you honestly don't need classes or even hitdice. Sure, they're a nice thing to use to quickly generate something or to create premade stats, but you just need the numbers and abilities to be roughly in the right area for a party.

The point of monster classes is explicitly to let people play monster races without getting 10 racial hitddice that give fuck all and then +5 LA before they start getting anything but a tiny generic bag of monster abilities and some weird and random stat bonuses.

Offline TC X0 Lt 0X

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #594 on: November 17, 2017, 02:12:32 AM »
Eh I've used these monster classes for NPCs quite a few times, it works out pretty well as is. There are a few issues here and there for sure, but I still definitely prefer it over pulling monsters from the books for customization alone (and since I usually do this for e6 I can further customize with feats in any number I want).

That all said monster classes should first and foremost be made for PC use. If the designers want to add additional features making monsters more suited for NPC use AFTER accomplishing to make the monster a suitable class for PCs then I'm all for it. Hell, I think it should be common practice if we had some base guidelines to follow (replacing what we get out of core and terrible CR), though I don't know how viable that would be to integrate with monster classes. People don't always have time (or a desire for that matter) to do that though, and it shouldn't be expected.
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Offline Archon

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #595 on: November 17, 2017, 07:32:32 AM »
Eh I've used these monster classes for NPCs quite a few times, it works out pretty well as is. There are a few issues here and there for sure, but I still definitely prefer it over pulling monsters from the books for customization alone (and since I usually do this for e6 I can further customize with feats in any number I want).

That all said monster classes should first and foremost be made for PC use. If the designers want to add additional features making monsters more suited for NPC use AFTER accomplishing to make the monster a suitable class for PCs then I'm all for it. Hell, I think it should be common practice if we had some base guidelines to follow (replacing what we get out of core and terrible CR), though I don't know how viable that would be to integrate with monster classes. People don't always have time (or a desire for that matter) to do that though, and it shouldn't be expected.

You could take a leaf out of 5e's book here, with its quick build guidelines. Write a paragraph of "to make a quick default build, use these attributes, take this feat and these choices. That makes it good at x and y." That would make it interesting. In general I think its good to have a summery of the basic intended build of a class at the top of it. Makes life simpler, and building quicker, especially for a one-off you don't want to memorise.

And of course these should be for PC use. That's the whole point of having classes and not stat-blocks.

Also, I like the idea of useing these classes for e6. I think that would work quite well.

Offline Versatility_Nut

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #596 on: November 17, 2017, 10:10:44 AM »
...Sorry about the wording, what I was getting at is that these classes appear made for PCs with no regard to the use of them as monsters, due to the complexity involved. This is a problem because the monsters will be massively underwhelming compared to the PC equivalents if you use the MM forms, but would be nonsensically overcomplicated if you use these classes. They are covered in the level of choice-making common to Pathfinder spellcasters, which is actually bad class design in general unless you're very good at preventing trap options.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #597 on: November 17, 2017, 10:14:00 AM »
...Sorry about the wording, what I was getting at is that these classes appear made for PCs with no regard to the use of them as monsters, due to the complexity involved. This is a problem because the monsters will be massively underwhelming compared to the PC equivalents if you use the MM forms, but would be nonsensically overcomplicated if you use these classes. They are covered in the level of choice-making common to Pathfinder spellcasters, which is actually bad class design in general unless you're very good at preventing trap options.

If you want to make monsters, you don't need to follow the rules. They're more what you'd call... guidelines.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #598 on: November 17, 2017, 10:25:35 AM »
...Sorry about the wording, what I was getting at is that these classes appear made for PCs with no regard to the use of them as monsters, due to the complexity involved. This is a problem because the monsters will be massively underwhelming compared to the PC equivalents if you use the MM forms, but would be nonsensically overcomplicated if you use these classes. They are covered in the level of choice-making common to Pathfinder spellcasters, which is actually bad class design in general unless you're very good at preventing trap options.

Says the person adding manifesting to 100% of their monster classes and wanting to add acfs like there's no tomorrow.  :p

Either way I'm not against extra monster versions (chimera's got two in the index and everything), so if you want to do simplified versions of something sure go ahead. Adding extra options isn't even in the guidelines anyway.

Offline Versatility_Nut

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Re: General Discussion and Sugestions
« Reply #599 on: November 17, 2017, 10:57:05 AM »
If you want to make monsters, you don't need to follow the rules. They're more what you'd call... guidelines.
It's that not every DM has the time or will to be making full statblocks and they're liable to face players expecting similar capabilities between their monster characters and the monsters faced by the party. A dozen Small Monstrous Spiders is a reasonable encounter for a level 5 or so party, but literally cannot be done here because the Monstrous Spider class starts at Medium and, if it was, there'd almost certainly be two or three options to make. God help them if they want a Colossal Broodmother, because that's making statblocks with all those choices each time another Monstrous Spider is spawned and the spawned Swarms have 55 extra HP. Each.

And that's not to mention the problematic situation of mid-combat spawns making the CR rules utterly bizarre because you've got a CR 11 creature spawning CR 7 creatures and CR 1 Swarms, all with significantly enhanced capabilities beyond their normal statblock. Four of those CR 7 spawned spiders should be the same challenge rating as the one that spawned them, and this takes an amount of time that can actually happen in a fight.

In general, the big problem with it all is that a lot of stuff doesn't play nice with encounter design and designing the classes purely for PCs causes problems when the players expect to be facing similarly-versatile opponents.