Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Grogg Toth 08-14-07, 03:26 AM	I appologize in advance if there is/was a thread featuring this line of comment. That having been said on to the subject. Since me and my gaming group picked up 3.5 we have been struggling to understand the monster character creation process. Despite having all or almost all the books covering this line of topic we still have difficulty working it through. I have personally read through Savage Species, Libre Mortis, and Fiend Folio, Moster Manual 1 and Dragonomicon and well... the process seems... well unbalanced, in almost every case I would rather play a normal character over a monster character hands down. For example: According to the rules a PC wight must go through 8 monster levels or have a LA of 8. Yet if the wight ever ran into an 8th level monster that wight is toast. This has led to a house rule which... spells disaster because it doens't quite make up for the extra powers a monster may have. Yet the standard rules makes your monster PC a weakling, see the imp from Savage Species that is an 8th level character to be.. well a regular imp. Does anyone have a better system? Please send me a reply ASAP! As certain members in my group want to play monster pcs and we need a better system before things get out of hand. See my wight being teamed up with a Rakasha... 9th level my rear! My E-mail is malkarii@hotmail.com Thank you for reading this, and I appologize for the inconvience.
Mojo_Rat 08-14-07, 03:51 AM	Basically the ECL/LA system seems to work for some monsters and I would say the vast Majorty it falls Abysmally flat. Effectivly the reason a CR 4 creature translates to a level 8 Pc character is apparently because the Cr represents only what is brought to an individual encounter. to be honest i think Much of it is broken but Some pure physical monsters work well I am told. A Bugbear seems to be a fairly good example of a monster character that works. Slightly less hps than their Pc equivalent made up for with higher stts and racial skill bonuses. Its when you get into special abilities and magic inates etc that the ECL's seem broken.
rampant 08-14-07, 02:08 PM	The Ok first thing to check is to make sure you're adding up the numbers right. LA + HD = ECL So A 6HD minotaur with LA+2 is an 8th level character. Next you should not be getting any regular creatures. A PC imp should have better overall ability scores than a normal imp, even before class levels because you should be using the MM imp's stats to figure out the racial adjustments for your imp's abilities. Not your final scores. Dont forget to modify all your special abilities for your higher (usually) stats. Don't forget since its your character you can purchase different feats and skills (although anything not listed in the imp description is cross class for imps). Finally the LA factors in a player's ability to abuse a moster's special powers. So sit down and think about what your critter can really do with its powers individually and combined.
speed6620 08-14-07, 02:45 PM	Monsters can make devastating PCs especially with templates and with PC choices with feats and equipment. With the wight, the undeath ability is very strong and if you use a point buy system for stats then you will have higher states for five abilities instead of six. You do not have to worry about crits and all that other junk too. Since you have a low to hit for undead, improve grapple wouldn't be a bad choice for a character especially if they have a energy drain or ability drain natural attack and a high strength score.