The level 1 Minotaur - a look at playing monsters as characters in DND v3.5 [Archive] - Wizards Community

The level 1 Minotaur - a look at playing monsters as characters in DND v3.5 [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Carrion_Buffet
02-25-08, 12:09 PM Introduction
I have a long history with DND as a player and DM. Although I have never published anything or even taken part in the forum here, I wanted to share my ideas for playing monsters as characters.

My focus will be on the Minotaur as an example and I will discuss how you can start a monster at first level and advance him through its racial levels until it is “fully grown”. I will also state my understanding of ECL and its effect on level gain and party level.

The Minotaur makes for a good example to work with as it is already defined as a player race. He has a language; “Giant”, and can be encountered in groups (Gang: 3-4) which means they possess some form of social interaction, and maybe even a basic society.

Looking at the "Minotaurs as Characters" in the MM description we get an idea of what an impressive fighter type a minotaur based character would make at level 6. Strength of +8, a +4 to Constitution, -4 Intelligence, a -2 to Charisma and a +5 Natural Armor. But what if you are starting the character at level 1? What does a level 1 minotaur look like?

Minotaurs and acne
A young minotaur does not possess the full power that its adult body will one day wield. Below I have listed the progression I use to advance a player through the racial levels of a minotaur.

The 1st Level Minotaur
Total Stat Bonus: +1 Str, -4 Int and -2 Cha
Size is large and take a 10x10 area with a 10 reach
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60', Scent
Special Attacks: Gore (1d8)
1st Character Feat
+4 Racial Bonus to Spot, Search and Listen
2( x 4) skill point + intelligence bonus
1d8 hit points
Proficient: Great Axe, Simple Weapons
Skill List: Intimidate, Jump, Listen, Search, and Spot
BAB: 1
FORT: 1
REF: 2
WILL: 2
Level Adjustment:+2

The 2nd Level minotaur
Total Stat Bonus: +2 Str, +1 Con, -4 Int and -2 Cha
+1 Natural Armor
4 skill point + (intelligence bonus x 2)
1d8 hit points
BAB: 2
FORT: 1
REF: 3
WILL: 3
Level Adjustment:+2

The 3nd Level Minotaur
Total Stat Bonus: +4 Str, +2 Con, -4 Int and -2 Cha
+2 Natural Armor
6 skill point + (intelligence bonus x 3)
3d8 hit points
2nd Character Feat
BAB: 3
FORT: 1
REF: 3
WILL: 3
Level Adjustment:+2

The 4th Level Minotaur
Total Stat Bonus: +5 Str, +2 Con, -4 Int and -2 Cha
+3 Natural Armor
8 skill point + (intelligence bonus x 4)
4d8 hit points
BAB: 4
FORT: 2
REF: 4
WILL: 4
Level Adjustment:+2

The 5th Level Minotaur
Total Stat Bonus: +7 Str, +3 Con, -4 Int and -2 Cha
+4 Natural Armor
10 skill point + (intelligence bonus x 5)
5d8 hit points
BAB: 5
FORT: 2
REF: 4
WILL: 4
Level Adjustment:+2

The 6th Level Minotaur
Total Stat Bonus: +8 Str, +4 Con, -4 Int and -2 Cha
3rd character feat
+5 Natural Armor
12 skill point + (intelligence bonus x 6)
6d8 hit points
Special Attacks: Powerful Charge
Special Qualities: Natural Cunning
BAB: 6
FORT: 2
REF: 5
WILL: 5
Level Adjustment:+2

Continuing character levels over 6 the player can now gain class levels for example as a level 1 fighter (+ 6 levels of minotaur).

As stated in the rules the fighter level is considered multi-classing for xp purposes. In the minotaur description it list that they have a favored class of barbarain. But in the section "Monsters as Races" it states the race is considered a prefered class and any class level is considered multi-class. This should be over ridden by a DM if the description for the player character has a preferred class like the barbarian for the minotaur.

Note that the character does not get a stat point at level 4 as a normal character would. This is up to the DM, but I have it already factored it into the racial levels. As a DM option, you may want to allow the player to gain stats like other players do. In this case I would suggest reducing the largest stat by however many stat points a player would get over the racial levels. The minotaur above with 6 racial level would only gain 1 stat over six levels. If this were a stone giant with its 14 racial levels and that would be a total of 3 stat points(one at levels 4, 8 and 12). Anyways the Minotaur could have its strength stat from 2nd level to third level only go up by 1 point instead of the 2 listed. Then allow the player to gain the typical 4th level stat point to place where they want. Again, this should be at the D.M.'s discretion. I also believe negative stats should be front loaded. The -4 int and -2 cha at first level for example. I have a hard time seeing a player becoming dumber from one level to the next while still young and not without some outside influence (god,poison,curse).

Feats Progression is exactly like a normal level progress; 1 at 1st, 1 at 3rd and 1 for every three levels there on. I did not list the feats listed in the MM. That is because the MM listing is a typical Minotaur and any player Minotaur would not be typical. I also did not list the alignment the d20 SRD has it as “Usually Chaotic Evil”. I see this as an open invite to any alignment for a PC and may even be the reason why the minotaur player has gone to adventure, basically he is just to different to play in all those minotaur games. ;)

Some people may look at what we have here and say it is still overpowering for a PC. I will agree that a minotaur is a very nice fighter type, but it is by no means equal to a fighter. At level 6 we do have some great stats, but we also have some not so good ones. Our saves are nice on the reflects and will, but the fort is oddly very low and a +4 con bonus will only add +2 to that. Fortitude is usually a fighters good save and a good number of encounter use them. And using encounters that force a hard fort save, will be even more difficult for the Minotaur.

Level Progression for the Level Adjusted
Nothing has caused more of a heated debate in my gaming group than the application of level adjustment. The core disagreement comes from this in the rules

Use ECL instead of character level to determine how many experience points a monster character needs to reach its next level..

I have an issue with this because it reads oddly when you concider a level 1 minotaur. It appears to say that in order for for a minotaur to go from level 1 to level 2 he must have the experience that a core race would need to advance to level 4. Think about a character going into combat agains EL 4 creatures and only 8hp +con bonus! Even with the added stats a minotaur gets he would not survive it and if you think that is bad try a mind flayer with its +7 LA fighting EL 8 creatures at 1st level. To make the race playable I have suggested and use this method for creatures with level adjustments.

Take the level of the character and add the level adjustment to get the ECL, just like normal.

The ECL is used to determine the experience gained when determining experience to advance in level. So looking at our minotaur we see he has a +2 Level Adjustment.

If your Minotaur is in a party of level 1 characters and they finish a level 1 encounter. Use the experience chart as normal for all the player without a level adjustment.

For the players that do have an LA, like out minotaur we use the ECL as the character level. So while all the other level 1 gain experience for the level one encounter, the minotaur will gain as a level three character (Level 1 Mino. +2 LA). At level 2 he will be gaining at a level 4 and so on.

To determine when the minotaur goes from 1st to 2nd level use the same xp chart the other players use. Basically the level progression does not change, just the amount of experience gained per encounter.

Eventually the non level adjusted player will gain levels faster than our Minotaur and will lag behind a level or two from the other players. For a DM that wants to allow a mino as a player race, this is also part of the balance inherited by the level adjustment. The mino will have fewer feats and gain level slower than the non-LA characters. The lag of any character drawn from the monster manual with an level adjustment will depend on the size of the level adjustment. The mino has a small +2, while the stone giant is +4 and the mind flayer is +7. The higher the number the farther behind the other players they become in actual character level. So what about max level? Can a Minotaur get a total of 20 character levels? Yes but like the above states, it will just take much longer for it to happen.

You must be this tall to ride...
Keep in mind that ELC should also be used when determining encounters for the party. If everyone is first level and one of the players is a minotaur, then treat it like the party has a 3rd level character in the group.

You think you have bad days at work...
I have through the years played many of the core races and had a great time. Since starting to take a long look at running monster races as a player and DM I realize there is another side to the typical story of adventure. One that looks to bring new life into old campaigns ideas. Like the typical minotaur encounter is almost always placed in a lonely maze, where he wanders and awaits the “heroic” adventure to come and slay him, take the treasure and returns to town to pay a good bard to embellish the story to epic proportions and increase his fame.

We as players and DMs have been happy with this. But if we assume the Minotaur is modestly intelligent at least enough to speak a language, works within a social group then what is his story? How did he end up in the maze? Was he captured or was this his night job while he was working through school? A different world opens up that we can make for some truly grand adventures...with a twist.

Comments Welcome and Thanks for reading!
Carrion

-- Would you serve beef stew to a minotaur?
ikki
02-25-08, 12:39 PM -- Would you serve beef stew to a minotaur?

-> you should look up what caused the socalled madcow disease.
The cattle wer fed slaughter-garbage, and their own feces to maximise growth as cheaply as possible.
ciaran
02-25-08, 06:31 PM it looks like you already put alot of work into this. I would suggest however avoiding the use of odd bonuses and penalties to ability scores. The end result is a total of +12 to physical stats. Maybe you could just drop in a +2 at each level.

Also, it might be fun to play a medium Minotaur for the first few HD. There is a Young Minotaur miniature. :)
Carrion_Buffet
02-25-08, 06:49 PM it looks like you already put alot of work into this. I would suggest however avoiding the use of odd bonuses and penalties to ability scores. The end result is a total of +12 to physical stats. Maybe you could just drop in a +2 at each level.

Also, it might be fun to play a medium Minotaur for the first few HD. There is a Young Minotaur miniature. :)

You forgot the negative stats that total -6. So his total stat increase at level 6 is +6 (+8 str +4 con -4 Int and -2 Cha).

The thing about this idea is it makes the +LA races more usable and only requires a minr adjustment to how they are handled.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Carrion_Buffet 02-25-08, 12:09 PM	Introduction I have a long history with DND as a player and DM. Although I have never published anything or even taken part in the forum here, I wanted to share my ideas for playing monsters as characters. My focus will be on the Minotaur as an example and I will discuss how you can start a monster at first level and advance him through its racial levels until it is “fully grown”. I will also state my understanding of ECL and its effect on level gain and party level. The Minotaur makes for a good example to work with as it is already defined as a player race. He has a language; “Giant”, and can be encountered in groups (Gang: 3-4) which means they possess some form of social interaction, and maybe even a basic society. Looking at the "Minotaurs as Characters" in the MM description we get an idea of what an impressive fighter type a minotaur based character would make at level 6. Strength of +8, a +4 to Constitution, -4 Intelligence, a -2 to Charisma and a +5 Natural Armor. But what if you are starting the character at level 1? What does a level 1 minotaur look like? Minotaurs and acne A young minotaur does not possess the full power that its adult body will one day wield. Below I have listed the progression I use to advance a player through the racial levels of a minotaur. The 1st Level Minotaur Total Stat Bonus: +1 Str, -4 Int and -2 Cha Size is large and take a 10x10 area with a 10 reach Special Qualities: Darkvision 60', Scent Special Attacks: Gore (1d8) 1st Character Feat +4 Racial Bonus to Spot, Search and Listen 2( x 4) skill point + intelligence bonus 1d8 hit points Proficient: Great Axe, Simple Weapons Skill List: Intimidate, Jump, Listen, Search, and Spot BAB: 1 FORT: 1 REF: 2 WILL: 2 Level Adjustment:+2 The 2nd Level minotaur Total Stat Bonus: +2 Str, +1 Con, -4 Int and -2 Cha +1 Natural Armor 4 skill point + (intelligence bonus x 2) 1d8 hit points BAB: 2 FORT: 1 REF: 3 WILL: 3 Level Adjustment:+2 The 3nd Level Minotaur Total Stat Bonus: +4 Str, +2 Con, -4 Int and -2 Cha +2 Natural Armor 6 skill point + (intelligence bonus x 3) 3d8 hit points 2nd Character Feat BAB: 3 FORT: 1 REF: 3 WILL: 3 Level Adjustment:+2 The 4th Level Minotaur Total Stat Bonus: +5 Str, +2 Con, -4 Int and -2 Cha +3 Natural Armor 8 skill point + (intelligence bonus x 4) 4d8 hit points BAB: 4 FORT: 2 REF: 4 WILL: 4 Level Adjustment:+2 The 5th Level Minotaur Total Stat Bonus: +7 Str, +3 Con, -4 Int and -2 Cha +4 Natural Armor 10 skill point + (intelligence bonus x 5) 5d8 hit points BAB: 5 FORT: 2 REF: 4 WILL: 4 Level Adjustment:+2 The 6th Level Minotaur Total Stat Bonus: +8 Str, +4 Con, -4 Int and -2 Cha 3rd character feat +5 Natural Armor 12 skill point + (intelligence bonus x 6) 6d8 hit points Special Attacks: Powerful Charge Special Qualities: Natural Cunning BAB: 6 FORT: 2 REF: 5 WILL: 5 Level Adjustment:+2 Continuing character levels over 6 the player can now gain class levels for example as a level 1 fighter (+ 6 levels of minotaur). As stated in the rules the fighter level is considered multi-classing for xp purposes. In the minotaur description it list that they have a favored class of barbarain. But in the section "Monsters as Races" it states the race is considered a prefered class and any class level is considered multi-class. This should be over ridden by a DM if the description for the player character has a preferred class like the barbarian for the minotaur. Note that the character does not get a stat point at level 4 as a normal character would. This is up to the DM, but I have it already factored it into the racial levels. As a DM option, you may want to allow the player to gain stats like other players do. In this case I would suggest reducing the largest stat by however many stat points a player would get over the racial levels. The minotaur above with 6 racial level would only gain 1 stat over six levels. If this were a stone giant with its 14 racial levels and that would be a total of 3 stat points(one at levels 4, 8 and 12). Anyways the Minotaur could have its strength stat from 2nd level to third level only go up by 1 point instead of the 2 listed. Then allow the player to gain the typical 4th level stat point to place where they want. Again, this should be at the D.M.'s discretion. I also believe negative stats should be front loaded. The -4 int and -2 cha at first level for example. I have a hard time seeing a player becoming dumber from one level to the next while still young and not without some outside influence (god,poison,curse). Feats Progression is exactly like a normal level progress; 1 at 1st, 1 at 3rd and 1 for every three levels there on. I did not list the feats listed in the MM. That is because the MM listing is a typical Minotaur and any player Minotaur would not be typical. I also did not list the alignment the d20 SRD has it as “Usually Chaotic Evil”. I see this as an open invite to any alignment for a PC and may even be the reason why the minotaur player has gone to adventure, basically he is just to different to play in all those minotaur games. ;) Some people may look at what we have here and say it is still overpowering for a PC. I will agree that a minotaur is a very nice fighter type, but it is by no means equal to a fighter. At level 6 we do have some great stats, but we also have some not so good ones. Our saves are nice on the reflects and will, but the fort is oddly very low and a +4 con bonus will only add +2 to that. Fortitude is usually a fighters good save and a good number of encounter use them. And using encounters that force a hard fort save, will be even more difficult for the Minotaur. Level Progression for the Level Adjusted Nothing has caused more of a heated debate in my gaming group than the application of level adjustment. The core disagreement comes from this in the rules Use ECL instead of character level to determine how many experience points a monster character needs to reach its next level.. I have an issue with this because it reads oddly when you concider a level 1 minotaur. It appears to say that in order for for a minotaur to go from level 1 to level 2 he must have the experience that a core race would need to advance to level 4. Think about a character going into combat agains EL 4 creatures and only 8hp +con bonus! Even with the added stats a minotaur gets he would not survive it and if you think that is bad try a mind flayer with its +7 LA fighting EL 8 creatures at 1st level. To make the race playable I have suggested and use this method for creatures with level adjustments. Take the level of the character and add the level adjustment to get the ECL, just like normal. The ECL is used to determine the experience gained when determining experience to advance in level. So looking at our minotaur we see he has a +2 Level Adjustment. If your Minotaur is in a party of level 1 characters and they finish a level 1 encounter. Use the experience chart as normal for all the player without a level adjustment. For the players that do have an LA, like out minotaur we use the ECL as the character level. So while all the other level 1 gain experience for the level one encounter, the minotaur will gain as a level three character (Level 1 Mino. +2 LA). At level 2 he will be gaining at a level 4 and so on. To determine when the minotaur goes from 1st to 2nd level use the same xp chart the other players use. Basically the level progression does not change, just the amount of experience gained per encounter. Eventually the non level adjusted player will gain levels faster than our Minotaur and will lag behind a level or two from the other players. For a DM that wants to allow a mino as a player race, this is also part of the balance inherited by the level adjustment. The mino will have fewer feats and gain level slower than the non-LA characters. The lag of any character drawn from the monster manual with an level adjustment will depend on the size of the level adjustment. The mino has a small +2, while the stone giant is +4 and the mind flayer is +7. The higher the number the farther behind the other players they become in actual character level. So what about max level? Can a Minotaur get a total of 20 character levels? Yes but like the above states, it will just take much longer for it to happen. You must be this tall to ride... Keep in mind that ELC should also be used when determining encounters for the party. If everyone is first level and one of the players is a minotaur, then treat it like the party has a 3rd level character in the group. You think you have bad days at work... I have through the years played many of the core races and had a great time. Since starting to take a long look at running monster races as a player and DM I realize there is another side to the typical story of adventure. One that looks to bring new life into old campaigns ideas. Like the typical minotaur encounter is almost always placed in a lonely maze, where he wanders and awaits the “heroic” adventure to come and slay him, take the treasure and returns to town to pay a good bard to embellish the story to epic proportions and increase his fame. We as players and DMs have been happy with this. But if we assume the Minotaur is modestly intelligent at least enough to speak a language, works within a social group then what is his story? How did he end up in the maze? Was he captured or was this his night job while he was working through school? A different world opens up that we can make for some truly grand adventures...with a twist. Comments Welcome and Thanks for reading! Carrion -- Would you serve beef stew to a minotaur?
ikki 02-25-08, 12:39 PM	-- Would you serve beef stew to a minotaur? -> you should look up what caused the socalled madcow disease. The cattle wer fed slaughter-garbage, and their own feces to maximise growth as cheaply as possible.
ciaran 02-25-08, 06:31 PM	it looks like you already put alot of work into this. I would suggest however avoiding the use of odd bonuses and penalties to ability scores. The end result is a total of +12 to physical stats. Maybe you could just drop in a +2 at each level. Also, it might be fun to play a medium Minotaur for the first few HD. There is a Young Minotaur miniature. :)
Carrion_Buffet 02-25-08, 06:49 PM	it looks like you already put alot of work into this. I would suggest however avoiding the use of odd bonuses and penalties to ability scores. The end result is a total of +12 to physical stats. Maybe you could just drop in a +2 at each level. Also, it might be fun to play a medium Minotaur for the first few HD. There is a Young Minotaur miniature. :) You forgot the negative stats that total -6. So his total stat increase at level 6 is +6 (+8 str +4 con -4 Int and -2 Cha). The thing about this idea is it makes the +LA races more usable and only requires a minr adjustment to how they are handled.