Monster level advancement


3.5/d20/OGL


I have a question on progression for monsters with class levels, especially for spell casting monsters:

A medusa cleric has 6 hit dice from it's "monster" levels... at Cleric 15 - does the epic progression start??? which is to say, under epic rules a creature stops gaining additional spell slots at 20th level... and Cleric 15 would put the medusa at level 21.

epic levels aren't my strongest suit, and with monster and multi-classed characters I'm finding some of the rules a little confusing.

Some clarification? Anyone?

- Ashavan


Even if your medusa is a 21st level creature, she's still a 15 th level cleric. If the cleric tables go to 20th level, use them. I don't have the books with me, but that's what I'd rule (unless someone else comes up with something brilliant to change my mind... And on these message boards, they often do!).

Ultradan


Koldoon wrote:

I have a question on progression for monsters with class levels, especially for spell casting monsters:

A medusa cleric has 6 hit dice from it's "monster" levels... at Cleric 15 - does the epic progression start??? which is to say, under epic rules a creature stops gaining additional spell slots at 20th level... and Cleric 15 would put the medusa at level 21.

- Ashavan

Actually, you have to take the ECL and add your normal classes to that. I don't have the books in front of me, but E-Tools tells me that a Medusa has a CR of 7 and 6 HD. Right there that makes the creature a level 13 "character", adding another 7 levels of a class like cleric would bump her up to a level 20 character... I just noticed that you meant advancing a monster using character levels.

Well then, scratch the above and breathe easier. You only have to take the CR of the creature and add to it the class levels. So, the Medusa has a CR of 7, add 13 levels of Cleric and you've got a level 20 monster. More levels added above that make it an 'epic' threat.

Hope that helps.

Celric


Ultradan is right as far as I can recall. Spell slot progression stops after Cleric level 20, not after 20 hit dice, even though a 20+ HD creature qualifies to start taking some Epic feats. She wouldn't be able to take Epic Spellcasting or Improved Spell Capacity, etc., because they require that you be able to cast spells of the highest available spell level for the specified class. But she'll continue to gain new spell levels and spells per day as normal until she maxes out on Cleric levels.

Scarab Sages

VedicCold wrote:
Spell slot progression stops after Cleric level 20, not after 20 hit dice, even though a 20+ HD creature qualifies to start taking some Epic feats. She wouldn't be able to take Epic Spellcasting or Improved Spell Capacity, etc., because they require that you be able to cast spells of the highest available spell level for the specified class. But she'll continue to gain new spell levels and spells per day as normal until she maxes out on Cleric levels.

Basically, this is correct. Epic progression starts with hit dice and really have nothing to do with ECL and CR (which makes it kind of odd to have an Epic character with a CR less than 20). This also has the reverse effect on powerful creatures like drow who really don't have any monster hit dice, but start at a higher ECL.

In your situation, you would add all the hit points as normal. The medusa would have 15 levels of cleric abilities including 15 levels of spellcasting as normal for a 15th level cleric. Skill points as normal for all levels. Where it gets a little tricky is with the feats, saves and to hit. To Hit -- Base is +6 for Medusa, +10 for 14 levels of Cleric, and +1 for being 21st level (one epic level) for a total of +17 (not including magic modifications and/or strength and dexterity modifiers). Saving Throws -- Fortitude Save is +2 for Medusa and +9 for Cleric -- total +11 base. Reflex is +5 for Medusa and +4 for Cleric -- total +9 base. Will is +5 for Medusa and +9 for Cleric -- total +14. You can only use the first 20 levels for saves so you can't add the extra reflex bonus that the cleric would normally get at 15th level. Epic bonuses to saves don't start until 22nd hit dice. Page 206 in the DMG has good tables to reference for quick epic progression regarding to hit and saves especially. The medusa will also get a total of 8 feats and one of those 8 feats can be an epic feat if she qualifies. With all cleric abilities -- including casting spells, treat the medusa as a 15th level caster.

Hope that this helps.

Bill

Scarab Sages

Koldoon wrote:


which is to say, under epic rules a creature stops gaining additional spell slots at 20th level... and Cleric 15 would put the medusa at level 21.

A character's spell slot progression can only advance up through 20th level and then it stops. There are some prestige classes that can make this happen sooner, but regardless, it stops at 20th level -- however there are some epic feats that can modify this.

For example if a normal character has ten levels in fighter and ten levels in wizard -- fine. If they choose to add an additional level in wizard, their spell progression, hit dice, and skill points progress as normal for an 11th level wizard. Their to hit, and saves would progress under the epic rules and they might be eligible for an epic feat (if they meet the prerequisites). This would continue until they had 20 levels in wizard (or related -- 15 levels in wizard and 5 level in archmage, etc.). Everything at this point progresses as normal -- first look to the PHB unless they are off the table, then look to the epic rules, but regardless, they cannot really progress more in with the spell slots.

I am not entirely sure why you would want to anyway -- how many battles in a day does even an epic level character get into and how many spells do they really end up casting in these battles? My experience is far fewer than you think. You end up really wanting more quality rather than quantity.

Bill -- Again.


I'm not looking at any books, but I clearly remember seeing, if not in the MM, then in the MM2, MM3, and FF, creatures with HD of 21+, with a CR of less than 20. They still have normal attack progression for a creature of that type, not epic. It is ECL, which is not HD + CR, but HD + LA. When the ECL gets over 20, that's when the epic mechanics come into play. At least, that's what I think the DMG says. I seem to remember them using a bugbear or hobgoblin fighter as an example.

Come to think of it, I think there are things with HD and CR above 20 that don't use epic rules- I'm thinking about the Pyroclasm, which can be seen on WotC's site under their Far Corners of the World retired feature. It's 50 HD, CR 25 undead, and I don't think it uses epic feats or progression. I could be wrong, though.

Scarab Sages

Saern wrote:


Come to think of it, I think there are things with HD and CR above 20 that don't use epic rules- I'm thinking about the Pyroclasm, which can be seen on WotC's site under their Far Corners of the World retired feature. It's 50 HD, CR 25 undead, and I don't think it uses epic feats or progression. I could be wrong, though.

Challenge rating is too ambiguous for use with epic levels, however, if you want to use some epic feats for some creatures with a CR over 20 but with fewer HD than 20, you could look into it for a case by case basis.

I found what you were referring to with the bugbear fighter. I had not seen that before. For those who care it is on page 109 of the DMG. Basically, the normal progression stops at 18 hit dice (regardless of where the hit dice come from) and then it goes to the epic progression because of the +2 level adjustment. The big problem with this is that there are only a (fairly) small number of creatures with an ECL adjustment -- and the medusa is not one of them. There was a dragon article a while back that gave a possible ECL but I don't know if this is "cannon" yet. And some creatures can be advanced with monster levels in addition to having character levels -- demons and devils immediately come to mind and they don't have level adjustments. With this in mind I would still go with the HD as the criteria for the epic progression (unless there is a level adjustment specifically listed in the DMG). I usually don't mind making the bad guys just a little bit tougher.

As far as creatures with more than 20 HD or with a total base ECL over 20 -- I have not found any rules that deal with this. It appears that the MM uses normal creature progression for to hit and for saves for creatures that have more than 20 monster hit dice. With that being said, I would argue that you could use epic feats for feats over 20 hit dice if the creature qualifies, but go ahead and keep the normal progression for that type of monster -- this would be true if you were doing a 30 HD carrion crawler or something like that.

If you were giving both additional creature levels and character levels to a very large intelligent creature, I would progress the monster levels as normal -- even over 20 HD. Then I would apply epic progression on character levels. This would be for an incredibly beefed up Balor or something similar. If you do this for a dragon, don't call me. It would probably take me the better part of 2-3 hours to do an advanced Great Wyrm Red Dragon with even 15 levels of Sorcerer and make it come across right.

I believe that the Player's Guide to Faerun has a good example of ECL with a centaur in it. The FAQ on WotC also talks about when a creature with a high ECL but hardly any additional HD takes level drains -- I believe that the example is a pixie.

I know that it is all confusing, but I hope that this helps.

Bill

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