What counts as a monster?

[Endonian]

I'm sure this question has been asked before, but is there anything that explicitly makes something a monster?
I'm playing the "Monster Trainer" from a third party publisher, and it focuses on the capture of monsters specifically. Its most important spell only affects monsters.

So, is there some way of knowing whether something is a monster or not? I heard that elves don't count as monsters, but for some reason Drow do.

[VRMH]

Physiological monsters or behavioural ones?

[Gaberlunzie]

There is no rules definition of "monster", because it's not a rules term. I have to say that not including such a definition in a 3rd party product while having a class centered around it sounds a bit sloppy.

I haven't looked at the class so it's hard to say definately, but I can see a few ways to consider it. These are, in order of most to least likely to be ruled a monster at my table:
1. Unintelligent magical beasts, unintelligent dragons (are there any?) and monstrous animals/vermin: These are relatively mundane but clearly monstrous creatures that are still non-sentient and where "training" is most relevant; it's the kind of creature you could use handle animal on.

2. Intelligent magical beasts and dragons. These are generally corporeal, non-humanoid creatures that are still of this world. They still feel somewhat like monstrous animals; they are "creatures" in the same way as creatures in the real world, though supernatural.

3. Aberrations, plants and certain outsiders. These are corporeal creatures, but much less "creatures" in the sense of things in real life. They are so much more alien.

If the 3rd party class is available online, you could link it and we could look in it for an answer, but without that it's hard to say.

[Gaberlunzie]

EDIT: If you're talking about the class from this product: [url=http://shop.d20pfsrd.com/collections/northwinter-press/products/mystical-kingdom-of-monsters]

then it seems to be intended from a custom campaign setting and/or the book itself includes definitions of "monsters". It seems to be something like a "pokemon pathfinder", which sounds interesting, but you can't really use such a class in a standard pathfinder game as it lacks the needed context to be used.

[Endonian]

Gaberlunzie wrote:

EDIT: If you're talking about the class from this product: [url=http://shop.d20pfsrd.com/collections/northwinter-press/products/mystical-kingdom-of-monsters]

then it seems to be intended from a custom campaign setting and/or the book itself includes definitions of "monsters". It seems to be something like a "pokemon pathfinder", which sounds interesting, but you can't really use such a class in a standard pathfinder game as it lacks the needed context to be used.

Ah, got it. Thanks for the help! I had to be sure, at least this came up before the campaign started.