About GM MonsterUpdates/clarifications since original recruitment post
Young characters (mechanically young) count the same in terms of CR as other characters. NPC classes count the same as other classes. Adding class levels: I have a system for adding class levels to monsters. If it turns out to be broken, we’ll tweak it. But it’s intended to keep monster PCs from getting too out of hand. It is not the same system as that listed in the pfsrd’s Monster Advancement section. IMO, that section exists for GM’s to make interesting monsters, where there’s less of an issue of GM’s making overpowered monsters that break the campaign. For PCs, there needs to be a more careful balance. Here’s the system:
Party size will be 3 at the very least and 7 at the very most. Much more likely, it will be 4-6. If the bestiary calculates CR differently than we would, e.g. CR X monster with Y class levels has CR less than X+Y, the bestiary CR will be overridden by our system so that monster's CR would be X+Y. The mutant creature template can grant telepathy but the creature must have enough of a mind to have something to communicate to the others. A being that only follows utterly primal urges can't have much depth of character development List of possible options, doesn't include neg templates and not necessarily exhaustive:
Raven Mite Sprite Thrush Biloko Pugwampi Gremlin (aura of unluck would have to be played VERY carefully) Grindylow Leaf Leshy Sagari Zoog Atomie Brownie Carbuncle (dicey on the communication side) Small elemental Faun Festrog Flumph Fuath Gremlin Ghoul Jinkin Gremlin Vexgit Gremlin Grig Gourd Leshy Nixie Pseudodragon Agathion, Silvanshee Angel, Cassissian Arbiter Archon, Harbinger Archon, Lantern Asura, Tripurasura Azer Blink Dog Choker Daemon, Cacodaemon Demon, Dretch (limited communication) Div, Doru Doll, Soulbound (great backstory potential, hugely creepy) Dragon, Faerie Dragon, Chromatic (white wyrmling) Dragon, primal (crystal, wyrmling) Draugr Food dog Forlarren (great RP potential due to remorse special quality) Imp Incutilis Jackalwere Kami, shikigami Leprechaun Leshy, Fungus Lycanthrope (boar, rat, wolf) Gremling, Nuglub Oni, Spiri oni Protean, voidworm Psychopomp, nosoi Qlippoth, Cythnigot Demon, quasit Rakshasa, raktavarna Ratling Sinspawn (7 variants) Skin stealer Tatzlwyrm Triton Vargouille (very creepy) Worg Juju zombie Begin original recruitment post You like your job well enough. The pay is small and sporadic. A silver piece here. A well-chewed shoe there. The work isn't hard and food and lodging are included. Sure the hours are long. The boss doesn't even know your name. Yeah you don't see the sun very often. The lodging might be a dank cave. And the food often comes in sharp metal packaging that can make it hurt to chew on. But all in all, being a monster guarding an evil wizard's lair is a pretty good gig! It sure beats being a lone monster that adventurers just stumble onto and gang up on in the woods… Game description:
Character creation mechanics:
For the most part, your stats will be the same as those of the monsters you chose from the bestiary (HP and background skills being the main differences as explained below). Whatever skill ranks, racial bonuses, feats, etc that monster has it what you have. Those stats can then be modified as you take templates, class levels, or grow into a more powerful but very similar monster (e.g. a ghoul becoming a draugr) such that you still have continuity of the same character. You will start off as CR 2 monsters. You may apply non-mythic templates as long as you keep a net CR of no more than 2 and as long as you have no more than a total of three zero or negative CR templates. No humanoid (or monstrous humanoid) creature types! You may play any non-humanoid monster that could reasonably work for an evil wizard in her lair in the woods and then go adventuring. So poltergeist is out, for example, because it is bound to a specific site. But whatever you play must be capable of communicating with the other party members. So you have to be capable of speaking some language or telepathy. And the party will need to have some language in common. To help with that, you get two background skills ranks for every CR you have. Max ranks in a skill will be based on your CR or HD, whichever is higher. You will want to consider level-up possibilities when you choose your monster. Monsters may take class levels (with each level counting as one CR) but class levels may never be more than half your CR. You might want to play a monster that has a power progression already, such as most elementals, dragons, etc. You can take and re-spec as we level to make things work out. For example, your young blue dragon monk 2 (CR 11) can become a young (-1) adult blue dragon (CR 12). There will be a lot of options for how to do your progression. But your character shouldn't change so much as to disrupt the concept. E.g. your advanced dryad warpriest 4 shouldn't become a vampire. In addition, there should be a match between what your monster is RPing, learning, practicing, how its changing, etc that matches the mechanical change upon leveling up to a higher CR. Players should be ready for the mechanical work of building and playing a monster. It will be significantly different than our classic PCs and will require some level of attention to detail. Players who aren’t ready to keep track of their monsters’ abilities won’t be well-suited for this game. Players who like mechanical challenges and building well will do well. A certain amount of power gaming will be fine as long as the RP does not suffer for it. Occasionally, an overpowered combo or element may arise which I will ban as necessary, e.g. the blood money spell is banned. When this comes up, I will just discuss it with the player(s) involved and we will find a solution that is as satisfactory as possible. Banned templates: Class templates (e.g. wizard creature), mythic templates, anything that comes up as game-breaking
No starting equipment except for what the bestiary says you would have. When you take your first class level, you may take traits. The first hit die that you gain you get full hp. After that, you get the avg rounded up (d8->5, d10-> 6, etc) at each hit die. Monsters don't get favored class bonuses.
Party roles:
Some party roles will be a lot easier to fill than others as monsters. Here are some important roles to think about how your party will fill them. Face (very important and very difficult, would probably require disguise or some sort of polymorph effect)
If everyone is a tank, striker, or scout, things will be very difficult indeed. If yours is the only submission capable of disguising yourself as a human and asking about the legend of the purple sorcerer in town, your chances of being selected go up. That said, if four other people have selected party faces, maybe you should fill another role.
Setting:
The entire game will take place in a homebrew setting of large river valley about 100 miles across and 150 miles long surrounded by mountains. The terrains here are mountains, plains, forest, swamp, underground, underwater, and urban. There are a number of small farming villages, a few larger towns, and two large cities. The cities tend to have more law and order but there is very little presence of a single legal authority over the entire region, so it's a little like the Wild West in that sense. The standard Golarion pantheon will be in play but you are welcome to develop a homebrew deity as long as you run things by me first.
Character description/backstory:
This game will have very weird PCs, both mechanically and descriptively. There will be many weird, odd, cool, and funny moments. But like any game, it will need interesting characters who are motivated both in and out of character. So your backstory should explain 1. how you came to be in the employ of an evil wizard guarding her lair, 2. what your motivations are, 3. what the personality, quirks, habits, etc of your character are, 4. what your character looks like, and 5. a way that you could see your character developing over the course of the game. Hint: Eating everything, acquiring power, and murder are all pretty uninteresting motivations to this GM. Having those are fine but there should be other, more interesting elements as well.. Second hint: Becoming more powerful is not interesting as a potential character development arc. A few examples of potentially interesting motivations:
A few examples of character developments:
Alignment:
All alignments allowed. That said, good alignments will have some trouble fitting in with monsters that might eat a significant portion of the creatures they encounter. On the flip side, being excessively evil will also be a problem. Just like any game, party conflict has to be kept tightly under control. Any action antagonistic toward another player needs to be run by me via PM first. You want to steal their sandwich? I'll probably ok it, depending on the situation, since that could be fun for everyone. You want to steal and sell their most important possession? No way. Additionally, the game would get old very fast if you alienated every creature you came across. Loot alone would be a big problem. Places that are easy enough for you to raid probably don't have much to loot but places with great loot will probably kill you if you try to raid them. And the game just won't work if you can't have alliances/conversations/business transactions/friendships with some npcs, including humanoids. Your alignment doesn't necessarily have to match what is listed for you in the bestiary but you would have to have a good backstory to explain and make up for the fact that your young lantern archon is CE. Evilish acts that aren’t going too far: Animating dead, casting evil descriptor spells, killing an objectionable individual who is causing problems for you, killing something in a fair fight and eating it, etc. Evil acts that are going too far: Any sexual violence (not in my game, maybe someone else’s), violence toward humanoid children, completely senseless murder of intelligent, non-threatening creatures. Good alignment constraints that would be going too far: Objecting to ever fighting anything, objecting to ever eating a foe that was already dead, objecting anyone in the party ever lying, stealing, or sneaking.
Game expectations:
I will post at least once a weekday and occasionally on the weekends unless something comes up that prevents it, in which case I will communicate that, almost always ahead of time. If you look at my track record on the boards, I’m pretty committed to keeping games moving forward. I expect the same from my players. I'm a fairly relaxed GM who mostly plays things by the rulebook but doesn't mind some rule of cool here and there. When I mess up, I'm happy to have it pointed out to me and I'll do my best to fix it. Posts should be descriptive, respond to what other players do, and push the action forward. Players will manage their own loot. As GM, I will provide a spreadsheet in which you can do this and occasional reminders but that is all. Players will get to deck out the dungeon they live in and use it as a permanent base, inviting other monsters to come live there, placing traps, etc. I will not introduce Yet Another Subsystem(TM) but instead will allow players to buy traps, materials to build traps, beds, etc for gp. Where I’m already aware of prices for something, I will use that. Where I’m not, players can either let me know where to find the price or I will rule something I deem reasonable. There may occasionally be challenges such as “there’s not enough food for this many monsters living together” but we’ll solve such problems with RP decisions, skills, etc, not a subsytem for managing kingdom resources. I’ve gone that route (e.g. in Kingmaker) and it can be fun but it’s not what I’m looking for in a monsters game. Leveling will be done according to XP earned and as if the party were equivalent to the same level PCs. This means leveling up will be fairly frequent since the party will probably be more powerful than PCs of level = CR. Maps will be on google slides.
How to make a complete submission:
Create an alias. Provide a detailed statblock in the same style as the bestiary. If I can’t undestand why your stats are the way they are, then we’ll have to fix that. Put a tagline into alias that includes AC T FF, HP, Saves, Init, Senses, Limited Use Abilities, and Botted Attack. Include an interesting background as discussed in the background portion.
Statblock format, copy paste:
Dagon (Demon Prince of the Sea) CR 27 CE Large outsider (aquatic, chaotic, demon, evil, extraplanar)
DEFENSE
OFFENSE
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 27th)
Spells Prepared (CL 20th)
STATISTICS
SPECIAL ABILITIES Water Mastery (Ex)
GEAR
I'll edit the profile of this GM alias to reflect clarifications arising from player's questions/comments. Recruitment will be open until at least July 2nd at 5:00 pm EDT. I may or may not choose to extend it depending on circumstances. When recruitment closes, the campaign will begin immediately. |
