Please, no. Make that a separate book.
If the MMIV taught us nothing else, it's that including monsters with class levels in a monster book will alienate many customers.
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There are several cases of classed monsters in the 3.5ed MM (ogre, hill giant, etc). These, I think, were provided as more of an example of how to do so, kinda like the Pack Lord displacer beast and the Dread Wraith were examples of advancing a monster by HD. While they are somewhat useful as a "plug'n'play" tool, I think they are much more useful as examples. I for one did not touch MMIV because I had no use for 15 diferent classed monsters that I already owned (mind flayers, hobgoblins, etc).
If PRPG is really being marketed to people mainly who are sticking to 3.x, then this group will know how to advance critters already. Leave the classed/templated/advanced monster examples for the adventures (now that's what I call "value added content"!).
Wasting space on monsters with class levels is the quickest way to lose a sale of the monster book to this particular customer.
Do not include class level versions of monsters - it is a waste of space.
Just say no.
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An appendix with Monsters with class levesl done chart style similar to the npcs in the 3e DMG would be cool.
Now this idea i like! Just as long as its kept to a minimum, so to keep the creative urges alive in GM's when they're thinking up the next big bad encounter for the players. Having everything already made takes something from the game i think!
Does anybody know if there are plans to get rid of the whole level adjustment thing that really made it almost impossible to play a monster as a character race in 3.5 with a 1st level party. That is one thing from 4th edition I did like, the playable monster races just had racial templates and no level adjustments and the like.
Charles
Personally, I would love to see two different advancement tracks for monsters that advance by character class
1) the basic warrior class be replaced by advancement with HD. If you don't expect them to last a battle, but want them to have class levels, just have a template that you can apply for the base warrior class assumptions.
and
2) for monsters that you expect to last longer then a single battle: by class level.
This method would be for things like kobolds and goblins and orcs and such. Not for things like zombies,
PLEASE NO. I don't want multiple versions of the same monster in the MM. I look at the 4e MM and sigh at how much room they wasted and how many monsters got cut because of it.
I totally agree with SirUrza. I was totally disappointed with 4th ed with major reduction of monsters as a result of wasting on class variations. The poor quality (watered down) of the 4th ed MM book was the final straw for me for using 4th ed. I deciding to dump 4th ed (wasted money on, call it school fees) and stick with 3.x with the help of Paizo, Mongoose Publishers, etc for additional new content for 3.x. I love monster diversity over monster variations any day. Beside, if PF can sort out multi-classing along with monster level adjustments, then there is no problem to create monsters with varying class levels.
PF has done a great job already for 3.x so far. I beg you, Jason, not to screw it up totally by going the same route as 4th ed when it comes to the MM books.
I wouldn't mind some extra versions, along the lines of 3.5mm entries (ogre barbarian and so on). But not every critter should have one, and there shouldn't be dozens of them for every critter. It's supposed to be a monster manual, not an encounter book. So if anything is there, make it just one.
The exception to this would be a number of humanoid critters without racial HD, like orcs, goblins, kobolds, the PC races. For them, I wouldn't mind, say, three: one for warrior and one for each favoured class. The warrior would be level 1, and the other two level 1-3.
But I agree that we don't need a manticore brute, a manticore weirdmage, a manticore priest, a manticore sneakmonster, a manticore waldmeister.....
Sadly it comes down to a space issue. If it were up to me I would put in....
Racial Levels for all monsters as these A. give players the option of usiing them as a playing race (Lizard Folk, Centaurs ect.) and B. give GM's the option of using a monster at lower levels.
A few Class levels ala MM, but only one option and only for humaniod critters. Same reasons as above.
Class options rules that were in the DMG should be put in the back of the book. This is only logical as the PHB and DMG will now be one book, so it saves some space there and is logical place for it.
Actual Class options should be put into specialized type of books.
Example just got Lords of Madness, loved the new Beholders and options for them. Books like that (which I'm going to assume Paizo will do eventually) should be done on one spicific type of Monster, an Adv. Path size sorce book on Orcs, with class options.
TTFN Dre
Alright, but is there any way to shorten the stat block of monsters. Compare the stat block from the beastry pathfinder (a full column-ish, that's from a low level one [#7] and a high level one [#5]) to the stat blocks in other RPGs (Mongoose Traveller's is 3 lines, maybe 5 if you're being wordy). I know that Monsters will never be that short, but is there a way to cut that down some?
Privateer Press did something interesting in the first Monsternomicon for their Iron Kingdoms setting. They used something called "quickplates." These were minor adjustments to a creature that typically only added one to its its CR. For example, the Bloddthirsty quickplate gave a moral bonus to initiative and attacks, but a penalty to AC. It also boosted Strength and Constitution by a few points.
The changes were small and could be added to an exisiting creature on the fly without any major changes.
Some quickplates were designed to represent different environments, while others were designed to change a creature's "role" (such as the stealthy and tough quickplates).
Adding something along these lines to the monster book would go a long way toward allowing a quick power boost for a monster without needing to fully advance the creature outright.
Personally i would like all creatures to be set out with racial features, so that it is possible to make them into NPC's with ease.
Leave it out of the MM, but a book with a huge stack of premade NPCs without races would be a godsend. Need a level 6 encounter quick? Look up level 5 Barbarian and apply Orc to it. Rinse, repeat.
Ooh... what a nice idea for a web page.
Leave it out of the MM, but a book with a huge stack of premade NPCs without races would be a godsend. Need a level 6 encounter quick? Look up level 5 Barbarian and apply Orc to it. Rinse, repeat.Ooh... what a nice idea for a web page.
Well...I have a web page with over 1000 stat blocks in it...
Ooh... what a nice idea for a web page.Well...I have a web page with over 1000 stat blocks in it...
Which ROCKS by the way!!
Any tools that make stat'ing out encounters quicker and easier are most appreciated. Most NPC generating software is semi-useful and currently none of it is tooled to PFRPG (I'm thinking Jamis Buck's NPC generator). But it is better than nothing.
I would rather have such a tool be available on-line (or downloadable) than in a book though.
CJ