Monster PCs, Bestiary I: Suggestions and Observations

"Have I failed my daughter? Then let the father die."

"And let the monster rise."


I've been thinking about last week's post a lot. I didn't really stress the disadvantage of being so down on intelligence enough, but overall it went pretty well. Ogre's combination of stat boosts and low CR means it's going to be the uber example of monster PCs, and this week I've flipped through the first Pathfinder Bestiary to discuss what you could allow and what you shouldn't. I feel this is going to be a better way to convey monster balance, because the abilities some of these types get are pretty varied. Plus, maybe I get to inspire a few character concepts along the way. This is kind of a read-along, and I apologize for that, but if I talked about every single stat a monster has we'll be here all day since I'm going through the entire book. If you don't have a book handy, all of these monsters are up on pfsrd.com.

Before we get started, I want to point out that the save DC of a supernatural ability will rise as a monster gains levels, since the formula is always 10 plus 1/2 hit dice plus an ability mod. The terms "HD" and "levels" are interchangeable in 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder. So, you can't look at the save DC of an ability as a mitigating factor to allow it or not. Unlike spell-likes, the save DC on a supernatural ability will always be a competitive one.

Also expect me in this and in future editions to conditionally allow some of these monsters, by editing or removing things, mostly supernatural abilities or spell-likes. This is because it's a damn shame to disallow a whole monster when it's so close to acceptable. In these instances, I heavily recommend you keep their lack of that ability in-character and work with the player for a reason.

Good examples are in turquoise. Bad examples are in red. I did want to include some of them to show my thought process. Some monsters are deceptively bad for player use, or even deceptively fine. As you'll see me say a lot, not all "at-will" spells are a big deal.


Awakened Ape, Gorilla. CR2, HD3. Magical beast. I'm putting this here for two reasons: the first is to talk in general about awakened animals. The second is that A goes first in the alphabet. Stat-wise, gorilla is a pretty good candidate for a PC if he's been the subject of an Awaken spell. He's got decent stat boosts, you can't argue him wearing magic items or armor, even if the armor would be specially tailored. Plus, there's intelligent gorillas all over popular culture.

Awaken has to be taken with a grain of salt, though. its core rules are to change it to magical beast, give the animal two more HD, 3D6 INT, and +1d3 CHA. I suggest taking this to mean the animal gets no INT or CHA bonus or penalty, and to knock off the two bonus HD. This is because two more HD is simply going to fuck all the math up and give the player two moderately crappy HD he'd rather not want. Awaken doesn't say, but I imagine he'd have to pay for those HD with another point of CR, which I'm sure he doesn't want.

As for other animals...well, a lot of them just don't fit a PC or provide a really daunting challenge to him. Even if you say a dog, wolf or tiger has all the magic item slots a human has...he still don't have hands. I mean, no animal is truly out of line so long as they're between sizes tiny and large, and some of them DO basically have hands. Depending on the tone of your game, allowing someone to play a Raccoon Sorcerer would be pretty memorable. Your Mileage May Vary, I guess.


Hound Archon. CR4, HD6. Outsider. Modifications: 2 less HD, removal of Greater Teleport, possible reduction to natural armor. If someone wants to play an angel type, REALLY an angel type and not just a Half-Celestial or Aasimar, there's not many options. They're just too powerful and don't have a whole host of various low-CR monsters like the evil outsiders do. This character would get decent stat boosts, Aura of Menace which is a sort of soft-taunt, and some decent spell-likes in addition to the standard outsider immunities. His HD are a bit of a problem, and expect me to suggest this with a lot of outsiders. Outsider HD are pretty good, with 6+INT skills, 1:1AB and two good saves. If you're worried about him being ahead on AB, definitely knock his HD down a bit. As for his spell-likes, they're pretty decent, with being able to slap Aid on everyone he knows before a fight and having a constant magic circle vs evil, but only Greater Teleport is the problem. Even though it's self only, it means getting around a lot of situational or geographic problems which may or may not be important in your game. At-will spells aren't normally that bad, but for greater teleport it is. As for his natural armor, it's nine. That's a lot considering he can still benefit from an armor bonus. Knocking it down by between 2 and 4 points may be necessary.

Oh, and he can turn into a dog. Hooray?


Bralani Azata. Conventional wisdom would say this is just the Azata version of the Hound Archon, filling the same CR as it. However, he's just got too many great abilities that aren't a big deal for an encounter, but very powerful for a PC. In addition to 6 natural armor, he's also got blur and mirror image ready for every fight he's in, perfect flight at a great speed, and whatever the hell his whirlwind form would do. It's just too much.


Boggard. CR2, HD3. Humanoid. If you want to play a Battletoad, these guys get all the cool frog stuff. They got a jump bonus, a sticky tongue, and amphibiousness. Their only very powerful ability is Terrifying Croak, which is an AoE shaken fear once an hour. Even then, it's only REALLY powerful if stacked with spells or Dazzling Display, since it can "step up" shaken to frightened.


Centaur. Really I'm only putting this here because they're super popular, something I never understood. They don't get any abilities or bonuses that are out of line, and even lose the number one bonus of being size large: The bonus damage. So, they'd be perfectly fine to add to your party if not for one thing: They can only go places that horses can go, which is even less places than your average size large monster. You can add a centaur PC to your game, sure, but the GM might struggle to keep you involved past basic architecture, something he doesn't always have to do with say, ogre.


Choker. These guys are probably a no-go for viable play, I just wanted to say I think it'd be hilarious to play a character whose only solution to every single problem it encounters is to choke something.


Cyclops. CR5, HD10. Humanoid. Modification: Way less HD. If you want to play an ogre but don't want the INT penalty, Cyclops is essentially you paying two more CR for Flash of Insight and better mentals. Flash of Insight is awesome, letting you choose the result of a die you roll, but only once a day. Just knock the cyclops down to like 5 or 6 HD and he's good to go.


Dretch Demon. CR2, HD2. Outsider. Modification: Slightly more INT. You may not think I'm serious here, but these guys aren't bad. In fact, they're kind of shitty when you factor in taking a whopping -6 to INT. Bump their INT up by 2 or 4 points and these would be fine to play. You'd essentially be playing an uggo gnome but with defensive abilities and better stats for its two level payment. Of course, you could also probably turn these guys into a base race via the race guide rules. This is one of the few that I'd say either/or.


Quasit Demon.  CR2, HD3. Outsider. Basically, take everything I'm about to say and apply it to Imps as well, because they're basically the same monster. Being size tiny means you're likely to only play them as casters, where things like a bit of extra AC, DR and fast healing are more helpful. You're also still paying 2 levels in a non-caster "Class" though, so that balances them out even further, to the point where I don't think they're that great. Invisibility at will may guide some people toward rogue, but you're still giving up some damage by virtue of being tiny, so I wouldn't ever expect a Quasit or Imp to be a damage all-star. Plus, plenty of people will have invisibility whenever they want it, since a wand of the spell is relatively inexpensive. A free Commune a week is nice too, but it's still only once a week. They're not bad, though. Quasit is going to slide generally closer to a rogue type, and Imps are better for casters.


Janni, CR4, HD6. Monsters are, in general, going to have nice stats, and Janni is no different. Other than that, however, it doesn't get much. It's got some nice spell-likes and improved initiative as a bonus feat, but that's kind of it. Plane Shift three times a day might seem great, but by the time anyone can survive most of the planes it can travel to, the party wizard is going to have plane shift anyway. Still, if you're leery, you can remove it entirely and the Janni likely won't miss it.


Ghoul. CR1, HD2. Modifications: Paralysis reduction. If you want to play an undead creature, ghoul isn't a bad option. It's low CR and all it really boasts is some stat boosts and its paralysis. As for it, you definitely want to restrict it to a number of times per day, or possibly only its bite. Crowd Control can win fights very easily, and a ghoul with infinite paralysis can spam people down. Monster paralysis does NOT offer additional saves per round, and you never grow immune to it by successfully saving.  Even so, the ghoul still has to deal with turning and healing itself, which is a mitigating factor.


Harpy. CR4, HD7. Monstrous Humanoid. Modifications: HD reduction, and see below. I really want to allow Harpy in some way, but even without captivating song they still have some fairly high stat boosts. Captivating song is huge, and even giving the Harpy a number of rounds of it per day would be pretty powerful. It creates a dominant strategy of the party plugging their ears then running roughshod over an encounter of helpless enemies. If you're okay with removing their iconic ability entirely, though...they aren't that bad. They get a +6 to Charisma, which might seem huge, but CHA dependent classes frequently lag behind others in PF and 3.X. That's assuming the harpy player even goes for a caster. with a CR of 4, that's a fairly big disadvantage. I'm not marking Harpy as good or bad here...since I still can't decide. Sorry.


Lizardfolk. I'm mentioning Lizardfolk and Gnolls here to say that these aren't really appropriate monstrous PCs. Instead, you should either convert them to a base PC race by hand, or use the rules and examples in the race guide. They don't get anything that justifies making the player take a point of CR.


Mephit. CR3, HD3. Outsider. These little guys are once again a monster race that edges toward sorcerer with their +4 to Charisma. Still, they'd do well in other roles, and none of them get anything that's THAT great. Fast Healing is already not that big of a deal, and these guys all have conditions on theirs that may or may not be easy to fill, meaning all it does is ensure the party cleric spends a few less spells on healing them between fights as they curl up in the campfire. Or a bucket of water. Or worse, depending on the element you pick, basically never get their fast healing bonus.


Minotaur. CR4, HD6. Monstrous Humanoid. Everything I said about Ogre or Cyclops you could say here. Playing the party Brute Squad is a really popular idea, and thankfully you've got several options. Minotaur has his gore attack which can 'throw in' when he attacks with weapons, which is nice. Natural Cunning is very unlikely to come up, though.


Skeletal Champion. As the sole template we're discussing today(see below) I should mention the "intelligent skeleton" template works fine for making a PC skeleton. So long as you avoid the variant skeletons, any powerful ability he might get is mitigated by the fact that he's going to be CR 2 and only have one HD, being plainly one level lower and not getting any numbers or HP from it.


Troglodyte. CR1, HD2. Humanoid. This is another one I want to gently suggest you come up with base PC rules for. They've got a lot of natural armor, but their stat spread kind of sucks, and Stench is nothing to write home about. In fact, unless the rest of the party all finds some way to become immune, he's not likely to be using it often. I could see a use for it in stacking penalties on enemies, since it's not an action to start it and the troglodyte could use dazzling display or something, but on its own...it's okay. Still, they're fine.


Troll. CR5, HD6. Humanoid. Modification: See Below. This is yet another in the "Brute Squad" template, and this time he's taken an additional 2 CR for a massive boost to CON, and regeneration 5. He's got natural attacks, but only the bite is going to see much use since it can be "thrown in" with weapon attacks. A player being exceptionally tough to put down isn't necessarily a hugely problematic thing, but even so, you may want to knock his CON bonus down a bit. As for Regeneration, I'm unconvinced that it's a huge problem. The player can still be put out of a fight, even if they aren't prepared with fire and acid. The days of 3.5 where regeneration was insanely good are fairly gone, and in Pathfinder it's more like Fast Healing plus. If you're worried or having a problem, consider knocking the number down.


I probably left a few monsters out. Wights might be okay to play if you remove their ability to create spawn. There's some aquatic monsters I passed over for being relatively tied to the oceans. Others might have had a high CR, or a huge host of abilities on top of really nice stat adjusts. A lot of monsters are okay to play, but none of them were designed with that in mind so there's always going to be some sort of consideration.

A few notes on types. Outsiders are always going to have to worry about spells like Dismiss, but just like Droid characters in Star Wars worrying about being memory wiped, it's best that you keep this to a vague threat. It may be the "logical" thing to do in a combat, but consider what you're doing. You're putting him out of a session entirely, maybe several. You also might find it logical to make him work to get back, since even outsider players still in line with their brethren socially are probably going to be on the "outs" somehow. Another situation where he has to go pick up the pizza...or bring his 3DS to session. Not so good.

Undead also have some things to worry about, like the fact that they die immediately at 0 HP or dealing with turning. In addition to that, the undead player has to deal with the fact that a raise dead spell would return them to life, which is something the player certainly doesn't want, and the character might not either. In this case, I seriously recommend Pathfinder GMs take a page from Forgotten Realms and introduce the spell Return to Undeath, which is roughly identical to Raise Dead, except it returns an intelligent undead back to un-life. Obviously, they don't take a negative level. This is necessary to keep the undead player playing the character they want. In many cases, an intelligent undead is no longer the person they were in life, and it would really stink for your badass level 20 mummy fighter to come back as a level 5 aristocrat. Having to struggle or carry wands to heal themselves is probably enough to worry about.

I also didn't discuss templates. Basically, as written you're giving up a single level for a whole hell of a lot of abilities, in particular from half-celestial and half-fiend. Initially I want to tell you to bump the CR up to a +2 to compensate, but straight up losing one or two levels is a big deal. I'm sorry, but I really don't know what to tell you right now. The templates in Bestiary 1 are pretty powerful, but definitely not worth the 4 levels 3.X wanted you to pay.

We'll continue this at some point with the other Bestiaries, but I can't imagine we're doing all six. At some point, I'm sure ya'll will catch on and no longer need me.

Monster PCs: Are they really that bad?

You saw the clickbaity title, let's fucking go. I love monstrous PCs and they're always of dubious balance. I know for a fact that it matters a lot at lower levels, but I always wondered if that holds up later on. We haven't really run many 3.X or Pathfinder games at higher levels, let alone with a monstrous PC. So since the math is escaping me and I was going to crunch it anyway, we might as well do it together. That means Punch and Judy are back, so let's put down some ground rules to the test.

Punch is playing a human fighter. He showed up at the last gaming session drunk and got in a fight about playing his half dragon, half vampire tanari-ri spellshaper, and his punishment is to play a race from the core book. We're giving him the best chance he can get when compared against Judy while still building a "normal" character. We could have given him orc as a race, and this test would go similarly, but human is not a race to be scoffed at, and it let him put a +2 into Strength.

Judy is playing an ogre fighter. Seeing as how she stopped Punch's rampage by suplexing him through a card table, the GM is being a little lenient and letting her pick a monster PC. We chose ogre for several reasons: It's a low CR monster ostensibly good for converting into a PC. It's the best numbers a monster PC will ever get, hands down, with its +10 to strength, +4 to constitution, and +5 natural armor. Speaking in terms of raw numbers, this is the best a monster PC is ever going to get, and every other choice is likely to be worse. Third, it's got no special abilities. These are obviously something that needs to be balanced on a case by case basis and not something I can give general advice on.

HP is standardized, and the stat spread is 18, 16, 14, 14, 12, 10. This is a decent spread to run a game with, and while I always recommend GMs let players slide points around, we have not done so in this instance. Punch and Judy aren't the kind of people that can be trusted with that.

Judy will receive a bonus level of fighter between levels 7 and 8. This is a standard Pathfinder rule, and while I'm not entirely certain of its balance, we're including it. Watch for Judy's "Ogre" levels to go from 3 to 2. In addition, the book says to treat the monster's CR as its total levels, so I did so for purposes of feats and stat bonuses. She still received the other numerical bonuses for having 4HD.

They will not be building identically. While I feel they should both be going for the same sort of role, building identically wouldn't really prove anything. They're both going to be shooting for getting the most damage they can out of a full attack action with a two handed weapon, but as you'll see Punch has some strengths he wants to leverage, and it would be unfair to ignore that.

We won't be discussing magic items. This is not only because they could just be wearing the same shit, but also because precisely what you're spending your money on can be a huge X-factor. I will absolutely put notes down about magic items later when we discuss "intangibles" that aren't represented by the stat blocks, but there aren't many differences. This also means me including AC and CMD is a bit pointless, since neither character is going to be leveraging Armor Training without DEX boosting items. In this case, we can just say Punch has a minor advantage: Not only does he have 2 extra DEX, but he's also receiving Armor Training a little faster. It won't close the gap caused by her natural armor entirely, but it'll help.

We won't be discussing Skills. Judy is just behind in this. Me listing out exactly what they spent their skill points on would take up too much space for something that's never going to change. She loses this comparison over all levels. She gets one skill at max rank, and Punch gets four. This is absolutely a disadvantage, and don't dismiss that: Most games are not going to be more than 60% fighting, and that means Judy is 'down' for 40% of the time.

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PUNCH
Race: Human
Level: Fighter 5
STR 21(5) DEX 14(2) CON 16(3) INT 14(2) WIS 12(1) CHA 10(0)
FORT +7(4base+3con) REF +3(1base+2dex) WIL +2(1base+1wis)
AC 21(9armor+2dex) CMD 22(5ab+5str+2dex)
HP: 47

BAB: +5

Feats: 1 Weapon Focus, 1b Improved Unarmed Strike, 1b Combat Expertise, 2b Power Attack, 3 Improved Trip, 4b Weapon Specialization, 5 Combat Reflexes

Attacks: +11, 1d10+10

Equipment: Full Plate(+9), Halberd(1d10, Brace, Trip)

--

JUDY

Race: Ogre

Level: Ogre 3(4HD) Fighter 2

STR 29(9) DEX 12(1) CON 20(5) INT 08(-1) WIS 14(2) CHA 08(-1)

FORT +14(7base+5con) REF +2(1base+1dex) WIL +3(1base+2wis)

AC 24(9armor+1dex+5nat-1size) CMD 26(5AB+9str+1dex+1size)

HP: 67

BAB: +5

Feats: 1 Weapon Focus, 3 Power Attack, 4b Improved Sunder, 5 Lunge, 5b Toughness

Attacks: +14, 3d6+13

Equipment: Full Plate(+9), Large Greatsword(3d6)

--

Judy is a really clear winner here at level five. Punch is still putting his build together, whereas Judy is leveraging some really easy early bonuses. With power attack, she can lower her attack bonus to +12(still just above Punch's) for a whopping 3d6+19 damage. She also has an immense amount of HP and is wholly unafraid of popping Lunge to stack on her reach. She took Improved Sunder early because of her Strength advantage, but also because she has way less "combo" and "setup" in her feats than Punch. At any rate,  Punch loses this round pretty badly. That's okay, though: We knew he was going to. 

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PUNCH
Race: Human
Level: Fighter 10
STR 22(6) DEX 14(2) CON 16(3) INT 14(2) WIS 12(1) CHA 10(0)
FORT +10(7base+3con) REF +5(3base+2dex) WIL +4(3base+1wis)
AC 21(9armor+2dex) CMD 23(5ab+6str+2dex)
HP: 89

BAB: +10/+5

Feats: 1 Weapon Focus, 1b Improved Unarmed Strike, 1b Combat Expertise, 2b Power Attack, 3 Improved Trip, 4b Weapon Specialization, 5 Combat Reflexes 6b greater trip 7 vicious stomp 8b greater weapon focus 9 improved critical 10b critical focus

Attacks: +20/+15 1d10+13
Trip Attack Round: +22/+17 1d10+13, +19 1d3+7

Equipment: Full Plate(+9), Halberd(1d10, Brace, Trip)

--

JUDY
Race: Ogre
Level: Ogre 2(4HD) Fighter 8
STR 30(10) DEX 12(1) CON 20(5) INT 08(-1) WIS 14(2) CHA 08(-1)
FORT +15(10base+5con) REF +4(3base+1dex) WIL +5(3base+2wis)
AC 24(9armor+1dex+5nat-1size) CMD 27(5AB+10str+1dex+1size)
HP: 125

BAB: +11/+6/+1

Feats: 1 Weapon Focus, 3 Power Attack, 4b improved sunder, 5 Lunge, 5b Toughness 6b greater sunder 7 weapon specialization 7b cleave 9 improved critical 9b greater weapon focus

Attacks: +23/+18/+13 3d6+17

Equipment: Full Plate(+9), Large Greatsword(3d6)

--

The first thing you'll notice is why I'm leery of giving Judy another class level at any point. She doesn't really need it, and in this instance it means she's effective level 10, and has a BAB of +11, letting her attain three attacks per round a level early. So, right there I feel we should throw that rule out or alter it so it's one bonus every four or even five levels, or simply only apply it to players who are really missing those class abilities like casters. I honestly thought about shifting this example to level 12 so the number of attacks looks better, but this was too indicative of why that particular rule wasn't great in this specific example. Please keep in mind that Punch will catch up to three attacks next level.

That said, Punch has finished the core of his build: He picked Halberd to trade a little damage for an extra +2 to trip. He didn't have to do that, he could be rocking a greatsword or an exotic weapon. The plan is to trip so he can proc AoOs from himself and his party and also get a decent 'throw in' attack via vicious stomp. Ironically, if this were a competition, Punch would be using Judy's massive reach and damage 'against' her by providing her with an AoO to take. That would count as 'his' damage since he's the one who created the opportunity. For her part, Judy is trucking along with a pretty typical power attack tree build. There's no "combo" for her to leverage: just various combat options and direct bonuses.

Is Judy still ahead? Yep. Does she still have a truckload more HP? Yep. Note that her Toughness feat accounts for 12HP, though. What's interesting is how Punch has caught up: First off, he's leveraging a build that Judy couldn't attain without some heavy attributes shifting, and it probably wouldn't be worth it even then. She absolutely is locked out of certain types of build. If Punch can reliably trip, he's getting an additional attack overall and a +2 to hit.  Second, he's two levels ahead, and that means he's already got Weapon Training 2. Third, Judy is only ever going to be between three and five points ahead, and as they level, it'll start to matter less.

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PUNCH
Race: Human

Level: Fighter 20
STR 25(7) DEX 14(2) CON 16(3) INT 14(2) WIS 12(1) CHA 10(0)
FORT +15(12base+3con) REF +8(6base+2dex) WIL +7(6base+1wis)
AC 21(9armor+2dex) CMD 23(5ab+7str+2dex)
HP: 174

BAB: +20/+15/+10/+5

Feats: 1 Weapon Focus, 1b Improved Unarmed Strike, 1b Combat Expertise, 2b Power Attack, 3 Improved Trip, 4b Weapon Specialization, 5 Combat Reflexes, 6b greater trip, 7 vicious stomp, 8b greater weapon focus, 9 improved critical, 10b critical focus, 11 bleeding critical, 12b greater weapon specialization, 13 stand still, 14b penetrating strike, 15 felling smash, 16b greater penetrating strike, 17 staggering critical, 18b stunning critical, 19 critical mastery, 20b lunge

Attacks: +33/+28/+23/+18 1d10+18
Trip Attack Round: +35/+30/+25/+20 1d10+18 +32 1d3+10

Equipment: Full Plate(+9), Halberd(1d10, Brace, Trip)

--

JUDY
Race: Ogre
Level: Ogre 2(4HD) Fighter 18
STR 33(11) DEX 12(1) CON 20(5) INT 08(-1) WIS 14(2) CHA 08(-1)
FORT +20(15base+5con) REF +8(7base+1dex) WIL +9(7base+2wis)
AC 24(9armor+1dex+5nat-1size) CMD 27(5AB+10str+1dex+1size)
HP: 230

BAB: +21/+16/+11/+6

Feats: 1 Weapon Focus, 3 Power Attack, 3b improved sunder, 4b Lunge, 5 Toughness, 6b greater sunder, 7 weapon specialization, 8b cleave, 9 improved critical, 10b greater weapon focus, 11 critical focus, 12b sickening critical, 13 staggering critical, 14b weapon specialization, 15 stand still, 16b greater cleave, 17 stunning critical, 18b improved bull rush, 19 awesome blow, 20b greater bull rush

Attacks: +37/+32/+27/+22 3d6+24

Equipment: Full Plate(+9), Large Greatsword(3d6)

--

Again that bonus level sticks in my craw, giving Judy a BAB of 21. I looked it up and no, this does NOT mean she gets another attack. Thank god. I adjusted the levels she's getting feats at to avoid a headache as well. The fact that she's got less feats than Punch remains the same. I also want to note that both builds had a hell of a lot of directions to go, and I deliberately leaned on taking Critical feats with Punch because I knew I was doing that with Judy. He could discard all of those and shoot for shatter defenses, whirlwind attack, or other stuff. He's got a lot of options. Judy has some too: She could've reached Awesome Blow earlier or taken more stuff like Improved Overrun instead of crit feats. 

For power comparison, we see that Punch lost a little bit of ground in hitroll since both have finished Weapon Training. Judy is still doing a lot more damage overall, with a single hit being an average of 34 damage to Punch's 23. He is, however, getting a stomp attack in as well as causing greater trip AoO opportunities, something Judy's build probably couldn't ever do. She's still ahead on attack, damage and HP, but it isn't as clear. Note that Judy's big bucket of HP was attainable by a regular PC, and Punch may have something similar if he were able to shift attribute points around.

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So what did we learn? We gave Judy the best chance she'll ever get to outclass a human fighter, and it ended up closer than I thought it would. If this is the best that "reasonable" monster PC options have to offer in terms of power, I think most GMs could easily consider monstrous options. Let's put some bullet points below explaining a few things. 

Judy's damage is from a size advantage, as well as the two-handed weapon multiplier. she gets a bonus D6 compared to a medium character, first off. She's always a die type ahead. Second, the 1.5 damage multiplier on two handed weapons is better and better the more strength you've got. She's leveraging her best bonus in this case by insisting on a greatsword. Were she switch to longsword and shield(since two weapon fighting isn't viable for her) her damage drops to 2d6+19 at level 20. 

Magic Items are going to help Punch a little more than Judy. By level 20 they're both going to have +10 equivalent weapons, but Punch has the option of a monk's belt to increase his vicious stomp damage. 

Punch's damage could have been better. If he were an orc with a greatsword, it'd be 2d6+20, or an average of 27 damage. He'd be losing a +2 to trip for a weapon swap, and a feat would be the major loss for going orc. 

The bonus levels from playing a monstrous PC are deceptive. I feel they should only be used in a case where the monster is going against the grain of their race, shooting for utility, or playing a caster. Judy really didn't need it. 

Judy being two levels behind may or may not matter. Yeah, this is kind of the elephant in the room, Judy's ogre fucking rocks if it's going to be a short game where Punch can't catch up. She's missing the quite important Armor Mastery and Weapon Mastery currently, but if the game's going into epic levels...she'll get them soon. If the game didn't even reach 20? Punch didn't get them either. GMs should consider ABOUT how long their game is going to go in some cases before allowing something.

Judy's INT penalty is not a worthless disadvantage. I did this on purpose. The Combat Expertise tree isn't useless. Neither are skills, not even to a fighter. Some people are content playing the sort of guy who "wakes up" for combat and surfs the net on his phone while skills are being rolled...but it's not exactly the most enjoyment you can get out of PNP games. A good GM can make Judy feel her disadvantages.

Size will probably come into play. That's what she said. In combat, being size large is a huge advantage, and being size small is a disadvantage. However, in non-combat situations this is reversed: being large is only a nuisance, and being small lets you fit in and through things as well as giving a stealth skill bonus. Again, do not take any of Judy's disadvantages lightly. Don't completely fuck her out of an adventure, though. It may seem 'logical' that she can't fit into a dungeon entrance, but what's the player going to do, go pick up the pizza? 

Class factors in to your decision. I can go into the specifics of what to look for in monsters later, but in general, primary attributes matter most, so the class the player is picking is absolutely a factor. If Judy had picked Ogre but then played a cleric, or even a monk, she'd still have a perfectly viable, even powerful character, but the gap here wouldn't be nearly as exaggerated. Strength and Dex are your particular problems here. There are a ton of monsters with modifiers of +8 or higher in these attributes, but far less with huge bonuses in the other four. I should probably turn this into an additional blog topic, but in general, you're worrying a lot less about monster casters.

So what did we learn? Well, like I said, Ogre was Judy's best possible chance to be better than Punch, and even then she only ended up 3-5 points of attack and about six or so damage. She's got more HP, but honestly that can sometimes relieve a GM, and let them throw a bunch of attacks at her if things are going south for the party. Judy's HP isn't outside the realm of normal possibility, anyway.

So in summation? If a monster is under CR5, it's probably fine to allow in your game. Double-check any abilities it has, and we'll go deeper into advice later. 

In Defense of the Bad Guy: Goblinoids

"There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world."


Anyone who's played even a single PNP game with me knows that I really don't like playing "normal" people. Even when the character is a basic human or demihuman I tend to do SOMETHING with the concept. There's this thing I call "Some Guy Syndrome" where TV shows or movies remove all of the interesting or quirky parts of a character to make them more like a regular person from the real world. Usually this is in the name of making the show a more palatable drama to "normal people". I'm looking at you, Smallville. I hate it. It takes a deep character with a compelling look or story and turns them into (title drop!) just some guy.  Anyway, basic, no-frills character concepts of straight humans or demihumans always feel like that to me, so I always have this drive to shake them up, even if it's just in the character's appearance or mannerisms.

So as you guessed it, I like playing weird monstrous races in things. I love the Horde in WoW(though I play both factions, fuck buying into manufactured team rivalry crap) and I've had a soft spot for goblins of all kind, from WoW's intelligent, sarcastic profiteers with New York accents to Pathfinder's little bigheaded idiots who chant and burn everything. Goblinoids are a category of races I always loved, but there's always some level of resistance. I've had GMs who were as harsh as saying an orc would be killed on sight by any human civilization that so much as catches a glimpse of one, but even laid-back GMs are gonna be cautioning you to be careful. It doesn't matter if your goblin is a LG Paladin of Humility and Grace...he should probably still wait outside of that gnome encampment.

So since I don't talk about character building nearly often enough, we're starting up a thing where I discuss little-played or monstrous races in a frank manner. This is going to be geared toward Pathfinder, but obviously a lot of this advice applies to 3.X as well. Races didn't change THAT much. We're also including some "Goblinoid adjacent" races here since they're always discussed as being part of that group anyway. You also want to brush up a bit on how you play a monstrous PC, but in general, you count their CR as "levels" and take their HD. Meaning, a CR 3 monster with 5 hit dice takes those hit dice like levels, then counts as a level 3 character. If he takes fighter next level, he'll have 5 HD, 1 Fighter, and count as a level 4 character. Don't worry, I'm going to discuss character theming too.

Before we get into the individual races, let's more officially address the elephant in the room. Even if your GM is laid-back about this sort of thing and portrays races reasonably or even liberally, people are in conflict with goblinoids a lot. Goblinoids form shitty, brutal societies and are very often evil in alignment. A universal drawback of these character options is that you're going to run into discrimination at some point, even if your world has plenty of cities where a goblin or an orc can hang out and buy a kebab. There will be that one city that rolls out its guards when it sees you or that one shop you straight up can't go into. It's the disadvantage, and while I don't recommend you play the kind of person who's penitent about the rest of their race(It's too cliche, more on that later) I do suggest you roll with it. It can be fun to do stuff like go back and forth with a guard and talk yourself out of trouble if the GM is willing.


Bugbear. CR 2, HD 3. Hooray for alphabetical order, huh? Our first candidate is one of the most misunderstood monsters in D&D history. They just always felt like they didn't have much of a place, thematically. Hell, ask a D&D fanboy you know to explain them without looking them up and they may not even be able. Regardless, these guys are NOT a bad character option, and okay as far as "cheap" monster PCs go. In general, people playing monstrous PCs are trading off class levels for statistical boosts or useful monster abilities. Sometimes they're tougher due to having monster HD, but often it's...really not that great. These guys are pretty good because they're only trading off two levels and they get some decent stuff for it. +6 STR, +2 DEX, and +2CON make them decent at basically any melee fighter role, but if that's all you wanted you'd obviously be playing an ogre or something. No, these dudes shine because they have darkvision, AND scent, AND they always have perception and stealth as class skills. They're good for making a kind of off-stealther without even taking any levels in a utility class. All while still crushing heads in. Overall bugbears aren't bad, but they're niche-y and outshined by some other races. Definitely one of your bigger pieces of evidence if you're trying to prove that monster characters aren't automatically better.

Bugbears are also the least likely out of any race I'm about to discuss to be a decent guy. Where other goblinoids are shitty because they're lazy or opportunistic, Bugbears are sadists. They enjoy causing pain, suffering and destruction, and they enjoy making it personal. To fit in with a party of good or neutral PCs, you'd have to adopt concepts such as being standoffish and private, like a sadist who knows it's wrong but can't resist enjoying it.


Goblin. Basic Racial Option. These guys are the fucking ringers of Dungeons and Dragons. No other race this powerful is overlooked this hard. The basic version is pretty simple, with -2 STR, +4 DEX, -2 CHA, +4 to ride and stealth, and a bonus to their move speed that mitigates the Size Small penalty. First off, without taking any of their racial ability trade-offs, their stealth score is going to be immense. In addition to their dex bonus, we're talking a +8 bonus before we even get to ranks, just due to racial bonuses and size. Being size small stinks for damage, but they're great candidates for a dip into Unchained Rogue to get Finesse Training and mitigate their damage penalties. +4 DEX is a big bonus for you to leverage. They've also got some pretty neat options available like a bite attack or a climb speed(without getting into their racial variant Monkey Goblins). Their favored class options are pretty good, with sorcerers being able to add bonus spells known so long as they have the fire descriptor, rogue getting flat bonus damage during surprise rounds or before their target has acted, or alchemist getting fire resistance. Finally, they have access to a feat I'm shocked hasn't gotten more visibility: Goblin Gunslinger. They can mitigate the penalty for wielding medium firearms. Their other feats like Fire Tamer or Flame Heart are okay too, and good enough to take for some small amount of characterization.

While this is yet another race that's characterized as being dumb and superstitious but without being given an INT or WIS penalty, I can't help but love these guys. They're weirdly adorable, what with their love of fire and explosions but also music and singing. They keep infants in communal cages where they can be ignored...but they have no concept of misogyny. They're savage and cruel, but poor planners, and usually portrayed as honestly kind of derpy. Playing these guys straight is a blast, but they're still fun even if you tone it down a bit based on having a neutral alignment or annoyed co-gamers. For some more serious notes, it can be very interesting to play someone from a brutal and selfish society who has to try and fit in with other people now. Vicious cruelty isn't genetic, and with their natural curiosity, I imagine many of them become adventurers. Probably die like stinkbugs too, but hey. They breed quick.


Hobgoblin. Basic Racial Option.  Never been a big fan, but hobgoblin is okay. They're one of very few races with two bonuses and no penalty, in this case +2 DEX and +2 CON. Other than that, they've got +4 to Stealth, Darkvision 60ft and...that's it. Pretty mediocre. Not bad, but not very interesting. Some neat stuff comes up in their options, like being able to trade their darkvision for +1 to AC, this being one of the only times D20 overvaluing darkvision was to the benefit of the player. They can also take some enticing alt traits like one that gives whip proficiency or a flat +1 to their CMD. They've got a nichey little feat that extends the length of intimidate when they strike with a whip or other flail category weapon. In a Shatter Defenses build, this can be kinda nice, since it puts off having to "waste" another turn on Dazzling Display.

What Hobgoblins lack in mechanical style, they make up for with their racial themes. Militant and cruel slavers, hobgoblins are a true parallel to Star Trek's Cardassians. They're cunning and detached, and coming from such a society(whether you play your character straight to the themes or not) is a wealth of opportunity. They enforce detachment(even forcibly weaning children early) and youth is filled with nothing but military training for their future. They see other races as tools and fodder to be enslaved. You can really see where a character like Gul Dukat could come from this society. If you want to play a classically lawful evil character, this is a great race for one. If you want to play someone struggling with morality or railing against a brutal system he wants no part of...this is also an excellent race to consider.


Kobold. Basic Racial Option. Kobolds are not technically goblinoids, but you can scarcely talk about goblinoids without including them. Outwardly they seem lackluster, with shitty stat adjusts(-4 STR, +2 DEX, -2 CON), but they get normal base speed(like goblins) and +1 natural armor. They also get some stealthy/utility stuff like stealth always being a class skill and darkvision. They also have light sensitivity at base, which can be a pain. It's a -1 to attack rolls and vision based perception checks in areas of bright sunlight or a daylight spell. This just isn't going to come up as often as you think. I mean, it says BRIGHT sunlight. Ask yourself how often it's "bright" out. Even when it does come up, it's only a -1 to attack rolls which can be mitigated with gear or feats depending on your setting and GM. Not trivial, but also not a huge deal. They get a feat similar to the rogue talent Fast Stealth and also one that gives a bonus to sniping, They can also take some "Draconic Transformation" feats that are okay at best, but kinda neat. The first one is worthwhile just for an easy resistance 5 in an energy type. Overall this cements their position as being a caster type that can sneak, but you've got some wiggle room...and there are worse niches.

Thematically these little guys got turned into dragonlings at some point, but I'm okay with that. They're still sneaky little passive aggressive bastards who live in warrens so cramped that it's uncommon for a single Kobold to have any concept of privacy. They're cowardly but practical so often turn to less direct solutions to problems. If you wanted a concept similar to a goblin but more serious in tone, Kobold is a great place to turn. They're less outwardly cruel or boisterous, but instead quiet and sinister.


Ogre. CR 3, HD 4. This is our second race that isn't actually a goblinoid, but just like kobolds they're married to the category. Even moreso, since they're often used as "the heavy" in an encounter of orcs or hobgoblins. While there is a much less powerful "player friendly" version of the Ogre in the Advanced Race Guide, in general you're looking at some pretty hefty bonuses. They've got a staggering +10 to STR, but also -2 DEX, +4 CON, -4 INT, and -4 CHA. They also have the reach and extra damage of being size Large, Darkvision(sensing a theme here?) and a +5 natural armor bonus to AC. Pretty hefty shit for the equivalent of 3 levels. Conventional wisdom points toward playing something like fighter or barbarian, but with no wisdom penalty, you can easily get pretty fucking wacky with an ogre and do something like cleric or monk. If you lean on your immense STR bonus and hefty AC, you can make up for a lot in terms of concept and make your character into a "switch hitter" who's got utility of some kind but can still smash people with a tree trunk if he needs to. You could even willingly take slightly less treasure, spreading some gold around your allies and trusting your STR bonus to keep you competitive. That all said, your size IS going to be an issue and there's going to be places you can't go, or worse, you'll have to buy an item that shrinks you at some point. It'd be pretty mean for a GM to create a whole adventure you can't go on, but it just can't never come up. If you think I'm exaggerating, I want you to go outside with a tape measure. I'm serious. Go outside to the side of your house and measure out how tall ten feet is. That's the average ogre.

Thematically the books have always trumped up ogres as being the worst. the PF bestiary implies they're not just brutal savages, but also brings up rape, necrophilia, cannibalism, and incest. They've got sick senses of humor and are boundlessly cruel. The book really hams it up, I'm gonna be honest. They come off like an plus sized copy of the Sawyer family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  This makes it seem like they're in the same category as bugbear, which very few options to playing a neutral or good character, but Ogre has a few tricks to make it easier. First is that you can always lean on your intelligence score being pretty low and play a dope. It can be fun sometimes, and it's a theme that can get you out of having to explain why your character isn't as preposterously cruel as other ogres. The second is that the one thing Ogres respect is family. It's very important to them, and the only reason Ogre societies can even work. Obviously, you can take this to mean the players are metaphorically his family, and a neutral(or even evil) Ogre might resist his natural inclinations if asked, or even grow protective of the party.

Orc. Basic Racial Option. I seriously thought of including Sahaugin or something just so this list didn't end on the iconic Orc, but I can't change the alphabet. Anyway! The classic green-skinned badass is probably the most "supported" out of this list, with plenty of source, character options, bunches of feats, and stuff like that. They did arguably start this whole party, after all. In case you didn't understand what I was saying under Goblin, a basic, no CR race having a +4 in a stat is huge. Gigantic. When solely discussing effectiveness, you can count on everyone to have +2 to their class's most important stat, so really the guy with the +4 is, in a way, the only guy with a leg forward. This means the Orc's +4 STR, -2 INT, -2 WIS, -2 CHA is a pretty good spread despite it being a net -2. Other than that, ferocity is pretty nice, darkvision is always useful, and their free proficiencies in greataxe and falchion are often overlooked hidden gems. They've got light sensitivity, which as I said before, is less a huge penalty and more something you need to keep an eye on. They can even mitigate it with a racial trait. Their few other traits aren't that amazing, but they've got some pretty interesting feats: They can gain scent or a bite attack, or an easily stacked +1 attack/damage with grudge fighter. Orc Weapon Expertise is kind of fiddly, but it's pretty cool to be able to choose from a list of minor bonuses. Reverse Feint is also pretty interesting if you were going to eat attacks anyway and just want to get a bit more damage out there. Again conventional wisdom leads you to making a front-line melee attacker, but you do have more options available to you. You're only generally restricted to melee, and any caster classes should be taken with a grain of salt. If your group restricts racial archetypes strictly to the race mentioned, then you should consider the Scarred Witch Doctor archtype a huge benefit to the race. It moves the casting stat to CON, which mitigates your casting penalty entirely. Other than that, greataxe is a pretty nice weapon, and this is a race that can utilize it on classes like rogue.

Everyone knows what Orcs are like. They're famous, and probably the only race on this list to make it to the big screen with the Lord of the Rings movies. Orcs are classically lazy, but in a bizarrely direct way: It's not that they aren't willing to put in work, it's more that they don't see the value in creating something when they can just take it from someone else. Orcish society is basically mayhem and you can see why they're always going on raids. Still, if you're looking to play a decent guy, it's pretty easy to play the "Worf" to the Orc's "Klingon Society". You can play up positive traits like their directness or prizing strength, or twist more negative ones into another light. A love of brawling and mayhem can easily be twisted to a boisterous, fun-loving attitude, or respect only for power can be expanded to mean power of all forms: Even a strong will or love of another. Of course, playing an Orc straight can be pretty fun too.

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So that's it for the individuals, but we've still got a few things to talk about. Obviously I didn't really go into playing a goblinoid as a "good guy" or even as a super awesome good guy like cleric or paladin. It's certainly your prerogative to do this, but I've got to caution against it on some level. It would be easy to say that "Drizzt ruined it for you" but that's not totally accurate. When you play a race, on some level you should stay true to that race. Sometimes it can be fun to play someone who's not precisely like others of their kind, but it easily descends into tired cliches. I feel the sole person trying to atone for the sins of their whole race is very, very tired and too easily becomes maudlin. Often it can become the entire point of your character that they're not like the rest of their race, and that's not enough to build a rich character out of. I think it's best if you stay true on some level, and take something of the race with you. Maybe that Orc paladin thinks it's best to teach people to stand up for themselves, because he still prizes strength and power. Just a thought.

I hope this went over well and I got some people to think about playing my favorite type of race. I really want to do more of these, which is why I kept from adding Gnoll or Troglodyte to this list: I've got plenty more posts on races to go.

Moffating

"Okay, let me get my head 'round this. You're reading aloud from a transcript of a conversation you're still having?"

"Eeuh, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey."


Steven William Moffat is a Scottish television writer and producer, known for his work as showrunner, writer, and executive producer of the British television series Doctor Who and Sherlock. I stole that whole-cloth from Wikipedia so we'd be on the same page. Moffat is quite a complicated subject for a lot of people, being an astonishingly good writer and an amazingly bad show-runner, all in one. He single handedly both wrote the episodes of Doctor Who that made me love the series and caused the changes to the series that made me hate it. Today is another discussion of bad habits and pitfalls(sorry) through the iris of the man's strengths and weaknesses.

I know he's a decent writer. He's put together some great episodes. Blink is a chilling suspenseful story that the Doctor is hardly even in, instead relying on other actors interpreting his influence from afar. It really hits home the time travel themes of the show in a way most episodes don't. The Empty Child is a two parter that sees the Doctor trying to stop a plague from ravaging WWII era London by turning people into gas-mask clad zombies. It sounds so stupid, but the two episodes just work so well. Moffat manages to make the phrase "Are You My Mummy?" creepy and ominous.

He also managed to blow the Doctor's character severely out of proportion after he moved up to Show Runner from being simply an episode writer. The show's tone as a fun, cheesy romp is entirely gone as more and more importance and significance is piled upon the Doctor and every event that happens. Every moment is filled with mystery, and every mystery's answer pays off into another mystery.

If you see an episode as a single adventure, and a show's overarching plot lines and tone as the overall plot of a pen and paper game, you can probably already see what I'm getting at.

First off, writing a decent adventure is important. An individual adventure should have some level of importance, and can sometimes tie into a larger story. In fact, tying them into a larger story is your primary way of moving the game's plot line along. Moffat is great at doing this, writing a single adventure. Most episodes he's done, taken individually, are pretty good. However, strung together and taken as a whole, the 'players' are never given a feeling of satisfaction. There's always a 'but'. What are the cracks in the walls? Well, they're from the TARDIS exploding. Immediately, you need to ask another question and satisfaction from "solving" the "adventure" is put off. Well, how did the TARDIS blow up? The Silence did it. Who are The Silence and WHY did they blow up the TARDIS? Because there's a prophecy. What the hell is the prophecy? More questions.

Obviously it's okay to do this sometimes. It can even create a lot of intrigue and a feeling of solving a mystery for your game. However, you need to temper your efforts. You need to throw the players an adventure or two that isn't related sometimes, or let them follow their on pursuits without tying it to your plot.

Here, please look at this animated gif for a few seconds. 

I hope that didn't make you as sick as it made me to watch it. That's a simple animation of a SINE wave, and you don't really need to know what that is other than the slow curvy shape of its timeline. Most people think a game simply gets more important in scope as it goes on...and that's mostly true. A great game gives the players 'hills' and 'valleys' like a SINE wave. Less important, less consequential or lower stakes adventures help out by giving your players a time to mentally relax. This does two major things: First, it refreshes them and gives them some time to 'goof off' and do whatever they want, within reason.

The second is that, like a palate cleanser in a meal, it makes the important bits feel that much more important. I promise you that, at some point, your players will get fatigued of constantly being battered with important events and decisions. To treat your "whammy" bits of story like the fillet mignon they are, you need to serve the players a bit of mint sherbet between courses. Or rather, in this case our "cleanser" courses are more like chocolate cake.

If you're about to tell me that too much chocolate cake ruins the impact and joy of dessert, you've nailed what I'm talking about. You can't make your game all one type of adventure. You need to mix and vary the tone of individual adventures most of the time for effective player feel. This is another thing Moffat doesn't seem to be very good at: Doctor Who's first season with him as show-runner consistently tries to give the show more and more gravitas with every episode and twist. The doctor goes from an incredibly clever and resourceful man(but just one man) to feeling like he's supposed to be the most important individual in the entire history of the universe. It's too much of one thing, to put it mildly.

He also seems to tie absolutely everything into something else. This is to keep the viewer continually coming back by keeping a question in their minds at all times as well as to create a feeling of a 'web' of story. As for keeping the viewers coming back? I sincerely hope you never have to fight to maintain your player's interest. If you find yourself in that situation, my only real advice is to quit while you're ahead. No, in a PNP game, you're better served making sure the players periodically feel satisfied. Try to limit the amount of times their victories have a "but" to them. You can even save that "but" for later a few times to save the feeling of victory in the moment. It's kind of a sad fact, but how the players feel at the end of an adventure is just as important as the game's plot. Sometimes even more.

As for creating a web of story where everything is tied to everything else? It helps a lot if the players understand what they're getting into when you do something like this. Expectations can mean a lot. You should also be sure to still hand the players some clear victories and 'unrelated' adventures. Of course you're going to end up with less of those, but it's important to throw them in every once in a while. Try to hand them a victory or two that goes unsullied: If the players save a woman from her murderous ex-husband, maybe don't have her show up dead in a later story, before the players can try and react. It'll sure add some tension and shock, but taking a success away is always going to feel shitty.

That's always the case with writers and directors, isn't it? It feels like everything's mixed. Every Moffat has his "Blink" or "The Girl in the Fireplace" as well as his "The Angels Take Manhattan". Michael Bay has "Transformers" as well as "Pain and Gain". Even Joss Whedon has his amazing "Cabin in the Woods" as well as his mediocre "Literally everything else he's ever done".

So mix it up.

Advanced Rules: House Rule Showcase

I didn't really talk about house rules themselves, just the concept. I had a few scant examples, but I skimmed past them because, as everyone knows, I'm trying to shy away from using a lot of examples. It's shorthand, and shorthand can be deadly if someone doesn't already know what you're talking about. Maybe this has merit, though. Maybe someone will benefit from my random assorted thoughts on alt rules, so today is going to be a mix of semi-related crap like the blog post equivalent of a junk drawer. Some discussion of good optional rules I like, some awful ones, and some (mostly sad) personal stories. Keep in mind that some of these discussions are going to be negative, so don't necessarily take something being here as an endorsement.

The Hand of God. Shadowrun 3rd Edition. Yeah, this is technically an optional rule. It's one of those things I can't imagine playing without. One time in the life of the character, if you're about to die, you blow your karma and your karma pool and fate gets you out of the situation. Notice how I said that: You're not just protected from dying. The GM can't just say something like "I've technically fulfilled the contract: Your character is alive, he's just in jail.". No. The rule states pretty clearly that you somehow get out of the situation. Shadowrun is a fair system, but it's deadly and unforgiving, so it's really nice to have this sitting around. 

Damage Stun in Mutants and Masterminds 2nd Edition. Okay, I fucking love this system but it does have some bumps. Well, one bump. One big fucking bump. It's the damage system. Basically, instead of hit points the game has a toughness save: You take someone's damage bonus, add fifteen, and roll. 15+bonus means you're more likely to fail, but that's by design since, well. they DID hit you. Failing by between 1 and 4  gives you a 'hit' that reduces further toughness saves. failing by five or more stuns you. Being stunned means you can't act, lose all of your dodge bonus to defense, and then take a further -2 to defense. Ten or more and you're both staggered and stunned. Fifteen or more and you're unconscious. The system is meant to simulate slowly getting hurt over a period of time, but also support things like a save being unbeatable...or un-failable. Both concepts are a staple of the Superhero genre. 

In case you didn't already notice, here's the problem. Crowd Control wins fights. Getting stunned means you're way more likely to take more damage next round. That means getting stunned again, which means taking more damage. This turns the game into a rocket-tag exercise of stacking initiative bonus, power attack and all-out attack to hit first and hit hardest. You can't even take an immunity to this stun because it's not a power effect. Despite the fact that Mutants and Masterminds functions best on a "Gentleman's Agreement" where nobody acts like a dickhead, this is something that either needs solved with a save DC or removed entirely. 

Background Skills, Pathfinder. Kait pointed this one out to me one day and I fucking love it. The D20 skill spread isn't that bad, but it's really undeniable that some skills just aren't that useful compared to others. Thinking strictly of your character's effectiveness, would you really choose ranks in craft or appraise over perception, or stealth? No, most of the time that people take skills like this, they're fleshing out their character. So, in comes Background Skills to remove the penalty of that: Everyone gets 2 ranks per level to put into a short list of skills defined as background skills. The full list is over here, but you can imagine what's on it: Appraise, Knowledge(Nobility), Sleight of Hand, Perform, et cetera. I just love shit that removes or mitigates the penalty of adding flavor to your character. Skill points are at a premium, and nobody should have to make that decision between cool stuff and more valuable skills. 

Sam's Advanced Rules. Usually when I tell you these horror stories, I'm happy with the outcome. They usually end with the bad situation being done in some way or the person being gone. Well, in this case that's still true, but I can't help but think the situation would have ended differently if I was there. Sam was a pot-addled older guy Dean, Jason and myself played tabletop stuff with. He was weird but fun and no, he never offered us any pot. I never even found out until years later in a "holy shit that makes a lot of sense" way. Even though I think he was just really cheap and stingy with his pot. Anyway, I had to do homework or some other dumb shit so Dean and Jason went over to play some Battletech. It's a dense, rich chess-style game when not paired with Robotech, and I kinda enjoy it. Our mechs had some customized weapons since Sam was fond of that and Dino had an "area of affect" weapon which you don't normally see in Battletech. Usually those are regulated to high-tonnage bombs dropped by Aerotech fighters or (I think) Long Tom cannons. He had a very high target number to hit someone, so he decided to target the square instead of the mech, which was a much lower target number but also meant he'd do way less damage. To Dino, it was more important to just put some damage out there as opposed to gambling on a hit.

Sam didn't like that. He got mad and said he didn't know they were using "Advanced Rules" and demanded to start the encounter over from the beginning. The guys left after that and we never played again. Your only happy end to this is that we made up years later but didn't resume any kind of gaming. This is a pretty sad one for me because I'm certain I could have talked Sam down(I had done it before), but I told you this story as kind of a cautionary tale. Make sure everyone's on the same page with the rules, and if you ever feel outsmarted...let it go. You're the GM, you can always do a harder encounter later. Petulant or angry behavior can lead to a broken group faster than you think.

Attacks of Opportunity. I thought I'd talk a little about the two biggest targets for house rules in my past. Attacks of Opportunity were a huge bear in the early days of 3.0 and for the life of me I can't figure out why. One day I'll crack open that book and really tear through the rules but I'm starting to think I was just surrounded by people who didn't want to think that much about gaming. I can tell you that, at the time, that was certainly true of some people. John would do little to no preparation for gaming and simply throw single large monsters at us, and then bitch about our CR because the man did not understand action economy. The only time we fought multiple foes, it was a punishment for asking, an act so stupid even he regretted it. Anyway, AoOs were a heavy target for removal, which changes the game's tone incredibly. It's not necessarily bad(Mutants and Masterminds removes them at base) but it's a massive change. People act super differently when they don't have to deal with positioning and it's not gonna be as simple as "This is complicated and haaaaard, let's remove it.". It's a deceptively huge and complex part of D20 that, yes, is very easy to understand. I'm sure part of the problem was people being very confident with the wrong information.

Skill synergies. This is the other one, and I'm much less forgiving of their removal. Several people constantly rode that train of calling them confusing and stupid, and always wanted to either remove them or replace them. Yeah, they were hard to look up or reference in 3.0, but 3.5 added a chart. You just have no excuse, there's a fucking chart. Removing them works(PF did) but removes some amount of planning that I liked. It made people want to branch out. As for replacing them? The alt rule usually brought up is SWD20's version where you ask for a synergy bonus and they're given based on the situation. This sounds great on paper and I even liked it at first, but it causes something very...stupid to happen that bogs the game down severely.

"Alright, it's going to be a DC 25 repair check to fix the engine."
"Does my knowledge of technology help?"
"No."
"Does my knowledge of computer use help?"
"No."
"Does my knowledge of appraisal help?"
"No."
"Does my knowledge of piloting star ships help?"
"No."
"..."

That just continues for like an hour every time someone wants to roll a check. It bogs the game down severely just like Call of Cthulhu's growth system and is worse in every way when compared to simply giving the players a little chart. Hell, even just removing them is better.

Karma Pool in SR3. In Shadowrun 3rd edition, metahumans are intended to have a smaller karma pool as an incentive to play a human. It raises by one every 20 karma instead of 10. Being an ork is only five points after all, so unless you're that biased against thick women(you heathen) then almost every build can spare it. At first our local group didn't understand and felt this was too harsh, so we removed it. Fifteen or twenty years later, I'm starting to understand why this is in place. Stat bonuses are pretty important, for both magic users who don't have good sources and for cyber types whose total limits are defined by the racial maximum times 1.5. Trolls, Orks and Dwarves all get bonuses to Body, which literally every build can use. So, I sort of see why they had a limiting factor beyond their mental statistics being lower. For the life of me, though, I can't figure out why elves have the same karma pool limit as trolls, orks and dwarves.

House Rules and You

"You are technically correct. The best kind of correct."


I have a complicated relationship with house or alternate rules. On one hand, they can make a game feel really different and can be a breath of fresh air. If a system gets stale, a game with a few alternate rules can be just what you need. On the other hand, this is the tool armchair developers use most often. Everyone knows how much I hate those guys by now. I've seen systems so fucked up by house rules that they were unrecognizable, like a burn victim.

Now, I know Wayne isn't reading this. We didn't really know each other that well. Just on the off chance he is, though? Don't take it personally, dude. We all make mistakes. Even gigantic abortions of good taste and game balance.

My point is, an armchair developer will eyeball a system, declare something "unbalanced" or wrong, and come up with a solution on the spot without thought to ramifications. The vast majority of the time, this is what's happening. No research, no testing, no nothing. They lazily wave their gold scepter and potentially fuck up the whole game. Often, players will just slump their shoulders and deal with it because they'd rather just game, even if it kind of sucks now. The same lazy armchair developers will jump to "Well, YOU run then." when challenged. Maybe that's just my experience. Laziness and demanding everyone do everything you want before you'll run probably go hand in hand, though.

Other times people won't research their decisions because of something everyone seems to despise, the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, Math. Lemme be clear on one thing: My experience with gaming as well as anyone who's known for being a "power player" like Dale, Mike, Maestro and Flux  is vastly different in part because I fucking love math. Mike's even got a B.S. in Mathematics, so I imagine he, at least, feels the same way. I love sitting down and figuring out the probability of something, or how valuable a particular ability is, or if a class REALLY performs as well as we think it does. Part of this is logical analysis(such as, applying the what's likely to happen in an average game) but a lot of this is math. People don't want to do it, so a solution or change is taken at first glance then never looked at again.

So yeah, before we get into the bullet pointy part of today's post, the advice is to never make a snap decision, and don't be bullheaded if something's not working out. Talk over rules changes with the group, and for God's sake, don't use alternate rules or house rules to try and balance the party. I've had people spring this on me in the past, and even under the guise of "finding new rules" in the books or "discovering" that "we were doing something wrong".

Ahem. That's the second piece of advice. House rules may be a viable way to repair a concept or rule in a game that's proven problematic, but in general changing the rules to try and balance the game better is a fool's errand. I promise you that, at best, the players will feel cheated and/or see you as a cheating jerk. At worst, your attempt to "balance the game better" will end in unintended consequences. Keep making house rules, and consequences will keep piling up. The rules of the game are an arbiter between the GM and the players, and not a tool for the GM to alter to his whim. Never forget that. The GM is allowed a certain amount of fudging, but he isn't allowed to alter the rules wholesale just to suit his needs. Doing so makes you look like you're just trying to "win" the game. That's not what house rules or alternate rules are for.

Here's a few things they ARE for.

Patching holes in systems. So yeah, every once in a while there will be a problematic rule. Either something is just bad and slipped through, or more likely something ends up abusable because of your group's play styles or current understanding of the rules. When altering a rule for this reason you really want to consult with the group and not act like the Grand Pontiff of Games. Come to a conclusion and fix the rule, but understand that this might end up being temporary as your group understands the system better. Other times, though, something's just out of place or highly abusable, like Mutants and Masterminds and its damage/stun rule. No amount of playtesting can find every single abusable thing in a system. I just firmly believe that it finds most of them.

Adding or Removing Complexity. So yeah, sometimes it's less that something is abusable and more that the group just doesn't want to deal with something. This can alter tone pretty heavily(see below) but sometimes a few tweaks or prepackaged alternate rules and speed up gameplay or remove complication. Even though they're easy to understand now, Attacks of Opportunity were a pretty popular target for these. So are skill systems, consolidating them further than PF or M&M does. Or, sometimes the group really wants something dense and slow and adding a few things to worry about is best. Of course, sometimes all you need to do is to find and apply some of the things you usually handwave. ECM/ECCM details, optempo, encumbrance, legality rules...there's a lot of things people skim past in even great systems.

Tone and Feel. I want you to consider this 90% of why you use alternate rules. Things like class defense bonus or armor as DR primarily alter the way a game feels before how it plays. Hero points or 4e's Second Wind system can easily be balanced around, but the players will act and feel differently. This can be the master stroke your game needs to get tone across. Ravenloft feels super different than 3.X because it has the players worrying about fear, madness, and the true intentions of people via moral alignment being undetectable. You could do that. Adding another layer to a game like presenting rules for downtime activities to consider can really hit home the tone of a themed game. Playing a bunch of gangers in Shadowrun is one thing, but having the players come together once a session to decide the direction of the gang and the assigned activities of the rest of the gang can really make them feel like leaders of a street gang. Craft carefully and discuss with the group and this could be the difference between a good game and an amazing success. Hell, if you're all getting sick of the same system but can't seem to agree on a new one, this could be a decent compromise.

So yeah, all in all I do have a love/hate relationship with alternate rules. They can be super cool, but 90% of the time when you meet one of those people determined to control every aspect of the game, they're going to be doing this shit over and over. I heavily recommend you stick to published alternate rules like the sort of thing you see in Unearthed Arcana, Pathfinder Unchained, or Shadowrun Companion. This is because they've ostensibly seen some sort of playtesting, and even if not, there's going to be less bias going in because nobody in your group created the rule. Nobody's going to be "attached" to them.

Source for the Common Man

"You will never understand how it feels to live your life / with no meaning or control and nowhere left to go."

This is more of an editorial. I feel like I got stuck in this rut where I thought I always have to help someone with my posts, and anything else was pointless or goofing off. Today I'm cutting myself a little slack and talking about something I've noticed in modern gaming source books and why I've turned around on the idea that you ought to make custom spells or equipment tough to get.

This started some years ago when I made a character named Seras Heartstring. I thought I'd challenge myself again so he was a warpriest of a god whose influence was love and fertility. He'd be a little different mechanically if I built him today (Don't try to do TWF with a 3/4ths AB class without stacking hitroll) but his personality was really fun. He was an Aasimar who could easily be mistaken for a woman, since I wanted to associate thematically with the fact that the Archangel Gabriel was described as being androgynous. Archangel, Aasimar, et cetera. He was kind of a promiscuous dumb blonde stereotype, but he'd wander around the countryside helping people out with spellcasting. He had a sincere love of people.

I started to wonder what kind of spells he'd be casting for common folk, and I came to the realization that a lot of the shit you'd ask a cleric of love and fertility for, they'd just have no spell for. Stuff like 'bless our marriage' or 'help me win that girl's heart' doesn't necessarily need a related spell and is just fluff(or social rolls), but 'help us conceive a child', 'make me more attractive' or 'bless this season's harvest' are all things that you'd go straight to a cleric of love and fertility for, and only one of those three has a real answer: the spell Plant Growth for harvesting food. In a world with real magic, I think you'd have to be real careful with doing non-magical blessings because you'd start to look like a con artist. Average Joe Farmer KNOWS spells exist even if he's never seen one, and if he pays you to perform a harvest blessing and he doesn't get much more food than last year, he's not going to be happy.

So a lot of different priesthoods simply lack the spells they'd realistically be asked to perform the most. Clerics of earth and stone reinforcing walls or building things. Clerics of the weather influencing seasons, priests of the community holding a magic fueled festival. All of these things are KIND OF possible using mid to high level magic. It's all high level, I want to add, because of the combat implications of casting them. Mages see this a lot too: Think of what you'd ask a Transmuter for. Immediately, I hope your mind went to stuff like plastic surgery. Now, it's POSSIBLE sure, by casting wish, polymorph any object, or permanency. Some ridiculous high level magic that's restricted because of what ELSE it does. If you wanted say, a version of disguise self or alter self that was permanent, you'd have to invent it. Even though it's the kind of thing people go into transmutation to learn.

It's got to be that the average pen and paper game's source is viewed through the lens of what an adventurer needs. Shadowrun makes this really obvious, with the lore even discussing cyberware or equipment that there aren't stats for. I remember mention of sexually-themed cyberware in lore, but... that could have been an Internet source book. My memory is swiss cheese. Regardless, it REALLY helps that Shadowrun's firearms and vehicle creation rules directly say that you're not necessarily creating something from scratch. The example vehicle created is even supposed to be a limited run vehicle, like a Delorean or Tesla Roadster. Even though the player "made it" from scratch.

I've even seen shades of this in other places of the rules. Survival in D20 lets you provide food for X number of people, and that's really all it says. It doesn't mention food preservation, even though that's what the average person is going to be doing when he rolls survival: trapping game, butchering it, cooking then saving the rest. Hell, it doesn't even mention what you're providing. It's got to be because they know this just ain't gonna come up in most games: most people are just going to roll and go "Okay, that's enough" then roll again tomorrow. Shadowrun has shades of this too, since there's no way in hell the future has abolished credit. 1st through 3rd edition don't mention it at all, while later editions just have some smart catch-all rules for taking out loans. I'm sure those are included for the theme of owing a huge amount of money to the mafia more than mortgages or car loans, though.

I mean, I'm not angry. I get it, there's only so many pages and including things that would realistically exist but don't have a lot of value to a basic adventurer is pretty pointless. Maybe magically giving the Orcish Chieftan's daughter huge knockers would get the player characters out of a really tough situation, but I just don't see the boob job spell REALLY coming up that much.

So what am I saying? Nothing really, this is an editorial. HA, I've wasted your time! But seriously, that was kind of the turning point for me on allowing custom source for fluff. I generally don't like homebrew source, and there's always an impulse to make people work to use even Shadowrun's various custom generation rules. Even though I've proven pretty strongly that none of SR's gen rules are anything but a load of fun, you still have this unmistakable feeling that they're important. Weighty.

But if it's harmless on the broad scale, I don't think I see a problem. Still keep balance in mind: I don't think even an inconsequential permanent effect would be lower than level two in 3.X or PF. Luckily for us, even PF has jumped on the guidelines bandwagon somewhere. Have them make a few checks, diplomacy to find the guy who casts it or Knowledge Arcana to create the spell or something. It could be a fun diversion. I just don't think allowing people to learn some fluff spells or buying some fluff magic items is the end of the world. Or, the guy who wants to blow 0.2 Essence on the Mr. Stud implant because he's a former porn star? Try not to bust his balls. I mean, busting his balls IS going to be a little harder seeing as how he's cybernetically enhanced them, but you get my point.