Monsters as Playable Races

[vladtolenkov]

I know that in OD&D the rules say that you can play any race with the approval of the referee.

It seems to me that this sort of thing is exactly the strength of OD&D. Now I know this could produce a rather "gonzo" type of game (which may not be to everybody's taste), but my thought is the next time I run my game I should just hand the players the Monster Manual and say "Well here are all the races you can play." If that's too extreme then work out a list you feel comfortable with. If you don't want PC Lichs--take them off the list.

The rest is a negotiation between the player and the referee.

As a general guideline follow the admonition that you start weaker and get stronger over time.

Also, keep any mechanical bonuses to +1.

So why not have a party comprised of a Mind Flayer, A Half-Vampire, a Lizardman, and a Sahuagin?

So what races have you allowed?

[coffee]

I didn't allow anything, but Kesher did. I've played a Balrog. See this thread:

odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=menmagic&thread=1841&page=1

[makofan]

Hmm

So far, I have had players play (in addition to standard AD&D races) Orc, goblin, ogre, dragon and nymph, that I can recall, with mixed but generally positive success

[thegreyelf]

A lich might be fun, but as DM I would say, "Settle for a wizard on a quest to become a lich."

After all, becoming the lich is the real fun part...

And this is where some 3.x comes in handy for OD&D--Savage Species contains guidelines for breaking down monsters into levels that are useful no matter what edition of the game you're playing. It's one of the better books they put out for 3.x.

[capheind]

What about a Fighter/Fighting-man turned into a quasi-lich as an experiment by a wizard seeking the secret to life after death. Constantly having to manually force your body to keep itself alive as you seek a way to bring it back from the dead.

[vladtolenkov]

How about this for Lizard People?

Lizard People
* +1 to AC due to thick hide.
* Immune to poisons.
* Poisonous bite (1D4 Damage). Save vs. poison or bite deals double damage.

[piper]

Apr 11, 2010 21:49:59 GMT -6 vladtolenkov said:

How about this for Lizard People?

Maybe a DEX or reaction penalty for cold-blooded?

Plus a decreased saving throw versus cold-based attacks, and an increased one for fire and heat based attacks?

[waysoftheearth]

Apr 11, 2010 21:49:59 GMT -6 vladtolenkov said:

How about this for Lizard People?

And throw out the highest die rolled for each of intelligence, wisdom and charisma ;D

[kesher]

Let's see....

In my Otherness campaign so far, I've allowed two balrogs (as mentioned by Will), two or three skeleton warriors, a goblin, a lizard man, and a ghoul. I think that's about it. A few years ago, playing a T&T homebrew with teenagers, one guy made a Vecna-worshiping vampire who drained a horse and turned it into an undead mount. Back about eight years ago, I did let one guy play an android masquerading as a magic user. There was a whole gloriously-railroaded story line that was going to involve an Expedition to the Barrier Peaks...

Seriously, though, I don't have much of a problem with anyone playing anything. All the races that have come up in Fight On!, for example, I would allow (including Wuukies and Penguins...). The guidelines suggested above are fine, though I'd probably steer away from messing with attribute scores---none of the "standard" races get adjustments like that until AD&D. Or, I guess, if I did use bonus/penalties to attributes, I might then reverse engineer it into dwarves, elves, etc.

Part of how it started in Otherness was Will showing up to the game with his balrog race fully written up---he'd spent some time on it, and obviously wasn't just trying to dominate the game. I made a couple of minor tweaks, and we were good to go. He's made one, and now my six year-old son has, too. My son also is the one who likes to play skeleton warriors. He's made a few now, respectively named:

Fireskull (played the most)
Deathskell
Mudskel
and, my personal favorite, Bloodarex

My off-the-cuff rules for skeletons:

Aren't affected by undead-generated fear.
Won't be attacked by undead unless he attacks first.
Takes only 1 pt. of damage from arrows.
Double damage from fire.
Can see in the dark as if it were day.
Can be turned by lawful clerics (though not destroyed), and would have to save vs. magic to avoid being forced to serve a chaotic cleric.

[vladtolenkov]

How about some Drow:

Drow (this is pretty much as per the Fiend Folio)
• Infravision (100 ft. range)
• Able to move silently (even in armor).
• +2 bonus to all saving throws vs. magic.
• Drow-made Armor receives an automatic +1 to its AC.

and some Bird People:

Avians
• Able to fly at a speed of 15”
• Ability to speak with any winged birds.
• Enhanced vision. Avians can see great distances.

[kesher]

I like where this is going!

I might make avians somewhat claustrophobic, too...

[vladtolenkov]

Maybe we can turn this thread into a place where we can all contribute guidelines for playing specific "monster" races in OD&D?

So post if you got 'em.

Kesher: I dig those rules for skeletons.

[vladtolenkov]

One more:

Androids
• +1 bonus to Hit Dice.
• Immune to aging, sleep, charm, poison, and disease.
• No unconsciousness at O HP. Able to function until "killed" at –lvl HP.

[vladtolenkov]

capheind wrote:

What about a Fighter/Fighting-man turned into a quasi-lich as an experiment by a wizard seeking the secret to life after death. Constantly having to manually force your body to keep itself alive as you seek a way to bring it back from the dead.

I forget to reply that I though that this idea was both very cool and seriously f***ed up.

[capheind]

I'm sufficiently tired of "rebel dark elves" that I don't think I'd allow it, in fact I think the heaviest object on the table would be lugged at anyone who started out "So he's a drow who's rebelled against his people to live on the surface...". That said, if I weren't so tired of heroic drow and night elves, I would probably have the player use the normal stats for elves. i'm not sure they'd need anything special.

[waysoftheearth]

Apr 13, 2010 15:56:50 GMT -6 capheind said:

I'm sufficiently tired of "rebel dark elves" that I don't think I'd allow it, in fact I think the heaviest object on the table would be lugged at anyone who started out "So he's a drow who's rebelled against his people to live on the surface...". That said, if I weren't so tired of heroic drow and night elves, I would probably have the player use the normal stats for elves. i'm not sure they'd need anything special.

I am in agreement with Capheind. Drow are.... Drow! That is foul, twisted, and eeevil right down to the cellular level. If anything, I'd give them overwhelming vertigo in daylight and a -2 penalty to all rolls in otherwise bright light to compensate for their dark vision, but otherwise as per normal Elves.

[pineappleleader]

Don't forget (Five Box D&D) Shadow Elves.

[capheind]

Apr 13, 2010 17:26:33 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

Apr 13, 2010 15:56:50 GMT -6 capheind said:

I'm sufficiently tired of "rebel dark elves" that I don't think I'd allow it, in fact I think the heaviest object on the table would be lugged at anyone who started out "So he's a drow who's rebelled against his people to live on the surface...". That said, if I weren't so tired of heroic drow and night elves, I would probably have the player use the normal stats for elves. i'm not sure they'd need anything special.

I am in agreement with Capheind. Drow are.... Drow! That is foul, twisted, and eeevil right down to the cellular level. If anything, I'd give them overwhelming vertigo in daylight and a -2 penalty to all rolls in otherwise bright light to compensate for their dark vision, but otherwise as per normal Elves.

When I was a younger less jaded geek I used to think Drizzt was kinda neat, now I know better. Back in those silly silly days I actually did sorta mind-experiment think out how I would allow someone to play a rebel drow.

1. Drow are subterrainian elves, they are to be played as elves but suffer a -2/+2 penalty to all rolls during the daylight (hence the term "Night Elf").
2. Drow are evil, villiagers won't stop trying to stick a pitchfork in him just because some idiot says hes a good guy.
3. Rebel drow are hated by drow more than anything else, expect any local drow to try and hunt him down and make a trophy out of his head.
4. Drow worship icky things, he must show reverence to all insect/bug life from snails, to spiders to ants. Giant insects are their sacred cows, and even a rebel couldn't brink himself to harm one (think Hindus and IRL sacred cows).
5. Drow are not sexy blackface elves in bondage wear, reasonable clothes, and women with faces made for subterrainian living.
6. Elves hate drow, for most of the same reasons Drow hate rebel drow. Being a "good guy" doesn't make a drow any less of a sin against fairie kind.
7. Dwarves hate Drow, they remember cowardly viet-cong style tactics in their variouse underground wars.
8. Halflings and Gnomes hate drow, they've heard the stories about hobbit eating drow since childhood. Incidentally even a good drow has to admit that drow do eat demi-humans....
9. Evil humanoids hate drow, and if the drow isn't evil enough to make them serve, its PAYBACK TIME.
10. I love top ten lists don't you.

So you can totally play a drow, if you want no special powers, and to be hunted by pretty much everybody.

Personally I liked the early drow. Before they were explored to death and turned into something boardering on furry-fandom style culture they were kinda neat. Here you had elves, that hated happy little glens and little songs, and all the things elves generally like. You'd run into one and it'd be the MYSTER OF THE SETTING, what are these, what is it their doing down there?

I'd allow a black elf, but only black in the sense of skin-tone, no filthy drowses to hurt the preciouse....

[vladtolenkov]

I never featured the Drow in my games except when we played the AD&D G, D, Q series back when I was twelve. I've never read any book featuring Drizzt, but I think Gary's description of the Drow in the Fiend Folio is pretty nifty. Maybe that's why the idea seems less of a D&D cliche to me.

Anyway. . .if we want to continue debating about the Drow we should probable do that in another thread.

Anybody got some good ideas for alternate playable races?

[vladtolenkov]

Drow thread here:

odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=menmagic&action=display&thread=3602

[tavis]

In my White Sandbox campaign the choices for class are "fighting man, cleric, magic-user, or whatever you want." It's easy to handle the "whatever" part because I have a good handle on what the abilities of each class are, so we can use that as a baseline and say "OK, to make your thief-acrobat let's swap out a fighting man's heavy armor and give you tightrope walking instead."

I don't have anything like that kind of understanding of what the basic race choices are. I think I found these summaries of the OD&D elf, dwarf, and hobbit through this site, but there's so much stuff there that I don't find it as easy to grasp and summarize.

So although I've had players play robots, gnomes, minotaurs, and goblins, I don't feel very confident in saying how they were different from standard races. (I don't think the robot was different at all.)

[vladtolenkov]

I'm not sure but here's a stab at the race abilities for Elves and Halflings. I might be leaving something out but I think these are the important ones.

Elves
• Infravision (60 ft. range).
• Find secret and hidden doors (1-4 on a D6).
• +1 to hit when using a sword or bow.
• +1 to hit vs. Orcs.
• Racial benefits when acting as Thieves.
• They speak the languages of orcs, hobgoblins, and gnolls in
addition to their usual tongues.

Halflings
• Saving throws vs. magic receives a +4 bonus.
• Deadly accuracy with missiles (+1 to hit; +3 with Sling).
• They gain racial bonuses when acting as thieves.

[makofan]

This was the sum total of my rules in my online game

GOBLINS: Fighters, Max level 5, find pits/traps as elf finds secret doors
(speaks Goblin, Hobgoblin, Kobold and Dwarf in addition to Common and alignment languages)

[vladtolenkov]

Here's a list of what I'm playing around with for this OD&D Science Fantasy campaign. I'm still working on a few others races like Titans (similar to 1/2 Giants or 4E's Goliaths), Wolf People, and some sort of elemental race. I'll post those as I figure them out. Looking at the Monster Manual has helped give me ideas (as it always does).

The standard races are all still totally playable as well but here are the non-standard ones:

PLAYABLE RACES

Ancients
• Able to see into the ethereal plane (50 ft. range).
• Prophetic dreams and visions.
• +5% Bonus to Psionic Abilities.
• +1 to Hit and Damage when engaged in Hand to Hand combat.

Androids
• +1 bonus to Hit Dice.
• Immune to aging, sleep, charm, poison, and disease.
• No unconsciousness at O HP. Able to function until killed at –lvl
HP.

Cat People (still not sure if this works. . .)
• Bite and Claw attacks (1D4)
• Detect invisible opponents at a base of 30% and with a +5%
bonus every two levels.
• Only -2 to hit invisible opponents.
• +1 bonus to Dexterity.

Devas
• Able to see into the astral plane (50 ft. range).
• +1 Bonus vs. Infernals and infernal associated creatures.
• Immune to fear (and fear creating magical spells)
• Able to generate create Light once per day for a number of
rounds equal to 3 + the Deva’s level.

Dhamphir (1/2 Vampires)
• Bite attack for 1D6 damage. They gain Temporary Hit Points
equal to ½ of the damage they do up to their current Hit Points
level.
• Able to transform into a wolf or bat.
• Double damage from silver weapons and fire.

Infernals
• They possess a limited form of telepathy (send and receive
thoughts only). Range: within sight.
• Immune to Fire and Cold damage.
• Able to create Darkness once per day for a number of rounds
equal to 3 + plus the Infernal’s level.

Lizard People
• +1 to AC due to thick hide.
• Immune to poisons.
• Poisonous bite (1D4 Damage). Save vs. poison or bite deals
double damage.

Merfolk
• Able to breath underwater and swim at 24”.
• AC 7 natural armor class (may be improved by Dexterity
bonuses and armor).
• They speak the language of Dolphins and Whales.
• They receive a +1 Bonus to their Constitution.

Shadow Folk (Drow)
• Infravision (100 ft. range)
• Able to move silently (even in armor).
• +2 bonus to all saving throws vs. magic.
• Shadow Armor receives an automatic +1 to its AC.

[Arminath]

Apr 13, 2010 17:44:08 GMT -6 pineappleleader said:

Don't forget (Five Box D&D) Shadow Elves.

Those are not merely the Drow. Shadow Elves are not twisted, evil underground elves. In fact, I'd be inclined to let a player run a Shadow Elf* in a pick-up game than a Drow.

*My normal world Onn has no underground elven races of any kind, so a pick-up game is all I would allow then in.

[makofan]

I just had a player play a White Ape. I gave him a 6 INT and 18 STR, rolled the rest randomly, treated him as a fighter with no armor but natural AC 5, two claw attacks, and gave him a 90% Climb Walls. I also let him throw rocks as missiles. Currently he is level 4 with 20 hit points.

They had a climactic fight with a dragon, and he climbed a pillar while the dragon breathed on the rest of them. Then he leaped from the pillar onto the dragon's head and started gouiging its eyes out. It was a lot of fun. The player himself is finding the character a bit limiting though.

[pineappleleader]

Apr 27, 2010 7:59:13 GMT -6 Arminath said:

Apr 13, 2010 17:44:08 GMT -6 pineappleleader said:

Don't forget (Five Box D&D) Shadow Elves.

Those are not merely the Drow. Shadow Elves are not twisted, evil underground elves. In fact, I'd be inclined to let a player run a Shadow Elf* in a pick-up game than a Drow.

*My normal world Onn has no underground elven races of any kind, so a pick-up game is all I would allow then in.

Not evil at all. Once you get into their history, their lot in life is rather sad.

If you were to play a Shadow Elf who knew the truth he would be a rather noble and tragic figure.

[aldarron]

Thought I'd bump this because it's a cool thread and because I had some thought on creating monster characters based on the notes in the FFC in this blog post: link HERE

[Deleted]

Where are the disadvantages of all these creatures? You don't give out bonuses like cotton candy and then not have disadvantages (like the level limits for Elves and Dwarves).

[Vile Traveller]

I developed a simple set of guidelines for the BLUEHOLME Journeymanne Rules to allow players to use any creature as a character. I don't like to use the term "balanced", but the only species that gave me trouble as a referee during playtest was a medusa - but that could be because the player was our usual referee who is a sneaky son of a beholder.