Monsters as Races

While every monster has the statistics that a player would need to play the creature as a character, most monsters are not suitable as PCs. Creatures who have an Intelligence score of 2 or lower, who have no way to communicate, or who are so different from other PCs that they disrupt the campaign should not be used. Some creatures have strange innate abilities or great physical power and thus are questionable at best as characters (except in high-level campaigns).

Starting Level of a Monster PC

Monsters suitable for play have a character level equal to their monster Hit Dice. A creature’s monster class is always a favored class, and the creature never takes penalties for having it.

Monsters with Monster Class Levels

Creatures with a Monster Class have a set of base traits which all creatures of that type possess. This base set of abilities is roughly equivalent to any of the common races, such as elves and humans. A character may choose a monster as its race, using the base traits from the monster as its racial traits.

Such characters gain the full set of racial abilities of their monster race only by taking levels in the associated monster class; however, they are never required to take any levels in that class. Only members of the appropriate monster race can gain levels in that monster class. In all other regards, a monster class functions as a normal base class.

Monster characters with their racial base traits and without levels in their associated monster class are usually considered to be either too young to have fully developed their racial abilities or an abnormally weak example of their race.

Monsters Without a Monster Class

The following applies only to building player characters from monsters that have no associated monster class.

Hit Dice

The creature’s total Hit Dice equal its racial Hit Dice plus the number of class levels it has. Additional Hit Dice gained from taking levels in a character class never affect a creature’s size like additional racial Hit Dice might.

Class Levels

Creatures with 1 or fewer Hit Dice replace their monster level with their class levels. When they take a class level, they gain the benefits of that class and do not gain the attack bonus, saving throw bonuses, skills, feats, or other abilities or features of their creature type.

Creatures with 2 or more Hit Dice retain their HD from their race and all class levels on top of those, effectively starting out as a higher level character.

Feat Acquisition and Ability Score Increases

A monster’s total Hit Dice govern its acquisition of feats and ability score increases, gaining a feat at their 1st Hit Die and every 3 thereafter and an ability score increases for every 4 total Hit Dice.

Characters with more than 1 Racial Hit Die do not get a feat for their first class level as members of the other races do, and they do not multiply the skill points for their first class level by four. Instead, they have already received a feat for their first Hit Die because of race, and they have already multiplied their racial skill points for their first Hit Die by four.

Ability Scores for Monster PCs Without a Monster Class

While a monster’s statistics give the ability scores for a typical creature of a certain kind, any “monster” creature that becomes an adventurer is definitely not typical. Therefore, when creating a PC from a creature, check to see if the creature’s entry has any ability scores of 10 or higher. If so, for each score, subtract 10 (if the score is even) or 11 (if the score is odd) to get the creature’s modifier for that ability based on its race or kind. Generate the character’s ability scores as normal, then add the racial ability modifiers to get their ability scores.

Note: Monsters with a monster class almost always have base ability scores other than 10 and 11, as do some monsters without such a class. If alternate scores were used for a creature without a monster class, this will be indicated in the monster entry. Also, monsters that make good PCs have their racial ability modifiers and other traits already listed in their base traits and monster class entry.

For ability scores lower than 10, the procedure is different. First, determine the character’s ability scores, and compare that number to the monster’s average ability score, using either the table below that applies to Intelligence or the table that applies to the other five ability scores.

The separate table for Intelligence ensures that no PC ends up with an Intelligence score lower than 3. This is important, because creatures with an Intelligence score lower than 3 are not playable characters. Creatures with any ability score lower than 1 are also not playable.

Other Statistics for Monsters

Creatures with Hit Dice of 1 or less have normal, class-based Hit Dice and features. They get skills and feats appropriate to a 1st-level character.

Those with 2 or more Hit Dice have statistics based on these Hit Dice plus Hit Dice for class levels (if any).

Experience for Monsters

A monster adds its Racial Hit Dice and class levels together when determining experience needed to gain a level, just as a multiclass character adds together all of his class levels.

Level Adjustment

Level adjustment does not exist in Aldhaven. As a rough guide, you can convert most creatures with a level adjustment by simply giving them a number of racial hit dice equal to 1/2 their total Level Adjustment (rounded down) and updating their total hit points, base attack bonus, and saving throws.