Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 226 - Monstrous PCs and Howl of the Wild

Episode Date: June 2, 2024

There’s nothing wrong with an adventuring party full of humans, gnomes, dwarves, and the like.  But sometimes the campaign calls for or the player wants to play something a little different like a hobgoblin, merfolk, or even a troll.  How do you handle these situations?  In this episode I give you some tips as well as briefly review the new Paizo book Howl of the Wild.   Resources: Rules Lawyer Howl of the Wild Review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olNDUmF_41o 5e Trolls - https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17040-troll  Ron Lundeen - Pathfinder 2e ancestry build tips - https://www.runamokgames.com/design-diary/the-pathfinder-ancestry-checklist

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. And it should go without saying that there are always individuals who go against the grain when it comes to ancestry traditions. Maybe in your world, the elves are good and altruistic, but couldn't one be like an evil sadistic bastard? Of course they could. Why couldn't an individual from a traditionally evil race go the other way and be good at heart? an individual from a traditionally evil race go the other way and be good at heart.

Thank you for listening to the Taking 20 Podcast, episode 226, talking about monstrous PCs and a brief review of Howl of the Wild published by Paizo. I want to thank this week's sponsor, Beds. So many beds that are out there are so much more comfortable than you'd expect. I mean, they're always getting slept on. First and foremost, I wanna thank Jason Mill for donating to the podcast.

It's because of generous donations like yours that this podcast survives, and I greatly appreciate the donation and your kind words. I am so glad you're enjoying the podcast. If you'd like to donate to the operating costs of the podcast, please consider a one-time donation at ko-fi.com slash taking20podcast. All donations go directly to the costs for keeping this running, hosting, audio processing, software licenses, etc.

So please consider even a small donation to help keep this podcast alive. Adventurers are a different breed altogether. It takes a certain amount of crazy to take up the mantle of adventurer and put your life on the line every single day. Characters face a horrific fate every single time they enter a dungeon, take on a cult, face down the bandits going after the citizens of the local town. It takes some mettle, some fortitude if you will, to face these dangers. You have to ask if adventurers kind of are different on the inside and they definitely are, why wouldn't you

allow your players to play characters that are different on the outside as well? To understand what I mean by monstrous PCs, open up your player's handbook or core rulebook or whatever material you have that details how to create characters. If you're playing a fantasy game, you'll probably see things like humans and elves and dwarves and halflings and gnomes, maybe some exotic races like tortles and sprites and hobgoblins. If it's a sci-fi game, then there'll probably be some of those similar races and maybe some more alien-like creatures that are silicon or gas-based instead of carbon-based.

When a game is being designed, the writers and editors will work to include as wide of a variety of creatures as they have time to create, test, and balance. Many times this list of ancestries will be increased with various expansions over time like an advanced players guide or player core 2 book for example. Of course there is no way the editors can create ancestries for every type of character that future players would ever want to dungeon with. They can't. There's only so much time to create a game, play test it, and then get it to the printer. So many times these game systems will include a generic statement about other ancestries

being available at the discretion of the DM. All of that is great, but what if you're the DM? How do you handle the player who wants to play a kobold or ogre or etan character, much less one who wants to play something like a green hag? Or to quote Volo's guide, in some campaigns, humanoid's normally regarded as sinister threats can emerge to adventure alongside humans and other standard races. First and foremost, this should go without saying.

It's your game. If you don't want characters that are some of these non-standard ancestries, then you say no. One of my DMs is kind of a hard ass about ancestries and feats and items and skills that are considered uncommon or rare. Most of the time when one of his players asks to use these things, his answer is no. That doesn't mean he's being difficult. He just prefers to stick with the tried and true aspects of an RPG. Do I make a big stink about it? Yes, yes I do. Last week I took a dump in his mailbox. No, no, I didn't do that. He has a post office box and there are cameras there so I would never get away with it. But of course not. As a player I respect his decision. And it's really that simple. I'd find another ancestry or

feat or item for my character. It doesn't bother me in the slightest and if I actually considered that it was worth raising hell about I'd probably just find another game. So my first tip to players out there who happen to be listening. Work with your GM on this. They have every right to say no if they feel like some choice like that would completely imbalance the game or wouldn't fit into the game setting or world that the GM is running. Yes, I would encourage my DMs out there to be as flexible as they can when it comes to allowing these types of non-standard ancestries, but you have every right to say no. If there was no way a bugbear or a duergar could function

in the societies of your world, you can say no. Maybe in your game, bugbears tend to be unrepentant, ultra-violent warriors who believe in taking everything they can and burning everything else. In those cases, it may not make sense to allow one of your players to play that bugbear fighter. But I do want you to consider that adventurers can come in all shapes and sizes. As I said, they're different on the inside, why can't they be different on the outside? And it should go without saying that there are always individuals who go against the grain when it comes to ancestry traditions.

Maybe in your world the elves are good and altruistic, but couldn't one be like an evil sadistic bastard? Of course they could. Why couldn't an individual from a traditionally evil race go the other way and be good at heart? I could open up a massive Pandora's box at this point by talking about race and ancestry versus culture, which invariably would probably descend into nature versus nurture, and I do not have time for all of that, nor am I qualified. nurture and I do not have time for all of that, nor am I qualified. The point I want you to remember is that you can allow or disallow anything you want as

the DM. Yes, work to accommodate what the player wants, but if it doesn't make sense, just say no. But suppose you do want to allow monstrous PCs. First off, good. You're stepping out onto that branch of tabletop RPGs that consists of world building and customization and fun activities like that. However, there are some challenges if you allow monstrous PCs and that branch can snap resulting in a broken game.

First off, there likely aren't rules for a number of monstrous PC ancestries, so you'll have to do a little design and homebrew work or allow third-party products into your game. You'll need to really research the third-party product by the way that details a Monsters Ancestry to try to tell if it's going to be unbalanced and break your game. So my next tip is to work with the player if you want to allow this non-standard Ancestry. Now the good news for Pathfinder 2e players is that Ron Lundeen has a great blog with numerous articles about ancestry design and other tips specific to Pathfinder 2e. I'll put a link in the resources of the episode. I hadn't discovered this

resource before starting to research this episode and I can easily spend hours in the hundreds of blog posts that he has and learn something new in almost each one of them. And while we're talking good news, let's talk to the 5e DMs out there. Volo's Guide has tips for making some of the most common of the uncommon ancestries, starting on page 118. It details bugbears and goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, orcs, and wanti. Those ancestries cover a lot of the monstrous characters that players would want, but

what if they want something really, really out there? One way you can consider allowing these monsters is to level them up slowly to gain the abilities of the ancestry over the levels that span the creatures challenge rating or CR. Fair warning, this is about to get deep into the belly of game balancing, so please accept my apologies in advance. This will be easier to discuss if you can find the 5e stat block for a troll, and for your convenience I'll put a link in the description of the episode. So if you find that stat block for just a traditional troll, you'll see trolls are CR5 creatures. They have Dark Vision, Keen Smell, Regeneration, and Multi Attack with Bite and Two Claws. To keep things as balanced as possible, you

could probably say to the player, okay, if you want to play a troll, your first four levels you gain from level 1 to level five you don't get any class levels. You're just gonna be a troll. At level one maybe they get the bite and claw attack. Maybe at level two they get dark vision. Level three they get the keen smell ability. Level four they get multi-attack and then finally at level five they get regeneration. And then when they eventually level up to level six, they can start taking class levels. So at level six, they'd be maybe a troll five, fighter one, or whatever class they wanted.

Now I hear it on the wind. There are a few people out there saying, that's bullshit, Jeremy. If they're a troll, they're a troll, and should get levels at the same time everyone else does. Now I hear you, no problem. Drop a troll fighter in a group of let's just say five bugbears. I'm willing about the troll comes out on top 99 times out of 100, even if he's alone. And likely the troll comes out completely unscathed not long after the fight 95 times out of 100. Some monstrous ancestries are just more

powerful than others and if you want to keep your game balanced you're going to have to find a way to slow roll monstrous abilities to keep that monstrous PC's power level somewhat in line with the rest of the party. But even after careful collaboration and trying to balance the monstrous ancestry you should set player expectations by saying probably in a more polite way than this, look, I'm going to let you play a troll, but if this winds up being broke as shit, we're going to have to change your character. So what features of a Monstrous PC can result in a broken game most easily?

There's a bunch that I'm going to cover as quickly as I possibly can. First, are ancestries with movement speeds and types other than walking and running. So swim speed, okay maybe that's not that dangerous unless a critical part of the campaign is the risk of drowning. Burrow speeds where you can tunnel into the ground at a steady speed could cause problems in certain types of dungeons where the expectation is that the party is going to stay above the dirt. And well, above the dirt until you kill the character that is. Then it's a dirt nap or...

Oh, sorry, my bloodthirstiness started showing again. Forgive me. And if your monster's character has a fly speed, then it can trivialize some of the dangers of your game. The bad guys scatter caltrops behind them to escape? No problem. Character just flies over. Pit trap? Character can just to escape? No problem, character just flies over.

Pit trap? Character can just fly out, no problem. Sheer cliff face that requires the party to climb up to the top? You guessed it, just fly up, secure an anchor for the other characters and let them climb easily. Please don't think that this means that you should never allow a flying character. It just means that you need to prepare and have traps in situations that they can't just flap their wings and get out of it

Another challenge of some monstrous ancestries would be the size difference a size tiny or smaller or size large or larger Character can be a challenge for a campaign These size differences could include problems like equipment Where do you get a size tiny breastplate or a size large double axe? Is there a cost difference for these different sizes? Is there a weight difference? Most magic items your characters find will be sized small or medium. So you have to ask, are you going to let magic items automatically resize to these weirdly sized characters or do they have to get everything custom made? Before you allow these differently sized characters, make sure you understand your game system's

rules about occupying the same square as another character and squeezing into smaller areas. Imagine that ogre takes up two squares by two squares on your battle map and tries to squeeze into a five foot wide hallway. What are the rules on that? Do you know them for your game system? Does it become difficult terrain? Are they denied their dex bonus to AC? And by the way, in case you're wondering, yes I did look it up. In 5e, a creature can squeeze into an area that's one size category smaller than they are. So large creatures can squeeze into a 5 foot wide hallway, huge

into a 10 foot wide, and so forth. When they do, they spend 2 feet of movement for every foot that they move through the smaller area. All this by the way is in Player's Handbook page 192 of my version. Pathfinder 2e is similar but just uses different terms. It says that when you squeeze it's difficult terrain so it costs 10 foot of movement to move 5 feet. So same difference between the different rulesets of these two game systems, but either way, make sure you know those rules before you allow a differently sized character into your game. The last thing I want to mention that can wreck your game is spell resistance. Ugh. Most RPGs are balanced around the characters using saving throws to overcome spells, and

the text description and the mechanics of the spells are built around this. Spell resistance grants an additional method by which monsters, and by extension monstrous characters, can shrug off magical effects above and beyond regular saving throws. I would strongly, STRONGLY recommend you think long and hard before you let your characters have spell resistance. I've played in some games where the players were like Duragar or Drow and other ancestry types that had spell resistance built into the character. We generally just laughed our way through encounters with enemy spellcasters because

we had double the chance not to be affected by color spray, charm, sleep, and other common magic enemies to the party would have. Another thing to think of so the last one wasn't the last thing and I lied to you. Creatures with very very high CRs generally don't let players play those types of characters. I mean a troll is borderline broken unless you're playing a very high level campaign and that's just a CR 5 creature. If a player says they want to play an ancient gold dragon, sorry no that's just going

to be a flat hell no. Ain't nobody got time to try to balance that. I mean I love you as a player, don't get me wrong, I really do, but no way in hell am I going to take the next few weeks to try to balance that character in Icewind Dale. Okay now really honestly last tip and then I'm going to get to the Howl of the Wild. If you do allow monstrous PCs and monstrous PCs are rare There should be a little note I said a little role play opportunity for the character to feel a little out of place Imagine it you're a blacksmith in a town That's 90% human with a smattering of other elves dwarves halflings forth. And a friggin' centaur walks up and asks you to shoe them.

Uh, okay. Probably not your typical Tuesday for this blacksmith. Sure, horseshoes are horseshoes, but it's the little things. They're used to manhandling the horse's legs to get them in the right position to remove the old shoe and measure and apply a new one. Now imagine if the horse could say, hey, hey, hey, cut it out. You're pulling my muscle here, ow.

It's gonna turn a little weird, a touch awkward. If it's a low role play game, keep the negatives to a minimum, but maybe they rear their head at least once in a while in very minor ways. Awkwardness, the feeling of standing out, and maybe just a touch of bigotry. Please donness, the feeling of standing out, and maybe just a touch of bigotry. Please don't overdo it by the way, don't make the player feel uncomfortable, but if that's a little part of the experience of playing a monstrous character. Adventurers

stand out from the common folk, monstrous adventurers stand out from other adventurers. That being said, in heavy roleplay games, these differences are a great source of conflict. Growth by the PC and the populace around them, they can overcome racism, accept others regardless of what they look like and so forth. Okay, leaving monstrous PCs, let's hop over to Howl of the Wild. Howl of the Wild is a Pathfinder 2E non-core rulebook, like guns and gears. It's published by Paizo and available in both print and PDF form. The book contains six new ancestries, two ocean dwelling, one called the Athamaru, or also called the Lokatha, and Murfolk.

There's also two large, or potentially large, ancestries, the Centaur and the Minotaur, which I really want to play. The insect based Circe who absorbed magic from the air, soil, plants, stone, and practically any other material. And my favorite, purely for flavor, the awakened animal. Not animal like creatures, by the way, like the Shuny or the Kitsune or something like that. No, these are literal animals that through magical or evolutionary means became self aware. Now, as defined, there is a ton of freedom granted here. You could be a bird or a bear, a cat or a camel. Awakened animals are broken into heritages, the swimming heritage,

flying heritage, climbing heritage and running heritage, depending on what kind of animal they are. Attacks that the awakened animals are given are based on the type of creature that they are. And by the way, as part of the awakened animal ancestry, you can take a level two dedication feat to become a were creature with a hybrid in animal form. Lycanthropy grants powerful abilities and the dedication blunts some of the negative effects though.

Previously, if you were a were creature and you failed a fortitude saving throw on the night of the full moon you had to change form until sunrise. Now you change into the hybrid shape only and can't voluntarily change shape again until sunrise. Also you gain the toughness feat and a weakness to silver equal to half your level. Even non-werecreatures walk around on two legs, can speak both common and with animals of their own kind. Howl of the Wild also continues on with class abilities for Barbarians, Druids, Rangers, three new patrons for Witches, and a new muse for Bards. They even have guidelines on large PCs like I talked about earlier.

Large PCs are ones that occupy a 2x2 square, so four total squares there, and they do not get reached by default. Moving through a five foot wide area is difficult terrain as I mentioned earlier. Now here's an interesting rule that they spell out. Equipment for large PCs doesn't cost any more than that same equipment for a medium creature. Okay, is that realistic? No, but it does remove a potentially punishing mechanic of Bob being large. It also includes rules by the way for tiny PCs, aquatic PCs, and flying PCs.

It continues on and clarifies and expands rules for PCs who are riding or being carried by other PCs in the Pathfinder 2e game system. This section caught my attention by the way because it's one that's only been casually mentioned in the Pathfinder 2e game system. This section caught my attention by the way because it's one that's only been casually mentioned in the Pathfinder 2e rules up until now. And for the second reason I was interested is I have a married pair of players in one of my campaigns who are playing a tiny sprite and a human, and occasionally the human carries the sprite around. So what are the rules you ask?

Thank you, I'm glad you asked because I was going to tell you anyway. The Cliff Notes version. A larger PC can carry a PC that's two sizes smaller, and each PC loses one action per round to maintain balance and not get dropped. So, in Pathfinder 2E's three action economy, the carrier and the carried only get two actions per round instead of three. And this is where it can be punishing. Both PCs roll initiative and both go on the worse initiative roll. There's also expanded list of companions including more mounts and so forth. They also expand the bestiary so there's more enemies for your PCs to fight and what I love there are rules for adjusting creatures quickly and on the fly.

We've always had elite and weak, which are easy adjustments to creatures, but now we have amphibious and frostbound, miniature sandbound, twinned, so creatures that have two heads like an Etton, and winged. So using only this book, you could create an, I don't know, amphibious two-headed weremoose. You heard me. You get bitten in the next full moon,

you grow a giant set of antlers, maybe a second head. Oh god that's... hang on let me write that down. There's also rules for greater chimeras where you can change the types of heads that they have. Like it talks about giving a chimera a wolf head or snapping turtle head or something like that. As I mentioned previously I don't do in-depth previews of individual products on the channel very often, but when something neat comes out, I definitely want to at least mention it. The book is amazing and I love the artwork, but I will say the one downside is that it is fairly expensive. The print copy is $64.99 and the PDF is about $20.

Monsters PCs are a creative addition to a campaign but should only be added with caution to avoid unbalancing your game. Consider creative ways to allow these ancestries into your games such as leveling up as a monster and slowly gaining abilities. Work with your players if it makes sense for your campaign and if you do I'd be willing to bet that you and your players would have fun doing it. Please like, rate, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you happen to find it. And please tune in next week when I'm going to give my wonderful DMs out there some tips for manipulating your players. But I promise it's not as bad as it sounds.

Before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, Beds. It's tempting to buy the cheapest bed, but you really shouldn't. Go ahead and spring for a good mattress. This has been episode 226, Tips for Handling Monstrous PCs, and a brief review of How of the Wild. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.