Rules for doing this, and assigning LA to LA-less monsters, are presented in Savage Species. If a monster instead uses the Elite Array (typically only example monsters with class levels, should be noted in the entry) you subtract 15 from the highest, 14 from the second highest, so forth. You can work out racial attribute bonuses by taking the creature's ability scores and subtracting 10 from them (if even) or 11 (if odd). Monsters are constructed like characters, with racial HD and special abilities taking the place of HD from class and class features.Īny monster with a listed 'LA' (Level Adjustment) in the MM is designed for possible player use. Totally awesome if your DM & table are cool with it. Totally not within the core rules, as written. If they didn't match, we'd flip a coin to determine which head gets to act.

Each turn, we'd decide what we wanted to do. We had different character sheets, and even different classes. But it's not outside of what a DM can do if they want to.Ī friend of mine and I Once came up with a character concept for a two-headed Ogre. Will they? Quite possibly not, as some monsters can be really hard to integrate into a campaign when other people are playing Dwarves. On top of that, you could just ask your DM and say 'Can I play as this cool monster?' Your DM can make anything happen, no matter how wacky. Shapechange lets you change into all kinds of things. Masters of Many Form can Wild Shape into almost anything. Spells like Polymorph let you become most of the monsters. The ones you're intended to be able to play as a PC have the 'Monster as Character' section. Those monster stats could be changed, if I for example advance the monster using the rules to do that. That's what those stats are for - they greatly speed up DM preparation (and improv if things suddenly change mid session and we need monsters we hadn't planned for).

If I want to put a Bodak into play, I don't want to have to create stats for it every single time. The intention of monsters having a block of stats like characters do is so a DM has stats to use when they look up the monster.

Dnd 3.5 monster of legend pc