[SUGGESTION] About Monster PCs (long post)

There have been a few threads about people wanting new races, and the difficulty of balancing them against the current ones. My suggestion is that players be able to unlock three monster races based on existing monsters - goblins, trogs etc - e.g. after completing the main campaign for free or for pizza.

A naked monster PC's deck would be the same deck that monster uses in the game - with appropriate flavourful default cards attached to unoccupied item slots. The equipment slots themselves should be the same as for any other PC of the same class and level, with a monster race skill slot instead of the human/dwarf/elf skill slot.

However, to really differentiate the experience of playing a monster PC from a normal race PC, there should be a new mechanic for monster PCs along the same lines as the power token mechanic. Monster PCs start the game with a number of "Adapatability tokens" (or a name that actually sounds good) that the monster PC uses to equip items to empty item slots. Adaptability tokens work the same as power tokens - monster PCs have a particular number of adaptability tokens and every item has an adaptability token requirement of one token. So if your lvl 1 Trog PC only has two adaptability tokens, they can only equip two items and have to use the rest of the default Trog deck. Monster PCs would also get power tokens as they level like normal PCs.

For me, the flavour of playing a monster PC in single player would be fun. Making actually playing a monster PC fun would require balancing the rate at which monster PCs gain adaptability tokens well. Certainly mid lvl monster PCs would still have to use some of their flavourful default empty slots to make playing a monster PC still feel significantly different. Maybe each item without power token requirements should need one adaptability token, but items with power token requirements should need an extra adaptability token for every power token they require (e.g. for two clear power token item a monster PC needs to use three adaptability tokens to use it).

For racial move cards - the monster races could quite easily fit into the existing walk/run/dash pattern. For example, goblins correspond with elves (they have weak HP and dash), trogs correspond with humans (normal HP and run), trees correspond with dwarves (high HP and walk).

For racial skill cards - whichever three monster races are implemented should have flavourful choices, I haven't given it much thought. I think goblins are a good candidate for a monster PC race because they're fun and a D&D classic, and their skills could include rogue-like cards (like people have been discussing in rogue posts) because goblins are sneaky and devious, some gang-up cards to give attack bonuses when adjacent or near other PCs (bigger bonuses for being near fellow goblins), and drawback cards like Cowardly, because goblins are cowardly.

Even if the existing monster decks aren't large enough or flavourful enough for this idea to work without adapting them, and it would require creating new monster race skills, I think that it's a fun idea worth pursuing in Card Hunter single player. I would totally use pizza to buy new monster race options for my PCs.

What do you think? Any suggestions on better monster PC mechanics, flavourful and fun monster races you'd like to see, or monster race skill suggestions?

 

OK - having looked at the monster decks on card hunter they're all pretty short and tend to be packed with cards that are found on regular items. There are a few cool flavourful monster cards like the ones for trees but otherwise not much, and they're balanced for whatever lvl the adventures they appear in are - which isn't good if you want to have the same basic monster deck lvl 1-20. So to make my monster PC idea work you'd have to make a monster deck with a lot of new flavourful cards that improves with the PC's lvl, unlike the regular PC whose deck only improves with items. So the tree PC wouldn't start with Bludgeoning Branch, Long Thin Branch and Clubbing Branch but their weapon/divine weapon/staff slots would start with some lesser branch cards and they would get the better ones as they increase in lvl.
So it's a bit of an ask but still sounds like fun.