Community Based Monster Classes: Come in and help out!

[Stycotl]

i think that the stance, "will accept class progressions for homebrew monsters that have already been thoroughly critiqued" is absolutely reasonable.

1) some homebrew monsters––quite a few of them, in fact––are extremely well done, much better balanced than officially published monsters, and have enough people using them that they ought to be given class levels.

2) not all of the published monsters are worth doing. some of them outright suck even if there was a bit of creativity to their creation, and others have not an ounce creativity to begin with. in fact, some published monsters are just monsters from previous books with class levels (a way for wotc to steal your money and claim that they are actually giving you a new product).

3) hyudra mentions that the project should stay away from homebrew, otherwise "we'll never be done." i don't think that argument holds water at all. for one, this is a project with a fairly narrow readership anyway, and an even smaller group of homebrewers. as well as it has gone on so far, it is far more likely that this project will fizzle out far before you all have done every monster in every published book. you might not like it, but it will probably happen (and almost did just a few weeks ago).

4) let's pretend that the stars align just right and the project is still running strong when you do reach the last monster in the last book. are you just going to give each other high-fives and walk away? why not continue with the aforementioned homebrew monsters that are just begging to be streamlined into playable classes?

EDIT:

5) some of you at this point are probably saying, "so when we reach the last monster in the last book, then we'll start focusing on homebrew." but that would show some bias against homebrew on your part. as mentioned on a thread about homebrew bias on the roleplaying forum just a few days ago, some people stick with official content because they are under the fallacious idea that it has already been playtested and balanced––which is very often not the case. therefore, it ignores the already stated fact that some published monsters suck, fluff-wise, creative mechanics-wise, and balance-wise. meanwhile, some homebrew monsters have been run through a gauntlet of critique and are much better quality all around than the published monsters.

EDIT-EDIT:

so, my suggestion is that you just do what has already been outlined on the first page: accept quality homebrew. those that don't want to critique homebrew don't have to. but you shouldn't complain that it is there simply because it is homebrew.

in some cases, "quality" homebrew will be a contestable description, especially because even on these prolific homebrew boards, many things go by with only a comment or two. in those cases, if there are problems, obvious or subtle, or it never got any critque, but you want do class levels for it anyway, PM the creator about starting a new thread for it or reopening a thread with moderator permission, and then get it the critique ball rolling yourself.