Savage Species: Creating Monstrous Heroes

[Alzrius]

I'm confused. If I'm a monster PC, don't I advance as a PC?

Yes, you advance as a PC, which means in a selected character class. What I want to see in Savage Species are PC versions of the Advancement listings in the MM monster entries. We know the book will have ability to roleplay monster PCs below their normal abilities up to their MM listings by gaining monster levels...I'm hoping it has the ability to continue in those monster levels past the generic MM creature listing. Understand?

 

[Xarlen]

Yes, you advance as a PC, which means in a selected character class. What I want to see in Savage Species are PC versions of the Advancement listings in the MM monster entries. We know the book will have ability to roleplay monster PCs below their normal abilities up to their MM listings by gaining monster levels...I'm hoping it has the ability to continue in those monster levels past the generic MM creature listing. Understand?

In other words, they don't advance as a PC class.

Bleh.

 

[seankreynolds]

Well there are over 50 "Monster classes) which from what I have heard is simply breaking down the ECL into levels so you can play a non mature higher ECL creature. I am hoping that there will be a lot more to the book than just this.

That's only about 60 pages of the book (originally 10, but the core D&D team liked the idea so much that they had me do a bunch more ... fortunately they had also gotten the word from On High that more pages were being added to the book, so notihng had to be cut to make room for those retro-classes). I didn't work on much else in the book other than that, though, so I can't tell ya much about it.

 

[seankreynolds]

I'm just hoping they remember to include the flip side of this idea...that you can keep gaining "monster levels" past whats listed in the MM, for higher hit dice and new/better powers.

There's a problem with that.

If you advance a monster according to the MM, it usually ends up weaker than if you gave it PC character classes.

If you change the monster's MM advancement so it gains new powers, suddenly a monster advanced with this book is different (and more powerful, thus a higher CR) than one advanced according to the MM.

So rather than creating 50 advancement styles for the monsters presented (which would require a lot of playtesting and would be hard to balance compared to the MM monsters or the core classes), we went with the "advance by character class" option for XP-based leveling.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

 

[seankreynolds]

so you start as a 'baby' minotaur?

A teenage minotaur, actually.

 

[Mr Fidgit]

A teenage minotaur, actually.

 

[Oracular Vision]

If Mr. Reynolds did the MPC (monster PC) class listings, they will be good...I have to also recommend the Monster Handbook from FFG, it has an intelligent CR calculating scheme that replaces the old guesswork system. Many other goodies too...

 

[Xarlen]

I would prefer something along the lines of allowing them to advance via character classes.

But that's me.

Here's to hoping they also have certain things setup so you can play them that way as a core race (Orcs and Kobolds make for Core race equals). Hobgoblins... Eh.

 

[Impeesa]

In other words, they don't advance as a PC class.

Bleh.

Or they can, if you want to. That's kind of the point. So you could be a full Troll 11 or whatever it is now, or you could be Troll 3/fighter 8.

That said, I don't like it. I'd had the same idea before, but I don't think I like the way they're going about it. So a newly created, non-mature minotaur has a fully mature set of horns (gore attack) but hasn't quite developed his innate sense of direction? And Pelor have mercy on the DM who tries to adjust the ECLs for his campaign now... instead of saying "Sure, you can take race x at ECL +4 instead of the listed +5", he has to say "Sure, you can take race x as 4 levels, just let me redistribute all the HD and special abilities, and get back to you." Much as I love the idea - and don't get me wrong, I love monster PCs - I don't think I have room in my starving student budget for 250 pages of that kind of junk.

Edit: Stroke of brilliance! Ever try to figure out the racial modifiers for the grandchild of a fiend, a celestial, a dragon, and an elf? Just start with one level in each race.

Observation: Will the half-dragon racial class have less than 10 levels?

--Impeesa--