How essential is Savage Species?

[Voodoo]

If its only for a short adventure i'd just stick to the level adjustments in MM. I agree with others that Savage Species was a good idea but badly done.

It'd be worth looking at some of the Savage Progressions articles on the wizards site so you can see how they break high level monsters down into monster levels.

A PC beholder might be interesting but it might be problematic, perhaps if its lost a few of its eyes (especaially the anti-magic one) it might be a bit more balanced, or a Gauth might be a good substitute.

Alterativly let them play whatever and stick however many class levels you feel appropriate to balance them all out, if its just for one 'hog wild' adventure let rip and damn the consequences.

 

[schnee]

ECL's just don't work. You can never be ballanced and play an ECL caster. I hope that the casters in your group do something to help ballance. A Minotaur fighter = OK balance, a Minotaur wizard = CRAP balance.

We're using the 'Complete' books, so Practiced Spellcaster will help. I'll also work with them on things like that... Depending on the class, I'll do a 1:1 progression on levels, maybe a 3:2 on others. If they all end up being low-level casters and combat monsters, then I'll adjust the adventure accordingly.

I'm not terribly worried about messing up, it's an experiement and a lark. I'm more interested in seeing what kinds of beasties they create.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Hell, I'll add that it was my absolute favorite book in 3.0. It's just that changes they made in the 3.5 MM made it completely unneccessary, and typically handled things better than SS did.

The Monster Progressions are still a pretty good idea, though they need a little tweaking to work right-- particularly in the way they interact with Favored Class, and setting natural breakpoints to allow a character to get some levels in real classes before finishing.

 

[Droogie]

Um, well it has some nice monster class rules. And don't forget that it has some nice magic items with beasties in mind.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hell, I'll add that it was my absolute favorite book in 3.0. It's just that changes they made in the 3.5 MM made it completely unneccessary, and typically handled things better than SS did.

The Monster Progressions are still a pretty good idea, though they need a little tweaking to work right-- particularly in the way they interact with Favored Class, and setting natural breakpoints to allow a character to get some levels in real classes before finishing.

The lack of break points was the biggest flaw in my estimation as well.

I rather hope they try the idea again, with better balance, and maybe open it up to the OGL.

The Auld Grump

 

[ThirdWizard]

One of my favorite NPCs in my old Sigil based campaign was a mummy using the mummy progression (edited for 3.5 use). He was well balanced with the group and I used him on a number of occasions, from the 5-8 level range, I believe, although I could be off. That was definately great fun to be had - he was a Dustman. I also used a number of outsider types, which fit in better in a planescape game. I guess that's one thing that makes it work better for me than most people. In Sigil you can be a Choker Rogue and nobody's going to bat an eye. It makes it much easier to use Savage Species.

 

[Felon]

If you're intent on using monster classes, SS is pretty essential to getting the method down pat.

If you're just using straight ECL's, then don't bother. The MM covers it in better detail.

 

[Glyfair]

Isn't the update available though?

The closest to an update is the 3.5 update to the eTools Savage Species dataset update. I'm not sure how many changes they made to update it to 3.5. They specifically just updated the older books for the 3.5 rules, without worrying about game balance, etc.

Personally, the best thing about the is the monster progressions. I think it's very useful for a monster campaign. For a monster scenario, not so much.