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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 5827448" data-attributes="member: 17106">Rereading the topic called to mind an example: Savage Species.This was a book that came out just before 3.5, and it was an amazing read. The basic principle-putting monsters and PCs under a more common framework to unite the two concepts-was a true advancement for the game, one of the biggest of the 3.X era. It eliminated the counterintuitive methods of generating feats and skills for monsters, and introduced many great new options for nonhuman PCs. My players immediately dived in and started with it, and we've had tons of fun. I played an anthropomorphic owl when I got a turn, which was a trip and one of my best characters. SS also advanced my understanding of monster and NPC design as a DM, and bolstered everyone's sense that the game was fair and that all characters-player and non-were meaningful.The out of box quality of this book was pretty poor. It's got cool art and great ideas, but all kinds of unbalanced races and classes, and a bunch of feats and spells that don't jive with other supplements. It's full of errata. The 3.5 conversion was not complete. The monster classes were a nice concept, but were horribly designed, with abilities divided in a completely inequitable way among the available levels. The monster class concept was revisited, but many of the rules were ignored and never referenced in any true 3.5 supplements.In other words, it sucked, but it was still great.Now, this isn't the ideal I would shoot for, but I think it is illustrative of what D&D and D&D products are about.</blockquote>

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