LA and Monsterous hit dice.

[Stone Dog]

I have a bit of a problem. I have a player who is all on fire about yuan-ti. I blame the Serpent Kindoms book, but it shoves an electrode in her pulp nerve and flips the switch so I can't really complain. So for my Eberron game I am thinking of suggesting one of the shulassakar* as a PC option. Bloodsworn (pureblood) to be precise. The LA isn't a problem, merely a +2, but wait! There is what... five monsterous hit dice in there? Great now THAT is a problem.

Can I just ditch those and replace them with class levels? That seems a bit much, but I'm not one for number crunching things like this. What would you all recomend to bring an example of a young shulassakar down to a mere +2 LA?

Thank you for your help!



*http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20040920a

 

[Drowbane]

Well, as per RAW... this Yuan-ti related race is ECL 7+ class levels.

Are you the DM for this? If so, hand wave it if you want. Perhaps reduce the # of Monstrous HD? Or perhaps raise the LA abit and drop all the HD. If you're the DM, do what feels right.

 

[Sammael]

Alternatively, you could make up a Savage Species-style monster class progression for him, and make him take 7 levels in the monster class before progressing as anything else.

 

[Stone Dog]

Or perhaps raise the LA abit and drop all the HD.

See? Simple things like this might not occur to me till I've gone mad. I knew I'd want to drop the HD completely, but my brain was fixated on dropping powers and stat adjustments too. A simple click of the LA dial is much better. Now to wonder how much...

 

[the Jester]

Alternatively, you could make up a Savage Species-style monster class progression for him, and make him take 7 levels in the monster class before progressing as anything else.

This is the approach I'd prolly take, since it's kinda hard to tell how much a level adjustment factors in monstrous HD. (In other words, two monsters with the same suite of special abilities, ability adjustments, etc. might have different LAs if they had different racial HD.)

 

[Klaus]

Or you could use the Bloodline option from Unearthed Arcana (basically, an acquired LA) and have a human (or any other race) with a yuan-ti (or in this case, shulassakar) bloodline.

 

[MerricB]

Definitely do it as a Monster Class.

Here's a very rough example of such:

YUAN TI (PUREBLOOD)

Level  HD   BAB Fort Ref Will   Skill Pts    Special
1st    1d8   +1  +0  +2   +2  (2+Int mod)*4  Feat, darkvision 60'
                                             +2 Int, 1/day cause fear
2nd    2d8   +2  +0  +3   +3        2        1/day charm person; Bonus feat (Alertness)
3rd    2d8   +2  +0  +3   +3        -        1/day darkness, entangle; at will-detect poison
4th    3d8   +3  +1  +3   +3        2        +2 Dex, Feat; 1/day animal trance
5th    3d8   +3  +1  +3   +3        -        +2 Cha, Bonus Feat (Blindfight)
6th    4d8   +4  +1  +4   +4        2        alternate form; Spell Resistance 14

Skills: Concentration, Disguise, Hide, Knowledge (any), Listen, Spot

I'm not familiar with the Bloodsworn as such. That's a progression for the Yuan-Ti Pureblood from the MM.

Cheers!