LA and racial HDs

[Pyrex]

You're half-right.

They are "monster levels" but you *do* have to take them all before taking class levels.

 

[underfoot]

They are "monster levels" but you *do* have to take them all before taking class levels.

That's cool, I haven't looked at Savage Species in long time (great book). As a house rule I would be okay with a player taking a class level in between racials. I don't see anything over powered by allowing it, especially considering that they have to get the monster approved by the DM to begin with.

EDIT: And all the powerful/desirable abilities of a monster are (or should be) given at the end of the progression.

 

[frankthedm]

Minotaurs have 9HD. If your character doesn't have 9HD, then he's not a minotaur.

Uhm, Monster manual minotaurs have 6 hit dice {and +2 LA].

 

[underfoot]

For that matter; if you allow a player to play a Minotaur without taking the Racial HD, how do you expect them not to ask to not take the LA either?

I wish I had Savage Species in front of me. But I would assume that if you take Monster Level approach (which I believe includes the LA in the number of levels in the progression), then you would not receive a LA.

 

[Arkhandus]

The monster levels already include the Level Adjustment in them; there are certain monster levels in which no Hit Die (or associated BAB, save, skill point, etc. benefits) is gained, so in effect they are a Level Adjustment level. Those monster levels that grant no Hit Dice still don't count towards actual character level (same as Level Adjustments don't count towards actual character level).

 

[Doug McCrae]

EDIT: And all the powerful/desirable abilities of a monster are (or should be) given at the end of the progression.

That's not the case with many monsters. For example an air elemental gets all its best abilities at 1st level - 100 ft. flight (perfect), elemental immunities - and knack all after that. A player would be far better off taking one level in air elemental then switching to another class, such as sorcerer, for the next 19 levels. Wow! 100 ft. flying and a bunch of other good stuff for +0 LA, that's a good deal.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

Yes, the player is required to take all the racial stuff before they can take a real class, and yes, I agree it kind of makes them weak.

But that is what you get for playing a monster, they are just not as good as an equally leveled character. Maybe they can be almost as good as a fighter type class, but nothing else.

Allowing characters to take levels instead of or interspersed with monster levels is asking for trouble, but YMMV.

 

[underfoot]

That's not the case with many monsters. For example an air elemental gets all its best abilities at 1st level - 100 ft. flight (perfect), elemental immunities - and knack all after that. A player would be far better off taking one level in air elemental then switching to another class, such as sorcerer, for the next 19 levels. Wow! 100 ft. flying and a bunch of other good stuff for +0 LA, that's a good deal.

Thats why a lot of Savage Species is more of a "how to" with samples for the DM to adjust as he sees fit than a perfect example.

In the case of air elementals it does look front loaded. I would simply progress the fly speed from 30' racial to adding 10' every even level up to 100'. Then I would shift Improved Initative and the natural armor bonuses to later levels. That way just taking 1 level of air elemental would give you:

Racial:
+4dex / -4int
fly speed 30'
elemental traits
small traits
darkvision 60'

1st Level:
1d8 hp, 2+int skill (craft, listen, profession, spot), +0 BAB, Good Reflex
Air Subtype
Flyby Attack
1d4 Slam

Now we have a player on par with a 1st level character. Granted, Fly is still pretty strong no more so than a level of cleric. Anyway. I've always felt Savage Species is very open to tweaking, more so than any other WotC splat.

 

[Klaus]

I was under the impression from Savage Species that you didn't have to gain all of the Monster Levels before you could take class levels.

For Example, The Minotaur was broken down into a 8 monster levels (I don't have the book in front of me but I believe the number of levels equals the ECL of the monster). You could progress to 3rd level Minotaur and then elect to take a level of fighter. The trade off being you are not a fully developed Minotaur until you take all of the monster levels.

The monster levels represent all the racial HD, size, attributes, skill bonuses, and any (Su) or (Ex) abilities and spreads those out over the total ECL of the monster. So you would not always gain a HD increase with each monster level. It normally leads to a somewhat weakened character at low levels (because HDs tend to get spaced out quite a bit), but makes playing a "young" minotaur viable below 8th level campaigns.

It's precisely the other way around. You may NOT take any class levels until you finish your racial progression (so, if you're playing a Ghaele Eladrin, you're set for all of your non-epic career).

 

[underfoot]

It's precisely the other way around. You may NOT take any class levels until you finish your racial progression (so, if you're playing a Ghaele Eladrin, you're set for all of your non-epic career).

Yup, Pyrex already pointed that out and I responded to it.