My thoughts on Replacing LA: The Minotaur!

[Sylrae]

Thank you Dannyalcatraz. That's a pretty good way to explain what I was trying to say.

I'd like to do something similar for a bunch of monsters (ALL the SRD Monsters that have HD or LA) over time.

And set up animals too. Have a base animal suitable for a familiar, then animal companion, then keep going up until you reach unusually large and powerful ones. Also do awakened animals, and either come up with a dire animal template class or progress all the animals up into dire form with labels on what is where.

Replace all templates with template classes.

Essentially make everything progressible for player character character use.

 

[Will]

My approach:

Some racial HD are worth a fraction of a class level, in my estimation. Animal HD, in particular, is roughly half the value of a PC class level.

Based on that concept, there's the '1 LA = 2 Animal HD'

For animalistic/savage races (IE: big/strong/tough), the following works reasonably well:

Savage
HD: d8
Saves: Reflex or Fortitude good, others poor (generally, big tough stuff has Fort high, cat-like stuff has Reflex high)
Class skills: Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Listen, Move Silently, Spot, Survival, Swim.
Skill points: 2+Int per level
BAB: 3/4 x level
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: None.
Animal Nature: At first level the character gains access to monster feats like Improved Natural Armor, if not normally able to.
Animal Vitality (Ex): Every level increases Strength by 2 and Constitution by 1. Every even level increases natural armor by 1. This is a vitality bonus, which stacks with all other bonuses.
Growth (Ex): At 5th level and every five levels thereafter the character grows a size level, to a maximum of whatever is natural for the race.
Growth adds size adjustments to AC and attack bonuses, as well as increasing the damage of natural weapons. Ability scores are not affected, however. A gradual increase in size and bulk is already reflected in animal vitality.
If the creature should reach a given size faster, may have to scoot it up a bit.

To determine the starting stats of a creature, subtract LAx4 from normal Str and LAx2 from normal Con, and LA from natural armor. The creature also starts as Medium in size.

Racial abilities require some adjutication. Most racial skill bonuses should be innate, gained immediately. Some may make more sense later (say, midway).
Natural attacks are innate, though they may be scaled down based on size.
Speical attacks are a judgement call, but are also often innate.

So, a minotaur:
Large monstrous humanoid, LA +2 (and monstrous humanoid dice, but that isn't important here), +8 Str, +4 Con, +5 natural armor bonus.

LA +2 becomes 4 HD of Savage.
Starting minotaur would be Medium, adjust Str by -8, Con by -4, and natural armor by -2.

Starting Minotaur (though with 6 monstrous humanoid HD) has no adjustment to Str or Con, +3 natural armor. Natural cunning, scent, Powerful Charge, and Gore are all innate, though the Gore will be 1d6 at Medium size.
The minotaur grows to Large size after 4 levels of Savage.

Most of the innate, powerful abilities are 'paid' by the monstrous humanoid HD (which are, in my estimation, about 3/4 the value of PC class).

If you wanted to deconstruct further, I'd convert the 6 monstrous humanoid HD into 3 Savage levels. During those levels sprinkle some of the innate abilities but no stat gains.

 

[Sylrae]

If you look at UK's CR Guide, all the things youre estimating have determined values, which tend to be pretty accurate.

That being said, your estimations aren't that far off.

Your system is kindof like my Idea of how to break it down into a class + race, but less standardized, and would likely prove unreliable/difficult to balance multiple races. Particularly at Higher ECLs.

Like: How would you handle something like a succubus?

I'd rework it into a class. Possibly one with inborn spell levels (instead of SLAs) - so the Succubus would cast either cleric or wizard or Sorc spells for an example: Then, after taking the Succubus Levels, you continue to gain spells like you were counting your succubus levels. However, your caster class abilities other than spellcasting start at level 1.
This is less true to the monster manual, but IMO makes a SLA monster a more playable option. Give it spells from whatever class you consider most suiting, and if necessary, add the SLAs into the spell list where appropriate. If a SLA is non-combat, and at will, (such as tongues) then just leave it.