racial HD - ok to scrap or need to keep?

[GreatLemur]

As an aside, I've re-worked some of the monstrous races as transformational classes, and some others have done similar things... let's see, where is it...

I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again: Levelled races and transformational classes are the way to go. Every effective character level needs to be a real character level, including BAB and save progression, a hit die, skill points, and so on. If that means that the cool monstery powers need to be toned down and spread out across several levels, that's fine. I think those of us who want to play bugbears are more interested in just getting to play a bugbear than we are in +4 Str and +3 natural armor, anyway.

(Tangentially, I'd really like to see the monsters of D&D 4.0 built like classes for exactly this reason.)

 

[Nifft]

(Tangentially, I'd really like to see the monsters of D&D 4.0 built like classes for exactly this reason.)

[threadjack]
Ironically, in a way this is a move back to 1e's "hit die" metric for monster toughness.
[/threadjack]

 

[GreatLemur]

[threadjack]
Ironically, in a way this is a move back to 1e's "hit die" metric for monster toughness.
[/threadjack]

I don't care if they call it hit die or level or challenge rating or what, just as long as they pick one unit and apply it across the board. If they could balance abilities on a uses-per-encounter basis rather than uses-per-day, we wouldn't need weird, counter-intuitive double standards for rating PC and NPC power levels.