Racial Paragons: What do you think?

[Dannyalcatraz]

The idea here is that, once the monster reaches enough levels to be equal to the base monster, it can then multiclass or continue its racial progression...

I'm not sure how this varies from Savage Species but for there being a progression beyond the basic creature. Am I right?

 

[pawsplay]

I'm quite over the moon with the series of racial classes that Necromancers of the Northwest have been doing lately. So far, they've released the nymph, the hound archon, and the succubus as part of their "Races with Class" series of articles.

They go into their design philosophy regarding building these racial classes in this article, but the bottom line of it is that they've adopted a particular stance in regards to these: they break the base monster down into however many levels encapsulate its stats, and then add as many levels as necessary to reach an even twenty.

The idea here is that, once the monster reaches enough levels to be equal to the base monster, it can then multiclass or continue its racial progression. If it chooses to continue, it gains new powers and abilities as an advanced member of its species. It's quite ingenious, and I really love seeing the new powers they've invented for the races they've done so far.

I like a lot about that approach, and I've been interested in those products. However, I'm kind of going the opposite way. I want to take some fringe concepts and turn them into a race playable alongside the core races. But during that process, I first had the thought, "Maybe a few levels as a kicker would help some concepts," and second had the thought that prestige classes were often too little too late, whereas the paragon concept gets around that, but it's something I have less experience with.

Are you familiar with Fantasy Craft? A drake is a playable race. It's a fire-breathing, flying, Large creature. And it uses the regular classes, regular skills, variant but still somewhat normal equipment, etc. And I first had the thought, "I can do that." Then I had a second thought....

 

[Alzrius]

I'm not sure how this varies from Savage Species but for there being a progression beyond the basic creature. Am I right?

Yeah, pretty much. But those new abilities that progress beyond the basic creature have, so far, been very kickass.