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<blockquote data-quote="Steinhauser" data-source="post: 5022525" data-attributes="member: 86705">I'm a fan of playable monster races, and as such I'm always looking for ways to solve the obvious problems involved.Savage Species had a good idea, although a lot of the book seemed to assume a whole party of monsters, rather than monster + a few humanoids. If everyone has access to unique powers and great scores, it can't really be considered game-breaking.One fix I saw used a Savage Species style &quot;racial class&quot; level progression but limited the magic items the monsters got or could use, while letting the lowly races collect them as normal. Mosters got at-wills and better ability scores, while the regular LA+0s got to pump their game to the same level using items. The hard part is justifying to the player why his character can't have the same magic items the others get, and usually those kinds of players will make the biggest stink about it. I never tried this one, but it looked good on paper.And more recently I read about someone who was raising the core races to LA+1 (with new abilities) to allow some of the lower LA monsters to fit in more easily.I usually default to only allowing the character to play a &quot;juvenile&quot; of the race, which I design. (I'll admit I've only done this once and had the player still go through with it.) Large and larger monsters are reduced to Medium, ability score adjustments are LA+0 or LA+1 friendly, and special abilities are &quot;not fully developed,&quot; changing from at will to 1/day or even 1/week. Flight changes to glide or levitate, natural weapons are scaled down. Racial HD are eliminated. And I don't let them grow into their adult forms by level - growing up takes time, not experience.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Steinhauser, post: 5022525, member: 86705"] I'm a fan of playable monster races, and as such I'm always looking for ways to solve the obvious problems involved. Savage Species had a good idea, although a lot of the book seemed to assume a whole party of monsters, rather than monster + a few humanoids. If everyone has access to unique powers and great scores, it can't really be considered game-breaking. One fix I saw used a Savage Species style "racial class" level progression but limited the magic items the monsters got or could use, while letting the lowly races collect them as normal. Mosters got at-wills and better ability scores, while the regular LA+0s got to pump their game to the same level using items. The hard part is justifying to the player why his character can't have the same magic items the others get, and usually those kinds of players will make the biggest stink about it. I never tried this one, but it looked good on paper. And more recently I read about someone who was raising the core races to LA+1 (with new abilities) to allow some of the lower LA monsters to fit in more easily. I usually default to only allowing the character to play a "juvenile" of the race, which I design. (I'll admit I've only done this once and had the player still go through with it.) Large and larger monsters are reduced to Medium, ability score adjustments are LA+0 or LA+1 friendly, and special abilities are "not fully developed," changing from at will to 1/day or even 1/week. Flight changes to glide or levitate, natural weapons are scaled down. Racial HD are eliminated. And I don't let them grow into their adult forms by level - growing up takes time, not experience. [/QUOTE]

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