Savage Species is Broken?

[Slaved]

The acid test, when used properly, is a great addition to a game wanting to bring in non-phb stuff.

I'd like to see the dm do an acid test with the character in question actually. See where his reasonings lay and what he is comparing the character to. Without knowing that it is hard to provide an arguement for or against.

 

[Amazing Mumford]

I personally don't think the book is inherently "broken", but unfortunately many of the outer-planar monster classes need a little work. Depends on the campaign, just because a spell or class or template is deemed "broken" in one campaign doesn't mean it won't fit into another, because all campaigns are a little different. The classes are based on the 3.0 version of the monster, and in 3.5 many of the outer-planar monsters were significantly re-vamped. The succubus, for instance-- using SS as 3.5, when should the succubus get her new SR? What would the new progression be? While I'm at it, are there any official or unofficial 3.5 conversions for these?

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't have Savage Species but I had it borrowed for a couple of months.

The impression that it gave me was that the class-like progressions for monstrous races were a very good job as long as (1) the group is fine with the idea of having a half-developed creature and (2) you assume that the original LA is fair enough.

But everything else in the book seemed to me not adequate for players characters instead.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't have a problem with SS...a couple of templates are under- or over-LAed, but that was really my only issue with it.

 

[Herobizkit]

I have no problem with Savage Species -- We ignore LA so we play whatever the heck we want and screw the rules.

 

[werk]

That's odd I always felt that SS was absurdly restrictive in many ways and the potential abuses were more indicators of its overall failure than anything else. I've found that using its guidelines automatically penalizes non-PHB races to subpar levels and that you can't build certain PHB races without suffering LA using them.

Funny, that's the same reason I thought PHB races were in the PHB as race choices. They are the winners! They are the best races to use in the game.

Be a winner, play a dwarf.

 

[Jhulae]

SS is sadly not 3.5 ready.

Almost all of the 'Monster as Character' breakdowns use 3.0 monster abilities. Many monsters had major changes made to them between 3.0 and 3.5. A few of the breakdowns have been redone in books like the Planar Handbook, but for the most part, a lot of monsters from SS have no corresponding 'new' level breakdowns.

So, that being said, all the templates are suspect as well, as there was obviously a *big* disparity between monster abilities between 3.0 to 3.5 (as far as CR was concerned), and therefore any LA from the templates could possibly be too low.

 

[Li Shenron]

Funny, that's the same reason I thought PHB races were in the PHB as race choices. They are the winners! They are the best races to use in the game.

Be a winner, play a dwarf.

Come on, the reason is only that those are traditional character races in fantasy settings!

I don't think they are more powerful than others, but it is anyway somewhat true that whenever WotC comes up with a playable "monstrous" race, they give it a LA balanced against the best possible class choice, which means that the LA is on the average unfair for other classes.

 

[airwalkrr]

There are problems with Savage Species particularly because it explores a not-so-often used game mechanic (ECL), and it was written at a time when the game mechanic was not very thoroughly play-tested. I have seen a number of "Savage Species" campaigns come and go and I can say without a doubt that the characters created using Savage Species options are usually far more powerful than other characters. That is simply the truth with monster characters in general. They have a number of unique abilities that PCs are often unable to come by without going through serious hoops like getting powerful magical items and casting powerful spells. Having a lycanthrope with DR 10/silver makes the PC far more powerful than it seems because so few monsters can penetrate it. The fact is, PCs benefit from special abilities of monsters far more often than monsters can hope to benefit from them. This is why there is such a thing as Level Adjustment in the first place. Not everything in Savage Species is broken, but usually the options that players want to use are. I certainly empathize with your DM. I am very restrictive about allowing such characters into my campaign.

 

[Moonstone Spider]

Savage Species has no lycathrope templates in it.