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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010175" data-attributes="member: 18387">By Bruce Boughner, Staff Reviewer, d20 Magazine Rack and Co-host of Mortality RadioSizing Up the Target Savage Species is a 222-page hard cover accessory published by Wizards of the Coast. Written by David Eckelberry, Rich Redman and Jennifer Clarke Wickes, the cover is by long-time favorite Jeff Easley and is done in the standard D&D 3rd edition format and features a Troll character, and interior art is by a handful of regular Wizard’s artists. Savage Species retails for $29.95. First Blood Savage Species is the latest of Wizards D&D Core book accessories and is designed to fit in with the version 3.5 Core Books due out this summer. This one does what players have been clamoring for and DMs dreaded, player character monsters. It does indeed follow the design of the other D&D core books in layout and design with the parchment colored chapter headers and the Divinci-like drawing to open them with.The book opens with instructions on how to use a standard character record sheet and adapt any monster to it and how to assign levels to them. A diagramed sheet is illustrated and referenced to the text in the chapter. A sidebar shows the difference between Challenge Rating and Effective Character Level (ECL) and how the two are diametrically in opposition. But this short chapter is only one method of creating a monstrous character.It is in the second chapter that the monstrous character is detailed in a more exhaustive manner. Monstrous races are divided into Introductory, Intermediate and Advanced races. Introductory being familiar humanoid races like Minotaurs and Kuo-Toa, Intermediate is defined by a more challenging level adjustment rating and include Ettins, Trolls and Half-Dragons. The advanced levels also show a more challenging adjustment to the monster like Celestials, Demons, Dragons, Giants and Undead, and then finishes with a sample character of a Bugbear.Monster classes are the topic of the third chapter. It describes the structure of a monstrous class, the example in the book is that of a Grig, a monster with less than 1 hit die and how the class fulfills itself before reaching that 1 hit die mark. A sample Minotaur class is then given.The subject of chapter four is monstrous feats. A new feature is the background feat, this is a feat based on climate or terrain. Monstrous feats enhance the basic capability like and extra breath weapon or resistance to poison. Most of these feats are geared to a monstrous character but there are some general feat that normal players could use like swamp stalker or vicious wound.Chapter five deals in weapons and equipment for monsters. Bear in mind that if you can have a monstrous player character, you can also have a monstrous NON-player character and an astute DM can inflict some of these new items on their unsuspecting characters. Now as one would expect a lot of these are variations of existing weapons, armor and equipment, but others are adapted for use by creatures with multiple arms (Yuan-Ti) or unique physiology (Kyton) or similar differences. One such magical item would be Gloves of Man provide fingers and thumbs to monsters; which normally wouldn’t have them.What would any Players Handbook be without new spells? This is what is listed in Chapter Six. First is a list of existing spells usable by monstrous characters, and then new spells are listed. Things like Awaken Undead that grants sentience to undead creatures or Fins to Feet that grants land movement to aquatic creatures..And what I am finding to be bane of third edition product, Prestige Classes. While there is a definitive need here for them in the Seventh chapter. Emancipated Undead, Scaled Horror and Wave Rider are examples of some of the monstrous Prestige Classes listed here.Chapter Eight addresses both players and DMs, how to run a monstrous campaign. This short chapter deals mostly with the ramifications of alignment on the campaign.Chapter nine deals with character advancement, how to advance and gain feats and current feats that are applicable to monstrous characters.Templates are dealt with in Chapter ten. Feral Creature, Ghost Brute, Multi-headed Creature are examples of new template here. These can also be applied to your new creations as well. Templates add to the challenge rating of monsters as well, so some of these can be very useful in beefing up some of your monsters and turning a typical encounter with, say, a stone golem, into something unique and even more challenging.Chapter eleven talks about players turning into monsters, whether by accident or by design and the effects this can have on players and your game.Several appendixes finish the book. The first deals with sample monster character classes. These run the gamut of the monstrous races listed in Chapter two. Appendix two compiles all the information you need to quickly reference to create a monstrous character.Appendix three has the most intriguing part of the appendixes, a new race, the Official Half-Ogre, anthropomorphic animal templates and three new (to 3rd ed) monsters, the Desmodu, the Loxo and the Thri-Kreen.Critical Hits This book lives up to the usual Wizard’s standards. The artwork is topnotch as is the treatment of the subject. It is well laid out and deals, finally, with a subject that players (and some DMs) have been waiting for since first edition was first out. Monstrous characters, Gary Gygax when he first released the Rogue’s Gallery in late 1979 had a character that was transformed into a Lizard man and since then player have tormented Dms with wanting to play monstrous characters.Critical Misses When is Prestige mania going to end?? I grant you that the ones in this tome are necessary evils but with more than 1000 Prestige classes having been published since the release of the first 3rd edition books, it is getting a tad ridiculous. This is not to say that I don’t like some of them or use them, it’s just too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing.Coup de Grace As I stated this a long desired book and it is one that is well done and very useful to both players and DMs. It brought a lot of new and very useful tools to the DM and some new ideas for the players to consider.To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=&topic=3" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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