Dave Blewer
First Post
Well... This has become a must buy for my Sundered Sky campaign! I have a PC race called Wildlings that are basically furries 
Savage Species preview.
- Thread starter Eternalknight
- Start date
Gez
First Post
Frostmarrow said:It's absolutely brilliant! (Thank's for the words, MerricB). Now I'm just waiting for the munckins to map out the best path to make the ultimate fighter by multi-racing!
Actually, that would make a great mechanics for creating hybrid monsters. Want to make a minotaur/medusa ? Just take a minotaur and give it a couple of medusa levels.
It will also allow to create easily transformational prestige class. A witch covent may have a PrC that turn them into night hags, for example. That would be nearly like the night hag class, only streamlined to be like normal classes (i.e., 1 HD by level).
Kobold Avenger
Legend
I suspect there's a couple of things being reused in this. Like there's Yaun-Ti templates which I suspect are the same ones as Monsters of Faerun. A bunch of the undead templates in Dragon, and probably the improved and greater multiple-weapon fighting, multi-weapon rend and improved flyby attack from the ELH.
I was hoping they had class progressions for the Yuan-Ti where you had something like starting out as a Pureblood and eventually advancing to Halfblood or Abomination if you wanted to.
Still it looks like something I will get anyways.
One question I have about the monsters is whether they addressed any of the psionic matters, like with the Mind Flayer. Or are we going to have to arbitrarily decide at which levels a Mind Flayer gets a combat mode likely usuable 3/day.
I was hoping they had class progressions for the Yuan-Ti where you had something like starting out as a Pureblood and eventually advancing to Halfblood or Abomination if you wanted to.
Still it looks like something I will get anyways.
One question I have about the monsters is whether they addressed any of the psionic matters, like with the Mind Flayer. Or are we going to have to arbitrarily decide at which levels a Mind Flayer gets a combat mode likely usuable 3/day.
Knight Otu
First Post
Malin Genie:
jester47:
Plus, as already said, 1 HD races make bad monster classes in many cases.
Because BAB is based on Hit Dice. In the case of the minotaur, Level and HD are not equal.
jester47:
Orcs are ECL 0.
Plus, as already said, 1 HD races make bad monster classes in many cases.
Zappo
Explorer
I don't think that's the problem. Take for example a monster that has extremely useful magical abilities, such as a Pixie with Otto's irresistible dance, or a Blink Dog, or an Illithid. You need to assign high ECLs to these monsters, because otherwise the characters will use their special abilities and some good tactics to slaughter foes of much higher CR easily for a long time. But then the characters playing these monsters will be severely behind in terms of hit points, because their ECL is much different from their HD, and thus will be very vulnerable. This is the problem, I think. Nothing to do with flavor: it's a matter of balance.Kamikaze Midget said:
I think that the player can reduce the effect by taking levels in a normal class between levels of the monster class.
I still don't understand how come that minotaurs grow in size with experience.
Last edited:
Dave Blewer
First Post
Some other thoughts
Elementals Good stuff, not sure if I would want to play a character that can be fairly easily hedged out or trapped by a Magic Circle spell though.
Ghoul Excellent! Not quite the official Ghoul template I was hoping for but good anyway.
Giants Great! But I note that they are no Hill, Cloud or Storm Giants listed.
Grig This one seems a strange choice to me, but it could be useful for DM's I suppose.
Magmin I can't think that too many people will want to play one of these... At least not until the Monster Manual revised where the artwork is changed
Rakshasa How does that work? Immune to 1st level spells at 2nd level; 2nd level spells at 4th level; 3rd level spells at 6th level etc?
Actually I would really like if it worked in reverse so that a 1st level Rakshasa was immune to 8th level spells and as it went up in levels the level of spells that it was immune to went down. Now that would be a bitter pill to swallow for all those powergamers
Shadow interesting and potentially character here. I thought that I read in the interview that they had chosen not to include any undead.
Elementals Good stuff, not sure if I would want to play a character that can be fairly easily hedged out or trapped by a Magic Circle spell though.
Ghoul Excellent! Not quite the official Ghoul template I was hoping for but good anyway.
Giants Great! But I note that they are no Hill, Cloud or Storm Giants listed.
Grig This one seems a strange choice to me, but it could be useful for DM's I suppose.
Magmin I can't think that too many people will want to play one of these... At least not until the Monster Manual revised where the artwork is changed
Rakshasa How does that work? Immune to 1st level spells at 2nd level; 2nd level spells at 4th level; 3rd level spells at 6th level etc?
Actually I would really like if it worked in reverse so that a 1st level Rakshasa was immune to 8th level spells and as it went up in levels the level of spells that it was immune to went down. Now that would be a bitter pill to swallow for all those powergamers
Shadow interesting and potentially character here. I thought that I read in the interview that they had chosen not to include any undead.
EricNoah
Adventurer
I don't know anything about the release date. I was as surprised as anyone when I saw it on my porch.
You could ask "why didn't they do a monster class for monster X" for basically any monster not on the list.
There is a change for the barghest "feed" ability. PC barghests gain a +2 CON bonus for one day after feeding instead of gaining hit dice.
You could ask "why didn't they do a monster class for monster X" for basically any monster not on the list.
There is a change for the barghest "feed" ability. PC barghests gain a +2 CON bonus for one day after feeding instead of gaining hit dice.
psychognome
First Post
This book must be mine!
shadowlight
First Post
Slaad Brooder
Dang! No Death Slaad writeup?!!
Slaad Brooder huh? I feel an all monster planar campaign coming on!
Dang! No Death Slaad writeup?!!
Slaad Brooder huh? I feel an all monster planar campaign coming on!
Yaay! Furries!
Now, let's Hope that they do them Right. I'm Very Picky about my anthropomorphic creatures. I havn't seen many Cat Races, frex, who's characteristics fit my scope of them.
Man, they have no Gnoll? (Then again, Gnoll will be in the Unapproachable East, so...)
Here's to hoping they offer something for those races which don't have Race classes. Y'know, Orcs, Kobolds, etc. Seeing as they don't get the hinky little classes, let's see some good stuff for them.
Now, let's Hope that they do them Right. I'm Very Picky about my anthropomorphic creatures. I havn't seen many Cat Races, frex, who's characteristics fit my scope of them.
Man, they have no Gnoll? (Then again, Gnoll will be in the Unapproachable East, so...)
Here's to hoping they offer something for those races which don't have Race classes. Y'know, Orcs, Kobolds, etc. Seeing as they don't get the hinky little classes, let's see some good stuff for them.
