I love it, and I am NOT just saying. I have a point to make. So tell me about your experiences with this wonderful book? (I am not speaking ironically, i really want to hear about your positive experiences with it)
Savage Species: WHy So Much Hate
- Thread starter aarondirebear
- Start date
HoboGod
First Post
BAH! The entire level adjustment system in 3.5 is flawed and broken to the point where I'm not even sure where LA +0 is ever equivalently balanced to any other level adjustment. How are a Vampire Rogue 1 and a Human Rogue 9 even REMOTELY the same equivalent character level? The roughly 36,000 gold in items a vampire gets for being a player shouldn't turn a CR 3 monster into a PC in a 9th level game. Savage Species is a terrible book, not because it installs a new entertainment system, a kick-ass pool table, and some funky disco lights, but because it installs these things in a burning building.
As per the topic, however, what are some of my good experiences with Savage Species? Using this book as a DM, rather than a player, is fun as hell!!! I love the new feats! Final Strike? Have you ever put the final strike feat on a bunch of Dust Mephits? The party drops a mob of 6 Dust Mephits into negative hp and delivers the coup de grace. A 60 ft blast deals 3d6 bludgeoning damage and 1d6 sonic damage, ouch, but the party seems okay, except the dying mephits also took that damage and they just exploded too. A popcorn-like series of 60 ft blasts deal a total of 15d6 bludgeoning damage and 5d6 sonic damage. The party would be about level 8, so as the DM, you run the risk of killing a wizard with that little prank, but it's totally worth it.
The Prestige Classes are really something else, too. The flavor of adding Fighter levels to a harpy leave something to be desired, but adding levels of Siren makes developing interesting monsters less challenging.
The Campaign section is wonderful, not just for players wanting to play monsters, but for DMs wanting to develop an evil campaign. How better to consider the role of your players in an evil campaign than to consider the role of your players in a world where everyone sees them as monsters.
The templates section of Savage Species is a MUST, MUST, MUST for anyone developing custom monsters. Lets say you want to recreate Pikachu, you advance a Dire Rat to CR 1 and add the Monstrous Beast template, by simply changing it's breath weapon into an electric type, it's Pikachu! Let's say you want to create aliens, take an owlbear, Insectile template and the Psuedonatural template, suddenly you don't know what you got anymore. These are just comical examples, but the true awesome sauce of this section is how unusual these templates are in that with most templates, it barely matters which combination of creature and template you mix, you'll either have a weird Ogre or a Skeleton whatever. These templates seem to be very combination friendly.
I could say good things about the monster classes, but really, they function so radically that they're only nice for creating PCs.
As per the topic, however, what are some of my good experiences with Savage Species? Using this book as a DM, rather than a player, is fun as hell!!! I love the new feats! Final Strike? Have you ever put the final strike feat on a bunch of Dust Mephits? The party drops a mob of 6 Dust Mephits into negative hp and delivers the coup de grace. A 60 ft blast deals 3d6 bludgeoning damage and 1d6 sonic damage, ouch, but the party seems okay, except the dying mephits also took that damage and they just exploded too. A popcorn-like series of 60 ft blasts deal a total of 15d6 bludgeoning damage and 5d6 sonic damage. The party would be about level 8, so as the DM, you run the risk of killing a wizard with that little prank, but it's totally worth it.
The Prestige Classes are really something else, too. The flavor of adding Fighter levels to a harpy leave something to be desired, but adding levels of Siren makes developing interesting monsters less challenging.
The Campaign section is wonderful, not just for players wanting to play monsters, but for DMs wanting to develop an evil campaign. How better to consider the role of your players in an evil campaign than to consider the role of your players in a world where everyone sees them as monsters.
The templates section of Savage Species is a MUST, MUST, MUST for anyone developing custom monsters. Lets say you want to recreate Pikachu, you advance a Dire Rat to CR 1 and add the Monstrous Beast template, by simply changing it's breath weapon into an electric type, it's Pikachu! Let's say you want to create aliens, take an owlbear, Insectile template and the Psuedonatural template, suddenly you don't know what you got anymore. These are just comical examples, but the true awesome sauce of this section is how unusual these templates are in that with most templates, it barely matters which combination of creature and template you mix, you'll either have a weird Ogre or a Skeleton whatever. These templates seem to be very combination friendly.
I could say good things about the monster classes, but really, they function so radically that they're only nice for creating PCs.
I don't love it, but I don't hate it. It was a nice 3Ed take on The Complete Humanoid (or whatever it was called) in 2Ed.
In short, I think Savage Species was taken out of the oven too soon.
- The math is off in some of the templates' LA calculation- Feral, Winged, I'm looking at you!- and the Half-Ogre's LA is low, too.
- I love the concept of monster classes, but I think Monte Cook one-upped them with his take on them in AU/AE.
- The Anthros were a good idea, but again, could have done with more work. I'd have like to have seen them break down how to make your own Anthros and provided a few examples...and then give them the monster class treatment (ideally, it would have been Monte's version, but that would involve using a TARDIS).
In short, I think Savage Species was taken out of the oven too soon.
Starbuck_II
Explorer
Um, Vampires with 1 HD are impossible: you mean vampire spawn. Vampires have to have more than 4 HD.
So a 13th level Rogue and a Vampire Rogue 5 are same ECL. Weird I know.
It was what sold me on the whole LA/ECL concept. I know it is not perfect, but I doubt a better and viable system exists.
Otherwise, the only useful thing inside was the progression table for ghaele and astral deva PCs, both of which saw use in earlier games (but it was irritating to realise the astral deva table had quite a few errors). Fairly positive experiences with them too.
The rest, we shunned as we felt they are just too weak for their ECL.
Otherwise, the only useful thing inside was the progression table for ghaele and astral deva PCs, both of which saw use in earlier games (but it was irritating to realise the astral deva table had quite a few errors). Fairly positive experiences with them too.
The rest, we shunned as we felt they are just too weak for their ECL.
Ogrork the Mighty
Explorer
Savage Species is an example of one of the things I absolutely LOVED about 3E, and that is the beauty of the system that allows the curtain to be drawn back and every monster dissected to determine the mechanics of exactly how they were created. This allows a DM to reconstruct the monster in endless combinations.
4E doesn't have that magical ability. A monster is just designed the way it's designed and there's not necessarily a rhyme or reason to it.
I find myself going back to SS time and time again, if not for rules/options than for a better understanding of why/how a particular monster/ability works. It's a great resource.
It doesn't get the love because it was one of the final 3.0 books and thus was deemed to be obsolete with the coming of 3.5 and before it ever had a chance to prove its worth.
4E doesn't have that magical ability. A monster is just designed the way it's designed and there's not necessarily a rhyme or reason to it.
I find myself going back to SS time and time again, if not for rules/options than for a better understanding of why/how a particular monster/ability works. It's a great resource.
It doesn't get the love because it was one of the final 3.0 books and thus was deemed to be obsolete with the coming of 3.5 and before it ever had a chance to prove its worth.
Not to defend the system--it's horribly unbalanced--but actually using a CR3 monster as a level 3 pac was broken. That's because of soemthing they learned and changed into 4e: monsters can have tons of out-of-combat abilities that have NOTHING to do with combat. Charm Person at will, for instance, is useless in the hands of a CR 3 goblin but broken in the hands of a level 3 PC. Further, some combat abilities are far more powerful in the hands of PCs. A well-prepared divine spellcaster can bypass almost any type of 3.5 damage resistance, but a huge number of monsters simply cannot hurt a PC with a high resistance bypassed by, say, Silver.
Unfortunately, the problem was that the balance was a flat cost--being a level 1 character in a party of level 4 characters is crippling, but being a level 17 character (18 with optional by-off) in a party of level 20 characters can be corrected for with powerful enough stats.
Starbuck_II
Explorer
One fix/houserule for at will is 2x Character level. Eventually it is effectively at will, but reams in it for low levels so not too many.
