Savage Species

[Elwolf]

I just saw this over on the Wizards FR board, and thought it might be of interest (I'm not sure if it's old news or not, but oh well).

Posted on this thread

Savages Species is a core D&D product that examines all the issues of playing monsters as characters, and provides specific information on playing something like 50+ monsters as characters. One of the questions it addresses is how to play even high-HD monsters such as mind flayers or aboleths as 1st-level characters, by introducing the notion of a "monster class" (in other words, your 1st-level mind flayer is a 1-HD character with very few of its eventual special abilities).

Races of Faerun examines the most prevalent races of the Forgotten Realms setting, describing their culture, society, outlook, and providing plenty of new "crunchy bits" by way of race-specific feats, spells, items, and so on. It emphasizes how the races fit into Faerun. Some of the more common "minor monstrous races" that might be played as characters (aarakocras, centaurs, kir-lanans, lycanthropes, and a couple of others) get some attention too, but unlike Savage Species, these guys get ECLs and that's it -- Races of Faerun doesn't tell you how to play a centaur as a 1st-level, 1-HD character. By way of comparison, Races of Faerun has a 30-page chapter on humans that gives about 4-5 pages each on the 7 major human ethnic groups, their history, their culture, their magic and lore, and other such details. Overall, Races of Faerun touches on a couple of related topics as Savage Species, but there's little overlap.

The races given in Unapproachable East include some races that are very specific to the eastern parts of Faerun, and aren't as widely spread as the races and subraces in Races of Faerun. For example, due to the Kara-Turan influence in Thesk, spirit folk (derived from the Oriental Adventures spirit folk, but not quite the same) are a PC race in the East. Other potential PC races given in the Unapproachable East include gnolls (quite common in Thay), taers, hagspawns (the sons of hags), and two new races we haven't told you about yet. The gnoll overlaps with Savage Species a little bit, but the rest of the U-East races don't overlap with either Savage Species or Races of Faerun.

Hope that helps.

--------------------
Richard Baker
Creative Director, D&D Worlds
Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

 

[Morrus]

Cool - a few extra snippets of info there.

 

[Desdichado]

I'm more excited about Savage Species than I was. It probably is going on to my "must have" list for early next year. [sigh] I really don't need that list to get any longer.

 

[Darkness]

I'm more excited about Savage Species than I was. It probably is going on to my "must have" list for early next year. [sigh] I really don't need that list to get any longer.

Copy that for me - all of it.

This monsters classes idea looks promising...

 

[I'm A Banana]

YAY!

The moster class is almost probably exactly what I came up with doing recently for my PC's, but the sounds of it....

Hahaha....cool. Now I can claim I developed a house rule that y'all are payin' big bucks for! I'm almost a game designer.

(Kidding, of course. )

 

[tsadkiel]

I really like the approach myself; it happens to be similar to what's used in a book I playtested that's coming out later this month.

 

[Terraism]

I swear that I just saw something like the Savage Species mechanics somewhere else... was it yours, Midget, or anyone else have a clue? Either way, the book sounds nifty! (Races of Faerun seems a bit 'blah' though.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

I did a post a while ago about it, that used pretty much that system....

If it was somewhere else, it was probably someone else's idea. i think this idea isn't exactly one that is truly innovate and original, I guess. Given the logic of tying races to levels from ECL, I suppose it was an inevitable leap of logic.

 

[jgbrowning]

sounds interesting

joe b.

 

[Chun-tzu]

I swear that I just saw something like the Savage Species mechanics somewhere else... was it yours, Midget, or anyone else have a clue?

Maybe you're thinking of Monte's Arcana Unearthed.

Okay, you mentioned some of the new classes, but what about the new races?
There are a lot of races in this book. The faen are diminutive magical creatures that can metamorphose into winged sprytes. There are giants, tall and noble, who serve as stewards of the realm. The mojh were once human, but they magically altered their own physical beings to resemble the dragons that they revere. Likewise, the sibeccai (SIB ba kai) were once beasts but the giants mystically elevated them to the status of intelligent humanoids -- but they retain aspects of their feral, canine natures. And there are many more. The only race that remains unchanged is the human race.

Hmm. Some of those races sound powerful. Do they have level equivalents?
No, the Arcana Unearthed handles that problem in a different way. Some of the races have special racial level progressions that can be taken like classes to gain unique racial abilities. All the races start out as viable 1st-level characters, either with traditional classes or racial classes.