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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6152577" data-attributes="member: 1465">My points in a nutshell:- I am not a huge fan of playing monstrous characters, but in some campaign settings at least the most humanoid-like can be very important, such as Orcs, Hobgoblins, Lizardfolks or Drow. Thus, it's much better for 5e to support at least the first category of playable monstrous races.- I don't think flat level adjustment is the way to go. It is especially punishing to some classes, and in general works only when it's a small number. Furthermore, "hit points penalty" doesn't seem to me at all like a good design choice.- I don't know what would be a good system, but somehow I feel the solution might be found in the direction of "paying" by giving up some character features rather than whole levels. Maybe to play a Drow you have to give up feats / ability score increases. Unfortunately there aren't many features to give up that aren't tied to classes, so perhaps some monstrous races might require to give up some class features as well (e.g. less known spells or less spells slots, but not giving up entire spellcasting levels), but that would require more ad-hoc rules.- In general, I don't think the game really needs to support "lesser, playable versions" of all monsters, just because someone wants to be a Lich or an Illithid at 1st level. I think 3.0 Savage Species actually did a good job with "monsters as classes", but IMHO this is low-priority... I'm more of the opinion that first the game should support playing e.g. an Ogre at the level which would be appropriate for being a "full Ogre": let's say an Ogre is normally 3rd level, well if you want to play one, play it in a game which starts at least at 3rd level! (Or even play it with a 1st level party, but get no XP until everyone catches up with your level) I don't want the designers to struggle in order to fit an Ogre to a 1st-level game, just leave this option for a Savage Species-like supplement.</blockquote>

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