Better than Savage Species? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Better than Savage Species? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
deviknyte
07-17-07, 02:34 AM Hope this is the right forum.

Okay. Is there a written WoTC (perferrable 3.5) way to break down level adjustment as a class? I'm trying to find a better way than the Savage Species guide. In SS your character is still shorted hit points and bab and saves and skill points, as if you were taking the level adjustment in missing levels. The book does nothing but let you take a big or huge HD or LA creature at earlier levels.

Right now, as a GM, I'm have the players take the racial HD and I'm taking the level adjustment and breaking it down into a class with one extra level. I.E. +4 level adjustment of 1/2 fiend becomes 5 levels of a class. If you don't have a WoTC way can anyone help in any other way.
Ovistavin
07-17-07, 10:21 AM Savage Species is the only book on this topic. There the Savage Progression articles that talk about adding templates mid campaign. There is a link in my sig to those. That is everything I can think of for racial classes.
deviknyte
07-17-07, 09:40 PM Thank you for the try, but Savage Progression articles still uses the CR thing out of Savage Species. It's still just letting you take your level adjustment in pieces or letting you play a LA creature at level one. My players want to be/get all the (insert creature name) stuff in a class that comes with HD at every level, normal save progression at every level, same for skill points, and BAB. It breaks it down so that you can take it in place of a level but it's still leaving the problem of I've go less hit dice than the rest of the party and I can't make that save I'm missing four levels. I think that's how SS should have been in the first place.
Lotus Crane
07-17-07, 11:13 PM Well, you can use the Dragon Disciple from the DMG 3.5 as your guideline for converting Level-Adjusted races/templates into LA 0 classes. Unfortunately, it seems that if you want full HD advancement, you have to do so with triple the number of levels that you would normally lose to LA. This doesn't work out all that well, because as some optimizers will show you, a barbarian or fighter 17 with LA +3 from the half-dragon template, is typically more powerful and useful than a barbarian or fighter 9/sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 10, because losing 3 entire HD is actually less painful than losing 10 levels worth of class special abilities.
LoneFlame
07-18-07, 12:16 AM SUGGESTION:

Take the lv adjustment and mesh it with an NPC class(except for Commoner, and possibly Adept) from the DMG. Now, it may be necessary to make the 'monster class' be a couple of lvs higher than the recommended lv adjustment, but that all really depends on what's being turned into a class and how powerful it is. For the really weak, low lv adjustments, just make the racial class equal to said lv adjustment.

A reasonable self-adjusting(though painful to the players with higher lv adjustments) racial class total lv determining is the lv adjustment + 1/3 lv adjustment(round up). Thus a racial class for a +1 lv adjustment would be just 1 lv, while 2-4 would be their lv adjustment + 1 lvs, 5-7 would be their lv adjustment +2, and so on.

If the players don't want to spend extra lvs paying for their lv adjustments, make the racial class using Commoner as the base, rather than one of the other NPC classes. Having the worst HP, Skill Points, Proficiencies, and Saves extended over several lvs easily balances an power advantages from the lv adjustment.

That's how I've done it in the few games I've run and I never had any problems from that solution.
Ecureuil_Diabolique
07-18-07, 12:25 AM @LoneFlame

That's actually a great idea. I've never thought of using NPC classes to help with Monster classes. It helps to give the character HP every level too. It's not solid in that there's no exact formula, but it's an idea I'd like to try out. :)
LoneFlame
07-18-07, 01:30 AM Glad I could help somebody.
deviknyte
07-18-07, 01:40 AM That's along the lines of what I was thinking about doing, so thanks. My inital thought (and what I makes more since for me) was if you were taking 1/2 dragon you'd get dragon hit dice. This is overpowering for races like outsider or dragon. Underpowering for undead, humanoid and animal (were-). The mesh with a NPC class is a good idea for combat characters and skill users who want to not fall behind while they're gaining their race abilities. But that's still mute for some races.
Mojo_Rat
07-23-07, 09:35 PM I like the idea presented here. But how would it work with something that has racial Hit dice? Like say an Efreet?

Their a strong Cr 8 creature but as a level 18? ecl savage species class they seem kind of weak (wishes they cant use for themselves aside)

Would it be feasible to take a Race like the Efreet and break it up into 2 classes do you thnk? say a 10 level physical outsider class and and a 10 level (rather than +8) uses commoner hps/saves/base attack class for some of the magic stuff?.
LoneFlame
07-23-07, 09:54 PM Um, the Efreeti doesn't have a listed lv adjustment. That 8 is challenge rating, not Lv Adjustment.

Now, I don't the official ruling on what "Lv Adjustment: -" means, but I do know that usually stuff like that wouldn't be played by players normally. Why anyone would want to play one is beyond me... It has 3 wishes a day, that's pretty powerful, even they personally can't benefit from said wishes, because a party of normal people could. So in all honesty, for something that doesn't say like the Efreeti, I'd have to say, set up the lv adjustment to what you the DM think is Reasonable and work from there.

Note: In my formula, racial hit dice aren't part of the equation and are factored in after setting up the class for the lv adjustment. How you break down the sum to a lv by lv basis starting from lv 1 is entirely up to the DM. I merely provide a way to get to that point.
Mojo_Rat
07-23-07, 10:01 PM I realized after i left my message there were several flaws in my statement :). I also in discussing 'moving away from savage species' i used savage species as my reference point :).

I believe it sets them as an 18 level class. But I see what your saying remove the Racial hd out of the requasion t and decide after what to use for your hp/save/base attac based on what npc class would work best.
LoneFlame
07-23-07, 10:38 PM Just remember that you add the Racial Hit Dice Back in after setting up the hit dice and what not for the lv adjustment.

However, I suppose for that sake of consistency... Completely remove the stuff from the racial hit dice and then make a racial class(made from combing an NPC class the monster abilities) that's total lvs equals ECL(Effective Character Lv, which is original number of hit dice plus lv adjustment) + the extra lvs added in because of high lv adjustment(if applicable).

I hope that wasn't too hard to follow.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
deviknyte 07-17-07, 02:34 AM	Hope this is the right forum. Okay. Is there a written WoTC (perferrable 3.5) way to break down level adjustment as a class? I'm trying to find a better way than the Savage Species guide. In SS your character is still shorted hit points and bab and saves and skill points, as if you were taking the level adjustment in missing levels. The book does nothing but let you take a big or huge HD or LA creature at earlier levels. Right now, as a GM, I'm have the players take the racial HD and I'm taking the level adjustment and breaking it down into a class with one extra level. I.E. +4 level adjustment of 1/2 fiend becomes 5 levels of a class. If you don't have a WoTC way can anyone help in any other way.
Ovistavin 07-17-07, 10:21 AM	Savage Species is the only book on this topic. There the Savage Progression articles that talk about adding templates mid campaign. There is a link in my sig to those. That is everything I can think of for racial classes.
deviknyte 07-17-07, 09:40 PM	Thank you for the try, but Savage Progression articles still uses the CR thing out of Savage Species. It's still just letting you take your level adjustment in pieces or letting you play a LA creature at level one. My players want to be/get all the (insert creature name) stuff in a class that comes with HD at every level, normal save progression at every level, same for skill points, and BAB. It breaks it down so that you can take it in place of a level but it's still leaving the problem of I've go less hit dice than the rest of the party and I can't make that save I'm missing four levels. I think that's how SS should have been in the first place.
Lotus Crane 07-17-07, 11:13 PM	Well, you can use the Dragon Disciple from the DMG 3.5 as your guideline for converting Level-Adjusted races/templates into LA 0 classes. Unfortunately, it seems that if you want full HD advancement, you have to do so with triple the number of levels that you would normally lose to LA. This doesn't work out all that well, because as some optimizers will show you, a barbarian or fighter 17 with LA +3 from the half-dragon template, is typically more powerful and useful than a barbarian or fighter 9/sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 10, because losing 3 entire HD is actually less painful than losing 10 levels worth of class special abilities.
LoneFlame 07-18-07, 12:16 AM	SUGGESTION: Take the lv adjustment and mesh it with an NPC class(except for Commoner, and possibly Adept) from the DMG. Now, it may be necessary to make the 'monster class' be a couple of lvs higher than the recommended lv adjustment, but that all really depends on what's being turned into a class and how powerful it is. For the really weak, low lv adjustments, just make the racial class equal to said lv adjustment. A reasonable self-adjusting(though painful to the players with higher lv adjustments) racial class total lv determining is the lv adjustment + 1/3 lv adjustment(round up). Thus a racial class for a +1 lv adjustment would be just 1 lv, while 2-4 would be their lv adjustment + 1 lvs, 5-7 would be their lv adjustment +2, and so on. If the players don't want to spend extra lvs paying for their lv adjustments, make the racial class using Commoner as the base, rather than one of the other NPC classes. Having the worst HP, Skill Points, Proficiencies, and Saves extended over several lvs easily balances an power advantages from the lv adjustment. That's how I've done it in the few games I've run and I never had any problems from that solution.
Ecureuil_Diabolique 07-18-07, 12:25 AM	@LoneFlame That's actually a great idea. I've never thought of using NPC classes to help with Monster classes. It helps to give the character HP every level too. It's not solid in that there's no exact formula, but it's an idea I'd like to try out. :)
LoneFlame 07-18-07, 01:30 AM	Glad I could help somebody.
deviknyte 07-18-07, 01:40 AM	That's along the lines of what I was thinking about doing, so thanks. My inital thought (and what I makes more since for me) was if you were taking 1/2 dragon you'd get dragon hit dice. This is overpowering for races like outsider or dragon. Underpowering for undead, humanoid and animal (were-). The mesh with a NPC class is a good idea for combat characters and skill users who want to not fall behind while they're gaining their race abilities. But that's still mute for some races.
Mojo_Rat 07-23-07, 09:35 PM	I like the idea presented here. But how would it work with something that has racial Hit dice? Like say an Efreet? Their a strong Cr 8 creature but as a level 18? ecl savage species class they seem kind of weak (wishes they cant use for themselves aside) Would it be feasible to take a Race like the Efreet and break it up into 2 classes do you thnk? say a 10 level physical outsider class and and a 10 level (rather than +8) uses commoner hps/saves/base attack class for some of the magic stuff?.
LoneFlame 07-23-07, 09:54 PM	Um, the Efreeti doesn't have a listed lv adjustment. That 8 is challenge rating, not Lv Adjustment. Now, I don't the official ruling on what "Lv Adjustment: -" means, but I do know that usually stuff like that wouldn't be played by players normally. Why anyone would want to play one is beyond me... It has 3 wishes a day, that's pretty powerful, even they personally can't benefit from said wishes, because a party of normal people could. So in all honesty, for something that doesn't say like the Efreeti, I'd have to say, set up the lv adjustment to what you the DM think is Reasonable and work from there. Note: In my formula, racial hit dice aren't part of the equation and are factored in after setting up the class for the lv adjustment. How you break down the sum to a lv by lv basis starting from lv 1 is entirely up to the DM. I merely provide a way to get to that point.
Mojo_Rat 07-23-07, 10:01 PM	I realized after i left my message there were several flaws in my statement :). I also in discussing 'moving away from savage species' i used savage species as my reference point :). I believe it sets them as an 18 level class. But I see what your saying remove the Racial hd out of the requasion t and decide after what to use for your hp/save/base attac based on what npc class would work best.
LoneFlame 07-23-07, 10:38 PM	Just remember that you add the Racial Hit Dice Back in after setting up the hit dice and what not for the lv adjustment. However, I suppose for that sake of consistency... Completely remove the stuff from the racial hit dice and then make a racial class(made from combing an NPC class the monster abilities) that's total lvs equals ECL(Effective Character Lv, which is original number of hit dice plus lv adjustment) + the extra lvs added in because of high lv adjustment(if applicable). I hope that wasn't too hard to follow.