Post/Author/DateTime	Post
The Vorpal Tribble 11-09-04, 10:30 PM	Currently I'm playing a half-elf druid (wild elf/human mix) who is extremely feral and suspicious, having been raised by the woods after his parents were killed, till he was nearly an animal. Was found and raised by a ranger when he was still young who was in hiding from an enemy and together they lived most of their lives just roaming the lands, so he's still incredibly wild. Then the other day I heard about the feral human template from Savage Species. Now, I hear alot of mockery and downing of this book so am curious as to how this certain template is, and if it can realistically be used as a race? Also, how hard would it be to adjust a half-elven druid to it? Would anyone be able to post the benefits and negatives of it as well? I really don't want to buy the book just to get this info ;)
cwslyclgh 11-10-04, 01:02 AM	there is a lot of good stuff in Savage Species, and the templates probably are the best part of the book. The Feral Template works best for creatures with a racial HD, but it can be applied to any humaniod or monstrous humaniod, so it could theoretically be applied to your half-elf. Most of the complaining I see about SS has to do with the monster classes, which did take up a good portion of the book, and which did suck for the most part. People also complain because the book was not designed the way they wanted it to be...(IE to let them play over-powered monstrous characters with little trade off).
ermedic 11-10-04, 12:41 PM	I just got done running an adventure using the feral template. The PCs were going to rescue a woman who was wrongfully imprisoned for murder on a penile island that is surrouned by a dead magic zone. Since magic didn't work, the inhabitants of the island focused on science. The warden had commisioned the making of a machine in order to make the prisoners young again. Once young, their morals could be reprogrammed in order to make them useful members of society. Unfortunatly, the machine only made them younger and did not remove their previous trainings or predispositions. What resulted was an island of criminal children. As if this wasn't bad enough, along came a hurricane that destroyed most of the structures on the island including a large section of the prison. The child-prisoners escaped and took to the wilds of the island. The result was an island of feral, criminal children with various class levels (primarily barbarians and rangers) running their own tribe-style society. There was even a large number of halfling children swarms that caused havock with the party. The PCs just could not figure out why these children were kicking their butts and why the human children had such damaging claw attacks--not to mention the ability to pounce. The chieftain even had enough HD to give him the rend ability. The feral template helped to relay the beastial, Lord of the Flies motif that I was going for. The point of all this is that if you are going for a primitive flavor for your character, the feral template is great. However, if you plan on using armor and weapons (anything more than simple weapons or hide armor), you may not want to use the feral template because several of the abilities are geared towards claw attacks and wearing an ironwood breastplate kind of goes against the flavor of the character.
ermedic 11-10-04, 02:14 PM	Check your private messages for the basics on feral creatures that I sent you. I hope this helps. :D