Savage Progression and Epic Feats

[Obrysii]

I haven't posted here in a while, so this is my first question posted in some time.

My campaign is a complex one (aren't they all?): dragons-as-PCs. Every player is a dragon, using savage progressions per Savage Species (and by my creation). They have elected to continue their progress in their race for as long as we continue to play the game.

Which means very high epic, as most dragon savage progressions hit Great Wyrm around level 46.

Now comes the question: how should I handle Epic feats? By racial HD, by savage progression level, or (most cruelly) by the RAW for dragons (Old and older can take Epic feats)?

By racial HD, most won't be able to access epic feats until around level 26; by savage progression, they can begin accessing them as a regular character might. By RAW for dragons, it's late 30s that they'd be able to get a hold of the feats.

What's the playground's thoughts? I really am torn between the two first choices - what would you do?

[tyckspoon]

Racial HD would be most in tune with the intent, IMO, assuming you go with the interpretation that HD are the same as levels. Which they usually are, for a PC, but there are sections of the rules that were written under an apparent assumption that a PC would never have an LA or a non-class HD, so it gets a bit weird. Epic in general is one of those sections, compounded by the fact that most of the rest of the game likes to pretend it doesn't exist. (They also tend to draw blurry and somewhat imaginary distinctions between 'characters', 'creatures', 'monsters', and 'player characters', which seems to be where the 'Dragons of Old or older can take Epic feats' thing comes from- if that same dragon were a 'character' instead its HD would make it level 21 at 21 HD and able to select Epic feats regardless of its age. But no, it's a 'creature', so it needs a special rule..)

Just going by the actual levels and letting them start picking Epic feats when they get to 21 would also work; since you're using the savage progressions, this is basically just ignoring that they are 'monsters' and treating them like any other playable race.. that is, instead of worrying about hit dice, you just say 'ok, you have enough XP to be in Epic levels, you can start using Epic feats.' Probably the cleanest and fairest to the players.