Mike_Lemmer
2007-07-04, 09:30 AM
I have some players that want to play the stranger races (centaur, yuan-ti, etc), but don't want to take the massive ECL penalty for them. So in addition to rechecking the monsters' ECL, I'm figuring out a way to let the players play the monster at a lower ECL by eschewing some of their abilities. Here's my ideas:
Base Monster Class: The monster has a base class equal to its HD. These work like monster classes in Savage Species; the player must take (and finish) this monster class before he advances in anything else. The base monster class includes a few basic abilities of the monster.
Racial Feats: The rest of the monster's abilties are covered by racial feats. Normal monsters have all of their racial feats. Monsters with PC classes can have some (or none) of their racial feats; in effect, they trained in their class's abilities instead of their natural abilities.
Racial Feat Levels: Some of the monsters have so many abilities that it'd take 12+ feats to cover them all. How could any non-Epic characters have them all? By taking feat levels.
Feat levels are a special class, an extension of the base monster class, if you will. Feat levels only give you one benefit: you can take three racial feats. No HD, no BAB/save increase, just 3 racial feats for a level.
I think this system would keep the basic flavor of the monster while letting players lower its ECL by choosing which of its abilities to give up. I'll see if I can get an example up soon. Comments?
Base Monster Class: The monster has a base class equal to its HD. These work like monster classes in Savage Species; the player must take (and finish) this monster class before he advances in anything else. The base monster class includes a few basic abilities of the monster.
Racial Feats: The rest of the monster's abilties are covered by racial feats. Normal monsters have all of their racial feats. Monsters with PC classes can have some (or none) of their racial feats; in effect, they trained in their class's abilities instead of their natural abilities.
Racial Feat Levels: Some of the monsters have so many abilities that it'd take 12+ feats to cover them all. How could any non-Epic characters have them all? By taking feat levels.
Feat levels are a special class, an extension of the base monster class, if you will. Feat levels only give you one benefit: you can take three racial feats. No HD, no BAB/save increase, just 3 racial feats for a level.
I think this system would keep the basic flavor of the monster while letting players lower its ECL by choosing which of its abilities to give up. I'll see if I can get an example up soon. Comments?