Savage Species Progression Aasimar. Do you have to take the 2nd level?

[magicalmagicman]

Can I just take the LA:0 form and forget the LA:+1, or do I have to take the LA:+1 immediately after I level up the first time?

I found some optimization threads that suggest you can stay at the LA:0 Aasimar, but I recall that if you take a level in a monster class, you must continue to take levels in it until you complete it, but I can't seem to find the rule.

Was it my imagination?

[Oracle71]

You weren't imagining things, the rule is in Savage Species. But Races of Faerun has a no LA variant of Aasimar, Tieflings, and Drow, that would probably fit your needs. At least I think it was Races of Faerun, might have been in a different FR sourcebook.

[Troacctid]

Savage Species is a book. Savage Progressions (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/sp) is a series of web articles. They have different rules. The operative rule in this case is this one:

Characters are not required to complete all the levels of a given template class in uninterrupted succession. For example, a character who takes a level of wereboar could then take a level of fighter and a level of rogue (or any other combination of other class levels) before taking another level of wereboar. A character must still take the first level of wereboar before taking the second, just as with a normal class.
Along with this one, of course:

These racial class levels follow the normal rules for gaining levels in a template class.

[Necroticplague]

Can I just take the LA:0 form and forget the LA:+1, or do I have to take the LA:+1 immediately after I level up the first time?

I found some optimization threads that suggest you can stay at the LA:0 Aasimar, but I recall that if you take a level in a monster class, you must continue to take levels in it until you complete it, but I can't seem to find the rule.

Was it my imagination?
That's your imagination. The rules are, in fact, very clear that this is not the case.


You weren't imagining things, the rule is in Savage Species. But Races of Faerun has a no LA variant of Aasimar, Tieflings, and Drow, that would probably fit your needs. At least I think it was Races of Faerun, might have been in a different FR sourcebook.
That's for the Savage Species racial classes. The Savage Progressions racial classes have different rules that explicitely allow you to do this. To quote the relevant portions:

Racial Classes

In the same manner that the abilities granted by a template can be broken down into a level advancement form, the abilities of a PC race with level adjustments can be divided into base racial abilities (equivalent to a human, elf, or other standard PC race) and racial levels to fill out the remainder of the race's level adjustment. For example, a drow can be broken into a set of "base" drow abilities (LA +0), plus two extra drow levels, thus bringing the character up to her full +2 level adjustment. Racial classes allow a player to create a 1st-level character of a level-adjusted race at the same power level as a 1st-level character of a standard race. Thereafter, the character can take levels in her racial class in order to gain her full complement of racial abilities. These racial class levels follow the normal rules for gaining levels in a template class.
Bolded the relevant part. Now, lets go back to a previous article, where it sets the rules for Template Classes:

Characters are not required to complete all the levels of a given template class in uninterrupted succession. For example, a character who takes a level of wereboar could then take a level of fighter and a level of rogue (or any other combination of other class levels) before taking another level of wereboar. A character must still take the first level of wereboar before taking the second, just as with a normal class.
So, don't let the same name confuse you, you're perfectly allowed to just take the LA 0 Aasimar found here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a) and just never take the first level of the class.

[magicalmagicman]

Thank you for the quotes. This solves all my problems. Thanks.

It seems I made an assumption that Savage Progression was an web enhancement of Savage Species.

[Mordaedil]

Savage Species was written for 3.0 content, while I think Savage Progression was inspired by the book, but written far later after 3.5 was released.

I like it a lot and like to apply it backwards to Savage Species races as well. But we do run with the rule that it has to be completed by level 20.