Playing as a monster?

[Alleine]

I know there are all sorts of rules for playing as monsters, level adjustment, HD, and a bunch of junk from savage species to help out too. But what I want to know is:

Has anyone ever played just straight monster? No class levels, just pure hit dice? I was thinking it'd be an interesting thing to try, with the right creatures of course.

I'm very curious to see if anyone has tried this.

Edit: Let me change my question now, I don't own Savage Species so yeah, didn't know that.

What were people's experiences with this? Fun? Boring? Broken?

[Innis Cabal]

whole book on it, Savage Species

[Alleine]

I wasn't under the impression that SS covered a 20 level progression for PCs.

[Zincorium]

20 level progressions from SS:

Astral Deva
Ghaele
Trumpet Archon

20 level progression from Libris Mortis:

Mohrg

So yes, savage species has monster classes that will take you to 20, and several more that are 17 and above (and thus will outlast most games).

[Hasivel]

Playing as a monster can be fun and different if you're into that sort of thing, but it's not for the new player and not for powergamers, Savage Species rules are punishing for players in terms of LA (Using the SS rules, a Half-Elf is LA +1) and will leave you significantly weaker than just about any playable race. You can do stuff no player can, but your monster levels mean that if you take, say, a medusa as your character you're going to be a one-trick pony and continually spam gaze attacks in combat because you don't have the levels to do anything else useful. And Medusa is one of the better ones, a Satyr is just plain screwed. On the flipside pixies are awesome.

[Ulzgoroth]

I briefly played a young bronze dragon (using Draconomicon rules). Not much to say...it was a short-lived PBP game. It did seem like the options were more limited than they would have been in building a normally classed PC. Though I've never built any other character without spellcasting.

[Edea]

One thing that seems to get neglected when considering a monster race and its LAs is that they only matter when the PCs have different values for the LAs in question. They don't matter 'period;' it's an extremely relative issue.

A vampire with a bunch of PHB race PCs is going to get outclassed very quickly, due to its horrendous level adjustment and vulnerabilities. However, if everyone is playing an LA +8 race (barring racial HD, of course), then the level adjustment is nigh irrelevant; hell, you can just ignore it. This is even more apparent when everyone plays the same monster; hey, you can have a party of four evil scum-sucking humans, why not a party of four good-aligned outcast mind flayers?

This is why many DMs will give PCs an ECL ceiling to work with, usually a free +2 (and perhaps allow a couple of free racial HD), so that everyone gets to play their weird little not-so-unique snowflake without being outgunned so quickly.

When everyone is playing with an LA ceiling or a high-LA monster race, it's awesome (Charlie's Archons, GO!). But trying to squeeze in a monster amongst those with lower LAs, in an attempt to be special? You're better off being a wizard and using PAO cheese later in your career.