Savage Campaign

[quiet1mi]

I was thinking about running a campaign for my friends but they have to play something out of the Savage Species or the Libris mortis... To keep things from getting too hard, I thought about allowing them to gestalt their monster Hit dice with classes that are tier 4 or lower.

To keep thing from killing them too fast, I was thinking about using a house rule that converts an amount of regular damage to non-lethal damage equal to their armor bonus plus their natural armor bonus.

What problems (that make my game unbalanced) do you guys foresee...

The things I notice that I am fine with...

• Undead effectively having damage reduction equal to their armor and natural armor bonus. They start with so little hit points that I am sure it will even itself out.

[Prime32]

Tome has rules for playing monsters which are based on their CR rather than ECL.

Method 1: The Easy Way

Assume that a monster is a character of its CR+1 (modified if it is a monster with the [Awesome] tag), and that its stat modifiers are derived from the assumption that the base monster was built using the Elite Array (highest monster stat – highest elite stat, then repeat for next lowest, etc). For level-dependant effects like skill point maxes, feat prereqs, etc, use the monster’s CR+1. Round ability stat mods down to nearest multiple of 2 (negative mods up to multiple of 2), and CRs down to nearest whole number.

Method 2

This method is the same as Method 1, but it goes a bit further by converting HD to actually appropriate HD by giving the monster the HD that equals its CR and BAB. This corrects problems just as excess HD from giants and undead.

Basically, look that the monster’s HD and BAB. What kind of HD would it need to keep about the same BAB and HPs, but would give it the appropriate number of HD to fit its CR/level (which also fixes Saves to reasonably levels). Assign it that HD, and move on with your life.

They should be a bit more capable of pulling their weight than characters generated with the standard method.