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Savage Species
Length: 224 pages
Price: $29.95
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast www.wizards.com
ISBN: 0-7869-2648-1
It's finally out.
Short version: If you're interested in playing a non-standard player race in D&D -- a so-called "monster" race -- or if you're a DM interested in allowing your players do the same, run -- don't walk, amble, or swim (unless you live in Venice) -- to your nearest game store and pick this book up.
If you're not interested in such a thing, you can probably give it a miss. There's some generically useful stuff here, particularly for DMs who want to customize monsters EVEN MORE, but I doubt most DMs will need or want this level of customization (i.e. slightly beyond what's available now) just for NPCs, and while the generic stuff (there is some) is good, but not in enough quantity to be worth writing home about.
Okay, that said, what do you get?
Like most D&D hardbacks nowadays, it opens with a short Introduction. This is followed by a quick chapter on character creation, in the style of the PHB, just with the added wrinkles of playing a monster added. Pretty standard stuff.
(As an aside, of note to those of us curious about the upcoming revised version of the three core rulebooks is a little bit about what changes to expect in the revised Monster Manual and one of the changes of the new Player's Handbook. Even if you don't want to buy the book, it's worth glancing at the bottom of p. 4 of the book in the store. In general, the changes are very minor, and IMHO lay to rest the fears that everyone will be "forced" to buy the new rulebooks because of the update -- the changes are very minor, rather logical, and you can get along fine with your old rulebooks. (Tho I do wonder how the elimination of the Beast subtype is going to affect the Epic Level Handbook, which contains a couple of Druid feats based on that subtype.) I generally like the changes, as they simplify things rather than make them more complex.)
The real meat starts in Chapter Two, "Monster Characters". Some new termonology is introduced, including a new/different use of the term "Effective Character Level", which may confuse people who are used to the way "ECL" is used in the DMG and other supplements, particularly third-party ones. However, as long as you come to it by first thowing out all your preconceptions, you should be fine, and there's a well-written (and short) note about Level Adjustments and older products. It takes a second to wrap your brain around it, but then it starts to make sense.
In particular, this chapter breaks up the monster list into Introductory, Intermediate, and Advanced races -- in essence, it's a way of breaking them up by how much of a pain they'll be to deal with as a DM. The original races from the PHB are listed as Introductory races, along with several others from various official D&D sources, mainly the Monster Manual. It covers the number of skill points and feats a monster is supposed to get, and how to generate ability scores for monsters, including some interesting optional character generation rules for monsters only.
The important thing about this chapter, however, is the guidelines for calculating a Level Adjustment (and the appropriate starting ECL) based on the abilities and Hit Dice of a monster, and how to compare that monster to a character to see if the Level Adjustment you calculated actually makes sense. While there's still a certain amount of "eyeballing", it's not as random as it is in the DMG -- with these guidelines, I feel a lot more confidant about coming up with a starting ECL for, say, a monster race from Sword & Sorcery's Creature Collection, or double-checking the Level Adjustment from third-party supplements.
Chapter Three is entitled "Monster Classes" and it's what I, personally, was waiting for. While I've always considered the ECL system very balanced, it's always meant that I couldn't, say, play a Minotaur if the party was starting out as 1st level characters. This chapter gives guidelines for turning a monster into a character class, where at 1st level one is an "immature" version of the monster, with only one Hit Die and not all the monster's usual abilities. This way, you can play a Minotaur at 1st level, maturing to the full monster as you go up in level, and then taking a character class once you're "mature". (I have some small quibbles over some of the details, but nothing that's a show-stopper, or even worth going into detail over.) The chapter gives a Minotaur class as an example, and there are even more examples in the Appendix -- between the examples and the guidelines, I felt confident that I'll have no trouble creating monster classes as needed.
Chapter Four is new Feats. This is a good, solid chapter, though nothing spectacular. As one might expect, there are Feats only monsters could take, requiring monster physiologies, like tentacles or extra limbs, to be useful. I was surprised, however, at the number of General Feats, which could be used by anyone, in this chapter, tho most of them require fairly high Ability scores that are more common in monsters. Most interesting were a set of General Feats like "Cumbrous Dodge", which allowed one to perform certain tricks at the cost of becoming fatigued. I'd like to see more Feats like that, where one can do something better than a normal Feat usually allows, but at a price.
Chapter Five is about equipment, both mundane and magical, and is another solid chapter, though nothing stuck out as being particularly exciting. Most notable is that we finally have full stats for certain unusual monster weapons, such as the pincer staff used by the kuo-toa. Also, there are rules for figuring out the damage for oversized and undersized versions of ordinary weapons, such as if you have a longsword designed for a Huge creature, or a polearm designed for a Small creature. In addition to magic items only useful to monsters, there are magic items that give monster-like abilities, like a claw attack, to non-monsters.
Chapter Six is Spells. This chapter has the most "generic" information. While many of the spells are ones that enhance or require monster characteristics, there are also spells like the 2nd Level Paladin spell "Major Resistance", which grants a subject a +3 to saving throws; while I welcome such spells (they all seem balanced), I'm not sure what they have to do with monster PCs. The most interesting spells in this chapter are the ones that "awaken" constructs and mindless undead, granting them intelligence and making them viable as PCs.
Chapter Seven is a bunch of prestige classes. Yes, we're all tired of prestige classes, but there are some excellent guidelines for creating your own campaign-specific prestige classes here, and one very interesting class: the "Empancipated Spawn" prestige class. In essence, when a PC is turned into something awful by a monster, but the original monster that would "control" the risen/infected PC is killed, the Empacipated Spawn class lets one play as the monster, while recovering some of the class abilities lost by the transformation. I also particularly like the Siren (a prestige class for creatures with sonic powers, think Greek myth) and the Sybil (a cryptic diviner, think a classic sphinx or the Oracle at Delphi). In the "solid, but uninteresting" category (at least for me) is the Illithid Savant (a mind flayer presige class where they learn from the brains they eat), the Slaad Brooder (just like it sounds), the Waverider (think acquatic mounted knight), and the Yuan-Ti Cultist (like it sounds). In the "uh, yeah, whatever" category (again, for me) is the Master of Flies (an insect-oriented shapeshifting class, didn't we get enough of this in the Book of Vile Darkness?), the Scaled Horror (lizard warriors, yawn), and the Survivor (they, uh, toughen themselves up by hurting themselves or something).
Chapter Eight is a short and fairly well-written chapter on monster-centered campaigns. It's mainly a list of society types categorized by how they treat monsters. As I said, it isn't that long, and is followed up quickly by Chapter Nine, an equally-short chapter on "advancing" a monster from a DM's perspective, including a useful bit on the PHB Feats and how they relate to monster abilities.
Chapter Ten is about Monster Templates, and they get the same sort of treatment that full-blown monsters get: a breakdown on how they're made, how they work, and how templated monsters work as PCs. There's also a whole bunch of new templates, allowing one to get a creature one might want by taking a standard monster and applying a template, rather than making up the monster from scratch. For example, if you wanted a three-headed wolf that breathes fire, you'd just take a normal wolf and apply the Multiheaded Creature and Monstrous Beast templates, customizing to taste.
Chapter Eleven is called "Becoming a Monster", and it's mostly about various ways one can turn oneself into a monster, should a player suddenly want to use something from the book. In addition to explaining how such permanant transformations would work with standard spells like Wish, it also gives a bunch of optional ritual magical methods -- most of which require XP -- to transform one's self into a monster. These seem balanced, but might not fit every campaign, which is why they're optional.
The book has some serious meat in the appendixes. Appendix 1 is entitled "Sample Monster Classes" and it picks up where Chapter Three left off. If I'm counting right, there are over 40 monsters statted a character classes here, from the good-aligned (Avoral) to the neutral (Aranea) to the evil (Mind Flayer), and from the weak (Ghoul) to the powerful (Efreeti) to the downright odd (Fire Elemental). You might not even have to create your own monster classes using Chapter Three, as there's enough here to please even the most off-the-wall player. Appendix 2 is called "Compiled Tables", and it's mainly a compliled list of all the monsters in the book, as statted for PC use.
Appendix 3 is "New Creatures", and they sneak some interesting stuff in here. First, there is the Anthropomorphic Animals template. Yes, kids, here is is: official rules for playing furries in D&D. If you ever wanted to play, say, a humanoid lion in D&D, here you go. There's also (at last) official 3rd Edition D&D stats for playing a Half Ogre, and full entries for three monsters from the Monster Manual II that make good PCs, slightly modified and updated to fit the new rules: the Desmodu, the Loxo, and the Thri-Kreen.
If I had any complaint about this book, it would be the index. It's only a single page long -- the last page being reserved for an advertisement for the D&D novels -- and it doesn't adequately reference the book's extensive contents. This is a small quibble, tho, as it's organized pretty well, and I find myself able to find stuff reasonably well without the index.
So, I repeat: If you're interested in playing a non-standard player race in D&D -- a so-called "monster" race -- or if you're a DM interested in allowing your players do the same, run -- don't walk, amble, or swim -- to your nearest game store and pick this book up. Completists might want the book as well, particularly for some of the odd little rules therein, like the General Feats, the new spells, and the rules on half-ogres and furries.
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