Rainbow or Monocolor Brokenness?

[Fuchs]

And before someone else jumps to conclusions: I don't defend his arguments or position, just his right not to get words put in his mouth he never said and then get judged on those words.

[PhoneLobster]

Seriously, there is a tendecny here to jump at people for making points they never made. Like Previn saying "Savage Species was a good idea, but not well executed" and people jumping at "He said Savage Species did not suck!!!!" (paraphrased, not quoted).

Fuchs. You have been in this thread from the start. You shouldn't have missed it...

I wasn't going to throw this in Previn's dishonest face because it became clear he is a blithering fool who doesn't even know what he is saying.

But now I will throw it into yours.

Depends on your view of the power level of Savage Species, which is based on the power level within your games. It spans a wide dearth of balance levels depending on what material you choose from it.

Now I'm pretty sure Previn doesn't actually know what dearth means since he used it in reverse context. But clearly by the sentence he MEANS "wide range" since "wide shortage" doesn't parse at all grammatically or logically.

He not only defends savage species in the context absent minded wizard has ALREADY patiently explained to you, he also specifically claims that there is AT LEAST some imaginary "power level" at which savage species works, and by the looks of things he actually claims it covers a wide range of material useful to a lot of different "power levels".

So shut the fuck up with your dishonest back peddling on the behalf of someone who really is saying that stupid shit. And he said it in a stupid way.

[Previn]

Seriously, there is a tendecny here to jump at people for making points they never made. Like Previn saying "Savage Species was a good idea, but not well executed" and people jumping at "He said Savage Species did not suck!!!!" (paraphrased, not quoted).

Fuchs. You have been in this thread from the start. You shouldn't have missed it...

I wasn't going to throw this in Previn's dishonest face because it became clear he is a blithering fool who doesn't even know what he is saying.

But now I will throw it into yours.

Depends on your view of the power level of Savage Species, which is based on the power level within your games. It spans a wide dearth of balance levels depending on what material you choose from it.

Now I'm pretty sure Previn doesn't actually know what dearth means since he used it in reverse context. But clearly by the sentence he MEANS "wide range" since "wide shortage" doesn't parse at all grammatically or logically.

He not only defends savage species in the context absent minded wizard has ALREADY patiently explained to you, he also specifically claims that there is AT LEAST some imaginary "power level" at which savage species works, and by the looks of things he actually claims it covers a wide range of material useful to a lot of different "power levels".

So shut the fuck up with your dishonest back peddling on the behalf of someone who really is saying that stupid shit. And he said it in a stupid way.

I stand by what I said 100%.

There is a wide range of power levels that Savage Species can be used at. Some of it can be used in the extremely low power games, some in the low power games, some in the normal games, and a few bits and pieces in the above average and some high level power of games. Does it fit well in the 'must be a primary caster or you suck' world? Only a few select pieces. Does it fit well into the average D&D game where people think the fighter is ok or even good? Most of it.

Should I consider Serpent Kingdoms a power book since it has the Manyfangged weapon and Sarrukh in it, while ignoring the weakness of something like the Body Pouch feat or the spell Scent? Or should I instead say that the book covers a wide range of power levels? I would think the answer should be pretty clear to anyone that is the least bit rational.

Few if any books don't offer something for most levels of play. If you have something that disproves that, I'd be interesting in seeing it.

If you want to harp on my misuse of 1 word (dearth instead of berth, sorry I didn't spell check well enough), well... I'm a bit tired of being told I said things I did not, or that I think things that I clearly do not, or of people abilities to not insisting that everything be taken to the absolute which is why I'm pretty much abandoning this thread. I doubt that anyone's mind will be changed at this point.

[Previn]

This feels kind of like debating with one particular individual.

I was also starting to wonder if Previn was an Elennsar alt.

I said specifically: But as a concept 'players can play monsters?' Yes, Savage Species was excellent, it was merely the execution of the mechanics that lacked.

So that was your whole point? Seriously, I don't think there's a person on this board who doesn't think monsters as PCs is a cool idea. You were arguing against a strawman of incredible proportions if that's the case.

My point has been much the same as it was from the very beginning. I don't talk in absolutes. A great many posters in this thread seem to do nothing but talking absolutes.

I.e. 'if it's at all weaker, it must be horribly, unplayably weaker' is the most common one.

Say the hit range scales from 1 to 100. You have 99 and I have 98, I am weaker. If you have 99 and I have 2, I am being also weaker. In this system, short of the to hit actually saying 98 somewhere, I'm not likely to notice that I am weaker in hitting things unless I happen to roll a 98 and need 99 or 100 to hit, and you rolled 99 and hit.

We can work at getting the number smaller and smaller until you think it falls into balanced, even if it's not exactly the same, or we can keep making it larger and larger to the point that yeah, there is clearly a problem.

Or we can say that there's a range in between the two extremes where you are weaker but it's not a problem and that the range is going to change depending on who you ask on where it should be.

I have not given a specific concrete range or assigned balance/interesting numbers as anything more than a hypothetical example because balance and interesting and fun are all subjective. You cannot assign an objective scale and have everyone agree with it. People couldn't do it in 8 years of 3.x and I have no delusions that it is just as impossible and never ending of a task now.

{Edit: As an aside, I can assure that I am one person with one account not a proxy from some other poster.)

[PhoneLobster]

Well Fuchs, he made it nice and clear for you and cleared up his minor dearth misuse that was the only thing like a defense for his claims you could have raised. You want to take back your defense of him already?

I stand by what I said 100%.

There is a wide range of power levels that Savage Species can be used at. Some of it can be used in the extremely low power games, some in the low power games, some in the normal games, and a few bits and pieces in the above average and some high level power of games. Does it fit well in the 'must be a primary caster or you suck' world? Only a few select pieces. Does it fit well into the average D&D game where people think the fighter is ok or even good? Most of it.

Now Previn do you think you might care to explain these power levels you speak of and how savage species specifically fits into any of it?

Savage species monster PCs are handled by the methods I actually described (unlike your rather wild claims).

Now no matter WHAT "power level" or perhaps we should say competency level your players play at a savage species LA is a MASSIVE crippling feature. It's nature and intent is to make a character weaker than whatever a character of the same ECL might be in the game.

And it doesn't matter which game that is because if your players are a bunch of retarded loons who play fighters that take skill focus repeatedly then their LA+4 monster fighter with skill focus feats played by a retarded loon is still 4 LA behind the curve the rest of the group is playing at.

They still have overbalancing straight from MM stats and abilities that break the game in the other direction, but it doesn't sadly make up for LA, it just means you get to have the "best" of both worlds and break in both directions at once, having a bunch of 2 dimensional monster egg shells with hammers walking around with no HP, no saves, no BAB, no feats, no skills, and MAYBE if they are lucky a dangerously giant strength score or a single stupid (but no DC) supernatural ability.

Similarly with monster templates. Hey, I'm playing in lazy incompetent campaign where everyone is a goblin monk. But I get hit with the Vampire template, hey guys I'm now technically a higher level than you by a large margin until tweaks in our XP gain rates catch you up and I get real vampire goblin monk power of a large margin for that entire time. Then when you catch up to my newly earned LA I will be weaker than you from then until forever! Yay!

Etc...

And all this is stupid. You don't get to just hand out wildly divergent power levels without adhering to the games actual rules defined and level system defined power levels. The rules do not acknowledge and should not acknowledge some crazy idea where some rules are designed for super over powered games, some are designed for lamo weakling campaigns, and none of those rules are labeled as one or the other. That is fucking insane! Using a book with such unlabeled "power levels" is using a book full of land mines designed to destroy BOTH supposed power levels of game play.

Of course savage species isn't really like that, the core rules actually only define one common power level of game, and "casual" or incompetent players are actually MORE likely to suffer from problems with over powered and underpowered rule materials than supposed "optimizer" players or whatever they are being called this week.

If you want to harp on my misuse of 1 word (dearth instead of berth, sorry I didn't spell check well enough)

That isn't an appropriate use of berth either.

But it doesn't matter, my interpretation of your post generously both assumed (as it turns out correctly) that you meant "wide range", but kindly just in case covered it's bases in case you meant "wide shortage".

But why I'm talking to you I don't know since your defense of Savage species has been both crazy, stupid and also very dishonest so why should I continue?

[Previn]

Now no matter WHAT "power level" or perhaps we should say competency level your players play at a savage species LA is a MASSIVE crippling feature. It's nature and intent is to make a character weaker than whatever a character of the same ECL might be in the game.

So which is more powerful, a first level cleric, or first level ghaele? What about at 5th level? 10th? 14th? 20th? If say my only books are the PHB and Savage Species to choose from, yes most of the Savage Species is pretty poor, but the Ghaele pretty much plays right up there with the cleric and other big boys for most if not all of the game.

And it doesn't matter which game that is because if your players are a bunch of retarded loons who play fighters that take skill focus repeatedly then their LA+4 monster fighter with skill focus feats played by a retarded loon is still 4 LA behind the curve the rest of the group is playing at.

Clearly monstrous races advancement tables are the only thing the entire book. There are no anthropomorphic animals, or templates, or feats, or items. the only thing that came out of the book was monster classes and poor LA rules, not one other thing.

Not a reduction in absurdity or an absolute statement at all.

They still have overbalancing straight from MM stats and abilities that break the game in the other direction, but it doesn't sadly make up for LA, it just means you get to have the "best" of both worlds and break in both directions at once, having a bunch of 2 dimensional monster egg shells with hammers walking around with no HP, no saves, no BAB, no feats, no skills, and MAYBE if they are lucky a dangerously giant strength score or a single stupid (but no DC) supernatural ability.

Oddly I only see the Ghaele as having low HD/Saves and feats. I don't see how a low BAB matters when you have high level spells (doesn't seem to have hurt the wizard at all) but the Ghaele doesn't lag behind the cleric in BAB until 11th level where it's 1 BAB behind. The Ghaele will end up with more skills than the equivalent cleric, better all around stats, and a plethora of other very useful abilities (incorporeal at 7th level at will with a fly speed of 150'?).

Are sure you know what's actually in the Savage Species and not just parroting what you've heard from others?

And all this is stupid. You don't get to just hand out wildly divergent power levels without adhering to the games actual rules defined and level system defined power levels. The rules do not acknowledge and should not acknowledge some crazy idea where some rules are designed for super over powered games, some are designed for lamo weakling campaigns, and none of those rules are labeled as one or the other. That is fucking insane! Using a book with such unlabeled "power levels" is using a book full of land mines designed to destroy BOTH supposed power levels of game play.

I've already specifically and clearly stated numerous times that we're not talking about such gulfs in power levels in my original point and many times there after, but yet again it is apparently easier to make something up and rant about power levels than to actually address the argument that was presented.

That isn't an appropriate use of berth either.

Actually I'm relatively certain that is an accepted, if often unused idiom for 'wide berth,' but given the english language, it may be difficult to tell. It seems that a quick google search and check in Word agree with my usage.

[PhoneLobster]

So which is more powerful, a first level cleric, or first level ghaele?

So you want to talk about the monster classes, and indeed an arbitrarily specific one of a rather obscure sort. And do so without addressing anything I mentioned when I first covered these a page or two ago?

Fine.

The Ghaele is hands down better. Dangerously so. For level 1-5. Everything they get is the same or better. Skill points better than the rogue, (skill list only a little better than the clerics though), spells as good as the clerics, better class abilities, free attribute boosts, same feats, same HD, better saves, better BAB, zany monster bonuses like natural armor, resitances and a bunch of free spell likes that it gains access to levels ahead of casters. It's race selection is a little sub par and it doesn't get armor proficiency but it's also immune to all those person spells and junk to boot.

Then at level 6 it skips a hit die. Now it falls one level behind on spells per day, spells known, spell level, spell and ability DCs, skill ranks, max skill ranks, feats, hit points, saving throws.

But it's probably still on par or a touch ahead with only one level down what with all it's other bonuses. But it's getting wonky and if you are in incompetent player town it's probably in serious trouble already.

At level 8 it skips another HD. Now it's pretty hard to say if it's ahead anymore. It's probably falling behind by a small margin, crashing and burning in the hands of a less than skilled optimizer.

At tenth level it is now 3HD behind on everything. Including the thing it does the most, which is spell casting (and spell like abilities) all of which is cast at the level of party side kicks. It's "free" wis boosts help out a little so it gets maybe one level of that back in DCs and that's about it, but it isn't great. Even a skilled optimizer will be struggling to keep this on par with a cleric at this point.

Level 11 continues a one two punch with another lost HD. Indeed over the next 10 levels of advancement you only get another 3 actual character levels of advancement. From level 11 on you pretty much suck. By 20th level you are a 10th level character, sure you have lots of crazy abilities, some big ability scores, etc... But you have the BAB of a 20th level wizard, the spells of a 10th level cleric, the saves of a 10th level monk, the skills of a 10th level rogue, the hit points of a 10th level cleric. I mean you SUCK like a black fucking hole. About the only thing you have going for you is Spell Resistance, and it isn't GREAT, especially since things can just hit you and watch you die with your HALF HIT DIE, or watch you just plain fail your saves every time actual SR fails, which also includes every damn thing that bypasses SR.

It meets and exceeds all my original criticisms of monster classes. It's too good, then it's too crap. At some brief moment in it's level progression it MIGHT be level appropriate, perhaps at level 6 or 8, MAYBE but even that isn't certain and it certainly isn't functional in any game with level advancement ranges beyond that one pretty much theoretical character level.

Also it is a monster class. So you aren't allowed to just multi class out of it. which would be sane, even really cool at level 5, but no. You must stay on rails until EPIC FUCKING LEVEL.

but the Ghaele pretty much plays right up there with the cleric and other big boys for most if not all of the game.

You don't actually understand the monster class rules do you? Everything that runs off class level for a cleric, for a ghaele runs off HD. Which you get half as many of spread over 20 levels. He is a big boy how?

Clearly monstrous races advancement tables are the only thing the entire book. There are no anthropomorphic animals, or templates, or feats, or items. the only thing that came out of the book was monster classes and poor LA rules, not one other thing.

I covered 0 HD LA classes, monsters with HD and LA, monster classes and templates in my original criticism. I covered all bar the 0HD examples in my last post.

About the only thing I haven't mentioned is prestige classes and rituals. Which really, I shouldn't even NEED to mention. Should I? Really?

As for feats, spells and items. Well if you care to try and pick through the dross in that book and find some of those that are applicable to characters not built with the character building rules in those books, then you might find one or two "useful" items.

But I don't for a second declare that a book on the subject matter of playable monster PCs that devotes 99% of it's material to playable monster PCs is in anyway a source of a "wide range" of useful material for a "wide range" of games if I can find in the other 1% a single feat that I might take with a human's rogue class bonus feat slot.

Oddly I only see the Ghaele as having low HD/Saves and feats. I don't see how a low BAB matters when you have high level spells (doesn't seem to have hurt the wizard at all) but the Ghaele doesn't lag behind the cleric in BAB until 11th level where it's 1 BAB behind. The Ghaele will end up with more skills than the equivalent cleric, better all around stats, and a plethora of other very useful abilities (incorporeal at 7th level at will with a fly speed of 150'?).

Again, everything that runs off level for everyone else runs off HD for the Ghaele. The Ghaele gets more ranks, on those levels when it advances, and indeed more ranks over all. But it gets the maximum ranks limit of a character half it's ECL, at least by the end but it starts falling behind on that from early levels.

It's BAB matters because one of the few things it comes out well on is STRENGTH. So it would be nice to see that properly supported. Which it isn't.

Useful abilities are entertaining, I mean hey, it gets some funky utility and mobility effects at mildly early levels. But every damn time it ends up competing with its CL up against an opponents SR, its DC against an opponents Save, its saves against an opponents DC, it's HP against damage, it's attack against AC, its AC against attack, every time there is a contest it will suffer those missing levels.

And of course before it actually misses any or many levels that's not actually a pay off for its real free power, but by level 10 it's lost enough levels to hurt bad, from 11 on it will seem like it just plain loses every time a contest comes up.

Are sure you know what's actually in the Savage Species and not just parroting what you've heard from others?

I'm strong on this topic. After all I apparently know some of the most basic mechanics of monster character advancement better than you do.

It's one of my pet topics. I wanted that book to be good, it could have been the ENTIRE justification for 3.5 as far as I was concerned. What it was was the biggest insult I've ever paid that much money fo... no wait, I've bought worse computer games, but still.

I've already specifically and clearly stated numerous times that we're not talking about such gulfs in power levels in my original point and many times there after, but yet again it is apparently easier to make something up and rant about power levels than to actually address the argument that was presented.

So on the one hand you claim hey, I'm really talking about tiny increments of power difference so small they aren't really different (your earlier "If I define different as meaning the same as then I am right!" argument).

But on the other hand your example of a rules design within a range of effectiveness so small you can hardly differentiate the differences... is Savage Species arguably one of the biggest pieces of broken ever? The book that proved WOTC could make rules so bad they broke in BOTH directions at once SIMULTANEOUSLY! The book so bad that Lago's "it's not broken unless..." thread could have been shortened by making it "It's not broken unless... it's Savage Species".

What the hell?

if often unused idiom for 'wide berth,'

That's a wide gap between, not a wide range of. As the rest of the "idiom" goes... "Give it a wide berth".

For example in the phrase "Give Savage Species a wide berth, it is an incredibly crappy book".

[Crissa]

Funny, I thought in D&D skill, save and hit rolls were broken into 5% increments, not 1% increments.

-Crissa

[PhoneLobster]

PS there is something I forgot to mention about the Ghaele.

Now the savage species rules about monster advancement are needlessly, and deliberately so, complex and vague.

But is pretty clear that your class level dependent advancement runs of HD instead.

Only it is also pretty clear that by the end of a monster class you are supposed to be identical to creating a character of your monster type with the HD+LA method.

And a HD+LA Ghaele is presumably able to cast spells as a 14th level cleric.

While due to the complex mess of savage species writing the Ghaele class walks out at level 20 with 10th level casting... and a 14th level casting cap that it is 4 levels behind meeting.

Even more stupidly the spell likes have a specific caster level = HD, and ONLY HD from THIS class count. With an cap of 12. Yes. That's right you have a cap 2 HD higher than you can ever actually advance.

Bring on the argument over that because that brings in the wonderful world of sideways breakage where no fucker can tell what a rule is supposed to really be doing and the game grinds to a halt in rules lawyering.

Proving that savage species actually breaks the game in at least THREE directions at once.

With the Ghaele at least.

[Kaelik]

My point has been much the same as it was from the very beginning. I don't talk in absolutes. A great many posters in this thread seem to do nothing but talking absolutes.

I.e. 'if it's at all weaker, it must be horribly, unplayably weaker' is the most common one.

Say the hit range scales from 1 to 100. You have 99 and I have 98, I am weaker. If you have 99 and I have 2, I am being also weaker. In this system, short of the to hit actually saying 98 somewhere, I'm not likely to notice that I am weaker in hitting things unless I happen to roll a 98 and need 99 or 100 to hit, and you rolled 99 and hit.

We can work at getting the number smaller and smaller until you think it falls into balanced, even if it's not exactly the same, or we can keep making it larger and larger to the point that yeah, there is clearly a problem.

Or we can say that there's a range in between the two extremes where you are weaker but it's not a problem and that the range is going to change depending on who you ask on where it should be.

No, bad liar. Stop lying.

The original poster asked, "Hey guys, should a game have lots of really powerful stuff, or should it have some really powerful stuff and a lot of stuff that is much weaker?"

Frank answered, "If you are making new material for something, it needs to be at the same power level as the highest stuff, because no one will use stuff that is much weaker, it's shit."

You responded, quoting Frank, "I disagree. You can totally add a bunch of weaker stuff and people will use it. For examples, I will now describe stuff that is really shitty."

Now, in the context of this discussion, what does weaker mean? Does it mean 99 instead of 100? No, it means stuff that is considerably weaker and on a different power level.

If that was what you were actually saying, then you seriously just argued that Hitler didn't commit genocide because he painted art.

But what you actually did was disagree with people saying things needed to be the same power level, and then laboriously defended the idea of really weak shit in the same game as good shit for 5 pages.

After everyone walked all over your argument, you then changed your mind to redefine weak as 99 out of 100.

Like a lying goal post shifting asshat. Because you are one.

[Previn]

No, bad liar. Stop lying.

First, I never lied.

You responded, quoting Frank, "I disagree. You can totally add a bunch of weaker stuff and people will use it. For examples, I will now describe stuff that is really shitty."

I didn't describe 'shitty' stuff in my response to Frank. In fact I didn't describe any examples until people started to jump on waeker as always being unplayable. I've said so many times that we're not talking about big differences in power levels.

The fact that you can't even paraphrase right (missing the very important significantly interesting part) doesn't even really surprise me anymore. Just another person who would rather make things up than actually argue with the facts that I've presented.

Now, in the context of this discussion, what does weaker mean? Does it mean 99 instead of 100? No, it means stuff that is considerably weaker and on a different power level.

Citation for the level of weakness being stated as that by anyone other than me?

If that was what you were actually saying, then you seriously just argued that Hitler didn't commit genocide because he painted art.

Good use on the Hitlar imagery to cover several logical fallacies at once.

But what you actually did was disagree with people saying things needed to be the same power level, and then laboriously defended the idea of really weak shit in the same game as good shit for 5 pages.

This thread is 6 pages long. You're basically saying that I've been defending the same idea for the entire thread (which is also not the idea of 'really weak'). Which of course is true. From my second post, on page 1:

A player is often willing to take a less powerful choice because they view the mechanics as more fun, or because it fits the concept of what they want to play better. You can produce material based on that rather than power creep, and even have it be weaker (though not absurdly so) as long as the player base finds it interesting and fun.

My third post? I used the fighter vs caster argument as the bad example because it was too much of a difference. The closest I came to give numerical example early on (still first page) was once again orders of magnitude of difference between what people were claiming and what I was actually saying:

I'm talking about a +1 bonus that does something cool vrs a +4 bonus. I'm not talking about a +1 bonus that does something cool against a Shapechanged Wizard with +40 bonuses.

Exact citation of where I defend "really weak shit" or kindly leave before make a further fool of yourself.

After everyone walked all over your argument, you then changed your mind to redefine weak as 99 out of 100.

Like a lying goal post shifting asshat. Because you are one.

My argument has clearly been the same from page 1, from my second post even (which was really just a clarification of the first). In fact all of my examples have clearly pointed to the fact I'm only talking about very small differences in power.

The only reason the example change is because people still have a problem understanding scale and I'm trying to impress upon them the range that I'm talking about i not the range that they are talking about. Hence why I said (back on page 2):

Literally you're comparing the best (wizards) to the worst (soulknives) and then complaining that weaker is bad when I've very clearly been talking about comparing say the sorcerer to the wizard.

I think I've been one of the few honest people in here. I wish I could say the same for you, but your post amounts to little more than slander, lies, accusations with few if any facts, non of which are correct.

[mean_liar]

No, bad liar. Stop lying.

So I see this in Roy's sig and I'm wondering, "what the fuck did I do now" and then hey, apparently nothing.

I know its fun, but what a pointless debate this is. Seriously. Why the fuck anyone would deliberately make something weaker is beyond me. They might make something powerful because its mechanically unique in the rules environment but lack the fluff to justify it, and that's okay because you can sort of off-load that onto the players and there is no end to the ability of bullshit to cover that sort of thing anyway, but to make something weaker but interesting as a design goal is just stupid.

Can you use weak shit? Sure. You can use anything. You can even ENJOY it if you want. But as a design goal its just stupid and I can't imagine the round-and-round on this.

[Rejakor]

I think I've been one of the few honest people in here. I wish I could say the same for you, but your post amounts to little more than slander, lies, accusations with few if any facts, non of which are correct.

Okay, i'm calling bullshit on that. In nearly every damn post you make, you backhandedly insult anyone disagreeing with you by saying that they don't know what they're talking about, are an idiot, or are an asshole disagreeing with you because they 'don't like you' or something.

Don't even try to deny it, because I will seriously go back and quote each and every time you've done it, and cause this is the internet, funnily enough you can't argue that it never happened.


Is it bad that I really hope that Previn is just trolling, because the idea that someone would honestly make these kind of arguments and truly believe that it was a good idea/would benefit their points makes me slightly sadder about the world as a whole?

[PhoneLobster]

Exact citation of where I defend "really weak shit" or kindly leave before make a further fool of yourself.

Er... Savage Species. I mean it was like 5 seconds ago...

Maybe Elen is invading the forum under multiple accounts, but not enough to deal with the number of discrete identities unable to remember what the other guys posted under the same name?

edit: I'm joking, it's probably not Elenamagog, but wow, short term memory much?

[Roy]

No, bad liar. Stop lying.

So I see this in Roy's sig and I'm wondering, "what the fuck did I do now" and then hey, apparently nothing.

Lols. It's a funny quote.

[Previn]

But is pretty clear that your class level dependent advancement runs of HD instead.

Only it is also pretty clear that by the end of a monster class you are supposed to be identical to creating a character of your monster type with the HD+LA method.

And a HD+LA Ghaele is presumably able to cast spells as a 14th level cleric.

The Savage Species says "Each class has a number of levels equal to the monster's starting ECL. As a monster attains new levels in it's class, it becomes gradually more powerful."

HD clearly don't have anything to do with it and there are examples in the book where casting is based off HD. I can understand wanting to equate it to HD in some fashion, but there's no support for that.

Ironically, by not making up new rules and saying how it should work, if you just follow what's in the Savage Species, you get 14th level casting right on time with a cleric, and that caps out at 14th level, and is exactly what a 'normal' Ghaele gets.

So I can actually use what's in the book where a class level is class level and surprisingly it finishes up exactly when and where it should be, or I can make stuff up and start guessing at where and when is should have spells and wonder why it suddenly doesn't work.

Exact citation of where I defend "really weak shit" or kindly leave before make a further fool of yourself.

Er... Savage Species. I mean it was like 5 seconds ago...

I defend that some select material from it as good (which I have stood by). This is yet again the 'all or nothing balls to the wall' approach that causing problems.

"Everything in Savage Species is bad, hence the entire book is indefensible." is what you are saying.

"The vast majority of Savage Species is bad, but there is some good material in the book." is what I am saying. I am NOT saying "There was some good material in Savage Species so it was a good book."

That is part of the reason that I went out of my way a few posts back to point out that power levels of material, even in the same book, will vary drastically.

[violence in the media]

A book of 9 bad parts and 1 good part is not a book worth paying money for, or generally even referencing.

[Fuchs]

A book of 9 bad parts and 1 good part is not a book worth paying money for, or generally even referencing.

That depends on the quality of the one good part, and how much money you pay.

Given how long I tend to use a single character even one feat or one prestige class I will use can make a book worth buying for me.

I do not recall using anything from Savage Species though.

[Previn]

Can you use weak shit? Sure. You can use anything. You can even ENJOY it if you want. But as a design goal its just stupid and I can't imagine the round-and-round on this.

Perhaps I should try a different approach: Balance is not a perfect point on a scale. Even in balance, there is a more powerful and a weaker.

Say we have three abilities. One gives you +2 damage if you moved during the turn. One gives you +2 damage if you didn't move during your turn. the last gives you +1 damage all the time.

Those are extremely balanced abilities. If I never or only rarely move during a fight (say an archer), then the first and last abilities are weaker. If I can predict with any degree of success which how much I will move during a given fight, I should always take one of the first 2 abilities. The third ability is 'weaker.'

[Previn]

A book of 9 bad parts and 1 good part is not a book worth paying money for, or generally even referencing.

I agree whole heartedly that it is not worth paying money for such a book.

What I'm advocating isn't bad material covered up for with fluff. Using the Savage Species as a continuing example, if playing a monster basically just put you 1 level behind a 'normal' balanced (depending on what class you consider to be balanced) PC in power, I suspect that there would be almost no outcries about it being weaker, even though it still would be. This is much the same way that people complain about fighters vrs wizards, but rarely if ever complain about sorcerers vrs wizards.

[PhoneLobster]

HD clearly don't have anything to do with it and there are examples in the book where casting is based off HD. I can understand wanting to equate it to HD in some fashion, but there's no support for that.

Read your rules boy.

The Monsters as Classes text way back in chapter three has a section on advancement by level that discusses this. It refers you to a table and states that all advancement by level instead runs of HD. And refers you to Chapter 2 which does the same.

Th Ghaele then talks about advancing something by level.

But hey if you WANT to completely ignore the thing in the rules on how to use these classes that says "character level=HD not class level" then we can go ahead and say HEY, the Ghaele text says "Class Level" lets pretend that overrides the rules that describes how to use that text!

Then the Ghaele inexplicably advances its spell casting completely out of sync with the rest of it's staggered level based advancements. Now instead of splitting 10 levels over twenty with gaps all spread out it does that in step with EVERYTHING but magically ignores it for spell casting.

Instead spell casting advances EVERY LEVEL. Up to 14th. Then it KEEPS ADVANCING to 20th level casting (wtf? but yes it does) with the caster level attribute capped at 14th and you still get extra spells and higher spell levels.

So hey yeah sure why don't we run with your (incorrect) interpretation and have the Ghaele walk out with +6 extra levels of spell casting with an inexplicable 14th caster level cap that makes them fail at every SR test ever. Of course whether you hit the caster level cap or not is questionable because IT may or may not run off class level or HD too. I mean it IS a "level dependent benefit" so you MAY well still walk out at 20th level with 20th level cleric spell lists and per day with CL 10, but whatever, we are conveniently ignoring that text so lets give you 14th CL and suck less by a margin of 4 CL.

It's further off the 14th level casting at level 20 only that the class construction guidelines claim you should get than my interpretation with the -4 levels at the same point.

Ironically, by not making up new rules and saying how it should work, if you just follow what's in the Savage Species,

This IS "just" following what savage species tells you. The instructions for how to read and use these class entries is broken up and spread out over more than 3 chapters, often with no clear indication of where applicable rules begin and end.

The monster class rules are interwoven with the HD+LA monster rules in ways that are incredibly complex, unclear, self contradictory and don't make any damn sense.

So anyway Ghaele casting goes like this.
1) Advances with HD, loses 10 HD of casting, starts losing casting at level 6. Class starts sucking at 6 or 8. I too good before that.

2) Advances with Class Level, loses NO levels of HD of casting but loses 6 levels of capped Caster Level attribute, class starts sucking defensively at level 10 or 11, and is too good before that. Offensively it is mostly fine, except against increasingly common SR post level 14 (or maybe with earlier HD losses) where it increasingly sucks. All in all it worsens egg shell with hammer problems and goes splat more often than

3) Advances with Class Level, and we generously rewrite the caster level cap so that it in fact caps ALL spell casting ability at 14th (class) level. So again now it starts to suck defensively from 10 or 11, is too good before that. From 10-14 it's an egg shell with a hammer. And then from 14th+ increasingly loses all round on it's offensive ability until at level 20 it is by FAR weaker than your side kick's side kick (who casts at the same level and has 4 more hit die).

4) Everyone trying to use these rules realizes its a total cluster fuck and gives the fuck up due to sideways game breakage.

I defend that some select material from it as good (which I have stood by).

You said wide range of material. Or material for a wide range of games.

"Everything in Savage Species is bad, hence the entire book is indefensible." is what you are saying.

Yes. The Ghaele is bad. It's a cluster fuck of badly written rules that are alternately too powerful and too weak REGARDLESS of your actual interpretation. It MIGHT be properly functional without dropping off the bottom of the appropriate scale for defense or off the top of offense at around level 6 or 8, but the rest of it is NEVER going to match any appropriate power level or ANY imaginable kind.

Something you still haven't managed to explain.

You've just gone straight for my "Oh by the way, the rules for Ghaele spell casting are totally miswritten" hook and gone...

"gobble gobble gobble, hm nice worm, did I mention the rules being miswritten means I can use my own interpretation against all precedent and text, and pretend that it actually impacts the situation in any way other than propagating confusion and in game rules catastrophes?"

That is part of the reason that I went out of my way a few posts back to point out that power levels of material, even in the same book, will vary drastically.

Which is directly contradictory to your "99 vs 100" bullshit because you keep telling us that people will gleefully use the wide range of material in savage species.

Heck, you seem to think that these "power levels" of yours include the ghaele. A class that will start by breaking your game with being far too good. Then break your game by not making sense. Then break your game by being cripplingly bad. Because there is a "power level" that you hilariously call "the big boys" where all those different types of breakage don't matter.


Anyway. I've established the ghaele's power level fluctuates wildly, has several contradictory rules interpretations, STILL fluctuates wildly under all of them, and causes the game to break down into a yelling match over which set of clearly inadequate rules text has precedence.

Now I want to use it to demonstrate another one of my favourite flaws from Savage species.

Your 20th "level" PC Ghaele is, surprise surprise, 20th ECL.

Regular MM Ghaeles with all the same abilities are CR 13. But hey, YOU use the elite array. So we give the MM ghaele the elite array too to bring it to CR 14.

By the CR rules your party is supposed to fight large amounts of your clones and only BARELY gain experience for it, it isn't supposed to exhuast ANY of your resources to defeat them. Indeed even if you go toe to toe against your clone you are supposed to expend no more than 10% of your resources to defeat... yourself, which you should do with success, apparently, the vast majority of the time.

And indeed you basically are supposed to go toe to toe one on one with your clone because only then does the EL actual start to get into the range you are SUPPOSED to be fighting.

Or alternately the Ghaele that is supposed to be an even match to say a 20th level cleric attacking your party is your clone +7 levels of cleric. OR even more levels of rogue. And from time to time the party is expected to face these guys in even 1 to 1 numbers! You may well indeed be called to fight one on your own.

Bet that would be great. The other PCs would be all "Hey PC Ghaele why has this one NPC out of four in the enemy mirror match up team got 7 more levels than you?" and you'd be all "Well you see... AAAARGH... *splat*... "

[Previn]

The Monsters as Classes text way back in chapter three has a section on advancement by level that discusses this. It refers you to a table and states that all advancement by level instead runs of HD. And refers you to Chapter 2 which does the same.

Would that be this on pg. 26: "When a monster class refers to "level," this means levels in the monster class. Levels and Hit Dice gained in monstrous classes do change special abilities."

If you're referring to table 2-5, that has nothing to do with spell casting or special ability advancement, anymore than the table 3-2 in the PBH does for wizards caster level. In fact it's "For the effect of levels in non-monster classes (standard or prestige classes) on monster special abilities."

If you have some actual rules that tie the Ghaele's casting to it's Hit Dice, I'm still waiting to see them. While I agree that there is some confusion in what caster level means in this particular case, I think the intent is pretty obvious given that everything else is made to match up exactly to the monster in the MM.

So again, we can make up rules as you want to do and it doesn't have any real semblance of working, or we can just follow what's in the book and it works.

Which is directly contradictory to your "99 vs 100" bullshit because you keep telling us that people will gleefully use the wide range of material in savage species.

Which is false on so many levels I'm not sure I can even get into all of them. I said:

Depends on your view of the power level of Savage Species, which is based on the power level within your games. It spans a wide dearth of balance levels depending on what material you choose from it.

- I did not claim gleeful use, nor anything about the actual use of material by people.
- I did not claim a wide range of material from the book (I claimed a subset of material which is a further subset of the balance level you are playing at). I did claim a range of power levels where you could find some material to use.
- It doesn't contradict a completely separate and unrelated statement about balance of my original point.

If there is anything in your claim about what I said that's correct, I'm having a hard time finding it short of both statements involve Savage Species.

[PhoneLobster]

Your quoted rules text (unsurprisingly) does little to clarify the issue.

Note it says that levels AND HD change special abilities. It's being non committal. And it's doing that for various reasons. One is that monster class rules are MEANT to be a horrific hack with no observable internal consistency so they can 1) Be pointed at as broken munchkin material and dismissed by the "elves and only elves forever" comity, and 2) So guys like you can just interpret the rules to mean ANYTHING and pretend they work.

Then look over the page and see a heading on level Dependant abilities. that refers you back to chapter 2. Notice how the material in chapter 2 all runs off HD instead of ECL. Notice how monster advancement rules from the MM run of HD rather than ECL. Notice how every single basic level dependent attribute you have from BAB, to saves, to feats, to attribute boosts, to skill ranks to even max skill ranks runs off of HD. Notice how the spell like abilities in the class itself run their spell casting off of HD instead of Class Level.

Notice how if you read the book from front to back (the traditional way) the rules through chapter 1 and 2 discuss monster classes in reference to the material appearing in chapter 3, in various, insane, ways.

So for added confusion go back to the FRONT of the book in chapter one where it defines terms and find that
1) It defines Character Level for monsters to be HD+Class levels. So monster classes either have level equal to HD (making the ghaele a 10 character level), or HD+Class levels with overlap (making it a 30 character level), and a different character level to the same Ghaele built with the HD+LA method that is supposed to be identical).

2) It actually gets the basic Class Level definition completely wrong and in direct contradiction to core. There is some suggestion in combination with other rules that they mean "total non monster class/HD levels" and just used the same name as a core term by accident. But who the fuck knows what they really meant?

3) It defines HD for monster class characters as equivalent to monster class levels. Which is pure insanity as the monster class ghaele is then potentially a character level of 40 compared to the 10 of the HD+LA ghaele. This is also insanity because it's telling us that two numbers that are actually different numbers are... "equivalent".

4) It defines ECL as the sum of LA+HD+Class Levels. Which makes the monster class Ghaele a 0+10(or 20??)+20 for 30 or 40 ECL, and the HD+LA "identical" Ghaele a 10+10+0 for 20 ECL. It then tells us to use Character Level for ALL game functions except XP and starting gear. WHich means that class Ghaele is walking in with ECL 20, 30 or 40, and using "for all game purposes" a character level of 10, 20 or 30 depending on which bits of contradictory shit you combine in what order. While HD+LA Ghaele is walking in with ECL 20 and using a character level of 10.

Basically though we are told that there are... things... that don't run off monster HD, once, maybe, every other time we aren't, every single thing we are given an example of basically runs off monster HD.

Now what we know is that MM Monsters sometimes get spell casting "as a level X character". We know they just get that. We know that a HD+LA build monster just gets that (even if he potentially drops back a level or more when he adds a spell casting class level after), we know that a level 20 monster classed Ghaele is SUPPOSED to just get that.

It is explicitly supposed to somehow evenly divide that across it's 20 levels of advancement (not front load it).

But there is no interpretation of the rules as written that does that. None of it makes sense. IT'S ALL FUCKING CRAZY!

But anyway like I said. What say we give DO you your class level interpretation, I mean by the time it applies the Ghaele NEEDS a sop of some kind so why not?

Well we find it does nothing to make the Ghaele work, and also happens to give it 20 cleric levels of casting instead of 14 with a mere 14 cap on an obscure spell casting related attribute. Because it's that badly written.

Also hilariously under YOUR interpretation progressing in cleric spell casting for the ghaele goes...
Class Level 1-14 full progression on all cleric spell casting.
Class Level 15-20 full progression on cleric spell casting, caster level attribute capped at 14
+1 level of cleric. Caster level DROPS to 11. Other spell casting progression goes up. (see page 14 to 15 of savage species for this ridiculousness)

And if we are extra generous to you and start running around reading "caster level" to actually impact ALL spell casting advancement including access to spells know, spells per day, spell levels etc...

Then at level 21 the Ghaele 20/Cleric 1 (who got 6 levels less spell casting access at level 20) actually LOSES 3 more cleric levels of spell casting by adding one level of cleric.

What the class SHOULD have done to be internally consistent with the rest of the savage species rules and guidelines was to give out spell casting with HD, then just give out an extra level of spell casting as a bonus 4 times during it's progression. And the HD+spell casting class further advancement text would need fixing too. It would still have been an incredibly broken and unbalanced class, but it would have been a more consistent easier to read set of rules.

But anyway, get over it already, I've run the gamble on this one both ways, I'm right, your right, your even righter than you claimed to be doesn't matter the Ghaele class is SHIT. I covered those bases, I've run you the spell casting impact of THREE different interpretations of this shit, my non-generous one, your generous one, and a super generous cuddly they never even began to write it like that one. The class is still SHIT.

Try defending it rather than arguing about which of several different scenarios in shit I have already offered and dismissed is the correct shit. Because as long as you argue over this all you are doing is proving my claim about how incredibly vague, contradictory and poorly written these rules are.