One of my favorite (although prob broken) aspects of old was the Savage species book. This might have already been covered somewhere else, but anyone know if the Pathfinders beast book covering the monsters in a way that one can "play" a monster type as a PC?
Gods I hope not. As far as I know they will give advice but monsters are well monsters and are not balanced for play. The LA system really did not work IMHO
If i followed and understood correctly, the Paizo staff announced that the playable monster races will be easy to convert into character races, and that the Level Adjustment concept will be revised for simplicity.
Therefore, many races won't need a special entry or treatment to be played.
For tougher ones, though... Who knows, maybe there is something about that in the Bestiary.
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The LA and ECL system were not good enough to be included in PRPG; they really only gave powergamers ammunition to bully GMs into letting them play unusual races, I think. Also, it fostered the concept that Monster Books are for players... that's not something I necessarily think is good for the game either.
PRPG's stance on non-standard races is that there are a dozen or so like the goblin or the tiefling that would work pretty well as PC races, and another dozen or so like the drow or svirfneblin that could work as well also but would cause more balance issues, and that beyond that you really shouldn't be playing the really more exotic or strange monsters as PCs. Partially for game balance reasons, but also for the implied core of the game. Everything in the game is built assuming the player characters are humanoid; thus we don't have to dedicate extra space to accommodate how to fit strange races into every adventure site, make sure to include variant magic boot stuff for races without feet, account for how every city in every adventure reacts to the presence of a medusa bartender, and so on.
What all that boils down to is that we prefer if GMs decided on a personal level what races they're comfortable with their players using.
All THAT said... a Savage Species style book that delves deeply into how to play non-core races is a pretty good idea, and I suspect it would probably sell pretty well. But such a book is probably several years away still... and not only because when and if we do such a book, we'll need to build all new rules subsystems for accomidating PCs who happen to be as diverse and ecclectic as ettercaps, gibbering mouthers, awakened squids, or half-fiend deinonychuses.
EDIT: Note, the PRPG Bestiary is NOT the place to go to shop for new races for PCs. It's a monster book filled with things for your PCs to fight or befriend. GMs and groups can certainly use the book as a bunch of PC races, but if you do that, you're more or less on your own.
...such a book is probably several years away still... and not only because when and if we do such a book, we'll need to build all new rules subsystems for accomidating PCs who happen to be as diverse and ecclectic as ettercaps, gibbering mouthers, awakened squids, or half-fiend deinonychuses.
Being a long-time Planescape DM and having an open game on the 3.5 rules with several creatures as characters waiting for a PFRPG update, I have mixed feelings about this.
From one side, as I always like to be crystal clear about rules and their balance with my players, I really wanted to get my adventure on PFRPG official rules.On the other side, this puts me on a position were I have a simple choice between keeping my adventure on halt and houserulling my PCs as we see fit.
Thanks
EDIT: Maybe it'll be easy, since converting a Rakshasa and a Genasi is not as complex as the half-fiend deinonychuses(don't let my players think about those!)
An awakened bat(or maybe an owl) is what I one day hope to play...
All I need is the DM's permission on the animal of choice, and the levels to be equal in Hit Dice with the rest of the party.
Animal companion rules might work there
The problem is that it is very helpful to have at least some kind of guidelines to help provide basic consistency. While I do deplore the general state of balance in the old ECL/LA rules they did at least provide that constancy.
Although anyone who considered being a muchnkin with an LA creature was no min-maxer. ECL characters were almost universally underpowered in abilities for their level compared to normal characters. This was especially true for High LA creatures. There were the very notable exceptions.
However I think the attempted Player abuse goes back to the same way PrCs were abused. The DMG did not make it very clear, in very strong language, that these kinds of rules were completely optional rules used at the DMs discretion and not player choices.