I was intrigued because my players wanted monsters and instead of doing classes races would be greater. so this is definitely a good way to understand how you can downgrade monsters and make them races instead. Unfortunately most of these are just the creature taken as is from the monster manual and reduced to their basic stuff. meaning that most of these races are totally overpowered and would literally make the first 5-6 levels of the game actually carry other regular players.
Exemple: Dexterity Marilith who literally can have +5 AC at all times. mix that up to Mage and get her to literally 35 AC at about level 8, thanks to bladesong, haste and max dex and intellect and Mage armor. thats not even looking at the fact that 6 arms means players will just try to wield X amount of shields or X amount of swords.
While certain races looks terribly downgraded, aka succubus without etherealness and a single charm per day. other races like dragons and other fiends are terribly strong. saying the DM needs to allow it first is an understatement because no sane DMs will ever allow anybody to take a monster as is. which is what this book seems to do.
All that said certain races are totally playable from this angle. they were downgraded enough to be playable. mostly the easy to downgrade races. others who have gotten literally weaknesses to bring them more in line. like the tiny creatures.
so heres the final thought...
PROs
- some good races mostly those who had not much abilities
- semblance of balance based on the stats used and the way its written.
- enormous choice for players wanting monsters.
CONs
- some of these races are extremely unbalanced
- not much effort in trying to bring the abilities down when they were too strong.
- leaves everything in the DMs hand and literally tells players not to use these races.
Overall it could of been much much better.
this is a good base and should be used by DMs wanting a start into making monsters something for his players, but its not entirely there yet.
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