Rating: 
Summary: Only a few pages of solid content...
Review: ... but that content is pretty invaluable, especially if your D&D campaign is more fantasy than less. There's an entire table of "beastmen" (oh, I'm sorry, "anthropomorphic animals") templates for anime fans. In short, if you're a DM who wants to seriously expand the fantasy element of your game, the book has playable trolls, centaurs, sprites, ogres, minotaur, medusa and many more -- along with some fairly simple-yet-useful templates for hacking into them. That's why I bought it, and I'm satisfied enough to do it again -- despite typesetting errors and, imo, lots of wasted space. Conversely, if you're not sure you want that sort of thing in your campaign, then you'll probably want to skip this book and simply work off advancing creatures from the Monster Manual to confound your players.
Rating: 
Summary: Rrrargh! Umber Hulk SMASH!!!
Review: And that's something you'll never, ever have heard a PC utter before, but you might now.Savage Species is, as the notes say, the D&D 3e sourcebook on playing monster characters. Not necessarily hideously evil psychopaths (that's where Book of Vile Darkness comes in), but non-standard races...anything from the bugbear up to a stone giant. Monster PCs have two things to concern themselves about...hit dice (i.e. how many hit dice they naturally start with) and level adjustment (having abilities that are worth a class level or two on their own). For example, our umber hulk friend has eight hit dice and a level adjustment of +6, for an ECL of 14...so an umber hulk is theoretically equivalent to a 14th-level Player's Handbook character. So, the authors go through and list a chart of almost every existing monster in the game that has an ECL of 20 or below, along with official level adjustments for templates (lycanthrope, celestial, half-dragon, etc.) They also discuss letting a player start as a first-level monster, which must get to its base statistics before multiclassing...there's no using a minotaur's base stats at 1 HD, because they don't get them until they reach their final hit die. There's a 52-page appendix of sample monsters' ECL broken out into class levels, which is fairly nice. You'll also find feats suited to monsters, new prestige classes, new gear, a lot of new templates (my favorite's Gelatinous...a semi-ooze creature), and new and/or reprinted creatures, including a long list of anthropomorphic races, such as dog-men and wolverine-people, the desmodu and loxo from MM2, and the half-ogre starting race. There are also rules for transforming characters between races and adding templates. Something like this has been needed for a long time. Not only does it follow in the footsteps of AD&D2's Complete Book of Humanoids, but it answers rules questions that have popped up ever since the first PC got infected by lycanthropy. Some creatures will be less-playable than others, simply because their level adjustment is so high that they won't have the hit points to survive combat at their ECL. And there are a few questions, too...for dragons, do they require XP to gain hit dice, since they grow by aging? After all, 10 years can go by in a game fairly quickly, and that young dragon can become a juvenile and get stat and HD bonuses... This is a great supplement, and I highly recommend it. It's probably most useful if you're going to start a new game, but it'll be useful for everybody at some point.
Rating: 
Summary: It would seem, Wizards is employing monkeys as writers.
Review: Aside from the countless typos that have now become standard with all their publications, this item truly is among their worst work. It was bad enough to inspire me to write reviews where I could in hopes I may save folks a few bucks and avoid my mistake.
The book starts out well enough with a detailed table on page 11 for the exact calculation of ECLs. It also encourages an acid test situation to verify the ECLs so calculated. These tools both generate an ECL that seems quite accurate in terms of balance.
The book then lists countless monster races from the Monster Manual 1 and another source. However, almost NONE have an ECL that would suggest it used EITHER of the two aforementioned tools. On average, their ECLs were all off by two and the acid test confirms this.
The book has 4 recycled monsters in it labeled as new: half-ogre, desmodu, thi-kreen, and Loxo. As an example of their errors: The half-ogre has a level adjustment listed as 1, but the ECL calculator gives it an ECL of 3 (+1 for the super stats, +1 for reach, +1 nat AC 4) and the acid test shows it to need a level adjustment of at least 2.
Of the great list of monster as PCs, only a random half are detailed to where they can be played without a lot of guesswork on the DM's part. I for one bought the book to remove guesswork, NOT create it. Those who enjoy the game are better off without this book and the chaos it threatens to impose in an otherwise fun game.
Rating: 
Summary: A note about...
Review: I do not come to rate how good this book really is. That is from a very good reason, that I do not play D&D 3rd edition. I am one of the few that remained loyal to AD&D 2nd edition. However, I come to correct something that was said here. This is not the first book to instruct players on how to play monstrous characters in a D&D (or AD&D) world. There exists a book of AD&D 2nd edition called 'The Complete Book of Humanoids'. That book did instruct players on how to play monstrous characters in a D&D (or AD&D) world. I do not presume to claim that my book is the first one to do it, but I do claim that the book presented here is not the first one. This is part of the Wizards of the Coast approach to disregard and try to undo everything that the 2nd edition (and the free TSR) has accomplished. In fact, if you will check, you will see that every book of the 3rd edition since the player's handbook is based on one or another book that already existed in the 2nd edition. Now, reviving the 2nd edition is a dream of mine that will not happen, but I would like WOTC to at least treat the 2nd edition with its due honor. Thanks for the attention.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I have been playing D&D for 13 years, and when third edition came out I was very reluctant to try it. But once I did it grew on me very quickly. This book is one of the better third edition books out yet. If you are interested in playing a monster or allowing them into your campaign I would strongly recommend this book. It was informative, and well put together. Some of the prestige classes I did not care for but over all great book. It took a lot of the guess work out of using monsters as PC. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever wanted to play a monster, or runs a game with players who wish to do so. I gave it 4 stars because it is good but not perfect!
Rating:
Summary: Delivers exactly what it promises.
Review: I picked Savage Species up the first day it hit the shelves of my local bookstore. I've been wanting to throw monster characters into my campaign but all the PCs are under level 5 so my options for PC monsters are kind of limited. This book has provided a way for me to throw a child to that fire elemental they just killed without a thought---a mere innocent---into the game as an NPC that they somehow have to deal with. (Hopefully not by killing it) More importantly, if they so choose, they can adventure alongside a fire elemental as it grows into its powers. The book itself is well organized and has a little of everything and a lot of some things. For DMs who don't want to go through the work of interpolating an ECL 15 Mind Flayer into fifteen separate levels, each acquired at standard experience point intervals, or even *determine* the ECL for a Mind Flayer, you don't have to. Many monster races have entire monster class levels separated for you. For those that don't, there are guidelines both for determining level adjustments and breaking up effective levels into actual levels, i.e. "W00t, I'm now a level six Drider! I get spell resistance!" There's a lot of stuff in this book. New spells (some good for non-monster PCs, too), new equipment (Including the Gloves of Man, so your paws/tentacles can grip those pesky crossbows or lock picks), new feats (Area Attack lets your colossal Mountain Giant smack a whole bunch of PCs when he swings a stone column), new prestige classes (Illithid Savant, for...well...eating brains for self-improvement), new templates (The illustration for the example Gelatinous Bear is great) and, of course, more. A lot of people are highly interested in the artwork in Dungeons & Dragons books, and if that's what they want out of the book, they'll be disappointed. I personally don't need illustrations to accompany descriptions for how an Ogre Mage advances to ECL 12 because I already know what they look like. This book is almost devoid of reprinted material, but much of it is being presented in ways far and beyond what Monster Manual I (or II) ever planned. This small paradox makes a great number of illustrations unnecessary relative to most books with so much new material. Drawings of all the weird weapons and equipment are comparable to those in the Player's Guide and other books. It's really pretty irrelevant, though, because if you took the pictures out of the second half of the book it would still be wonderful, if rather drab. One of the more reassuring touches is a tiny list at the beginning of the book that mentions a few changes from Monster Manual I that are/will also be in the revised Monster Manual I. No one wants a book that will be obsolete in just a few months. Savage Species is a great book, and has almost everything you could possibly want in it. What it doesn't have, it offers guidelines for working out on your own. Dungeon Masters who spend fifteen hours planning sessions will be able to do anything they want, but if you just want to create an poor little orphaned fire elemental, you can do it as quickly as any other NPC. As a player's book, the pre-made monster classes will help provide some variety, even if the game is starting from level one. Pre-made=easier DM approval, too. Of course, *buying* your DM the book would help your case, but I would *never* condone such bribery... Just...keep the fire elemental outta my bar, will ya?
Rating: 
Summary: This book is not necessary with 3.5
Review: If your playing with the 3.5 player's handbook, monster manual, and dungeon master's guide; this book is unnecessary. Because many ELs and LAs have been adjusted, and the entire system for LAs has been simplified with 3.5, this book has been rendered somewhat obsolete. It's best remaining features are some of it's example content (spells/feats/example progressions), but this book isn't going to be as helpful at a 3.5 table running a game using level adjustments.
Rating:
Summary: An entire book on... What race to play?
Review: It never ceases to amaze me what they think of next, and since I don't play D&D all that much, I didn't know of this books existence until I saw it yesterday. This book goes through many of the races presented in Monster Manual 1 (and some from Monster Manual 2) and tells you how to set up your character using those species. It gives you information on what level your character will start as, what your ability modifiers are, et cetera. Great, now what else did we spend the $... on? Not much. There are actual rules for creating your own race, but does a DM really need a book to create a new race? I would never play with a DM that needed to use a set of rules to create a new race, because in my opinion that would be telling me that they aren't creative enough to create a compelling story and interesting dungeons, etc. There are also new monster... prestige classes. I am being a bit hasty in my review since I just picked up the book yesterday, so I haven't read that section yet. Overall this book is like the other class supplement books, just in hard cover form. Its most definately overpriced, and unless you start a lot of new games of D&D then its really not worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Gets the imagination flowing
Review: One might think that it is common sense to take monster stats, scale them back and then balance them along the same power levels as PC's...and they would be right. The thing is, i never thought of it myself, and Savage Species takes several hundred pages with full examples to show some ways it might be done. The book is not perfect, such as mistakes and a complete lack of creature background, history, culture, etc...everyting that the 2nd ed. book had. Still, this is much better than the earlier book (which wouldn't even let you play a troll as it was too powerful; not anymore).
It has lots of monstrous feats, some better than others, great magic items with art, wonderful illustrations, some good templates and some so-so templates, but mostly just text that gets you thinking, "hey, i want to make my own special class." The rules are set down, the options are there, and if anyone wants to take the time to craft their own beasties it's not too difficult. Plus, it lets a DM scale down monsters for lower level parties, and easily boost them for higher level.
Ideally, if a DM were starting his own campaign in a monster-dominated world, you can't do without this book. SCrap the standard races of humans and elves and leave in the minotaurs and troglodytes, celestials and djinn.
Lastly, the book says that a monster class should be taken completely from 1st level to whatever level it maxes out at before one can add on regular character classes. The reasoning is that someone can take the powers of a 1st level monster and tack on character levels from there on out. I'm bending this rule myself; if players wanted to take several levels of mindflayer and go rogue the rest of the way, fine, but they can never go back to mind flayer. Besides, a mind flayer at 3rd level would not have the abilities of say, a 3rd level dwarf cleric, and far from the lethal mindblast talent.
A great resource, it just takes some determined reading to fully implement the usefulness.
Rating:
Summary: Very useful but still lacking
Review: The book has a lot of great stuff in it for creating monster characters. Unfortunately, it completely overlooked Lycanthropes and still managed to add confusion to the monster character creation process. Also, the way creatures were given levels seems a bit off to me.
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