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.
Rating:
Summary: A great book, with inconsistent editing and rules writing
Review: The material in this book is excellent for a DM. You can pick and choose your favourite rules and variations to make your own monstrous classes, or just flip to the appendix at the back and take information straight from the book. The magic items vary from the silly to the useful, the spells are well-written and the feats seem suitably tailored to monstrous playing.The templates are what really make this book sing, along with a long appendix full of examples of monstrous classes that should empower any DM to turn a monster into a playable character. This is, however, a book in serious need of one more working draft. The writers and editors took on a mighty task with this book, so I'm willing to forgive a lot, but references to incorrect pages, tables that don't exist and simple proofreading errors hamper the Savage Species experience. Also, there are numerous glaring examples of critters that bust wide open the abilities that a PC should be permitted at 1st level. This happens mostly with the advanced monsters, but many of them start with no attribute penalties, no serious drawbacks and numerous magical abilities. A little more scaling was needed for these, I think. Still, now I can have that troll/barbarian I always dreamed of . . . and with more complete information that the "Complete" Book of Humanoids. (edited in) I've now read through the book cover to cover and, as a result, must downgrade my rating from 4 to 3 stars. The editing is more than just inconsistent, in parts its deeply confusing. Numerous feat and spell entries are extremely contradictory. For example, the spell "Earth Reaver" calls for no saving throw, but the last line of the spell description says that those who fail the saving throw will be made prone. I can guess what kind of saving throw is necessary, but, honestly, this is the sort of thing that should've been easy to spot in the editing process. The excellence of the appendices, the prestige classes and the suggested rules are the saving graces of this book.
Rating:
Summary: The only WTOC D&D hardcover that hasn't thrilled me...
Review: The quality of the content in this book is not up to that of the other WTOC hardcover rule books. The chapter and rules on playing monstrous characters (with character classes) is pretty solid but the remainder of the book is much weaker. The monstrous feats aren't that impressive. The chapter on advancing as a monster (without a character class) seem silly (1HD Fire Giants? Whatever?). There is a whole chapter on monster templates that simply doesn't belong here... it belongs in a monster manual. No one is going to play a gelatinous monster or a mummified monster. The small chapter on monstrous campaigns is wholly unimaginative. If the first chapter wasn't solid (and even there you have to read things over a couple of times to understand the rules) I'd give this book a 2.
Rating:
Summary: The only WTOC D&D hardcover that hasn't thrilled me...
Review: The quality of the content in this book is not up to that of the other WTOC hardcover rule books. The chapter and rules on playing monstrous characters (with character classes) is pretty solid but the remainder of the book is much weaker. The monstrous feats aren't that impressive. The chapter on advancing as a monster (without a character class) seem silly (1HD Fire Giants? Whatever?). There is a whole chapter on monster templates that simply doesn't belong here... it belongs in a monster manual. No one is going to play a gelatinous monster or a mummified monster. The small chapter on monstrous campaigns is wholly unimaginative. If the first chapter wasn't solid (and even there you have to read things over a couple of times to understand the rules) I'd give this book a 2.
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite sure what they were thinking
Review: This book goes further than anything I've seen to date to show that WOC isn't really sure how to let players run monstrous characters. The book presents no less than two different, and incompatable, sets of rule for playing a monstrous character, and both of them consist of vague suggestions, and arbitrary choices. The book is filled with all manner of bizarre inconsistencies, illogical charts, and some of the most humorous equipment that I've see in a while. Some of the charts are simply reprinted word for word from other D&D books, such as the Monster Manual 1 and 2.
A great example of how these rules make no sense would be if you were to create a human/horse hybrid. In defiance of logic, you would actually be weaker than a normal human, as well as generally dumber and with worse saves and a level penalty to boot. Any creature actually worth playing generally works out being some 10th+ level monstrosity, which I suppose is fine if you play nothing but high level campaigns. Any player or GM worth their salt should be able to make up the material that's contained in this book on their own, and probably make is more useful as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Go buy the Complete book of Humanoids instead
Review: This book is just The book of Humanoids recycled. I really wish WoTC would try putting out something new instead of riding the coat tails of others work.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not perfect.
Review: This book is ofr any DM/PC who wants to play in a different campaign. While many people would like to play as a troll, they would normally have to wait until the party is high enough then join end or they would be too powerful. In here they introduce the concepts of level monsters and it appears to work out. After buying this book I started a campaign with a minotaur, a pixie and a normal boring elf. The book is not perfect though. Every time I open it I see things that should have been caught before it went to press. missing spaces and bad page references are annoying, but at times important information was dropped. I had to use another book and back calculate the damage a lvl 1 Treant's slam would do. Overall I recommend this to every DM to add variety to a campaign.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not perfect.
Review: This book is ofr any DM/PC who wants to play in a different campaign. While many people would like to play as a troll, they would normally have to wait until the party is high enough then join end or they would be too powerful. In here they introduce the concepts of level monsters and it appears to work out. After buying this book I started a campaign with a minotaur, a pixie and a normal boring elf. The book is not perfect though. Every time I open it I see things that should have been caught before it went to press. missing spaces and bad page references are annoying, but at times important information was dropped. I had to use another book and back calculate the damage a lvl 1 Treant's slam would do. Overall I recommend this to every DM to add variety to a campaign.
Rating:
Summary: A Mixed Result
Review: Though this text is a handsome volume, packed with cool ideas and tons of crunchy bits, and moreover though I happen to like it quite a lot, it does not fully overcome the charges levelled against it, namely: --it is a partial rehashing of 2E's *Complete Book of Humanoids* (which is less serious than the following, since 3E is basically just a rehashing of 2E in general), --its unfortunate partial obsolescence (3.5E does indeed provide LA for each "playable" creature in the most recent *MM*--though *Savage Species* will ultimately consider all creatures to be "playable," whereas *MM* clearly does not), and --the sad fact that WotC invests what must be approaching $0 in copyediting. Those reservations noted, it must be said that the text opens up in 3E a new vista; instead of relying on the vanilla races of the *PH*, one can now, say, run a party of harpy infiltrators, a band of trollish barbarians, a medusa rogue, or (gods forbid it) a hive of illithids, demons, or some other uberpowerful beasties as PCs. (Though the *DMG* hints at such a vista, its suggestions proved to be unwieldy, incomplete, and generally confusing to most of us gamer-geeks.) The text has many virtues in this regard: 1) new feats, spells, items, and prestige classes for monstrous folk, all generally well conceived. 2) some fair-to-middling notes on how to run a campiagn centered on the misadventures and cross accidents inevitably encountered by a group of bugbear PCs, for instance. 3) loads of bombass templates (these really are worthy of attention). 4) the reconceptualization of the game system entirely in terms of class--now, everything is a matter of class--no more monster advancing by the nebulous Hit Die (but this still doesn't resolve the bizarre aspect that Hit Die never correlated with CR; recall that level in a PC class always correlates with CR--why the inconsistency?). 5) tons and tons of statistical tables (the true value of the text). These also come with a set of guidelines to produce similar "class template" tables for any monster in the system--a very high degree of diversity for any game, which is surely a plus. 6) the introduction of both the "half-ogre" and "anthropomorphic animal" standard PC races (very good additions to the rules). 7) some very fine artwork In these respects, there is value here, but unfortunately the aforementioned problems will limit its appeal and utility.
Rating:
Summary: Great concept gone horribly wrong
Review: Well, the book starts out with a great concept- Monster races as PC's and how to balance them. It also introduces the idea of "monster class progression"- which allows one to start a beginning campaign with a "first level rakshasa" if one gets DM OK. How did this brilliant idea go so very wrong? First is the literaly scads of typos & mistakes. Nearly every "monster class" has several very significant errors (the Rakshasa does not have any natural armour listed, for instance). WotC has also failed to do any Errata on this book- so far (and it seem doubtful- see next paragraph). But worse is the timing and planning. The book was pushed as being compliant with 3.5, but after the 3.5 MM came out, it was clear that Savage Species was anything but. Thus, a fairly expensive book became mostly obsolete within months of it's publication. Still, there is an extensive system the DM can use to design his own "monster classes", and this remains useful. But the timing & errors make this book a bad buy for the player who has updated to 3.5.
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