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{Then our impasse seems to be that you consider angels "monsters". What makes angel species monsters, but dwarves, elves and gnomes whatever-a-non-monster is? I clearly don't understand the dinstinction.}

"Monsters" in this context meaning, "creatures unlike the PH-standard races, in that they have 2 or more hit dice and thus don't follow the 'uses class hit dice instead of any racial hit dice' rule."

Any creature that normally has one racial hit die if it were untrained in anything at all -- humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, half-orcs, gnomes, orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, aasimar, tiefling, genasi, merfolk, and any similar example out of another book -- can be played using the rules in the PH because they act just like humans ... pick a class, lose the "racial hit die," use the class hit die, make racial ability adjustments, and start playing.

ALL OTHER CREATURES IN THE GAME cannot use that rule because they have more than one hit die. You can't just say "I'm playing an ogre fighter" and just drop his 4 HD and use a Ftr1's 1d10 as it's HD -- suddenly you'd have an ogre _trained_ in fighting that was for some reason weaker than a regular ogre. You have to take into account those extra hit dice. All of those creatures are _different_ than creatures in the first category, and in this case we're using "playing a monster" to mean "playing a creature that doesn't follow the normal rules for level advancement of D&D-standard PC races."

{Then you can't really say that the angel species are "presented as PC races (just like the PH races[...)]".}

Sure I can ... they're presented in the exact same format as the PC races. In the D&D books, you don't list things that don't need to be listed. You'll notice there's no entry in the PH elf writeup that says "Megapower: Can travel forward and backward through time at will, can cast 20d6 fireballs at will." That's because elves don't have those abilities! Likewise, elves don't have the ability to advance in their racial HD, thus their writeup doesn't say, "Favored class: elf and wizard; elves do not count their elf levels or wizard levels when determining a multiclass XP penalty." In the case of the AOA angels, they don't have a PC-class as their favored class, so it just lists their racial class. There still isn't a racial class in the same sense that there is a fighter class or wizard class.

{From a core books perspective, they *do* have classes, there *are* angel classes, because the names of 11 different classes appear at the end of the each line for "Favored class: ".}

They don't have classes, there are no angel classes. You don't see a listing anywhere in the book that says "Table ##: The Cherub," with a listing of BAB, saves, and special abilities for each level of the cherub class. Note also that there's not an "Any" class in the PH, even though "Favored Class: Any" appears in the human and half-elf writeup.

Let me ask you this. If you are playing an ogre, and you take a level in a PC class, does he have an XP penalty? No, he doesn't. Why not? Because an ogre's racial hit dice do not count when determining whether he suffers an XP penalty for multiclassing. How do you say that in a much shorter way, using existing game terminology? Well, there's the favored class mechanic ... we can just say "favored class: ogre" and everyone who understands the rules should get what that means: it means that like a halfling with rogue levels not countirg her rogue levels toward an XP penalty, an ogre does not count his ogre abilities toward an XP penalty.

I mean, c'mon, man, this is basic stuff ... it's right in the 3.0 DMG:

Quote:

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"A creature with only class levels, such as a PC orc, gains XP normally. A creature with class levels plus monster levels, such as an ogre, has a character level equal to his monster levels plus his class levels. A creature starts with the minimum number of XP required to be his level. When creatures gain levels, they add class levels, as in the multiclassing rules in the Players Handbook (with the monster class considered their favored class)." - Experience for Monsters, 3.0 DMG page 24.

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{Or, again, this could all be some kind of Savage Species run-around.}

I am sensing an attitude. Look, these are my boards, and I'd appreciate it if you'd talk to me (and by extension, all of the other guests here) with respect. There is no need to take an attitude with me. I'm trying to answer your questions ... the problem is, I'm answering what you are asking, rather than what you think you're asking. If you understood the terminology used in the core books, we wouldn't be having this problem.

{That may be true. I'm interpreting "favored class" to mean that the character is biologically predisposed towards a certain class, which makes it slightly easier to grow in that area (although in a funny way, since the benefit is only realized when the character becomes more diverse).}

Which means you're interpreting it wrong. The game has a very specific definition of what favored class means. That definition is on page 11 of the 3.0 PH: "A character's favored class doesn't count against the character when determining XP penalties for multiclassing (see Experience for Multiclass Characters, page 56)." That's all it means. It certainly doesn't mean any kind of biological inclination, as that would make no sense for humans and half-elves, which would for some reason have a biological inclination toward their "highest-level class" ... how your biology can check to see what your highest-level class is is a mystery to me.

{I may be a determinist, but that tells me (implicitly) that *most* characters of a given race will (because their biology or whatever tells them to) take levels in their favored class.}

Except that most characters of a given race are NPC classes, so that can't be the case. This is stated explicitly in the MM:

Quote:

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Most elves encountered outside their homes are warriors; the information in the statistics block is for one of 1st level (see page 39 in the DUNGEON MASTERs Guide for more about the warrior class). - elf writeup, 4th paragraph, 3.0 MM

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There's almost identical text for dwarves, gnomes, goblins, halflings, hobgoblins, merfolk, orcs. None of which have "Favored class: warrior" as a listing.

{One, no you didn't. You said:}

You're right, I had put that in an early draft of my response, and it didn't make it into the final. My bad.

{Two, maybe I'm screwing up the math, but Grigori are the only angel species I'm seeing that are (with the new ECL math) playable before level 8. I won't call that "relatively low levels".

Dynamis: 2+5 = 7
Grigori: 2+3 = 5
Memunim: 1+5 = 6
Parasim: 2+5 = 7

That's 4/11 of the angel races. On a range of 20 levels (which is what core D&D is designed for), 5-7 is the middle of the low end of the spectrum.

{Three, nope. First time I've seen that article. I appreciate the link, and will see what I can pull together, but the "do it yourself" argument doesn't hold with me. If I *wanted* to "do it myself" I wouldn't have paid for the book.}

Unfortunately, I can't spend all of my time writing just for you. And given that I read the boards here and on Monte's site, it would be a simple matter to ask, "Hey does this book give level progressions for angels so I can play them at 1st level?" and get an answer in (at most) a day. I'm sorry you spent your money on something that didn't give you what you thought it was going to give you, but nothing in the marketing text for the book, chats about the book, or reviews of the book said anything about presenting angels as 1st-level-equivalent characters, so I don't know what to say.