Originally posted by darknightlost

Going from a minor scion(Lv.1 on your class) to a major scion(Lv.2) means you have access to all of your major powers immediatly and at will. The only restrictions on the power are in the powers themselves. This is an extremly fast progression as far as classes go. If you happen to concentrate on another class for a short time, and in that time you manage to increase your blood signifigantly, then you could gain 3 or 4 powers for a single level. Where most other classes that give that many powers at a single level have some kind of negative to balance the power gain and keep it even with most other classes, Your 5 level class seems to be all bonuses and no balancers. A 10 level class or spliting the class in to two or three 5 level classes for each derivation level (minor and major, greater and true, as two seperate classes) could slow down the progression and require little or no balancers to compensate.

I beleve that savage species was intending that one class would be one template, not three templates in one class. Doing so would sugest that you could combine, for example, the gnoll and the flind in to a single class and progress from one race to another.

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A minor scion is actually no levels of scion class. A major scion requires 2 levels to reach full benefits and a great requires 3.

If you consider the scion templates as degrees of the same template and not necessarily separate templates it makes sense. Yes, the Savage Species formats also state that " A monster character may not multiclass until it completes the full progression in its monster class. This rule keeps characters from gaining the benefits of a monster's type and then quickly switching to a standard class." But since there is really no "type" involved in the scion class, only a leveling of ECLs, it also makes sense.

The question is does it pass the acid test. "Would you rather play a monster character at that ECL, or a standard character of that level?" That would be is a 1st level scion class character much more or less desirable than a non-scion character. If they are about even then the balance is about right. A 1st level scion would get bonus hit points, a higher blood line score (hence more blood abilities, usually at least one) and if the variant is used more starting equipment (i.e., the possibility of having a magic item at 1st level). Does this make it worth the level? If a character takes another scion level (2 so far) he would gain major blood abilities instead of only minor ones in addition to the benefits from the 1st level. Is that worth the 2 levels? If the answer is that about as often a player would choose the scion class as he would the non-scion class then the answer is that again they are about balanced.:)