Hmm, I'm opening myself to the sort of flames the Falcon got over UA bloodlines, but I was asked to put my money where my mouth was with the 'fey beauty' class after I commented on Mr Gauck's version of the Siren, so I've tried creating some Awnsheghlien / Ehrsheghlien classes.

I'll put the classes in follow up emails for space reasons, but comment on what I've done and why in this post to improve the targetting of flames.

Method of class creation:
After failing miserably to understand the existing awnsheghlien template (P174 BRCS) I took some monsters from the monster manual (ver 3 not 3.5 which I don't have). The Ver 3 DM's guide (ditto) says that a level 10 Fighter has a CR of 10, etc so I took the monsters CR (3 for a centaur, 7 for a hill giant) and worked to it in the same number of levels.

Flaws:
Flaw I. CR and Level.
The match I've done is (highly) imperfect as, amongst other points generally monsters do not have useful magical items (reducing their CR compared to a standard PC class), high CR's seem to break this link - the Gorgon is 46th level but CR28 for example. I expect that as a result the classes should be 'stretched' over a few levels to reflect the monsters low CR.

I note also that where a monster can be played the ECL is usually different to the CR although the mathematical link is not obvious to me.

Flaw II. The second major flaw is that monsters with high CR's tend to have very high stats meaning that the breakdowns I have done pump the PC with stat increases, the assumption that the PC is physically warping to generate the ability increase reduces this somewhat - people will talk if a L7 brute 12 foot high or so walks into court and tries to be diplomatic but I doubt that these increases are balanced.

Flaw III.
Further many awnsheghlien are inspired by monsters not slavish duplicates of them. Although magical abilities can be swopped relatively easily, the brute has few abilities and therefore is very linear.

Flaw IV. The classes as they stand do not tie to blood abilities etc.

Flaw V. The classes ignore the differing strength of the bloodform (minor: bloodmark, major: bloodform/trait, great bloodform/trait). Although minimum strengths could be imposed for different strength bloodlines.

Comment:
Still its a start. Any ideas on how to improve are welcome.

Apologies for the number of posts I've made on the site btw, I've come back to BR after a few years away and am like a kid in a candy store with about the same level of restraint. (Plus work ordered me to take leave and I am bored).

Andrew