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clarifying slightly
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KRyan
KRyan
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The succubus, though, is hard. That’s going to take more than a race. What I suggest, then, is to take something of a cue from Savage Species, and make a class, but not a class that results in the ECL 12th succubus with LA +6. Instead, what I recommend is making an archetype for some existing class—witch, perhaps, if the archetype changes it to be Charisma-based? or maybe a sorcerer, maybe you could just use a bloodline and not bother with an archetype—that gets some succubus-like abilities, and is racially restriced to your “succubus lite” race (which could just be succubus-descended tiefling, really). Now instead of having this weird skewed character, you have a normal character. As long as the archetype (or bloodline) is balanced with other archetypes (bloodlines), there won’t be any problem, and that’s a much easier proposition.

This is, in my experience, not just the best way to handle powerful races, but in fact the only way to handle them—thatthem that actually works.

The succubus, though, is hard. That’s going to take more than a race. What I suggest, then, is to take something of a cue from Savage Species, and make a class, but not a class that results in the ECL 12th succubus with LA +6. Instead, what I recommend is making an archetype for some existing class—witch, perhaps, if the archetype changes it to be Charisma-based? or maybe a sorcerer, maybe you could just use a bloodline and not bother with an archetype—that gets some succubus-like abilities, and is racially restriced to your “succubus lite” race (which could just be succubus-descended tiefling, really). This is, in my experience, not just the best way to handle powerful races, but in fact the only way to handle them—that actually works.

The succubus, though, is hard. That’s going to take more than a race. What I suggest, then, is to take something of a cue from Savage Species, and make a class, but not a class that results in the ECL 12th succubus with LA +6. Instead, what I recommend is making an archetype for some existing class—witch, perhaps, if the archetype changes it to be Charisma-based? or maybe a sorcerer, maybe you could just use a bloodline and not bother with an archetype—that gets some succubus-like abilities, and is racially restriced to your “succubus lite” race (which could just be succubus-descended tiefling, really). Now instead of having this weird skewed character, you have a normal character. As long as the archetype (or bloodline) is balanced with other archetypes (bloodlines), there won’t be any problem, and that’s a much easier proposition.

This is, in my experience, not just the best way to handle powerful races, but in fact the only way to handle them that actually works.

incorporating Scrollreader’s excellent suggestions
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KRyan
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And that is why I have banned “powerful races” from my games—and this decision was largely informed by my experiences with the succubus in particular. And I hate that, because I like having weird PCs in my gamesI like having weird PCs in my games. The rules for them, unfortunately, just cause too much trouble.

The succubus, though, is hard. That’s going to take more than a race. What I suggest, then, is to take something of a cue from Savage Species, and make a class, but not a class that results in the ECL 12th succubus with LA +6. Instead, what I recommend is making an archetype for some existing class—witch, perhaps, if the archetype changes it to be Charisma-based?—that or maybe a sorcerer, maybe you could just use a bloodline and not bother with an archetype—that gets some succubus-like abilities, and is racially restriced to your “succubus lite” race (which could just be succubus-descended tiefling, really). This is, in my experience, not just the best way to handle powerful races, but in fact the only way to handle them—that actually works.

And that is why I have banned “powerful races” from my games—and this decision was largely informed by my experiences with the succubus in particular. And I hate that, because I like having weird PCs in my games. The rules for them, unfortunately, just cause too much trouble.

The succubus, though, is hard. That’s going to take more than a race. What I suggest, then, is to take something of a cue from Savage Species, and make a class, but not a class that results in the ECL 12th succubus with LA +6. Instead, what I recommend is making an archetype for some existing class—witch, perhaps?—that gets some succubus-like abilities, and is racially restriced to your “succubus lite” race. This is, in my experience, not just the best way to handle powerful races, but in fact the only way to handle them—that actually works.

And that is why I have banned “powerful races” from my games—and this decision was largely informed by my experiences with the succubus in particular. And I hate that, because I like having weird PCs in my games. The rules for them, unfortunately, just cause too much trouble.

The succubus, though, is hard. That’s going to take more than a race. What I suggest, then, is to take something of a cue from Savage Species, and make a class, but not a class that results in the ECL 12th succubus with LA +6. Instead, what I recommend is making an archetype for some existing class—witch, perhaps, if the archetype changes it to be Charisma-based? or maybe a sorcerer, maybe you could just use a bloodline and not bother with an archetype—that gets some succubus-like abilities, and is racially restriced to your “succubus lite” race (which could just be succubus-descended tiefling, really). This is, in my experience, not just the best way to handle powerful races, but in fact the only way to handle them—that actually works.

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KRyan
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I strongly recommend against allowing it

Been there, done that.

My experience with the Savage Species succubus

I have gamed with a Savage Species succubus in my party before. It did not go well.

The way it turned out was, if there was any kind of social encounter, the succubus just stepped forward and solved the problem. The rolls were irrelevant because of her massive bonuses to social issues, so there was no point in anyone else contributing, nor was there much point in the NPCs making any attempt not to cooperate unless they were going to be actively hostile. There was basically no playing; all social concerns were a foregone conclusion.

On the other hand, every combat basically required someone to cover the succubus and protect her, because she was massively vulnerable to every enemy we faced. She was not able to contribute anything at all. We were lucky to have a fairly strong summoner who could assign a sufficiently-scary minion to her to keep her from getting picked off, but it was not a great situation.

Background on 3.5e “powerful races” and Savage Species

Since you’re coming from Pathfinder, if you are unfamiliar with how D&D 3.5e did things, originally you could not play a succubus at all unless you were starting at effective character level (ECL) 12th—and you didn’t get your first class level until ECL 13th. This was how Wizards of the Coast handled “powerful races” that got more than your standard race, as the succubus clearly does with its flight, spell-like and supernatural abilities, and damage reduction and energy resistance.

In the succubus’s case, 6 of that ECL 12th were racial hit dice (RHD), the 6d8 mentioned in the stat block, which at least provide things like hp, skills, base saving throws and attack bonus, and feats. These are not great compared to class levels—at all—but at least they’re something.

The other 6 come from the “LA +6” mentioned in the stat block, that is, “level adjustment.” Level adjustment meant that even though the succubus only had 6 HD, it counted as a 12th-level character. It just had the hp, skills, saves, and feats of a 6th-level one. This was meant to offset the special attacks and qualities, spell-like and supernatural abilities.

All Savage Species did was place these things on a progression so that you could start from 1st and build up to that 12th-level succubus, complete with 6 RHD and LA +6.

And ultimately, the issue with the Savage Species succubus is the issue with all of D&D 3.5e’s “powerful race” options, that take their first class level at some point later than ECL 1st. Changing it to the class progression doesn’t do anything to help that.

What’s wrong with 3.5e “powerful races,” Savage Species or not

So the first thing to note is that level adjustment is absolutely crippling. A succubus is supposed to be a 12th-level character with the hp, saves, attack bonus, skills, and feats of a 6th-level character. I think anyone reading that sentence already has a pretty good sense that this is not going to go well—and it doesn’t. The succubus is absurdly fragile for that level, and even moderately-challenging combat for 12th-level characters is going to be near-suicidal for the succubus. Her party will have to actively protect her, and she will have minimal ability to contribute anything to the fight.

However, that isn’t the end of the problems—if it was, we could maybe beef her up, or reduce the number of LA she has to suffer, and things would be OK. Some things with LA are very powerful, and arguably “worth it.” The succubus might be considered one, even, in an extremely social-heavy game.1 But they still have huge problems.

This goes back to my experience with the succubus being too good at some things, and too weak at others. I have referred to this in other answers as “character skew,” because it’s not that the character is necessarily “too good” or “too bad,” but just “too outside the game’s expectations.” Obviously, every character has their specialties and their weaknesses, but “powerful race” characters tend to be too good at their specialty, and too weak at their weakness. This makes them almost impossible to GM for.

And that is why I have banned “powerful races” from my games—and this decision was largely informed by my experiences with the succubus in particular. And I hate that, because I like having weird PCs in my games. The rules for them, unfortunately, just cause too much trouble.

My alternative

What I try to do instead is to create “normal-power” races for these kinds of creatures. “Succubus lite” so to speak. Wizards of the Coast, by the way, did the same thing, in some cases, for their later books. The LA +3 half-dragon from the original Monster Manual is awful, and a later book included the LA +1 draconic to make it more tenable, and a book later still went as far as creating an LA +0 dragonborn, which is actually solidly playable. That’s precisely what I recommend doing here.

The succubus, though, is hard. That’s going to take more than a race. What I suggest, then, is to take something of a cue from Savage Species, and make a class, but not a class that results in the ECL 12th succubus with LA +6. Instead, what I recommend is making an archetype for some existing class—witch, perhaps?—that gets some succubus-like abilities, and is racially restriced to your “succubus lite” race. This is, in my experience, not just the best way to handle powerful races, but in fact the only way to handle them—that actually works.

  1. Though I would argue that such a game is best played in something other than D&D; Dungeons & Dragons is first and foremost about dragon-slaying and dungeon-delving, and games that don’t involve quite a lot of both of those things tend to be wasting most of the system, and its systems for handling other kinds of conflict are extremely minimal and often outright unhelpful.