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Froogleyboy
2009-01-25, 05:15 PM
what is level ajustment

Kroy
2009-01-25, 05:17 PM
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm#levelAdjustment

Flickerdart
2009-01-25, 05:18 PM
what is level ajustment


Level Adjustment

This line is included in the entries of creatures suitable for use as player characters or as cohorts (usually creatures with Intelligence scores of at least 3 and possessing opposable thumbs). Add this number to the creature’s total Hit Dice, including class levels, to get the creature’s effective character level (ECL). A character’s ECL affects the experience the character earns, the amount of experience the character must have before gaining a new level, and the character’s starting equipment.
The SRD is a goldmine of knowledge.

Edit: Damn ninjas. Stupid forum lag.

RTGoodman
2009-01-25, 05:23 PM
Froogleyboy, for simple rules questions you should considering using the Simple Q&A (by RAW) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98883) thread. The whole point of it is for people to ask simple rules questions and have them answered by people who know them.

Froogleyboy
2009-01-25, 05:25 PM
I don't get it. I'm making a ogre charcter and it has a level ajustment of +2. so what do i do?

Kroy
2009-01-25, 05:27 PM
It basically makes you 2 levels lower, though you gain exp at the rate of a character 2 levels higher.

RTGoodman
2009-01-25, 05:32 PM
When you play a monstrous character (one that has racial hit dice, a level adjustment, or some combination of the two), you're basically playing as a member of a race more powerful that standard humans. In order to balance your powerful race with weaker normal races, you take a penalty.

When you create an Ogre character, for instance, you gain everything listed in the Orges Ogres as Characters section of its monster listing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogre.htm), as normal for creating a character. HOWEVER, you can't start as a 1st-level character if you're an Ogre. Instead, you start with four racial hit dice (basically, four "levels" of "Ogre"), and even that means you'd be more powerful than a standard 4th-level character. Then you add in the +2 Level Adjustment, making you, a standard, by-the-books Ogre, a 6th-level character. When you add your first level in a class (we'll say Barbarian), you add another level, meaning you're a 7th-level character (4 Ogre + 2 LA + 1 Barbarian). Basically, you're 6 levels behind everyone else as far as CLASSES, but your racial abilities supposedly make up for that (so your ECL 7 Ogre Barbarian 1 is on par with, say, a Human Paladin 7).

herrhauptmann
2009-01-25, 05:33 PM
what is level ajustment

Put simply, level adjustment is a mechanic to balance out using a more powerful race for a PC.
With level adjustment, a first level aasimar, genasi, or tiefling is as strong as a 2nd level human or elf. And if you make a first level creature with 1 Level adjustment, you'll start with the same amount of gold as if you had created a second level creature with no level adjustment.

Personally speaking, I didn't like LA when I first heard about it. Then I played a 2nd ed game where half the characters were creatures like Ogres and Minotaurs. Those guys all had much better stats, and leveled up at the same rate as the normal races. They had a blast because they were so powerful, those of us who were normal races, did not enjoy the game in the least because there was nothing we could actually do.

Nowadays, I like LA, though I don't recommend it at low levels, especially for a front line tank.

AslanCross
2009-01-25, 05:33 PM
Level adjustment simply means you level up slower than a regular PC race. For example, in a 7th level party, where you have 7th-level humans or elves, a Tiefling (LA +1) would only be 6th level.

The ogre is a trickier matter---it has both LA and Racial hit dice. That means an ogre without any class levels would still be stronger and tougher than a human with one class level. You always add LA and Racial hit dice to determine what level you will be: LA +2 + 4 racial hit dice for a total of ECL (Effective Character Level) 6.

That means you can only make an ogre as a character if the rest of your party members start at level 6---and yet you won't have any class levels.

The 3.0 book Savage Species breaks down monsters into "class levels" so you level up with those levels instead of taking actual class levels.


A tiefling, on the other hand, does not have racial hit dice, so they'll just be one level behind.

Devils_Advocate
2009-01-25, 11:05 PM
I don't get it. I'm making a ogre charcter and it has a level ajustment of +2. so what do i do?
Your DM should tell you what level character to make for this game. Like, say, he might tell you to make a 9th level character.

What you do is, you take that number he gave ya, and you subtract your character's LA from it to get the number of hit dice to give your character. So if making an ogre for a 9th-level game, you should give him a total of 7 hit dice, since he has a level adjustment of 2.

Being an ogre, he also has 4 racial hit dice to start with. Racial hit dice are levels, much like class levels. It's just that your ogre has 4 of his levels in Giant instead of Fighter or Rogue or whatever. So you subtract that from the total number of hit dice he should have to get the number of class levels to give him. 7 minus 4 is 3, so he gets 3 class levels.

So, if you give an ogre 3 levels of barbarian, he has:

3 class levels plus 4 racial hit dice, for a character level of 7. Character level is the same thing as total hit dice. He also has a level adjustment of +2, so his effective character level is 9.

Your ogre levels up and gains XP as a character of his effective character level (ECL). He should also start with as much treasure as all the other 9th-level characters in his group, instead of treasure appropriate to a 7th-level character. For all purposes other than leveling, XP gain, and treasure (like when he gains feats and ability score boosts, his max skill ranks, how he's effected by magic), he's the same as any 7th-level character.

Got it?

Starbuck_II
2009-01-25, 11:17 PM
Level adjustment is like a level that provides nothing.

So a Rogue with a Race of 2 LA must be level 3 ECL because He must have the LA but they proivide nothing and you need 1 hp to play D&D.

So Level 1 rogue LA +2=ECL (Effective Character level), he has same exp as any other ECL 3 person (3000 XP) and thus needs 3000 more to reach 6000 (to be 4th level ECL).

But forever, he will be behind in HD, feat aquisition (need 3 HD not LA or ECL to gain feats), etc.

You do count ECL for money wealth so that helps.

Prometheus
2009-01-25, 11:26 PM
what is level ajustment
Well, it is a tricky process. You have to make sure the little bubble is centered in between the two lines. If it's not you have to push the end the bubble is leaning towards down a little. Repeat until your level is perfectly adjusted.

Eldariel
2009-01-26, 01:30 AM
I recall you were going to play a Half-Ogre though which is a different matter; they don't have any Racial Hit Dice. That means that you can play a Half-Ogre in a level 3 game (to play an Ogre, you need a minimum of 6th level game, or Savage Progression or some such), and you can immediately start taking class levels.

But yea, two points of level adjustment means that a level 1 character with 2 points of level adjustment = level 3 character without level adjustment. So you'll be two levels behind always. And if you do play an Ogre, you need for the game to start from level 6 or higher; on level 6 you'll be
Level 1: Level Adjustment
Level 2: Level Adjustment
Level 3: Monstrous Humanoid HD (rules for what you get with these are in the back of Monster Manual, or here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#monstrousHumanoidType))
Level 4: Monstrous Humanoid HD
Level 5: Monstrous Humanoid HD
Level 6: Monstrous Humanoid HD

That means you can start taking levels. So on level 7 you could take Fighter/Barbarian/Whatever. That's why the opponent in the OOTS 217 was a Half-Ogre; he could start taking Fighter-levels immediately for more feats.

Lycanthromancer
2009-01-26, 01:34 AM
<snip>Orgies as Characters section of its monster listing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogre.htm)</snip>I fixed it.

Person_Man
2009-01-26, 11:19 AM
You should also know that most (though not all) level adjustment (LA) is a poor optimization choice. The abilities that you gain from class levels are usually more powerful then the abilities that you gain from LA.

This is particularly true if the monster also comes with racial hit dice, and/or if you were going to play a full caster. Racial hit dice have no abilities. And high level spells are almost always more powerful then anything else in the game that you can get at the same effective class level (ECL)

bosssmiley
2009-01-26, 11:36 AM
what is level adjustment

LA is what happens when you turn the VGCats (?) webcomic about the Nintendo Wii: "Car full price, wheels extra" into a game mechanic.
First you pay full whack for your character's racial HD, then you pay extra for racial abilities, then you buy class levels on top, then you can play...at a power level somewhere between a cohort and a familiar. :smallconfused:

LA is probably the worst ever "monster as character" system for D&D. Even BECMI did it better. See Keith & Franks "Races of War" for a full explanation as to why LA is a blunt object designed to punish players by gimping non-standard characters. :smallannoyed:

Artanis
2009-01-26, 01:26 PM
Level adjustment is like a level that provides nothing.

*stuff*
To expand backward, that is, towards the more simple, rather than more complex, on this:


First, there's the concept of "Effective Character Level" (or ECL for short). It just means your class levels plus LA plus racial hit dice (or RHD for short). You don't have to know what LA or RHD do to calculate ECL, just add them up. Equal ECL characters are (in theory) balanced as though they were equal levels.

Take a level 15 party for example. All the following would be ECL 15:

A level 15 Human Rogue (15 Rogue + 0 LA + 0 RHD = 15)
A level 9 Ogre Fighter (9 Fighter + 2 LA + 4 RHD = 15)
A level 14 Aasimar Paladin (14 Paladin + 1 LA + 0 RHD = 15)
A level 4 Janni Barbarian (4 Rogue + 5 LA + 6 RHD = 15)


Edit: Just a note that I made sure to take all of my example from the SRD. You can find Ogre, Aasimar, and Janni in the monster section, with Aasimar being in the Planetouched entry and Janni in the Genie entry.

sonofzeal
2009-01-26, 02:10 PM
LA is probably the worst ever "monster as character" system for D&D. Even BECMI did it better. See Keith & Franks "Races of War" for a full explanation as to why LA is a blunt object designed to punish players by gimping non-standard characters. :smallannoyed:
I think the problem is not that LA is borked, it's just that WotC was overly-cautious when assigning it. LA works perfectly for Catfolk and Poison Dusk Lizardfolk, is pretty reasonable for Pixies (at least, once you get higher up in level), and is harsh but survivable for Centaurs and Ogres. I've seen just about all of those used as PCs effectively.

The problem is that, like multiclassing, it doesn't really work for magical sorts... and that the numbers are generally too high once you add in RHD. But that's an implementation flaw, not a concept flaw. The numbers just need to be lower.

ericgrau
2009-01-26, 03:58 PM
Effective Character Level = LA + Monstrous HD + Class Level
Total Hit Dice = Monstrous Level + Class Level
Note that if a monster only has 1 HD it gets replaced by your first class level, leaving you with zero monstrous HD (monster levels). Other monsters keep all their HD (monster levels).

When playing use your total hit dice as your level. For experience points, leveling, matching yourself to a party, matching yourself up to monsters, etc. use your effective character level as your level.



Racial Hit Dice: An ogre begins with four levels of giant, which provide 4d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +3, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +4, Ref +1, and Will +1.
Racial Skills: An ogre’s giant levels give it skill points equal to 7 × (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1). Its class skills are Climb, Listen, and Spot.
Racial Feats: An ogre’s giant levels give it two feats.


So an ogre starts out as a level 4 giant, who can then "multiclass" into character classes. Except the levels in giant never cause multiclass penalties. He can't gain more giant levels because his description says "Advancement: by character class." He gets HP, feats, skill points, base attack bonus and saves just like any level 4 class. His effective character level starts at level 6 (4 giant levels + 2 LA), meaning he should play with other level 6 characters and he gets experience and levels as if he were level 6, not level 4.

That 2 level adjustment is there for balance reasons. Remember that monsters get a lot of abilities and such that other races don't get. Someone with class levels can really take advantage of that. So they set the LA accordingly. If you don't take advantage of the difference, you'll really get screwed and you'll seem weak. Take advantage of your unusually high strength and large size by using tactics that involve strength checks and size bonuses (grapple, trip, disarm, sunder, bull rush, overrun, etc.). You can also make use of your large reach and high speed. A reach weapon can help you reach even further, and you can stack normal speed bonuses onto your already high speed. Or a high damage weapon gets even more damage when large

Eldariel
2009-01-27, 01:40 AM
I think the problem is not that LA is borked, it's just that WotC was overly-cautious when assigning it. LA works perfectly for Catfolk and Poison Dusk Lizardfolk, is pretty reasonable for Pixies (at least, once you get higher up in level), and is harsh but survivable for Centaurs and Ogres. I've seen just about all of those used as PCs effectively.

The problem is that, like multiclassing, it doesn't really work for magical sorts... and that the numbers are generally too high once you add in RHD. But that's an implementation flaw, not a concept flaw. The numbers just need to be lower.

No, the system itself is broken. Simple example: Your average Level 16 Warrior has more HP than a PC Hill Giant (assuming both start with 14 base Con and have +4 Con item, so Con 18 for Warrior and Con 26 for Giant) in level 16 party: Warrior (any class with D10 HD) has 156 HP, while the Giant has 153 HP - no relevant difference, but when you look at how much sturdier the Giant should be with 8 points higher Con...

Also, the Giant is way more vulnerable to any spell that checks HD, even though hardiness and durability is the one thing the Giant should excel at. He's also dumber, less charismatic, has no class features for 8 levels and so on. He also happens to have crappy saves. So basically, the Giant is squishier than the warrior because even though all stats support him being a panzerwagen, he has less Hit Dice and thus just doesn't have all that much HP.

He also pretty much sucks in combat in spite of his immense Str since he's 7 points of BAB behind an equivalent full BAB class, so while his Str bonus makes up for the BAB deficiency, he's got two attacks less than a full BAB character. The one thing he's good for is maneuvers that are straight Str-checks with size modifiers, such as Tripping. Other than that, he's not much good for anything. And all this because he has Level Adjustment, which screws melee and casters all the same. Casters even worse though since no attribute bonuses make up for lost caster levels.


That's just an example; missing Hit Dice mean that regardless of your numbers, you're just going to suck in some defenses and your stats help less as Con is a multiplier for HD and thus, even though you have much higher Con, you get less out of it as you have less HD. It also means that you're going to be crap offensively whatever you do since you can't get a decent BAB nor a decent caster level. This problem is what the "non-associated class level" rules exist for; otherwise you couldn't throw over level 10 Giant Clerics at a level 12 party 'cause they're too high CRd (going by PC rules, they'd be ECL 26 even though the party has fine chances of beating few up). PCs have no such rules though, they just eat up the suck and cry.

The reason the examples you gave work is because 1 point of LA is still negligible (in the case of Pixie, it's just the fact that they come with abilities that normally require high level Arcane casting to replicate, so you can have high level arcane abilities on non-arcanist characters), and yes, some things can be worth the LA, but that doesn't change the fact that the system is fundamentally flawed; characters of equal level should have equal Hit Dice for things to work out.

sonofzeal
2009-01-27, 03:02 AM
No, the system itself is broken. Simple example: Your average Level 16 Warrior has more HP than a PC Hill Giant (assuming both start with 14 base Con and have +4 Con item, so Con 18 for Warrior and Con 26 for Giant) in level 16 party: Warrior (any class with D10 HD) has 156 HP, while the Giant has 153 HP - no relevant difference, but when you look at how much sturdier the Giant should be with 8 points higher Con...

Also, the Giant is way more vulnerable to any spell that checks HD, even though hardiness and durability is the one thing the Giant should excel at. He's also dumber, less charismatic, has no class features for 8 levels and so on. He also happens to have crappy saves. So basically, the Giant is squishier than the warrior because even though all stats support him being a panzerwagen, he has less Hit Dice and thus just doesn't have all that much HP.

He also pretty much sucks in combat in spite of his immense Str since he's 7 points of BAB behind an equivalent full BAB class, so while his Str bonus makes up for the BAB deficiency, he's got two attacks less than a full BAB character. The one thing he's good for is maneuvers that are straight Str-checks with size modifiers, such as Tripping. Other than that, he's not much good for anything. And all this because he has Level Adjustment, which screws melee and casters all the same. Casters even worse though since no attribute bonuses make up for lost caster levels.


That's just an example; missing Hit Dice mean that regardless of your numbers, you're just going to suck in some defenses and your stats help less as Con is a multiplier for HD and thus, even though you have much higher Con, you get less out of it as you have less HD. It also means that you're going to be crap offensively whatever you do since you can't get a decent BAB nor a decent caster level. This problem is what the "non-associated class level" rules exist for; otherwise you couldn't throw over level 10 Giant Clerics at a level 12 party 'cause they're too high CRd (going by PC rules, they'd be ECL 26 even though the party has fine chances of beating few up). PCs have no such rules though, they just eat up the suck and cry.

The reason the examples you gave work is because 1 point of LA is still negligible (in the case of Pixie, it's just the fact that they come with abilities that normally require high level Arcane casting to replicate, so you can have high level arcane abilities on non-arcanist characters), and yes, some things can be worth the LA, but that doesn't change the fact that the system is fundamentally flawed; characters of equal level should have equal Hit Dice for things to work out.

To me, it sounds like everything you just said boils down to "Stone Giants have too high of an LA", and I would entirely agree - and, in fact, basically said so in my post. WotC has consistently erred on the side of high LA for any monstrous race. For Hill Giants, LA+0 is probably not too unreasonable, but for other races LA become necessary. Catfolk would be broken at LA+0, and unplayable with RHD. Pixies could simply not be implemented with RHD in their current version. Vampires should have a lower LA, but adding RHD for an acquired template would be borked. Minotaurs would be a bit too good without LA, as would Centaurs and Grimlocks (although I could see arguing for a reduction to LA+1 in all three cases). Rakshasa also have too much LA, although I wouldn't lower it any less than LA+4 for obvious reasons, as they'd be beyond ludicrous if you scrapped LA. Same goes for Nymphs and Couatls.

Point is, the LA system is actually an entirely practical and (dare I say) elegant solution to the issue of inherently superior races. WotC screwed up the numbers and dramatically underestimated the penalty for high-ECL creatures, but that's implementation, not design. Throwing out LA entirely would effectively mean banning a lot of high-LA and/or low-RHD races that would otherwise be potentially playable. And hey, I'll take a system that lets me run a Pixie Barbarian sub-optimally over one that bans them entirely.

Eldariel
2009-01-27, 03:08 AM
Catfolk would be broken at LA+0, and unplayable with RHD. Pixies could simply not be implemented with RHD in their current version. Vampires should have a lower LA, but adding RHD for an acquired template would be borked. Minotaurs would be a bit too good without LA, as would Centaurs and Grimlocks (although I could see arguing for a reduction to LA+1 in all three cases). Rakshasa also have too much LA, although I wouldn't lower it any less than LA+4 for obvious reasons, as they'd be beyond ludicrous if you scrapped LA. Same goes for Nymphs and Couatls.

Point is, the LA system is actually an entirely practical and (dare I say) elegant solution to the issue of inherently superior races. WotC screwed up the numbers and dramatically underestimated the penalty for high-ECL creatures, but that's implementation, not design. Throwing out LA entirely would effectively mean banning a lot of high-LA and/or low-RHD races that would otherwise be potentially playable. And hey, I'll take a system that lets me run a Pixie Barbarian sub-optimally over one that bans them entirely.

LA system is practical, but it still sucks. Characters of the same level should have the same HD since HD acts as a multiplier for so many things. Why the hell does the Catfolk in the party die to Cloudkill while others just take Con-drain? That just doesn't make sense, and it's stupid. Most LA could be replaced by racial HD or dead levels pretty easily without breaking anything. Catfolk with 1 racial HD ignoring the normal HD rules would be just fine.

Artanis
2009-01-27, 12:34 PM
*stuff*

Also, there's a race with a +19 LA. +19. At that point, why would they even bother giving them one?