[DnD 3.5/Pathfinder] Two Q's: playing Magic Users and LA+ characters

[Chiron]

With my current gaming group, over the previous year and a bit I've tried to play a varied assortment of classes and races in the adventures and campaigns we've played, and in that time I've run across a couple of questions that keep coming up:

Question 1:
What are the best ways to play a wizard/sorcerer? (in terms of build and also play style)

I reached the conclusion after the end of my second session as a wizard that I had ZERO idea how to play a character whose primary focus was magic. Generally I play combat-oriented characters, either melee or ranged, but I found that picking spells for my spellbook, let alone deciding what to use on a daily basis and keeping track a trying affair, because more often than not I sucked harder than an industrial vacuum pump. I've read that it's better to NOT play a wizard with evocation as a favoured school, but I was already committed, and our party's usual elf/sorceress pulled it off quite well in the previous campaign so I thought: "What the hell?"
So this is not only a question of builds but also play styles.

Question 2:
How in the hell do you calculate the final level adjustment to a nonstandard character race? Are there ACTUALLY some HARD AND FAST rules, or is it all FRUSTRATINGLY indistinct?

My first outing with DnD in more than two years I played a Half-Dragon (Silver) (LA +3), Half-Human Paladin (we were playing Red hand so I figured it would be appropriate). the average party level was 7 at this stage (thanks to two players who kept dying/changing characters) so I had 4 levels to play with. Only my massive Damage/AC paladin was scuttled inside of two hours of play because of poor saves relative to the rest of the party and his low hit points (which I will get to shortly).
According to my DM you don't get HD for that level adjustment if you use a player race, which had me on 27 hp (I think), in a seventh level encounter. Now with survivability like that I shouldn't have been playing a meat-shield for starters, but (if I'd gone for a wizard/sorcerer) with only four levels of a magic using class I was up a creek there too against most of the monsters we were facing and all I had left to fall back on was a breath weapon I could only use every 2-5 rounds, leaving me, I feel, about as effective as a 7th level warrior.

The next character I made up was a 5th level Nycter Druid (LA+2) Now, as a monster race I was getting HD for that level adjustment! Now, according to MMIII...


Racial hit dice: A Nycter begins with three levels of monstrous humanoid, which provide 3D8 Hit dice, a base attack bonus of +3, and base saving bonuses of Fort +1, Ref +3, and Will +3
Now, I took that to mean that those three levels were included in the level adjustment So I took 3D8 hitpoints in addition to the HD from my druid levels and applied the extra bonuses as well, this meant I was on target with my HP, and performing at a level more commensurate to my Effective Character Level (when compared to the rest of the party). Later when it became apparent that I had interpreted the rules in this way the DM was not in agreement, but he let me have it anyway. According to his interpretation those three levels should count towards my total. It was after this that I gave up on playing monster races altogether just from the sheer headache of it.

What are the rules, in plain, simple english, regarding characters with level adjustments? Does an LA come with HD? In the cases of my Half-Dragon and Nycter what is the correct ruling? How is LA calculated and what factors are important when considering bending the rules?
I feel that by the rules my group has been operating under most Level-adjusted characters are at a disadvantage in combat. The higher the Adjustment, the more this is so. So really, is there any point in playing a nonstandard race?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Your effective character level is equal to your class levels+LA+racial hit dice. So, no, your Druid was incorrect. There's a reason most level-adjustments are considered terrible. Racial HD are at least halfway decent due to granting saves/skills/HP, but even then, the cost is too high for what you get 99% of the time.

[togapika]

Level Adjustment does not grant hit dice. Monster levels count towards your total level.
Level adjustment is for the weird powers that make a race stronger than normal, while Racial Hit Dice represent other things.
LA+RHD=ECL (Effective Character Level) Starting level- Effective Character Level= Class Levels

[Douglas]

Character Level = Class levels + Racial hit dice.

Character level determines how many feats and ability score increases you get and when. It is equivalent to your total number of hit dice. If your race has only a single racial hit die, ignore it - that hit die gets replaced by your first class level.

Effective Character Level (ECL) = Character level + Level Adjustment.

ECL determines your expected wealth/equipment, xp required to level up, and your supposed overall power. All characters in the same party should usually have the same or almost the same ECL.

Your half-dragon paladin was correct by the rules. Your Nycter Druid was not - your DM was correct.

In the vast majority of cases, races with level adjustment and/or racial hit dice simply are not worth it. Theoretically the ability score increases and other benefits of the race are supposed to make up for the missing levels, but they are very rarely actually enough to balance it out. There are some exceptions, and experienced optimizers can make almost any race work if they try hard enough, but it is usually best to avoid races with racial hit dice or level adjustment.

[Oslecamo]

In the vast majority of cases, races with level adjustment and/or racial hit dice simply are not worth it. Theoretically the ability score increases and other benefits of the race are supposed to make up for the missing levels, but they are very rarely actually enough to balance it out. There are some exceptions, and experienced optimizers can make almost any race work if they try hard enough, but it is usually best to avoid races with racial hit dice or level adjustment.

Theoretically, monsters weren't designed to be used as PCs in the first place. Many monsters have abilities that can easily be exploited, specially at-will abilities like greater teleport. Sure you're squishy and don't hit very hard, but what does that matter when you can bypass every defense of the dungeon, grab the treasure and run away laughing?

So we have high LAs to stop players from trying to go broken with special abilities. Yeah, it doesn't work very well, but I'll say it again, monsters weren't designed to be directly played. There's no balanced way to play the monsters out of the MM.

You can see this in 4e. There's the MM monsters, and then there are very watered down versions for the players, wich are balanced, but are only a pale reflection of the actual monster.

(Bear in mind you can however make LA buyoff to get back some of the lost levels)

[Quietus]

Your DM was correct.

A fifth-level Druid Nycter is a tenth-level character. Nycters have 3 Racial Hit Dice (think of these as "Nycter" levels), and +2 Level Adjustment (Think of these as "Adjustment" levels). So Druid5+Nycter3+Adjustment2 = 10th level.

The half-dragon template has a Level Adjustment of +3, and no hit dice. This means that effectively, as a (total) seventh-level half-dragon Paladin, you have four Paladin levels, and three "adjustment" levels. Those Adjustment levels are intended to make up for the strengths you gain by being a creature outside the norm; Immunity to an energy type, big stat bonuses, and flight if you're Large or larger are all significant gains. So WotC attempts to make up for that by making you lose effective levels, which is ... clunky, at best.

Personally, as a DM, I would have no issues with giving a player a type-appropriate hit die for each LA they've got (or perhaps LA-1, since a single level of nothing in exchange for strong abilities is fair); Base attacks/saves/hit points aren't that powerful a gain, and will make sure the player doesn't just get murdered because their defenses are well behind their level. But this is a houserule, not RAW. Your DM was applying the rules correctly.

[Elemental_Elf]

Anything greater than a +1 LA is going to screw casters, especially spontaneous ones (since they are behind the curve to begin with).

I totally agree with you on the Wizard, it's too complex for my general play style, hence why I play Sorcerers.

There are two common ways to build Sorcerer - General or Thematic. The General build is to choose spells that can be used in multiple ways, such as grease, glitter dust, invisibility, Secure Shelter, etc.) and other spells that help you or your allies (such as Fox's Cunning). The General build is really good for creative players.

The other way to build a Sorcerer is to base it around a theme. This is typically a more satisfying as you can choose spells that really fit with your character's personality. You could have a Dwarven Sorcerer who focuses his time on casting acid spells and conjuring earthen creatures. Perhaps you have a Drow Sorcerer who has a spider fetish and conjures swarms of spiders, uses spider climb and hides in the dark with darkness.

You can't go terribly wrong with a thematic build but watch out for common pit holes - if you conjure anything, make sure to swap it out as soon as you can since the spell quickly looses effectiveness; Don't pick too many Direct Damage spells (if you want them all play a Warmage); Make sure you pick at least a few spells that do something in combat, or be willing to buy scrolls and wands that do so.; Always buy scrolls, especially if you're the only the only arcanist in the party.

Other then that, just have fun with it!

[Waspinator]

Yeah, LA greater than +1 is generally considered a really bad idea. Even the +1 isn't usually a great idea, just not a bad enough one usually to ruin a character.

This is worth looking at, though:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingleveladjustments.htm
Even though it's a variant rule (I believe originally from Unearthed Arcana), even Wizards realizes that LA can be crippling and there's guidelines for eliminating it as you level up.

[Flowman]

If you want to play a wizard, look up "Batman" on the forums. That's how you play a wizard. The sorceress worked mostly because she has more spells than you, they are designed to be blasters. Wizards are for utility purposes, and beating everything if they have time to prepare properly. If you have no obvious threats you can just outline a basic spell list for your day-to-day travel, with at least 'something' to help in any situation that is likely to arise.

[Chiron]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I was just wondering whether or not the rules really were insane or not, and I'd never really considered wizards or sorcerers as much different, but I can see now that was a big mistake, and it behoves me in my impending DM experience to make sure that any party wizard has SOME awareness of what each day will hold for their spells.

Regarding Level adjustments:
I was thinking this morning about how battle values were calculated for mechs in Battletech... *does some digging* Nope, can't find anything. I do remember that it was math-heavy and involved some complex numbers... Basically, you took the total possible damage you could do in a turn, multiplied that by how much heat you could generate/dissipate in a turn, then calculated the defensive value of armour and other systems, multiplied both the attacking and defensive values by a modifier for gunnery and piloting skills respectively and that could give you a value anywhere between 500 and roughly 3000. It was far from perfect, but accurate enough that a difference in BV of 200 between two mechs meant the odds were stacked in favour of the one with the higher BV more often than not.

I'm wondering if anyone's ever tried to do something similar with non-player races? Give everything a cost in XP, take the Player races as a baseline of 0-500 XP. Extra HD could be 100 XP per facing, stat deficeits -500, supernatural weapons 100 * damage / (1 - (rounds to recharge [average for Dx +x] / 10)) etc...
Add up the total XP and if it is below the halfway point between levels then first level counts in that level, above half and it counts as an extra level... (e.g. say a half-dragon's final XP total is 3,600, being under half-way between third level and fourth, then the first class level comes as part of third level and they start at 6,000 XP)

It'd probably be NOTHING like what I've just described when having the time to take everything into account, but it'd probably be more accurate than the 3.5e system. Not that I've got the time to devise and test such a system either.

EDIT: and why do I just feel like I've just sketched out a new version of the drake equation?

[Quietus]

Honestly, the problem with that system is that it's extremely clunky and number-intensive. The point with LA was to make things simple; The problem with it is that it just doesn't work.

If you want to "fix" level adjustment, just give them racial hit dice along with their template, equal to LA (or LA -1, if the template gives defensive abilities). This means that a Tiefling/Aasimar, for example, with their immunity to Hold/Charm person, and their energy resistance, qualify as having "defensive abilities", so their LA +1 is a single level where they get nothing. It won't break their character, as being one level short of HP isn't gonna kill anyone THAT much faster.

For a half-dragon, they do get complete immunity to an energy type, as well as the Dragon type, which comes with immunity to Paralysis, Sleep, and such. So the half-dragon's LA of +3 would mean one dead level (because of immunities), and two Dragon hit dice. Which, admittedly, are powerful hit dice - d12's, with full BAB and all good saves - but the only "class features" they give are what comes with the half-dragon template.

Doing it this way, you could start as a third-level halfdragon, without a character class, just two Dragon hit dice (2 BAB, +3 all saves, 1d12+12+2xcon hit points), plus the half-dragon template abilities.