PDA

View Full Version : Hit Dice=class level?



Primehunter74
2010-01-24, 07:14 PM
I guess I worded the title weirdly, but i'll get to the point.

I've always been confused with races from the monster manual. Lets say you get uh... 8d8 racial hit dice. Now, my DM says that this and the level ajustment both contribute to the player's "level". so something with those hit dice, LA+3 and 1 fighter level would technically be level 12. Anyone want to explain, because this makes no sense to me and I'm not sure if it's right.

Flickerdart
2010-01-24, 07:15 PM
Hit Dice are essentially levels you're stuck with, yes. Your DM is correct.

Weezer
2010-01-24, 07:16 PM
The DM is right. LA, class levels and hit die all add up to determine ECL (Effective Character Level).

Gorgondantess
2010-01-24, 07:17 PM
You're completely right.
You take the level adjustment, which are essentially nothing levels, and you take the HD, which gives you hp and BAB and skill points and saves and nothing else, and that's your level. So, something with, say, 5 HD and 11 LA would be level 16.
And this is why high LA/HD races suck.

sonofzeal
2010-01-24, 07:18 PM
And this is why high LA/HD races suck.
Unless you're a Black Ethergaunt. :smallcool:

Primehunter74
2010-01-24, 07:20 PM
Thanks guys, and the stats I provided were me trying to remember those of the skull crusher ogre, because thats what first made me ask my DM.

I dont hate some of the high LA/HD races, they could be fun or useful to use (or course, this is only my opinion.)

Flickerdart
2010-01-24, 07:32 PM
Thanks guys, and the stats I provided were me trying to remember those of the skull crusher ogre, because thats what first made me ask my DM.

I dont hate some of the high LA/HD races, they could be fun or useful to use (or course, this is only my opinion.)
High RHD isn't bad if you get a good Hit Die (such as a Dragon or Outsider HD) and very little LA. Unfortunately, high RHD usually comes with high LA, because stronger monsters (with higher LA because of their nifty abilities) are also higher HD, and the ECL is significantly higher than CR.
Outsiders with inherent caster progressions tend to make decent characters despite their high LA.

ericgrau
2010-01-24, 07:40 PM
LA is obviously worthless, and HD is usually but not always worse than class levels (exceptions: dragon HD and outsider HD). But what you lose in class features you gain in racial special abilities. If you make your build revolve around these abilities, as anyone should, you should be able to stay up to par with someone else of the same ECL... assuming core classes and no cheese.

If your group powergames a lot and uses stronger classes or combos of abilities from multiple books that make you stronger than you'd be from any one book, I'd suggest reducing LA to match the improved power level of these classes.

If you aren't using such things and seem to be struggling, read the monster's abilities carefully and the related rules carefully to see how to best optimize it. If you're still stuck, try posting it here and see if others can help. Things like large size, high strength and unusual special abilities are difficult for most players to fully understand and utilize, making the LA seem too high. It's even worse when the DM doesn't understand them, and leaves out related encounters (not tailored to you specifically, but simply to an aspect of D&D he's ignoring).

KillianHawkeye
2010-01-24, 08:29 PM
Just wanted to hop in and mention that there's a difference between class level and character level. Hit Dice from your race don't contribute to class levels, but they are a part of your total character level (as outlined by various people above). You can think of racial HD as basically like levels in your "monster class", but it's not exactly the same thing.

Primehunter74
2010-01-24, 09:03 PM
When i said level, I meant total character level. I guess I just didn't think of saying "total character level."

Jothki
2010-01-24, 09:09 PM
I've never understood why free hit dice aren't just built into LAs, instead of being completely seperate.

Primehunter74
2010-01-24, 09:10 PM
Indeed, thats why I was initially confused.

Foryn Gilnith
2010-01-24, 09:10 PM
They used to do that in 3.0, but they decided to make all the level adjustment numbers single digits (note: I doubt this is the official reason). And thus HD were separated.

KillianHawkeye
2010-01-24, 09:30 PM
When i said level, I meant total character level. I guess I just didn't think of saying "total character level."

It says class level in the title. I know you didn't mean anything by it, I just wanted to clear it up for anybody else reading who may have been confused or gotten the wrong idea.

Prime32
2010-01-24, 09:36 PM
I've never understood why free hit dice aren't just built into LAs, instead of being completely seperate.Based on how ridiculously high some of them are, I think some designers weren't informed of this.

If you want a playable high-level monster, use Tome's system (ECL = CR +1, replace Hit Dice with an amount equal to the new ECL which grant roughly the same BAB/saves).

Devils_Advocate
2010-01-25, 07:11 AM
Levels = hit dice.

Character level = total hit dice = racial hit dice + class levels.

Effective Character Level = character level + Level Adjustment.

Your character level is... well, your character's level. It's what decides how many feats you get, what your max skill ranks are, how many ability score increases you get, how many extra hit points you get from your Constitution bonus, how hit-dice-based spells affect you, etc. Both your class levels and your racial hit dice contribute to all of these things, as well as providing you with hit points, skill points, BAB, and base saves.

You gain XP and level up as a character of your ECL. An ECL X character is, theoretically, an appropriate member of a level X party, and gets the same starting wealth as the other characters.

And that's it. Your level adjustment is the number of levels that you don't get as a handicap that's supposed to balance playing a more powerful race. Racial hit dice are levels that you're required to take because they're part of a race.

They're treated as separate because, well, they are. They're very different things.

Lots of monsters are over-LAed. For whatever reason, the designers seem to have been a lot less comfortable with the idea of players breaking the game by playing monsters than through classes, feats, spells, or whatever. So ECLs were assigned conservatively.

Duke of URL
2010-01-25, 07:20 AM
I've never understood why free hit dice aren't just built into LAs, instead of being completely seperate.

Because RHD actually provide something, whereas LA is simply "dead levels". There's probably a way to make a unified mechanism work, but I think it's probably be ugly, and there'd just be some races that are flat-out problematic. LA + RHD may not be the most friendly mechanism in the world, but I think it allows for more flexibility in "monsters as PCs", despite typically being non-optimal for that.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2010-01-26, 02:22 AM
I've never understood why free hit dice aren't just built into LAs, instead of being completely seperate.Neither does anyone else. This is just one of 3.5's problems. Many people have variants to fix this.