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Doomboy911
2010-09-25, 04:04 PM
A new guy will be joining our party soon and he wishes to be a half dragon. Now I understand being a half dragon (or half anything) requires level adjustment. Can someone help me with this or give me a link describing how it's done.

Starbuck_II
2010-09-25, 04:07 PM
A new guy will be joining our party soon and he wishes to be a half dragon. Now I understand being a half dragon (or half anything) requires level adjustment. Can someone help me with this or give me a link describing how it's done.
1/2 Dragon: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/halfDragon.htm

Level adjustment are empty levels.
A 1/2 dragon has 3 empty levels meaning he can't be a 1st level anything unless he is ECL (effective character level) of 4.
3+1=4.
Meaning he can't play unless the DM is playing a 4th level or higher game.

If everyone else is 4th level, he can be a 1st level {inser class}.
The designers believed 1/2 dragon was worth being 3 levels lower. He counts as 4th level for how much XP he needs to level to 5th.

So a 1st level fighter is ECL 4 (3 LA) and has d10 hps. He gets boosts to Str/Con and NA, but still is fragile due to low Hps (con is comulative, more HD = more Con mod hp).

Edit: originally messed up LA number.

HunterOfJello
2010-09-25, 04:30 PM
You might want to suggest the Dragonborn instead of Half-Dragon. Half-Dragon has a harsh +3 LA where Dragonborn has none. (Dragonborn can be found in Races of the Dragon).


Dragonborn still get either scaling breath weapon, good bonus vision abilities or wings.

Mystic Muse
2010-09-25, 04:32 PM
You might want to suggest the Dragonborn instead of Half-Dragon. Half-Dragon has a harsh +3 LA where Dragonborn has none.


Dragonborn still get either scaling breath weapon, good bonus vision abilities or wings.

And you have to serve Bahamut otherwise he will take the template away.

Am I the only one who has read that part?

There's a half dragon homebrew that's decently balanced you could use instead. I'll link it if you allow homebrew in your games. You take levels instead of having level adjustment.

Marnath
2010-09-25, 04:40 PM
I like to lower half-dragon to +2 LA, since people always say it's not worth doing at +3. I also let the breath weapon take a DC of 10 +1/2 total hit die + con mod. Otherwise it's not worth using past low levels. Even with that the DC isn't great.

UserClone
2010-09-25, 04:49 PM
Alternatively, he could be Draconic, or he could use the Savage Progression for Half-Dragon found in Races of the Dragon.

Starbuck_II
2010-09-25, 05:13 PM
And you have to serve Bahamut otherwise he will take the template away.

Am I the only one who has read that part?

There's a half dragon homebrew that's decently balanced you could use instead. I'll link it if you allow homebrew in your games. You take levels instead of having level adjustment.

Actually, it says he send Dragonborn bounty hunters if yiou stop serving him. He can't take it away.

Claudius Maximus
2010-09-25, 05:27 PM
Yes he can. And it's very painful.

Kobold-Bard
2010-09-25, 05:43 PM
Maybe try the homebrew Monster class version from these forums: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8159828&postcount=257

That's basically a very short class instead of LA (which is rubbish coz it screws over casters by lowering the spells they can cast and screws over melee coz they give no BAB).

Marnath
2010-09-25, 08:38 PM
Yes he can. And it's very painful.

Specifically: A fallen dragonborn's skin cracks and sloughs off, and their limbs twist and crack.
This process lasts for a number of rounds equal to it's Hit Dice and deals 2d6 damage a round. After it's over they revert form, even if they're dead now.

ericgrau
2010-09-25, 09:15 PM
I did a couple quick simulations with a program I wrote and the LA 2 half dragon pulls way ahead of no template after about 5 levels (ECL 7). LA 3 takes 5 levels to match no template and 10 levels to beat it by a decent (but not huge) margin. The program does not consider special abilities like the bite attack or breath weapon, which I'm betting would fill the gap at lower levels.

That's vs. core classes and feats though. Those using splatbooks may want to reduce the LA of half-dragon and everything else for that matter. LA 2 is very strong but not extremely overpowered even in core (just somewhat OP and only later on). LA 2 could work well in a group with a higher level of optimization. Otherwise stick with LA 3 IMO.

Back to the original question: LA 3 is basically saying "Your race is so good, we're gonna force you to take 3 levels in jack squat. You still include those levels when figuring out xp, but they don't give you anything, not even hit dice." For example you might take 5 class levels and you may be vulnerable to spells that affect creatures with 5 hit dice, but your effective character level is 8, your party members should be level 8, and you need 9,000 xp more (same as your level 8 party members) to reach level 9, which is only your 6th class level.

Marnath
2010-09-25, 09:19 PM
The problem with LA+3 is that you are fragile, you have significantly less hp than your party. Also, you still only have one attack in a martial class while your friends are making iterative attacks. I don't need to explain why being 3 caster levels behind is a huge problem, either.

Snake-Aes
2010-09-25, 09:31 PM
A new guy will be joining our party soon and he wishes to be a half dragon. Now I understand being a half dragon (or half anything) requires level adjustment. Can someone help me with this or give me a link describing how it's done.

Level adjustment = the character's level is added by a certain amount.
So, to put him in the same level as the group, his level has to be smaller than the others'.
Example: Your group has a level 12 rogue, a level 13 fighter and a half dragon level 10 cleric.


Generally speaking, LA is more trouble than its worth.

Marnath
2010-09-25, 09:36 PM
I wonder something...would starting off that number of levels behind with no LA do the trick? You'd catch up yeah, but by the time you did you'd be to the point where your template's advantages aren't as useful anyway.

ericgrau
2010-09-25, 09:42 PM
The problem with LA+3 is that you are fragile, you have significantly less hp than your party. Also, you still only have one attack in a martial class while your friends are making iterative attacks. I don't need to explain why being 3 caster levels behind is a huge problem, either.

Naturally you wouldn't take LA 3 for +8 strength and so on if you wanted to play a caster.

I went back to look at the numbers in the program and for ECL 4-5 the half-dragon is dealing double the untemplated guy's damage, so that helps make up for the much lower HP. Ya, there is a big jump once the untemplated guy gets his 2nd attack at ECL 6, but 1 level later at ECL 7 the LA 3 guy is on his 4th HD so he's not feeling the HP hurt as much. For every level except ECL 6 the half dragon is only a little behind, he pulls ahead at ECL 9 when he gets his 2nd attack, and by ECL 15 his HP is almost caught up and everything else is higher, putting him firmly in the lead. Again at ECL 1-5 he has a bite attack and breath weapon which I ignored, so ya I'd say it's fairly well balanced vs. core melee at every level except ECL 6 (significantly worse) and ECL 16+ (significantly better).


I wonder something...would starting off that number of levels behind with no LA do the trick? You'd catch up yeah, but by the time you did you'd be to the point where your template's advantages aren't as useful anyway.

Based on the above if anything I'd start it at LA 2 and increase it to LA 3 at ECL 7. Heck at ECL 16 it might even be LA 4, in core anyway. Again, balancing vs. splatbooks would reduce all the LAs.

Marnath
2010-09-25, 09:47 PM
All I know is that a halfdragon human battle sorceror without LA is not all that much more awesome than the other pc's were. It depends on the overall campaign power level I guess.

UserClone
2010-09-25, 09:49 PM
Or, what if you started at the same level as everyone else, but you had to pay the next 3 levels' xp as a penalty before you could gain any xp?

ericgrau
2010-09-25, 09:49 PM
All I know is that a halfdragon human battle sorceror without LA is not all that much more awesome than the other pc's were. It depends on the overall campaign power level I guess.
Ya a melee template on a caster is going to be pretty useless. I'd guess LA 1 for a caster, if even that on a well optimized caster.

Marnath
2010-09-25, 09:55 PM
Ya a melee template on a caster is going to be pretty useless. I'd guess LA 1 for a caster, if even that on a well optimized caster.

Yeah, thats how we did it. Plus LA buyoff and level 5 start, we said to heck with it and just made him level 4, with 1/3 of the next level xp, or whatever the maths equaled. All he really got out of it is a +4 to attack and damage and fire immunity. Not too broken, really. Especially in the face of what a battle sorceror gives up spell wise.

Snake-Aes
2010-09-25, 10:17 PM
I wonder something...would starting off that number of levels behind with no LA do the trick? You'd catch up yeah, but by the time you did you'd be to the point where your template's advantages aren't as useful anyway.

That's the spirit of LA Buyout. It consists of, when you level up, to burn that xp into reducing your LA adjustment by 1.

Marnath
2010-09-25, 10:19 PM
That's the spirit of LA Buyout. It consists of, when you level up, to burn that xp into reducing your LA adjustment by 1.

The difference is you'd have to make the first couple levels with the higher xp requirement. Not so if you merely start out 3 levels lower or whatever.

Mando Knight
2010-09-25, 10:41 PM
And you have to serve Bahamut otherwise he will take the template away.

Am I the only one who has read that part?

Well, he is the LG god of Being An Awesome Dragon. Having religious fervor to kill chromatic dragons and take their stuff doesn't sound so bad, does it?

UserClone
2010-09-25, 10:51 PM
Well, he is the LG god of Being An Awesome Dragon. Having religious fervor to kill chromatic dragons and take their stuff doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Yeah, if you're going to be religious about killing something evil, at least make it the something with the highest treasure-to-CR ratio out there! (oh, snap!):smallcool:

Mando Knight
2010-09-25, 11:19 PM
I'll slay anything that's evil, that's my deal!

UserClone
2010-09-25, 11:43 PM
So what's a few evil, rich dragons among Dragonborn and their Dragon-God?

Sounds perfect! How about a Half-Dragon Dragonborn Silverbrow Human? WTF would that look like? [/dragon]

Doomboy911
2010-09-26, 07:12 PM
I say a half dragon barbarian is a great idea since you can get high hit points and become great for assault. Wait does the half dragon get wings?

dragonsamurai77
2010-09-26, 07:12 PM
I say a half dragon barbarian is a great idea since you can get high hit points and become great for assault. Wait does the half dragon get wings?

Only if he's Large or bigger.

Eldariel
2010-09-26, 07:21 PM
And you have to serve Bahamut otherwise he will take the template away.

Am I the only one who has read that part?

There's a half dragon homebrew that's decently balanced you could use instead. I'll link it if you allow homebrew in your games. You take levels instead of having level adjustment.

Just use it as generic "Half-Dragon" Template and everyone will be much happier. The default Half-Dragon is horrible. I mean, sure, it beats Core melee classes since they don't really give you much in the way of anything! It's not hard to beat "nothing". It doesn't match classes with class features.

Being HDs behind is always horrible; you'll be ****ed every time someone casts any of the Blasphemy-line spells, you'll be limited in Polymorph-forms due to HD (the line, PAO in particular, makes any racial stats pretty irrelevant in Core), you'll have less BAB and thus less attacks, less HP and thus any Con-bonuses are negated, and overall it's decidedly meh.


Honestly, in Core you can just take Dragon Disciple instead and be just fine; it just so happens as none of the Core melee classes get anything (well, they do but they're frontloaded so all relevant stuff you'll have anyways), you don't really lose anything by going that route. Really, all this wouldn't be so relevant if the class design in Core wasn't so horrible though. Dragonborn is just about the best Half-Dragon race ever though, so just go with that.

FMArthur
2010-09-26, 08:11 PM
Just use it as generic "Half-Dragon" Template and everyone will be much happier. The default Half-Dragon is horrible. I mean, sure, it beats Core melee classes since they don't really give you much in the way of anything! It's not hard to beat "nothing". It doesn't match classes with class features.

Being HDs behind is always horrible; you'll be ****ed every time someone casts any of the Blasphemy-line spells, you'll be limited in Polymorph-forms due to HD (the line, PAO in particular, makes any racial stats pretty irrelevant in Core), you'll have less BAB and thus less attacks, less HP and thus any Con-bonuses are negated, and overall it's decidedly meh.


Honestly, in Core you can just take Dragon Disciple instead and be just fine; it just so happens as none of the Core melee classes get anything (well, they do but they're frontloaded so all relevant stuff you'll have anyways), you don't really lose anything by going that route. Really, all this wouldn't be so relevant if the class design in Core wasn't so horrible though. Dragonborn is just about the best Half-Dragon race ever though, so just go with that.

I do this. Half Dragon is a bad idea all round.

Mystic Muse
2010-09-26, 08:36 PM
Just use it as generic "Half-Dragon" Template and everyone will be much happier.

That'd be fine. But suggesting it as a default replacement of half dragon to players when nobody ever seems to mention the drawback at all just seems wrong to me.

Doomboy911
2010-09-27, 04:20 PM
That'd be fine. But suggesting it as a default replacement of half dragon to players when nobody ever seems to mention the drawback at all just seems wrong to me.

So what are the drawbacks?

Mystic Muse
2010-09-27, 04:22 PM
So what are the drawbacks?

Dexterity penalty and can be taken away if you don't serve Bahamut above all else, plus it hurts when he takes it away?

Noodles2375
2010-09-27, 04:28 PM
What level are the players at right now?

If they are currently higher than 8th/9th level, there might be an opportunity to "buy-off" the really high half-dragon LA. This would probably more fun for him in the long run. You can find the details on LA buyoff here:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingleveladjustments.htm

It basically reflects the fact that racial level adjustment is much less useful at highlevels than at low levels.

Doomboy911
2010-09-27, 05:02 PM
They're around level four.

Noodles2375
2010-09-27, 07:41 PM
Ahh I see.

Then I defer to what the other posters have said about him being VERY squishy at only 1 HD with + 3 LA.

Elemental_Elf
2010-09-27, 08:30 PM
I have a lot of experience DMing Half-Dragons (one of my players *always* rolls up a Fighter or Warblade Half-Dragon).

The Half-Dragon is a glass cannon. He has a massive strength and can really lay down the hurt on his enemies (especially as he gains levels and his hit point total begins to normalize). BUT regardless he's always going to be fragile. Personally, I do not like the template. I think it forces a big penalty on you for stat bonuses. As a DM, I often have to specifically plan encounters around the Half-Dragon and that's not exactly easy nor is it really fair to the other players.

I really don't advise allowing the template. Use the Dragonborn of Bahamut, its much more balanced.

The Shadowmind
2010-09-27, 09:11 PM
Isn't Draconic not that bad of a template? +1 LA for +2 STR, CON, CHA, and 1d3 claws.
Like the half-dragon template there is PrC to get it without the LA(I don't think the PrC is worth it).
Dragon Devotee, 5 level long,
Gain 2 levels of sorc. in the PrC(if you didn't have sorc levels before you now effectively have 2, an oddity from this PrC).
2 Fighter Bonus feats or +2d6 in sneak/skirmish/sudden strike. 3/4 BaB, with 4+int skill points per level.

Mystic Muse
2010-09-27, 10:12 PM
The main complaint about draconic is that the template is stat bonuses and that's it and therefore probably isn't worth the LA

Dusk Eclipse
2010-09-27, 10:22 PM
The main complaint about draconic is that the template is stat bonuses and that's it and therefore probably isn't worth the LA

IMO/E the claws are not a bad deal, plus the dragonblood subtype is nifty.

Doomboy911
2010-09-28, 05:48 PM
Claws, a breath attack, flight and a extra language for just a little level adjustment sounds pretty fair.

Mystic Muse
2010-09-28, 05:56 PM
Claws, a breath attack, flight and a extra language for just a little level adjustment sounds pretty fair.

+3 isn't a little, and you have to be large or bigger in order to get wings. Unless you meant you were going to combine Dragonborn and Draconic. In which case, I'll simply shut up.

UserClone
2010-09-28, 10:20 PM
+3 isn't a little, and you have to be large or bigger in order to get wings. Unless you meant you were going to combine Dragonborn and Draconic. In which case, I'll simply shut up.

I don't think Draconic provides either flight OR wings, and Dragonborn makes you choose between them, so I don't see how that could work.

Endarire
2010-09-28, 11:25 PM
Dragonborn of Bahamut (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20060105b&page=1)

Races of the Dragon 15 states you can worship any nonevil deity or ethos. Just don't affiliate yourself with Tiamat.

I recommend Dragonborn over Half-Dragon. The wrngs are almost always worth it if you expect to hit 6HD. The breath weapon is useful at level 1, maybe 2, and quickly becomes meh. Blaster casters get similar or better damage, though usually less often.

Doomboy911
2010-09-29, 06:52 PM
Dragonborn seems kind of bad since you only get one of the effects instead of the three.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-09-29, 06:55 PM
for fulldragoness for the low price of 1 level and no level adjustment be a dragonborn (mind) raptoran dragon shaman.

FMArthur
2010-09-29, 07:40 PM
Well, the "level adjustment" is your level of Dragon Shaman. Dragonborn (mind) doesn't add anything special or dragon-like except its appearance, so why not just grab your breath weapon from the template so that it scales with your level without your having to spend character levels?

Dusk Eclipse
2010-09-29, 07:42 PM
Well, the "level adjustment" is your level of Dragon Shaman. Dragonborn (mind) doesn't add anything special or dragon-like except its appearance, so why not just grab your breath weapon from the template so that it scales with your level without your having to spend character levels?

Just to emulate most abilities of the actual half-dragon template :shrugs: mind aspect gives the perception abilities, raptoran to get the wings, dragon shaman is playable in my opinion (or you can substitue it with dragonfire adept for a more powerful character)

FMArthur
2010-09-29, 07:51 PM
Just to emulate most abilities of the actual half-dragon template :shrugs: mind aspect gives the perception abilities, raptoran to get the wings, dragon shaman is playable in my opinion (or you can substitue it with dragonfire adept for a more powerful character)

If you have to devote your whole build to being a dragon then maybe the half-dragon template really is more economical. A Heart Dragonborn Raptoran gets to be a winged firebreathing dragon as the base that you can build whatever you like off of.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-09-29, 07:52 PM
Just a silly attempt, not to take seriousy

UserClone
2010-09-29, 08:03 PM
I...don't think a dragonborn keeps his Raptoran Wings. I think all you keep are your ability score adjustments, IIRC.

Mystic Muse
2010-09-29, 08:49 PM
I...don't think a dragonborn keeps his Raptoran Wings. I think all you keep are your ability score adjustments, IIRC.

Actually, I'm almost positive you keep all movement speeds.

FMArthur
2010-09-29, 09:18 PM
You retain your original base land speed, as well as any other modes of movement possessed by your original race. Other racial traits related to speed or movement, such as the dwarf’s ability to move at full speed in medium or heavy armor, are lost

It's hard to say where raptoran flight falls here, but if you rule that it doesn't include raptoran flight and you lose it... well, if you picked up dragonborn between 6HD and 12HD it would be strictly a gain since you would keep your fly speed and lose its limitations. I'd just say let 'em keep it and not bother.