Playing Races without Racial Hit Dice, Broken?

[Chrion]

So, my DM has the idea that our next campaign will be a relatively high power one. My group knows about batman wizards and the like so its not a problem that someone will try to play a fighter while everyone else is playing wizards and clerics. No, the problem is that the DM has decided that everyone has up to +5 LA to use, on templates and races, and the races only have level adjustment, no racial hit dice. I have two questions about this.

1) Will this horribly unbalance the game? The game will be level 10, with an ECL of 15 counting the LA. I ask this because I was looking through the fiend folio and saw the black ethergaunt, which has 17th level wizard spellcasting for a measly +4 LA. I am sure there are plenty of other strong races, but are they worse than this?

2) What are some good races to spend this LA? I plan on playing an arcane caster, but something like a black ethergaunt could make an excellent gish as well.

[dsmiles]

1) Will this horribly unbalance the game? The game will be level 10, with an ECL of 15 counting the LA. I ask this because I was looking through the fiend folio and saw the black ethergaunt, which has 17th level wizard spellcasting for a measly +4 LA. I am sure there are plenty of other strong races, but are they worse than this? :smalleek: I feel like it will destroy the balance of the game, unless the DM really knows how powerful everyone will be. I don't think I would ever do something like that. Ever.


2) What are some good races to spend this LA? I plan on playing an arcane caster, but something like a black ethergaunt could make an excellent gish as well. Black Ethergaunt is probably the way to go.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I think the hardest part about playing an Ethergaunt Gish would be explaining why he's participating in melee combat, given their culture and outlook.

An Ak'Chazar Rakshasa (MM3) is a pretty strong choice, especially if you can start out with a legion of custom undead minions. Examples include Awakened Cave Troll Skeletons and Awakened Arrow Demon Skeletons.

Check out the Immoth in MM2, the update booklet (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030718a) puts them at +6 LA but their Ice Runes ability would definitely be worth it. Your spellcasting would still be way ahead of your character level, and you could take something like Swiftblade or just stick to Eldritch Knight/ Abjurant Champion.

Probably the most broken no-racial-spellcasting thing I can think of for this would be either a Tauric creature (MM2, SS) or Lycanthrope with a Legendary Bear or Tiger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/legendaryAnimal.htm) (MM2) as the non-humanoid contributor. Get the Shadow Creature template (LoM) to make up the rest of the free LA and it may actually be able to keep up with spellcasters. The various trolls in MM3 would also be pretty good as PCs without racial HD.

A Juvenile Steel Dragon (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20040328a) (Dragons of Faerun, LA +4) with Loredrake would be a fun choice. A Gloura (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e) makes an amazing Cha-SAD character, and losing those Fey hit dice can only help. If you'd rather play a fun character than an overpowered one, consider one of those.

[Callista]

My first thought was: Man, you're going to end up with a seriously weird group of characters. You'll have to think hard to make sure you can actually make sense of why this very strange party is going to get together; and you'll need somebody who's acceptable in the average town so that you can negotiate and buy supplies.

If everybody gets LA then it's a good chance you're all going to be playing some really strange creatures. But will it unbalance the game? Not necessarily, though I highly recommend building your characters together so that you can keep the power level even. And you may experience some battles that are too easy or too hard at first as your DM adjusts to your power level.

It should go OK, though.