What is level adjustment?

[Mockingbird]

I've seen it on a lot of monster races, and I've never figured out what it does. Help me? :p

[Shotaro]

Essentially some races inherent abilities make them particularly powerful, Drow for instance have a couple of spells at will as well as a couple of significant stat increases. Dopplegangers can change their appearance basically at will and it's not easy to spot.

The level adjustment is a way of balancing these out. You add the level adjustment to the characters level to see how powerful they are. For example, a 1st level cleric from a race with a level adjustment of +1 is essentially as powerful as a level two character.

[Gavinfoxx]

A badly designed, 'doesn't work at all for the purpose', way of allowing players to play things they were never intended to play in the first place, with predictable results.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

To somewhat reiterate, your effective class level (ECL) is your Level Adjustment + Racial Hit Dice + Character Levels. Most characters, such as an Elf Wizard, have no level adjustment nor racial hit dice; they just have character levels. For example, an Ogre has +2 LA and four Monstrous Humanoid hit dice, so an Ogre with two levels of barbarian is ECL 8. A human with eight levels of barbarian is ECL 8.

Shotaro is correct on the theory of level adjustment. In practice, the designers tended to err on the side of too much LA partly to avoid overpowered monster characters and partly to discourage monster characters in general.

[Shotaro]

To somewhat reiterate, your effective class level (ECL) is your Level Adjustment + Racial Hit Dice + Character Levels. Most characters, such as an Elf Wizard, have no level adjustment nor racial hit dice; they just have character levels. For example, an Ogre has +2 LA and four Monstrous Humanoid hit dice, so an Ogre with two levels of barbarian is ECL 8. A human with eight levels of barbarian is ECL 8.

Shotaro is correct on the theory of level adjustment. In practice, the designers tended to err on the side of too much LA partly to avoid overpowered monster characters and partly to discourage monster characters in general.

Much more eloquent answer than mine there. As Gavinfoxx said, it doesn't really work, but it's better than the alternatives.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Shotaro is correct on the theory of level adjustment. In practice, the designers tended to err on the side of too much LA partly to avoid overpowered monster characters and partly to discourage monster characters in general.

Yeah. Hobgoblins? What a joke. Just knock off the +4 move silently that makes no sense if you thinks it's overpowered.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Yeah. Hobgoblins? What a joke. Just knock off the +4 move silently that makes no sense if you thinks it's overpowered.In 3.0 the Hobgoblin had +0 level adjustment, and it was pretty good. The question is, if there was a feat that gave +2 Dex and +2 Con, would you take it?

[Dusk Eclipse]

Sunscorch Hibgoblins (DM) make terrific swordsages though... and their fluff (in Dragon Magazine is awesome)

[Drelua]

Yeah. Hobgoblins? What a joke. Just knock off the +4 move silently that makes no sense if you thinks it's overpowered.

Actually, the bonus to move silently makes sense if you know about the Forgotten Realms god of hobgoblins. There were books about him to be found randomly in Neverwinter Nights that explained how he wants hobgoblins to fight with stealth instead of brute force because of their relatively small numbers, when compared to orcs and goblins. I guess this is similar to the elves free proficiencies; a bonus that comes from training given to nearly every member of a given race rather than an inherent talent.

[ericgrau]

Hobgoblins again? The problem is they're a solid 0.5 and you're screwed either way you round it. IMO PCs should add or remove an ability score or special ability and round accordingly. LAs actually tend to be pretty fair vs. core classes & feats. I have actually compared martial builds for LA vs. non-LA races. They fall apart outside of core though. Special qualities like large size is also an issue; if you don't exploit them like you should then the LA is "too high".

For the OP's question, LAs are supposed to be balancing factors. You pay that many levels and get nothing for it, because of the many special abilities and ability scores the race gets. Racial HD are similar, in that they're empty levels without special abilities. But you still get HP, saves, BAB and skill points from racial HD. Outsider and dragon HD are actually pretty good because they get max for all those (well, dragon is only 6 + int skill points, but whatever).

[Keneth]

What is level adjustment?
It's a bad idea, that's what it is.

Any statistical values that remain static as you level up are the worst thing that's ever happened to this game system and should be abolished at every opportunity. :smallsmile:

[Ravens_cry]

Well, for low levels of LA, buyoff apparently helps ease the pain.

[Keneth]

Buyoff is ok if your DM will let you do that but then the other players might feel cheated and everyone will want templates and races with LA, that shouldn't be encouraged. There are better solutions for this problem.

[Serpentine]

Just throwin' in another plug for my system of giving characters a free NPC class level for every point of LA (i.e. (+1 LA = 1/2 PC class) + (NPC class = 1/2 PC class) = full class level).

[Ravens_cry]

Just throwin' in another plug for my system of giving characters a free NPC class level for every point of LA (i.e. (+1 LA = 1/2 PC class) + (NPC class = 1/2 PC class) = full class level).
What one though? Commoner is suck, and intentionally so, chicken infested and other jokes regardless. But Expert is a pretty nice skill monkey and Adept is intriguing.

[Serpentine]

Ideally, it'd be one thematically appropriate for the rest of the intended build: Warrior for martial-types, Adept for the magical-types, for example. But any of them, really.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Adept is mid tier 4 so it is actually quite nice, and don't forget the Magewright (from ECS)

[Keld Denar]

Ur-Priest's Monstrous Guide to Monsters (www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=207928) has that answer.