How Does level adjustment work

[waffleology]

title says it all lol

[Keld Denar]

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

All explained there in GREAT detail.

[Flickerdart]

The appropriate reading (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monstersAsRaces.htm).

Basically, each point of level adjustment (LA) is like a level, in that it counts towards your character's ECL for determining his wealth and the CRs of his enemies. However, LA doesn't provide anything else a level does - hit points, skills, feats, class features, nothing.

[Ursus the Grim]

I know I will be swordsaged.

Essentially, the overall "Level" of a character "ECL" is determined by several things that add together. Most players have a "class level" equal to their ECL, meaning they don't have any wierd races or templates. Some creatures have racial "hit die". You can think of these as levels in their monster type. In fact, if you check the back of the monster manual, it outlines what these hit die grant in terms of base attack bonus, saves, and skills. But some monsters are more dangerous than their hit die would assume, and have an additional "level adjustment" to compensate should this race and its powers be in the hands of a player. Generally, you add all of these up to determine the character's Effective Character Level for purposes of experience, but don't include the level adjustment for skill, feat, and ability score calculation.

For instance, a Level 1 Druid Lizardfolk has an Effective Character Level of 4. It has two racial hit die and one class level, so it has stats similiar to a level 3 character. But the creators felt that the racial abilities of a Lizardfolk (namely its Natural Armor and Ability Scores) made it a little more powerful than its Racial Hit Die warranted, so they gave it a Level Adjustment.

More information can be found here. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monstersAsRaces.htm)

It should be noted that as a character increases in levels, the Level Adjustment abilities aren't normally quite as useful as they were at lower levels, and can actually be a major detriment (as the character generally has less feats, skills, and HD than comparable characters). So many groups favor Level Adjustment Buyoff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm) to help recalibrate things.