Boundless Horizons LA Variant Systen

[Kavurcen]

Hey guys,
On my phone I can't tell if a thread has been made or not, so forgive me if I'm beating a dead horse.

Anyway, I saw this online and it seemed cool. Problem is, I have no idea how it works. Can someone explain it to me in layman's terms?
www.victoriouspress.com/?a=news

[Zale]

Racial Hit Die count as class levels for the purposes of class abilities, except for the first one, which you exchange for the first level of your class.

Bugbears normally have 3 Racial Hit Die. (And a LA of 1)

Bugbear A exchanges the first of these for a level of Rogue.

This leaves him with 2 Racial Hit Die.

Those count as levels of Rogue for the purpose of Sneak Attack, giving him Trapfinding and Evasion, etc.

He uses the Racial Hit Die for B.A.B, Saves and Skills, however.

Every three levels, the LA goes down by one.

So by the time he hits ECL six (2 Racial Hit Die + 3 Class Levels + 1 LA) his La will drop to 0.

[Urpriest]

That's an interesting system. However, it doesn't seem to have anything in place to handle multiclass characters, or characters whose first level is of a prestige class or a class that otherwise has fewer levels than their racial hit dice. Those modifications would be rather nontrivial anyway, and as-is this is a way to buy a radically better chassis, not to mention fairly easy access to over-advanced casting progression. It's got a good base insight, but I think this forum's homebrew monster classes incorporate the same insight to much better effect.

[VGLordR2]

This system looks pretty cool. Has anyone ever used it before? If so, how did it work out?

[eggs]

I don't see why anyone wouldn't take [Starting level/3] LA's worth of templates to start with. And if the game starts at too low of a level for that to be a viable tactic, LAed races probably wouldn't be options anyway.

Adding racial HD to class levels could probably do something interesting with some of the PrCs whose abilities are limited by their class levels (Abjurant Champion, War Weaver, Hellfire Warlock, Chameleon CL abuse). I'd have to think about specific examples of abuse, though.

[Zale]

Yep. I see abuse possible.

Grab a high-hit die critter with a better chassis than your class, play as a caster.

LA will be a bit of a pain, since the racial hit die don't count towards it's reduction, but if you start at a high enough level..

[Chambers]

This system looks pretty cool. Has anyone ever used it before? If so, how did it work out?

I played in a short-lived game of it run by the Duke himself. From what I recall the system worked out well enough, but we didn't get very far. IC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171178) | OOC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171172)

[Kavurcen]

Racial Hit Die count as class levels for the purposes of class abilities, except for the first one, which you exchange for the first level of your class.

Bugbears normally have 3 Racial Hit Die. (And a LA of 1)

Bugbear A exchanges the first of these for a level of Rogue.

This leaves him with 2 Racial Hit Die.

Those count as levels of Rogue for the purpose of Sneak Attack, giving him Trapfinding and Evasion, etc.

He uses the Racial Hit Die for B.A.B, Saves and Skills, however.

Every three levels, the LA goes down by one.

So by the time he hits ECL six (2 Racial Hit Die + 3 Class Levels + 1 LA) his La will drop to 0.

Interesting. I was wondering how it would stay balanced. I don't think poor saves and BAB for a couple of levels balances out how exponentially more powerful something like a Gargoyle can be compared to a level one Human Fighter, but it looks like it could work well with some adaptation... it still sounds better than making them unplayable, so it's closer to center. Any suggestions to balance it for a group that wouldn't powergame too hard?

[Duke of URL]

Speaking as the lead designer, here...

Racial Hit Die count as class levels for the purposes of class abilities, except for the first one, which you exchange for the first level of your class.

Bugbears normally have 3 Racial Hit Die. (And a LA of 1)

Bugbear A exchanges the first of these for a level of Rogue.

This leaves him with 2 Racial Hit Die.

Those count as levels of Rogue for the purpose of Sneak Attack, giving him Trapfinding and Evasion, etc.

He uses the Racial Hit Die for B.A.B, Saves and Skills, however.

Every three levels, the LA goes down by one.

So by the time he hits ECL six (2 Racial Hit Die + 3 Class Levels + 1 LA) his La will drop to 0.

Close, but not quite. Unlike D&D 3.5, any race may exchange 1 HD (or it's partial HD, if it has less than 1) for it's first class level. However, while the remaining HD contribute toward his effective Rogue level (assuming he's taken one or more levels in Rogue) in terms of what class features he has; it's more like the way ToB does it -- your effective Rogue level would be your actual Rogue level + 1/2 other levels (including racial HD, bloodlines, and some PrCs), but not to exceed 2x your actual Rogue level.

HD from whatever source, are still used independently to calculate HP, BAB, etc.

You do have the LA reduction correct, though. Note that instead of advancing to ECL 6 in your example, however, he remains at ECL 5, gaining a new character level while losing one level of LA. This means he starts to "catch up" to an ECL 6 party by earning experience somewhat more quickly.


That's an interesting system. However, it doesn't seem to have anything in place to handle multiclass characters, or characters whose first level is of a prestige class or a class that otherwise has fewer levels than their racial hit dice. Those modifications would be rather nontrivial anyway, and as-is this is a way to buy a radically better chassis, not to mention fairly easy access to over-advanced casting progression. It's got a good base insight, but I think this forum's homebrew monster classes incorporate the same insight to much better effect.

I don't understand the criticism that it doesn't handle multiclassed characters. (Edit: ok... I see the problem. See the post below that (I hope) corrects what seems to be a misconception behind the criticsm.) The system is designed precisely to accommodate multiclassed characters.

Personally, I find many of the "monster classes" in the homebrew forum to be horribly overpowered, at least as of a couple of years ago, when I last looked them over to any extent.


I don't see why anyone wouldn't take [Starting level/3] LA's worth of templates to start with.

Because you'd still be behind other players. Starting at a higher level is covered in the Referee Guide, but the gist of it is, when dealing with LA reductions based on your party's starting level, a character starts 1/2 level behind per +1 of LA reduced through class levels advancement. (The Referee Guide includes a chart to make it easier to follow for LA +4 or less, and the pattern is pretty simple to extend.)

[Duke of URL]

On that last point, I'll just pull the examples right out of the Referee Guide:


Examples, for a party starting at level 10:
Tierae, a pixie (LA +4) starts at level 7 and still has a level adjustment of +2. [ECL 9]
Shaliss, a drow (LA +2) starts at level 9 with no remaining level adjustment. [ECL 9]
Artur, an aranea (3 RHD, LA +4) trades one racial hit die for his first class level, leaving 2 racial hit dice. Instead of looking under a party level of 10, he uses a party level of 8, meaning that in addition to his 2 racial hit dice, he has 4 class levels plus 600 XP and still has a +3 level adjustment. [ECL 9 plus 600 XP]

(Note that the experience system is changed... 600 XP is exactly halfway between levels when using the default mechanism.)

Edited to add:

I think the root of all of the criticism is based on a misunderstanding of how the multiclassing system works. For a base class, you determine your class features in the style I note above: class level + 1/2 other levels, not to exceed 2x class level.

Example: Our bugbear (let's ignore LA, since it will have been "bought off") takes 4 levels of rogue plus 2 levels of fighter, and still has 2 levels of RHD. His effective rogue level is 6 (4 class levels + (2+2)/2 other levels) and his effective fighter level is 4 (2 class levels + (4+2)/2 other levels, capped to 2x class level). So while he has 8 total HD (BAB +7, etc.), he is effectively a Rogue 6 / Fighter 4 in terms of his class features.

A prestige class' effective level is always its actual level, so the RHD would never advance that PrC effective class level. Some PrCs count toward "other levels" in the calculations above, others don't; the rule of thumb is a class that just offers replacement class features, e.g., Shadowdancer, counts toward boosting your base classes, but one that offers spellcasting progression or an explicit advancement of features, e.g., Arcane Trickster, does not.

One additional note: you should be able to incorporate the "automatic LA reduction" mechanism in a standard 3.5 game. The issue of how remaining RHD affect class features is actually part of the multiclassing system, not LA reduction system, and is harder to adapt to a standard 3.5 game because you'd need to take the whole multiclassing system with you, which in turn requires revising the base classes so that every level is worth something (believe me, I speak from experience here), with the simple exception that allowing any race to trade 1 RHD for its first class level is an easy enough houserule.

Edit 2: By the way, thanks for reading! Boundless Horizons is still in active development, to the point where we're starting to get artwork commissioned.