Level buyoffs... I don't get it!

[sambouchah]

I just do not understand level adjustment buyoff. The amount of sense it makes is around 15%. I get that it's a way for you to get rid of LA but other then that nothing. Could someone give me the Buyoffs for dummies rundown or something? And I have read about it on more than one occasion by the by

[Kazyan]

Instead of going up a level, you decrease your LA by 1, which actually reduces your ECL. Say you're a Karsite Monk 6, and and hit level-up. Instead of gaining a Monk level, you reduce the Karsite LA+2 to LA+1. You're still a Karsite Monk, but instead of being ECL 8, you're ECL 7. (You have to play catch-up a bit with the rest of the party, since they'll be ECL 9 now.) Once you reach Monk 9, and then level up again, you can buy off the other LA+1--you're still a Karsite Monk 9, but you have no LA anymore, and are ECL 9 as opposed to everyone else's ECL 11. This assumes you "caught up" in the meantime. And all my responses are going to be about how horrible Karsite Monk is, but I deliberately picked it to be annoying.

[Rhynn]

SRD linkage (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/dnd35/soveliorsage/unearthedRaces.html).

First, do you understand how levels, HD, LA, and ECL work?

Class levels and any racial hit dice add up to character level (used for e.g. spell effects). LA (Level Adjustment) is added to get ECL (Effective Chracter Level).

If you start out with LA +1, then once you get 3 class levels (not character level, not ECL; HD aren't included), you can pay (current ECL -1) x 1,000 XP to reduce your Level Adjustment to 0. If you had no racial HD, once you reach level 3 (ECL 4), you could pay 3,000 XP to reduce your LA to 0.

This XP is paid immediately upon becoming eligible, which means you may never actually go up that level - unless you got so much XP you leveled up and had XP to spare.

So, if you have LA +1, and make it to 3rd level (ECL 4, total XP 6,000), instead of taking a clas level, you'd pay 3,000 XP (down to 3,000) and reduce your LA to +0. You'd now be level 2, ECL 2.

The benefit is that, with a lower level, you'll be gaining more XP than higher-level PCs for the same benefits. (Properly by the DMG rules, XP is calculated individually for each PC; everyone gets XP based on their level an the CR of the enemy defeated, divided by the total number of PCs who get experience from that enemy.)

The effect is that once you'be bought off the LA, you'll catch up to the rest of the party in XP and level soon.

[Quorothorn]

Welll....one reason you might not "get" LA buy-off is because its design is somewhat questionable? I'll give it a shot, forgive me if the explanation does not suffice:

Yes, the idea is, as you said, to reduce your Level Adjustment so that your Effective Character Level is actually equal, or closer to, your number of "real" levels. However, for any LA worse than +2, it takes much too long for the buy-off to trigger.

That is, you have to "wait" until you reach a certain threshold of class levels, dependant on your exact LA (a simple +1, for example, means you must wait for 3 class levels gained). Note that the "Racial Hit Die" do not factor in to this. Once you reach that "threshold", you pay a one-time XP cost that knocks you down one effective level, in the process removing a point of Level Adjustment.

If you're advancing in a party, at this point you should be able to slowly "catch up" to your fellow party members, as your ECL will now (presumably) be lower than theirs and you will gain more XP by comparison.

Again, though, because of how the "Threshold" point for the buy-off is calculated, it's not really useful for PCs unless you're going Epic, and even then it might be frustrating. a +4 LA, for example, won't be lowered at all until you've taken 12 PC class levels, and will not be eliminated entirely until you've taken...30 class levels (and the entire time, of course, that LA will mean you're not getting XP as fast as you "should" be).

...as the Dark One once said, "Those rules are crap and you know it".

Edit: Swordsage'd.

[sambouchah]

I think I get it now! Thank you all

[sambouchah]

Welll....one reason you might not "get" LA buy-off is because its design is somewhat questionable? I'll give it a shot, forgive me if the explanation does not suffice:

Yes, the idea is, as you said, to reduce your Level Adjustment so that your Effective Character Level is actually equal, or closer to, your number of "real" levels. However, for any LA worse than +2, it takes much too long for the buy-off to trigger.

That is, you have to "wait" until you reach a certain threshold of class levels, dependant on your exact LA (a simple +1, for example, means you must wait for 3 class levels gained). Note that the "Racial Hit Die" do not factor in to this. Once you reach that "threshold", you pay a one-time XP cost that knocks you down one effective level, in the process removing a point of Level Adjustment.

If you're advancing in a party, at this point you should be able to slowly "catch up" to your fellow party members, as your ECL will now (presumably) be lower than theirs and you will gain more XP by comparison.

Again, though, because of how the "Threshold" point for the buy-off is calculated, it's not really useful for PCs unless you're going Epic, and even then it might be frustrating. a +4 LA, for example, won't be lowered at all until you've taken 12 PC class levels, and will not be eliminated entirely until you've taken...30 class levels (and the entire time, of course, that LA will mean you're not getting XP as fast as you "should" be).

...as the Dark One once said, "Those rules are crap and you know it".

Edit: Swordsage'd.

Holy freaking crap! Unicorn damn City reference! (: :)<- a cookie and a hundred points to your respective house in your school of magic.

[Devils_Advocate]

Instead of going up a level, you decrease your LA by 1

This XP is paid immediately upon becoming eligible, which means you may never actually go up that level - unless you got so much XP you leveled up and had XP to spare.
Ah, I think that this is probably a common misconception. It's certainly one that I had myself when I first read that section of the rules, in no small part because parts of it are confusingly worded or just outright wrong. But a careful reading reveals the truth of the matter:

(A) You decrease your Level Adjustment IN ADDITION to going up a level, not INSTEAD of going up a level.
(B) LA buyoff is, therefore, STRICTLY BENEFICIAL to characters with level adjustments.

Allow me to explain!

You see, reducing your Level Adjustment "costs" a level's worth of XP, which would normally be bad and delay leveling up. But because your your LA is now 1 point lower, it now takes that much less XP to go up a level, so you totally go up a level anyway!

Consider the given example of a gnoll Fighter. For starters, he's described as gaining his 3rd class level and reducing his Level Adjustment. But suppose that you did "merely" reduce his LA by 1 and his XP by 5,000 "instead" of leveling him up. In that case, he's now a level 5, LA 0 character with at least 10,000 XP. Being ECL 5, he levels up as soon as he has at least 10,000 XP. But wait, he's got that now! So he levels up! Hooray! :)

Unfortunately, there are two misleading things in this passage that can trick you into thinking that LA buyoff might be bad for a character unless you read quite carefully. For one, 10,000 is given as the maximum XP total for level 5, which is a mistake. It's actually 14,999; 10,000 is the minimum! Secondly, a drow cleric is described as being behind in class levels because she "sacrificed 16,000 experience points". But she's be 2 levels behind under the normal rules!

Under the normal rules, in fact, she'd always be the level a LA 0 character would without her most recently gained two levels worth of experience points. The LA buyoff rules let a character switch from being an ever-growing level's worth of XP behind to being a fixed amount behind. And since that fixed amount is a level's worth of XP at the point at which the switch is made, you're never behind by more than you are with the normal rules, and things only become more favorable as you progress to higher levels.

[Rhynn]

Uh-duhh. I thought there was something wrong, but I didn't manage to figure out what from reading the text. Thank you!

Obviously, with LA +1 and getting up to level 3 and ECL 4 (6,000 XP), paying 3,000 XP and losing the LA, you're now at 3,000 XP which puts you at level 3... so you got your level-up and lost the LA.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

LA buyoff interacts extremely favorably with multiple +1 LA acquired templates and/or gradually gaining a template (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/sp).

Start with a +1 LA, gain three class levels, buy it off.
Spend your next level to gain a +1 LA, whether by acquiring a template (Mineral Warrior, Lolth-Touched, Evolved Undead, etc.) or gaining a level in a gradually gained template (you don't have to take every level of those consecutively (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824a)). After three more class levels, you can buy that one off as well.
Repeat that second step as often as necessary, by 20th level you can have six points of level adjustment bought off.