LA races and pathfinder

[molten_dragon]

So my group is making a switch to pathfinder soon, but we plan to keep 3.5 material available.

One of the changes is the races becoming more powerful in PF. So I'm wondering if some of 3.5's LA+1 races will fit in power level with the core PF races.

The various forms of planetouched for example seem like a clear fit.

Any other ideas?

[LOTRfan]

Aren't most Pathfinder races on par with LA +1 races in standard 3.X?

If that is indeed the case, the vast majority of the Planetouched races should work out fine. I'm rather fond of the Paragenasi, myself.

[Yora]

Pathfinder has it's own version of pretty much all planetouched. Could just use those.

[Gemini476]

Some quick things you should be aware of re:LA in Pathfinder:

For monsters as PCs, ECL=CR.

This is not quite like HD+LA=ECL, since you could have HD in excess of your ECL in PF.
The standard CR for a player race is Class Level-1, so the Drow Noble is actually CR+1.
No sane DM will let you play a Drow Noble from level 2.


Oh, and the Advanced Race Book had a bunch of tools for making races, so you could try recreating your planetouched races with that system to see how they match upl with the standard ones.

[Komatik]

Just allow any non-egregious ones flat. Sure, they'll be a bit better but unless party roles overlap heavily it won't be that much of a problem, and the "strong race" issue diminishes with levels anyway.

Most LA +1 and +2 races I've seen in 3.5 seem a decent enough fit for Pathfinder as-is.

[Keneth]

]No sane DM will let you play a Drow Noble from level 2.

You're right, I'd let my players play a drow noble from level 1. :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

The vast majority will work fine with 0 LA and may even be a bit weak even then. Keep in mind that several LA races got updated to PF already (e.g. Hobgoblins, Blues, Drow and Half-Giants) so you may want to take a quick look on the PFSRD and see if the ones you want to use are already there.


Pathfinder has it's own version of pretty much all planetouched. Could just use those.

Yep, and they get pretty cool racials/racial feats to boot.

Ifrits (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-ifrit) - Fire Genasi
Sylphs (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-sylph) - Air Genasi
Oreads (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-oread) - Earth Genasi
Undines (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-undine) - Water Genasi

[Gemini476]

You're right, I'd let my players play a drow noble from level 1. :smalltongue:

I said level two since they have an effective LA of +1.
But yeah, they're all kinds of ridiculous. Not so much at higher levels, but that's just Classes being better than Races.

[Komatik]

Drow Noble?

[Gemini476]

Drow Noble?

Drow Noble. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/drow-common/drow-noble)

[Psyren]

The sidebar on that page suggests making them LA +1. Considering how rarely Paizo makes that suggestion about any race I'm inclined to listen.

EDIT: The thread that recommendation is sourced from also recommends letting them buy off the LA, but that it's the DM's job to figure out when to do that as it depends on the group.

[Komatik]

Pretty strong, but probably just ends up having a bunch of wasted high ability scores. Makes for less-horrid Paladins, ironically. :D

+4 Dex seems like unnecessary overkill.

The one thing I love about these, though? The freaking SLAs are at-will instead of nonsensical 1/day.

[molten_dragon]

Pathfinder has it's own version of pretty much all planetouched. Could just use those.

Okay, I didn't know that, I've pretty much just looked through the core rules so far. That was just an example though.

[Gemini476]

The sidebar on that page suggests making them LA +1. Considering how rarely Paizo makes that suggestion about any race I'm inclined to listen.

EDIT: The thread that recommendation is sourced from also recommends letting them buy off the LA, but that it's the DM's job to figure out when to do that as it depends on the group.

It's not as much a suggestion as it is an editing error. The Drow Noble is CR+1, it's just referred to such in a way that requires you to be very aware of the rules to understand. A normal PC has a CR equal to Class Level -1. A Drow Noble has CR=Class Level.

So yeah. It's very obtuse, and needed clarification.

[Keneth]

I said level two since they have an effective LA of +1.

Actually, they have no effective LA as Pathfinder has no LA. Which is why I said level 1. :smalltongue:


The sidebar on that page suggests making them LA +1. Considering how rarely Paizo makes that suggestion about any race I'm inclined to listen.

The thread was made long before the release of Advanced Race Guide which just puts them at 41 RP and as per the suggestion in that book on playing powerful races, a drow noble in a group of otherwise standard race character wouldn't even increase the encounter level, much less get LA slapped on them.

[Greenish]

The thread was made long before the release of Advanced Race Guide which just puts them at 41 RP and as per the suggestion in that book on playing powerful races, a drow noble in a group of otherwise standard race character wouldn't even increase the encounter level, much less get LA slapped on them.The sidebar on pg. 219 ("Challenging Advanced and Monstrous Races") seems to suggest that a Drow Noble in a group of, say, four 10 RP races, would raise the APL of the party by one before 6th level.


[Edit]: Eyeballing the list of +1 LA creatures (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=189980), they look to be pretty even with PF races, some maybe even a bit weak (looking at you, diabolus).

[137beth]

recommends letting them buy off the LA, but that it's the DM's job to figure out when to do that as it depends on the group.
It is. In 3.5, there was an "official" LA-buyoff in UA, but it is highly group-dependent. Even in 3.5, the DM should decide how LA and LA-buyoff works based on the specifics of the group. Paizo could very easily have written their own LA system, but it still would need to be completely altered for each group, making a standardized LA system worthless. That's why Paizo got rid of it.

[Keneth]

The sidebar on pg. 219 ("Challenging Advanced and Monstrous Races") seems to suggest that a Drow Noble in a group of, say, four 10 RP races, would raise the APL of the party by one before 6th level.

I guess it depends on how you round your numbers. In D&D you generally round everything down, so an average of ~16 RP would round down to 10 which imposes no EL increase, but you could just as well round it normally to 20. Since the CR system is completely screwed up to begin with, the suggestion in the sidebar is far too generic to be used as a meaningful guideline, but it does provide a starting point. Either way I stand firmly behind the notion that it's the GM's job to challenge players accordingly, rather than punish them for making character choices that they approved.

This is especially true in the case of drow nobles and similar races/templates, since the built-in "LA" guidelines in Pathfinder don't allow you to buy off more than half the LA rounded down. Meaning you'd be lagging behind for the entire game, whereas your racial bonuses would become negligible at low-mid levels.