Increasing Creature Size and Level Adjustments

[lytokk]

One of my players wants to play a large sized warforged. I found the table for increasing creature size, but I can't find anything about what sort of level adjustment should be included with the creature. Was going to use Ogres as the base template, but they've got those racial hit die to complicate things. Anyone have any advice?

[SolioFebalas]

I think it's simple: 1 size = +1 LA.

[lytokk]

So a +1 LA for +8 Str, -2 Dex, +4 Con, + 2 Natural AC, -1 AC and AB?

[Zanos]

Given that Goliaths are +1 LA for lesser stat adjustments and only get Powerful Build instead of large size, I'd argue that +1 size category with all relevant stat adjustments is worth at least +2, if not more.

You can get it for +1 LA with a couple templates in Dragon Magazine, but those are largely regarded as broken.

[MesiDoomstalker]

+1 Size category is a minimum of +1 LA, however it really depends on what the original and new size is. A tiny creature going to Small doesn't gain a whole lot of benefit. Medium to Large, however, gets a lot of benefits, including juicy juicy reach. I'd peg it at +2 LA simply because the difference between Medium and Large in power is pretty great.

[lytokk]

The situation is he wants to play a hulking hurler for flavor reasons and the restriction on that category is large size or bigger. I'm not 100% familiar with goliaths, so I can't say if adding the goliath template to the current warforged template would work.

I could always house rule that he could take it as a medium creature, but I prefer to not make house rules like that. It can always lead to accusations of favoritism, and potential imbalance.

[Zanos]

The situation is he wants to play a hulking hurler for flavor reasons and the restriction on that category is large size or bigger. I'm not 100% familiar with goliaths, so I can't say if adding the goliath template to the current warforged template would work.

I could always house rule that he could take it as a medium creature, but I prefer to not make house rules like that. It can always lead to accusations of favoritism, and potential imbalance.
Goliath (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040711b&page=5) is a race, sorry. Just using it as a point of comparison. A template that just increases size and gives the adjustment would be worth more than +1 LA, since you would also have the traits of the base race in addition to the size increases.

There are multiple ways to make a creature large RAW, but most of them don't work for warforged. If you just want to fiat it +2 LA for the stat adjustments and reach increase is probably fair.

[jindra34]

The innate boni for each step away from medium/small (whether going smaller or bigger) is mostly worth +1LA. The stats on top of that have to be rated seperately but probably are another +1 going bigger (and likely going littler too, given the low chances of anyone at tiny or below actually trying ANYTHING based on strength).

[lytokk]

I didn't mean template in the normal D&D sense of the word. More template as "I'm going to base my decision off of this, and tweak it somewhat to fit my needs" I realize goliath is a race, not a template. Like I've cooked up a warforged template in order to make other shapes, for example a warforged horse. The reasoning behind it, if the forges could make a humanoid warforged, why not set them up to make horsey warforged, or tiger warforged.

[Lucid]

A quick homebrew template that I think is reasonably balanced for +1 LA:
Large size, +2 Str, -2 Dex, +1 Natural Armor, + 10 ft. speed, -1 AC, -1 attack

[OldTrees1]

Savage species suggests giving +1 LA for Large size alone
Half Minotaur and Half Ogre give Large size and minor bonuses (+4Str, +2Con, -2 Int) for +1 LA [They also give the size bonuses but I consider it wise to ignore the size modifiers to stats given the nice ability modifiers already]

So
Using the chart's size modifiers (+8Str, +4Con, -2Dex) would be high LA+1 or low LA +2
Just giving Large would be low LA +1
Giving moderate ability modifiers (+4Str, -2Dex) and Large size would be medium LA +1

Select based upon the balance level your group plays at.

[lytokk]

Savage Species is an official Wizards book right? The whole idea behind this was to have good rule backing behind me when I made the decision. I try to stick within the official Wizards books for rulings.

Also, thank you for telling me which book half minotaurs and half ogres were in. I just couldn't find them and never thought of checking savage species.

[Zanos]

Savage Species is an official Wizards book right? The whole idea behind this was to have good rule backing behind me when I made the decision. I try to stick within the official Wizards books for rulings.

Also, thank you for telling me which book half minotaurs and half ogres were in. I just couldn't find them and never thought of checking savage species.

The half-minotaur and half-ogre templates being referred to are in Dragon Magazine 313. Savage species contains some rules for calculating Level Adjustments in general that are fairly useful, although you should note that it is a 3.0 book.

[lytokk]

with all the conversions I'm already making, going from 3.0 to 3.5 shouldn't be that bad. I jus need to make sure all of my other players stay balanced with the new guy.

[Telonius]

I've always found it very odd that advancing a monster to the next size category by hitdice gave such a change in stats, but doing so by other means (like Enlarge Person) affected it much less. Personally if I were homebrewing a "Large" template, it would be using Enlarge Person as a base, rather than the Monster Improvement table. Otherwise you'd have things like Gnomes gaining +4 to Strength if there were Medium characters.