Pathfinder's racial points-system and "average party level"

[Segev]

So, in the Races book, Pathfinder gives us rules for various PC-intended races with different "points" costs to build them, as well as a system for building those races so we can create custom ones. This is cool. But they then go on to discuss how having one or more characters with significantly higher points-value races raise the "average party level," making the party count as higher level for purposes of its encounters and the exp it receives from them. No mention is made of the individual characters being considered higher level than their HD/class level. This strikes me as backwards: it punishes those with weaker races twice. First, they are playing weaker characters and thus have less to contribute to the success of the party. Second, they receive exp as if they were higher level than they are, so they must face the higher-difficulty challenges for the same reward.

Is there a reason that PF did not give a means to actually calculate a recommended Level Adjustment or CR base for higher-point races?

An earlier rule had CR count as ECL for monsters-as-PCs, but the Races book seems to put that aside in favor of simply raising the "APL" of the party as a whole when you add a half-dragon to it. As best I can tell, the intent is that the half-dragon have the same level as the rest of the party, but the effective average party level goes up. Am I just misunderstanding these rules, or am I missing something that makes this work out well? Is there ANY reason, from an optimization standpoint, to play a lower-point race rather than a higher-point one? Sure, it raises the APL, but you'll still be on the high side of the contributors to that APL, so the CRs you'll be facing with the party are easier than they would be in a party of all your race. It's those who don't play the high-point races that feel underpowered compared to the encounters, at that point.

Or am I wrong?

[Craft (Cheese)]

PF's system for this doesn't have any actual consequences in terms of the rules, it's just there as a (very rough) guideline for "Hey, if some or all of your players are playing dudes with a bunch of huge racial stat adjustments and SLAs, here's how you should adjust the encounters to compensate." For better or worse they don't even try to give official guidelines on how to maintain intra-party balance between different PCs.

[Iwasforger03]

Pathfinder Tossed Level Adjustment out on its ass. They don't seem to like it and they certainly aren't using it. They replaced everything with CR and APL Adjustments (all of them basically estimates) and personally I like it. It does get stupid if you've got a couple guys in the party running around with templates, but those are no longer, i believe, intended for player use (though I could easily be wrong, a couple templates sure as hell look like they were made for players, but again, throwing out LA seems like a good indication they aren't for players anymore).

Players can clearly still use them, but it's on the DM what to allow in terms of templates, how to adjust for them, and how to balance who has/doesn't have templates, why, and how many various templates they can stack on. If you go with the purely pathfinder system internally, I believe it can still work, as the CR adjustments can be used to account for APL changes because of templates, and if you allow all players to have effectively equal templates it balances out to an extent, though seeing as you could do some staggeringly insane things by stacking the right templates, it isn't 100%.

As to races no longer having LA, well, those rules are suggestions, and are meant mainly for the DM. I believe Pathfinder didn't want its players punished for wanting to play powerful races like Aasimars/tieflings etc, and thusly removed LA to that end.

Note that by Pathfinder's own Race builder Rules, one of the core races, I think it was Dwarves or Halflings, is an 11pt Race and technically deserves an LA +1 if I interpret what they did correctly. Thankfully, with no LA running around, there's no need to worry about it.

[Psyren]

As I mentioned in another thread: Kasatha have 20 RP and are considered LA 0 in Bestiary 4. So you could make an argument for going at least that high with no LA or adjustments necessary.

There are at least two races with flight at level 1 in the ARG as well (Strix and Wyvarans) - both are also considered LA 0.

[Iwasforger03]

So far as I know, even Gargoyle and Centaur have no listed level adjustment, and both are above 20rp. NOTHING in pathfinder has any listed LA at all.

[Segev]

Is there a reasonable way to translate the impact of a "high-point" race on APL into a level adjustment?

[Psyren]

So far as I know, even Gargoyle and Centaur have no listed level adjustment, and both are above 20rp. NOTHING in pathfinder has any listed LA at all.

Indeed - it is left up to individual DMs to decide a "threshold" at which they would begin requiring/imposing CR adjustments.

Pretty much everything above 20 RP is +1 or more LA in 3.5 though (and includes complicated races like gargoyles and centaurs, as you mentioned) so that is as good a benchmark as any.

But creating races, like creating monsters, is as much art as science - it is possible to create something that is at or slightly lower than 20 yet has significantly more power than "standard" races of the same point value. What Paizo are trying to drive home is that there is not going to be a one-size-fits-all race creator that works perfectly for every group.


Is there a reasonable way to translate the impact of a "high-point" race on APL into a level adjustment?

Your best bet is probably to build something and then poll the forum to see what LA it would be worth if it were in 3.5 (or CR adjustment if it were in PF - some PF races like the Drow Noble have "functional LA.")

[Anlashok]

Honestly you usually don't have to go much farther than telling people not to play drow nobles or svirneblin and maybe do some stuff to patch up a couple of the ****ty races if someone picks them (gnolls, kobolds) and you're done.


The RP system as is doesn't judge character power very well.

[Feint's End]

2 things:

First paizo did a pretty genius thing when they decided not to write down every little rule so people could start arguing over them and lead to RAW/RAI problems. It's so people can decide for themselves what is appropriate for their group.

Second. It's much more important how well people can optimise and what classes they play. You can give a bad player with a fighter a race for 30 points and he will still stuck compared to the optimised wizard.

Last but not least I pick class out of flavour and I know that many other people do too. So playing a strip for example is not an option for everyone just because they have flight

[Segev]

Honestly, I do like PF's original "CR is the ECL" rule for monsters as PCs. It always made more sense to me, and seems in practice to lead to viable but not overpowering monster characters.

Having an RP->CR conversion would be nice.

[Psyren]

Having an RP->CR conversion would be nice.

That would just lead to people gaming the system to get things like SR, flight, racial SLAs/save bonuses and a bonus feat on a "LA 0" chassis and get into so many arguments with their DM over it that the whole book ends up being banned.

Yeah it's unfortunate that there is no stated threshold or hard guideline for LA 0 and LA 1, but the alternative is far worse. They'd never hear the end of it.