In-Game Reason for Level Adjustment?

[atemu1234]

We all know why they exist out of game for balance reasons, but how is it explained in-game?

[Taveena]

Maybe you learn more slowly because you're relying on your native abilities?

[Rebel7284]

Experience doesn't exist in game... a creature with level adjustment is supposed to be approximately as powerful as the same ECL creature with a different/no adjustment. It's not like creatures know their BAB or something...

[sideswipe]

people adventure with people their own power level, so thats why you wont find a high level adjust creature with low ECL adventurers. no fun for them.

[Vhaidara]

Why is it that Elves, who live for hundreds of years before adventuring, start at level 1, just like humans, who start after a decade and a half?

Because a Wizard (of the Coast) said so.

[nedz]

Do Classes and Levels exist IC ?

Some people play that they do, others play that they are metagame concepts which only exist OOC: LA is the same really.

That said, I don't know how you create an IC interpretation ?

[sideswipe]

Why is it that Elves, who live for hundreds of years before adventuring, start at level 1, just like humans, who start after a decade and a half?

Because a Wizard (of the Coast) said so.

i say that it is the same way that elves are handled in warhammer, they think and ponder too much, they don't rush anything because they have time. *

humans try to cram a s**t tonne of things into a short time frame.

* if you read giantslayer felix talks to teclis, teclis says he will ponder what felix said about a subject, felix said "great, let me know what you think" teclis says
"your grandchildren will probably be long dead before i finish thinking and come to a decision"

[Judge_Worm]

They have less of a reason to learn or grow, until they need to.
For instance, a mindflayer hanging with a group of otherwise human adventurers won't grow at the same rate because while they and their pals are fighting goblins the mindflayer isn't in very much danger and don't need to advance as much. But, when they're fighting that adult gold dragon the mindflayer does need to adapt or learn new things. I use the same logic for long-lived races, until they need to they're not going to advance like humans, but once they start to adventure they need to grow and adapt.

[Prime32]

We all know why they exist out of game for balance reasons, but how is it explained in-game?What needs explaining? :smallconfused: A group of swordmasters come across a giant who can punch through walls, and invite them to join their group. Do you need an explanation for why everyone in the world is not of equal skill to them?

[Urpriest]

The only thing ECL does is affect how much XP you get from encounters. Since you're supposedly equal in power as a PC to another PC of your ECL (ha-ha) you get the same amount of XP from encounters that are equally difficult.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Adventure's grow through challenges and conflict, the greater the challenges the faster they grow. An ogre with one level in barbarian is going to find a goblin less challenging then a second level human fighter.

You can't expand your limits by not testing them.

[Pan151]

As the posters above have said, it's about whether or not a character is too powerful for an encounter to be meaningful in therms of battle experience.

A lv1 character with LA+0 is gonna have trouble fighting an orc, and will get lots of battle experience from the fight. A lv1 character with LA+6 will defeat the orc without breaking a sweat, and as such will learn nothing from the encounter. Lv1 characters with an LA somewhere in between will encounter difficulty and consequently gain experience somewhere in between.