Readjusting LA?

[HolyCouncilMagi]

Throughout all of D&D 3.5, though especially in the earlier books, creatures and templates have been released with terribly excessive LA, making them unplayable even for people without a mechanical competence-focused bone in their body. I was wanting to come up with specific fixes for the most commonly-desired templates, as well as general guidelines for rebalancing the LA of PC-compatible templates and monster races.

For the ones that are commonly desired, we can look to the Half-anything templates from the Monster Manual, like the Half-Fiend and the Half-Dragon. (Half-Fey, from an entirely different book, is totally fine where it is on the LA spectrum.) I think most of us can agree that none of those templates are good enough to justify more than LA +1, and even then they aren't equal options to going without a template unless LA buyoff is allowed. (In which case they do probably become a bit powerful, but not terribly so.)

For general rebalancing guidelines... To be perfectly frank, looking at the 3.5 Monster Manual 1's various non-Epic playable monstrous races, I can honestly say that only five-ish of them have anything approaching the goodness of class features built into their races (and four of those five actually are just racial progressions of class features). If you're playing anything other than a Fighter, class levels are pretty much always significantly superior to what the race is getting on its own, so RHD are practically LA in their own right. I think for the vast majority of creatures with more than 1 RHD, we can just cut the LA off entirely and they'll be far closer to "balanced for actual play." Again, there are exceptions; if you want to play a Planetar (which admittedly was obviously not intended for play given its LA -), for example, you're probably getting 4 LA at minimum, since no LA would give you Outsider benefits, a wide range of spell-like abilities and extra resistances/immunities, and three Cleric casting levels over your fellow party members. But in most cases, anything with a noteworthy amount of RHD is gimped enough by that to justify having 0 or 1 LA as opposed to LA that usually nearly matches the RHD of the creature.

What are you guys' thoughts on the issue?

[Eighthling]

Just make it the same as the cr adjustment. 5th level barbarian is cr 5, so a 5 cr creature (like a half dragon brarbarian 3) should be equivalent to a lvl 5 character, or at least as equal as 3.5 can be.

[Crake]

I actually have something of a solution that I've been playing around with for just this issue. I use an optional gestalt system that allows players to take LA as gestalt, spending xp to gain gestalt levels. Their ECL would remain roughly the same as the rest of the party as spend xp (since in this system ECL is determined by your XP spent on levels + XP spent on gestalt levels, compared to the normal advancement table), so there wouldn't be much parity there, and as the party gains levels, the xp spend on the gestalt would comparitively diminish, effectively reducing the ECL increase from having done so. Players also have the option to use this to class gestalt, which I think is roughly equal to gestalting LA (as opposed to putting the LA on the top, and losing things like HD and saves, which are rather a bit more important). If you'd like to know more, the link is in my signature.

Edit: I've been using it over the course of 2 games now, and it's worked out pretty good. For a rundown on party composition, I had the following

Game 1
Player 1: No gestalt Ice mage
Player 2: Half dragon (3 levels) gestalted desert wind swordsage
Player 3: Half Fiend-Half Fey gestalted generalist mage
Player 4: Half giant who gestalted warblade and psion, with phrenic on his psion side.

Game 2
Player 1: Equal savage progression vampire gestalted with cleric
Player 2: Winged template gestalted halfling druid (used a homebrew savage progression)
Player 3: Initally non-gestalted swordsage/rogue/assassin, but eventually turned vampire to save him from death, so started gestalting savage progression vampire unevenly (to represent him being behind in advancement to the other vampire)

[OldTrees1]

My Readjusting rule of thumb:

Count up the number of notable/impressive benefits(Large size, +8 net stat modifiers, Pounce, Fast Healing, respectable DR, Flight, ...). Notable benefits count as 1pt. Impressive benefits count as 2pts. This removes the junk abilities from obscuring our view.

Spend those points
Race: 1pt (depends on the norm for ECL 0 races)
1 RHD: 1pt
1 LA: 2 pts

For example: Ogre
+10 Str, -2 Dex, +4 Con, -4 Int, -2 Cha: 1pt
Large Size: 2pts
Could be restructured as 2 RHD Race or a +1 LA Race.

Sidenote: This rule of thumb assumes no LA buyoff.

[Urpriest]

Any reason not to use something analogous to this forum's homebrew monster classes? That tends to be the best solution to LA woes.

[Komatik]

That tends to be the best solution to LA woes.

I prefer "Kill it with fire". Is this acceptable?

[OldTrees1]

Any reason not to use something analogous to this forum's homebrew monster classes? That tends to be the best solution to LA woes.

Such a great resource! I have that bookmarked around 5 times.

Edit: It is also really useful for if you want to play as the Race rather than as a Race + Class combo.

[Flickerdart]

For the ones that are commonly desired, we can look to the Half-anything templates from the Monster Manual, like the Half-Fiend and the Half-Dragon. (Half-Fey, from an entirely different book, is totally fine where it is on the LA spectrum.) I think most of us can agree that none of those templates are good enough to justify more than LA +1, and even then they aren't equal options to going without a template unless LA buyoff is allowed. (In which case they do probably become a bit powerful, but not terribly so.)
Half-Fiend and Half-Celestial are every bit as good as Half-Fey, and actually better in most respects (hard to beat at-will Charm though, I'll give you that).

[Extra Anchovies]

Any reason not to use something analogous to this forum's homebrew monster classes? That tends to be the best solution to LA woes.

Is there one particular place where all (or at least some) of them are compiled, or would I just have to search through the homebrew subforum for them?

[Urpriest]

Is there one particular place where all (or at least some) of them are compiled, or would I just have to search through the homebrew subforum for them?

It's a bit scattered. Here's (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=270.0) the most recent index-style thread I could find, not sure if there's a similarly current on on Giantitp somewhere.

[atemu1234]

Just make it the same as the cr adjustment. 5th level barbarian is cr 5, so a 5 cr creature (like a half dragon brarbarian 3) should be equivalent to a lvl 5 character, or at least as equal as 3.5 can be.

This is what Pathfinder does.

I like it, because while LA often makes things unplayable by being just plain bad, this breaks in the other direction, in favor of the players. The Gentlemen's Agreement must be made beforehand though, in case anyone decides to do something stupid.

[Necroticplague]

This is what Pathfinder does.

I like it, because while LA often makes things unplayable by being just plain bad, this breaks in the other direction, in favor of the players. The Gentlemen's Agreement must be made beforehand though, in case anyone decides to do something stupid.

Honestly, I'm fine with things breaking more in the player's favor to be monstrous. If it helps people be something other than the same 5 freaking races with relatively little differences between them, I'm all for it.

Though I would point out, a small difference between the proposal and what pathfinder does: as stated, one still has to 'pay' the RHD. However, part of what makes being a monster in pathfinder so great is that that RHD are free (which honestly, I think makes more sense. Part of the CR is its HP, Bab, and saves, is it not?).