Level adjustment: why it is important and how I am as a new player left in the dirt

[HurinSmite]

So I've was invited into my first game of 3.5 a few weeks ago, having played as a DM in of Pathfinder and player 3.0-based videogames I figured I shouldn't have too much trouble getting into the system. I was told to make a lvl 8 character and buy for the appropriate gold some gear before coming to the session. I was told the party was as follows:


Druid
Ranger
Sorcerer
Soulborn (wife of DM) <- Foreshadowing


I made a skillmonkey since that's what they said were missing.

Everything was great in the beginning, people were friendly, Dm is friendly. But during the session I noticed things that worried me. The druid had some rolls he had to do while in combat to not lose control, he was also able to change into a bear. He had the werebear template. I noticed following stats/features about his druid during the session:

Strength in the thirties. Which hints they are using the template given here on Srd20. It would fit since that gives +16 to STR. That template also gives a LA of +3
20+ AC without spells

It was explained to me that he got it at an earlier in the campaign. I accepted that as an excuse to circumvent the LA. He was, as me, lvl 8. Just a lot more

But the real problem was with the Soulborn, the wife of the DM. (I've read enough tabletop stories to know that I needed to be watchful about any special treatment)

I knew it was a soulborn before I came to the session. I didn't have time to read up on it (I had to teach myself 3.5 first and make a lvl 8 character remember?) but I read it was full BAB and seemed to be a sort of frontliner character. True enough she said she was the tank. But here is what I gathered about her character:

+14 in initiative (was wearing somekind of Medium armor, but said she had improved initiative)
Her Soulweapon appears in her hand magically (I don't know how soulborn so I thought that was a feature)
When she summoned her weapon a crown also seemed to appear on her head
Able to dish out 25+ damage per hit
Never needed to rest (Ring of sustenance)
Was neutral good (A minor thing but Soulborns were supposed to be LG,CG,LE or CE)
Never did get hit by anything
Immune to mind affecting effects (explained shortly why)
Constant detect magic (magic item perhaps?)

Here I started thinking that this Soulborn class must be quite powerful since mind immunity seems... powerful for a lvl 8. The bomb was then dropped on me. She was a vampire. A neutral good vampire. A Neutral good vampire that could walk in the sunlight with no problems. Later in the session we were in an encounter she showed just how many vampire powers she had:

Spiderclimb (was able to climb without any troubles)
Atlernate form (standart action dire bat, dire wolf etc)
Gaseous form (standart action)
Immune to sunlight
Thermovision (This one I couldn't find on d20srd - but it was used like Predator. Flawless spotting of anything living)

It came to an end and I voiced my concerns about the power of these two characters. Dm and the players explained there was taken consideration. For example that the Soulborn had a LA of +2 since it was a template that was added at creation (the beginning of the campaign)

A later day I checked up on the vampire template. It's a LA of +8. Granted some people on forums claim that +8 is a bit too much. But a sunlight immune neutral good vampire? that cant be a +2!

I plan to talk with them about it more. I am not just writing this to scream into a can. But because I am wondering how solid my reasoning is. My character for comparison is a human rogue lvl 8 with 4d6 rolled ability scores.

Thanks for reading this. It was a lot longer than I anticipated.

Update: Had a talk. Not immune to sunlight (So I have to find that magic item before I kill her) and Thermovision was just their word for Blindsense 40 feet a direbat gets when the soulborn is in alternate form.

[GilesTheCleric]

It sounds like the group is playing a little fast and loose with the rules. But, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Your post doesn't describe any sort of favoritism or that you're not getting a chance in the spotlight. I bet that if you keep an open mind and play to have fun that you'll get all sorts of neat things, too. Not everyone follows strict RAW like the folks here on the boards talk about; RAW is really more useful as a conversation tool than it is a reflection of how the game is played.

[Lhurgyof]

Ouch. Those are some pretty big red flags...

As for the Thermovision, I'm assuming she took the Life Sight feat from Libris Mortis, it allows you to see living creatures in the way you described.

But as for ignoring the LA, sheesh that's bad. Perhaps show them Templates as classes to level in (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824a), since this seems much more appropriate than just giving them out for free.

As for the favoritism with the wife: I think it's likely she doesn't know the rules as well (considering she missed the whole alignment thing), and the DM is just telling her what to take/do? I'm not sure.

[PallentisLunam]

Well, not to throw fuel on the fire but the vampire and werebear template actually produce the same ECL because the werebear gets the RHD of a bear... so depending on the third player maybe everybody is balanced to the same power level and you're going to get a hefty template in a bit?

[Apricot]

I agree with Giles. See if you can have fun with their style of play first, by thinking more about what things it would be cool for your character to do and then asking the DM about it, and then if you run into unfair treatment, seek another group. It's fine to ditch rules if the group feels it's more fun without them, but extreme player favoritism isn't okay.

And if they do let you do as you please and you still don't enjoy it, it goes without saying that you should find another group. But you probably shouldn't try and tell them that they're playing the game wrong, because the right way is to enjoy yourself. Maybe if the DM runs into problems making challenging encounters, you could point out the LA rules and suggest knocking up the difficulty a few notches to compensate.

[daremetoidareyo]

And if they do let you do as you please and you still don't enjoy it, it goes without saying that you should find another group. But you probably shouldn't try and tell them that they're playing the game wrong, because the right way is to enjoy yourself. Maybe if the DM runs into problems making challenging encounters, you could point out the LA rules and suggest knocking up the difficulty a few notches to compensate.

Plus, as a skill monkey type, you could probably enjoy font of inspiration cheese on a dark templated factotum. This is your time to shine!

[ExLibrisMortis]

You should first try to obtain a template of your own, through in-game means. For example, try to get the Phantom template, or the Shadow template, or even just the Dark template. Perfect for stealthy skillmonkeys, and it sounds like the DM is perfectly willing to grant high-power templates.

Incidentally: I really dislike the vampire template, because it's so lopsided. It boosts a lot of things: +8 racial to 7 skills, 5 bonus feats, +18 total ability scores, and a whole bunch of special attacks. It also has LA +8. If you just take levels in, say, martial rogue, you get 8d12 hp (necropolitan HD), +8 to more skills, 6-7 feats (of which 4 fighter bonus feats), +2-3 will/fort and +4 reflex, and +6 base attack (an extra iterative). I'm sure there are classes that can emulate the energy drain (level of Soul Eater?), polymorph (true dragon with Alternate Form?), and other abilities as well - better than the relatively tame martial rogue.

[Segev]

Yeah, I suggest playing for a bit and seeing where it goes.

To be truly fair, Soulborn is one of the weakest classes in the game. Arguably weaker even than the Fighter. So at least she's paired a potentially overpowered template with a very weak class.

[Beheld]

1) LA is really dumb. +8 for a Vampire is not a little too much, it is unplayable. A Vampire template that only offered undead immunities, Spiderclimb, Atlernate form (standart action dire bat, dire wolf etc), Gaseous form (standart action) and negated sunlight immunities could just be +2 LA, as long as it didn't grant too much in the way of ability boosts or negative levels on attacks. You can get undead immunities for zero LA, unkillable vampiricness doesn't even need LA since it's a plot ability not anything that actually helps in combat.

2) A Druidic werebear is nonsense. He's a Druid, he can just turn into a bear. So yeah, it's dumb that the Druid gets huge stat boosts that he doesn't even need to emulate something he can already emulate for free.

3) There are obviously problems here, but just based on your complaints so far, you probably aren't qualified to judge them. So when it comes to approaching your party, you should bring up your issues, and talk about the LA of werebear and vampire, but say that you understand that you don't know everything about D&D, but it feels like your character is much weaker because of things like this, and so you would like someone to explain how the group made these character balance decisions, and that you would like to know how you are supposed to keep up.

[HurinSmite]

Talked with the soulborn player And I've written in the OP that Thermovision and immunity to sunlight wasn't really a thing. She told me that things from the vampire template has been taken away and it's actually a +3.
*deep breath*
I think I can do this. I am a sucker for learning the rules and following them by the books. But seeing that the ranger and sorcerer aren't completely in the loop about the rules (Btw the wife is definetly not new to the game - this is not a case about the husband doing it for her) I can understand that they might want to turn down the rules and turn up the fun.

I think the majority of you are right. It's not a big deal as it might be. Especially now when I know I get the same treatment :smallamused: I start making my Spellthief as powerful as can be. Since I don't want exploit the looseness of the rules I'll be satisfied with being a Gestalt Spellthief(CAd)/Hellbreaker(FC2) with a bloodline from UA2 - All for the meager LA of +2. Any suggestions/alternatives?:smalltongue:

[Prime32]

If the werebear needs to make rolls to control their shape, then they're an afflicted lycanthrope (LA +2, DR 5/silver, cannot transmit lycanthropy) rather than a natural one (LA +3, DR 10/silver, can transmit lycanthropy). But a werebear has levels in bear on top of their LA. If his animal form is a black bear (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/bearBlack.htm) for instance, then to count as an lv8 character he'd need to be a druid 3/animal 3/lycanthrope 2. If his animal form is a brown bear (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/bearBrown.htm) with 6 HD, as with the example werebear, then at lv8 he shouldn't have any class levels at all.
Granted, most forms of lycanthropy are overpriced - animal HD suck compared to actual class levels.

Soulborn, as an incarnum class, has the ability to equip itself with temporary magic items at the start of each day, and can focus on them to increase their power (you can divide your focus between multiple items, and change how it's divided up as a swift action, but the maximum focus you can put in a single item is capped). However, soulborn is by far the weakest incarnum class, to the point where a fighter with incarnum feats can arguably do its job better.
Presumably the Ring of Sustenance is to take away her need to drink blood, so her immunity to sunlight might come from a magic item as well.
"Thermovision" is either that Libris Mortis feat, or infravision (the 2e version of darkvision (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Infravision)).


Whether by choice or by misunderstanding, it seems your group is using CR in place of LA.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

[MisterKaws]

I think she is, for some weird reason, using a crazy mix of all the existing soulmelds(magic item-like thingies the soulborn and other classes create), instead of using only the soulborn's soulmelds, particularly these:

Incarnate Weapon: Incarnate(duh)-only soulmeld, NG summons a giant warhammer.

Planar Ward: Incarnate again, it simply suppresses any mind-affecting effects or just plain anything that tries to control the user, though they are NOT unable to target them, simply suppressed as long as the ward is in effect.

The crown could be the Shedu Crown, a Totemist soulmeld, which gives some minor effects, and when bound to the crown chakra, gives telepathy to the user, maybe another possible explanation for her weird senses, as the Mindsight feat(detects anything with a mind) is pretty frequently used with this.

Thought there might be some weird stuff going around with the initiative unless she spent most of her feats into shaping additional soulmelds, because the Soulborn can only get two at level 8(nope, she's 6, that's totally cheesy), but maybe she put one more feat on Bluesteel Bracers to get +2 to init, then spent A LOT of money into getting tons of initiative boosters, otherwise, maybe obnoxiously high dex, though she would be limiting herself in this case, because that much dex shouldn't be able to apply completely in medium armor.

Edit before even posting, 'cause reasons: Yup, they're putting homebrewed rules on a lot of things, because she couldn't have all of those abilities, not even close to it, really. You should talk to the DM and ask for something to your character too, it's pretty unfair otherwise. Fiend Folio's Half-Fey or MMIII's Spellwarped should help a skillmonkey enough, and could actually be considered pretty weak compared to a werebear druid *shivers* or a homebrewed Daywalker NG Vampire Soulborn with a cheesy amount of soulmelds, even a half-fey spellwarped would be weak compared to that, really.

[LTwerewolf]

I would like to point out that dealing 25 points of damage pet hit at level 8 isn't really impressive. Someone two handing a weapon at that level should be able to hit those numbers by rolling poorly, and most others should be able to hit that with little effort.

[Âmesang]

If she hasn't done so already she could also pick up Endure Sunlight from Libris Mortis to mitigate some of its problems (at least enough for a vampire to get out of the sun before combusting. Darn you, Nosferatu!).

[icefractal]

I would like to point out that dealing 25 points of damage pet hit at level 8 isn't really impressive. Someone two handing a weapon at that level should be able to hit those numbers by rolling poorly, and most others should be able to hit that with little effort.This. I'm not saying they aren't playing fast and loose with the rules, but I think you may need to calibrate your expectations about 8th level, because most of what you describe seems pretty normal.

* +14 initiative is uncommon, but easily do-able by 8th level if you focus on it.
* Ring of Sustenance is cheap, as would be an item of constant Detect Magic.
* Immunity to mind-affecting isn't common, but can be acquired by Necropolitan, which is a +0 LA template (does cost a level when you get it though).
* 25 damage per hit is if anything low for a two-handed weapon at this level.
* Getting a climb speed is also not difficult by this level.

Also, Soulborn is a notably weak class. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if they'd house-ruled some improvements. Or perhaps the low-LA vampire-ness is their solution to that.

While favoritism is possible, this could just be a case of the GM handing out templates freely. So it may be worth sticking around and trying to acquire one yourself. Assuming that letting the rules slip a little isn't too annoying for you to enjoy.

[HurinSmite]

I am calibrating my expectations for damage for a lvl 8 then! Good you guys are telling me. Didn't know excactly what it high and what is low at that level range.

[LTwerewolf]

Average damage on a greatsword is 7 (3.5+3.5). It's safe to assume a strength of 20 at this point, so that adds 7 more to it, so you're at 14. Assuming power attack, that's +16 (+8x2 for 2h). You're at 30 with a single feat investment with at this level pretty low strength and no magic items. At level 8 you can start seeing +2 weapons, str increasing items, feats and weapon enchants to increase damage further, etc. If they were pulling an average damage of 28 with a single dagger and no sneak attack, then sure that's a little out of wack, but 28 is pretty tame compared to what it could be. Any reasonable barbarian is running around with at least 26 strength, and minimum +1 weapons. That's 20 damage before power attack (which can easily give +16, if not more from other feats like leap attack). In my groups with moderate to low op, barbarians at 8 run around with ~50-60 damage hits. As has been said before, soulborn is pretty terribad.

[HurinSmite]

You might think I was kidding when I mentioned gestalt in an earlier post. But here's how it is. I am allowed to come with an concept for a gestalt character where I get Spellthief and Hellbreaker in the following way:

lvl 1 - 2 Spellthief. So at the end a level 2 Spellthief
lvl 3 - 13 Spellthief and Hellbreaker. So at the end a level 10 Hellbreaker and a level 13 Spellthief.

Since Hellbreaker in Fiendish Codex 2 is a prestige class it only has 10 levels. I was asked to come with a suggestion to what would happen in a hellbreaker prestige class in level 11-17, and keeping with the theme of the prestige class. I, naturally, accepted the challenge and now I am here.

Does anyone here have any suggestion what could happen in the hellbreaker that would fit thematically with the prestige class?

Fyi I can't link to the prestige class yet because of not enough posts. But just search hellbreaker srd.

[JyP]

my only grain of salt would be that hellbreakers are debuffers helping to take on demons and "kill" them. So it would make sense that the character becomes more and more fiendish as he gains levels.

first gestalt : spellthief / hellbreaker
second gestalt : savage progression to become an half-fiend :smallwink: