A solution to the problem of Level Adjustment...

[Durzan]

One of my friends has developed a rather simple and effective way of solving the problems of level adjustment & ECL, and from what I've heard and seen, its rather quite effective.

Normally ECL = (Racial HD + Class Levels + LA). This leads to quite a few problems with gaining levels as a monster PC.

What he does instead is change ECL to where it equals (Class Levels + LA). His justification is that the LA is added to a race to account BECAUSE of additional hit dice and special abilities, so therefore the RAW formula is essentially double counting racial hit dice.

Now, I'm not sure how well this would work out for most of you, but for me and him, it has worked wonders for the many years we've been playing.

As usual, your milage may vary... you may find it necessary to tweak LA's if you implement this. Please consult your doctor to see if this simple rule change is right for you.

[ComaVision]

So being an ECL 4 Fire Giant with 15 HD is reasonable in your group?

[Necroticplague]

That's basically one of the 3 minor changes to playing a monster Pathfinder made. The other two are that buy-off it automatic and free, up to a limit, and making CR used in place of making explicit LAs. I should note this can create problems with allowing earlier access to things that are normally gated by the assumption that your HD aren't more than your level, like skills (more HD=higher skill point cap=earlier access to skill-gated feats), base attack bonus, saves, feat amount, and similar.

[BowStreetRunner]

So being an ECL 4 Fire Giant with 15 HD is reasonable in your group?

The power curve is about right compared with the Monstrous Crab (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040221a).

[Durzan]

So being an ECL 4 Fire Giant with 15 HD is reasonable in your group?

I dunno. No one has ever tried to create a fire giant character in my group. Most stick to lower level adjustments, if they do that at all.

The most creative I've seen was a Half-Dragon/Half Lizard-Folk Character who started out with over twenty strength, but thats about it... and that character was created by my friend to serve as a secondary character in a solo campaign we were playing (just me and him, with him as the GM). It was an interesting party...

My group tends to play rather high powered campaigns compared to most groups, and both he and I are pretty chill about stuff. Most of us consider anything less than 14 to be bad ability scores. (Bad as in penalty to almost meaningless bonus that is.)

[ryu]

So being an ECL 4 Fire Giant with 15 HD is reasonable in your group?

So you've got a big pile of HP and some neat benefits. Big whoop. Still less powerful than what you could be doing by that level with intelligent use of classes.

[Durzan]

So you've got a big pile of HP and some neat benefits. Big whoop. Still less powerful than what you could be doing by that level with intelligent use of classes.

Not much of a problem when you play a game where you just keep going past level 20. You max out a class, you multi-class. As I said, our group is pretty chill. But hey, thats what you get when you've been raised using a heavily home-brewed game.

[ComaVision]

So you've got a big pile of HP and some neat benefits. Big whoop. Still less powerful than what you could be doing by that level with intelligent use of classes.

What, Pun Pun? Seriously, what is more powerful at ECL 4? I'd rather take +8 natty armour, +20 strength, and a lot of BaB, Feats, and Saves.

[ryu]

What, Pun Pun? Seriously, what is more powerful at ECL 4? I'd rather take +8 natty armour, +20 strength, and a lot of BaB, Feats, and Saves.

If we're going for maximum early game power? Optimized druid. Seriously. Just optimized druids.

Abrupt jaunting fiery burst wizards also have a nastier defense game and more versatility due to spells.

[Flickerdart]

Black Ethergaunts have +3 LA, and bennies like +20 Intelligence and 17th level wizard casting.

[ryu]

Black Ethergaunts have +3 LA, and bennies like +20 Intelligence and 17th level wizard casting.

Now see that? That is the case you make for this rule allowing crazy power at low levels.

[Troacctid]

Don't mind me, I'll just be over here playing a devastation beetle entomanothrope.

[Durzan]

Now see that? That is the case you make for this rule allowing crazy power at low levels.

Of course, its GM protocol on what races are allowed and what aren't. My group never went as crazy as you guys are suggesting, so the issue never really crossed my mind.

[Telonius]

That's the unfortunate consequence of a few very powerful monsters not uniformly created. Some are high-LA, low-HD for their CR; some are low-LA, high-HD for their CR. There's not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution.

[ComaVision]

If we're going for maximum early game power? Optimized druid. Seriously. Just optimized druids.

Abrupt jaunting fiery burst wizards also have a nastier defense game and more versatility due to spells.


Now see that? That is the case you make for this rule allowing crazy power at low levels.

A Fire Giant is still much more powerful than a druid or wizard at ECL 4.

[Pugwampy]

So being an ECL 4 Fire Giant with 15 HD is reasonable in your group?


I dunno. No one has ever tried to create a fire giant character in my group.

Fire Jovian barbarian <half breed> . Unreasonable and irritating but I allowed it due to that was a great effort on the part of the new enthusiastic player who did not understand about level adjustment rules . My only rule was he could never level up till other players caught up . It was half my fault I guess . I showed the player Goliaths and Half Ogres .

I tossed stronger dinosaurs and all players hid behind the Jovian . Things like this is a great opportunity to bring out an uber TPK beastie that gets whipped .

[ryu]

A Fire Giant is still much more powerful than a druid or wizard at ECL 4.

I've literally killed fire giants as a level 4 wizard. Granted we were a party, but it wasn't alone either.

[Zanos]

Of course, its GM protocol on what races are allowed and what aren't. My group never went as crazy as you guys are suggesting, so the issue never really crossed my mind.
If you're going to propose a general solution to a complex problem, people are going to poke holes in it.

Something that I find works slightly well, but is still not perfect, is just to have monsters count as having a level equal to their CR for being player characters.

[OldTrees1]

Of course, its GM protocol on what races are allowed and what aren't. My group never went as crazy as you guys are suggesting, so the issue never really crossed my mind.

The solution you are proposing is "When determining ECL: Ignore RHD and recalculate LA to account for ignoring RHD". (Technically you said Ignore RHD and tweak LA, but same thing)

Since that is mathematically equivalent to "When determining ECL: Recalculate ECL" then it is a functional solution when the "and tweak LA" is included.

Considering WotC usually erred by overestimating ECL then your solution can frequently be better than the status quo even without the "and tweak LA" part.

When even the naive version (without LA tweak) of your solution has merit I think that speaks well for your full (with LA tweak) solution.

:smallsmile:

[P.F.]

Something that I find works slightly well, but is still not perfect, is just to have monsters count as having a level equal to their CR for being player characters.

This works well for monsters whose CR is very close to their HD+LA. It's less-than-perfect with monsters with a low CR compared to their HD, and monsters with high LA compared to their CR.

The other problem I have with this is that it completely ignores the intentional difference between CR and ECL, which, again, isn't an issue if the ECL and CR are very close, but makes a huge difference when the disparity is large.

It's easier to see the difference when racial hit dice can be ignored, as in the case of a template. A single random dungeon encounter with a vampire is only slightly harder than an encounter against the base creature; CR +2. A vampire recurring villain which stalks, harasses, and plots against the party is much more likely than the base creature to kill one or more PC's; LA +8.

For many monsters with racial hit dice, no ECL adjustment is going to make them equivalent to human adventurers; it's like trying to balance class tiers by giving the fighter extra levels--it changes the balance points a little, but doesn't address the core issue.

In my opinion the best way to incorporate monster races is to either

1, Run a monster-oriented campaign with an all-monster party. Rather than generic encounters, the players fight mostly against other monsters of equivalent types, and against a carefully curated list of suitable opponents. some encounters which would be easy for human adventurers will be harder for monsters, and vice versa. Experience awards must be adjusted accordingly. Some racial hit dice can also be replaced with PC class levels to keep the total HD down. These replaced hit dice do not affect the monster's spell-like abilities, special qualities, &c., but do affect hit points, skills, and other level/HD-dependent benefits. This is a good setup for players who just absolutely have to be both tier-1 full casters AND angels, for example.

OR ... 2, Use a combination of savage/racial progression and (iof needed) racial HD replacement. For monsters whose racial HD do not have adequate features across all levels, the character alternates (or otherwise chooses) between levels in a PC class and "levels" of the monster. This keeps ECL equal to or only slightly greater than the character's HD, and accommodates mixed parties of monsters and human adventurers. Racial bonuses, spell-like abilities, immunities, &c., must be carefully incremented and delayed to ensure appropriate power progression. What's appropriate depends on the group, but unless the party is highly optimized (or fully munchkinized), a tier-3 or tier-4 power arc is probably best.

[jywu98]

Frank and K's Tomes have a pretty good solution for this

[VisitingDaGulag]

You aren't the only one who's thought of that (and had it work).

A more refined version that works with all of the above objections is here http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8770.msg140050#msg140050

[Inevitability]

I've literally killed fire giants as a level 4 wizard. Granted we were a party, but it wasn't alone either.

'X can kill Y, so Y should have a lower ECL than X' is not a good argument. I might as well say that because I can make a 1st-level commoner able to kill the tarrasque (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?365674-Madness-Tarrasquekiller-Slaying-the-Tarrasque-as-a-1st-level-commoner), the latter should have an ECL of 1.

[ryu]

'X can kill Y, so Y should have a lower ECL than X' is not a good argument. I might as well say that because I can make a 1st-level commoner able to kill the tarrasque (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?365674-Madness-Tarrasquekiller-Slaying-the-Tarrasque-as-a-1st-level-commoner), the latter should have an ECL of 1.

AND IT SHOULD. The tarrasque isn't a legitimate threat. Never has been and never will be. At least the fire giant we killed had access to some manner of ranged option so that a simple fly spell couldn't render it harmless. Not so for that pathetic excuse for a creature. I've literally seen things that are CR 2 that are legitimately more threatening than big T in an absolute sense.

[Inevitability]

AND IT SHOULD. The tarrasque isn't a legitimate threat. Never has been and never will be. At least the fire giant we killed had access to some manner of ranged option so that a simple fly spell couldn't render it harmless. Not so for that pathetic excuse for a creature. I've literally seen things that are CR 2 that are legitimately more threatening than big T in an absolute sense.

...

You are literally arguing for the tarrasque being ECL 1?

Let me point something out to you: the tarrasque does indeed fail to pose a legitimate threat to flying creatures.

However, neither can a 1st-level water orc barbarian, or even a 1st-level dragonborn gray elf wizard who doesn't have certain spells. That's okay: they can grow and become more powerful and eventually gain ways to attack flying opponents.

If you say the tarrasque is ECL 1, and you let someone play it at ECL 1, that person will take levels in a class that grants flight or ranged attacks. Do you seriously think a human with 20th-level sorcerer casting is equal in power to the tarrasque with 19th-level sorcerer casting?

Threat a monster poses =/= threat a monstrous character poses.

[ryu]

...

You are literally arguing for the tarrasque being ECL 1?

Let me point something out to you: the tarrasque does indeed fail to pose a legitimate threat to flying creatures.

However, neither can a 1st-level water orc barbarian, or even a 1st-level dragonborn gray elf wizard who doesn't have certain spells. That's okay: they can grow and become more powerful and eventually gain ways to attack flying opponents.

If you say the tarrasque is ECL 1, and you let someone play it at ECL 1, that person will take levels in a class that grants flight or ranged attacks. Do you seriously think a human with 20th-level sorcerer casting is equal in power to the tarrasque with 19th-level sorcerer casting?

Threat a monster poses =/= threat a monstrous character poses.

Actually the pure sorcerer is more powerful. The tarrasque offers nothing so valuable as spell progression.

[atemu1234]

Actually the pure sorcerer is more powerful. The tarrasque offers nothing so valuable as spell progression.

(apart from the nigh-immortality)

In all actuality, this rule creates its own subset of problems, just like LA. I don't mind it, because it's a little closer to my preferred rules (the Pathfinder way of just taking the CR and using that as ECL).

[Troacctid]

Actually the pure sorcerer is more powerful. The tarrasque offers nothing so valuable as spell progression.

It doesn't have to. It gets class levels, because you put it at ECL 1, remember? All it has to do is take wizard levels, and it has the exact same spellcasting progression as the sorcerer. (Although I would probably spring for sha'ir, since the -8 Int is less than ideal for a wizard.)

[ryu]

It doesn't have to. It gets class levels, because you put it at ECL 1, remember? All it has to do is take wizard levels, and it has the exact same spellcasting progression as the sorcerer. (Although I would probably spring for sha'ir, since the -8 Int is less than ideal for a wizard.)

It gets no such thing. The thing mentioned was specifically tarrasque/sorc 19. The reason I consider the 20 more powerful is because being nigh invulnerable isn't hard to do at that level regardless. Big T is just a big pile of numbers.

[Flickerdart]

The Tarrasque is way more than just a pile of numbers.

48 hit dice: That's a lot of feats. Good feats, not just Toughness 10 times. Scary metamagic feats. Extra Spell, if nothing else.
Carapace: Immunity to all lines, rays, and cones.
Immunities: Immunity to fire, poison, disease, energy drain, and ability damage. For free, that's pretty nice.
Regeneration: Immunity to dying except by HP damage and 9th level spells. It's fairly trivial to become immune to non-lethal damage, or to damage entirely. Most enemies don't even have 9th level spells.

[Der_DWSage]

Sooo, steering away from 'Ryu and the Tarrasque-Blood Prince,' I'd honestly suggest this as an alternative to the OP's current system.

The level adjustment instead becomes the number of racial hit dice you have to take before you can take real classes. An Aasimar, for example, takes 1 level of Outsider before he's allowed to actually be a Paladin, Cleric, or whatever. The Fire Giant takes 4 levels of Giant before he goes on to Fighter, Barbarian, or whatnot. (Possibly with some Savage Species-esque breakdown of what those levels grant you.) LA buyoff lets you replace those RHD with actual class levels.

Take out the Racial hit dice, and replace 'Completely dead LA levels' with 'These are now levels in something inferior, but at least they still give HP and saves.'

More than just taking the RHD out of the equation, it also allows you to play the race at level 1 without being too crazy, unless it's something with a huge level adjustment. Like all quick-and-dirty fixes, this isn't perfect, but I feel it's good enough for government work.

[ryu]

The Tarrasque is way more than just a pile of numbers.

48 hit dice: That's a lot of feats. Good feats, not just Toughness 10 times. Scary metamagic feats. Extra Spell, if nothing else.
Carapace: Immunity to all lines, rays, and cones.
Immunities: Immunity to fire, poison, disease, energy drain, and ability damage. For free, that's pretty nice.
Regeneration: Immunity to dying except by HP damage and 9th level spells. It's fairly trivial to become immune to non-lethal damage, or to damage entirely. Most enemies don't even have 9th level spells.

Half of that is achievable for free through low level spells or magic items. The other half is achievable in all practicality through high level spells. A free feat that you qualify for is normally 3000 GP and two spells, but we can switch to heroics if necessary.

[martixy]

PF's approach is pretty dope. The only thing to pay attention to is to round up the number of times you can buy off(PF seems to suggest round down, which makes no sense, since you can't buy off the easiest LA+1 in that case).

[Inevitability]

Half of that is achievable for free through low level spells or magic items. The other half is achievable in all practicality through high level spells. A free feat that you qualify for is normally 3000 GP and two spells, but we can switch to heroics if necessary.

Let us for a moment assume that everything the tarrasque grants can be replicated effortlessly by a random wizard.

What then, if a tarrasque instead takes warblade levels? Is a giant bag of HP, strength, constitution and immunities able to use 9th-level maneuvers really equal in power to a 2nd-level human warblade? Both are ECL 2 according to you, and I don't think warblades are 'underpowered' enough to warrant such a jump in power.

[Flickerdart]

What then, if a tarrasque instead takes warblade levels?

Don't be ridiculous, nobody in ryu's games plays non-wizards.

[Segev]

Sooo, steering away from 'Ryu and the Tarrasque-Blood Prince,' I'd honestly suggest this as an alternative to the OP's current system.

The level adjustment instead becomes the number of racial hit dice you have to take before you can take real classes. An Aasimar, for example, takes 1 level of Outsider before he's allowed to actually be a Paladin, Cleric, or whatever. The Fire Giant takes 4 levels of Giant before he goes on to Fighter, Barbarian, or whatnot. (Possibly with some Savage Species-esque breakdown of what those levels grant you.) LA buyoff lets you replace those RHD with actual class levels.

Take out the Racial hit dice, and replace 'Completely dead LA levels' with 'These are now levels in something inferior, but at least they still give HP and saves.'

More than just taking the RHD out of the equation, it also allows you to play the race at level 1 without being too crazy, unless it's something with a huge level adjustment. Like all quick-and-dirty fixes, this isn't perfect, but I feel it's good enough for government work.

That's an interesting idea. I will have to examine it more before I can comment on the balance, but it's definitely interesting.

First glance problems amount to a concern that, at level 1, they still come off awfully powerful. Plus, not all RHD are really "bad."

I'll need to put together some test characters. Or others can for their own edification (and they might do it faster than I will). My suggestion would be to create the following, using a human as the base race:

Fiendish
Celestial
Half-Fiendish
Half-Celestial
Half-Dragon (any color)

I am interested in whether a 1st level human-base with the above templates (using the 1 RHD he is forced to start with as his one HD) is balanced compared to a 1st level human of a normal PC class.

The other side of the coin is that some are just plain over-priced. A gargoyle is probably just about right as a 4th level character. Forcing him to take 4 more monstrous humanoid HD is a bit painful for what little he gets.

But it's still an interesting approach, worth considering for a basis.

[Durzan]

either way you look at it, it seems that when it comes to calculating ECL, either RHD needs to go or LA. As pointed out though, this can lead to issues.

[Rebel7284]

Slow eventual retraining of racial HD into class levels combined with LA buyoff seems to me like the most balanced option. You still need to be at HD+LA to take the race, but all the drawbacks slowly dissappear as you level at the cost of extra XP.

[prufock]

The best LA "fix" I've seen is the e6 modified point buy method. The only downside is that it doesn't take into account LA higher than 4.


LA Point buy
+0 32
+1 25
+2 18
+3 10
+4 00
Thus, +LA races should start with zero LA, but use the point buy listed here. Keep in mind the difference between LA and racial hit dice (the two combine to give starting ECL).

[Flickerdart]

Honestly, the issue with a blanket rule is the same as the issue of balance in general - some monsters are just better than other monsters of the same CR.

A troll (6 RHD, 5 LA, CR 5) is not the equal of a hound archon (also 6 RHD and 5 LA, CR 4). The latter gets Outsider HD, 4 SLAs, aura of menace, change shape, damage reduction 10/evil, immunity to electricity and petrification, magic circle against evil, spell resistance, teleport, and tongues, and the former gets crappy HD and regeneration. Or what about the janni? It also has 6 RHD and 5 LA, except it can fly, go ethereal, go invisible, plane shift, change size, and has telepathy for 100 feet. An unbodied is weaker than trolls (4 RHD, 4 LA) but has 4th level psion manifesting, and is incorporeal, and can do at-will telekinesis, and can disguise itself.

There is no formula that converts all three of these creatures into balanced playable characters from just their CR or LA or HD.

[Necroticplague]

Problem with that is that it can turn the viability of an LA race into a pure calculation. Under that system, if a template gives more stat points than you lose from the point buy, it's flat-out superior to going untemplated. Take, for example, lolth-touched. A simply template, it gives a +6 to two stats, and fear immunity. Compared to an LA 0, race, you gain the equivalent of 12 points (at a minimum, can actually be worth much more based on other investment) and fear immunity, and lose out on 7 points. Thus, there's no reason not to be lolth-touched.

[ryu]

Don't be ridiculous, nobody in ryu's games plays non-wizards.

Nonsense. You get plenty of clerics, druids, spell to power psions, wizards, of course all manner of artificers. It's on the high end of the power curve. That cannot be denied. Still plenty of diversity within the bracket taking into account differing feat and race focuses within a class.

[Inevitability]

Nonsense. You get plenty of clerics, druids, spell to power psions, wizards, of course all manner of artificers. It's on the high end of the power curve. That cannot be denied. Still plenty of diversity within the bracket taking into account differing feat and race focuses within a class.

I still don't believe you consider a human with a single level in any of these classes as player-appropriate as the entire tarrasque. Could you give a quick example of such a typical 1st-level character?

[ryu]

I still don't believe you consider a human with a single level in any of these classes as player-appropriate as the entire tarrasque. Could you give a quick example of such a typical 1st-level character?

Typical typical? Gray elven abrupt jaunting fiery burst wizard. Slightly less defensive gains than old terry, but he didn't waste a level not getting more spellcasting, and is unlikely to die to anything realistic to face at the level anyways. This is true even with the party routinely going after things higher on the threat totem to level faster. Naturally some retraining into elven generalist domain wizard will occur at later levels along with some feat shuffling with the standard combo, but hey that's just the price you pay for access to abrupt jaunt and endless free damage NOW.

[Troacctid]

Typical typical? Gray elven abrupt jaunting fiery burst wizard. Slightly less defensive gains than old terry, but he didn't waste a level not getting more spellcasting, and is unlikely to die to anything realistic to face at the level anyways. This is true even with the party routinely going after things higher on the threat totem to level faster. Naturally some retraining into elven generalist domain wizard will occur at later levels along with some feat shuffling with the standard combo, but hey that's just the price you pay for access to abrupt jaunt and endless free damage NOW.

You're saying Fiery Burst, which deals an average of 7 damage, is better than the Tarrasque's full attack, which deals an average of 102.5 damage before any damage boosts; and that a limited number of teleports each blocking one attack is a better line of defense than being immune to all damage?

[Der_DWSage]

That's an interesting idea. I will have to examine it more before I can comment on the balance, but it's definitely interesting.

First glance problems amount to a concern that, at level 1, they still come off awfully powerful. Plus, not all RHD are really "bad."

I'll need to put together some test characters. Or others can for their own edification (and they might do it faster than I will). My suggestion would be to create the following, using a human as the base race:

Fiendish
Celestial
Half-Fiendish
Half-Celestial
Half-Dragon (any color)

I am interested in whether a 1st level human-base with the above templates (using the 1 RHD he is forced to start with as his one HD) is balanced compared to a 1st level human of a normal PC class.

The other side of the coin is that some are just plain over-priced. A gargoyle is probably just about right as a 4th level character. Forcing him to take 4 more monstrous humanoid HD is a bit painful for what little he gets.

But it's still an interesting approach, worth considering for a basis.

Yeah, as I said, it has the same problem as any quick-and-dirty fix:The fact that it won't work for all problems. An actual fix would involve going through all races that have LA and seeing what's more fair...or rebuilding the entire LA system from the ground up, and seeing what abilities are worth what amount of LA/HD, and possibly creating a generic 'Monster Hit Die' in place of the rather superior Dragon or Outsider Hit Die.

But in the absence of those, a quick-and-dirty rule with some GM adjudication can work. It requires a good GM, but it's better than the rules 3.5 had in place.

[ryu]

You're saying Fiery Burst, which deals an average of 7 damage, is better than the Tarrasque's full attack, which deals an average of 102.5 damage before any damage boosts; and that a limited number of teleports each blocking one attack is a better line of defense than being immune to all damage?

No. Advancing spellcasting is better than those because they come for free with time. Those features are taken as a means of being near impossible to put down facing near standard threats while actually advancing the real power of the game. Being impossible to kill conventionally is little comfort when the methods start coming online, everyone else is similarly durable and you're an entire level behind in spellcasting. Now I hear you say why not just retrain the terry hitdie? It's racial. That means I have to either bust out a ritual to switch races to something less behind the curve or hope to get an int boosting race from reincarnate. Now watch the other path. Still impossible to kill by all practical means at low level. Advances spellcasting, and still bends things two or three levels higher over its knee. It'll still want to retrain later granted, but that's just to get back two feats and switch to elven generalist domain. Also far less necessary.

[Der_DWSage]

Ryu, I think you can chill by now. No one's going to buy the 'Tarrasque should be a 1-level adjustment' argument no matter how much you optimize a level 1 Wizard. Just accept that we're going to disagree on that matter and move on. Please.

[VisitingDaGulag]

Honestly, the issue with a blanket rule is the same as the issue of balance in general - some monsters are just better than other monsters of the same CR.

A troll (6 RHD, 5 LA, CR 5) is not the equal of a hound archon (also 6 RHD and 5 LA, CR 4). The latter gets Outsider HD, 4 SLAs, aura of menace, change shape, damage reduction 10/evil, immunity to electricity and petrification, magic circle against evil, spell resistance, teleport, and tongues, and the former gets crappy HD and regeneration. Or what about the janni? It also has 6 RHD and 5 LA, except it can fly, go ethereal, go invisible, plane shift, change size, and has telepathy for 100 feet. An unbodied is weaker than trolls (4 RHD, 4 LA) but has 4th level psion manifesting, and is incorporeal, and can do at-will telekinesis, and can disguise itself.

There is no formula that converts all three of these creatures into balanced playable characters from just their CR or LA or HD.This is the most specific and reasonable post so far, so I'll spend the most time on it. Did you look at my previous thread-ending post? Although I just visit, but you'll notice that I'm not your average poster. For monsters, the CR system is not perfect, but its usually close. For players, the LA is the gauge we should consider. By the designer's estimates Trolls, Hound Archons, and Janni should be just as good as a prospective PC race.

Unbiodied have built-in PC class pseduo levels, so we won't consider them (but they'd be ECL8). Here's the lineup:
A Hound Archon's [lawful] [good] is seen by many as a detractor, but it can be useful [extraplanar] however is NOT.
A Troll's large is often a very good thing. Monstrous humanoids can benefit from lots of templates.
Being an outsider is only nice for form changing for spellcasters who won't let a little thing like being originally humanoid stop them
Size/type so far is a draw.

A Janni's 20' (perfect) fly is nice but slow. Players will want feathered wings instead.
+10ms on hound archons is okay but nothing to write home about.

Natural armors are +1Janni, +9Hound archon, +5Troll. Touch attacks are the real threat so it falls into the 'okay, I'll take it' category.

Natural Attacks: Janni have none, Hound archons have a d8bite and a d4slam while trolls have 2 d6claws and a d6bite. Trolls win here, but again, you'll probably be using weapons so the above three categories are not that important and kind of cancel out.


Permanent extra reach on the troll (thanks to its size) is GREAT. SLA's really really depend (At will miracle and 1/year ray of frost) so we'll get to them in a second.

A janni's change size is really only a self buff. It's only 3minutes and it takes an action so its fringe utility. You won't be using it in combat unless your actions are irrelevant.

They all have darkvision but trolls have an extra 30'. Normally a meh but its actually kind of hard to get more than 60' of darkvision, so it could make the difference. A troll's lowlight vision is okay but common to add.

A Janni's elemental resistance is really there to make the plane-shift usable since its to specific planes only. [non-greater] Plane shift however still has a wild range and can by RAW still be a life-threatening ability if you don't chose a location with a huge clearance. Assumable you will, so its really just a recall home ability but with a huge margin of error.

A Hound archon's Aura of menace is a useless due to the low DC. The change shape is basically a fringe ability if you get PAO'd or otherwise want a disguise. Since you're LG, damage reduction 10/evil only helps (without DM-intervention) against the occasional aggressive neutral opponent, like aberrations or animals. SR16 again requires an overhaul 3e fix to be useful. Sent is nice although commonly available to races and spellcasters.

Scent is common but odd for a two-legged thing. Regeneration 5 however basically makes you unkillable. You kind of win standard HP-based combat D&D now. Congradulations.

A janni's resistance to fire is nice but small. The telepathy, however, is a free mindbender dip. It's good and with a feat can be great.

A Hound archon's Immunity to electricity, petrification (niche but unusual), possession (via magic circle against evil), and learning languages via tongues is nice. teleport is either a non-AMFed grapple escape (do people even try to grapple without AMFs?) or a utility. The no error is nice but it's self only and you have a lower str score. Everything here is available in superior forms to a mid-level caster, which shows you the power of this group.


Troll's RHD has 1 less good save progression and the two best skills. This is standard bruiser stuff. The Janni's skill selection is kind of nice for a bard or something. At least trolls are on the deep end of the alignment pool.


A Janni's +6str, +2dex, +2con, +4int +4wis, +2cha is what you'd want for an weak LA+3 or strong LA+2. It's all-around okay but doesn't excel anywhere.

A Troll's +12Str, +4Dex, +12Con, -4Int, -2Wis, -4Cha is great as meleer. Look at that con again!

A Hound archon's +4str, +0dex, +2con, +0int +2wis, +2cha is rather not impressive. It's strong LA+1 territory or weak LA+2. Oh well, you can teleport yourself (and split the party?)


Synopsis. There are better ways to be invincible or be a flighty outsider. But per their roles, these don't seem to be more than 1 ECL away from each other. In all honesty I've never seriously considered playing any of these races RAW. It's a lot to swallow when you have LA+0-3 races that you can buyoff and still get all those deliciously optimizable PC class levels. No one would want to eat 11ECL for that, but even at 5ECL would you want to have only 5, 10, or 15 class levels (but 1 extra HD) when your optimized party mates had 10,15 or 20? For that ECL, I'd consider any of these 3 races for niche applications, but none stand out as significantly better (although Regen 5 is tempting).


Thus, there's no reason not to be lolth-touched.Your DM doesn't allow you to be evil. Lolth is dead. You need any of the tons of racial PrCs. You are fighting drow. You can't absorb more LA. You are dumping Str. You are undead. Etc


Slow eventual retraining of racial HD ... all the drawbacks slowly dissappear as you level at the cost of extra XP.Retraining doesn't cost anything and needs to die in a fire. See RKV builds for why.


the rather superior Dragon or Outsider Hit Diesuspiciously have higher LA values...

[ryu]

Ryu, I think you can chill by now. No one's going to buy the 'Tarrasque should be a 1-level adjustment' argument no matter how much you optimize a level 1 Wizard. Just accept that we're going to disagree on that matter and move on. Please.

Reading hostile intent that isn't there into text? I haven't actually even gotten piqued or truly annoyed much less angry. I just make the argument with increasingly simple and direct terms whenever someone misinterprets it to prevent further misinterpretation. With the benefit of speaking in person where tone is actually a thing, I found it the most efficient way to be understood from a young age where the other children just didn't have my vocabulary.

[OldTrees1]

Reading hostile intent that isn't there into text? I haven't actually even gotten piqued or truly annoyed much less angry. I just make the argument with increasingly simple and direct terms whenever someone misinterprets it to prevent further misinterpretation. With the benefit of speaking in person where tone is actually a thing, I found it the most efficient way to be understood from a young age where the other children just didn't have my vocabulary.

Said argument forgot to mention that you were presuming and relying on ECL = Effective Tier 1 caster spellcasting level.

In the much more common case where a Human Crusader could be a valid character in a campaign, granting 48HD & all the Tarrasque Racial benefits for merely +1ECL would be an insane claim.

This disconnect is probably why your posts were interpreted unfavorably.


Sidenote: Step by step simplifying of one's language can be effective for clearing up miscommunication. However identifying unshared premises would help you still further.

[Zanos]

I would think the 16 bonus feats on their own would be worth a spellcaster level.

[Der_DWSage]

Reading hostile intent that isn't there into text? I haven't actually even gotten piqued or truly annoyed much less angry.

I'm not assuming any annoyance at all on your part-I'm just pointing out that you've made one or two posts that are genuinely on topic and worth mulling over, and the rest has been your 'Tarrasque is totally a +1 LA' argument. It's not helpful to the original poster, nor is it actually bringing anything interesting to the table after the initial explanation of why you feel it's a +1 LA.

[ryu]

I would think the 16 bonus feats on their own would be worth a spellcaster level.

Not when you can just get those. Even under my table's standard rules forbidding truly infinite loops you can still use the chaos shuffle on a feat granting location repeatedly. They cost 3000 gold each and require you to become neutral at the time of shuffling.

Also what? I thought I had a reputation as high tier 1, low tier 0 play around here? Maybe it didn't proceed me this time due to the large hiatus I took for a while?

[Inevitability]

Not when you can just get those. Even under my table's standard rules forbidding truly infinite loops you can still use the chaos shuffle on a feat granting location repeatedly. They cost 3000 gold each and require you to become neutral at the time of shuffling.

Also what? I thought I had a reputation as high tier 1, low tier 0 play around here? Maybe it didn't proceed me this time due to the large hiatus I took for a while?

1. How is your level 1 wizard getting 48000 GP again? For that matter, how is he locating a caster able to cast those spells for him, let alone convince that caster he's worth helping out?

2. I'm not aware of any 'reputation' you may have here, and I've been around a while.

[Eldan]

No. Advancing spellcasting is better than those because they come for free with time. Those features are taken as a means of being near impossible to put down facing near standard threats while actually advancing the real power of the game. Being impossible to kill conventionally is little comfort when the methods start coming online, everyone else is similarly durable and you're an entire level behind in spellcasting. Now I hear you say why not just retrain the terry hitdie? It's racial. That means I have to either bust out a ritual to switch races to something less behind the curve or hope to get an int boosting race from reincarnate. Now watch the other path. Still impossible to kill by all practical means at low level. Advances spellcasting, and still bends things two or three levels higher over its knee. It'll still want to retrain later granted, but that's just to get back two feats and switch to elven generalist domain. Also far less necessary.

What if the tarrasque starts at level two, as a wizard 1, and uses it's 16 bonus feats to use earth spell/sanctum spell/heigthen spell tricks to gain ninth level spells?

[ryu]

1. How is your level 1 wizard getting 48000 GP again? For that matter, how is he locating a caster able to cast those spells for him, let alone convince that caster he's worth helping out?

2. I'm not aware of any 'reputation' you may have here, and I've been around a while.

Don't need to. Just making the point that over the course of your career those feats aren't really all that valuable unless you need them to survive in the now. That said surviving in the now tends to mean either sacrificing power later or planning to incur costs to change whatever survival choices you made to their better lategame counterparts. My low level survival needs two feats and to be a focused specialist abrupt jaunter. That's much easier to undo than being terry as I already outlined. At levels higher than one gaining access to higher level magic sooner is going to be more valuable than feats.

Eldan: Do you really want me to go over the trick to get ninth level spells at level 1 before that terry 1/wiz 1 is even allowed to exist under these rules? At least I assume it would start you off as terry 1 without a real class. Incidentally the level 1 trick requires elven generalist which terry doesn't qualify for.

[Flickerdart]

Synopsis. There are better ways to be invincible or be a flighty outsider. But per their roles, these don't seem to be more than 1 ECL away from each other. In all honesty I've never seriously considered playing any of these races RAW. It's a lot to swallow when you have LA+0-3 races that you can buyoff and still get all those deliciously optimizable PC class levels. No one would want to eat 11ECL for that, but even at 5ECL would you want to have only 5, 10, or 15 class levels (but 1 extra HD) when your optimized party mates had 10,15 or 20? For that ECL, I'd consider any of these 3 races for niche applications, but none stand out as significantly better (although Regen 5 is tempting).

I just grabbed them as a convenient handful of races with similar LA, RHD, and CR, so that simple mathematical conversions of these numbers ran into issues. I'd never play any of them either, because, as you say, ECL 0-3 races exist and many are good.

And yes, optimized character levels are always better than monstrous race levels, but we already knew that, didn't we? No amount of rebalancing ECL beats googling "charop wizard build." But being a troll won't rescue a fighter or paladin from being awful, while being an archon or janni does a good job by adding things that aren't "hit more harderer" and "backup trap disarmer."

[Bohandas]

It's not double counting the HD, the problem is the HD are being counted as if they were PC class levels, whereas for most creature types and divorced from the bonuses represented by the LA they're more closely equivalent to levels in mid-tier NPC classes like warrior or aristocrat

EDIT:
Outsiders are the exception however, being clearly superior to most NPC classes due to having good skill points, good saves, good attack bonus AND good HD

[ryu]

It's not double counting the HD, the problem is the HD are being counted as if they were PC class levels, whereas for most creature types and divorced from the bonuses represented by the LA they're more closely equivalent to levels in mid-tier NPC classes like warrior or aristocrat

EDIT:
Outsiders are the exception however, being clearly superior to most NPC classes due to having good skill points, good saves, good attack bonus AND good HD

The problem there is that even tier 4 classes laugh at those as compared to actual class abilities. I mean even a figher has to think about it a little if he can't buy feats. If fighter is looking at the advancement without much enthusiasm something is very wrong.

[P.F.]

The problem there is that even tier 4 classes laugh at those as compared to actual class abilities. I mean even a figher has to think about it a little if he can't buy feats. If fighter is looking at the advancement without much enthusiasm something is very wrong.

The "class" abilities are all the things like SLA's, immunities, special attacks, &c., &c., &c., that monsters get for being monsters. LA is intended to offset the difference between these RHD-linked abilities and the not-quite-as-good class abilities of, for example, Monks or Paladins.

When a monster's RHD are, in aggregate, inferior to those of an equal number of class levels, then replacing or buying off some of those hit dice may be appropriate. When the RHD grant with them abilities which are as good as or better than those of an equal number of class levels, no buy-off or HD replacement is called for.

[ryu]

The "class" abilities are all the things like SLA's, immunities, special attacks, &c., &c., &c., that monsters get for being monsters. LA is intended to offset the difference between these RHD-linked abilities and the not-quite-as-good class abilities of, for example, Monks or Paladins.

When a monster's RHD are, in aggregate, inferior to those of an equal number of class levels, then replacing or buying off some of those hit dice may be appropriate. When the RHD grant with them abilities which are as good as or better than those of an equal number of class levels, no buy-off or HD replacement is called for.

Except it's a widely forum accepted meme that monk isn't considered a functional class. We even had a running gag about the cycle of people trying to argue it was good and failing on a weekly basis. Monkday was fun for a while.

[OldTrees1]

Except it's a widely forum accepted meme that monk isn't considered a functional class. We even had a running gag about the cycle of people trying to argue it was good and failing on a weekly basis. Monkday was fun for a while.

Relevance?

WotC being bad at estimating has nothing to do with the theory of "RHD are worse than class levels and LA is meant to adjust for how much over/under the racial traits compensate the race for the worse HD".

P.F. even said that buying off/replacing some/all RHD would be appropriate if the accurate LA (aka thou may ignore WotC's poor estimations) would be negative.

[ryu]

Relevance?

WotC being bad at estimating has nothing to do with the theory of "RHD are worse than class levels and LA is meant to adjust for how much over/under the racial traits compensate the race for the worse HD".

P.F. even said that buying off/replacing some/all RHD would be appropriate if the accurate LA (aka thou may ignore WotC's poor estimations) would be negative.

The point I'm making is that even opening up the field of play to the general acceptance point of tier 3 that estimation tends to be wrong such a staggeringly high percentage of the time. Like.... staggeringly high.

[nyjastul69]

..

There is no formula that converts all three of these creatures into balanced playable characters from just their CR or LA or HD.

That fact is a feature, not a flaw.

[OldTrees1]

The point I'm making is that even opening up the field of play to the general acceptance point of tier 3 that estimation tends to be wrong such a staggeringly high percentage of the time. Like.... staggeringly high.

Perhaps being clearer about when you are not disagreeing* will avoid false arguments in the future.

*WotC's estimate for LA is generally known to be wrong. Common decency would be to presume the other person knew that. As I reread the posts you were replying to but using the common decency presumption, I saw little relevance in your disagreeing tone.

[ryu]

Perhaps being clearer about when you are not disagreeing* will avoid false arguments in the future.

*WotC's estimate for LA is generally known to be wrong. Common decency would be to presume the other person knew that. As I reread the posts you were replying to but using the common decency presumption, I saw little relevance in your disagreeing tone.

Someone has never gotten stuck talking in a circle for three hours because they had the ''common decency'' to presume someone knew something they actually didn't have they? Yes that has happened, and no I'm not risking it happening ever again.

It's like thinking you might be lost on a long distance drive. There's two choices you can actively take and two states of possible reality that form a matrix of results. If you aren't lost, and you don't stop to ask for directions good on you for saving five minutes or so. If you aren't lost and you stop you've spent five minutes needlessly. If you are lost and you stop good on you for saving literally hours of your life. We all know the fourth option, and I avoid it at all costs.

[OldTrees1]

Someone has never gotten stuck talking in a circle for three hours because they had the ''common decency'' to presume someone knew something they actually didn't have they? Yes that has happened, and no I'm not risking it happening ever again.
Said the person that got stuck talking in a circle by presuming someone was ignorant. I guess avoiding one pitfall can result in walking into another.

If you can get caught in a circle regardless of whether you presume well or poorly, then isn't it better to presume well rather than presume poorly? Obviously it is even better not to get caught in a circle at all, however I think your history in this thread speaks to that already.

Do what you will, I only asked for hearing and not for listening.

[ryu]

Said the person that got stuck talking in a circle by presuming someone was ignorant. I guess avoiding one pitfall can result in walking into another.

If you can get caught in a circle regardless of whether you presume well or poorly, then isn't it better to presume well rather than presume poorly? Obviously it is even better not to get caught in a circle at all, however I think your history in this thread speaks to that already.

Do what you will, I only asked for hearing and not for listening.

For all of a few minutes yes. The cost of presuming poorly on someone's knowledge is at worst they indignantly correct your misconception of their knowledge the instant it's obvious, then things get awkward for a bit. This is a fast process with minimal tedium that doesn't tempt me to go in search of a small fragile thing somewhere around the house that will hopefully make a cathartic sound when broken.

[Segev]

Hey, at least nobody here is redefining basic words of the English language to mean things that are completely alien to their historical or colloquial definitions, then claiming that it's how they "always" use those words, just so that they can switch sides in a losing argument to "prove" they were right all along, and insinuate the fault lies with everyone else for ever thinking they meant the exact opposite of what they now claim they were saying all along.

Even though they had been, by any definition of the words they chose before they arbitrarily declared that "black" obviously means "the color of light generated by a common fluorescent light bulb."

So at least we don't have that level of argumentative nonsense!

(I had a friend in college who would do that regularly, on any topic, and D&D was a frequent one.)

[Flickerdart]

That fact is a feature, not a flaw.
That fact makes the premise of this thread impossible, so it's not much of a feature as far as the discussion is concerned.

[ryu]

Hey, at least nobody here is redefining basic words of the English language to mean things that are completely alien to their historical or colloquial definitions, then claiming that it's how they "always" use those words, just so that they can switch sides in a losing argument to "prove" they were right all along, and insinuate the fault lies with everyone else for ever thinking they meant the exact opposite of what they now claim they were saying all along.

Even though they had been, by any definition of the words they chose before they arbitrarily declared that "black" obviously means "the color of light generated by a common fluorescent light bulb."

So at least we don't have that level of argumentative nonsense!

(I had a friend in college who would do that regularly, on any topic, and D&D was a frequent one.)

If we really want to get into moronic argument principles I could link the zombie hypothesis and the inevitable refutation that it didn't need because it was never worthy of the word hypothesis to begin with. Only reason I haven't done so in this post is that that rabbit hole goes DEEP in such a way that a person could easily spend days reading all they want from the site. It's like the TVtropes of rationality blogs.

[Inevitability]

This discussion seems to have gone from 'check out this interesting LA fix!' to 'the tarrasque is/isn't an ECL 1 character!' to 'how can we really know anything?'.

[Necroticplague]

This discussion seems to have gone from 'check out this interesting LA fix!' to 'the tarrasque is/isn't an ECL 1 character!' to 'how can we really know anything?'.

Fairly reasonable proggression on these forums. Start with on topic arguments, move onto side arguments, then transition to arguing about arguing.