Lordrake LA?

[WesleyVos]

So, I'm running a high-powered version of the Red Hand of Doom for a bunch of my players who had never heard of it. One of them is making a backup character and wants to run a Venerable Dragonwrought Kobold with the Loredrake archetype. Before everybody starts hollering about how broken that is, I am going to allow it, and yes, I know it can be broken. But the level to which my players optimize is the level to which their enemies are optimized as well, so it shouldn't be a problem.

What I am going to do, though, is assign the Loredrake archetype an LA to keep the character somewhat on par with the party as they advance through the game. Current party is a DFI Bard, a Lion Totem Whirling Frenzy Barbarian (permanently enlarged), a tanky Cleric, and this player's character (currently a totemist/Druidic Avenger). I'm considering an LA +2 (which can be bought off). Any thoughts?

[A_S]

Well, it provides two levels of Sorcerer casting, so LA +2 sounds about right.

[Flickerdart]

If you are allowing him to buy off the LA, make it LA+4. Unlike typical racial traits, the usefulness of two extra levels of Sorcerer casting does not fade as you gain levels and so it is inappropriate to apply the LA buyoff rules.

[Inevitability]

If you are allowing him to buy off the LA, make it LA+4. Unlike typical racial traits, the usefulness of two extra levels of Sorcerer casting does not fade as you gain levels and so it is inappropriate to apply the LA buyoff rules.

Now this is just ridiculous. If one implements this ruling, no sane PC is going to be a Loredrake: you might as well completely forbid it.

Remember, in a campaign that won't reach level 20, two bought-off points of Loredrake LA do indeed mean that your sorcerer caster level is two higher than your ECL. However, your ECL will be two lower than the other players'.

On the one hand, there's a small net XP win after the levels have been bought off. On the other hand, this comes with lower HD, less feats and skills, and no prestige classes. I'd say +2 is fine.

[Flickerdart]

Now this is just ridiculous. If one implements this ruling, no sane PC is going to be a Loredrake: you might as well completely forbid it.

This is a high-powered campaign. The PC is likely exploiting more advantages of the kobold than just Loredrake. Given the op level, it should also be trivial to gain XP at a fast rate, clearing bought-off levels handily.

If buyoff is not allowed, +2 is more than acceptable.

[Inevitability]

This is a high-powered campaign. The PC is likely exploiting more advantages of the kobold than just Loredrake. Given the op level, it should also be trivial to gain XP at a fast rate, clearing bought-off levels handily.

If buyoff is not allowed, +2 is more than acceptable.

Except the +4 LA isn't for kobold and loredrake combined, it's for loredrake on its own. A player could use any of the kobold tricks you just mentioned without taking loredrake or incurring LA: if you want to balance those things you should do so by adding LA to them, not by making loredrake harder to use.

[Name1]

According to the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#readingATemplate), applying the template doesn't change LA:

A template’s description provides a set of instructions for altering an existing creature, known as the base creature. The changes that a template might cause to each line of a creature’s statistics block are discussed below. Generally, if a template does not cause a change to a certain statistic, that entry is missing from the template description. For clarity, the entry for a statistic or attribute that is not changed is sometimes given as "Same as the base creature."

The entry is missing, thus there is no LA change.

Of course, that's cheesy, so it's probably not what you want (as a DM). I'd say... make it a +3.

[Flickerdart]

Except the +4 LA isn't for kobold and loredrake combined
Yes it is. The DM has a kobold loredrake PC, and wants to add an LA to it. Since it is a houserule, the actual situation at hand is what needs to be assessed. If the DM had a steel dragon wyrmling loredrake on his hands, it would obviously incur a very different level adjustment, or perhaps none at all, based on the vastly different strength of the base creature.

[Inevitability]

Yes it is. The DM has a kobold loredrake PC, and wants to add an LA to it. Since it is a houserule, the actual situation at hand is what needs to be assessed. If the DM had a steel dragon wyrmling loredrake on his hands, it would obviously incur a very different level adjustment, or perhaps none at all, based on the vastly different strength of the base creature.

The thread title here is 'Loredrake LA'. Not 'Loredrake dragonwrought greater rite of passage kobold LA'. The DM is talking about, I quote:


What I am going to do, though, is assign the Loredrake archetype an LA to keep the character somewhat on par with the party as they advance through the game.

There: this thread is about a LA for the Loredrake archetype, and the Loredrake archetype only. No kobolds, no rites, just loredrake.

[Flickerdart]

The thread title here is 'Loredrake LA'. Not 'Loredrake dragonwrought greater rite of passage kobold LA'. The DM is talking about, I quote:



There: this thread is about a LA for the Loredrake archetype, and the Loredrake archetype only. No kobolds, no rites, just loredrake.

This does not change the fact that creating a houserule in a vacuum is stupid and the OP has gone through the trouble of describing the situation for which the houserule is to be made. The fact that he does not explicitly say "consider this situation in your answer" is out of an appreciation of our baseline mental faculties.

[ExLibrisMortis]

+4 is still too much for Loredrake, and that it's added to a dragonwrought kobold doesn't change that (the venerable-with-no-drawbacks might be LA +1, if you really want to nitpick, though at that point I'd throw in the Dragonwrought feat for free). +2 is fine for Loredrake proper - you'll be on par for sorcerer casting in the early game, though behind on HD, until you buy off that first point of LA. At that point you're still behind on HD, but at least gaining on spells - though no better than a wizard, mind. At highish levels do you start getting new spell levels ahead of wizards - at level 9/ECL 10 you buy off the last LA, leaving you at 9 HD/ECL 9 with 11th-level casting, then next level you unlock 6ths, finally beating out the pesky book-scribblers. That's nice and all, but Ur-Priests can do the same, and the party is probably a level ahead of you at this point, anyway, so the wizards still have 6ths.

I'm not sure on the XP dynamics of buyoff, but I think that the first level at which you truly beat a wizard (who got XP for the same encounters, and started without LA) would be 14th or so, when you get 8ths ahead of time (still not beating an Ur-Priest, of course).

[Rebel7284]

I agree that it's very different than regular racial traits because extra casting progression is ALWAYS valuable.

I assume the character also wants to take Greater Rite of Passage for another sorcerer level?

Let's do a level analysis for what each LA would mean for the the character's power level as they level.

LA 1 - Starts off with the same casting progression as a wizard, after a small XP payment at level 3, ends up being ahead. Since this is a backup character entering the game later, this is essentially LA 0
LA 2 - Starts off with the same casting progression as a sorcerer, but with a small hit to HP/Saves/Skills. After level 6, casting goes to wizard (or higher with the Rite.) After level 9, all drawbacks disappear.
LA 3 - Starts off a level behind in casting and a pretty big hit to HP/Saves/Skills. Need to get all the way to level 9 (ECL 12) to buy off some of the HD penalties and get back to regular Sorcerer progression. Gets to wizard progression at 15 and thus gets 9s at the same time (or one level early with Rite).
LA 4 - Can't be bought off effectively, always behind a regular sorcerer.

In a high powered game, LA 2 seems to be the best, especially if Rite is not involved.
If the character is likely to enter the game later and/or Rite is involved, I can see LA 3 as well.

[Zanos]

Well, it provides two levels of Sorcerer casting, so LA +2 sounds about right.
If this is all it does, I'd say +1 with no buyoff. After all, 2 regular sorcerer levels gives 2HD, which is pretty valuable.

[lord_khaine]

Sounds reasonable, if you forbid buying off the LA then it becomes an actual tradeoff, giving up a HD for spellcasting. That sounds more or less fair, certainly more fair than a LA of +2, where you might as well have taken two sorcerer levels instead.

But at the same time, with buyoff you can swiftly get into the situation where there isnt any tradeoff at all, and it becomes free power.

[Jowgen]

How come no one has mentioned the issue of Archetypes being a trade-in for Domain-spell-as-Arcane access (if applicable)? More specifically, there is also the dropping of d12 to d10 for racial HD on Loredrakes.

In my book, any LA or similar penalty should be dependent on whether the base dragon incures the above 2 penalties. An Arcane caster class level Dragonwrought doesn't loose any of the above, warranting another balancer. On a Dragon that actually gets the lower HP and looses the spell access, I think it works fine as printed.