When you gain a template with LA, do you lose levels or is your next level delayed?

[RoboEmperor]

Lets say you get a template with an LA forced on you somehow. Do you lose levels to meet the LA or is your next level delayed?

All I could find is Nar Fiendbond, and it says your next level is delayed. What about other templates? Like Vampire and Vampire Spawn, Lich, Ghost, etc...

Voluntarily acquired templates are progressive.
Savage Species transformations result in level loss.
Nar Fiendbond delays your next level up.
But what about Core material?

[Caelestion]

Talk to your GM. That's the only answer in that situation.

[ksbsnowowl]

Gaining a template in no way causes you to lose XP, unless it specifically says it does (see Necropolitan). So the standard situation is that your target XP for gaining your next level just rose quite a bit.

[DEMON]

Gaining a template in no way causes you to lose XP, unless it specifically says it does (see Necropolitan). So the standard situation is that your target XP for gaining your next level just rose quite a bit.

+1. I fully agree with ksbsnowowl on this.

After gaining a template with LA, your ECL rises and delays your next level up.

[BowStreetRunner]

+1. I fully agree with ksbsnowowl on this.

After gaining a template with LA, your ECL rises and delays your next level up.

To be clear, the way it delays your next level up is that you effectively just leveled and are now earning XP as a higher level character.

So a 10th level character who gains a LA +2 template now starts earning XP as a 12th level character.

Unless the particular template explicitly states otherwise.

[Caelestion]

You started at 0 xp in Icewind Dale 2, whether you were using level-adjusted races or not. I wasn't a fan of that interpretation.

[hamishspence]

To be clear, the way it delays your next level up is that you effectively just leveled and are now earning XP as a higher level character.

So a 10th level character who gains a LA +2 template now starts earning XP as a 12th level character.


I was under the impression that while you might count as 12th level for XP earning purposes (how much XP each challenge will give you) your XP total doesn't change - it's still however much XP you had as a 10th level character before taking the template.

And thus you must accumulate however much XP would take a character from part-way through 10th level, to the start of 13th level, before you can take your next level in a class.

[BowStreetRunner]

I was under the impression that while you might count as 12th level for XP earning purposes (how much XP each challenge will give you) your XP total doesn't change - it's still however much XP you had as a 10th level character before taking the template.

And thus you must accumulate however much XP would take a character from part-way through 10th level, to the start of 13th level, before you can take your next level in a class.

Good point. I believe you are correct on this as well. So your next level will be seriously delayed.

[Necroticplague]

Lets say you get a template with an LA forced on you somehow. Do you lose levels to meet the LA or is your next level delayed?

All I could find is Nar Fiendbond, and it says your next level is delayed. What about other templates? Like Vampire and Vampire Spawn, Lich, Ghost, etc...

Your next level is delayed. The XP a LA 2 character needs to become level 11 is the same as that LA 0 character needs to level 13. Combined with the fact that LA'd characters receive less XP (because they're higher level), and acquiring a template can delay your next levelup for quiet a long time.

[RoboEmperor]

Thanks! That's the ruling I wanted.

[Nifft]

You started at 0 xp in Icewind Dale 2, whether you were using level-adjusted races or not. I wasn't a fan of that interpretation.


If you play with all official patches, then only LA +0 races and Deep Gnomes started at 0 XP in IWD2.

Drow, Tieflings, Duregar, and Aasimar all started 1000 XP away from level 1.


There's a popular fan-made bug-fix patch to move Deep Gnomes up to (L1 - 1k XP), too.