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Krelon
2007-10-26, 04:18 AM
Hi,

I am thinking of starting a group and allowing level adjustment (I'm sure that at least two of them (it's a local group) will want something like a tiefling) but some of the available races are too strong or too weak IMHO.

I'd like for all players to start with a balanced char, so noone drops out or seeks suicide for having a bad char. I know storytelling and roleplaying is more important but hey, you know it happens a lot. I'll almost certainly will have 2 people who do not play DnD (but other systems) and I want to give all a fair start.

For example drow simply do not get enough for their LA+2. While it may be cool to play one for several reasons they are actually worse than humans (or so I only believe) so it's a little discouraging.

Which non-basic races (with/without LA) would you allow to be played?

Which do you consider broken?

Are the bloodlines (e.g. from SRD material (http://srd.plush.org/unearthedBloodlines.html)) worth trying?

Would you recommend playing with reducing level adjustments (http://srd.plush.org/unearthedRaces.html) (as an option) ?


any help or additional comment is highly welcome!

mostlyharmful
2007-10-26, 04:41 AM
LA buyoff really is the only way to go with racial mods, they may (emphisis on may) be worth it in some cases, with the right base class and the right LA race and the right campaign, at first but over time there is maybe two or three templates that don't gymp your character and they're all for meat shields. (White dragon spawn excepted:smallcool: )

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-26, 04:43 AM
Hi,

I am thinking of starting a group and allowing level adjustment (I'm sure that at least two of them (it's a local group) will want something like a tiefling) but some of the available races are too strong or too weak IMHO.

I'd like for all players to start with a balanced char, so noone drops out or seeks suicide for having a bad char. I know storytelling and roleplaying is more important but hey, you know it happens a lot. I'll almost certainly will have 2 people who do not play DnD (but other systems) and I want to give all a fair start.

For example drow simply do not get enough for their LA+2. While it may be cool to play one for several reasons they are actually worse than humans (or so I only believe) so it's a little discouraging.

Which non-basic races (with/without LA) would you allow to be played?

Which do you consider broken?

Are the bloodlines (e.g. from SRD material (http://srd.plush.org/unearthedBloodlines.html)) worth trying?

Would you recommend playing with reducing level adjustments (http://srd.plush.org/unearthedRaces.html) (as an option) ?


any help or additional comment is highly welcome!

LA is not worth it. Remove the mechanic and houserule something better. Seriously, LA is almost never worth it. Really, almost all LA races are less powerful than humans. Not just drow.


Which non-basic races (with/without LA) would you allow to be played? Pretty much any race. Seriously. As long as the story and all that is suitable, it's good, whether they're a minotaur or medusa.


Would you recommend playing with reducing level adjustments (http://srd.plush.org/unearthedRaces.html) (as an option) ?
I recommend not using LA at all, really. It doesn't ever seem to end with people being happy in my experience, and it really is terribly unbalanced. Races of War has a couple of decent options for converting some of the less difficult races (i.e., races that look more like characters than one-trick ponies like, say, glass cannon pixies with Otto's Irresistable Dance) to having no LA.

Darrin
2007-10-26, 08:00 AM
Hi,
Which non-basic races (with/without LA) would you allow to be played?


Instead of using LA, use Racial Class levels. This article covers some of the more common LA races/templates (including the tiefling):

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a

Check Savage Species for more advice on how to break up a monster or template into racial class levels.

Also, for tieflings, aasimar, and genasi, the Player's Guide to Faerun has "lesser" versions with no level adjustments.



Which do you consider broken?


Most LA +1 or +2 aren't worth it, particularly at low levels when your HP starts very low and doesn't scale up as quickly as the rest of the party. In most cases you're stuck being a "Glass Ninja": yeah, you can do some really cool tricks, but one solid hit puts you down for the count. The LA +1 or +2 eventually becomes playable with LA buyoff, which removes the advantages you had early on as the rest of the party scales up to your power level.

Any LA +3 or more and you have the opposite problem. You can smash things with impunity early on, but after the first few levels the rest of the party starts to outshine you, and with the XP penalty there's just absolutely no way you can keep up, even with LA buyoff.

In either case, LA is usually more trouble than it's worth. Your best bet is either don't allow it at all, or make sure everybody has the *same* LA and just play normally. If players want to play stuff with different LA, add templates to the weaker ones until everybody is the same.



Are the bloodlines (e.g. from SRD material (http://srd.plush.org/unearthedBloodlines.html)) worth trying?


If someone can ever explain how they work, possibly. Until then... I'd stay away. The description and mechanics are confusing, and there are no rulings or advice to deal with all the rules headaches that would come up. If someone wants a character with some kind of bloodline ancestry, you're better off taking a template like Half-Dragon and breaking it into racial/template class levels (see the article above). Otherwise, homebrew a Sorcerer variant that gets a free Bloodline feat at 1st, 5th, 15th, and 20th.



Would you recommend playing with reducing level adjustments (http://srd.plush.org/unearthedRaces.html) (as an option) ?


LA buyoff works fairly well for +1 or +2, not so much higher than that. If every character has the same LA, though, then you don't need it, since they're all advancing at the same rate.

Tyger
2007-10-26, 08:19 AM
I recently started a campaign, and three of the four players interested in it all wanted to play races with LA in the +1 to +2 range. But we had already agreed to play at level 8, so they were stymied on how to create the characters they wanted to play without losing so much. Some incredibly intricate plans evolved, and I ended up just short circuiting them by saying the hell with it, and giving everyone the option of taking up to LA+2 at no penalty.

So they are level 8 characters, but have extra beefups. I had to scale up some of the encounters a bit, but its nothing game breaking.

The only problem that arose is that two of them took LA +1 and two LA+2... and now we have a pure human wizard joining, who wants no LA at all. So we scale the XP appropriately, and end up pretty much where we were all along. :) But they seem to be having fun with it.

Krelon
2007-10-26, 09:05 AM
LA is not worth it. Remove the mechanic and houserule something better. Seriously, LA is almost never worth it. Really, almost all LA races are less powerful than humans. Not just drow.
...


hmm, actually I think that Aasimar are worth it; or if you want to play a stylish evil char then Tieflings, too (-2CHA doesn't hurt THAT much if you don't do a Sorc or something like that)


Instead of using LA, use Racial Class levels. This article covers some of the more common LA races/templates (including the tiefling):

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a
....


Thank you for the link, that is a very useful article.

The presented mechanics removes some of the glass ninja effect and the too powerful low level minotaurs. Could be worth a try.


some new questions:

the idea of a template racial level, does it include caster levels and ability increase/feats?

Do you guys think that a combination of Racial levels and optional LA payoff in combination could do the trick?

I plan to start low (level 1 or 2) and go on a fast track (adding up to +100% XP for roleplaying/fun ideas/plot advancement) to 12+ for the final campaign (I already have it and it requires such high levels) so there may be enough space for buyoff.

Darrin
2007-10-26, 10:17 AM
hmm, actually I think that Aasimar are worth it; or if you want to play a stylish evil char then Tieflings, too (-2CHA doesn't hurt THAT much if you don't do a Sorc or something like that)


If you apply the Magic-Blooded template from Dragon #306 (-2 Wis/+2 Cha, check Crystalkeep's 3.0 template PDF for details) to the Tiefling, you can switch the -2 Cha to -2 Wis, and the Tiefling's favored class switches to Sorcerer.




the idea of a template racial level, does it include caster levels and ability increase/feats?


I'm not aware of any templates or races that add caster levels. Usually their spell-like abilites are explicitly listed as spell-like abilities... if you need to add caster levels to a monster, then you generally add spellcaster levels.

To add caster levels and ability increase/feats, then you'd want to use Bloodline levels. Bloodline levels were specifically designed with casters in mind, so that sorcerers could pick up a bloodline without nerfing their casting abilities too much. They also pick up some stat increases and feats... essentially, the Bloodline levels in UA are an attempt to "fix" the under-powered sorcerer and bring him in line with wizards. Bloodline feats was another attempt, but hey... sorcerers don't get enough feats to really take advantage of them.



Do you guys think that a combination of Racial levels and optional LA payoff in combination could do the trick?


Mechanically, it works better if you pick one or the other... I think racial levels have the fewest headaches, at least for non-spellcasters. Spellcasters, however, should always avoid losing caster levels unless they absolutely can't avoid it, so they'd probably prefer LA buyoff. Bloodline levels might work better than racial levels for spellcasters, but mechanically I'm not entirely sure how they work. Racial paragon levels might offer caster levels, so that might be another option if you want to go with only racial levels.

Trying to combine both racial levels and LA in the same build would be... icky.