What sort of ECL adjustment would you give?

[eyebreaker7]

I'm trying to come up with a new race that's different from others. One thing I'm thinking is making them totally immune to magic. No healing, no spells, no magic items (they just become normal items until they leave his/her possession), but then I have the problem of being able to hit and damage things. A ranged weapon would work as normal once it left his/her possession.
Maybe tone it down to them just being immune to spells effected by a globe, or minor globe of invulnerability with the option to "turn it off"?? So they can be healed or something. It's not that they HATE magic, it's just that they can't use it or be effected by it at all. Even area effects.
Or maybe if they just always make saves vs spells and such?
Or they can use magic ITEMS but have ZERO tallant/ability to casting spells or being effected by them so they couldn't be spell casters at all. Psionics would be an option though.
What happened to the Rakshasa anyway? They got wreaked. Went from immune to all spells 7th level and below to just having SR?
Or should I do that instead? Just give them a high SR?

[Twurps]

Totally immune to magic?:
-that means magical flight is out. So it would need to be carried, or have wings to overcome simple chalenges such as: 'the bridge collapsed..'
-No cure spells: So it either needs fast healing, insane AC, or the 4/day encounters need to be followed up with a couple of days of bed-rest.
-No magical transportation(long distance): So now we're back to walking/sailing/flying(but see first point) all over the continent to even get to our adventures.
-No magical transportation(short distance): Not being able to teleport into a good position for a fight is already a minor nuisance. Not being able to teleport out of a sticky situation is the real killer here though.
Then there's all the situational stuff like featherfall, freedom of movement, underwater breathing, ghost touch, etc. Stuff you don't need 24/7, but saves your life every now and then, and is usually provided via magical means to the 'well prepared' adventurer.

Let's face it: d&d is a game built around magic. immunity to magic is like playing only 25% of what the game has to offer. At which point, why not just play another game? My biggest problem with this would be party dynamics though. "Because Bob is immune to magic, now we all have to walk there?" "We need to stay in bed for HOW LONG so Bob can recover?". "Guys! this is going south fast, I can get us out, but that means leaving Bob!"
It's like a party of murder hobo's where 1 person takes vow of nonviolence, but worse.

So yeah: not a fan of permanent magic immunity. Any of the other options might work and can be really powerful if they are 'at will', or more of a challenge if they are permanent

[eyebreaker7]

Hmmm, I didn't think about travel. They do have wings that give 60' movement with good maneuverability. Same as a fly spell but it because of their wings. Still stuck in those other situations though.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

It'd have an ECL of --, not playable in a normal game, for all the reasons listed above (and more).

It's just too difficult for a normal group to deal with, unless the entire game is restructured around it, in which case, you're better off playing something that isn't D&D.

[eyebreaker7]

Ok so the total immunity is out. lol. What about the other ideas/options?

[noob]

Ok so the total immunity is out. lol. What about the other ideas/options?

LA+0.
being immune and unable to use magic is a major penalty for very low benefits at low level and at high levels the fact you can not use magic makes you significantly weaker than the others unless you optimise twice as much as the others.(You need to get non magical flight, non magical ways to spot invisible people, non magical defence or immunity against many kinds of dangers that are not magical such a boomrang daze and the like, some fast transport because you can not teleport with the rest of the team, high initiative without need for magic, ways to ignore varied protections because else you are going to constantly fight an uphill battle)
If you were going to forbid magic use for all the adventurers and give them no magic items anyway then it might become LA+1: the penalties are now non-consequential and only the benefits are left but la is heavily penalizing: you will be frailer and less skilled and so on.
If you were going to do a "low magic campaign" and have all the npcs only ever cast spells and never ever do anything else and forbid the adventurers from gaining any benefit from magic then it ramps up in usefulness massively.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Ok so the total immunity is out. lol. What about the other ideas/options?If you give the race an equally useful alternative that it's naturally good at, maybe. Perhaps the race treats psionics as radically different regardless of the normal transparency of the world, and it's immune to beneficial arcane and divine spells (nor can it cast such spells or use items made with such spells) and has SR against offensive spells (even SR: No spells), but can use psionics, soulmelds, maneuvers, and vestiges on itself just fine.

Favored class psion or psychic warrior or ardent, and maybe it gains Expanded Knowledge for powers specifically outside of its class-granted list every 5 or so levels?

[Twurps]

Ok so the total immunity is out. lol. What about the other ideas/options?

Well, inspired by another thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?631219-Help-3-5-forsaker-build-non-barbarian), the Forsaker class can give you some inspiration. Though: dislaimer: I've never played/DM-ed or seen this class in action, so it might be horribly disfunctional still.

Anyway: I like the "SR: always enough" idea. Doesn't make you fully immune to magic, but helps a lot.
I also like the "healing is only 50% effective" idea. That is something that could be expanded to more than just healing. Positive and negative effects alike.

For furhter magic resistance stuff: Maybe a + on saves vs magic? could even be offset by either 1) a -/- on other saves or 2) a minus on the save DC of spells the race casts. (Better, and would also 'soft push' the race away from casters, rather than outright banning it.) the whole thing could be fixed, or scale by level.

I don't get the distinction between psionics and vancian magic. So I'd go with full transparancy and whatever works/doesn't for one, should also work/not work for the other.

Obviously the orriginal question of 'what ECL would I give it' highly depends on the amount of SR/save bonus you go with. Also: I feel very ill equiped to judge ECL adjustments.

[Quertus]

It'd have an ECL of --, not playable in a normal game, for all the reasons listed above (and more).

It's just too difficult for a normal group to deal with, unless the entire game is restructured around it, in which case, you're better off playing something that isn't D&D.

Sort of this. It's the ultimate "troll the GM", "no, we *cannot* follow your rails" race. It doesn't matter where "the adventure" leads, this race *cannot* follow. It all but forces sandbox play, with lengthy downtime.

And if the world blows up, too bad, so sad, maybe the GM will make a sturdier world next time.

As to what ECL/LA to give it? Well, half-golem has something similar, and a LA of +3. half-golem *also* has… something like +12/-2/+4/-6/+0/-6 stats, DR 25/+2, +11 NAC. But most items actually work for them.

It's commonly considered that Vow of Poverty is a downgrade from getting items.

So, not getting the NAC and DR (but apparently getting wings) puts you at, say, ECL +2. Then losing out on… what does VoP give? Maybe +8/+6/+4/+2 on stats, +5 attack/damage, energy resistance 15, DR 10, +13 AC, +3 resistance, feats? I'd say you're looking at a final LA of around -3.

(In short, don't do this, unless your group is OK with this level of fail.)

[Morphic tide]

A major thing to keep track of is still-applicable replacers for magic so you don't end up wildly overpowered with relevant build choices. The issue the replacers have overwhelmingly comes down to utility functions, as I've gone over with on Vow of Poverty.

I'd consider making them a variant on the "magic eater" concept rather than just immune to everything, so they turn magic used on them (both buff and item) into a generic schedule, allowing them proper numbers but stripping any more exotic utility effects.

Access to Psionic items could be another way of handling it, as there's some rules allowing for the creation of Psionic versions of existing items, so technically you could mostly ignore it by crafting your gear. One can also go with a much heavier Incarnum race giving greater access fluidity, as Incarnum does an excellent job of handling a remarkable breadth of situational effects.

Racial paragon classes and racial class variants are also with mentioning, as they're ways of shuffling functionality out of locked-in race features into more gradually accessed and optional packages, allowing for a non-absolute implementation that can fill its gaps in a few ways.