Alternate character advancement?

[Promethean]

TLDR; I was originally trying to create an alternate LA system that was more sane than what we currently have and I hit a wall.

Long Version: Currently experimenting with the Idea of using a gestalt-like system that turns LA into a "Minimum Level" rather than how it works with "level + X".

For an example: Vampire. With normal LA your character maxes out at level 12 and is entirely incapable of actually fighting the things that the books deem "level" appropriate encounters unless you lean heavily into Cheese. With LA Buyoff you can Theoretically remove 5 off that LA by spending XP, but you will still spend the Vast majority of the campaign lagging behind in capability.

In the system I was thinking, the LA(and any racial HD) would instead be "gestalted" with your character's class and wouldn't advance with the class. A 5th level fighter would be a fighter 5/Vampire 8, would gain XP as an 8th level character, but when they advance in fighter level to Fighter 8/Vampire 8 their XP gain would be normal from then on.

The thing is, Most templates aren't priced in a way to easily fit this system. A lich for example has 2 LA and no Racial HD, but you'll never find any lich as weak as a 2nd level character.

Any good ideas on a rule of Thumb I could use, because trying to eyeball Every Single template my players will present to me sounds like a headache and a half.

[LecternOfJasper]

One thing we did was have a gestalt game where your LA could be part of one if the tracks (making you gain levels as a "single classed" character for those levels). It doesn't really solve the problem of having an LA higher than your starting level, or your Lich problem (though I would think that the correct answer there is to not allow people to gain the template until they meet the less kind prerequisites).

But it was a pretty interesting time, with a real trade-off, and most people were pretty balanced against each other (starting at level 6).

[Promethean]

One thing we did was have a gestalt game where your LA could be part of one if the tracks (making you gain levels as a "single classed" character for those levels). It doesn't really solve the problem of having an LA higher than your starting level, or your Lich problem (though I would think that the correct answer there is to not allow people to gain the template until they meet the less kind prerequisites).

But it was a pretty interesting time, with a real trade-off, and most people were pretty balanced against each other (starting at level 6).

I wasn't really planning to go full gestalt this session and that solution wouldn't help in non gestalt games. I wanted to try to make a more sensible LA system that could be run in any game.

[Balthanon]

TLDR;
The thing is, Most templates aren't priced in a way to easily fit this system. A lich for example has 2 LA and no Racial HD, but you'll never find any lich as weak as a 2nd level character.

Any good ideas on a rule of Thumb I could use, because trying to eyeball Every Single template my players will present to me sounds like a headache and a half.

So... the biggest problem you're probably going to have with this is balancing against characters that don't want to play an esoteric monster or different ECLs in general. I'm not sure you'll be able to make this a fully generic system for that reason because you're eliminating a big part of what makes LA work-- missing HD and the associated feats, powers, etc... If everyone is playing a relatively balanced ECL race though and you start at a level that accommodates that, it could work out fairly well. I played several games where we basically just said, "Ok, this is a monster campaign-- here's your ECL allowance, on top of that you get X levels." Those worked out well because the characters were still balanced-- the DM just needed to feel out where the party's actual effective level really was.

That said, my suggestion would be to take a cue from what you just posted here. "You'll never find any lich as weak as a 2nd level character."

To me, that says that you should probably pull some inspiration from prestige classes here rather than just gestalt. Put some actual requirements on taking some of these templates that characters will need to work towards (or take into account in their builds). Lich is pretty easy-- they already have being an 11th or 12th level spellcaster in the description of the template from what I recall, but you could also use this to help balance particularly egregious examples of monsters.

As an example, maybe if someone plays a Sharn they need to take Toughness 10 times before they're allowed to take another feat, because frankly even with that, a gestalt Sharn is going to destroy, well... anything really. :P (This may be speaking from experience as someone who actually played a Sharn in one of those aforementioned monster games.)

If you don't have the time or inclination to actually work up those requirements, foist it off on the players and make them write something up that you can just approve or tell them to go back to the drawing board. Same with a racial progression if you're doing this so that you can start at lower levels.

If this is about when they level up and you're not too concerned with starting balance, then ultimately, ECL is really a fairly arbitrary construct-- you may want to just handle leveling based on how much difficulty your characters are having with encounters, if you can estimate that. If your vampire 8/Fighter 5 is absolutely dominating every encounter and the rest of the party is struggling to keep up, then have them level up, but the vampire gets nothing because he wasn't really challenged. If on the other hand the Wizard 13, Druid 13, and Warblade 13 are all absolutely destroying the encounter and the vampire is getting sent to its coffin every encounter, have it level up while the others remain where they're at.

[Promethean]

As an example, maybe if someone plays a Sharn they need to take Toughness 10 times before they're allowed to take another feat, because frankly even with that, a gestalt Sharn is going to destroy, well... anything really. :P (This may be speaking from experience as someone who actually played a Sharn in one of those aforementioned monster games.)

If you don't have the time or inclination to actually work up those requirements, foist it off on the players and make them write something up that you can just approve or tell them to go back to the drawing board. Same with a racial progression if you're doing this so that you can start at lower levels.

Sharn and Phearim are 2 monsters that I'd definitely nerf in a gestalt. I'd deny any free class levels for one. For a sharn that wanted to take sorcerer/favored-soul at the same time specifically, I'd make them share one of their consciousnesses with another player and they'd both play one of the classes.

[Balthanon]

Sharn and Phearim are 2 monsters that I'd definitely nerf in a gestalt. I'd deny any free class levels for one. For a sharn that wanted to take sorcerer/favored-soul at the same time specifically, I'd make them share one of their consciousnesses with another player and they'd both play one of the classes.

Personally, I went the other route and just played three characters, one for each head. :) They may or may not have been involved in a love triangle and all had diametrically opposed alignments.

To be fair, this also wasn't a gestalt game either though and was pretty close to epic level, so not quite as ridiculously overpowered, but it does illustrate some of the issues you'll likely run into just treating level adjustments as a minimum level requirement if all of the characters aren't using the same ECLs for their monster sides.

Even with all using the same ECL for one side of the gestalt, you're probably going to end up with some balance issues when comparing something with racial hit dice to a very high level adjustment race. The high LA will just get way more out of the gestalt, though to be fair, depending on the hit dice, they could end up offsetting terrible wizard hit dice or something too.

[Promethean]

Personally, I went the other route and just played three characters, one for each head. :) They may or may not have been involved in a love triangle and all had diametrically opposed alignments.

To be fair, this also wasn't a gestalt game either though and was pretty close to epic level, so not quite as ridiculously overpowered, but it does illustrate some of the issues you'll likely run into just treating level adjustments as a minimum level requirement if all of the characters aren't using the same ECLs for their monster sides.

Even with all using the same ECL for one side of the gestalt, you're probably going to end up with some balance issues when comparing something with racial hit dice to a very high level adjustment race. The high LA will just get way more out of the gestalt, though to be fair, depending on the hit dice, they could end up offsetting terrible wizard hit dice or something too.

Maybe I should remove hit dice altogether! :smalltongue:

Now character level Only advances class abilities, feats, skill points and BAB. Hit dice and saves must be acquired through racial hit dice and Templates, but are subject to limitations based on their own ECL!

[Balthanon]

Maybe I should remove hit dice altogether! :smalltongue:

Now character level Only advances class abilities, feats, skill points and BAB. Hit dice and saves must be acquired through racial hit dice and Templates, but are subject to limitations based on their own ECL!

Racial hit dice grant BAB, feats (non-bonus), and skill points normally as well though. Classes without hit dice are an interesting concept though-- it is going to throw in some other balance issues, since part of the way you balance classes are the hit dice granted, but I could see that being a cool concept to play around with in a game. You could actually translate the classes BAB and skill points into class abilities potentially; have it be a standard attack bonus rather than BAB and skill bonuses plus maybe adding class skills to your racial hit dice for skill points.

Needing to decide between taking a hit die or a class level would be an interesting conundrum for your average player.

[Maat Mons]

Someone had a leveling system I liked. You bought all your class levels with xp, but the xp required was based on the individual class, not the total of all classes. So, for example, if you had 1 Fighter level and 2 Wizard levels, you could spend 1,000 xp to advance Fighter by 1 level, or you could spend 2,000 xp to advance Wizard by a level.

All classes overlapped, as in gestalt, but you weren't limited to 2 sides. In fact it was impossible to ever have more than one class on any given side. So if you took 5 levels of Cleric, 2 levels of Paladin, and 1 level of Monk, then Cleric, Paladin, and Monk would each be their own side. You'd be a 5th-level character.

I don't remember how prestige classes worked.

[Promethean]

Racial hit dice grant BAB, feats (non-bonus), and skill points normally as well though. Classes without hit dice are an interesting concept though-- it is going to throw in some other balance issues, since part of the way you balance classes are the hit dice granted, but I could see that being a cool concept to play around with in a game. You could actually translate the classes BAB and skill points into class abilities potentially; have it be a standard attack bonus rather than BAB and skill bonuses plus maybe adding class skills to your racial hit dice for skill points.

Needing to decide between taking a hit die or a class level would be an interesting conundrum for your average player.


Someone had a leveling system I liked. You bought all your class levels with xp, but the xp required was based on the individual class, not the total of all classes. So, for example, if you had 1 Fighter level and 2 Wizard levels, you could spend 1,000 xp to advance Fighter by 1 level, or you could spend 2,000 xp to advance Wizard by a level.

All classes overlapped, as in gestalt, but you weren't limited to 2 sides. In fact it was impossible to ever have more than one class on any given side. So if you took 5 levels of Cleric, 2 levels of Paladin, and 1 level of Monk, then Cleric, Paladin, and Monk would each be their own side. You'd be a 5th-level character.

I don't remember how prestige classes worked.

Maybe that could work with hit Dice/LA?

Have the highest of whatever class/Monster advancement be what you used for specific things like BAB feats and SKills, but some things are unique like class abilities for classes and Health/Save advancement for Monster progression.

I think there should be a way for people who forgo the the monster thing entirely to get health though. Maybe items? Armor has a hardness and health despite the fact that it can't be sundered for example. Maybe that could be added to non-monster or High LA characters as a health/DR boost?

[Quertus]

I’m not seeing the problem with your system.

I am, however, concerned about your math for the original level buyoff system.

As I understand it, with a vampire having +8 LA, you don’t get to buy off the first LA until you have 8*3=24 class levels (level 32 total). Then you don’t get to buy off your second LA until you have another 7*3=21 levels, or level 7+24+21=52 total.

And, if you’re playing in a game where it actually matters when you can buy off the 3rd point of LA, let me know - I’ve got an academia mage who doesn’t get to get out much anymore. :smalltongue:

[Promethean]

I’m not seeing the problem with your system.

I am, however, concerned about your math for the original level buyoff system.

As I understand it, with a vampire having +8 LA, you don’t get to buy off the first LA until you have 8*3=24 class levels (level 32 total). Then you don’t get to buy off your second LA until you have another 7*3=21 levels, or level 7+24+21=52 total.

And, if you’re playing in a game where it actually matters when you can buy off the 3rd point of LA, let me know - I’ve got an academia mage who doesn’t get to get out much anymore. :smalltongue:

What? I have zero clue where you got the idea that you need to be level 32 before you can buy off LA?

My system doesn't Have LA buyoff. A person with an LA template gains XP as if they were a different Level, but their ECL remains static until their actual character level catches up to it.

[Quertus]

What? I have zero clue where you got the idea that you need to be level 32 before you can buy off LA?

My system doesn't Have LA buyoff. A person with an LA template gains XP as if they were a different Level, but their ECL remains static until their actual character level catches up to it.

Sigh. I’m well aware that your system doesn’t have LA buyoff. And I like your system. I don’t see why you have any problems with your system. (Feel free to dumb your problem down for me - reading comprehension isn’t my strong suit.)

However, when you described this bit:



For an example: Vampire. With normal LA your character maxes out at level 12 and is entirely incapable of actually fighting the things that the books deem "level" appropriate encounters unless you lean heavily into Cheese. With LA Buyoff you can Theoretically remove 5 off that LA by spending XP, but you will still spend the Vast majority of the campaign lagging behind in capability.

I responded:



As I understand it, with a vampire having +8 LA, you don’t get to buy off the first LA until you have 8*3=24 class levels (level 32 total). Then you don’t get to buy off your second LA until you have another 7*3=21 levels, or level 7+24+21=52 total.

And, if you’re playing in a game where it actually matters when you can buy off the 3rd point of LA, let me know - I’ve got an academia mage who doesn’t get to get out much anymore. :smalltongue:

Because, as I understand the rules, a level 20 character *cannot* buy off 5 levels of vampire. As I understand the LA buyoff rules, your first opportunity to buy off a level occurs at level 32 (24+8), your second at 52(24+21+7), etc.

I could be wrong, but that’s my memory of how LA buyoff math works.

[Promethean]

Sigh. I’m well aware that your system doesn’t have LA buyoff. And I like your system. I don’t see why you have any problems with your system. (Feel free to dumb your problem down for me - reading comprehension isn’t my strong suit.)

The issue I have isn't really with the system so much as it's implementation.

Not all templates work because they add like 1 or 2 LA, but that isn't helpful if they're acquired when the character is higher than 3rd level because they'd be essentially free(like the lich template). Unless the player decides to stat A bunch of low LA templates at once, Any Low LA templates are essentially free.

This means that I'd have to change the LA of every template to fit the balance of my system. Liches need to be a minimum of level 11 for example, with +2 LA I'd say i'd be fair to say the lich template sets your XP gain to the equivalent of a level 13 character.

An easy rule of thumb I thought of was for template's to set a Character's Static ECL to the level they acquired the template at +LA, but with the vampire example that would Cripple many characters because of how outrageously high the bonus LA is.


Because, as I understand the rules, a level 20 character *cannot* buy off 5 levels of vampire. As I understand the LA buyoff rules, your first opportunity to buy off a level occurs at level 32 (24+8), your second at 52(24+21+7), etc.

I could be wrong, but that’s my memory of how LA buyoff math works.

Oh, I get it now, but no that's not how LA buy works. Under LA buyoff a character can remove 1 LA every 3 levels starting at level 3 by spending the equivalent XP it would take to level up.

A vampire with +8 LA starting at level 5(because the template requires 5 HD as a minimum) can buy off 1 LA at levels 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18, lowering their LA by a total of 5 and leaving them with a minimum of 3 LA.

My example had the assumption that with LA Buyoff available, the character wouldn't ignore their LA until it was too late at level 12.

[Balthanon]

Oh, I get it now, but no that's not how LA buy works. Under LA buyoff a character can remove 1 LA every 3 levels starting at level 3 by spending the equivalent XP it would take to level up.


No, the base rules do have a requirement that your class level (not even including racial hit dice) needs to be three times your level adjustment to buy off a single level worth. The relevant passage is below.

"Once the total of a character’s class levels (not including any
Hit Dice from his creature type or his level adjustment) reaches
three times his level adjustment, his level adjustment is eligible
to be decreased by 1."

They even have a table with examples up to LA +6. Note that the +2 has two entries, so each line is covering the level adjustments to fully reduce that level adjustment specifically.

Table 1–1: Reducing Level Adjustments
Starting Number of Class Levels Necessary for
Level Level Adjustment Reduction
Adjustment (Not Including Racial Hit Dice)
+1 - 3
+2 - 6, 9
+3 - 9, 15, 18
+4 - 12
+5 - 15
+6 - 18

[Promethean]

No, the base rules do have a requirement that your class level (not even including racial hit dice) needs to be three times your level adjustment to buy off a single level worth. The relevant passage is below.

"Once the total of a character’s class levels (not including any
Hit Dice from his creature type or his level adjustment) reaches
three times his level adjustment, his level adjustment is eligible
to be decreased by 1."

They even have a table with examples up to LA +6. Note that the +2 has two entries, so each line is covering the level adjustments to fully reduce that level adjustment specifically.

Table 1–1: Reducing Level Adjustments
Starting Number of Class Levels Necessary for
Level Level Adjustment Reduction
Adjustment (Not Including Racial Hit Dice)
+1 - 3
+2 - 6, 9
+3 - 9, 15, 18
+4 - 12
+5 - 15
+6 - 18


What? Who in their Right Mind wrote that??? That makes any LA higher than 3 simultaneously impossible to buyoff and crippling by default.

The Level adjust rules are worse every time I read them.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

Throwing this out there : let your players become Vampires, but use the Vampire Template Class (posted on the WOTC site here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824a) in 2003). Advance this Template Class with Legacy Champion (or with Uncanny Trickster followed by Legacy Champion, etc). This mitigates the catastrophic chassis loss, but still isn't very good and keeps the emphasis on the Vampire powers.
Effectively, you're turning a +8 LA into +3 (you must take 1 level of the transition class before entry, and then you lose two levels of transition class advancement as you take Legacy Champion levels) but saddles the PC with a technically there but very unimpressive base chassis and set of abilities. It seems a far more playable and balanced way of running a vampire PC.

Going further:

The relatively slow growth into Vampiric powers can simply be explained as the turning process taking a while - don't ever mention people immediately turning into vampires in your campaign, and this works fine as "just how things are"! Otherwise, say that the PC is trying to fight the curse or whatever.
Legacy Champion is hard to enter, making it hard to be a Vampire from the start. I suggest simply removing Legacy Champion's prereqs! You could even remove its Weapons of Legacy abilities altogether, and instead make it give the PC bonus undead-adjacent feats (nothing too powerful, but things like Spirit Sense, Daunting Presence, Death Master, Necrotic Reserve...)


For other templates, make a transition class and proceed similarly (potentially using Legacy Trickster if they're shorter!).

[Balthanon]

What? Who in their Right Mind wrote that??? That makes any LA higher than 3 simultaneously impossible to buyoff and crippling by default.

The Level adjust rules are worse every time I read them.

Level adjustments are attempting to balance characters that have no major racial advantages against stupidly powerful ability sets. If we look at the vampire template that we've been using as an example this whole time, you have:


+6 natural armor
natural weapon
constitution drain
1/day summons
at will dominate
a slave that has up to twice as many hit dice as yourself that is also a vampire (and can have a slave twice as powerful as him, who has another slave twice as powerful as him, ad nauseum)
energy drain (2 negative levels)
transformation into animals
DR 10/magic and silver
fast healing 5
immunity to death if your casket is within a 2 hour flight
gaseous form at will
cold/electricity resistance 10
spider climb at will
+6 Str, +4 Dex, +2 Int, +2 Wis, +4 Cha
+8 bonus to half the rogue skill list (slightly exaggerated, but not a ton)
5 bonus feats


That is an enormous list of abilities-- now are all of those going to be useful at ECL 13 or higher? No, but there are some that are very useful regardless of level. 2 levels of energy drain every round is enormous (it will cripple most things within a few rounds and outright kill half the monster manual in 10) and the Con drain is helpful, even if you do need to grapple to do it. A second character to control that is twice your level and also has all the same bonuses you do? Pretty much broken if the DM doesn't rein it in hard. Immunity to death? That's hard to get. The DR, fast healing, resistances and at will abilities are all useful and the bonus feats, skill bonuses, and ability score bonuses all help to offset the lost levels.

If you allow level adjustment buyoff every 3 levels starting at level 3 for this, if you have anyone who is not playing a level adjusted character they're going to be left in the dust frankly. Even if you cap it at 3, a martial adept vampire at level 15 is going to be tremendously hard to put down at level 20. Yes, they'll be missing 9th level maneuvers, but they have abilities that are as good or better in many ways.

They'll have a little less hp and you wouldn't want to play one as a spellcaster (but why would you need to when you can have a spellcaster spawn twice your level or similar dominated followers?), but you get a ton of out of the vampire template and if you let someone buy down their level adjustment to the point where a base human and a vampire are within a couple levels of each other the player of the human _is_ going to start feeling resentful because he will absolutely fall behind.

That's why I suggested keeping something like this rule variant as focused on games where you have players playing equally powerful races. That helps to adjust for the balance issues.


Personally, in my own games, I disallowed level adjustment buyoff entirely and instead allowed players to turn level adjustment into bloodline levels instead in a similar manner, but starting at level 3 as you thought level adjustment buyoff worked and proceeding every two levels. That felt a bit more manageable to me-- it alleviated a little of the downsides of level adjustment without outright giving the character a full class level.





The issue I have isn't really with the system so much as it's implementation.

Not all templates work because they add like 1 or 2 LA, but that isn't helpful if they're acquired when the character is higher than 3rd level because they'd be essentially free(like the lich template). Unless the player decides to stat A bunch of low LA templates at once, Any Low LA templates are essentially free.


Another option you might consider for estimating when a template might come into play is seeing how much the template would cost if you turned it into a magic item. (Some estimation required there, but a fair amount of it it could follow the rules in the Magic Item Compendium.) Take that number and consult the wealth by level guidelines-- the first level the magic item fits into would fit into would then be the minimum level you could take that template or race.

[Promethean]

Throwing this out there : let your players become Vampires, but use the Vampire Template Class (posted on the WOTC site here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824a) in 2003). Advance this Template Class with Legacy Champion (or with Uncanny Trickster followed by Legacy Champion, etc). This mitigates the catastrophic chassis loss, but still isn't very good and keeps the emphasis on the Vampire powers.
Effectively, you're turning a +8 LA into +3 (you must take 1 level of the transition class before entry, and then you lose two levels of transition class advancement as you take Legacy Champion levels) but saddles the PC with a technically there but very unimpressive base chassis and set of abilities. It seems a far more playable and balanced way of running a vampire PC.

Going further:

The relatively slow growth into Vampiric powers can simply be explained as the turning process taking a while - don't ever mention people immediately turning into vampires in your campaign, and this works fine as "just how things are"! Otherwise, say that the PC is trying to fight the curse or whatever.
Legacy Champion is hard to enter, making it hard to be a Vampire from the start. I suggest simply removing Legacy Champion's prereqs! You could even remove its Weapons of Legacy abilities altogether, and instead make it give the PC bonus undead-adjacent feats (nothing too powerful, but things like Spirit Sense, Daunting Presence, Death Master, Necrotic Reserve...)


For other templates, make a transition class and proceed similarly (potentially using Legacy Trickster if they're shorter!).

I understand the reasoning you're going for, but that basically forces people to take Legacy champion to not suck. If the player in question wanted to be a vampire cleric or other spellcaster, they'd be nerfed into the ground.



That is an enormous list of abilities-- now are all of those going to be useful at ECL 13 or higher? No,

That's the end all be all of my point though. All of the high LA templates have a level shortly before or after 10 where they stop mattering almost entirely. At that point things like Magic items, specific feats, and prestige classes matter far more than any template does.



but there are some that are very useful regardless of level. 2 levels of energy drain every round is enormous (it will cripple most things within a few rounds and outright kill half the monster manual in 10) and the Con drain is helpful, even if you do need to grapple to do it. A second character to control that is twice your level and also has all the same bonuses you do? Pretty much broken if the DM doesn't rein it in hard. Immunity to death? That's hard to get. The DR, fast healing, resistances and at will abilities are all useful and the bonus feats, skill bonuses, and ability score bonuses all help to offset the lost levels.

They certainly help, but they're nowhere near the same. Unless you're specifically playing a low-magic, gentleman's agreement style game where no-one is playing a full caster or making any sort of high-damage martial build, then the loss in power is Very noticeable even in casual play with a group that has a good grasp of the game.



If you allow level adjustment buyoff every 3 levels starting at level 3 for this, if you have anyone who is not playing a level adjusted character they're going to be left in the dust frankly. Even if you cap it at 3, a martial adept vampire at level 15 is going to be tremendously hard to put down at level 20. Yes, they'll be missing 9th level maneuvers, but they have abilities that are as good or better in many ways.

Honestly, never seen this as a DM to the extent that I've seen claimed on the boards. Especially with undead templates which come with a number of trade-offs that can come up pretty often in play. For example: Dying and getting rezzed as an undead means losing the template altogether for most games.



They'll have a little less hp and you wouldn't want to play one as a spellcaster (but why would you need to when you can have a spellcaster spawn twice your level or similar dominated followers?), but you get a ton of out of the vampire template and if you let someone buy down their level adjustment to the point where a base human and a vampire are within a couple levels of each other the player of the human _is_ going to start feeling resentful because he will absolutely fall behind.

Not just spellcasters. Any martial class that wants to make a feat heavy build, any psion that wants to have manifester levels, and any non-spellcasting magic user is nerfed Hard in their main area of expertise. They have less damage, can take less damage, don't have as many options to improve their character do to having less access to feats and have less abilities do to not having as many levels for prestige or class abilities. The only class that isn't nerfed hard by higher-than-3 LA is a core only fighter, because non-core feats can bring fighters up to be competitive with anything in tome of battle unless they're nerfed by LA.



That's why I suggested keeping something like this rule variant as focused on games where you have players playing equally powerful races. That helps to adjust for the balance issues.


Personally, in my own games, I disallowed level adjustment buyoff entirely and instead allowed players to turn level adjustment into bloodline levels instead in a similar manner, but starting at level 3 as you thought level adjustment buyoff worked and proceeding every two levels. That felt a bit more manageable to me-- it alleviated a little of the downsides of level adjustment without outright giving the character a full class level.

I find this perspective a bit strange. Even core-only D&D isn't balanced in the slightest. In my experience, No Amount of tweaking will ever make players with different classes, or even most builds in the same class, stand on common ground.

The thing is, every attempt I've seen to remedy this has only either made the problem Worse or have taken all the fun out of the game, LA included. So I just want to give players more options to customize their character without completely breaking the game at level 1. I would very much prefer to rein in the rules on LA to give players more options even if the "cost" of that is giving players access to more power early on.



Another option you might consider for estimating when a template might come into play is seeing how much the template would cost if you turned it into a magic item. (Some estimation required there, but a fair amount of it it could follow the rules in the Magic Item Compendium.) Take that number and consult the wealth by level guidelines-- the first level the magic item fits into would fit into would then be the minimum level you could take that template or race.

I don't use WBL on anything except NPCs. The players have so many options to earn wealth outside the WBL chart with skills or magic item crafting that it's entirely pointless. I give players wealth proportional to the difficulty of the quests they complete and let them figure out the rest.

Oddly enough, I've found that players become More invested in their characters without inorganic limitations like WBL. When their character has almost everything they want and are in the middle of some grand-master-plan to usurp a kingdom, watching it all fall apart when a few unlucky rolls has their character eaten by a Dragon gets them Very invested in dragon-hunting.

[Balthanon]

That's the end all be all of my point though. All of the high LA templates have a level shortly before or after 10 where they stop mattering almost entirely. At that point things like Magic items, specific feats, and prestige classes matter far more than any template does.

When is having what amounts to a supercharged version of the Leadership feat that scales twice as fast as the rest of the party levels ever going to not matter? I think you are drastically over-estimating how good class levels are, but ultimately it doesn't matter. If ignoring LA at high level (or even low) works for your games, then that's fine. The benefits of a template as powerful as being a vampire far outstrip any given magic item though (and it isn't like the vampire doesn't have all the same magic items or more available to him too.)

All of what I say below can be caveated with that-- it's just my opinion, what works for me and how I see the game. Every table is different, so you can take or leave it as you like.


They certainly help, but they're nowhere near the same. Unless you're specifically playing a low-magic, gentleman's agreement style game where no-one is playing a full caster or making any sort of high-damage martial build, then the loss in power is Very noticeable even in casual play with a group that has a good grasp of the game.

I mean, you obviously need to build around any given race to leverage it properly in most cases, but ultimately levels are just collections of abilities, attack bonuses, and save bonuses. There are templates that give additional abilities that match or exceed what you would get from prestige classes, stat bonuses that outweigh the base attack you would get (and/or give natural weapons that make losing iterative attacks meaningless).

There's also the fact that these characters are going to have team mates to help them leverage abilities that might otherwise be difficult to use. That vampire might have difficulty taking down a high hit die minion to turn into a vampire or grappling him on its own, with three other party members though, that's suddenly not as much of an issue. Any enemy that the party doesn't kill can pretty much be dominated at your own leisure-- eventually they're going to roll a 1 on the save vs domination when you can do it as much as you want and you have them tied up or something.

Your players may or may not use things like this when they're playing monster races, but there are valid reasons that the official rules estimate some of these LAs as high as they do and make it difficult to get rid of them.


Honestly, never seen this as a DM to the extent that I've seen claimed on the boards. Especially with undead templates which come with a number of trade-offs that can come up pretty often in play. For example: Dying and getting rezzed as an undead means losing the template altogether for most games.

Not just spellcasters. Any martial class that wants to make a feat heavy build, any psion that wants to have manifester levels, and any non-spellcasting magic user is nerfed Hard in their main area of expertise. They have less damage, can take less damage, don't have as many options to improve their character do to having less access to feats and have less abilities do to not having as many levels for prestige or class abilities. The only class that isn't nerfed hard by higher-than-3 LA is a core only fighter, because non-core feats can bring fighters up to be competitive with anything in tome of battle unless they're nerfed by LA.

I mean-- DMs can always win if they want to, but players have a lot of options too. There are spells that will raise an undead without stripping the template, there are magic items that will help against turning, fast healing or regeneration can offset lost hit dice, not having a Con score makes undead immune to a dozen different things that will outright kill PCs. Are there tradeoffs that can be used against them? Yes, but they're shutting down a bunch of other options that work against normal PCs too.

As to the class level thing, I talked to it above. Like with anything in the game, not every option is going to work with every monster race, but you're trading class abilities for racial abilities. There are cases where it is easily worth it. Even when it comes to spellcasting, there are monster races that have natural spellcasting that is within a level or two of an equal level wizard or cleric like the Black Ethergaunt-- along with +20 to their spellcasting stat. If you're talking about martial characters, I'll take an incarnate maug over 3 levels of any prestige class or class in the game, with or without level adjustment buyoff.

Are there monsters where this doesn't hold true and you're way behind using the official level adjustment? Absolutely, but you can say the same thing for dozens of subpar classes and feats too.



I find this perspective a bit strange. Even core-only D&D isn't balanced in the slightest. In my experience, No Amount of tweaking will ever make players with different classes, or even most builds in the same class, stand on common ground.

The thing is, every attempt I've seen to remedy this has only either made the problem Worse or have taken all the fun out of the game, LA included. So I just want to give players more options to customize their character without completely breaking the game at level 1. I would very much prefer to rein in the rules on LA to give players more options even if the "cost" of that is giving players access to more power early on.

All I have to say is that if your players can't break the game at level 1 with the full abilities of a vampire, they're not trying very hard. :P

The thing to keep in mind is that D&D isn't balanced in that every character is equal in all situations, the ideal is just that every character has something to contribute. Spellcasters can do a bunch, but they do have limitations. It's the job of the DM to give each player the opportunity to shine and that's much harder to do when the power levels on the characters are drastically different.

As I said, I've played games where every player had a monster race and I've played power games where anything goes and I've enjoyed them. I also enjoy a more restrained game sometimes too-- it's just a different form of entertainment and I find that having limits can breed creativity.


I don't use WBL on anything except NPCs. The players have so many options to earn wealth outside the WBL chart with skills or magic item crafting that it's entirely pointless. I give players wealth proportional to the difficulty of the quests they complete and let them figure out the rest.


I wasn't saying you have to actually use wealth by level and enforce it-- it's really only a measure for starting off PCs at higher levels with appropriate amounts of magic items anyway. I'm saying you could use that chart as a means of trying to get at the level number you're looking for.

(I did have a house rule I used to use that used WBL to modify character's effective level to help with determining appropriate challenges, but by default it's really just used in character creation.)

[Promethean]

When is having what amounts to a supercharged version of the Leadership feat that scales twice as fast as the rest of the party levels ever going to not matter?


I mean, in order for a player to actually use it as a supercharged leadership feat, you essentially have to hand them those encounters on a silver platter, handwave all the hungry vampires somehow feeding without drawing attention, and carefully filtering for subordinates that won't immediately get themselves killed out of shear stupidity. That's on top of the fact that the vampire subordinates are going to be hitting the same issues as the player when it comes to gaining strength/Level.

Minionmancy is Much harder than people make it out to be. I'm 100% fine with a player building an undead army, because most drop the subject when they realize the shear amount of OCD micromanaging required to make it work. The games it doesn't deter them are usually during a kingdom building campaign anyway, and even then, they're at a disadvantage against antagonists or other players whose armies aren't severely nerfed/unavailable during daylight hours.



I think you are drastically over-estimating how good class levels are,

I think you're severely underestimating them. A properly built core wizard can solo several great wyrm dragons at the same time. Fighters take multiple books becoming available before they can do the same, but those builds are so feat starved that they become unviable with too much LA.



but ultimately it doesn't matter. If ignoring LA at high level (or even low) works for your games, then that's fine. The benefits of a template as powerful as being a vampire far outstrip any given magic item though (and it isn't like the vampire doesn't have all the same magic items or more available to him too.)

All of what I say below can be caveated with that-- it's just my opinion, what works for me and how I see the game. Every table is different, so you can take or leave it as you like.

I guess, yeah. I believe we have entirely opposed ways to run a game, so I don't think any advice or discussion from one will be helpful to the other.

I run my games different and my LA system won't be useful for your table.



I mean-- DMs can always win if they want to, but players have a lot of options too. There are spells that will raise an undead without stripping the template, there are magic items that will help against turning, fast healing or regeneration can offset lost hit dice, not having a Con score makes undead immune to a dozen different things that will outright kill PCs. Are there tradeoffs that can be used against them? Yes, but they're shutting down a bunch of other options that work against normal PCs too.

As to the class level thing, I talked to it above. Like with anything in the game, not every option is going to work with every monster race, but you're trading class abilities for racial abilities. There are cases where it is easily worth it. Even when it comes to spellcasting, there are monster races that have natural spellcasting that is within a level or two of an equal level wizard or cleric like the Black Ethergaunt-- along with +20 to their spellcasting stat. If you're talking about martial characters, I'll take an incarnate maug over 3 levels of any prestige class or class in the game, with or without level adjustment buyoff.

Are there monsters where this doesn't hold true and you're way behind using the official level adjustment? Absolutely, but you can say the same thing for dozens of subpar classes and feats too.

A black ethergaunt has 16 HD with 4 LA. Even with softer LA buyoff you wouldn't be able to buyoff anything because you'd be ECL 20. With my proposed system they'd be able to take 4 levels of a class Eventually yes, but I honestly am not really bothered by the +20 int. A wizard at their same level would usually have +10 from level-based stat increases and using wish to inflate stats before any magic items were considered, which would add a +6 enhancement and probably whatever other bonus a player could get away with. They are, essentially, 20th level wizards.

Also an incarnate maug? Why? The incarnate construct template removes your special features, special attacks, skill points, and feats. You'd basically be a large humanoid with 2 HD, no first level feat, and no first level skills. You'd be Nerfed Into The Ground.



All I have to say is that if your players can't break the game at level 1 with the full abilities of a vampire, they're not trying very hard. :P

I mean they Can, and I don't try to stop them, but the moment I drop "Proper care and feeding of minions" onto their laps they tend to chicken out.

If you add any logic to a setting, Most things either aren't actually as broken as they seem or are more of a headache than any player wants to deal with in their fantasy adventure. On the other hand, very basic things that nobody pay any attention to suddenly become Very broken. See any tippyverse style setting for more information.



The thing to keep in mind is that D&D isn't balanced in that every character is equal in all situations, the ideal is just that every character has something to contribute. Spellcasters can do a bunch, but they do have limitations. It's the job of the DM to give each player the opportunity to shine and that's much harder to do when the power levels on the characters are drastically different.

Honestly, having players just talk out what level of power and role they want to play at during session 0 nips power discrepancy in the butt for me. I've only ever seen it become a problem if one player is inexperienced, but then the players decided to have the new player be the main character/leader of the adventure with the other characters playing a side role as mentor or bodyguard.



As I said, I've played games where every player had a monster race and I've played power games where anything goes and I've enjoyed them. I also enjoy a more restrained game sometimes too-- it's just a different form of entertainment and I find that having limits can breed creativity.

maybe, but this limit I disagree with.

[Quertus]

What? Who in their Right Mind wrote that??? That makes any LA higher than 3 simultaneously impossible to buyoff and crippling by default.

The Level adjust rules are worse every time I read them.

“Right Mind” is a spell that really needs to be spammed on politicians and game designers. :smalltongue:


.Honestly, having players just talk out what level of power and role they want to play at during session 0 nips power discrepancy in the butt for me. I've only ever seen it become a problem if one player is inexperienced, but then the players decided to have the new player be the main character/leader of the adventure with the other characters playing a side role as mentor or bodyguard.

What? Sanity? Is that legal? Don’t most GM’s ban that?


The issue I have isn't really with the system so much as it's implementation.

Not all templates work because they add like 1 or 2 LA, but that isn't helpful if they're acquired when the character is higher than 3rd level because they'd be essentially free(like the lich template). Unless the player decides to stat A bunch of low LA templates at once, Any Low LA templates are essentially free.

This means that I'd have to change the LA of every template to fit the balance of my system. Liches need to be a minimum of level 11 for example, with +2 LA I'd say i'd be fair to say the lich template sets your XP gain to the equivalent of a level 13 character.

An easy rule of thumb I thought of was for template's to set a Character's Static ECL to the level they acquired the template at +LA, but with the vampire example that would Cripple many characters because of how outrageously high the bonus LA is.

Oh, acquired templates. Well, just start their gestalt when they’re taken. A human sorcerer 11 turned lich is a 13th level character. Once they take 2 Sorcerer levels, they’re still a 13th level character.

[Balthanon]

I mean, in order for a player to actually use it as a supercharged leadership feat, you essentially have to hand them those encounters on a silver platter, handwave all the hungry vampires somehow feeding without drawing attention, and carefully filtering for subordinates that won't immediately get themselves killed out of shear stupidity. That's on top of the fact that the vampire subordinates are going to be hitting the same issues as the player when it comes to gaining strength/Level.

Minionmancy is Much harder than people make it out to be. I'm 100% fine with a player building an undead army, because most drop the subject when they realize the shear amount of OCD micromanaging required to make it work. The games it doesn't deter them are usually during a kingdom building campaign anyway, and even then, they're at a disadvantage against antagonists or other players whose armies aren't severely nerfed/unavailable during daylight hours.

I've played the minion game and it depends entirely on the player. Sounds like your players don't enjoy it, I do and other players in my group do as well. As to handing the encounters on a silver platter... I mean, that's assuming your players are just taking what's handed to them rather than researching minions they'd like to control and then going out and finding them, calling them from other planes with planar binding, or the half dozen other ways to retrieve them. With undead you also have "ye old bag of holding" trick since they don't need to breathe. Dominate also means that a significant portion of your minions aren't going to be undead.

But it goes back to the fact that the DM can always win-- you have an entire planet worth of NPCs to the 4 PCs of the players, so it depends on how savvy you're making those NPCs and how much they care. (Also probably depends on whether the group is staying in one place or not. A few bandit groups going missing is standard fare with an adventuring group and will feed your minions for awhile.)



I think you're severely underestimating them. A properly built core wizard can solo several great wyrm dragons at the same time. Fighters take multiple books becoming available before they can do the same, but those builds are so feat starved that they become unviable with too much LA.

Uhh... maybe if they're exceptionally generic great wyrms that aren't using any of their hoard as magic items and have focused purely on offensive spells? I mean, great wyrms have all of the spellcasting that a wizard does plus ridiculous stats, natural weapons, armor, and more. Plus they can take levels themselves too. It's basically a matter of how much are the NPCs optimized compared to the players optimization.



A black ethergaunt has 16 HD with 4 LA. Even with softer LA buyoff you wouldn't be able to buyoff anything because you'd be ECL 20. With my proposed system they'd be able to take 4 levels of a class Eventually yes, but I honestly am not really bothered by the +20 int. A wizard at their same level would usually have +10 from level-based stat increases and using wish to inflate stats before any magic items were considered, which would add a +6 enhancement and probably whatever other bonus a player could get away with. They are, essentially, 20th level wizards.

Also an incarnate maug? Why? The incarnate construct template removes your special features, special attacks, skill points, and feats. You'd basically be a large humanoid with 2 HD, no first level feat, and no first level skills. You'd be Nerfed Into The Ground.

I feel like this is a big part of where we're diverging on the power level question. Ability score increases are absolutely a big deal for spellcasters-- +20 Int means the player starts at a 38 Int and then takes all those same increases that you talked about for a regular character and adds them into the equation. They are missing exactly 1 point of level-based stat increases (4 vs 5; you get those every 4 levels, so players only get 5 over 20 levels), they've likely used wish or tomes the same way a regular character has for +5 more, and they're using all the same magic items. So you're talking someone with 53 Int versus someone with 34. That means they have spell DCs that are 9 higher, they have 2 or 3 more spell slots at every level (offsetting the 3 missing caster levels and then some), more skill points, etc... And for class abilities, they again get to play the minion game, they're immune to all spells of 6th level or lower, deal ability score damage with a gaze attack, etc...

The incarnate maug is the same thing-- those 2 humanoid HD and 1 level adjustment are giving everything below here. You are missing exactly 1 hit die and 2 BAB total to get way more skill points than a fighter/warblade/etc, large size (i.e. reach), a ton of stat increases and +7 natural armor bonus (which again gives you a base that can be added to with magic items). You are going to be very hard pressed to find a martial class that gives you half of that.

• Large size. -1 penalty to Armor Class, -1 penalty on attack rolls, -4 penalty on Hide checks, +4 bonus on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits double those of Medium characters.
• Type and Subtype: Giant (Extraplanar, Augmented Construct).
• Automatic Languages: Common, Draconic, Giant. Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Celestial.
• An incarnate maug’s base land speed is 40 feet.
• Racial Hit Dice: An incarnate maug begins with two levels of humanoid, which provide 2d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +1, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +3, Ref +0, and Will +0.
• Racial Skills: Incarnate maugs receive skills as though they were outsiders. An incarnate maug’s construct levels give it skill points equal to 5 × (8 + Int modifier). Its class skills are Craft, Intimidate, Knowledge, Listen, Profession, Spot, and Survival. Due to their innate understanding of machinery and engineering, incarnate maugs have a +4 racial bonus on Craft (stonemasonry) and Knowledge (architecture and engineering) checks.
• Favored Class: Fighter.
• Level adjustment: +1

ABILITIES
• +10 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma.
• Space/Reach: 10 feet/10 feet.
• Giant Traits:
- Low-light vision.
- Proficient with all simple and martial weapons.
- Proficient with heavy armor and shields.
- Eats, sleeps, and breathes.
• Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Two-Bladed Sword).
• +7 natural armor bonus.
• Grafts (Ex): Can use maug grafts. Receives a 2,000 gold graft upon creation and must buy others with amassed wealth.
• Feats: Incarnate maugs gain Alertness as a bonus feat.
• Skills: * Due to their innate understanding of machinery and engineering, incarnate maugs have a +4 racial bonus on Craft (stonemasonry) and Knowledge (architecture and engineering) checks.


The physical stat bonuses at high levels are a bit less critical, since polymorph and the like exist-- but it also means that you're not going to lose half of the stats you're counting on because the NPC wizard remembered to prepare dispel magic or you're wandering around in an anti-magic zone and you're using your 16, 17, or 18 Str score as a base for additional improvement rather than just replacing it outright.

[Promethean]

I've played the minion game and it depends entirely on the player. Sounds like your players don't enjoy it, I do and other players in my group do as well. As to handing the encounters on a silver platter... I mean, that's assuming your players are just taking what's handed to them rather than researching minions they'd like to control and then going out and finding them, calling them from other planes with planar binding, or the half dozen other ways to retrieve them. With undead you also have "ye old bag of holding" trick since they don't need to breathe. Dominate also means that a significant portion of your minions aren't going to be undead.

But it goes back to the fact that the DM can always win-- you have an entire planet worth of NPCs to the 4 PCs of the players, so it depends on how savvy you're making those NPCs and how much they care. (Also probably depends on whether the group is staying in one place or not. A few bandit groups going missing is standard fare with an adventuring group and will feed your minions for awhile.)

Depends on how many vampires we're talking about. Leadership-feat levels of vampires would slowly eat through most towns if you consider the fact that each and every single one will need to do 1-4 points of Permanent constitution drain every night. Bandit camps alone wouldn't suffice considering the fact that they're too small to be anything other than temporary snacks.

If you calculate the numbers that means your vampire band is doing 1d4x365 con damage a year per vampire to a populous(lets average the die and say it's 863). If a supply of adults needs to live to 18 to have kids, and them raise those kids to 18 before they die of con damage, then you need 31068 Con of humans. At an average of 10 con, then each vampire needs 3107 humans per vampire to live forever without complications.

A population of a few hundred vampires would need a city of hundred of thousands to Millions to live sustainably. No amount of bandit camps will provide that and that's assuming that you'll eat through the human population fast enough to be easily noticed by everyone in the area.



Uhh... maybe if they're exceptionally generic great wyrms that aren't using any of their hoard as magic items and have focused purely on offensive spells? I mean, great wyrms have all of the spellcasting that a wizard does plus ridiculous stats, natural weapons, armor, and more. Plus they can take levels themselves too. It's basically a matter of how much are the NPCs optimized compared to the players optimization.

Aren't most great wyrms going to be generic? My point is definitely assuming semi-optimized wizard Player verses generic unoptimized npc, but aren't the vast majority of NPCs going to be unoptimized unless you drastically change the setting to accommodate a higher power level? Even the statted-out gods are unoptimized in D&D despite having unlimited resources to change that and the time necessary to figure it out on their own.

It's also tangential to my point. Even generic unoptimized great wyrm dragons are Supposed to be higher than 20th level threats capable of TPKing a party caught unprepared. My point was that a prepared wizard/player/etc. can turn that on it's head and take on thing much more powerful than the book states because character class level are much more powerful than the equivalent monsterous abilities.

Continuing with the base assumption though:
Great wyrms Are spellcasters, but they're sorcerers. Their spells known are limited, and unlike wizards who research their spells, don't have much logical reason to know Only the most with those limited spells known before we get into the fact that players are just going to have better spells in general. Most of them are going to be rather generic with spells you'd find in the "draconic bloodline" sorcerer feat. When a wizard is throwing around celerity, time stop, and/or gates all set on contingencies so that they don't take up spell slots, before they break out their own spells.

Most evil great wyrms don't even Know any 9th level spells because only reds actually get above 17th level sorcerer casting among the chromatics. Barring wish shenanigan's or a red dragon only challenge, I don't really see them having Any chance at winning.

Metallics would be trickier considering they all get 9th level casting, but even then I'd only put the odds are 50/50 depending on what 9th level spells they have.

And a 20th level wizard would Also have magic items? With how many ways there are to break the economy just with core magic and the arsenal of spells a 20th level wizard would have, I'd imagine theirs could be better optimized for combat than most dragon's.

As for class levels on the dragon, yeah if they were also 20th level clerics, wizards, or whatever then they'd destroy a normal wizard. I don't really see how that's a counter point? . It don't see a normal great wyrm dragon having class levels for this scenario considering they already come with class levels pre-packaged. It's like putting class levels on a sharn or a phearim.



I feel like this is a big part of where we're diverging on the power level question. Ability score increases are absolutely a big deal for spellcasters-- +20 Int means the player starts at a 38 Int and then takes all those same increases that you talked about for a regular character and adds them into the equation. They are missing exactly 1 point of level-based stat increases (4 vs 5; you get those every 4 levels, so players only get 5 over 20 levels), they've likely used wish or tomes the same way a regular character has for +5 more, and they're using all the same magic items. So you're talking someone with 53 Int versus someone with 34. That means they have spell DCs that are 9 higher, they have 2 or 3 more spell slots at every level (offsetting the 3 missing caster levels and then some), more skill points, etc... And for class abilities, they again get to play the minion game, they're immune to all spells of 6th level or lower, deal ability score damage with a gaze attack, etc...

Honestly not that crazy for 20th level players, but I guess that's the discrepancy in play at different tables.

In fact the character you just presented would be left in the dust if I waved that black etherguants LA and asked another player to optimize a wizard build with prestige classes. That black ethergaunt would just get itself flattened by a killer gnome, circle wizard, wish dweomerkeeper, etc who wasn't held down by 16 HD.



The incarnate maug is the same thing-- those 2 humanoid HD and 1 level adjustment are giving everything below here. You are missing exactly 1 hit die and 2 BAB total to get way more skill points than a fighter/warblade/etc, large size (i.e. reach), a ton of stat increases and +7 natural armor bonus (which again gives you a base that can be added to with magic items). You are going to be very hard pressed to find a martial class that gives you half of that.

• Large size. -1 penalty to Armor Class, -1 penalty on attack rolls, -4 penalty on Hide checks, +4 bonus on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits double those of Medium characters.
• Type and Subtype: Giant (Extraplanar, Augmented Construct).
• Automatic Languages: Common, Draconic, Giant. Bonus Languages: Abyssal, Celestial.
• An incarnate maug’s base land speed is 40 feet.
• Racial Hit Dice: An incarnate maug begins with two levels of humanoid, which provide 2d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +1, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +3, Ref +0, and Will +0.
• Racial Skills: Incarnate maugs receive skills as though they were outsiders. An incarnate maug’s construct levels give it skill points equal to 5 × (8 + Int modifier). Its class skills are Craft, Intimidate, Knowledge, Listen, Profession, Spot, and Survival. Due to their innate understanding of machinery and engineering, incarnate maugs have a +4 racial bonus on Craft (stonemasonry) and Knowledge (architecture and engineering) checks.
• Favored Class: Fighter.
• Level adjustment: +1

ABILITIES
• +10 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma.
• Space/Reach: 10 feet/10 feet.
• Giant Traits:
- Low-light vision.
- Proficient with all simple and martial weapons.
- Proficient with heavy armor and shields.
- Eats, sleeps, and breathes.
• Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Two-Bladed Sword).
• +7 natural armor bonus.
• Grafts (Ex): Can use maug grafts. Receives a 2,000 gold graft upon creation and must buy others with amassed wealth.
• Feats: Incarnate maugs gain Alertness as a bonus feat.
• Skills: * Due to their innate understanding of machinery and engineering, incarnate maugs have a +4 racial bonus on Craft (stonemasonry) and Knowledge (architecture and engineering) checks.


The physical stat bonuses at high levels are a bit less critical, since polymorph and the like exist-- but it also means that you're not going to lose half of the stats you're counting on because the NPC wizard remembered to prepare dispel magic or you're wandering around in an anti-magic zone and you're using your 16, 17, or 18 Str score as a base for additional improvement rather than just replacing it outright.

Incarnate maug don't get the maug's "learn skills as outsiders" ability. That's one of the special qualities/skills abilities that gets erased when you apply incarnate construct. Half of what you just listed under "Abilities" gets removed when you apply incarnate construct as a template, starting from exotic weapon proficiency and going down(your nat armor is also limited to a max of +3).

[Balthanon]

A population of a few hundred vampires would need a city of hundred of thousands to Millions to live sustainably. No amount of bandit camps will provide that and that's assuming that you'll eat through the human population fast enough to be easily noticed by everyone in the area.

I wasn't thinking hundreds of vampires when I said Leadership; I was mainly talking about the important part of the feat, which is the cohort. i.e. characters nearly as powerful (or in the case of vampires potentially more powerful) than the character. i.e. As a level 5 vampire, I can technically have a level 10 wizard vampire as my thrall. That level 10 wizard vampire can have a level 20 warblade thrall. That level 20 warblade thrall can technically have a level 40 rogue thrall. Ad nauseum.

It's something I'm sure most DMs would shut down and you'd be very unlikely to actually be able to just go straight up to your maximum limit and survive the encounter, but it illustrates the point.



Aren't most great wyrms going to be generic? My point is definitely assuming semi-optimized wizard Player verses generic unoptimized npc, but aren't the vast majority of NPCs going to be unoptimized unless you drastically change the setting to accommodate a higher power level? Even the statted-out gods are unoptimized in D&D despite having unlimited resources to change that and the time necessary to figure it out on their own.

It's also tangential to my point. Even generic unoptimized great wyrm dragons are Supposed to be higher than 20th level threats capable of TPKing a party caught unprepared. My point was that a prepared wizard/player/etc. can turn that on it's head and take on thing much more powerful than the book states because character class level are much more powerful than the equivalent monsterous abilities.

And a 20th level wizard would Also have magic items? With how many ways there are to break the economy just with core magic and the arsenal of spells a 20th level wizard would have, I'd imagine theirs could be better optimized for combat than most dragon's.


Dragons almost by definition were not designed to be as generic as most monsters-- I mean, the Monster Manual doesn't even give sample stat blocks for them. The Draconomicon does have them and stats them out to be fairly straight forward encounters, but if you're allowing your characters things like supernatural ability wish from dweomerkeeper and allowing them to abuse the economy to gain almost unlimited wealth, then the NPCs kind of need some of that optimization too. If your 20th level characters have a couple million gold worth of magic items though, then they're not really EL 20 anymore-- despite my comments earlier about wealth by level being mainly for character creation, CR is built around expectations about characters having a certain amount of wealth too really. I actually had a generic house rule about modifying character ECL based on excess (or reduced) wealth for my games in part because of that.

I will say, I've thrown dragons of equal or lesser CR at parties composed entirely of character optimizers and had near party wipes (or would have, if it wasn't a good dragon anyway), but I will admit that the dragon in question did have class levels and it wasn't at 20th level (only 12th). It was only 3 rogue levels so it could pretend to be a black dragon, but I suppose that doesn't as generic any longer. The Obtain Familiar and Improved Familiar feats that it took actually had way more impact on the battle.




Honestly not that crazy for 20th level players, but I guess that's the discrepancy in play at different tables.

In fact the character you just presented would be left in the dust if I waved that black etherguants LA and asked another player to optimize a wizard build with prestige classes. That black ethergaunt would just get itself flattened by a killer gnome, circle wizard, wish dweomerkeeper, etc who wasn't held down by 16 HD.

So a Black Ethergaunt with 4 extra class levels likely ending up with 21st level spellcasting versus the more broken character optimization builds at 20th? Hmm... that could be interesting to see what I could put together for that. A bit late to look at it tonight though. Maybe tomorrow. :)



Incarnate maug don't get the maug's "learn skills as outsiders" ability. That's one of the special qualities/skills abilities that gets erased when you apply incarnate construct. Half of what you just listed under "Abilities" gets removed when you apply incarnate construct as a template, starting from exotic weapon proficiency and going down(your nat armor is also limited to a max of +3).

Learning skills as outsiders isn't a special attack or special quality, it's part of the skills entry. It's arguable, but the general consensus back when the books were released was that they keep the outsider skills because the Incarnate Construct doesn't strip skill points-- you don't get more if you didn't have them already, but it doesn't take them away from intelligent constructs. For the natural armor, the limit on natural armor for Large Incarnate Constructs is +9, not +3.

All of what I listed there aren't special attacks or special qualities for a Maug, so they're kept-- ability score bonuses, speed, size, languages, bonus feats, skills; all basic stats rather than anything special and the wording on the template on non-special attack/quality elements is always just that they don't gain them, not that they lose them. Maybe the Graft would go, but that's basically just a free magic item, so it's debatable. They lose Pulverize and Rapid Repair, which fall under special qualities or attacks. I mean, even if you do remove the skills and bonus feats, the ability bonuses, size, and other basics are more than worth it.

[sreservoir]

Depends on how many vampires we're talking about. Leadership-feat levels of vampires would slowly eat through most towns if you consider the fact that each and every single one will need to do 1-4 points of Permanent constitution drain every night. Bandit camps alone wouldn't suffice considering the fact that they're too small to be anything other than temporary snacks.

If you calculate the numbers that means your vampire band is doing 1d4x365 con damage a year per vampire to a populous(lets average the die and say it's 863). If a supply of adults needs to live to 18 to have kids, and them raise those kids to 18 before they die of con damage, then you need 31068 Con of humans. At an average of 10 con, then each vampire needs 3107 humans per vampire to live forever without complications.

Ability drain is permanent in the sense that it doesn't go away natural, but it's not tremendously difficult (albeit modestly expensive by most means) to remove. Fortunately, a bed of restoration (SBG 71) turns this into a mild nuisance for a one-time cost of 38k gp and supports 2-4 blood drains every 3 rounds.

Failing that, a totally ordinary typical mule can support an average of 6 instances of blood drain per casting of restoration (100 gp material component). This can be improved a bit by buffing Con, template-stacking, whatnot. 10th-level MH healers have a 1/day greater restoration SLA, although that's a bit of a tall order. If you've got the right tolerance for violation of common sense, there's always soul charge (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040818a) on a healer-crafted (3rd level) restoration wand, which conveniently heals off the negative level you just inflicted—also better to work with a mule or bison here instead of humanoids.

Nobody is quite sure how Mitigate Suffering (CC 61) even works and whether/how it interacts with ability drain, but it might be an option.

This is kind of like saying New York City can't exist because you'd need 70 hectares of land to support its population.

[Promethean]

I wasn't thinking hundreds of vampires when I said Leadership; I was mainly talking about the important part of the feat, which is the cohort. i.e. characters nearly as powerful (or in the case of vampires potentially more powerful) than the character. i.e. As a level 5 vampire, I can technically have a level 10 wizard vampire as my thrall. That level 10 wizard vampire can have a level 20 warblade thrall. That level 20 warblade thrall can technically have a level 40 rogue thrall. Ad nauseum.

It's something I'm sure most DMs would shut down and you'd be very unlikely to actually be able to just go straight up to your maximum limit and survive the encounter, but it illustrates the point.

Oh, I believe there's a different feat the get's you just a cohort. It's like "follower" or something. Honestly, the Cohort option didn't really stick out to me as the most powerful use of leadership/spawn abuse, I personally thought you were going for the kingdom building/wealth accumulation via skill abuse angle.

Yeah, exponential cohort could be an issue, but like you pointed out, the player would need to defeat a creature above their weight-class. A player could go about it more slowly by turning minions only slightly above their level and going up, but they can't turn more then 1 powerful person so a single accidental turn could free their entire ponzy-pyramid from their control in a single swoop.




Dragons almost by definition were not designed to be as generic as most monsters-- I mean, the Monster Manual doesn't even give sample stat blocks for them. The Draconomicon does have them and stats them out to be fairly straight forward encounters, but if you're allowing your characters things like supernatural ability wish from dweomerkeeper and allowing them to abuse the economy to gain almost unlimited wealth, then the NPCs kind of need some of that optimization too. If your 20th level characters have a couple million gold worth of magic items though, then they're not really EL 20 anymore-- despite my comments earlier about wealth by level being mainly for character creation, CR is built around expectations about characters having a certain amount of wealth too really. I actually had a generic house rule about modifying character ECL based on excess (or reduced) wealth for my games in part because of that.

I was going off dragons as per their presentation when statted out in adventure paths like age of wyrms. I.E. they have some strong spells, but even unique and ancient ones are nowhere near optimized.



I will say, I've thrown dragons of equal or lesser CR at parties composed entirely of character optimizers and had near party wipes (or would have, if it wasn't a good dragon anyway), but I will admit that the dragon in question did have class levels and it wasn't at 20th level (only 12th). It was only 3 rogue levels so it could pretend to be a black dragon, but I suppose that doesn't as generic any longer. The Obtain Familiar and Improved Familiar feats that it took actually had way more impact on the battle.


I'd argue that CR is poorly implemented almost across the board, so what it's intended for doesn't really matter. There are plenty of monsters in the MM so over or under leveled that an inexperienced DM could have even an equally inexperienced party steam-roll his boss monster or get TPKed by an encounter that was supposed to be easy if the DM used them "as intended".

Dragons are one of those that was purposefully under CRed because the idea was that the party only faces a dragon after they were given time to prepare their character abilities, plan, make/buy magic items, and go in for the fight of their lives.



So a Black Ethergaunt with 4 extra class levels likely ending up with 21st level spellcasting versus the more broken character optimization builds at 20th? Hmm... that could be interesting to see what I could put together for that. A bit late to look at it tonight though. Maybe tomorrow. :)

the 21st caster level doesn't really mean much, they still have no access to epic feats thanks to them being 20th level characters.



Learning skills as outsiders isn't a special attack or special quality, it's part of the skills entry. It's arguable, but the general consensus back when the books were released was that they keep the outsider skills because the Incarnate Construct doesn't strip skill points-- you don't get more if you didn't have them already, but it doesn't take them away from intelligent constructs. For the natural armor, the limit on natural armor for Large Incarnate Constructs is +9, not +3.

All of what I listed there aren't special attacks or special qualities for a Maug, so they're kept-- ability score bonuses, speed, size, languages, bonus feats, skills; all basic stats rather than anything special and the wording on the template on non-special attack/quality elements is always just that they don't gain them, not that they lose them. Maybe the Graft would go, but that's basically just a free magic item, so it's debatable. They lose Pulverize and Rapid Repair, which fall under special qualities or attacks. I mean, even if you do remove the skills and bonus feats, the ability bonuses, size, and other basics are more than worth it.

Let me double check:


"Incarnate construct" is an acquired template that can be
applied to any construct creature with a generally
humanoid form—two arms, two legs, one head (hereafter
referred to as the base creature). An incarnate construct has
all the base creature's characteristics except as noted here.
Size and Type: The creature's type changes to humanoid
if it is Medium-size or smaller, or giant if it is Large or
larger.
Hit Dice: The creature's Hit Die type changes to d8.
Speed: If Small or smaller, land speed is 20 feet. If
Medium-size, land speed is 30 feet. If large or larger, land
speed is 40 feet. If the base creature had wings and could
fly, use the base creature's fly speed and maneuverability.
AC: The base creature's natural armor bonus is reduced to
a maximum of +3 if Medium-size or smaller, otherwise
reduced to a maximum of +9.
Attacks: An incarnate constructs base attack bonus is
normal for a construct of its Hit Dice. An incarnate construct loses all its original attacks. It may attack with
unarmed strikes in the manner of a creature similar to its
size and shape.
Damage: The damage from its unarmed strike is standard
for its size. For example, a Medium-size incarnate construct
can deal 1d3 points of subdual damage with an unarmed
strike; a Large incarnate construct can deal 1d4 points.
Special Attacks: The base creature loses all its special
attacks.
Special Qualities: The base creature loses all its special
qualities.
Base Saves: An incarnate construct's good saving throw
is Fortitude." Its poor saving throws are Reflex and Will.
Abilities: Any ability score lower than 3 is increased to 3,
and nonabilities such as Constitution and Intelligence are
rolled (4d6, drop lowest result).
Skills: An incarnate construct gains no skill points for
becoming a living creature, but if it gains levels, it acquires
skill points normally.
Feats: An incarnate construct has no feats when it becomes
a living creature, but if it gains levels, it acquires feats normally.


I was wrong about the AC.

Skills section is weird if taken RAW. The maug keeps the skill points it had, but the section says "gains skill points normally" rather than "same as base creature" or "same as x". This might mean that, by Raw, the incarnate maug would gain skill points as a normal character rather than as an as an outsider.

Incarnate constructs don't get bonus feats and you Definitely don't get the "Grafts(EX)" ability.

Not as bad as I thought, but loosing your first level feats and being given 2 dead levels of HD with bad saves for some ability points, nat armor, large size and a couple extra skill points isn't exactly a favorable trade-off.


Ability drain is permanent in the sense that it doesn't go away natural, but it's not tremendously difficult (albeit modestly expensive by most means) to remove. Fortunately, a bed of restoration (SBG 71) turns this into a mild nuisance for a one-time cost of 38k gp and supports 2-4 blood drains every 3 rounds.

Failing that, a totally ordinary typical mule can support an average of 6 instances of blood drain per casting of restoration (100 gp material component). This can be improved a bit by buffing Con, template-stacking, whatnot. 10th-level MH healers have a 1/day greater restoration SLA, although that's a bit of a tall order. If you've got the right tolerance for violation of common sense, there's always soul charge (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040818a) on a healer-crafted (3rd level) restoration wand, which conveniently heals off the negative level you just inflicted—also better to work with a mule or bison here instead of humanoids.

Nobody is quite sure how Mitigate Suffering (CC 61) even works and whether/how it interacts with ability drain, but it might be an option.

This is kind of like saying New York City can't exist because you'd need 70 hectares of land to support its population.

Noted. Granted, the fact that vampires need to load up on sources of "Good" healing spells to function is hilarious.

[Balthanon]

Yeah, exponential cohort could be an issue, but like you pointed out, the player would need to defeat a creature above their weight-class. A player could go about it more slowly by turning minions only slightly above their level and going up, but they can't turn more then 1 powerful person so a single accidental turn could free their entire ponzy-pyramid from their control in a single swoop.

Assuming they bring any of the linchpins with them, they could be knocked out like that. I personally wouldn't have those early linchpins in combat after the first few iterations myself. :) (Assuming I was even there and not just having the last line of minions running operations miles from me.)

As for kingdom building/wealth accumulation, they could do that too, but dominate is probably a better source of that. And likely acting in the shadows rather than being overt about it, since you can slowly gain control of a fairly significant number of government officials.

Or, you know, turn an Abeil Queen into a vampire for the best of both worlds by defeating a CR 12 encounter (likely not too difficult) and getting an entire hive of Abeil plus a 16th level caster minion in one fell swoop. :)


Not as bad as I thought, but loosing your first level feats and being given 2 dead levels of HD with bad saves for some ability points, nat armor, large size and a couple extra skill points isn't exactly a favorable trade-off.

I'll generally follow the consensus from previous years for my own games, but it's going to be up to a given DM. Still, even if you take out all the bonus feats and skills, I'd be interested in an example of a martial build where those two HD are going to exceed the benefits of just the speed, reach, natural armor, and ability score bonuses. Which class levels are going to give you more than that in a build?

[Promethean]

Assuming they bring any of the linchpins with them, they could be knocked out like that. I personally wouldn't have those early linchpins in combat after the first few iterations myself. :) (Assuming I was even there and not just having the last line of minions running operations miles from me.)

As for kingdom building/wealth accumulation, they could do that too, but dominate is probably a better source of that. And likely acting in the shadows rather than being overt about it, since you can slowly gain control of a fairly significant number of government officials.

Or, you know, turn an Abeil Queen into a vampire for the best of both worlds by defeating a CR 12 encounter (likely not too difficult) and getting an entire hive of Abeil plus a 16th level caster minion in one fell swoop. :)

Honestly that sounds fun. Now about how the vampire actually Gets to the queen of a Hive of soldiers dedicated to protecting here 24/7 and survives contact with a 16th level character...




I'll generally follow the consensus from previous years for my own games, but it's going to be up to a given DM. Still, even if you take out all the bonus feats and skills, I'd be interested in an example of a martial build where those two HD are going to exceed the benefits of just the speed, reach, natural armor, and ability score bonuses. Which class levels are going to give you more than that in a build?

Any spellcasting, manifesting, or initiating class for one. Those benefits you listed are great at level 1, but they stop mattering quickly as you get closer to Lvl 10 when things like magic items and buff spells come into play. Even being a +0 LA race with a different type than humanoid gives more benefits than that with a single application of Alter Self.

While it's not get those benefits exactly, but those 2 levels of no class advancement and 1-4 feats at lvl 1 are going to matter much more at later levels than what you get.

[thatothersting]

This thread has drifted way off course, but I've got a modest suggestion for dealing with LA. Allow players to "pay" for their level adjustment via flaws, either on a 1-to-1 basis or, if you've got some very skilled minmaxers on a 2-to-1 basis. I'd think suffering from a bundle of anti-feats would be enough to bring their power level at least somewhat in line with that of other players, but skirt around the level issue (which isn't fun for anybody). Maybe allow some flaws to be "doubled up", like the ones that penalize saving throws, but obviously you'd have to pick through the list to see which are appropriately potent to allow duplicates (as otherwise your melee players will suddenly come down with the worst case of the shakes you've ever seen).


Just an off the cuff suggestion. I've got a way more complex reworking of the system I've been toying with that involves generic class levels and flaw buy-off, and some incentives to justify playing a zero LA race, but I think that's a bit too out there for most. The tl;dr is essentially: adventurers are, by definition, strange, either better or worse than their kin and thus "misfits" of some sort, abnormal for their kind; all PCs start with a given number of Generic levels and any LA comes out of their bonus feats/class features; each class feature a character retains scales with them forever (if it has any scaling), LA that goes beyond the number of Generic feats/features normally available to the character is further paid for by flaws; generic levels don't count against the level cap or exp and are essentially "free".

That's all a bit much to suggest, obviously. I've got a whole setting I'm fussing with that justifies the higher starting level and blah blah blah I think the flaw thing can work adequately on its own. Just enough to balance things early on, just as irrelevant as the racial bonuses at the higher levels. But without the aforementioned incentives for avoiding LA, I'd say you probably want two flaws for every LA if you're going to do something like this. Smart players will still be ridiculous, I'm sure, but hey, they'll probably have a lot of fun with the added build versatility, too.

[Quertus]

This thread has drifted way off course, but I've got a modest suggestion for dealing with LA. Allow players to "pay" for their level adjustment via flaws, either on a 1-to-1 basis or, if you've got some very skilled minmaxers on a 2-to-1 basis.

All liches have 2+ flaws? All vampires 8 flaws minimum? All ancient dragons have innumerable flaws?

The world building is kinda.… odd.

[Bohandas]

You could do CR=ECL like Pathfinder

[thatothersting]

All liches have 2+ flaws? All vampires 8 flaws minimum? All ancient dragons have innumerable flaws?

The world building is kinda.… odd.

Is it? You're suddenly undead, your body is now shattered by the terrible energies coursing through it, but unlike the vampire who received his gifts as if they were a disease you've used carefully constructed rituals to rebuild yourself and have mitigated the harm to your body and mind that a metamorphosis of such magnitude might inflict.

Also, this is just for players, not NPCs. It's not fair, but neither is life.

[Promethean]

Also, this is just for players, not NPCs. It's not fair, but neither is life.

Maybe, But I normally expect the games that I play to be fair and Not rigged against me.

I get enough unfairness from life as is. Why would I want it in my escape from reality?

[Bohandas]

All liches have 2+ flaws? All vampires 8 flaws minimum? All ancient dragons have innumerable flaws?

The world building is kinda.… odd.

There's a whole grab bag of outlier vampire weaknesses that aren't in the official template.