is LA buyoff balanced?

[Rad]

I was thinking about the LA rules and, in the light of the fact that LA races are constantly avoided in optimized builds, was thinking that those penalties were probably too severe on the long run.
Then LA buyoff comes to mind. Some abilities that grant a LA are usually not that crucial at mid to high levels but others (like stat enhancements) are. What is you opinion about it?

[Borogove]

It's not balanced, although with LA +1 critters it's often close enough. The problem is that a character with bought off level adjustment is better than one without, at a cost that quickly becomes irrelevant (because a lower level character earns more experience than a higher level one, the XP cost of buying off the LA soon gets recovered). In the long run, this might not matter : certainly, a free LA of +1 is unlikely to be such a large advantage as to disrupt things.

An alternative that might be worth trying is letting players take levels in NPC classes instead of a level adjustment. So a hobgoblin (or other +1 LA race) has to take a level in warrior (or adept or expert etc..) instead of one in a pc class, but otherwise has the same number of class levels as a normal character. This option is probably somewhere between normal and buy-off in terms of power.

[Zincorium]

Because of the very limited scope of what you can buy off, races with LA of three or less are still a lot more desirable under the buy off system than races which have an LA of more than three.

Looking at what actually has an LA of 3 or less (and setting aside questionable templates like feral, mineral warrior, and such), it's somewhat hard to see it getting out of hand, especially since the character still has to deal with the LA early on.

On the topic of racial modifiers, the ones to worry about are the mental stats, and those don't rise above +4 on any of the races in the DMG that don't have scads of racial hit dice (which is the bane of casters). And I do actually think that ability scores decline somewhat in value towards the mid to end game because of the balancing factor of equipment. A human wizard with a 26 intelligence and a drow wizard with a 28 aren't so far apart as to cause balance issues. And the fact that the drow is still behind on xp means the human wizard will jump ahead in power occasionally.

[Cyborg Pirate]

It's as well balanced as the rest of the game is

[AtomicKitKat]

Seeing as the majority of creatures in the game are way over LAed, I don't really see a problem with any system that reduces LAs. I don't believe in granting LAs solely for ability score bonuses, if the creature has racial HD. I would probably exempt anywhere from 3-5 ability score points per racial HD from being counted towards LA.

[Dausuul]

I was thinking about the LA rules and, in the light of the fact that LA races are constantly avoided in optimized builds, was thinking that those penalties were probably too severe on the long run.
Then LA buyoff comes to mind. Some abilities that grant a LA are usually not that crucial at mid to high levels but others (like stat enhancements) are. What is you opinion about it?

I'd say LA buyoff isn't balanced; you start out way, way behind everyone else, then catch up and become notably cooler than everyone else. Take drow. You start out pathetic; you're two levels behind the rest of the party and all you have to show for it is a couple of +2 stat bonuses, spell resistance that hardly ever comes into play at low levels, and some mediocre SLAs. And you still have a Con penalty.

Then you buy off the level adjustment and make up the lost XP. You'll probably be roughly in parity with the rest of the group around 12th level or so--maybe a session or so behind, but no more than that. And now you're as good as any other character, plus you've got a nice set of stat bonuses, and spell resistance of 11+level... and as you get into the higher levels, everything has SLAs, so that SR becomes really helpful.

It's the same problem wizards used to have in previous editions. You start out as teh suck, and then someplace around level 7-9 you become teh ubar. Some people call that balance; I disagree. Everybody in the party should have a useful role to play at every level. A system where the party carries the wizard for the first half of the campaign and then is carried by the wizard for the second half is not balanced.

IMO, the solution would be to scrap the whole idea of level adjustment. Racial abilities should replace breadth rather than depth. That is, say you want to play a drow cleric; to pay for your stat boosts, SLAs and SR, you have to give up turn undead, or one of your domains, or something. In essence, rather than costing you levels, your racial abilities replace some of your class abilities.

Of course, this would require going through all the classes and marking off what abilities they lose in exchange for what LA (e.g., for clerics, +1 LA costs one domain, +2 LA costs turn undead, et cetera). Not really feasible when you consider the multitude of PRCs and base classes. But it might be doable if you limited everybody to the stuff in the core books... or if you're making 4th Edition.

[Saph]

Yeah, the big problem with LA buyoff is that you have to do it at that specific level. So with an LA+1 race, you'll get your buyoff at level 3 and become a normal 3rd-level character, while the rest of the party is about 5th-level each.

In the very long term, this is a good investment, but you'll have one hell of a time surviving to that very long term being 1-2 levels behind everybody else. I'd think about it if I was playing a really long-term campaign, but not otherwise.

I don't actually think it's a bad rule. It just makes your life very difficult.

- Saph

[SpiderBrigade]

I'd say that LA buyoff should only be allowed in a game where the player has to go through the process of actually buying the levels. In other words, one that starts at the minimum possible level for a character with that LA, and continues upwards. I have several times seen people suggesting starting a mid-to-high-level game with LA-having characters "with LA buyoff," so that essentially the LA is already negated when the game starts. Which means there's no drawback, and the intermediate levels where the character lags way behind the party are conveniently skipped. No good.

[Saph]

I'd say that LA buyoff should only be allowed in a game where the player has to go through the process of actually buying the levels. In other words, one that starts at the minimum possible level for a character with that LA, and continues upwards. I have several times seen people suggesting starting a mid-to-high-level game with LA-having characters "with LA buyoff," so that essentially the LA is already negated when the game starts. Which means there's no drawback, and the intermediate levels where the character lags way behind the party are conveniently skipped. No good.

By RAW, I'm not even sure that's possible. There are no rules for buying off a level adjustment once you've passed that level. You could say that you bought it off some time in the past, but then your starting XP would have to be changed, too, since you would have been a different level while doing all those things, which would be a nightmare to track.

LA buyoff in this situation is pretty much just a straight houserule - the DM negates your LA and tells you what your starting XP is going to be.

- Saph

[SpiderBrigade]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant - part of the character's "build history" is that he bought off those levels at the appropriate time. It's completely not RAW legal, but I've heard it mentioned. In my opinion it's pretty similar to "let me bring in my character from another campaign, oh by the way all his equipment is artifacts" in terms of cheesiness.

[Dausuul]

By RAW, I'm not even sure that's possible. There are no rules for buying off a level adjustment once you've passed that level. You could say that you bought it off some time in the past, but then your starting XP would have to be changed, too, since you would have been a different level while doing all those things, which would be a nightmare to track.

LA buyoff in this situation is pretty much just a straight houserule - the DM negates your LA and tells you what your starting XP is going to be.

- Saph

If I as DM were going to do that, I'd simply take the total amount of XP that you'd lose in the buying-off process, and subtract it from your starting XP. So a +1 LA race loses 3000, a +2 LA race loses 16000, et cetera. The lack of "make-up XP" is your payment for not having to play through the intervening levels.

Of course, I'd be much more likely to just disallow all LA races to begin with. I have a strong dislike of non-human races in D&D. Barring the truly exotic super-high-LA stuff like mind flayers, they're all just humans in funny suits, with one or two exaggerated personality traits. If you're gonna be non-human, the rules you play by should be really different from those used by human characters. A few stat adjustments and some minor racial abilities aren't nearly enough.

[Flawless]

I'd say that bought off his LA still counts as having an ECL of class levels + LA for the purpose of determining how many XP he gets. So, a 12th level drow and a 14th level human get the same amount of XP, but the drow needs less XP to level up. He won't ever catch up completely, though, as he will get less XP when he reaches level 13 (thus ECL 15) than the still level 14 human.

[Illiterate Scribe]

The real problem comes with races that have LA to offset some sort of spellcasting - an example would be the Bozak (DR 315), which has -

4 Dragon HD (these are among the best HD in the game)
4th level sorcerer casting
A whole bunch of immunities
Natural Armour (a lot)
Spell resistance better than a drow (level scaling)
Proficient in buckets of seemingly randomly chosen stuff
A total ability modifier of +6

Since this is obviously meant to be a caster, the LA (+3) isn't too bad.

When you buy it off though, it's nasty.

[Indon]

Since this is obviously meant to be a caster, the LA (+3) isn't too bad.

When you buy it off though, it's nasty.

For a spellcaster? LA 3 with HD of 4 (I'm pretty sure no creature types in the MM have stacks-with-spellcaster-level HD) means a caster level of 13 at level 20. I'm pretty sure that's not at all good; that's like, one level 7 spell max. Even with buyoff, that's still not very good.

My qualm with the LA buyoff system is that while it can make low-LA races more viable, it never makes high-LA races viable. A Troll, for instance, reduces its' LA by I think 1 during a 20-level career. The Troll has 6 Giant HD and an LA of +5. LA adjustment makes him a 6 HD LA 4 character, when, if anything, the Troll needs to be able to buyoff his LA _more_ than, say, a Drow, because of all his racial HD.

[AtomicKitKat]

For a spellcaster? LA 3 with HD of 4 (I'm pretty sure no creature types in the MM have stacks-with-spellcaster-level HD) means a caster level of 13 at level 20. I'm pretty sure that's not at all good; that's like, one level 7 spell max. Even with buyoff, that's still not very good.

Lillends cast as Bards of similar HD, Rakshasas as Sorcerors, and probably a couple of others(Dragons come to mind, but they generally cast as far worse than their racial HD).

[Indon]

Lillends cast as Bards of similar HD, Rakshasas as Sorcerors, and probably a couple of others(Dragons come to mind, but they generally cast as far worse than their racial HD).

So does a Rakshasa Sorceror cast at a CL of their Sorceror level + their HD? Interesting. I thought that concept hadn't been developed until after the 3.5 core books were released.

[brian c]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant - part of the character's "build history" is that he bought off those levels at the appropriate time. It's completely not RAW legal, but I've heard it mentioned. In my opinion it's pretty similar to "let me bring in my character from another campaign, oh by the way all his equipment is artifacts" in terms of cheesiness.

In terms of making a character build with LA and buying it off, I would only say that's okay if you actually play the levels that still have LA, yeah. I think sometimes people will advertise builds and say "oh yeah, buy off the LA", but then it's assumed that you have a sort of plan for what classes and etc. to take every time you level up. It's definitely not fair to start with bought-off LA, because then whats the point? If I had to start a level 10 character and had a choice of Drow or regular Elf, the only reason not to pick Drow is because you'd only have 8 class levels; take away that drawback, and everyone will take LA races.

[Rad]

first, thank you all for the replies

just to restrict the field a bit:
I am mainly interested in low LA (+1 or +2) and the things that the players manifested interest in were the Goliath and the Drow races. My personal reading of the rules would be to have everybody start at level 1 and then let the LA characters lag behind due to getting less XP and needing more to level up.
It would be interesting to compare how many XP it would cost to get the same abilities through spells like Permanency or Wish (plus the fact that they are not dispellable/AMFable etc.) The idea about having the LA still count towards how many XP they get seems nice, and maybe a good common ground.

I completely agree with Dasuul's definition of "balance". Somebody who is too weak at the start and too strong later is just always being a problem -and never balanced. I'd like to avoid that.

Did anybody try any house-rule about this?

[Starsinger]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant - part of the character's "build history" is that he bought off those levels at the appropriate time. It's completely not RAW legal, but I've heard it mentioned. In my opinion it's pretty similar to "let me bring in my character from another campaign, oh by the way all his equipment is artifacts" in terms of cheesiness.

Somewhat along these terms, I generally allow players to pick a LA +1 race and treat it as a LA 0 race. Perfect example, Tieflings/Aasimars, I really don't see them as that much stronger than an Elf or a Dwarf. But, in a mixed party of LA 0 and LA 1 units, I tend to give LA 0 creatures slightly better gear for a few levels until the racial abilities of a LA 1 stop mattering so much (around levels 4-6).

[AtomicKitKat]

So does a Rakshasa Sorceror cast at a CL of their Sorceror level + their HD? Interesting. I thought that concept hadn't been developed until after the 3.5 core books were released.

Far as I know, it's been in the MM since 3.5, and possibly even back in AD&D. The latter I will have to check.

[Draz74]

So does a Rakshasa Sorceror cast at a CL of their Sorceror level + their HD? Interesting. I thought that concept hadn't been developed until after the 3.5 core books were released.

Yes. That is how it works, whenever they developed it. I think the FAQ confirms that these levels stack if such a monster adds class levels. I know I read it somewhere.

Examples from the MM:

Lillends have 7 RHD and a +6 Bardic Spellcasting Level. (I never noticed this one before ... thanks, AtomicKitKat.)

Rakshasas have 7 RHD and a +7 Sorcerer Spellcasting Level.

Dragons have Sorcerer spellcasting about equal to (2/3 * (RHD - 13)). That's for Black Dragons. Other dragons are similar but not exactly on the same formula.

Couatls have 9 RHD and a +9 Sorcerer Spellcasting Level.

Nymphs have 6 RHD and a +7 Druid Spellcasting Level.

[CASTLEMIKE]

Generally LA appears to be rated at the high the end of the scale for use by PCs and at the low end of the scale for monsters and NPCs compared to the benefits received particularly when introuduced as a new monster. There are exceptions.

LA buydown is really nice in long term campaigns and high level builds particularly with a mid level experience point range to do the build and either the buy down or magical crafting. Using 200,000 experience points and point buy for a level 20 PC gets you a +1 LA monster or template along with paying off a major blood line from UA because it is paid down with a different system.

I'd prefer to see a simple +10% increase to experience points needed for advancement per LA modifier as it is only the PCs who are penalized for using a template or monster class with LA. The experience point cost is to high leveling up from lower levels like first for the benefits compared to the cost at higher levels.

[Rob Knotts]

This doesn't address LA buyoff specfically, but I thought it was worth pointing out. After Savage Species was published, Rich Redman posted this on the WotC boards:

The design guidance that I had was to make ECLs slightly worse than playing a standard race character. Otherwise all the Wizards of the Coast campaign worlds (it's been almost a year and I still want to say "our") become invalid. Look at them. Dragonlance, FR, and even Greyhawk are populated almost entirely by standard race characters. Not just the RPG products, but the books as well. In order to maintain that racial balance, we provided a mechanical reason for standard race characters to be more common.

The original link no longer works (WotC has switched over to a different type of message board), but the full quote still appears here. What it boils down is that WotC has (or at least had) an editorial policy to inflate official LAs so that standard PHB-style races would remain attractive to players.

[Starsinger]

What it boils down is that WotC has (or at least had) an editorial policy to inflate official LAs so that standard PHB-style races would remain attractive to players.

In Dragonlance Minotaurs, Irda, and Half-Ogres have higher LA than their abilities deserve to discourage them from being used as PCs because they're rare.