Level Adjustments: How do you deal with them?

[Conners]

This thread is for discussing what you do with Level Adjustments as a DM or player.

[Dausuul]

This thread is for discussing what you do with Level Adjustments as a DM or player.

As a DM, if somebody wants to play something with LA, I don't object unless the chosen critter conflicts with the game I want to run. Certainly I don't have any issues with it balance-wise. (In fact, I'm likely to advise the player to think hard before taking a LA race, because most of them suck.)

As a player, 90% of my characters are human, and virtually none of them have level adjustments.

[Eldred]

I don't mind LA characters too much, up to a certain point. (I mean, c'mon, an ogre mage is a bit much, don't you think?)

In regards to playing them, I tend to use the LA-specific XP tables which are shown in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting and the FR Player's Guide. That way, it takes longer for a LA character to reach their next level, and so helps balance the entire party.

[Keld Denar]

There are 0 LA varients in the various FR books out there. Things like Drow and Planetouched. They have lower bonuses than their greater LA brethern. They also usually include an advancement chart, so you have the option effectively "take levels" of the race to get the bonus features. Unearthed Arcana (I believe) has rules for LA buyoff, where upon reaching certain levels, you can spend an amount of xp to lower you LA by 1 each time. This fits more in line with the fact that creatures with a LA are generally more potent at lower levels, and the power gap closes at higher levels, to the point where a 0 LA character is more effective than a +X LA character of equal ECL. A human wizard 13 is way more powerful than a drow wizard 11 (ECL 13) for example.

[Swooper]

As a player, I don't do them. I don't think I've ever played a non-PHB race.

As a DM, I don't mind small LA races, like half-giants and goliaths (one of the few LA races that are worth it). I guess I wouldn't expressly forbid high-LA races but I'd ask the player to seriously reconsider his choice, both because the LA system is very unfair and because most things with high LA suffer some kind of social stigma in civilization, making them hard to play any way you look at it.

[Leon]

As a player and a DM i dont have any problem with them, tho some do seem to get a bit silly, just need to use common sense on what is reasonlble.

I'm happy with a +1 or 2 but after that (unless you have Racial HD) are starting to lag in area's - had a player play a Half Celestial Paladin, oodles of +stats and abilites, he however had less staying power than the Sorcerer.

Typical for a game run be me it starts at level 3 (i dislike 1st level starts - cant monster the party from the get go....) so a LA of 1 or 2 is viable, higher LAs warrant waiting till the game progesses

Also depends on what class you play, Case point Darksun: We are 3 ECL 4 Humans, 1 ECL 4 Maenad and a ECL 3 Akkarokan.

Human Druid, Human Cleric, Human Soulknife, Maenad Wilder all have 3 class levels (hence 3 HD - ranging our Totals from 12-24)

Birdman Psion has 5 Hp, we didnt know this till he was hit for 4 damage and he fled. a higher Dice type class would be in less of a worry about the lack of HD than a weaker type


For a on "hold" IK Game i have a Ogrun Barbarian that has the same hitpoints as approx the rest of the party (ECL 3) - tho the bonus d8 they get helps with that

With DS again - i had planed to play a Kreen but starting at level 1 was a bit daunting with the +2 LA and Racial HD, but if now that we are off the baseline and almost at 4 i'd go for it if anything bad happens to my Druid (Like my druid hasnt almost died 5 times now....)

I'll also add that i have no problem with playing a Level adjusted Spellcaster, the "OMG i have less CL than i should" doesnt bother me

(Thought came to me while writing up a Kobold Battle Sorcerer that has a +1 LA)

[Serpentine]

We usually try to homebrew them down to +0 LA. The main creature we've had to do that with is the tiefling, which is pretty much stripped to nothing and rebuilt using specific fiendish ancestors. If anyone's interested, I can give my stats for a 1/4 succubus or for one descended from... that assassin with the red skin. She's pink.

[MrNexx]

FWIW, if someone wants to play a character with an LA of 1 in a 1st level game, I allow them to, but with an NPC class.

[Person_Man]

LA is very tricky. Although it was clearly created to be a balancing mechanism, it was done so poorly that its essentially an optional rule. Some templates like Feral or Mineral Warrior are very overpowered, while others are clearly a joke, such as Half Dragon or Mind Flayer. It gets even more annoying when you throw in the existance of racial hit dice. Essentially, a player has to negotiate what he wants to do with the the DM every time he wants to play a non-standard race.

So I usually avoid it alltogether, though as a DM if one of my PC's has a burning desire to be something in particular I try to accomodate them, without breaking my game.

[talsine]

my group uses LA buy off and we've reduced some of the LA's, Hobgoblins are LA +0, 1/2 Dragons are +2, 1/2 Ogres don't exist, stuff like that. People rarely play anything more than LA+2 because, even with buy off, its almost not worth it. Course, we've rebalanced the Half-Orc as well, but thats beside the point.

[Conners]

FWIW, if someone wants to play a character with an LA of 1 in a 1st level game, I allow them to, but with an NPC class.

Clever idea, I'll have to use it in one of my future campaigns. Are they allowed to take a player class at their next level, or can they only take NPC classes thereafter?

Course, we've rebalanced the Half-Orc as well, but thats beside the point.

Rebalanced the half-orc? Could you please send me the statistics? I'd like to use it for future games (especially if I do an orc campaign).

[BardicDuelist]

We have a few different ways to deal with it depending on the situation.

If the player wants to play the race for flavor reasons and we start at level one, we try to homebrew down to LA+0.

I give a d4 HP for the LA (so that the character doesn't die). Note that this is HP not HD, so that the character doesn't get BAB, Saves, or Skills, and it doesn't count for feats. I have just found that the LA tends to make characters too squishy, even compared to the bonuses.

I use a variant from UA. For every three levels, the LA automatically goes down one. If I gave d4 HP, I remove those.

If we start at level one, and the player want to keep all of the abilities, I come up with a progression. The player switches off level and LA each level until he has the full LA. I give them partial abilities for each LA gain.

Even so, I typically do not allow monsterous races in my campaigns, which are usually heavy RP and in areas where those monsters would be killed on sight. Still, if the player has a good backstory and is clever, I will allow it if I can find a way. I do not allow anything with racial HD.

[LotharBot]

I picked up Savage Species (actually my brother gave it to me -- he found it at a used bookstore) and that solved about 99% of my LA questions and conundrums.

[Zincorium]

With a few exceptions, such as feral or mineral warrior, I'm cool with allowing my players to play close to anything. However, I really, really dislike the LA system as presented, and if possible I try to sort of homebrew a balanced version using racial hit dice.

Why?

Racial hit dice aren't nearly as confusing to new players, as they follow pretty close to how normal classes work. They still give hp and skill points just like any other class. As long as the bonuses of the race aren't extremely powerful, the delay of class features generally can balance them out, with the exception of things like dragon racial HD that are at least as good as some classes. Anything that won't fit gets cut down, and any abilities that just don't make sense for a PC also get cut.

[MrNexx]

Clever idea, I'll have to use it in one of my future campaigns. Are they allowed to take a player class at their next level, or can they only take NPC classes thereafter?

They can take PC classes as soon as they're done with their Racial HD, and I use the 3.0 rule that NPC classes don't count for multiclassing penalties.

[Ivius]

Not sure if this is the right thread, but why do all goblin subraces all have exactly +1 LA?

[MrNexx]

Not sure if this is the right thread, but why do all goblin subraces all have exactly +1 LA?

Which ones are you thinking of?

(And I am running into flood controls a lot more than I like, though I can understand why they're there)

[Ivius]

Hobgoblin. Blue.

[MrNexx]

Hobgoblin. Blue.

Hobgoblins aren't really goblin subraces... they're goblinoids, but not a goblin subrace. Saying they are means you have to say the same thing about Dekanter Goblins (LA +4).

[RAGE KING!]

i love l.a.'s, i almost never make base race characters. The great thing about l.a. races (if you find a good one, 'cuz as Dausuul said most of them suck) is that you can get abilities and stuff that simply leveling wouldnt give you. A low l.a. race, without racial hd or levels is simply awesome. 'cuz you only sacrifice a level or two, and then you can build awesome combos. for example, my ecl 5, level 4 goliath with a +6 to hit with his 8d6+2+str (which is +6) greataxe. if i hadnt been goliath, that wouldve been +2 to hit with a 8d6+2+4. which never wouldve hit, ever.

[The Glyphstone]

And Blues are actually LA +0, it was a typo that got errataed.

[Indon]

i love l.a.'s, i almost never make base race characters. The great thing about l.a. races (if you find a good one, 'cuz as Dausuul said most of them suck) is that you can get abilities and stuff that simply leveling wouldnt give you. A low l.a. race, without racial hd or levels is simply awesome. 'cuz you only sacrifice a level or two, and then you can build awesome combos. for example, my ecl 5, level 4 goliath with a +6 to hit with his 8d6+2+str (which is +6) greataxe. if i hadnt been goliath, that wouldve been +2 to hit with a 8d6+2+4. which never wouldve hit, ever.

Goliath was previously mentioned as a relatively uncommon example of an LA race which really is pretty good.

What could you do with, say, a Dwergar (deep dwarf), or an Aasimar?

Edit: Or a high LA/RHD race like a Troll?

[Caelestion]

Well, Hobgoblins suck at +1 LA. The LA is clearly there just to enforce "this is not the race you're looking for". LA is also apparently there to emphasise rarity and unwillingness to socialise, just as much as it is about the power (which is backwards, but hey).

[MrNexx]

Well, Hobgoblins suck at +1 LA. The LA is clearly there just to enforce "this is not the race you're looking for". LA is also apparently there to emphasise rarity and unwillingness to socialise, just as much as it is about the power (which is backwards, but hey).

I like adding a -2 to Charisma for Hobgoblins, and calling them +0 LA. Hobgoblins, traditionally, get along well inside their tribe, but do not get along well with anyone else (even other hobgoblins)

[talsine]

Rebalanced the half-orc? Could you please send me the statistics? I'd like to use it for future games (especially if I do an orc campaign).

off the top of my head i think we dropped the Cha penalty and gave them, like, a plus +2 bonus to Intimidate and Survial, which goes well with their Barb favored class. He tried just adding the +1 Skill points/lvl, without giving them the skill bonuses, and that worked ok too, but didn't have thefeel we were going for.

Hobgoblins are fine LA+0 as they are, people balk at the no penalties to their stats, but its really all they get. its not super unbalanceing.

[TO_Incognito]

Can anyone offer us more information on the LA and point-but buy-off; IE, a character with +0 LA gets 32 pt point buy, a character with a +1 LA gets 25 pt point buy, and a character with +2 LA gets the 18 pt point buy, or similar.

[Conners]

Mr.Nexx: Thanks Nex, sounds like a good system.

talsine: Sounds good. Still, I like the half-orc CHR penalty, so maybe I'll change around the idea a little.


While on the subject of Level Adjustment, which races do you guys think are over LA-ed, under LA-ed, or just right?

[GrimDoomFlame]

If your a monster class that starts with like a + 2HD roll and a +1 level adjustment does that make your ECL like 3? Or 4 if you were starting a level 1st like barbarian on top of the monster class? Or would the ECL just stay at 1 for a +1 level adjustment?

Thx

[talsine]

We went with the Int penalty for the HalfOrc because its less of a dumpstat for anyone, cha is only super useful or some classes, Int is always nice though.

the LA +0 Asmir/Tiefling/etc from the PGtF are pretty broken, and the HalfDragon is over LA'd. Good examples of La +1, HalfGiants and and Goliaths are very well balanced.

[MrNexx]

If your a monster class that starts with like a + 2HD roll and a +1 level adjustment does that make your ECL like 3? Or 4 if you were starting a level 1st like barbarian on top of the monster class? Or would the ECL just stay at 1 for a +1 level adjustment?

Thx

You're right. To find your Effective Character Level, you add racial HD, Level Adjustment, and class levels.