The LA-assignment Thread IV: Live Free or Hit Die Hard

[Blue Jay]

Less whining, more rating.

Oh, whoops!

I'm just going to toe the party line here: LA -0.

Grafted Armor would be more interesting if you could choose a specific armor to graft on, and enhance it like normal armor.

[Zaq]

15 RHD. No thumbs. No spells, SLAs, or anything on par with the above. Trivial -0.

[Inevitability]

Justicator

Awesome guys, I can tell you that.

...my Lawful biases aside, justicators are fairly typical for high-HD (17, in this case) outsiders. They're Large, have bonuses to all stats (albeit disappointingly low ones), get DR/alignment, Spell Resistance, and some other random trait (in this case, immunity to paralysis), combined with a couple of spell-like abilities and one or two quirky special attacks (in this case, 4/day Smite Chaos).

The spell-likes are... kinda meh. At-will Detect Chaos and Bless aren't great. 3/day CSW and Invisibility Purge are hardly worth mentioning, though 3/day Silence and Dimensional Anchor at least have some use against casters. 1/day Plane Shift is neat, Greater Command less so, and Dispel Chaos is awful.

All things considered, and neat outsider HD notwithstanding, the justicator is a bad pick. I'd be prepared to argue a 17th-level paladin has more interesting and powerful options, whether magic- or melee-wise, and that's before going into dips, PrCs, and decent base classes. -0 LA, very maybe +0.

[OgresAreCute]

17 (pretty good) RHD with large size, wings, 4/day smite chaos and a handful of incredibly lame SLAs? You're making me sleepy.

-0.

[ViperMagnum357]

Justicator: Outsider, but 17 RHD worth with pretty terrible SLAs and only +32 net abilities. 90 ft flight speed and DR 10/Chaotic are the standouts, which tells you all you need to know for this thing at 17 Hit Dice.

I concur-total snoozefest, LA -0 easily.

[Random Sanity]

A handful of mostly-situational spell-likes and the stats of something half its level do not justify 17 RHD. Ever.

-0.

[Celestia]

Spoiler

Show

The medieval enthusiast in me cringed at the sight of that horribly awful sword.

[Nifft]

17 RHD, yet CR 13.

Even WotC knew this thing wasn't worth its inflated HD.

Verdict: lawful with emphasis on all letters after the first, LA -0

[Zaq]

They seem to have forgotten the interesting parts of the monster.

-0.

[Efrate]

it would have been nice if it was all abilities and features of a 17th level paladin, but replace all instances of evil with chaos.

as is a bad minus 0.

[javcs]

Concur, LA -0.
It is decidedly underwhelming.

Not even worth using as a minion.

[liquidformat]

no whelming occurred here not even a little and I tried a few times to whelm even a tiny bit... To -0 world with you, even a standard phb paladin is better than you...

[Covenant12]

Also -0.

I like the theme, but yeah I'd rather play a PHB-only human paladin. Flight isn't expensive at level 17 (well, maybe PHB-only), and they don't bring a lot else.
Nothing here competes with 9th level maneuvers.

[Nifft]

Nothing here competes with 9th level maneuvers.

HMMMMMM.

I like the idea of giving maneuvers and/or spells to compensate for these high-RHD tragedies.

For this species, I could see Devoted Spirit and Iron Heart.

[Thurbane]

I haven't been keeping up with this thread as much as I'd like, but skimming through now...wow. That's a lot of LA -0.

MM3 obviously wasn't designed with playable monsters in mind...

[javcs]

I haven't been keeping up with this thread as much as I'd like, but skimming through now...wow. That's a lot of LA -0.

MM3 obviously wasn't designed with playable monsters in mind...

Most monsters weren't designed to be played by actual players, and were only intended for DM use.

And sadly, a common failing of many monsters designed by WotC is to compensate for failings and/or weaknesses by stacking up large numbers of RHD.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The medieval enthusiast in me cringed at the sight of that horribly awful sword.

I've seen worse. It's a bit thick, and has some weird notches on the end, but swords worse than that on either count are too common for me to worry about this one.

And sadly, a common failing of many monsters designed by WotC is to compensate for failings and/or weaknesses by stacking up large numbers of RHD.

Bigger numbers make for better fights, right? Not just samey bullcrap where every fight is a punching match punctuated by PC Save-or-Dies and the occasional overhyped gimmicky monster power?

[Inevitability]

Kenku

Bird-people! To be completely frank I like their 5e incarnation (which adds a couple traits that make them stand out more) better.

In a rare case of the universe answering my blessings, kenku have no RHD. Their ability adjustments are fairly standard (+2 dex, -2 str), and they have a few quirky abilities which I'll quickly cover.

Two natural claws (1d3 damage each) aren't very notable, especially not when most PCs would prefer using weapons. +2 on Hide and Move Silently is okay. Mimicry is somewhere around at-will Ghost Sound in terms of utility, but not useless.

Finally, there's Great Ally, which might as well be called 'pretty mediocre ally'. It increases the bonus a kenku gives on Aid Another from +2 to +3, and doubles the attack bonus against flanked creatures. It's not bad, per se, and a rogue will probably like the second part at least, but it's not 'great'.

To be honest, these might be the closest to -0 LA out of all PC races I've ever covered here. However, I suppose that there's reasons to play them, and it's not like a kenku PC can't compete with tier 3 classes of equal ECL (if only because it could be those tier 3 classes). +0 LA, if barely.

To DMs whose players want to play a kenku: consider adding two points of wisdom, or removing the strength penalty. At the very least, add some very limited gliding like ECL 1 dragonborn get.

[OgresAreCute]

Kenku: For when you want to be a bird but you don't want to fly for some reason (???)

Kinda mediocre, but other than a few stand-outs, most +0 races don't give a whole load of stuff. Nothing to see here.

+0.

[Unavenger]

A +2 to attack rolls on all attacks you actually care about and two skills you're going to be using a lot doesn't scream "Mediocre" to me - a kenku would make a great flanker rogue. Two natural claws also means two attacks with no offhand penalty, so now you have a +4 to all attacks you actually care about and a bonus feat, at least at low levels. I can't see any real argument that these are unplayable.

[Random Sanity]

Kenku: when you want to play something stupider-looking than a penguin.

The racials are kinda laughable outside of a few specific class builds and that one encounter with a douchebag DM who makes you deal with a no-gear start. But at least you don't have any RHD to make up for.

+0, just barely.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Two natural claws (1d3 damage each) aren't very notable, especially not when most PCs would prefer using weapons.

They're basically daggers that you can't throw or lose...or improve, easily. Oh, and you can dual-wield them without a feat, which is kinda cool until you start needing magic weapons. Not useless (they can be used in most situations you'd want a backup dagger for, and it's hard for people capturing you to completely disarm you without dis-arming you), but probably comparable to stonesense in utility.
There are absolutely races that are better at anything they'd want to be, but there are also races which are utter rubbish at anything. (Sorry, half-orcs.) If the half-orc is +0, the kenku probably is, too.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Agreed, +0. To make them stand out a bit more, maybe give them something like "can use Aid Another as a swift action"?

[ViperMagnum357]

Kenku: honestly, I think the reviewers are being a little harsh. Most LA 0 races are pretty trash when the usual balance point is Human/Strongheart Halfling/Azurin/Water Orc/Lesser Aasimar/Whisper Gnome. It is net +0 on abilities, has two claw attacks, Medium race with 30 ft ground speed, +4 skill bonuses, and two mediocre if marginally useful abilities. Not good by any stretch of the imagination, but no worse than average for races besides the ones I mentioned.

LA +0, not strong but firmly away from LA -0.

[Nifft]

Kenku: honestly, I think the reviewers are being a little harsh.

This thread suffers from expectation inflation, and some posters value things that are unusual or surprising more than things which are effective.

Kenku is well above Half-Elf, and below Dwarf.

Verdict: LA +0.

[Luccan]

It's no worse than the PHB kobold or goblin (probably better, actually, at least it gets real racial features and a net 0 ability mod). I think +0 is more than fine. At 0 racial HD, assuming no major weaknesses, you don't really need to worry about lacking huge strengths. You'll have a full 20 class levels to play with.

[liquidformat]

bah let the haters hate Kenku is better than goblins and half-elves by a long shot and both those sucky races got +0. I also think you are under valuing starting out with two claws for a race that is made for being a flanker rogue. At level 1 by adding improved unarmed strike I can attack three times and if I am in a game with flaws I can take multiattack and be outperforming other rogues. The name of the game for rogues is getting more attack and while this isn't as good as kobold due to no bite it still is a decent choice. Also +2 move silent/hide is solid and useful for your rogue. +0 la

[javcs]

Concur, +0.
They aren't great, but on the other hand, for no RHD, they'd need to be actively terrible to get a -0.

[Thurbane]

Their ability adjustments are fairly unsurprising for a small PC race (+2 dex, -2 str), and they have a few quirky abilities which I'll quickly cover.

Just FYI, they are Medium. I've seen a few sources list them as small. Maybe they were small in an earlier edition? Or maybe it's the art - it kind of makes them look small.

I agree with LA +0.

Their modifiers and racial abilities are nothing special, but they are far from the worst official LA +0 race. Unless I needed Str on a build, I'd chose them over Half-elf, for instance.

[No brains]

Kenku Wizard 20 deletes you from existence along with anything else with more than 3ECL. Da bird is +0 if for not other reason than it doesn't have Reprehensible Hampering Dice keeping a player from making useful choices. I'll admit it looks underwhelming, but it doesn't actively suck.

As for being a flightless bird, can tengu fly? I think Kenku are loosely based off of them.

On another note for a 5e comparison, IIRC, these Kenku are small, but now they are medium. I think a small Kenku could have some cuteness or 'little menace' to it, but a medium flightless birdman, is just kinda horrifying. I'd sooner play a small Crow T. Humanoid just because it keeps them closer to regular crows.

Though that one cosplay on D&D Beyond's YouTube channel was pretty awesome.