The LA-assignment thread V: Escape from LA

[JBarca]

Option #1 seems better. Comparing monsters to the sort of class that one might play instead of that monster seems more relevant than to a theoretical "tier." Whereas a hypothetical monster with Sorcerer casting equal to its HD is stronger than a Warblade of its level, the balance point isn't Warblades. It's Sorcerers.

This also works better for most tables, I'd imagine. At my table, a Wizard and a Barbarian play side-by-side. A [Monster than casts like a Wizard] and an Ogre should be able to as well. But if the [Monster that casts like a Wizard] has bloated LA because of its Tier and the Ogre has reduced LA for its Tier, then suddenly I'm running a game for a Wizard some levels lower than Party Level and a Barbarian some levels higher. I feel like that's more problematic. Adjusting balance for Tier should be done on a table-by-table, player-by-player basis if you ask me, since it depends on some level of game mastery and optimization skill.

[Thurbane]

If you'd like to rebalance the system, be my guest, the Homebrew Design forum is right there

Just a nitpick: the entire process of assigning LAs different than those that WotC assigned is essentially homebrewing...

[DeTess]

I'd rather have option 2 because it has more internal consistency. But in practical terms establishing the baseline would be impossibly contentious, leading to page upon page of circular debates for every monster that isn't a clear -0. And not everyone wants their game focused on Tier 3 classes anyway -- that just happens to be a common meeting point. So I'm voting for Option 1.

I'm with Dimers on this one. In an ideal world we'd all balance them around the same balance point, but in reality that'd just lead to endless debates about the exact definition of that balance point, and the tiers are rather broad to begin with (for example, this thing would be Tier 3-is at both +0 and +1 LA imho), so my vote is also for option 1.

[Goaty14]

Just a nitpick: the entire process of assigning LAs different than those that WotC assigned is essentially homebrewing...

Yes,. If you take a monster stat block (made by WotC), look at the "Level Adjustment" value (made by WotC), and change the single, numerical value, to something of your own design, then I suppose that's "homebrewing".

Just saying, publishing a MMI with all of the monster stat blocks, and only the LA changed, is probably enough to get you sued by WotC. I consider it more of an "analysis" than "homebrew" for that reason.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Put me down for option #1. As I said before, it's not our job to fix the imbalance between tier 5 and tier 1.

[Lapak]

I honestly just can't get my head around a spellcasting monster that is roughly on a par with a Wizard getting LA +0; and a melee brute who's better than a Fighter getting LA +1 or +2.

Maybe that's just me.

Well, that's my point; would you make a player playing a Wizard (which is on par with a Wizard, one assumes) apply LA before letting them join the rest of the party? If so, Option 2 makes sense; if not, there's an inconsistency somewhere.

I'm not saying that's unreasonable as an option, by the by; this is another thing that was built into early D&D and abandoned later. Pre-3e arcane casters had to earn more XP for each level, which is kinda like slapping them with LA.

[Caelestion]

I think that Option 1 will generate fewer arguments, but I do agree with Thurbane's reservations about Option 1 and I'd add that if "better than human rogue, so +1" is used alongside "worse than water orc swordsage ur-priest, so +0", then we're still being wildly inconsistent.

[danielxcutter]

Throwing in a vote for #1 as well, for the reasons mentioned earlier.

Still, I think that comparing it against just one class may not work. I'd say the Swordsage comparisons are still valid, because the "role" a Swordsage plays are similar enough to a Rogue to say that. Comparing it to a Shadowbane Stalker or Unseen Seer though - that won't.

Also, cases like the Protean Scourge are also awkward - do we rate it based on a normal Sorcerer, or do we rate it based on a Bard or Psychic Warrior, since even an NPC Scourge won't get 9th-level spells before epic CR?

Just my 2 cp.

[ViperMagnum357]

Also, cases like the Protean Scourge are also awkward - do we rate it based on a normal Sorcerer, or do we rate it based on a Bard or Psychic Warrior, since even an NPC Scourge won't get 9th-level spells before epic CR?

I tried to address that earlier: I think for casters with more RHD for caster levels, the build they are measured against should have an equal number of that casting level via base class, with the remaining RHD matched up to non-casting class levels that most resemble the critter's capabilities. IE, the Protean Scourge would be compared to a Sorcerer 8 with 5 levels in classes that would get you as close as possible to the Change Shape (Su), ability/skill bonuses, and various other parts of the package. Far from perfect, but perhaps a step up from what we have been doing.

[Dimers]

I honestly just can't get my head around a spellcasting monster that is roughly on a par with a Wizard getting LA +0; and a melee brute who's better than a Fighter getting LA +1 or +2.

It's unfair in the same way a party with a druid and a monk is unfair. Shouldn't the druid have a penalty, or the monk a bonus, in that situation? Probably so, and yet mixed-tier parties do exist.

Put it this way, if you're going to have a party of all T1 characters, a T1-like monster should be able to fit in without penalty, and if you're going to have a party of all T4s, a T4-like monster needs to be balanced for that. We can't force all PCs to come to a middle ground. Arguably, we shouldn't try.

If it's appropriate for me to build a wizard for a game and I make something wizardish via RHD, it shouldn't be nerfed; if it's appropriate for me to build a fighter and I make something fighterish-but-better via RHD, it should be nerfed. The problem is knowing which of those is appropriate. And that's not something this thread can address at all.

[zlefin]

haven't participated in awhile; I'd lean toward option 1, but it's a tough call. It feels a bit more straightforward to compare to, though I'm not sure why I feel that way.

I think the LA project is most useful for low optimization and low system mastery groups, as they're the one who would most need to use someone else's judgment on LA changes. Though I'm not entirely sure how that affects this decision.

I guess the other big question is that ensuring the results are easy to use/comprehend. We could in some sense have both, giving monsters both an LA, and a tier based on class-equivalents, but that might get too complicated for many of the users (especially seeing as tier, while useful for a DM to understand how to balance a party, isn't a direct mechanical effect like LA).

I'm concerned that trying to do option 2 would make it more sensitive to optimization level, as higher optimization levels increase the tier divergence, which could mean a different LA would be most fitting based on the target optimization level (which are themselves not that well-defined)

[TiaC]

I also feel that the entire point of this thread is to balance monsters. Literally the only thing we do is assign a number that is used to balance existing material. If we balance things against an unbalanced metric, what's the point? Looking at a monster we assigned a +1 to would tell you nothing about it, because maybe we meant that it was better than a druid of the same HD, and maybe we meant it was better than a barbarian.

[ExLibrisMortis]

We could in some sense have both, giving monsters both an LA, and a tier based on class-equivalents, but that might get too complicated for many of the users (especially seeing as tier, while useful for a DM to understand how to balance a party, isn't a direct mechanical effect like LA).

Yeah, it's a discussion we've had before. Strangely enough, it's not easy to put a single number on the relation between a monster-as-PC and the whole range of classes that PC could have been. I do think it's a good idea to make the tier a monster is rated at explicit, if we're going to choose option 1. We'll just have to deal with the fact that the older entries won't be in the same format.

[danielxcutter]

I also feel that the entire point of this thread is to balance monsters. Literally the only thing we do is assign a number that is used to balance existing material. If we balance things against an unbalanced metric, what's the point? Looking at a monster we assigned a +1 to would tell you nothing about it, because maybe we meant that it was better than a druid of the same HD, and maybe we meant it was better than a barbarian.

By that logic, we should give all human druids +4 LA by default.

[Thurbane]

I can see the merits and reasoning behind both methods, but I honestly just can't see the sense in more powerful creatures getting lower LA than less powerful creatures.

That seems to run contrary to the whole point of LA to me.

Anyway, we're having a vote, and my "side" seems to be getting heavily outvoted - I'll roll with the majority decision, and deal with it.

[Mike Miller]

I also vote option #1. I feel comparing the creature to a PC of equal role is best.

[TotallyNotEvil]

I also feel that the entire point of this thread is to balance monsters. Literally the only thing we do is assign a number that is used to balance existing material. If we balance things against an unbalanced metric, what's the point? Looking at a monster we assigned a +1 to would tell you nothing about it, because maybe we meant that it was better than a druid of the same HD, and maybe we meant it was better than a barbarian.

While I get your concern, these don't exist by themselves in a white room.

It's a fairly intuitive method, as one can get a pretty good idea of how a certain monster will get built as, and there's always the rest of the party to consider. You don't except the guy asking "what's the LA on an Ogre?" to be thinking of a finesse rogue.

While a Super Bruiser might deserve a +1 on a down-to-earth party, a canny DM should very well realize that "Super Bruiser" might very well be what you want if the party is skewed for casters.

I would say "how does this compared to the obvious human equivalent" is an instinctual response to analyzing a monster, so a random DM looking at the ratings shouldn't be terribly lost.

[TiaC]

By that logic, we should give all human druids +4 LA by default.

You say this like it's a gotcha, but the druid is clearly not balanced with the monk. Unbalanced things are unbalanced. Pretending that 3.5 core is balanced is silly, and balancing things to core is how we got the Samurai and Archivist. Given that this thread is about balancing things, we shouldn't use core as our baseline.

I don't approve of a +4 LA for the druid, but that's because I don't like LA as it's written. I just advance things until I think they're fair. (Also, I'd prefer bringing up the weaker classes over nerfing the strong ones.)

[Luccan]

Both options have their own issues. Option 1 risks serious issues when your +4 LA giant barbarian winds up in a party with the +1 LA celestial cleric. On the other hand, Option 2 might have us rank something like this rakshasa +0 LA and one day a group finds they completely outrank the halfling rogue at most everything. Neither is perfect, but what will at least help is a consistent basis that's explained up front. As is, I'll abstain from a vote on this one. I think people have made good points about both options (relative balance and middle-ground balance), we just need to settle on one going forward.

Edit: I suppose the third option would be to give two separate rankings, but given it has taken a while to get to this point already...

[unseenmage]

..., but I honestly just can't see the sense in more powerful creatures getting lower LA than less powerful creatures.

That seems to run contrary to the whole point of LA to me.

...

See I appreciate you Thurbane, you're often a level head and a steady voice in many a discussion.

That said, could you elaborate? I earnestly just want to know what the point of LA is to you.

Spoiler: me trying to elaborate my own thoughts

Show

To me LA was originally a single number trying to do exactly what we're seeing trouble with here complicated by the original assignees prevalence to err solidly on the side of caution and basic lack of comprehension of what 3.x would become.

To me every monster is it's own odd little class that must be taken in its entirety before any other levels. Or more every creature type is a class, every monster is a prestige class.

Optimally they should all be tiered and not level adjusted. The idea of penalty dead levels is a hard pill to swallow. Akin to wizards requiring more xp to level, as has already been mentioned.

LA is a single value trying to express a whole equation's worth of information from several different perspectives at once.
How can we ask a single digit to accurately distinguish between several power level vantage points at once when those vantage points and the digit will all be viewed subjectively, and rightly so, through table variance?

Is your issue with option 1 or, more like myself, with assigning level adjustments?

Again, just curious.
My apologies if I explain poorly. High comprehension, low calculation. I get things, I just have trouble using the info meaningfully.

[Elkad]

Option 1.

When 2 players pick an Ogre Barbarian and an Elf barbarian, I'd like them to be reasonably similar at the table.

I already know the Druid and the Barbarian won't be similar, no matter what race they choose.

[liquidformat]

I honestly just can't get my head around a spellcasting monster that is roughly on a par with a Wizard getting LA +0; and a melee brute who's better than a Fighter getting LA +1 or +2.

Maybe that's just me.

One note of point to my knowledge nothing with full casting has gotten +0 LA.

I also feel that the entire point of this thread is to balance monsters. Literally the only thing we do is assign a number that is used to balance existing material. If we balance things against an unbalanced metric, what's the point? Looking at a monster we assigned a +1 to would tell you nothing about it, because maybe we meant that it was better than a druid of the same HD, and maybe we meant it was better than a barbarian.

I honestly don't see where you are going with this unbalanced metric idea. At the end of the day I can play a level 20 monk, 20 fighter, 20 wizard, 20 druid, so on and so forth without having to adjust their levels to keep them competitive. However, you are saying on the other hand comparing a barbarian to an ogre and a nymph to a druid is inherently unbalanced. If I am comparing a druid to a nymph and say hey this is totally outclassing the druid that has more weight and logic behind it than if I am saying hey this nymph is outclassing a monk or duskblade since they are similar enough to be good points to compare and contrast.

[TiaC]

At the end of the day I can play a level 20 monk, 20 fighter, 20 wizard, 20 druid, so on and so forth without having to adjust their levels to keep them competitive.

If you can play all of these characters together without it being unbalanced, then why does it matter what class we compare a monster to? If they are balanced for you without adjustment, then balancing a monster against any of them would give you the same LA. So, do you think that you would give a ghaele the same LA when comparing it against a Cleric and against a Fighter?

[danielxcutter]

If you can play all of these characters together without it being unbalanced, then why does it matter what class we compare a monster to? If they are balanced for you without adjustment, then balancing a monster against any of them would give you the same LA. So, do you think that you would give a ghaele the same LA when comparing it against a Cleric and against a Fighter?

No, because Fighters don't have Cleric casting.

It's not that classes are balanced - they're not - it's that Option 1 is about trying to assign LA based on classes comparable to the monster at hand.

3.5e is very unbalanced in terms of casters and martials, that's impossible to stomp out entirely without writing a new system from scratch. But you don't see people arguing that something should have less LA because it doesn't have racial casting or something like that.

[TiaC]

No, because Fighters don't have Cleric casting.

So, the Ghaele would have a different LA when compared against a cleric than when compared against a fighter?

It's almost like the classes are horribly balanced and don't provide a balance benchmark. If LA is going vary wildly based on what class we chose to compare it to, then what's the point? The Ak’chazar is +0 against a tier 1 caster, because nothing it does makes up for being 6 levels down. (5 + 1 for sorcerer) It's at least +2 against a Ranger. It has full BAB, 12+ skill ranks/level, martial proficiency and +13 NA, so it's not crazy to compare it to the original skilled bruiser. However, it has rebuke undead and casts off the wizard list, so it's not crazy to compare it to a tier 1 either.

[Inevitability]

Clarification question for option 1, 'comparable PC class of equal EC' does that mean lets compare to a straight class, or to a build, like for low level beatsticks monster we compare to straight fighter6 or water orc barb2/warblade4?
I feel these are two very dramatically different comparisons...

...honestly, I'll admit that's one of the issues that method has (not to imply the other one doesn't have any, though). The average benchmark for a beatstick would probably be somewhere between straight water orc barbarian and water orc barb2/warblade4.

If we end up with #1, then we can always hold a new vote for benchmarks :P

Be careful what you wish for. :P

[OgresAreCute]

...honestly, I'll admit that's one of the issues that method has (not to imply the other one doesn't have any, though). The average benchmark for a beatstick would probably be somewhere between straight water orc barbarian and water orc barb2/warblade4.

I'd say it's a lot easier to make reasonable benchmarks for option #1 than option #2, even if it will still be hard to do. Many people can't even agree on which classes are in tier 3 and which aren't (just look at eggynack's re-tiering effort). Sure, some sorcerer-like monster with charming/charisma abilities might be roughly balanced with a Beguiler, which would be fine according to JaronK's tier list, but many people out there think the Beguiler fits better in tier 2 than tier 3.

[TiaC]

I'd say it's a lot easier to make reasonable benchmarks for option #1 than option #2, even if it will still be hard to do. Many people can't even agree on which classes are in tier 3 and which aren't (just look at eggynack's re-tiering effort). Sure, some sorcerer-like monster with charming/charisma abilities might be roughly balanced with a Beguiler, which would be fine according to JaronK's tier list, but many people out there think the Beguiler fits better in tier 2 than tier 3.

I'm not arguing for some strict "tiers as gospel", I know the system has problems. I just want us to try to balance to one balance point, not half a dozen. (Really, we should be balancing against expected challenges, but that's even harder.) Something shouldn't get LA for being stronger than a class that is barely playable straight-classed at the level played. Likewise, something shouldn't escape LA for being weaker than casters at the level they break the game over their knee.

The reason I've been so staunch in arguing this position is that I've been doing a lot of updating of Eberron material for PF, with some rebalancing. There was thins thing I noticed, where I'd update a spell or caster PrC that was useless and I'd try to make it something people would use, and it would get better, but I'd look at the other options and judge that it was fine. Meanwhile, when I worked with a martial feat or PrC, I'd look at what was available and try to make the ability usable, but not strictly better, but that still left it far weaker than caster options. It's so easy to slip into the trap of balancing to existing content, despite knowing that that content is unbalanced and will just perpetuate the problem.

[Edog]

Finally caught up with the thread today—just in time for the big vote! I’d like to vote for Option #1, because giving a big LA penalty to caster monsters without doing the same to “normal” casters is ridiculous. We should have some way to decide what to compare the monster to, though—maybe in the main post? Otherwise we’ll just get more arguments, like for the nymph.

Anyway, voting for Option #1.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I'd say it's a lot easier to make reasonable benchmarks for option #1 than option #2, even if it will still be hard to do. Many people can't even agree on which classes are in tier 3 and which aren't (just look at eggynack's re-tiering effort). Sure, some sorcerer-like monster with charming/charisma abilities might be roughly balanced with a Beguiler, which would be fine according to JaronK's tier list, but many people out there think the Beguiler fits better in tier 2 than tier 3.

Eggy's retiering only started because a previous retiering effort got a result a bunch of people did not like so they abandoned that for eggy's which also is producing results that, in my experience, are highly anomalous and based off of group think versus useful information. A proper set of metrics to try to rate the classes in a reliable and meaningful capacity would be the stuff of a doctoral thesis in information science or epistemology.

Ultimately both options have issues:
Option 1: any monster will need to be analyzed versus a class, but which? The naztharune is compared to a rogue, but a barbarian with ACFs also maps extremely well, better I would argue. Thus for each monster to get an accurate portrait it would be necessary to figure out which class+acf (to keep it simple) would be closest and then to judge against that. Anything simpler threatens to distort the LA down versus stronger monsters but the more accurate method would render each rating each monster an onerous task and, without securing some sort of simple anti-majoritarian features, still runs into the problems the last 2 retiring efforts ran into: you are right or you are silent. We see it here; people are openly voting against themselves because they don't want to waste their time and be shut out.

Option 2: Simpler, easier, and more likely to run the risk of monster overshadowing their counterpart. Weaker classes are more likely to have prospective players enticed away because exoticism without any meaningful loss is problematic enough but once the weaker classes are overshadowed they may as well be defunct.

To put this entire thing efficiently for someone running through the discussion:

Option 1: Bad because in order to be accurate it would require a level of sophistication I expect no one wants to put in on, and a level of cooperation and respect that simply does not exist here and probably anywhere outside of the dark web or some intranets.

Option 2: The downside of this option essentially justifies the inflated LAs that sparked this thread series to begin with and may see the lower iconic classes just swept aside entirely.

Pick your poison. Option 2 is less work for a flawed result so again I choose it.