Racial HD counting towards ECL. What?!

[Jergmo]

Why does anyone take care of a cat or a dog?

People do irrational things. Indeed, people rarely do rational things.

But...if they see other people worshipping a deity who grants them power, and theirs doesn't do anything for them...why... DOES NOT COMPUTE.

[Krrth]

However, those deities grant spells. Which is the reason why those Drow clerics worship her.

Actually.....not necessarily. The clerics could get spells without worshiping any deity (in any setting but forgotten realms, anyways.) Lloth could be sitting on her butt eating souls like popcorn, not granting any spells whatsoever....and her clergy wouldn't be the wiser. Especially if she arranges an "accident" for someone who figures it out.

For that matter, her clergy has a vested interest in arranging that accident without her even getting involved.



edit: What I'm saying is they may THINK they are getting power from worship....but aren't.

[Jergmo]

If you don't run a campaign of munchkins... then what's the problem here?


No, I'm serious. If optimization of some sort is not the goal here... if all you care about is the "RP-perspective", why does it matter if <random bruiser race XYZ> can't produce casters that are on the same level as PC races while retaining an equivalent ECL and their racial bonuses?

Because it doesn't make sense that it's impossible for any creature stronger than a human to be able to progress as well as a humanoid that doesn't have more racial hit die.

[Kylarra]

Also, how are they killing all of these PC's who have spellcasters among them all the time?

Are you arguing for the sake of arguing or have you never actually seen a monster race kill a pc?

But...if they see other people worshipping a deity who grants them power, and theirs doesn't do anything for them...why... DOES NOT COMPUTE.

By strict RAW you don't have to worship a deity at all to be granted cleric spells. So this point is irrelevant.

Because it doesn't make sense that it's impossible for any creature stronger than a human to be able to progress as well as a humanoid that doesn't have more racial hit die.

It's just as impossible for a fighter4 to progress as a wizard as a well as a wizard who hasn't taken any levels as a fighter.


Are you really not seeing the point? They already have equivalent "class levels" of sorts that grant them HP, saves, feats, BAB, skills etc. If you take on equivalent progression (to non RHD/LA races) in casting classes onto that, why haven't all of the LA/RHD races taken over the world yet? DM fiat?

[nightwyrm]

RAW is RAW. By the game rules, any race with level adjustment or racial hit dice makes terrible casters. Arguing that you don't like RAW won't do anything. If you don't like RAW, change it for your game. Make up your own ogre or giant races without LA or racial hd.

No one really cares what happens in your home game. No one cares either if your houserules breaks the game further than it already is.

[Krrth]

Because it doesn't make sense that it's impossible for any creature stronger than a human to be able to progress as well as a humanoid that doesn't have more racial hit die.

Actually....it does. The more powerful you are compared to a "PC" race, the less motivation you have to get something done.

Why bother learning how to throw a fireball when your innate abilities allow you to throw a lightning bolt, command sharks, or just throw large boulders at anything that annoys you?

[Jergmo]

Are you arguing for the sake of arguing or have you never actually seen a monster race kill a pc?


By strict RAW you don't have to worship a deity at all to be granted cleric spells. So this point is irrelevant.



It's just as impossible for a fighter4 to progress as a wizard as a well as a wizard who hasn't taken any levels as a fighter.


Are you really not seeing the point? They already have equivalent "class levels" of sorts that grant them HP, saves, feats, BAB, skills etc. If you take on equivalent progression (to non RHD/LA races) in casting classes onto that, why haven't all of the LA/RHD races taken over the world yet? DM fiat?

I have yet to see a monster race kill a group of PC's where the players weren't being really stupid or it was a grossly CR-inappropriate creature.

Because humans are more numerous and adaptable. Also, I'm not even going to bother arguing about the racials make them better fighters thing so that's what they're all going to play because this is getting nowhere.

[Jergmo]

Actually....it does. The more powerful you are compared to a "PC" race, the less motivation you have to get something done.

Why bother learning how to throw a fireball when your innate abilities allow you to throw a lightning bolt, command sharks, or just throw large boulders at anything that annoys you?

Back to the example of a Cloud Giant, the only spell-like abilities it has are levitate, obscuring mist, and fog cloud. However, they're set up to be played as clerics or sorcerers.

[The Rose Dragon]

Back to the example of a Cloud Giant, the only spell-like abilities it has are levitate, obscuring mist, and fog cloud. However, they're set up to be played as clerics or sorcerers.

They are not set up to be played. At all. Not as clerics. Not as fighters. At all. See their Level Adjustment entry in the SRD? What does it say? "-". Meaning they are not meant to be played.

Hell, if something has an ECL higher than 4, it probably wasn't meant to be played, despite what the LA might tell you.

[Jergmo]

They are not set up to be played. At all. Not as clerics. Not as fighters. At all. See their Level Adjustment entry in the SRD? What does it say? "-". Meaning they are not meant to be played.

Hell, if something has an ECL higher than 4, it probably wasn't meant to be played, despite what the LA might tell you.

What I meant was, they were meant to be good sorcerers and clerics, not to be played as one. Sorry.

[lsfreak]

A lot of these arguments make no sense except when you view NPC races as nothing but experience-on-legs...

Adjust. Take a look at what things *should* be like and change them. You can't make a specific rule for how to convert because you end up with things like ogres still being useless while others are crazy-powerful.

One way would be to trade *some* racial HD for class levels. For example (just making stuff up, don't know if it's balanced or anything) drop ogres down to 2HD/+1LA if they're a caster but 3HD/+2 as a melee, explaining it that the caster did not progress as much in terms of the norm of the society (represented as racial HD) but instead went into other areas upon reaching adulthood; the fighter did progress as normal (more racial HD). This provides fluff to make sense of mechanics, because a caster-ogre needs racial HD to make up only for added size (which, really, is a penalty unless maybe they're gishing) and the non-humanoid race. The fighter-ogre, on the other hand, needs HD/LA to bring it up farther because of the benefits of the added reach and large Str boost.

[The Rose Dragon]

They can be good sorcerers and clerics. However, they will be greatly more powerful than their human counterparts of the same level.

ECL does not determine how powerful something is in combat. That would be CR. A PC roughly has +1 CR compared to an NPC of the same level and race, due to increased stats and wealth.

ECL system is an afterthought. Upon a slight glance, it becomes obvious that WotC did not work out the full implications of it, or even if they did, that they did not really work to balance it out. To try and determine any facts about a game world using those rules will mostly result in great fail.

[LibraryOgre]

I allow people to replace Racial HD with NPC classes, if they wish. NPC classes, in addition to being superior to Humanoid Racial HD, also count as one less for the calculation of ECL.

[Frog Dragon]

If their deity doesn't care about them, why are they worshipping it?

Because they believe the deity cares about and attribute say.. luck for the deity?

[Jergmo]

They can be good sorcerers and clerics. However, they will be greatly more powerful than their human counterparts of the same level.

ECL does not determine how powerful something is in combat. That would be CR. A PC roughly has +1 CR compared to an NPC of the same level and race, due to increased stats and wealth.

ECL system is an afterthought. Upon a slight glance, it becomes obvious that WotC did not work out the full implications of it, or even if they did, that they did not really work to balance it out. To try and determine any facts about a game world using those rules will mostly result in great fail.

Their ECL does, however, determine how they will be able to increase their CR with levels.

[The Rose Dragon]

Their ECL does, however, determine how they will be able to increase their CR with levels.

Not unless they are players, it doesn't. ECL only applies to PCs and player cohorts. Anything else runs on CR.

[Jergmo]

Not unless they are players, it doesn't. ECL only applies to PCs and player cohorts. Anything else runs on CR.

But...then how did the NPC's get their class levels?

[Krrth]

But...then how did the NPC's get their class levels?

Same way PC's did. The difference is, in the hands of a player, many of the abilities give them a significant advantage over other PC's of the same level.

[Jergmo]

Same way PC's did. The difference is, in the hands of a player, many of the abilities give them a significant advantage over other PC's of the same level.

Alright, then...and I guess NPC's could have gotten experience through RP means as well, through their backstory.

[FMArthur]

NPCs don't know what level they are in a normal game world. Nobody is supposed to, because it's an abstract measure of your relative power. Some races are just plain more powerful, right from birth, and that affects their power rating accordingly. So if a group of adventurers decide to include super-human creatures in their ranks, they will need class levels to keep up.

[Telonius]

But...if they see other people worshipping a deity who grants them power, and theirs doesn't do anything for them...why... DOES NOT COMPUTE.

Because the chief cleric of the evil deity says that if you think about converting, he'll either put an axe through your head or stop asking his deity to not smite you.

[daggaz]

Ok you are getting your fluff all messed up in my mechanics, and I'm sorry to say, but its the mechanics which are the sole and direct result of either balance or imbalance. Fluff has nothing to do with balance. You should probably repeat that to yourself: "Fluff has nothing to do with balance."

Its been mostly said or touched upon by various posts in this thread, but allow me to consolidate.

1. NPCs are NOT PCs. Never were, never will be. The most important game mechanic you are forgetting here, is that PC's are expected to work (optimally) in a group of four, whereas NPCs (including monsters) can range from anything from solo encounter to a horde. The real big point with that is, is that the PCs will be having several of these encounters every day, whereas the NPC only meets the PCs in battle once (effectively, per day, recurring villains often involve a heal or buff between battles, or an entire nights rest or more).

Another aspect of the group versus monsters mechanic, is group synergy. It is multiplicative on the power table, whereas many monsters are made strong enough to be stand alone. We will come back to this point soon.

As well, PC's tend to be decked out with full WBL and are highly optimized. While you can get away with optimizing most if not all of your encounters as a DM if your group is good, pimping their gear to full WBL following PC rules will quickly flood your game and overpower your PCs. More importantly, doing this ups the CR of the encounter significantly, as monsters are considered "balanced" with far, far less gear than a PC of a similiar "level."

2. Many racial HD are superior or equal to class levels. Outsiders and dragons have been brought up, but there are others. Now, outsiders and dragons tend to have some pretty meaty CRs, which brings us to the second part of this point.

While not all racial HD are that pimpy, they are in place to help balance out the CR rating due to the imposed benefits said monster gets by taking that race. Ogres get collosal strength, size and reach. Lizardmen get a nice natural armor bonus, decent stat mods, and some impressive jump skills. A troll gets massive strength and con, and has flipping regeneration!! The racial levels are to balance that out some with the CRs. LA is ONLY used as a last resort with the balancing act. If the game were perfectly balanced, there would be no such thing as LA, only racial hard die (except maybe in the case of PC monster races.. but thats another story.)

So if you are complaining about an ogre who cant be a druid, dont forget to maybe reduce his size some, and wimpify him, etc, etc, before you strip those racial HD because that is what they are paying for. As it is, if its an NPC its actually not that hard to get an ogre druid into the fight. Even more importantly, if you start getting synergy with your monster groupings, you should start upping the CR of the encounter to compensate. A rakshasa sorcerer with an Ogre berserker body guard and a Cloud Giant cleric are far, far more challenging than three cloud giant warriors, even tho the classed group is "gimped" in class levels and the warriors are upped enough to even out the supposed CRs.

3. The game is far from being perfectly balanced. CRs are notorious for being too high or too low. If you want to change things tho, it has to be on a race by race basis, with a lot of playtesting to make sure things are right. There is no single formula for accurately taking into effect the different monster abilities and how they work in a fight. There are even differences that a good DM looks at between one monster, and two different PC groups. Changing the monster to a PC just really complicates things, because now you have to value that monster against all the other monsters, instead of just against the one group of PCs.

[Gralamin]

Consider:
What is Challenge Rating 4?
Well, an Ogre is Challenge Rating 4 and ECL 6.
A Human Wizard 4 is CR 4 and ECL 4
A Dwarf Fighter 4 is CR 4 and ECL 4, etc.

There are two main ways of trying to fix this: Adjust as seemingly needed (Possibly using CR and better CR estimating methods such as Vorpal Tribble's), or the 4e way.
The 4e way is pretty simple, and something that I believe should be ported over to 3.x: Make the creature into an LA +0 race, and then use a combination of feats and prestige Classes (That are optional!) to make them closer to the monster.

So if you say wanted an Ogre, using the 4e method, it might be:
Medium size
+4 Strength, -2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha
Giant Type
Darkvision
40 ft Land Speed
+1 NA
(If this is to powerful for 3.5, Increase the penalties)

or some such, with a feat that look like...
Improved Durability
Prerequisite: Ogre
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus to your Natural Armor

And a Prestige class such as...
True Ogre
You regain the power of your heritage!
Prereqs
Race: Ogre
Level: At least level 3.
Feats: Improved Durability

d8 Hit die
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1|+0|+2|+0|+0|+2 Constitution
2|+1|+3|+0|+0|+2 Strength, +1 NA
3|+2|+3|+1|+1|+2 Strength, Giant's Size
4|+3|+4|+1|+1|Giant's Reach, +2 Strength, +1 NA[/table]

+2 Constitution - At First level, you gain a +2 bonus to your constitution score.
+2 Strength - At Second level, and every level there after, you gain a +2 bonus to your Strength score.
+1 NA - At Second level and Fourth level, you gain a +1 bonus to your Natural Armor.
Giant's Size - You advance to large size, gaining none of the associated increases in Ability scores. You do not gain reach.
Giant's Reach - Your reach increases to 10 ft long.

--------------------------------
So above, we have: A) Gotten rid of the LA, B) Made it playable from level 1, and C) gave an optional prestige class that would give you the full traits, at an about equivalent level as an Ogre's ECL.

[Jergmo]

Actually, on the WBL level thing, I have a somewhat-unrelated question. Regular NPC's have WBL -1, but what about NPC adventurers? Shouldn't they have full WBL, and they'd just have a higher CR from better attributes and wealth?

[Jergmo]

There are two main ways of trying to fix this: Adjust as seemingly needed (Possibly using CR and better CR estimating methods such as Vorpal Tribble's), or the 4e way.

Could you toss me a link to Vorpal Tribble's bit?

[Thrawn183]

What exactly is stopping an ogre from being a level 20 wizard? Sure, the best ogre wizard will have the same int score as a wizard with a natural 14... but so what? It's not like they won't get 9th level spells just like everybody else.

What's to stop a cloud giant from taking 20 levels in cleric? The only reason you don't see them is that they would be grossly inappropriate encounters for PC's. That doesn't mean they don't exist.

The only thing ECL does is try and make it so that monsters played in a party are as powerful as the humanoids. So what if it doesn't work well with casters, unless the monster has...you know... a natural talent for being a caster? It's not like they can't become strong casters, they just won't be as strong as humanoid casters of the same ECL.

[daggaz]

Sure, you can do that. But they should be rare (as adventurers so often are, unless you are in FR) or for some reason, be protected from assault by your PCs... unless you want your PCs to break the WBL guidelines.

I will often toss in the occasional fully decked NPC adventurer into my games, but they will be too powerful for the group to take, or they will be on the same side, or their will be some horrible repurcussion if they are attacked, etc etc.. Otherwise you just smash your game balance and you have to really up the CR of the encounters to compensate for character wealth.

And this is a sticky situation to get into, as often pimped out gear means there is a soft and squishy PC on the inside who doesnt have enough hitpoints or saves to take those kind of fights, and the stickiness ends up being a rather large puddle of blood with the entire party lying dead in the middle of it.

EDIT: as far as Vorpal Tribble goes, well... he is THE MAN and wizards should hire that guy to completely redo all of their monster books. Just do a search for his name under homebrew, you should find plenty.

[Jergmo]

Sure, you can do that. But they should be rare (as adventurers so often are, unless you are in FR) or for some reason, be protected from assault by your PCs... unless you want your PCs to break the WBL guidelines.

I will often toss in the occasional fully decked NPC adventurer into my games, but they will be too powerful for the group to take, or they will be on the same side, or their will be some horrible repurcussion if they are attacked, etc etc.. Otherwise you just smash your game balance and you have to really up the CR of the encounters to compensate for character wealth.

And this is a sticky situation to get into, as often pimped out gear means there is a soft and squishy PC on the inside who doesnt have enough hitpoints or saves to take those kind of fights, and the stickiness ends up being a rather large puddle of blood with the entire party lying dead in the middle of it.

I only intend to fully deck out NPC's that are significant.

[Gralamin]

Could you toss me a link to Vorpal Tribble's bit?

Fax has it here.

1. Divide its average HP by 4.5 to 6,
   4.5 for 5 HD or lower, 5 for 6-10 HD, 5.5 for 11-15 HD, 6 for 16-20 HD.
2. Add 1 for each five points above 10 its AC is, minusing 1 for every 5 below.
3. Add 1 for each special attack (+2 to +5 or more if its got a decent number of spells in its spell-like abilities).
4. Add 1 for each quality unless you deem it worthy of more. Add 1 for each resistance and 10 points of DR it has, and 2 for each immunity.
5. Add 1 for every two bonus feats it has.
6. Divide by 3.

[daggaz]

--------------------------------
So above, we have: A) Gotten rid of the LA, B) Made it playable from level 1, and C) gave an optional prestige class that would give you the full traits, at an about equivalent level as an Ogre's ECL.

Unfortunately, you have also gotten rid of customization on the DMs part regarding feats, as the "ogre" is now required to burn his feats in order to...be an ogre. Dont want to flame 4e, but customization is one of the big things holding most 3.x'ers back from switching.

With 3.5, Ogres usually come with power attack, but their is nothing stopping me from having my Ogre druid take natural spell or something else.. or switching my lizardmans multiattack feat out with, say, power attack and leap attack after I put him up a few class levels.