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[Arkhandus]

Originally Posted by Hawken

LA is supposed to be an offset for perceived racial advantages (one race having more or more powerful advantages than another race), but racial advantages generally do not scale in power, they are static and for the most part, passive; not something the player can actively use. Power gained for leveling is not static but increases as levels increase (access to more powerful feats, more powerful spells, abilities, etc.), so it does not make sense that LA should persist and indirectly become more penalizing as power increases. It should phase out as a character's relative power increases where the increase in power compensates for or exceeds any racial advantages.

Arkhandus, you're missing the point. Experience points scale, the amount needed increase as the levels increase--your static debt hurts characters most when they need the hurt least, at their lowest levels. Over 20 levels, you're wanting to penalize someone a total of 19,000XP. That's neither fair nor balanced (not that you should emulate Fox) and only ensures that LA races will ALWAYS be behind. And since this is a game and not a credit card company, if you're going to impose an XP debt, it has to get paid off at some point. There is a point where the power increase in leveling surpasses any racial advantages and that is the point where the LA penalty should be eliminated.

No, I'm not. There has to be a trade-off for the extra power of a stronger race. Being 1 level behind for a few encounters (maybe even just 1 or 2 encounters) does not constitute a fair price for dropping a +2 of +3 LA from a powerful race, and being behind for 1 or 2 encounters certainly isn't enough to pay for the advantages of a half-ogre or the like. Even if it's for 2 or 3 encounters at each new level.

There's no reason the cost should be phased out once a character reaches a certain level. Frex, a Half-Ogre's Strength bonus alone is worth a 32,000 GP magic item, and is freaking awesome at low levels, and certainly not weak even at upper levels.

Seriously, what do you think he's giving up by playing a Half-Ogre? With his LA, depending on what source you're using either a +1 or +2 LA, he's giving up 1 or 2 HD, +1 or +2 to hit, +1 Fortitude, Mighty Rage, 1 Rage per day, and maybe 1 point of DR. In exchange? +6 Strength ALL THE TIME, which far exceeds the extra +2 Mighty Rage would have occasionally given, a Constitution bonus that yields 18 or 19 HP at that point and thus fairly well matches or perhaps even exceeds what a Human Barbarian would have gotten for 20th and maybe 19th level, Darkvision, the Giant type (no Charm Person or Dominate Person or Daze or similar vulnerabilities, which is at least useful at low to middle levels), Large size (extremely useful for a melee type, +4 to grapple and trip and bull rush and such along with an extra damage die with some weapons or at least a moderate damage increase with every weapon, plus greater carrying capacities), possibly 5 extra feet of reach, and some inconsequential drawbacks for the Barbarian. How is the +1 or +2 Level Adjustment not a fair cost?

There's no reason the half-ogre should ever be exactly the same level as a human warrior-type who started play at the same time in the same campaign. The half-ogre is outright stronger even if he starts at 3rd-level with just over half or one-third as many HP as the human barbarian (but makes up for it by killing enemies twice as quickly and at the same total attack bonus). Sure, he doesn't get the human's bonus feat, big whoop, he's wielding a massive weapon and could kill his human rival in one blow if he really felt like it. Sure the difference in power diminishes as they go up in level, but that just means the half-ogre becomes more equal to his human counterpart over time, rather than being much more fragile and unskilled yet much stronger as is the case at low levels.

There most definitely has to be a price at 1st-level, and not a trivial one, for playing a strong race. It's the lower levels where a powerful race makes everyone else look like chumps, so that's when they should be paying a price for their initial uberness. Those advantages, although comparatively less significant at upper levels, remain in place no matter how high the character goes, and he or she should still be paying some price for them. I could see some creatures getting a reduced LA at upper levels, but not an eliminated LA. And I'm talking from actual play experience, too, not just theoretical arguments; I've played alongside and DMed for several PCs with Level Adjustments, most commonly half-dragons and half-ogres, plus a few drow, lizardfolk, one satyr, and a few others (and one attempt at a half-dragon half-ogre, but the background was so absurd and the lethality of that brute was so high that I denied them that PC, and they made a different one).

Originally Posted by Hawken

And, your point about a 2nd level Drow wizard being the equivalent of a 3rd level character (or 4th if you go RAW), just doesn't hold up. He has a few good racial abilities, but he just can't go the distance a 3rd or 4th level character can. He doesn't have the resources (skills, feats, class abilities or wealth) to do the same things or the skill (BAB, Saves, HD) to endure the same things. His racial abilities are helpful, but they do not in anyway make him the equal of a higher level character.

I actually agree with that point to an extent. I would prefer to see a drow, for example, start with a +1 LA and some minor drawback, that would change to a +2 LA after a few levels, when their Spell Resistance is more likely to become important. Though their SR is fairly high for a low-level PC, so maybe my minor drawback would be to cut it down to SR 5 + level until they gain their LA+2. Maybe at high levels they would deserve to have the LA stepped back to +1 again as the likelihood of most spellcasting enemies having Greater Spell Penetration increases by that point.

But even so, with SR 26 at 15th-level, for example, an enemy caster of 17th-level with Greater Spell Penetration will fail to affect them an extra 20% of the time compared to a human or high elf of 17th-level. That's worth something at least, as is the +2 Int and Cha, the great Darkvision (despite Light Blindness, which they can typically eliminate with a feat or cheap magic item anyway, such as that found in the FRCS), the +2 on Will saves versus spells and spell-like effects (another +10% chance of avoiding many magical effects!), and the minor spell-like abilities. They're easily worth a +1 Level Adjustment even at high levels.

Originally Posted by Hawken

LA, as written, is a pathetic way to equalize races, but I can only guess that it is all the authors could come up with while having to keep a single XP table. Level limits is wrong--and has died a well deserved death from 2nd edition, but LA is just as bad, if not worse. Somewhere around 10th level, racial abilities (LA +X) do not equal the power gained by leveling, even for high LA characters. So, whatever 'trade-off' you mean, cannot last the entire career of the character, but only up to a certain point, after that, the racial abilities aren't even worth one level worth of power.

LA is most certainly not as bad as AD&D level limits. At worst it just delays your access to the highest spell levels and such. Although WotC has admitted to giving many creatures a higher LA than they deserve simply to preserve the playability of the core races, that doesn't mean LA is terrible. Just reduce some critters' LA by 1 point and it should be more fair (though some races are fully worth their listed LA and should be left alone).

And again, look at my half-ogre example. Even an 8th-level half-ogre barbarian isn't giving up much compared to a 10th-level human barbarian. They got plenty of offensive advantage to make up for the lag in acquiring those minor class features from 9th or 10th level. An 8th-level drow wizard has no 5th-level spells, sure, but those aren't that awesome for a 10th-level human wizard anyway. The drow's higher Intelligence leaves them only marginally behind the human in skills and spell slots. Although his caster level is a bit lower and he has no Cone of Cold (boo-hoo, a cold equivalent to Fireball), he has a higher save DC and is fairly resistant to enemy spellcasters (SR 19, still a 20% chance of avoiding enemy spells from enemies of equal ECL assuming they have Greater Spell Penetration, which is less likely at that level than at the upper levels).

Really, the main problem with Level Adjustment is that it hurts casters more than others. The drow wizard is obviously at a minor disadvantage with a +2 LA, but not a huge disadvantage. It's something that deserves to be addressed in some manner, but it's hardly a reason to throw LA out altogether. As mentioned, drow may deserve to have their LA reduced to just +1 after reaching a certain level.

Originally Posted by Hawken

The difference between this and other XP debt ideas is that this 'debt' gets paid off. Its not like a payday loan, lingering around and taking a wish or a miracle to get it resolved. But, its not really a debt either, more of a delay, which is all LA should be.

Not really. A delay doesn't really compensate for the advantages. Being equal in level much or half of the time leaves the character better than a core race that much of the time, and at worst just makes them roughly equal the other half of the time (which means that they're simply more awesome than the other PCs in half the encounters, and on-par the rest of the time........which is still obviously broken).

I'll look over your XP-delay idea or whatever later, I'm taking a break.