Level Adjustment

I was looking at this thread on Gnolls: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=2278473&posted=1#post2278473
And it occurs to me that there has to be a better way of handling powerful races than the level adjustment system.

A Grimalkin (from MMII) with one class level counts as an 8th level character, but it only has a handful of hit points. This might wash in the end, but the LA (3) is so high that it might as well be no LA, meaning 'unsuitable as a PC race.'

A 1st level tiefling rogue might be as powerful as a 2nd level human rogue, but at 19 and 20, respectively, the tiefling's racial abilities in no way compensate for the loss of a level.

Bariaur. Centaur. Mind Flayer.

There are plenty of examples where it's not just that the wrong LA is assigned, but where LA proves to just be a bad system.

Maybe, by just complaining enough, we can fix the Level Adjustment system.

What, in your experiences, are the races with the worst LA, or which best demonstrate the "brokenness" ofthe system?

Arbiter of Wyrms said:

Maybe, by just complaining enough, we can fix the Level Adjustment system.

Click to expand...

I rather enjoy buying off LA using the variant rule from Unearthed Arcana.

Not that that answered your question. The most level adjustment I've used on a character was +4, on two characters* in an epic game. Why? I wanted to make sure I didn't screw myself out of all four attacks with the melee guy. Were they worth their level adjustments? I sure thought so.

I don't mind racial hit dice, per se, but it depends on the type. Outsider, dragon, and monstrous humanoid are all good, but you couldn't pay me to use fey hit dice.

Brad

* - One was a generic half-dragon (no breath weapon/immunities) anthropomorphic tyrannosaur, with absolutely rude stat mods. The other was an Unbodied Saint (I bought off two levels of Unbodied, and then got Saint tacked on).

UA has a system for buying off level adjustment by giving up a level and starting over again. It was 3*LA for the each level, which changes your LA. So, LA 1 you can ditch by "Sacrificing" 3rd level, or Get rid of LA 2 by "Sacrificing" 6th and 9th, ect (Obviously it gets harder getting out of higher LAs unless you're talking epic).

Personaly, I don't like LA, but more in the "Why would I want to play a race with LA?"

IMO many of the monsters in the MM have way too high of an LA and should be lowered including said mindflayer, but that doesn't answer the question about what to do about it. My group has had some bad (and good) experiences with LA I'll post some of them later.

The problem point with me (as shown in that thread) is the calculation of ECL. The two parts to the ECL are basically

1. How tough is the creature vs. a PC?
2. What extra benefit would a PC derive from the special abilites of the creature?

Currently, the first is calculated in the ECL as HD + CL (where CL=class levels). This is a mistake, however, because HD does not accurately reflect it. In fact, it is almost always more than CL, sometimes by a factor of 3 or 4 (just look at the HD/CR calculation). So, my suggestion on this is that CR should reflect upon how tough a creature is. Don't use HD as the base, use CR.

The second part is specifically the LA. Considering my proposal above, any newly calculated level adjustments should take into account special abilities that improve the CR.

I would not (at least as a first pass) consider differentiating between associative and non-associative class levels, so my proposal on ECL should be ECL=CR+LA+CL. In the case of the gnoll, the CR is 1. Do the extra abilities of a gnoll afford it a LA of +1 or +0? I'd say +1, but regardless of my opinion on that, this system is better defined and its easier to argue points for and against the LA of +0 or +1. I doubt anyone would say that it should be +2, but if they did, then they could provide an argument to show why it's 2 class levels better than a 1st level fighter.

Note that this system automatically accounts for creature type and accordingly you could even easily start with a non-typical creature by advancing it first. It's CR is relatively easily calculated and fairly well defined.

Some abilities that opponents have, however, are much more powerful for PC's with class levels than they are for the base critter. Take, for example, the troll; CR 5, six d8 hit dice, and lots of bonuses to the physical stats, as well as regeneration. A great candidate for a mid level fighter with a cost of a mere five levels. Does a Trollish Fighter-6 beat a Human Fighter-11, assuming they are otherwise similar? Grappling? Troll has more strength and a great size bonus. Duking it out? Troll has more strength, con, Hit dice, and has a few supplimental natural attacks to go with. Archery? Okay, the Fighter has a marginally better BAB (one point difference), but the Troll has increased Dex, which will likely compensate, assuming the same base stats. The human fighter will have more feats, and so can be more flexible on what he can do, or further along on his feat chain, but not by much.
On the other hand, the as-written straight troll (6 HD + 5 LA = 11) will usually lose to a human fighter-11. Perhaps an average of the two methods is in order, to show up somewhere in between?

cignus_pfaccari said:

I rather enjoy buying off LA using the variant rule from Unearthed Arcana.

Click to expand...

The problem with this, as well as the recalculations of ECL based on CR, rather than HD, is that not all level-adjusted monsters have the same flaw. Some don't work with just one character level, because their underpowered; some don't work at ECL 20+ because their HD/CR+LA doesn't make up for lost levels. Some have both problems, while some don't have either too badly.