When is LA worth it?

[thundershot]

My players use 'em all the time. It's even better now that we're using the Unearthed Arcana rules for lowering level adjustments over time. Most of the LA +1 and +2 folks have already rid themselves of their LA's..



Chris

 

[Crothian]

Which is, coincidentally, exactly the way that (IMHO) LA should work.

I agree with most people that LA races have a tendency to be underpowered in many situations, don't fit many of the D+D archtypes well, etc, but I'm also really happy with that. Better to err on the side of underpowerment than err on the side of overpowerment when it comes to this kind of mechanic. It's a lot easier for a DM to occasionally make a houserule to power up a character than be forced to add houserules to power a character down.

I'm a little bitter towards it because I was force to take a LA +3 race and I really don't like it.

 

[Kalanyr]

Yeah, LA's are overinflated except in Best-case-scenarios (and occasionally even then (*cough* non-scaling with calss-HD Celestial Template vs an Aasimar*cough*)) probably deliberately to avoid someone munchkining something better than a core race out of it. It usually means that unless you're picking the race soley to milk it for everything its worth you're probably going to find its not worth it.

Sigh, I hate balance to the worst possible munchkinism (which is the only time LA's are viable), Having had some experience with Janos and Sollir (our resident board's munchkin gods), if I was going to balance the core races that way I'd need to give them an LA of around +5 each.

 

[shilsen]

I'm a little bitter towards it because I was force to take a LA +3 race and I really don't like it.

Forced to take a +3 LA race? How come?

 

[thundershot]

He said that they all had to be half-dragons. Wait.. it EVERYONE is a half-dragon, then you really don't NEED to use the LA... just adjust the challenges a little.. LA is only for keeping the characters balanced with each other. If they all have the same LA, there's no need to use it, right?


Chris

 

[Pax]

That would be one way to look at it, yes.

The GM should have made everyone ECL 6 characters, though - 3HD, +3 LA, and it'd've worked out MUCH better.

 

[Darklone]

Half-ogre/halfdragons are definitely worth it, IF you survive the first few levels. Large size combined with reach and good AC plus wings usually keeps you alive though.

 

[wraith8]

There are times when LA is indeed worth it, though those times have been severely limited by 3.5 rules.


For example a pixie (With or without irresistable dance) can be in fact a quite powerful character.... So can a grig (with a fiddle) or other such races.....

I mean a grig's ability to create an irresistable dance-like effect on anyone within 30 ft is kind of worth it.

Certain other races make things interesting too. You could have a character (in a suitable campaign of course, most campaign's it'd be hard) as a treant. Huge size and reach, a very strong strength make him very nice indeed.

LA can be worth it, just not mostly.

 

[The Souljourner]

In general, if you have more than 1/3 of your ECL as LA, you're screwing yourself. The loss of hitpoints is just too much to get past (unless your race has a con modifier that makes up for it).

I am in a campaign that started at 10th level and I'm playing a dwarven werebear fighter. He's awesome. The con mod easily makes up for the loss of 3 hit dice, and the huge strength makes up for the huge hit in BAB... and the natural attacks (mostly) make up for loss of iterative attacks. All in all, I feel the race is well balanced (as long as the campaign is kinda high powered... in a standard campaign, I'd be dominating).

However, as people have said, in general, LA suck. No one should ever play a 4th level half dragon. Having 25% of normal hitpoints is ridiculous. You'll just die. If you make it a level progression and spread it out over your first 10 levels, then I think it would be fine. 7 hitdice at 10th level with a good con modifier is probably fine. 3 hit dice at 6th level is a death sentance.

I don't know that there are enough abilities in existence to make me take a +4 or worse LA class, and +3 better be damn kickass. Don't even get me started on those +8 ones.

-The Souljourner

 

[Abisashi]

If you can buy it off as per AU, it is a lot more reasonable - though that won't help in the lower levels.