+2 Str, +2 Con, and Level Adjustment

[MerricB]

From a conversation in my blog:

It'd be nice to dispense with Level Adjustment.

LA=0 is doable for a lot of races, but it does run into problems. You can't really have any races with powers greater than humans... and there are times when you want that to occur. (Drow, for instance).

Where things get tricky (drow again!) is when a level 1 PC or NPC has these special abilities that aren't really that significant, but affect his ECL or CR, because it's needed to balance him at later levels. Or vice versa - the ability is great at 1st level (say DR 5/magic), but is insignificant at very high levels.

Having sliding LAs or gradual gain of powers is better... I rather like how the Raptorans handle flight (in Races of the Wild for instance.

Here's an interesting point: A human who has nothing more than a +2 Con. For a fighter...
At level 1, it's insignificant.
At level 8, it's an extra Hit Die worth of HP (assuming normally 14 Con)
At level 20, it's probably two extra Hit Dice of HP!

For +2 Str...
At level 1, it's a +1 attack and damage (similar to one level of fighter)
At level 20, it's a +1 attack and damage (again, similar to one level of fighter).

So, you have the constant bonuses and the variable bonuses. They can be a pain to balance...

Cheers!

 

[Taren Nighteyes]

I'm not exactly sure where you are going with this, but I'd like to point out something about the CON and STR comparison....

If you take a Cleric, with a con of 14 (Due to the +2) and do the averaging math....it is as follows:

Level 1 Cleric
Average HP of 4+2=6 (The extra HP is 17% of the total HP)

Level 10 Cleric
Average HP of 40+20=60 (The extra HP is 17% of the total HP)


Strength Bonus means a lot more at low levels when it represents a larger percent of your total BAB or Damage potential (usually).

The lower level equilizer is Fort Save bonus of +1 is useful, though more useful at lower levels

It is hard to completely balance stats, but it is a bit more balanced than at first glance

Taren Nighteyes

 

[maggot]

+2 Con has a variable part (1hp/level) and a fixed part (+1 Fort Saves and +1 on Con and concentration checks)

+2 Str has mostly a fixed part (+1 to hit in melee, +1 on Str checks and skills), but the +1 damage is variable with level. When you are first level with Str15 and a plain sword, +1 damage is pretty cool (could be +20% to your damage). When you are 20th level, and have a Str 26, a +5 flaming sword, and power attack, +1 damage is negligible (maybe +5%).

 

[MerricB]

Good points. I think Str manages to be of flatter usefulness than Con, though.

Cheers!

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

It's worse than that: the Strength bonus becomes less significant as you level up. The to-hit modifier remains fairly close to the same value at all levels (it would probably drop a little, but iterative attacks brings it back up), but the damage bonus ends up being fairly minor. A reasonable human PC fighter at 1st level is doing about 1d10+3 damage, maybe a little more or a little less if strength is high (18) or low. Raising that up to 1d10+4 is a big step up: an average increase of more than 10% damage, with many of those blows coming against creatures where an extra 1 hp has a meaningful chance of dropping. Compare that to, say, a 12th level fighter doing something like 1d10+1d6+13 damage (Str 18 (stat bumps), Gauntlets, +3 weapon, +1d6 energy damage from weapon, Weapon Spec and Improved Weapon Spec). An extra 1 hp of damage is less than a 5% increase in damage (slightly more on crits, but whatever). Furthermore, that extra 5% is much less likely to be the marginal damage that drops an opponent, even taking into account the fact that high level opponents generally take more hits to drop. So there's a diminishing marginal return to Str, and an increasing marginal return to Con.

(I totally agree that there is a general problem with LA for stat modifiers because it scales really weirdly, especially as the modifiers get large. A +6 Str, +6 Con race is horribly underpowered at low levels if you give them a LA of +2 or +3, but a 17th level +6 Str, +6 Con Fighter is much more powerful than a 20th level human fighter-- you lose a couple of feats to gain an extra +3 damage and an extra +30ish hps. It's very weird and not very satisfying.)

 

[MerricB]

So, are variable LAs feasible for races?

 

[Croesus]

So, are variable LAs feasible for races?

If you mean the current LA mechanism, not really (IMO). It's not flexible enough to account for all the different situations. Here are some ideas I've toyed with, but haven't tested:

For races with abilities that are more powerful at low level than at high, an flat xp penalty works well. 1,000 xp is a lot for a low level character, yet insignificant once he reaches 6th-7th level. Starting characters aren't assigned a level, but an amount of xp, so everyone starts out even, tho some may be a level lower than others, depending on the race chosen.

For abilities that scale well, a % xp penalty would probably work. The character would consistently stay a bit behind the other characters. If the abilities become much more useful at high level than low level, you could use two percentages - a low one for the first ten levels, and a higher one for the next ten.

For high-LA races, a mix of the two might work, though I'm of the mind that most high-LA races just don't work in a party of normal characters - how do you really balance a mind flayer or rakshasa with a human fighter?

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Why not? There are already variable CR adjustments for certain templates.

 

[Stalker0]

One of the big problems with level adjustment is they often hurt casters much more than fighters.

There are plenty of +4 LA races that are still good choices for a fighter. Sure, their hitpoints might be crappy, but they gain tons of strength and other benefits. I can't think of a +4 race with enough benefits to give up that much spellcasting.

 

[Croesus]

Why not? There are already variable CR adjustments for certain templates.

I would suggest because there's a big difference between measuring the power of a challenge and the relative power/utility of a character.

CR is just a guesstimate anyway, as circusmstances can matter tremendously - giants are most dangerous in confined spaces, where a party has to engage them in melee, dragons are most dangerous in open spaces where they can hit and run. Switch the locations, and each becomes much less of a threat - but technically, the CR doesn't change.

Now try balancing various abilities with the value of an entire character level. We already know that losing an entire level of spellcasting ability hurts a lot more than losing a level of rogue or fighter. But as has been pointed out earlier in the thread, some abilities scale well, and others don't. How do you design a sliding scale for those situations if you're minimum adjustment is an entire character level?

Just my opinion, but the problem is using levels as a balancing mechanism - levels are too large an adjustment. We need something much smaller to properly balance such things, and even then we'll be guesstimating.