A Creature Level Adjustment Question for Your Enjoyment

[Doug McCrae]

I'd say keep him LA +1. Monster PCs get the shaft in D&D as it is.

 

[RedFox]

I'd say keep him LA +1. Monster PCs get the shaft in D&D as it is.

Yeah, I don't see the problem with it.

ECL = HD (whether from monster "level" or from Classes) + LA

CR has nothing to do with ECL. So if you knock off the racial levels all you're left with is LA. I think that's fair.

 

[shilsen]

2) My point was that given the two builds, both of which are ECL 20, the vampire is *tremendously* underpowered as compared to a PC with 20 class levels.

In a fight. ECL does not just measure combat effectiveness, but how a character functions overall as a PC, inside and outside combat. A vampire's fast healing won't help that much in a given fight, but it definitely makes healing outside combat completely unnecessary for it. Similarly, it's Domination ability usually won't be that helpful in combat, but is great outside it. And so on.

In short, I think the kind of comparison you're making isn't really taking into account what ECL means. It's like someone complaining that barbarians are the most powerful class because they have d12 HD and other classes don't. There are a lot of other factors to consider.

 

[Imre]

Redfox, I tried that once. It doesn't work.

I understand that ECL doesn't measure just combat ability. However, it does measure total character ability which subsumes combat. Therefore, two "combat builds" of the same ECL should have roughly the same capabilities in combat.

If you take the "standard party" (rogue, fighter, cleric wizard) all 20th level human, they can handle CR 20 encounters. If you take that same party makeup and make them 13th level vampires, a CR 20 encounter would take them apart. The loss of HD makes you susceptible to things that you wouldn't normally have to worry about very much like Holy Word and similar spells.

In high level play, the loss of HD, feats, etc caused by a large LA simply isn't worth it. There are no write-ups in any WotC books with an LA more than 3 or 4 worth playing...unless you're going simply for "color".

 

[RedFox]

Redfox, I tried that once. It doesn't work.

I understand that ECL doesn't measure just combat ability. However, it does measure total character ability which subsumes combat. Therefore, two "combat builds" of the same ECL should have roughly the same capabilities in combat.

If you take the "standard party" (rogue, fighter, cleric wizard) all 20th level human, they can handle CR 20 encounters. If you take that same party makeup and make them 13th level vampires, a CR 20 encounter would take them apart. The loss of HD makes you susceptible to things that you wouldn't normally have to worry about very much like Holy Word and similar spells.

In high level play, the loss of HD, feats, etc caused by a large LA simply isn't worth it. There are no write-ups in any WotC books with an LA more than 3 or 4 worth playing...unless you're going simply for "color".

Oh, I realize that. The loss of HD is devestating, and LA gives you nothing to effectively make up for it. That's why I'm a fan of the LA buyoff option.

But I'm talking about this for lower LA monsters, not for stuff like vampires where it really breaks down.

Consider knocking off the racial HD for a centaur, for example, and creating a PC that only has the +LA and class levels adjusting its ECL.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

It requires more work, but you can eliminate is completely by using Upper Krust's system. Mind you this is not the way he advises using it, he advises LA as a multiple of creature CR
1.) Step one is to either use his raw recalculated CR's for monsters or break them down and recalculate yourself.
2.) Step two is to go to the back of the document and check out how much classes are actually worth CR-wise by level.
3.) Step three once this is done break down the creature into a number of racial levels necessary to balance the creature against the Class you're balancing it off of. Don't use the SS model, the missing HD,saves, skills, etc are a killer. Instead give HD and the associated saves, BAB, etc, at each level.
4.) Step four now you don't need LA, you've directly balanced the actual abilities of the monster against the abilities of the PC classes in the process.

 

[Imre]

I should have put a more obvious segue, but everything I said in my last comment after the first sentence was directed at shilsen.

Redfox, I disagree with you a bit. It's funny you should mention the centaur because I had a very bad experience with just that. In UA, the justification given for the LA buy out is that at higher levels of play, much of what you get for LA becomes worthless, or at least much less valuable. However, for a combat build, the Str and Con boost, the boost in speed, and large size you get from being a centaur never becomes less valuable. When you buy off the LA, you end up advancing faster (being lower level) and this can become unbalancing.

The fact is that the ECL system as it is is not a science...in point of fact it's completely worthless for high level/high LA builds. As the DM you have to look very hard at what the player's are getting. There are no "quick and dirty" ways to fix this, in my opinion: everything has to be determined on a case by case basis and much of it depends on the overall style of the campaign and play. I've yet to come up with or come across a system that managed to fix all the issues.

 

[the Jester]

A bugbear has a LA +1. He get +4 Str, +2 dex, +2 Con, -2 Cha, 60' darkvision, +3 natural armor, and +4 move silently. He also starts with 3 "bugbear" levels, making an off-the-shelf bugbear an ECL of 4.

Say I wanted to let a player replace these humanoid levels with 3 regular core class levels. My question is: would this be unbalancing? Does the LA +1 mostly refer to his bonuses and abilities, or does it also take into account that the three humanoid levels are underpowered?

It takes the humanoid levels into account. Letting a pc "skip" the bugbear levels is a bad, bad idea in a standard campaign.