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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 2625426" data-attributes="member: 13966">Aye.  A dark elf's Challenge Rating is slightly less than his/her Level Adjustment because Challenge Rating only judges the potency of the creature/character in one battle.  It does not measure how useful the race is outside of battle or over the course of multiple battles in one day (as a PC is expected to run through, according to the core rules' CR assumptions).A drow outside of combat has various skill bonuses, only needs a short meditation so he can take a longer watch, has great darkvision to make him even more effective on the nightly watch, and has ability score bonuses that help out some of his skill checks outside combat, such as Bluff, Diplomacy, Knowledge, Spellcraft, Alchemy/Craft-Alchemy, Search, Disable Device, Tumble, Move Silently, Hide..........need I go on?  The dark elf's strengths as a PC exceed their strengths as a one-combat NPC villain, thus their LA is greater than their CR.  Personally, I'd rather play a 1st-level drow sorcerer in a 3rd-level party, than a 3rd-level drow with only racial levels, because the drow's Spell Resistance will protect them well, and the drow will have a higher save DC on his Color Spray and such compared to a 3rd-level human sorcerer.  The 3rd-level drow with only racial hit dice will have no abilities except his racial ones, no real spells or bonus feats or domains or anything.  At ECL 20, the 18th-level drow sorcerer will have SR 28, so enemies will fail to affect him with spells 7 out of 20 times (35% of the time, and it's even more solid against lower-level enemies), which could be a lifesaver.If you have a problem with Level Adjustments, why not just use the buyback mechanic in.....what was it, Savage Species, or Unearthed Arcana?  At higher levels the LA will go away, while still balancing the race at lower levels.Besides, for a drow with racial levels to buy off his Spell Resistance alone, he'd need probably 4 racial levels, which would seriously hamper his ability to advance effectively in a spellcasting class and be a decent mage or priest.  By my measurements 2 points of Level Adjustment could be replaced with 4 Humanoid Hit Dice without unbalancing a critter.</blockquote>

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