satori01 said:
A simple solution is to require that every one plays a LA + X race and simply ignore the LA.
Indeed. But in this case I want all (well, most) races to be viable, so that isn't doing it this time.
But were I to run a drow campaign, then yes, absolutely! In particular drows as I would want them to be a little meaner than humans.
Essentially I'm now toying with increasing the standard races to LA+0.5 or so. (For tha half-orcs that is a great step, as I see them as almost LA-0.5.)
My big problem with LA is LA is not equal.
Yeah, a lot of tweaking is necessary, in particular with the monsters who have racial HD.
Racial HD are not equal - you need a lot of commoner levels to balance out a couple of ooutsider HD.
The link Ryan_Singer gave discusses things like that in some depth.
Umbran said:
There's also the thought of not using LA, but instead using a racial class, as seen in Savage Species. Even if it is only one level, that at least unifies the mechanic.
The racial classes are fairly good, insofar as they spread out the abilities, but often they have LA baked into it.
But combining racial classes with NPC levels could be a way to go.