Alternatives to level adjustment?

[I'm A Banana]

Someone on these boards recently suggested giving all LA critters a level of Commoner per LA. I thought that was a novel approach, but perhaps also one with some potential.

Levels of NPC classes is pretty much what I've been doing since '02 IMC. It's worked pretty okay, but my players generally still hate to loose levels, so more often than not I'll be simply making an LA+0 version, and they'll play that.

 

[eyebeams]

I've toyed with docking LA-adjusted races action points or something similar until they even out with standard PCs. This idea has its origins in the old WFRP< which balanced elves against other races this way. It worked, too. I played an elf who soon dropped to 0 Fate and hung back in situations where other characters could jump in.

 

[solkan_uk]

Start with a negative XP total, usually 1.5 x the amount required for the level of the LA adjustment, so an LA +1 creature starts on -1500xp, so by the time he gets to level 2, everyone else is near level 3, but due to the way Xp works (if you do give each character seperate xp for their level, rather averaging it to average level) he will eventually near-enough catch up. By the time you get high enough levels that the little abilities that are somewhat unbalancing at low level are now useless the penalty should be near non-existant.

Alternatively, if that doesn't work for you, I've used the NPC class thing before and it seems fine... So for a number of levels = to your LA value you're NPC class only (or as a further alternative 1/2 classes - which are my extrapolation from the old apprentice rules in 3.0 for playing multiclassed level 1 PCs).

 

[greywulf]

IMC, we just say each Level Adjustment costs a feat, and doesn't affect level at all. So a LA+1 race doesn't get a free feat at first level, but is still 1st level. LA+2 races don't get the free feat at 3rd, etc.

That way, a LA+1 Fighter-1 is still a Fighter-1 in every way, shape and form. His funky race costs him a feat slot. That's all.

(It also means Humans are LA-1, because they gain a free feat at first level. That's cool too!)

We find this encourages players to use the non-standard races more - they're getting rewarded rather than penalized for selecting cool stuff. Or course, they still have the social stigma to deal with..............

 

[satori01]

A simple solution is to require that every one plays a LA + X race and simply ignore the LA.
It never made sense to me that in, for example, a Drow Underdark Campaign, you would actually enforce the ECL rules. If everyone is starting out on a level field, then base assumptions work fine.

My big problem with LA is LA is not equal. Beyond the statistical variance of a Hobgoblin compared to an Air Gensai compared to a Goliath, the monster type plays a huge factor.

Outsider HD or Dragon HD are better than many PC class levels. Humanoid and Monstrous Humanoid are more often than not worse than PC class levels.

 

[Henrix]

Lots of good ideas here!

For my planescape campaign I've been toying with giving standard (non-LA) races an extra racial feat - something appropriate and not negotiable - just to give myself a little more room for redesigning the more powerful races.

If possible I want everyone to have about the same number of hit dice (as I said, we've had a couple of deaths due to that), and negative levels is just another name for less HD in my eyes.

Just taking away feats is a bit tricky. For some races it would balance the LA, for other not. And removing feats is boring - feats are fun!

 

[Umbran]

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.

 

[Henrix]

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.

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.