Balancing ability modifiers for LA

[Herobizkit]

My memory is hazy. In regards to designing and remodeling PC races, has there ever been any guidelines on how to balance the various ability mod costs?

For example, if a race grants +4 Str, what stats would be appropriate to reduce to "balance" the race? For exceptional or "unbalanced" mods (qv. Pixie, for example), how do you determine an approximate Level Adjustment for the race?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

There's no hard and fast system for that. There's some guidelines, and methods to test it out, but you can't fire up some generator, drop some abilities into it, and get an accurate level adjustment out at the end. The fact that not even the D&D core races are really balanced shows that it's not an easy thing, either.

What you do is, you look at those guidelines (there were some in savage species), look at it, do the acid test (again, in savage species), adjust it, and then playtest it. Only way you can really pull this one off.

In the case of +4 Str, I think you would be hard-pressed to reduce the LA below +1, without making either an overpowered or uselessly weak race. Consider +4 str -4 con. I'd say that this is +0, but it's brutal, especially since you probably want to build a front-line fighter around that concept.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The harshest guideline:
Any ability modifier that increases that directly increases a characters attack bonus causes a LA of +1 for each point of attack increase.
If in doubt, that should be your starting guideline. Now you need to add ability modifiers and racial abilities (including HD) that compensate this - either by giving penalties and reduce the LA, or by giving benefits to warrant the LA. As a further guideline, Dex in this case is probably not as much worth as strength, since strength directly effects attack & damage (and therefore can also compensate the loss of attack due to the lower BAB)

 

[Andre]

The harshest guideline:
Any ability modifier that increases that directly increases a characters attack bonus causes a LA of +1 for each point of attack increase.
If in doubt, that should be your starting guideline. Now you need to add ability modifiers and racial abilities (including HD) that compensate this - either by giving penalties and reduce the LA, or by giving benefits to warrant the LA. As a further guideline, Dex in this case is probably not as much worth as strength, since strength directly effects attack & damage (and therefore can also compensate the loss of attack due to the lower BAB)

This seems to mirror WOTC's view on racial LA, but I find it far too harsh. Generally speaking, losing an entire level is worth a total of about +6 stats (whether in one stat, or spread among several). This is because of all the other benefits of levels that the character loses (HD, hit points, BAB, saves, skill points, caster level, special abilities).

 

[pawsplay]

Usually, +1 LA is worth about +6 to stats and some decent abilities, or +2 to +4 to stats and one or two really nice abilities. That can easily break down if you don't think about what you're doing, i.e. Str +6, natural armor, and acid resistance 10 is stronger than most nice +1 LA creatures.

Nothing that has something "weird" ever ends up less than +1 LA, including but not limited to characters Tiny or smaller, Large or larger, anything with an immunity to a kind of energy, anything that flies or teleports, or anything that can do something "at will" and probably will. Anything with a type other than humanoid should not have less than +1 LA unless it has some common vulnerabilities or personal hassles to deal with (such as impaired healing or unbalanced low stats).

The point of balance you should shoot for is, "Sweet! Hm, but I don't know..."