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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felix" data-source="post: 3291818" data-attributes="member: 3929">Ideally, it makes as much of a difference as SR, better stats, darkvision, +2 Will saves etc does. As it works out, the disadvantage is much greater at the lower levels when the LA comprises a large proportion of the character's ECL. As levels are gained, the LA means less, the lost HD mean less, the loss of a spell level means less, the increased ability points means less. Everything generally will be of less importance as you increase levels.This is not the case for the Drow's SR, which improves as the character levels up.You mentioned Hold Person, Mass, a 7th level spell. Your human caster is 13th level and the drow is 11th +2LA. At this point the effect of the lost HD will have been reduced. Both characters will have selected most of the feats they need to flesh out their characters. The % difference in skill ranks will not be as large as it was at 1st and 3rd level. The drow will still retain all those static bonuses and drawbacks he got at 1st level and they will impact his character less at this point. His SR will have increased to 22, which is quite reasonable.Between the two, the human will be a better spellcaster, I do not argue that point. To argue that a lower-level caster is better than a higher one is absurd; fortunately I was saying that the drow recieve some benefits that make up for the loss of caster levels, which includes the +1 to DC, +1 skill point, +2 Will saves, etc.I argue that the drow will be equivalent in overall effectiveness as the human. And I do make allowances that if the drow adventures with 5 guys holding torches, one of his natural advantages is wasted; this does not mean that 120' Darkvision is worthless to begin with.After all, that's what the LAs are designed to do: make the more powerful races equivalent in power to their base-race counterparts.I don't understand what your point is in saying, "You're smart if you change your character." How does this advance your argument?Once a spellcaster realizes he's dealing with SR, I quite agree that he will immediately move to counter it. But if it takes one or two rounds for the caster to realize it, then you have a one or two round advantage, and the enemy caster has lost one or two of his (likely) more powerful spells.If the enemy caster begins with Conjuration, then he'll never know that he has to overcome SR, and may later cast an "SR: yes" spell which the drow now has an opportunity to ignore. So the benefit from SR may not come immediately, but it may come in handy later.If the character had no prior experience with Drow and didn't have ranks in Knowledge (Dungeoneering) (since Drow live in the Underdark, I believe that would be the proper skill), then I don't see that they would know anything about drow automatically at all. Unless the PC had somehow gotten ahold of a Monster Manual.But even so, assuming that drow are automatically recognized as SR-possessing, if this is how they're seen, I think this is pretty good incentive for a drow to disguise themselves. There are many and varied ways to do so, and a smart Drow (+2 Int) would look into protecting his identity from all the surface dwellers who know how to bypass their natural defenses.Please dispense with the snark.</blockquote>

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