ECL Races, EVER worth it?

[painandgreed]

That's quite a straw-man arguement you've got there...an ability doesn't have to totally derail a campaign in order to be deemed problematic or inappropriate.

And there is the major problem with ECL races (and DMs), you give up levels for those special abilities and if the DM determines that they are "problematic" and forces you to deal with everything as a normal non-ECL race (say by forcing winged characters into dungeon type cramped corridors all the time) then of course the ECL race isn't worth it becaus you get nothing for your loss of levels. My winged character flying over "otherwise challenging encounters" isn't problematic, its my payback for being several levels behind everybody else.

 

[Psion]

Yes, I have noticed this before as well. Some monsters like mind flayers are clearly elite, and should have an assumed elite array of 15,14,13,12,10,8. But instead, you end up with mind flayers having +8 Int, and if you give one a character class, oh lordy watch out. Some mind flayer NPC wizards I've stat'd up have ridiculous DCs because of attribute stacking, even though they are lower level wizards due to the CR rules.

This is, of course, why Alhoon are one of my favored villains.

 

[Victim]

Hello there Feathercircle!


Doesn't that sort of defy the purpose of ECL then though? The idea being to try and rate the effective class level of something that is technically not a class level.

I have heard these thoughts before, and on the surface they seem valid, but I personally don't think they hold water.

How can a monsters potential CR or ECL change simply as a result of it being present more often? For a start, there is no ability that cannot somehow be duplicated by spell, item or feat anyway.

Can someone honestly tell me their campaign was totally derailed because a player could fly at will? The idea sounds unlikely...unless the entire campaign is set on the elemental plane of air and the centrepiece is the aerie of broken bridges over perilous plummets!

Theres nothing mentioned above that couldn't potentially be found within a Prestige Class, wherein I doubt anyone would make a fuss. eg. Dragon Disciple.

The problem is that duplicating many monstrous abilities with spells or items comes at some cost. Take Fast Healing (or at will cure spells) for example. By itself, fast healing is only going to worth a few extra HP to a monster. Even with special mobility, characters will often bring the beastie down before it can employ much in the way of hit and run tactics. So what's the big deal? Most parties are going to be able to heal up with spells, potions, wands, etc anyway. But totally divourcing at least one person in the group from the need to have healing resources spent between fights is a big deal (at least, it is if that character usually takes damage). It's the same reason that most DMs don't allow unlimited use cure light items.

 

[Feathercircle]

Hello there Feathercircle!



Is this sort of a backhanded compliment?



Doesn't that sort of defy the purpose of ECL then though? The idea being to try and rate the effective class level of something that is technically not a class level.



I have heard these thoughts before, and on the surface they seem valid, but I personally don't think they hold water.

How can a monsters potential CR or ECL change simply as a result of it being present more often? For a start, there is no ability that cannot somehow be duplicated by spell, item or feat anyway.



Can someone honestly tell me their campaign was totally derailed because a player could fly at will? The idea sounds unlikely...unless the entire campaign is set on the elemental plane of air and the centrepiece is the aerie of broken bridges over perilous plummets!

Theres nothing mentioned above that couldn't potentially be found within a Prestige Class, wherein I doubt anyone would make a fuss. eg. Dragon Disciple.

As Felon said above, with the additional point that while monster abilities may be duplicated by spells, feats, and items, etc, they don't consume resources to use the same way spells and items do. Even feats can be considered a resource, in that you're taking one feat instead of another- though this is less of an issue since the ECL system often leaves monster characters trading feats (and HD and so on) for abilities in the first place. Even when things can be duplicated, you're essentially getting them "free" rather than using expendible resources on them. On an enemy, it's not hugely different aside from the fact that items usually can be looted and innate abilities usually can't, but for a player, there's a definite distinction.

Flight, especially natural flight which has potentially unlimited duration and doesn't go away with dispelling or antimagic, is challenging to deal with. It's not neccesarily a campaign-killer by any means, but for a newbie DM, or someone attempting to run a prepackaged adventure, can be tough. In any case, I'm not saying that a DM should never allow innate flight, whether by monster characters or PrCs (though newbie DMs may want to stay away from it at first)- it's just that it's in many ways superior to flight by spell or item and should impact ECL.

In a perfect world, CR and ECL and level would be a lot more equivalent to each other, but as the debate in this thread has been showing, the game is not perfect. Kludges can, will, and do happen, and this is one of them. Unlike in, say, GURPS, building an opponent is not always similar to building a character and when you step into ECL-mode and start using those opponents as characters, the inequalities start becoming apparent. Abilities that are barely useful for a PC might be invaluable on a one-shot opponent, and vice versa.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

FWIW for those who may be grappling with the issue of allowing ECL races, Green Ronin's Advanced GM Manual has one technique. It basically gives all characters one or more free ECLs. You can't use this(these) level(s) to take actual class levels, but if you want to play a race with a lower LA, you can use it to gain bonus feats, stats, or special abilities.

It's pretty slick, the more I think about it.

This idea first came up for me from RPGO's Blood and Vigiliance. A background for non-super supers involved gaining some extra feats and skill points over levels ... I really liked the way that worked, and one of the PCs in the game I ran used that option, and was really quite interesting.

I think the "Dawnforge" setting does this, as well, but it goes about it by giving each of the races enough power, and special abilities over time, that they're even with races like Lizardfolk and Drow.

EDIT: In this same game, I will say, I discovered that, for me, I never want to experience another PC in a modern game with Fast Healing. I really couldn't challenge that guy ... while everybody else could get back 1d4hp between fights, he could be up and running within moments. If I were to do another supers, I think I would use a VP/WP system where Fast Healing would only come in occassionally.

--fje

--fje

 

[Felon]

FWIW for those who may be grappling with the issue of allowing ECL races, Green Ronin's Advanced GM Manual has one technique. It basically gives all characters one or more free ECLs. You can't use this(these) level(s) to take actual class levels, but if you want to play a race with a lower LA, you can use it to gain bonus feats, stats, or special abilities. It's pretty slick, the more I think about it.

That's what David Noonan did in his Dragon update of the Dark Sun setting. Everyone started as a 2nd-level character with a +1 LA to toughen them up.

 

[FireLance]

The biggest problem with ECL, IMO, is that it assumes levels are generally linear. In fact, it assumes the game as a whole is linear. We all know that not to be true. A 20th level character most certainly does not equal two 10th level ones. Furthermore, spellcasting is very much non-linear, which creates more of a curve for any spellcasting class, which is half of the classes in the game. If the level curve is not linear, then ECL is simply not going to work as it was intended. The idea wasn't bad at all, it just doesn't work with the non-linear nature of levels in D&D.

If the problem with level adjustment is that it's "too linear", one way I can think of to "fix" the system is for races with a level adjustment to grant level-based advantages as well. For example, a half-celestial gains additional and more powerful spell-like abilities as it gains levels. Similarly, a half-dragon's natural armor bonus and breath weapon damage could increase as it gains levels as well instead of remaining a flat number, and it could get an extra ability score increase on top of the ability score increase a normal character gets, e.g. increasing Strength by 1 point every 4 levels. I recognize it would be a massive effort to define level-based advantages for every powerful race, though.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Altho, instead of half the time, I'd make them be behind the group's level all the time. So if you have an aasimar playing in a 5th level group, he'd be class wise a fourth level character with a +1 racial level. Tis fair and is less of a headache to keep up with the mechanics.

Do you want to explain how this is any different from the way the rules are written?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Felon!

The point is, giving out mind blank at will to a 10 HD, CR 9 monster like the braxat (MMII) that the PC's will fight in a single encounter is not the same thing as handing out mind blank at will to a 9th or 10th-level player character.

Well, for a start a 10 HD (CR 9) monster is not likely to be ECL 9 is it! It s probably more akin to ECL 15 which is roughly when a spellcaster would potentially gain access to mind blank, which lasts 24 hours and as such would more or less be considered 'at will'.

Even if a monster did gain such an ability slightly earlier than its peers I still don't see it leading to problems. They might circumvent one or two situations that otherwise would have caused the PCs some head scratching, but surely unless you are bombarding them with the exact same puzzles each time its not going to make a big difference.

It's easy to say "at will" when that doesn't really mean anything different than "1/day, or until the PC's kill you, whichever comes first". That definitely holds water.

My point is, that while having the ability to do something at will is more convenient, having such an advantage (at the expense of one or more ECLs) is very unlikely to upset a campaign.

That's quite a straw-man arguement you've got there...an ability doesn't have to totally derail a campaign in order to be deemed problematic or inappropriate.

Well, then I'm interested to hear how you think flying* is problematic and inappropriate?

*Or whichever other power.

I am not saying there are no such powers, but I do think they are far fewer and far between than most people think.

 

[Felon]

Hey Felon!

Howdy

Well, for a start a 10 HD (CR 9) monster is not likely to be ECL 9 is it! It s probably more akin to ECL 15 which is roughly when a spellcaster would potentially gain access to mind blank, which lasts 24 hours and as such would more or less be considered 'at will'. Even if a monster did gain such an ability slightly earlier than its peers I still don't see it leading to problems.

Note that you can apply mind blank to other creatures. Not just the braxat, but everyone in the party would have mind blank. Considering the benefits that it provides, I think a DM could consider that to be inappropriately problematic.

My point is, that while having the ability to do something at will is more convenient, having such an advantage (at the expense of one or more ECLs) is very unlikely to upset a campaign. Well, then I'm interested to hear how you think flying* is problematic and inappropriate?

Flight's fine...at about 8th level or so you just have to deal with it. But at 1st I don't, which is something I realized when, against my better judgment, I allowed a player to have a trumpet archon monster class from Savage Species.