ECL Races, EVER worth it?

[Upper_Krust]

Hey sean!

Easy. I create the "fireballer" template, which gives the creature unlimited used of fireball as an SLA. On a monster, the creature might get to use this ability 1-3 times at most because at the end of the encounter, it's dead. Depending on the base creature, this may be worth +1 to CR because the creature is tougher than normaly.
Now add the fireballer template to a PC. Suddenly you have a PC who can fireball all the time, every round, no stress ... ten encounters per day, at least ten fireballs. Encounters with groups of creatures become a lot easier, and weak threats are never a threat. This ability is certainly worth at least +1 LA to a low-level character, if not more.

That's how an unlimited-something in the PC's hands is more powerful than in the hands of a monster, even if "PC" and "monster" in this example are a human Wiz1 (i.e., a PC Wiz1 and an NPC Wiz1).

For a less explosive example, replace fireball with dominate monster. A monster might get to use that ability a couple of times before it dies. A PC with that ability quickly ends up with a caravan of enslaved monsters following behind it for the rest of his adventuring career. The ability to use an ability ten times per day is stronger than the ability to use it once per day, and if you're a monster, your lifespan is only a few rounds (so "at will" really only means 2-3 times per day), whereas a PCs is "on camera" all day (so "at will" really means "as often as I want it, maybe even a hundred times a day). Thus, again, even if "PC" and "monster" are the same thing, such as a Ftr1.

Well I already showed how to avoid problem this in one of my earlier posts, or rather I should say YOU already showed how to avoid this ironically.

Page 36 of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Your name is one of four on the cover, although I don't know how much input you had on the feats section (?) but I am sure you are at least familiar with the Innate Spell feat. You may even have designed it for all I know.

Anyway, if you apply the parameters of the Innate Spell feat to any monsters spell-like abilities then there is no way any of them become unbalanced.

I even think some monsters could gain innate spell-like abilities earlier (perhaps halving the Innate Spell modifier?) than they otherwise would, and still be balanced, provided the spell is intrinsically tied to their nature (eg. Succubus with enchantment spells, Ice Devil with cold spells, deva with good spells etc.)

So if you create a "fireballer" monster (or template) then it would need to be 13 HD (or possibly ECL?) before you would allow it to cast fireball at will.

Base 5 HD/ECL for fireball spell (3rd-level), we assume creature is fire subtype (or in some way fire is intrinsic to its make-up) meaning it only needs half the Innate Spell modifier (+4 spell levels = +8 HD/ECL) before it can gain the spell-like ability at will.

If you wish to have a Savage Species style progression for such a monster then its relatively simply to subdivide how many uses of the SLA the creature will have at lower power.

1/4 Innate Spell Modifier = 1/day
1/2 Innate Spell modifier = 3/day
3/4 Innate Spell modifier = 7/day
Full Innate Spell modifier = At will

"Fireballer"

Casts fireball 1/day at 5-6 HD/ECL
Casts fireball 3/day at 7-8 HD/ECL
Casts fireball 7/day at 9-12 HD/ECL
Casts fireball at will from 13 HD/ECL onward

You could even apply the Innate Spell feat negatively by assigning uses that are less than 1/day, only creatures intrinsically connected to spell sshould be able to gain this feature.

eg. 1/week = -1/4 Innate Spell modifier, 1/month = -1/2 Innate Spell modifier, 1/year = -3/4 Innate Spell modifier.

"Fireballer"

Casts fireball 1/week at 3-4 HD/ECL
Casts fireball 1/month at 1-2 HD/ECL

By the way if someone casts dispel magic on your caravan of dominated monsters you are in for a bit of trouble.

 

[maggot]

The CR debate is a bit different to what we're discusiing here

Yes, CR is different than LA/ECL, but I think there is a common problem here: adding spellcasting levels to creatures with many hit dice doesn't work very well. For NPCs (the CR system) there is a patch that allows things like a frost giant wizard 10 to exist at reasonable power levels, but for PCs there is no such solution. (In 3.0 there wasn't even a patch for NPCs, and all frost giant wizards and clerics had to be low level.)

But the NPC/CR patch isn't very good, and not just because it doesn't address PCs/ECL, but because it gives away the wrong things. Compare a frost giant wizard 8 to a frost giant fighter 4 some time. They have the same CR, but wizard is better combat numbers.

So I think a system that allows you to turn in your racial hit dice for class hit dice would be better. Basically, creatures have a minimum number of hit dice. If your class levels are lower than this, you fill up to the minimum with racial hit dice. I've played around with it for NPCs and it works well. For PCs, advancement with this system is wonky.

A frost giant (cr8) wizard 10 would be cr13 by my reckoning: 13=8+(10/2), which feels about right.

Actually, I think it would be 8+(8/2)+2 =14 because once the spellcasting levels exceed the original cr, you start counting them full.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Yes, CR is different than LA/ECL, but I think there is a common problem here: adding spellcasting levels to creatures with many hit dice doesn't work very well. For NPCs (the CR system) there is a patch that allows things like a frost giant wizard 10 to exist at reasonable power levels, but for PCs there is no such solution. (In 3.0 there wasn't even a patch for NPCs, and all frost giant wizards and clerics had to be low level.)

But the NPC/CR patch isn't very good, and not just because it doesn't address PCs/ECL, but because it gives away the wrong things. Compare a frost giant wizard 8 to a frost giant fighter 4 some time. They have the same CR, but wizard is better combat numbers.

Heh, I see the problem of the con modifier giving greater hps & similar BAB. My response would be to reduce the cr of the fighter 4 by 1, as per my rule of thumb, and get greater mileage from the martial weapons & heavy armour proficiencies.

So I think a system that allows you to turn in your racial hit dice for class hit dice would be better. Basically, creatures have a minimum number of hit dice. If your class levels are lower than this, you fill up to the minimum with racial hit dice. I've played around with it for NPCs and it works well. For PCs, advancement with this system is wonky.

Unfortunately I think that if a solution can be found it is going to very convoluted because it is working the system in a direction it was never originally designed for. I wonder if it is actually worth the effort, none of my players will ever play a frost giant; indeed does every race need to be playable? Choices are fine but this seems ideologically driven to achieve total freedom of choice, which imho would sacrifice the primacy of the core races & thus be rejected by players.

Actually, I think it would be 8+(8/2)+2 =14 because once the spellcasting levels exceed the original cr, you start counting them full.

Point taken, spot the player/dm with a 3.0 dmg.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Unfortunately I think that if a solution can be found it is going to very convoluted because it is working the system in a direction it was never originally designed for. I wonder if it is actually worth the effort, none of my players will ever play a frost giant; indeed does every race need to be playable? Choices are fine but this seems ideologically driven to achieve total freedom of choice, which imho would sacrifice the primacy of the core races & thus be rejected by players.

Perhaps every race doesn't need to be, but the iconic giants really should be. I would certainly play a frost giant. Pathetic as they are under the present rules, I'd even try it in 3.5 because giants have always been among my favorite creature types.

About the only creatures that don't need to be at least theoretically playable are the truly alien monsters: mind flayers, beholders - even less threatening creatures like myconids. Anything that has a totally inhuman psychology, rather than just a variation on human psychology, and couldn't possibly work together with humans in any kind of a relationship other than what humans might have with animals.

Even so, I've had a lot of players want to try mind flayer characters, despite their weakness.

Why would something that rejected the "primacy of the core races" - assuming that being the only races in the Player's Handbook isn't, if nothing else, economic primacy, an assumption I consider invalid - be "rejected by players?" At worst, they don't buy a Monster Manual and don't play monstrous characters. At best, they buy the MM and have the option. Why would they care?

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Why would something that rejected the "primacy of the core races" - assuming that being the only races in the Player's Handbook isn't, if nothing else, economic primacy, an assumption I consider invalid - be "rejected by players?" At worst, they don't buy a Monster Manual and don't play monstrous characters. At best, they buy the MM and have the option. Why would they care?

Ouch, that 1st sentence structure is a bit of a doozy to read, but I get your point.

I think there would be a rejection by players such as myself who find it easiest to believe in a human-centric fantasy setting. If my human character regularly exists in a truly fantastic party of exotic races then my base assumption is invalid; if my character is mechanically inferior then my base assumption is both invalid & punishing me.

Remember we're talking about a default campaign setting supported by WotC, not a specially tailored campaign with exotic races in mind. I could be wrong but players generally have access to the MM & DMG, otherwise how could the PrC & alternate races have gotten so popular? The worse case scenario has been mentioned previously as an escalating power creep as players discover races than benefit the most from the nuances of the ECL system & migrate en masse with each new publication. The best case scenario is that players always feel that chosing a core race is by default a good decision & monstrous races will never overshadow them.

 

[Ondo]

Easy. I create the "fireballer" template, which gives the creature unlimited used of fireball as an SLA. On a monster, the creature might get to use this ability 1-3 times at most because at the end of the encounter, it's dead. Depending on the base creature, this may be worth +1 to CR because the creature is tougher than normaly.
Now add the fireballer template to a PC. Suddenly you have a PC who can fireball all the time, every round, no stress ... ten encounters per day, at least ten fireballs.

A PC is paying for his +1 LA far more often than a monster is paying for his CR, so of course he gets more use for it. A +1 LA PC may use his fireball 10-30 times per day, but every single use will be against an encounter that is 1 CR higher than it would otherwise have been. The PC will also attack more and have more attacks against him - do you think attack bonuses, damage, AC, and HP are also more valuable for the PC than the monster? Give a PC unlimited fireballs and the same benefit to one monster in each encounter and it should be (very approximately) balanced. About the same as giving one PC a level in fighter and the same benefit to one enemy each encounter. Give a PC and one monster each fight fireball 1/day and it's a huge benefit to the monsters.

Encounters with groups of creatures become a lot easier, and weak threats are never a threat.

This is a real issue, because PCs need to be balanced against a wider variety of types of encounters than monsters do.

This ability is certainly worth at least +1 LA to a low-level character, if not more.

Yeah, but by the written guidelines for a low-level monster I'd call it a significant special ability, worth +2 CR.

 

[Ghendar]

I don't post here often but I was directed to this thread. I've read about half of it and it makes me ask the question, has anyone started a campaign where everyone picks an ECL +1 race and run them without the ECL and just see what it does to game balance?
So if you choose an aasimar paladin, instead of considering it a level 2 character, just call it a level 1 character and see what happens?
Might be interesting.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Ouch, that 1st sentence structure is a bit of a doozy to read, but I get your point.

I think there would be a rejection by players such as myself who find it easiest to believe in a human-centric fantasy setting. If my human character regularly exists in a truly fantastic party of exotic races then my base assumption is invalid; if my character is mechanically inferior then my base assumption is both invalid & punishing me.

Do elves, dwarves, halflings and gnomes (and various hybrids thereof) in the party invalidate your assumption? If not, why not? What, aside from the fact it didn't appear in Tolkien, makes a kobold more exotic than a halfling? For that matter, what makes an aasimar more exotic than an elf - an elf of Middle Earth or folklore is considerably farther from human than a D&D aasimar!

If you objected to any non-human race being balanced with (and therefore better than at certain tasks) humans, I suppose I could understand it. I certainly prefer a Sword & Sorcery "humans make up either the entire or almost the entire sentient population" model.

Besides, even if the PCs are 100% exotic (however you happen to define exotic), the world around them may be 99.99% human. The demographics of a group of nigh-cosmically powerful wandering adventurers do not generally correspond to the demographics of a typical village.

If your human character is mechanically inferior, the rules aren't doing their job - any more than they are if a hill giant character of the same ECL is mechanically inferior.

Remember we're talking about a default campaign setting supported by WotC, not a specially tailored campaign with exotic races in mind. I could be wrong but players generally have access to the MM & DMG, otherwise how could the PrC & alternate races have gotten so popular? The worse case scenario has been mentioned previously as an escalating power creep as players discover races than benefit the most from the nuances of the ECL system & migrate en masse with each new publication. The best case scenario is that players always feel that chosing a core race is by default a good decision & monstrous races will never overshadow them.

You're talking about a default setting.

I'm talking about default rules.

If Greyhawk wants to tell me than 99% of the population is human, I have no problem with that. If Greyhawk wants to tell me that hobgoblins and hill giants are dangerous foes but mysteriously become pathetic losers when they go adventuring... I do have a problem with that.

The best case scenario is that players always feel that choosing a race is a matter of preference (and perhaps campaign). That ogre, human, elf, hobgoblin and troll PCs are equally viable. That a monstrous character will overshadow a non-monstrous character exactly as often as two non-monstrous characters overshadow each other. Obviously, that's never going to happen - perfect game balance is neither necessary nor possible. It's also not a bad ideal to aspire to, certainly better than having the generic rules impacted by the specific setting.

Some players have access to the MM and DMG. Some don't. Some don't even have PHBs! If, out of a group of six players, one has all three books, one has a PHB and a MM, one has a PHB and a DMG, two have PHBs and one borrows from the DM at the table, at "worst" three have ready access to a Monster Manual.

As for "power creep," fixing that is the responsibility of designers and developers on one end, and DMs on the other. 3.5 D&D has done a fine job of keeping it in check on the design and development end; as for the DM's end, that I can't say because it varies from group to group.

 

[JohnClark]

In response to the first post, while statistically you're probably worse off with ECL races (particularly those with more than a +1 level adjustment) I think that roleplaying such races can be a great experience. I've played tieflings, drow (one of the better ecl races), genasi, etc and had a great time with the characters. In the end, if you're in a game that is mostly focused on the numbers then ECL is not the way to go. If you're in a game that has less combat and more roleplaying than an ECL race can be great fun (depending on your character concept).

 

[The_Gneech]

You're talking about a default setting.

I'm talking about default rules.

...

The best case scenario is that players always feel that choosing a race is a matter of preference (and perhaps campaign). That ogre, human, elf, hobgoblin and troll PCs are equally viable. That a monstrous character will overshadow a non-monstrous character exactly as often as two non-monstrous characters overshadow each other. Obviously, that's never going to happen - perfect game balance is neither necessary nor possible. It's also not a bad ideal to aspire to, certainly better than having the generic rules impacted by the specific setting....

The default setting and the default rules are tied together: "out of the box" D&D assumes a given 'flavor' of world (i.e., Greyhawk-lite or close thereto), in which a monster-hero isn't as viable. D&D is not even close to generic.

D&D is adaptable, yes. But not generic. That's Fantasy HERO (or possibly GURPS.

-The Gneech