ECL Races, EVER worth it?
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painandgreed
First Post
My current D&D party is mostly ECL character races, Pixie, Drow, half feind, & inccubus, using Savage Species. We're doing well and having fun. You trade off core abilities for special abilities. We're not as good as being a fighter as a normal straight fighter but our special abilites usually make up the difference. Half our party flies which can really change tactics for example. My pixie is a 4th level fighter and not up to a human fighter of 9th level but can always turn invisible, fly into the air and pepper the fighter with arrows (with a dex of 24) while being immune to any ranged attacks myself due to a DR of 10. In a straight up fight, no, our ECL classes aren't as powerful but if allowed to use their special abilities we can make up the difference. Spell casting is the part where ECL classes fall behind and we've had to make it up by stocking lots of potions and wands (along with the appropriate skills to use them) which is a continuous drain on resources.
ThirdWizard
First Post
A well calculated one is fine. Just never let your LA be higher than your HD and you should be much better off. I prefer LA to be at least 75% of total HD, but half is a good starting point.
And, I'm convinced that the creators of the MMIII had no idea how ECL works. They have LAs that are way way way too high. In many cases it looks to me like they didn't realize you add HD to LA to get ECL, because the LA looks like a good total ECL in many cases. Look over that before you start using any MMIII monsters as PCs.
And, I'm convinced that the creators of the MMIII had no idea how ECL works. They have LAs that are way way way too high. In many cases it looks to me like they didn't realize you add HD to LA to get ECL, because the LA looks like a good total ECL in many cases. Look over that before you start using any MMIII monsters as PCs.
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Half ogre from the Races of Destiny isn't too bad.
Half-Gennie from Sandstorm is pretty solid.
Most others I agree are a little too high for what you get.
Half-Gennie from Sandstorm is pretty solid.
Most others I agree are a little too high for what you get.
seankreynolds
Adventurer
Yeah, LA can really suck, especially if you're a spellcaster.
One thing to take into consideration, though, is something we deliberately built into the established LAs in core books:
People should always feel good about playing a core race. That's why they're core.
Aasimars and tieflings are cool to play because they're weird and different. Are they worth a full LA+1? Probably not, they're probably about LA+.5 or +.7. But if the choice is to round up or round down (ignoring D&D's always-round-up rule), when it comes to LAs you should always round up. That's because in a game where one guy is playing a human paladin and another guy is playing an aasimar paladin, you want to make sure the guy playing the human gets something cool to compensate for the aasimar getting something cool; in this case, the player of the human gets an extra character level, the player of the aasimar gets to be an aasimar.
All mechanics aside, you want the guy who decides to play a "normal" character to feel like he's at least a little bit better off than the guy who gets to play the "weird" character, otherwise everyone ends up playing weird characters and it makes you wonder why the weirdos aren't always the famous people of the world.
So even if there was a way to differentiate between tenths of a Level Adjustment, you'd want to err on the side of caution and give the nonzero LA race a slightly higher LA than the mechanics would indicate. In the same way that you shouldn't make spells that are better than the core spells, you shouldn't make races that (at equivalent ECL) better than core races.
One thing to take into consideration, though, is something we deliberately built into the established LAs in core books:
People should always feel good about playing a core race. That's why they're core.
Aasimars and tieflings are cool to play because they're weird and different. Are they worth a full LA+1? Probably not, they're probably about LA+.5 or +.7. But if the choice is to round up or round down (ignoring D&D's always-round-up rule), when it comes to LAs you should always round up. That's because in a game where one guy is playing a human paladin and another guy is playing an aasimar paladin, you want to make sure the guy playing the human gets something cool to compensate for the aasimar getting something cool; in this case, the player of the human gets an extra character level, the player of the aasimar gets to be an aasimar.
All mechanics aside, you want the guy who decides to play a "normal" character to feel like he's at least a little bit better off than the guy who gets to play the "weird" character, otherwise everyone ends up playing weird characters and it makes you wonder why the weirdos aren't always the famous people of the world.
So even if there was a way to differentiate between tenths of a Level Adjustment, you'd want to err on the side of caution and give the nonzero LA race a slightly higher LA than the mechanics would indicate. In the same way that you shouldn't make spells that are better than the core spells, you shouldn't make races that (at equivalent ECL) better than core races.
JRRNeiklot
First Post
Another thing to consider: In a campaign where ALL the pcs have an ecl, it doesn't seem as bad, as the other guys won't be outshining you, barring one guy with a badly balanced ecl, of course.
jmucchiello
Hero
As I always recommend, convert LA to XP deficits. An LA +2 on a "0 HD" humanoid is a 3,000 xp penalty (2 levels). The character is always 3,000 xp behind, which is 2 level at 3rd level and 0 levels at 10th level. HD throw the math off a little. For a creature with 3 HD and a +2 LA, the xp penalty is 9,000 xp (his 3 HD use 6,000 xp. the level adjustment would bring you to 15,000 xp, subtract and you get 9,000 xp). So that adjustment sticks around longer but will still be overcome eventually.
After all, the racial abilities an aasamir has at 1st level are overshadowed by his class abilities at 10th level. The LA should go away.
ECL should also go away, yet many templates actually increase the ECL over HD. Craziness.
After all, the racial abilities an aasamir has at 1st level are overshadowed by his class abilities at 10th level. The LA should go away.
ECL should also go away, yet many templates actually increase the ECL over HD. Craziness.
It is emphatically not worth it with the rules as written in Savage Species for a race with an ECL of +2 or greater. Most races or templates with an ECL +1 are also "too expensive" with a few exceptions (the stone creature template in Underdark that gives you DR 8/adamantine for ECL +1 is killer for combat).
I suspect that WotC is too cautious and ends up using too-high ECLs is almost every case. Missing out on hit dice, skill points, and caster levels is just too costly for what you get back in other abilities with monster ECLs.
I suspect that WotC is too cautious and ends up using too-high ECLs is almost every case. Missing out on hit dice, skill points, and caster levels is just too costly for what you get back in other abilities with monster ECLs.
BSF
Explorer
Mechanically speaking, ECL is progressively not worth it. It's about the RP aspects and sometimes access to tricks that core classes don't easily get. (ER, SR at low levels)
I am going to be running a campaign soon where each PC must have a minimum of ECL 4. Of course, they must all be good aligned outsiders as well. And I am encouraging folks to look at Anger of Angels for their races. I think it will be a fun campaign, but I suspect the players for spellcasters will grumble a little bit until they grow accustomed to the feel I am aiming for.
I do anticipate that it will be a little more work for me to handle encounter balance with this group of PCs. But that's my fault for orchestrating the campaign that I am.
I am going to be running a campaign soon where each PC must have a minimum of ECL 4. Of course, they must all be good aligned outsiders as well. And I am encouraging folks to look at Anger of Angels for their races. I think it will be a fun campaign, but I suspect the players for spellcasters will grumble a little bit until they grow accustomed to the feel I am aiming for.
I do anticipate that it will be a little more work for me to handle encounter balance with this group of PCs. But that's my fault for orchestrating the campaign that I am.
MoogleEmpMog
First Post
seankreynolds said:
Sean, with all due respect, I've always thought this was an awful decision. Wouldn't it be better to make the Core races cool to players, rather than make the non-core races mechanically weaker (if only a bit, in most cases)?
Players who've never played before should consider an elf or dwarf as new and interesting as an aasimar; why should those who've played the former many times be discouraged from trying the latter by mechanical considerations?
Also, it assumes a Core, Greyhawkish campaign setting. For a DM who runs a non-core game, this decision-making process makes all LAs subject to possible revision. If the famous people ARE mostly aasimar, hobgoblins and mind flayers, having two of those three races close to crippled and one weaker than average strains the suspension of disbelief - more, I suspect, than the inverse does in Greyhawk, where demographics account for the greater power of core race characters.
Worst of all, not all designers seem to subscribe to the same theory about LAs. When one (say, the poor hobgoblin) has a LA calculated using your "err on the side of caution" plan and another (perhaps the half-giant or goliath) has a LA calculated to be equal to a character level, the hobgoblin isn't just sub-par - he's clearly pathetic. Worse, a DM who opens up a variant like LA buyoff to make the hobgoblin playable ends up with overpowered half-giants and goliaths.
The LA system is a great concept, but it's one of the areas that could be greatly improved - and IMO, a design philosophy that aims at balancing the LA races, rather than making them deliberately sub-par, would be a better way to go about improving them.
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