ECL Races, EVER worth it?

[Rel]

Warforged and Artificer are, I think, quite flavorful, but they interact with the system in such a way as to take A WHOLE LOT away from the core races, both arcane core classes, AND the divine casters.

There I might not disagree with you too much. But that's a different argument entirely.

I was just pointing out that from a mechanical standpoint Warforged are not the end-all/be-all that they are sometimes made out to be. And they certainly don't fill every roleplaying role you might imagine.

I'm currently running an Eberron campaign (and loving it) and so far from the dozen or so PC's that have been played there has been ONE Warforged. Also, only one Artificer.

 

[Felon]

The bottom line is, the designers are way too heavy-handed in assigning LA's. They really have their heads up the tuchuses (tuchi?) here.

One major design flaw is, the value of an ability score bonus is only weighed against any ability score penalties a race may have, not against the rest of the race's features. They think if a race's ability scores don't "zero-out', then that race must have an LA of +1 or better. A hobgoblin receives little else besides his Dex +2 and Con +2. Even if it were a +0 race, it's pretty questionable that it would be a better choice than a human for just about any class. As a +1 race, it's just not worthwhile. A human effectively has a +2 Intelligence thanks to its extra skill points, so why isn't it giving up a level?

They really fail to consider that the value of Con and Int bonuses are severely diminished once you factor in LA's. A tiefling pursuing the rogue class gives up 8 skill points to get a +2 Intelligence. It'll be 6th level before it even reaches a break-even point. A similar situation goes for Con and hit points, although since hit points are rolled, there's no telling what you're missing out on.

One other really odd thing about level adjustments: anyone else notice that a template typically provides much better benefits than a race for its LA, even though that template is actually stacked on top of a race? Think of what a half-dragon gets for its +3 LA, or a half-vampire (from Libris Mortis) for its +2 LA, and compare that to, say, a drow. Then consider that the template can be dropped right on top of a human, who will still get his bonus skill points and feat.

 

[seankreynolds]

I would suggest that maybe ECLed races should start with Negative Levels equal to their ECL, and lose them on stat increase levels (I.E. Bugbear would have 4 negative levels ... at 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th he'd lose a negative level "for free" until his ECL was gone) but Negative Levels hit spellcasting and HP, which is specifically what I WOULDN'T want to hit.

I think JD Wiker proposed something like that.

It doesn't fail to penalize LA-adjusted races at the lowest levels. It merely fails to penalize them ENOUGH for you at lowest levels.

I fully admit my belief that any system where {an LA+0 and an LA+1 character are in the same party and they have the same number of class levels 50% of the time} fails to penalize the LA+1 character "enough." If the level-adjusted character is better than the human character for a significant amount of the time (and 33% or even 50% of the time is pretty significant), yeah, your system isn't penalizing them enough. I mean, what do you tell the human Pal2 when he has an aasimar Pal2 in the same party? "Too bad, suck it up?"

{Turning this around: When should LA +1 race achieve 50% or better parity with an LA +0 race? If you use my numbers it happens at level 2 (of the LA+0 character). If you multiply by 2, it happens at level 4. Multiply by 3 and it happens around level 6. How long must the hobgoblin suffer for his +2/+2 ability scores?}

Until his character level reaches a point where he's essentially the same power as a human of the same character level? Certainly "at level 2" isn't the answer.

{If you say that at 10th level an LA +1 race is allowed to have parity with an LA +0 race 50% of the time, than the penalty should be 5,000 xp. Perhap a new chart is needed and my reliance on the XP Chart was just hopeful optimism. But a multiplication factor is always a possibility.}

Yep. I think you and I agree that at low levels the difference between character levels is very significant (a lvl2 character may be have up to twice as many resources as a lvl1 character); for an LA+1 race, they shouldn't hit that 50% mark until at least 3rd level so the LA+0 character can enjoy 2nd-level spells (for example) for quite some time before the LA+1 race does.

 

[Felon]

I mean, what do you tell the human Pal2 when he has an aasimar Pal2 in the same party? "Too bad, suck it up?"

How about "Just try to pretend your higher hit points, BAB, skill points, and bonus to Fort. save--and oh yes, your bonus feat and increased skill point allot--serves as some mild consolation for, um, what does the aasimar get that's so cool? Oh he gets one point more Cha mod (which is OK, but hardly trumps the benefit of a bonus feat) and one point more Wis mod (which actually doesn't mean much to a pally) and some resistances and he can make it bright once a day."

Sarcasm aside, the aasimar is nice, but he isn't the flat-out superior choice as you're intimating. The human pally isn't getting hosed. He's got his advantages too.

 

[seankreynolds]

How about "Just try to pretend your higher hit points, BAB, skill points, and bonus to Fort. save--and oh yes, your bonus feat and increased skill point allot--serves as some mild consolation for, um, what does the aasimar get that's so cool? Oh he gets one point more Cha mod (which is OK, but hardly trumps the benefit of a bonus feat) and one point more Wis mod (which actually doesn't mean much to a pally) and some resistances and he can make it bright once a day."

Felon, you'll note in the text you're quoting that we're talking about a 2nd-level human paladin and a 2nd-level (ECL) aasimar paladin. When they're both Pal2 (as they are 50% of the time in the 100 XP-deficit system), they have the same hp, BAB, skill points (barring the 5 extra points the human gets for being human), save bonuses, and class abilities.

Sarcasm aside, the aasimar is nice, but he isn't the flat-out superior choice as you're intimating. The human pally isn't getting hosed. He's got his advantages too.

The consensus in the d20 community (from what I have heard, at least) is that the aasimar is better than a human, just not LA+1 better. The aasimar gets darkvision, +2 Wis (which affects paladin spellcasting), +2 Cha (which affects paladin abilities), +2 to Spot and Listen checks (cross-class skills for paladins, so it's like he gets 4 automatic skill points to put in those two skills), a 3rd-level SLA that automatically counters the darkness spell, acid/cold/electricity resistance 5, and he's an outsider so he's immune to charm person, hold person, sleep, and other humanoid-targeting effects. Compared to a human (+1 feat, +1 skill point per level) an aasimar is more than just "nice." The aasimar has no drawbacks for any particular class (it doesn't have any ability score penalties that would penalize key class abilities) and has some really handy abilities. So the aasimar is a more powerful race than the human, particularly at lower levels, and any system designed to make it fair for the aasimar and the human to adventure together has failed to do so if the aasimar ends up the same character level as the human half the time.

 

[Berandor]

By the time 2000 rolled around, the FRCS team found themselves facing the difficulty of how to handle some of these "extra-powerful" races (particularly drow). As written, the drow were clearly better than regular PC races--not just as 1st-level characters, but at every single level. Even though the various abilities might not be as significant at 20th level as at 1st, the drow with 20 character levels is still mechanically superior to the elf with 20 character levels. That means that the player looking for mechanical advantages should always play a drow in preference to an elf, which runs counter to the assumptions of D&D and of the Forgotten Realms (Drizzt notwithstanding) and undermines the veracity (and verisimilitude) of the world.

In a perfect world, the aasimar, drow, svirfneblin, and other FR races would be of the same power level as the PH races, meaning that the choice between human and aasimar or drow and elf would be power-neutral (and thus entirely dependent on the player's preferences). But rewriting all those races for FR wasn't a realistic option (nor was rewriting the PH races to be of a similar power level as the extra-powerful races).

This is what I can't seem to understand.

Why? Why do all options have to be of equal power? Why can't drow be a more powerful choice than normal elves? I mean, we still have a DM in the game. A simple text "Note: Drow are mechanically superior to standard PHB races. Be careful before allowing a drow character." would have been equally fine imo.

It's like a strange version of political correctness. Yes, a race can be strong, but then it has to be dumb as a brick because otherwise it would be unfair to all the humans around. You can be a winged elf, but then you'll never be able to hold your own in a spellcasting fight. And so on.

I realize this is somewhat off-topic, but why can't some races be simply better than others? And in effect, it's almost the other way round. If a race is better at doing something, it'll be penalized so that it's overall a worse choice. And then the game world loses verisimilitude. Phaerimm may be the most-feared spellcasting creatures in the Realms, but would you want to play a phaerimm spellcaster? Hell no, he'd be too weak. Huh?

 

[Rel]

Why? Why do all options have to be of equal power? Why can't drow be a more powerful choice than normal elves? I mean, we still have a DM in the game. A simple text "Note: Drow are mechanically superior to standard PHB races. Be careful before allowing a drow character." would have been equally fine imo.

I think the short answer is that Balance is a core design principle of this edition of D&D. And I'm all in favor of it too. From reading these forums, I have concluded that I'm not alone in the desire that things in general and PC races in particular be balanced with one another so that one PC does not totally outshine the others.

I would humbly suggest that if you do not share that desire that you simply ignore that line that talks about LA or Racial Levels and just allow the race to be played with no such adjustments. If that's the sort of game you want and the players don't mind then it may be the easiest house rule I've ever seen.

 

[Jolly Giant]

If you want your character to be as powerful as possible, stick with the core races. Possibly with a template; some of the templates can be "worth it" IMHO.

Personally, I like playing odd-ball type character once in a while, and enjoy LA characters. I like the challenge of roleplaying a character that shouldn't really fit in the party, but tries his best anyway. I think it can often make a cool background story, and give the DM a bundle of potential plothooks.

Some of my former characters, with heavy LA:

A lizardfolk were-snake (viper).
An insectile dwarf.
A draconic kobold.
A medusa.
...and on of those living construct things from FF, who's name eludes me at the moment.

 

[fusangite]

In my experience, some LA can certainly be worth it but it is the exception. Generally, only big damage dealing melee fighters who take real bruiser races will find that this pays off. If the Con and Str bonuses entailed in taking a write-down in levels effectively compensate for the sacrifice of BAB and Hit Points, then it can certainly be worthwhile blowing a bunch of fighter or barbarian levels in exchange for being a Minotaur or Half-Dragon.

The same just can't be achieved for spell-casters though. Still, I think I could make the case for sacrificing some sorceror levels for a vampire template if the character concept was already oriented to melee touch spells. But even then, likely not worth it. Basically, one needs a +6 or more to the main spellcasting attribute and a lot of other compensation (like a +6 or more AC improvement for an arcane caster).

 

[kirinke]

Generally speaking, I go for roleplaying flavor rather than straight mechanics. If you have a good group that uses tactics well enough, the mechanics of a single character takes care of itself. An ECL character alone or played poorly is going to get hosed. An ECL character played well in a group of equally well-played characters is not going to get hosed.

I guess I've just been lucky so far in that the DM's I've played with are fair and will work with you on a character concept. But then... I tend to be more of a rat-bastard towards my own character than they are too mine.