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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeapThaumaturgist" data-source="post: 2437378" data-attributes="member: 12332">There are a few things I think that could help.One problem is that everything is supposed to start with 11,11,11,10,10 for ability scores.  This means that a monster that should be strong when compared to the PCs has a HUGE strength adjustment.  I think giving more creatures a point-buy or low-powered (22pt) array instead of boosting 1-3 ability scores by 4 points would make them, as races, more balanced against the PC races.  On the whole, though, I agree that monster-races shouldn't be more powerful than PC races, if the core books are going to assume that monster-races are playable.  I'm a big fan of balance, and balance at every step of the way from 1st-20th, as much as it can be maintained.  By placing monster-races obviously more powerful than PC races and putting the fiat directly in the GM's hands, you're going to get FAR more complaints from GMs who inadvertently mess up their games.Not that I don't believe GMs should have access to and control over what goes on in their games, but I think that WotC "sanctioning" playing Drow with no LA will lead alot of people to believe that there's "not much difference" ... leaving the guy playing a regular elf feeling like he's gotten the short end of the stick.Not to categorize unfairly, but my recent encounters with LA races have been with our current GM's kids, who he runs regular games for, along with their friends.  They all want to play Drow, Minotaurs, Bugbears, Lycanthropes, and, barring that, Half-Orcs.  I think it's an 11-14 thing, really.  And, because they're his kids, he lets them, because it's all in good fun.  Which I agree with.  The guy's a great GM and I like his kids.But the ECL/LA system is clunky.  It isn't transparent.  Even -I- was confused about ECL and LA and I'm the resident rules-hound.  But it's already becoming a problem in-game.  While the "anything goes" mentality is great with 11-14 yr olds, our group is university seniors and graduate students (the GM a grad student himself) ... heh, he was rather surprised when his rundown of ECL races was largely ignored and core races chosen ... because outside of RPing reasons based on his campaign setting, it was mechanically inferior to choose a non-core race.  I think that's OKAY, that's what is supposed to happen.  I think that without a major-ish overhall of what a monster is supposed to be, stat-wise, any ECL system is going to have to be a kludge.  As-is, I think there's too much variance to make alot of things playable.Case in point, in the game we're in, the GM's eldest son (14-15, not sure) plays with us.  He's a good kid, pretty good gamer, etc.  One of his friends will be visiting for about a month and wants in on the game.  When asked what he wanted to play ... he wanted to play a Half-Dragon Samurai.  Half-Dragon is a +3 LA template ... when statted out this thing will be stronger than the barbarian when the barbarian is in rage, and will be more heavily armored than the dwarf when the dwarf is in Expertise.  So it'll outshine the damage-dealer in his specialty, and outshine the tank in his specialty ... AND have a 6d8 breath weapon once per day ... but for this, it'll only have 4 levels of character class ... which means, since we average HP, that he'll have 4 more HP than the party wizard.  A total paper tiger.  I don't think it'll be too much fun for ANYBODY at the table.  Two players will find their characters take a back seat to one juggernaut, and the kid is going to be upset when the first appropriate-CR creature to get through his armor blows him out of the water and into negative HP in short order.--fje</blockquote>

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