EL adjustment balanced for races with high strength?

[Lee Xingxian]

First post here! This seems to be the most appropriate forum for this question:

Are the EL for strength-increased races balanced? For example, the Centaur has an EL adjustment of +2, but a strength bonus of +8! (Not to mention the dex and con bonuses of +4 each). Then there's the Stonechild with its EL of +4 but a +8 Strength and Con bonus. For a straight melee character, that seems to be extremely good. Worrisomely good. So what do you all think?

So far in the campaign (initial starting level is 11) I'm DMing I'm imposing a higher EL rating as it seems stupid for a fighter to be a human rather than, say, a giant (using progression from Savage Species) or centaur. And that doesn't sit well with me.

Your thoughts?

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Well a centaur is actually worth 6 character levels because of it's 4 racial hit dice. Those 4 racial hit dice aren't as good as class levels.

 

[TheEvil]

Assuming you mean Effective Character Level (ECL), not Encounter Level (EL).
Losing hit dice really hurts fighter characters. Losing one or two isn't too bad, especially if you start at higher levels. But once you start losing, say, 3 or more, losing base attack bonus starts to hurt for feat chains, PrCs and such. Losing several dice worth of hit points also tends to hurt survivability. If all the lost character hit dice are replaced with monster hit dice, it isn't so bad, but just plain loosing hit dice is not a good thing for a frontline fighter.

 

[Nail]

For example, the Centaur has an EL adjustment of +2, but a strength bonus of +8! (Not to mention the dex and con bonuses of +4 each).

Break it down (assume all ability scores are base 10+racial, and they both use the longsword, for arguement's sake):

Centaur (ECL 6)
HD 4d8 + 8 (29 hp)
BAB +4
Feats: Dodge, Weapon Focus (hoof)
Atk: Longsword +7 melee (2d6+4/19–20) and 2 hooves +3 melee (1d6+2);
Ave Dam/Rd vs AC 18: 9.5 hp

Human Fighter 6 (ECL 6)

HD 6d10 (37 hp)
BAB +6 (iterative attacks!)
Feats: Weapon Focus (longsword), Weapon Specialization (longsword),
and 5 more!
Atk: Longsword +7/+2 melee (1d8/19-20)
Ave Dam/Rd vs AC 18: 5.4 hp

 

[reveal]

I think a lot of people are confused because they think that you simply look at LA if you're creating a character. I know I was. To create a character using, for exampe, the Ogre, you have to look at Racial HD AND LA. The LA for an Ogre is only +2 (and they have a +10 to STR!) but they have 4 racial HD. So, technically, they are a level 6 character from the start.

 

[Philip]

As previous posters said.

A Centaur is Large, meaning -1 to hit, it loses 2 BAB because of its LA. In return it gets +4 to hit from its Str, meaning a net gain of +1, which is not that much, considering the Centaur loses 3 Fighter bonus feats, one of which could be Weapon Focus.

Suppose a Centaur fighter has 18 Con where a human fighter would have 14. But the human has two more Hit Dice, and a d10 for all of its Hit Dice, where the Centaur has 4d8's. Effectively, the Centaur is 12 hp. behind, so with +2 hp. extra per Hit Die due to the increased Con, he needs another 6 levels to just catch up with his human equivalent.

He gets extra save bonuses from his Con, but losing two Hit Dice makes him lose that advantage just a quickly. Etc. etc.

A +8 bonus to Str might look attractive, overpowered even, but if you put it to the test you find that you have to put a lot of effort into building a Centaur character that compares to a human of the same ECL. You just don't have the options that humans do when you still want to make it a viable character.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, others seem to have covered it pretty well but welcome to the board.

Did they manage to answer you question?

 

[Nail]

For even more "break down fun", the same guys up above, only assuming the Elite array as a base (Str 15, Con 14, Dex 13,....), and allowing them both to use Greatswords. I'll also switch around the standard feats for the centaur.

Centaur (ECL 6)
Str 23, Dex 17, Con 18
HD 4d8 + 16 (37 hp)
AC: 22 (-1 size, +3 Dex, +3 Nat, +6 mithral breastplate +1)
Spd: 50
BAB +4
Feats: Multiattack, Weapon Focus (greatsword)
Atk: Greatsword +10 melee (3d6+9/19–20) and 2 hooves +7 melee (1d6+3);
Ave Dam/Rd vs AC 18: 20.8 hp


Human Fighter 6 (ECL 6)
Str 20, Dex 13, Con 14
HD 6d10 + 18 (55 hp)
AC: 17 (+1 Dex, +6 mithral breastplate +1)
Spd: 50
BAB +6
Feats: Weapon Focus (greatsword), Weapon Specialization (greatsword),
Power Attack, Cleave, Close-quarters Fighting, Power Critical (greatsword),
Improved Toughness, Improved Initiative
Atk: Greatsword +12/+7 melee (2d6+9/19-20)
Ave Dam/Rd vs AC 18: 23.0 hp (power attack for 3)

Notes:

• The human fighter does more damage.
• The human fighter has 18 more hp.
• The centaur has a much higher AC (by 5!).
• The centaur has a faster move.
• The human fighter has lots more feats...and they could be substantially different than those I gave him. The centaur doesn't have that flexibility.

 

[Lee Xingxian]

Thanks, everyone, for all your info. This site and this forum are real treasure finds.

At level 6, it seems balanced, but a level 11 human fighter didn't seem to have too much of an edge on a level 5 centaur fighter, if any at all. It's the con bonus that really messes stuff up, in my opinion... at later levels (like EL 18) the lack of two hit dice don't hurt anymore because of that +4 con. One idea I toyed with was making the EL adjustment increase as the Centaur started to overwhelm the human. It's in the flavor of the story that humans should be an effective race, and I like to think of the mechanics balance as well, if this sentence makes any sense (I hope it does). As it stands, once I communicated to the player my desire that a human fighter should at least surpass the centaur fighter by a little, his inner twink overcame his desire to play a centaur for the flavor, and he's going with either a human or a dwarf now.