How do you encourage players to use Level Adjusted races?

[greywulf]

I'm sure this has been done to death before, but I've just cast Resurrection. Again.

IMC, we use this House Rule for Level Adjustment which works very well for us.

In brief:

: Each “Level Adjustment” costs the PC one of their free feats. So, a +1 LA race doesn’t get a feat at first level; a +2 LA race doesn’t get feats at 1st or 3rd. Level Adjustment has no other effect whatsoever. It doesn’t count toward your levels, doesn’t affect your XP or anything else at all. Racial Hit Dice apply as normal.

The advantage is that a 1st level fighter is a 1st level fighter is a 1st level fighter with none of this mucking about with ECLs and whatnot. It gives players incentive to actually use the funkier races without feeling cheated out of a whole level (or having to "buy it back" later). The LA +2 races might be a bit overpowered until 3rd level, but that's soon enough not to matter too much.

In effect, "being a Tiefling" (or whatever) is their 1st level feat. As I said, it's a powerful incentive.

But I'm interested in how you do it? Do you play with LAs as they are, allow/disallow, or what?

I'm just curious to know.

 

[Umbran]

I don't disallow them, but I don't do anythign to encourage them, either. The world I work in doesn't have the cities swarming with strange beings, so I don't feel a need to encourage them.

 

[Thanee]

How do you encourage players to use Level Adjusted races?

I don't.

Your house rule seems interesting for low level adjustments, but for high level adjustments, it probably won't work all too well.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Crothian]

I don't either. I let the players take what they want without outside influence.

 

[smootrk]

I make sure they understand the Unearthed Arcana rules for 'buying off' the Level Adjustment. I also tend to grant special considerations to first level (or starting) characters; these considerations can be traded towards LA's as well to effectively make the LA go away.

For instance, there is a character in our campaign who has a Drow mime Bard, but this bard is mute, which I justified as comparable to a LA (and some houserules to account for his 'playing' the auditory portion of spellcasting). The other LA was 'bought off' in lieu of some last minute stat adjustment I made at the table on first day of play (the used 25 point-buy for creation otherwise)... effectively +0 LA afterwords.

Other than the Houserules we used, the UA is really a great way to deal with a few LA's (up to a certain point).... especially since the XP rules allow lower level character to equalize their total XP over time - leveling the playing field for characters who had to 'buy off' their LA.

 

[Henry]

The silly gents use them anyway -- I don't need to encourage squat.

We all recognize that LA'ed races aren't that great power-wise, but they love the flavor of some of them, and play them even with the tremendous disadvantages that these glass-jawed characters allow. One guy, who played a Half-Dragon Monk in one game, was the character with the award of "most times unconscious or dead" in the party.

Heck, I'm playing an Aasimar in a near-future game myself.

 

[arwink]

The silly gents use them anyway -- I don't need to encourage squat.

My group's with Henry's, although recently there's been a trend towards using Prestige Classes to get the same effects (via Dragon Desciple, Fey-Druid homebrews, etc). But there's still at least one player whose only played kobolds and gnolls for nearly four years now.

 

[greywulf]

Your house rule seems interesting for low level adjustments, but for high level adjustments, it probably won't work all too well.

That's true, unless the game itself is also high level. I've only allowed a maximum of LA +2 so far, though I'd consider LA +3 (for new characters) when the adventurers reach around the 8th level mark. By then the 3 feat loss should be acceptable.

Interestingly, it does make werewolves possible to play - lose three feats, gain lycanthropy. Simple

 

[takasi]

We have a special houserule that allows you to play a LA character if you use a lower starting stat array.

 

[Thanee]

That's true, unless the game itself is also high level. I've only allowed a maximum of LA +2 so far, ...

Yeah, I figured, that you would use mostly or even exclusively low level adjustments.

That's alright, a rule that works well with some and not so well with others is surely superior to a rule that works only decent but with everything, if you only really use the 'some' part.

Bye
Thanee