I hate LA!

[kilamanjaro]

I'm trying to get some feedback on a potential house rule. I DM for a three player group. In order to boost them up a bit I've increased racial stat bonuses and given some races minor abilities trying to make everyone equal to a LA+1. I ignore the LA, which opens up all the LA+1 races to be played without modification. I also give feats every level, but every even level the feats have to be selected from a racial feat list. This has worked pretty well.
Now we're getting ready to start a new campaign and two of the players want to play more exotic races with larger LA. I'd like the campaign to start at first level. I'm considering using the Savage Species racial progressions but giving them a HD and everything that goes with it (BAB, saves, skill points) for every level but not giving them a feat every level like the other player will be getting with his class levels. I'm afraid that's not enough of a penalty to balance things out and I'm looking for suggestions.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Just use normal savage progressions or start the game at a higher level. It will proably be alot easier and balanced then trying to revamp everything.

Talk to your players see what they think will work. I've done so and they fixed things better than I could've alone on a couple of issues.

 

[airwalkrr]

I agree that LA is a somewhat cumbersome and annoying rule. I wish there were a better alternative to it, but some racial abilities really do give PCs an edge that they otherwise couldn't dream of. Your solution of limiting them to racial feats occassionally sounds like a pretty good idea.

Also, you could probably just ignore LA if you want as long as everyone has roughly the same LA so no one outshines anyone else. But if one PC wants to play a human and another wants to play a minotaur, then you need to have some way to balance the minotaur with the human because otherwise the minotaur player will completely overshadow the human one.

I've been looking for an alternative to LA for a while though. Let me know if you hit on anything really groundbreaking.

 

[papastebu]

If you are worried about a more exotic race/species/creature, etc, overshadowing one or all of the standard PC options, make the player take his/her character through racial progressions, a la Arcana Unearthed. It effectively eliminates the worries before play ever starts, but doesn't take the options for the exotic out of play--ostensibly the reason someone wants an exotic in the first place. Another thing I have done is have the exotic advance by class level, gaining hit dice and most other abilities in this way alone, while allowing one of the exotic's special abilities to "surface" each level gained. Eventually, the character has most or all of the abilities that attracted the player to the choice in the first place, plus the added benefits of advancing by class levels the whole time. If this seems to make the creature too powerful, perhaps have it advance more slowly than the rest, with a percentage penalty on experience, which is easy to apply with a calculator handy.

 

[kilamanjaro]

If you are worried about a more exotic race/species/creature, etc, overshadowing one or all of the standard PC options, make the player take his/her character through racial progressions, a la Arcana Unearthed. It effectively eliminates the worries before play ever starts, but doesn't take the options for the exotic out of play--ostensibly the reason someone wants an exotic in the first place. Another thing I have done is have the exotic advance by class level, gaining hit dice and most other abilities in this way alone, while allowing one of the exotic's special abilities to "surface" each level gained. Eventually, the character has most or all of the abilities that attracted the player to the choice in the first place, plus the added benefits of advancing by class levels the whole time. If this seems to make the creature too powerful, perhaps have it advance more slowly than the rest, with a percentage penalty on experience, which is easy to apply with a calculator handy.

I've considered doing something like this. I've been looking at the way the races were done in Dawnforge and in Complete Psionic too but I'm not 100% happy with either of them. Of course, 100% happy could be too much work.

 

[Piratecat]

If it weren't for all the movie stars, I wouldn't want to travel there at all.

 

[kilamanjaro]

If it weren't for all the movie stars, I wouldn't want to travel there at all.

So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly.
Hills that is.
Swimming pools.
Movie Stars.

 

[harmyn]

What I have done for one campaign is to allow people to play up to a +2 LA race and then use the apprentice rules from 3.0 DMG (with a tweak). Those who play a +1 race get the apprentice version of their class. Those with a +2 get an even more modified version of their class spread across the first three levels. It does give the character a technical advantage at first level, but it more than evens out pretty quickly.

Now I don't know if this would work for you or not. But since everyone gets a free +1 LA you could use this to work with an LA of up to +3. Its just a random thought that seems to work okay for me (was only done once for a +2 LA, but it worked).

For example, I would give someone playing a fighter who is also a Half-Ogre (BTB +2) the following options:

L1 = +0 BAB / +0 Fort Save / 4 skill points / 10 HP / Standard 1st Level Feat
L2 = +0 BAB / +1 to Fort Save / 4 skill points / Bonus Feat
L3 = +1 BAB / +1 more to Fort Save / Int bonus x4 in skill points

There could be no multi-class or changes until the character reaches full first level in their class.

 

[Lorgrom]

We have been toying with assigning an Experiance cost for LA's instead of just a flat LA. We have found that nearly all LA's are fairly balanced at lower levels, but by the time you reach the mid teens and higher those LA's do not really match up with what is lost. The formula below seems to work (it is a bit harsher when your the min level to accuire the cost, but within a few levels it balances out, and by the time your more then 12 levels higher it actualy ends up costing you less then what the LA would impose).

LA cost in EX = 1000 * (min level to accuire the LA)^2 * LA

So a 1 LA you can get at 1st level will cost you 1000 XP. While getting a 4 LA template (half-whatever's come to mind) ends up costing 16,000 XP. A bit more then what a 5 LA would cost you to start with but by the time your 17th level, it really boils down to only a 1 LA. Templates such as Lich do get quite expensive, but then again they are very powerful.

 

[paradox42]

As I've said in other threads, I've done this in my own campaigns for several years- in fact all of the races in my homebrew are balanced to approximate a +2 LA in the core game, but because they're all so balanced I then (basically) subtract 2 from the LA of every race. So races in my game that actually carry an LA would, in core, have LA +3 or more. It works pretty well, and allows for some exotic races and combinations without anybody really being overshadowed. As soon as I saw the "buying off level adjustment" rules in Unearthed Arcana I adopted them, and several players have taken advantage- particularly when creating new PCs at high level. As long as you use standard XP granting rules, which grant higher awards to lower-level characters, the gap eventually vanishes and everybody's happy.

That said, I like papastebu's suggestion a lot- it could let people take regular, core PHB races and play them alongside the rest in your game without unbalancing things. Give them a couple of "phantom levels" in racial paragon classes to balance out the LA the other PCs get, and they effectively become characters of more powerful races deserving of a level adjustment.

Lorgrom's suggestion of XP costs is one I've seen mentioned several times, and one DM I played with briefly wanted to try it, but that campaign died before we could try it so I've never seen any evidence on how well (or not) it works. My feeling is that a lot of players would feel like it was extra math and dislike it on that basis, but it probably balances things better than traditional LA.