I need advice on Level Adjustment

[Renfield]

So,

I'm a DM and a fairly lenient one when it comes to making modifications to the rules for my players. After all, anything modified to the players benefit can be used by the villains as well right? For an example: prestige classes normally requiring the comparatively useless Combat Casting feat get the adjustment of requiring Skill Focus: Concentration instead, why? Because why get Combat Casting (a +4 when only when casting defensively) when you can have a +3 straight out?

Anyway, one of my players wants to play a Half-Dragon, I typically don't have a problem with this. Thing is he's asking that the Level Adjustment be reduced from +3 to +2. His reasoning behind this is that one of the half-dragons primary abilities is that they can fly, that, however, only applies to large creatures. He's playing a small creature and thus doesn't get this ability. I'm curious as to everyones take on this.

 

[blargney the second]

Do you even want him to play a half-dragon?

 

[robberbaron]

Tell him to suck it up and get on with the game.
Unless you want to be the DM who gets walked over by his players, that is.

Seriously though, once you start giving in to this sort of pressure from players you might as well let them run the game. There will always be something else they want you to change in their favour.

Just say no.

 

[Quartz]

Flying is automatically +1 LA. Lack of flying isn't automatically -1 LA. Look at his character and how he intends to develop it.

Alternatively, simply tell him that you'll start him off at +3 LA but keep the matter under review.

 

[Renfield]

Lol, I think I've been miss-understood: I want opinions on his reasoning. The half dragon bit I'm not too concerned about, in fact I think it would help with the story of the campaign, what I'm looking for is peoples opinions on that reasoning behind that.

 

[Herobizkit]

Personally, I hand-wave Level Adjustment.

For your game, if he can't fly, sure, knock it down. All it affects is how fast he levels anyway.

 

[Thanee]

Even without a fly speed the template grants enough benefits to warrant the +3 adjustment, IMHO.

Bye
Thanee

 

[irdeggman]

Even without a fly speed the template grants enough benefits to warrant the +3 adjustment, IMHO.

Bye
Thanee

I believe this is a true statement.

An "unbalanced ability score adjustment" = +2 LA (normally a +1 but becasue of the large increase in strength it should be bumped to at least +2, you get 4 ability score increases with a +8 for strength)
Natural armor bonus = +1 LA
Special attacks = +1 LA (breath weapon)
Natural attacks = +1 LA (claw/claw/bite)
Special Qualities = +1 LA (in addition to the base race the half-dragon gets darkvision and low light vision and immunity to sleep and paralysis effects)
Special = +1 LA (increase hit dice size)
Flight = +1 LA (but only for large and that is the point here)

So by the numbers the LA should be +8 (+7 for non-large) but . . .

Bottum line is the "eye-ball" test, which is usually why races/templates with benefits that add up to +3 (or more) usually get truncated to a lower LA. Basically there is a marginal rate of return on benefits so that more benefits yield less effect than fewer ones when you stack them together.

 

[irdeggman]

Looking over my "resources" I checked out the Savage Progressions article at the WotC site.

It has the half-dragon template and breaks it into 3 class levels.

I would use that article as the method instead of a straight template. It makes the progression easier to follow and you do not need to take every level (or take them in order) so if you want to play a +2 LA half-dragon only take the first 2 levels.

 

[nittanytbone]

Even without a fly speed the template grants enough benefits to warrant the +3 adjustment, IMHO.

Agreed.

I would either use the Savage Species progression, a bloodline from UA, or LA buyoff from UA to resolve this issue.