Arkhandus
First Post
Way too friggin' long... O_O
The half-dragon in my Monday game is easily on-par with the dwarven defender and lizardfolk fighter in the group (though the lizardman uses T13K lizardman stats, so only +1 LA and no racial HD, but slightly fewer racial benefits). Sure he has slightly fewer HP, but his offense is on-par, his skills are roughly on-par thanks to his high ability scores including Intelligence, and his AC is at least as good as everyone else's if not better.
The half-ogre's Large size more than makes up for its own minor drawbacks. He deals better damage with a larger weapon, he gets 5 feet greater reach, and he gets +4 to grapples and certain other checks. What the heck would 1 extra level of Fighter give him? +1 to hit, another feat, a pitiful number of skill points, and a few hit points? His Constitution and Strength more than make up for what he'd get from that extra level.
What's the human fighter going to do better at avoiding rays and eldritch blasts and whatnot than the half-ogre? Nothing, that's what. Your point on the "limited" use of natural armor is moot. It's extra AC the half-ogre gets and the human does not, plus it opens up Improved Natural Armor as a feat option for the half-ogre.
And how do you figure the drow will get his ass handed to him? Assuming he took Improved Initiative as he was likely to, along with the Human Wizard, the drow will almost certainly have a slightly higher Initiative modifier from his Dexterity, so it could very well be the Drow that wins initiative and hands the Human Wizard his ass with a Time Stop. He doens't need to cast 1 or 2 more Time Stops in the same day, at least not for that purpose. And while the human spends more money on magic items to boost his Intelligence (Tomes of Clear Thought are kinda expensive!), the Drow Wizard could have spent that money on magic items that let him prepare or recover more spell slots, or ones that grant him greater defenses.
The Drow will also have higher Charisma for dealing with outsiders he Calls or Binds with a spell, and a higher Leadership score if taking the Leadership feat, and his higher Intelligence will slightly reduce his chances of negative consequences from a Contact Other Planes spell. Granted, these aren't significant differences, but there's still no reason the human wizard would trounce the drow wizard (especially since, in a dungeon environment or a night-time raid, the drow will naturally see twice as far as the human and thus much more easily spot him first, especially with his elven skill bonuses, most likely giving the drow an extra round to Time Stop and kick the human's ass before the human even realizes what's up; and even in daytime, his elven spot bonus exceeds the penalty he takes in bright light).
The half-ogre's greatsword deals 1d6 more damage than the human's. Assuming both maxed out their Strength, the human has 34 (18 base, +6 Belt, +5 Manual, +5 levels) while the half-ogre has 39 (24 base, +6 Belt, +5 Manual, +4 levels); sure, in that case the half-ogre nets only a +1 higher attack bonus instead of +2, due to the 20th-level increase of the human. But the half-ogre deals 3d6+21 damage compared to the human's 2d6+18, before factoring in Weapon Specialization etc. (which both would have anyway). Full power attacking still leaves the half-ogre marginally better in damage, but so what? He's got a higher attack bonus, more damage output, and more AC, with a tiny pittance less HP. But he also has greater reach and better grapple, bull rush, and trip modifiers. It works out fairly evenly.
Don't bother comparing a sword-and-board PC to a greatsword-wielder as some kind of argument against one race or another. A half-ogre greatsword-wielder will do more damage and have more AC than a human greatsword-wielder, as will a half-ogre sword-and-boarder compared to a human sword-and-boarder. The half-ogre may be marginally less optimal as a sword-and-boarder, perhaps, but remains advantageous.
Overall, with other, minor factors involved, the half-ogre is, at worst, just marginally less useful than the human at high levels, but he's definitely better at low levels. There are few magic items and spell slots at low levels to make the human match up better to the half-ogre, so the half-ogre's natural advantages are more prominent then. And that extra 1d6+4 or so damage per hit, along with the extra +4 on grapples and such and +2 or so to-hit, really matters at lower to middle levels. But he's still worthwhile at upper levels.
I base my opinions as much as on direct play experience and DMing experience as from the numbers. Although a half-ogre's attack, damage, and AC bonuses don't matter quite as much at upper levels, they're still worth at least a +1 Level Adjustment when added together with their Large size benefits and reach. I've seen LA+1, 2, 3, and 4 PCs in play from low levels to upper levels. Even though WotC gave many races too little in exchange for their last point or two of Level Adjustment, there are still viable ones, and LA is not pointless nor worthless. Half-ogre PCs and others have still easily outperformed other PCs in the games I've been in. Not always, but they're certainly worthwhile to play and effective in a group.
Nonetheless, you're downplaying the usefulness of SR (just as you overstated the limited nature of natural armor earlier, claiming it was unimportant because it didn't work against rays; I assure you, natural armor very much matters. Many a PC in my games has easily thwarted my NPC rogues' sneak attacks and such simply through a massive armor/shield/natural armor AC that made the rogues miss despite their bluffing, surprise, invisibility, or flanking). Spell Resistance is useful but I never claimed it was freaking awesome and uber.
You're just ignoring everything as something that can be duplicated one way or another, though; yet that takes up feat slots and spell slots and lots of gold pieces and item slots over time. That's not inconsequential, it's an opportunity cost. Just because a human PC can fork over a chunk of his loot, feats, and some of his comrades' spell slots to match the drow PC in some ways doesn't mean he isn't paying a price, just a different one. Plus the drow's Darkvision is better than almost anyone else's. Anyway, I've already made it clear that I agree a Drow isn't worth their +2 Level Adjustment, I just think they're worth a +1 instead.
WotC was toying around with stuff during 3.5's development to prepare for their next necessary major rules-revision, for when Hasbro would next insist they needed to be more profitable again, just as 3.5 got shoved out sooner than expected because they needed to boost lagging sales (probably from that reduced quality in the splatbooks). And thus did WotC devote insufficient attention to their main 3.5 line. While it did give us such different and new ideas like the Sublime Way, Incarnum, and so on, along with stuff like Binders, Truenamers, Shadowcasters, and such, it also resulted in less effort and less playtesting for everything. 3.5 was more 'testing the waters' than it was a refining of 3.0.
The drow is more likely to win initiative and more likely to successfully put his enemy to Sleep first. And that's what TEAMMATES are for, anyway. Even if the drow gets hit with an acid arrow, the party cleric can cast Resist Acid on him and then Cure Light Wounds on him, while the party's fighter and rogue shoot the enemy mage down. Do you think a human mage would've survived or evaded that Acid Arrow or Web any better? Of course not. Even though he'd be more likely to remain standing after the initial hit, he may very well drop from the repeat damage on the second round. And of course, since the drow is more likely to win initiative, he might just drop the enemy mage before or after that enemy has cast True Strike, before the Acid Arrow even gets started casting.
That line of argument is fairly moot. And in a dungeon environment, the drow wizard is going to notice enemies sooner and either take them out or retreat well behind the party's warriors before the enemy starts shooting or zapping him. During the day, the drow has a measely -1 penalty, big deal. His racial Spot bonus is better than that. And what's -1 matter if he casts a ray or melee touch attack spell? Not much, especially since the drow has higher Dexterity than a human, so his rays will be just as accurate in the daytime as a human's, and more accurate in the dark.
For upper levels, I already mentioned that they should have a +1 LA instead of +2, and you ignore magic items in the equation, as magic items might make up the lost spell slots with cash that the human might've spent on higher Intelligence and stuff instead. And yes, drow non-spellcasters don't have much reason to be drow from a PC point of view, which is one of the flaws in racial design in 3rd Edition from Wizards of the Coast. We houserulers can fix that, though, in our games. It's not Level Adjustments that make that problem, but rather the racial designs and the multiclass rules combined with the handling of spellcasting.
When I eventually get my Final Fantasy d20 rules posted in this forum at some point (I have the spellcasting, classes, feats, races, etc. outlined and many parts complete, such as limit breaks, fate points, and spellcasting), you'll see how I handle multiclass/LA+X/racial-HD-mixing spellcasters. At least for that game......I'm always tinkering, so I use different houserules for each of my D&D/D20 settings and such. And at some point I'll update my Aurelia thread with my multiclass/nonstandard-race rules (I already have my revised favored classes rule there).
And anyway, as I already said, I know that spellcasting with multiclass or +LA characters is kind of broken/underpowered in the RAW, and that deserves some houseruling. But again, it does not make LA invalid or worthless or excessive. It just means that the spellcasting rules could use a bit of a houserule to fix that problem.
Did you even pay any attention to the analysis? Even though 3.5 kind of gimped half-ogres by increasing their LA from +1 to +2, they're still more than worth a +1 LA. That half-ogre will kill CR 3 opponents easily in one or two rounds, and won't be as eaisly stricken as a 3rd-level human with a shield. His fewer HP will be less significant as he goes up in level, too, since his higher Constitution will earn back those lost HP over time. He has greater reach (which DOES matter).
The half-dragon in my Monday game is easily on-par with the dwarven defender and lizardfolk fighter in the group (though the lizardman uses T13K lizardman stats, so only +1 LA and no racial HD, but slightly fewer racial benefits). Sure he has slightly fewer HP, but his offense is on-par, his skills are roughly on-par thanks to his high ability scores including Intelligence, and his AC is at least as good as everyone else's if not better.
What is the half-ogre losing from -2 Int and Cha? Was the party's fighter or barbarian going to smooth-talk people with his +0 Charisma modifier and lack of Diplomacy/Bluff ranks any more thant he half-ogre is going to with his -1 Charisma modifier? Sure, he loses a tiny bit of non-combat flexibility from the lower Intelligence, but not much. For most intents and purposes the half-ogre doesn't give up much for his Strength until you factor in the Level Adjustment that makes up for it.
The half-ogre's Large size more than makes up for its own minor drawbacks. He deals better damage with a larger weapon, he gets 5 feet greater reach, and he gets +4 to grapples and certain other checks. What the heck would 1 extra level of Fighter give him? +1 to hit, another feat, a pitiful number of skill points, and a few hit points? His Constitution and Strength more than make up for what he'd get from that extra level.
Magic items cost money/shares of loot, and take up item slots. Anything the human spends on such things to merely match the half-orge is money or loot that the half-ogre is using to either surpass the human again or to expand his capabilities through utility or mobility magic items that the human can't afford at the same time. Spells take time and slots to put into effect, don't last all the time, and can be dispelled. Just because the party's mage can waste a few rounds buffing up his human ally to match a half-ogre doesn't mean the half-ogre's traits are worthless. Were the mage to cast those spells on his half-ogre comrade, the half-ogre would become even more awesomely powerful, yet he doesn't have to bother, since the half-ogre is naturally as powerful as a magically-buffed-up human all the time. The mage can use those spell slots for other things. This is especially important at low levels, but it still helps at upper levels.
What's the human fighter going to do better at avoiding rays and eldritch blasts and whatnot than the half-ogre? Nothing, that's what. Your point on the "limited" use of natural armor is moot. It's extra AC the half-ogre gets and the human does not, plus it opens up Improved Natural Armor as a feat option for the half-ogre.
Your argument is flawed when it comes to non-spellcasters. The half-ogre's Strength and bigger weapons make up for any minor attack/damage bonuses a human of 1 or 2 class levels higher would get from BAB and feats. And you assume that LA just generally belongs to races with no Constitution, Strength, or Dexterity bonuses that would balance out or nearly balance out any lost HP or attack bonus from levels (or lost skill points, for races with a high Intelligence racial adjustment and other high ability scores). Sure, spellcasting characters give up more from an LA, but that's more of a problem with the spellcasting rules and the lack of sufficient spellcasting-related benefits among LA+X races. And again, WotC's rabid focus on intentionally making most LA+X races underpowered for their LA (somehow, grey elves and a few others, like whisper gnomes, slipped under WotC's radar). It sucks that WotC took such a stance, but that's what houserule tweaking is for, right?
Maybe you missed my comment earlier that I actually agreed with you that Drow deserve a lower Level Adjustment, just not for the lower-middle levels where their SR and such is reasonably fair for a +2 LA when combined with their other racial benefits. Yes, the drow takes a bit of an excessive penalty for his 20 to 30% chance of avoiding an equal-ECL enemy's spell, but that 20 to 30% could very well save his ass long enough for him to take out the other guy. It's not worthless, but it's certainly nice to have in the one-third to one-fifth of all encounters where it'll save him from something the human would've succumbed to. The drow is slightly, but not seriously, disadvantaged at upper levels from that second point of LA.
And how do you figure the drow will get his ass handed to him? Assuming he took Improved Initiative as he was likely to, along with the Human Wizard, the drow will almost certainly have a slightly higher Initiative modifier from his Dexterity, so it could very well be the Drow that wins initiative and hands the Human Wizard his ass with a Time Stop. He doens't need to cast 1 or 2 more Time Stops in the same day, at least not for that purpose. And while the human spends more money on magic items to boost his Intelligence (Tomes of Clear Thought are kinda expensive!), the Drow Wizard could have spent that money on magic items that let him prepare or recover more spell slots, or ones that grant him greater defenses.
The Drow will also have higher Charisma for dealing with outsiders he Calls or Binds with a spell, and a higher Leadership score if taking the Leadership feat, and his higher Intelligence will slightly reduce his chances of negative consequences from a Contact Other Planes spell. Granted, these aren't significant differences, but there's still no reason the human wizard would trounce the drow wizard (especially since, in a dungeon environment or a night-time raid, the drow will naturally see twice as far as the human and thus much more easily spot him first, especially with his elven skill bonuses, most likely giving the drow an extra round to Time Stop and kick the human's ass before the human even realizes what's up; and even in daytime, his elven spot bonus exceeds the penalty he takes in bright light).
Say what? The half-ogre gets 18 more HP by 18th-level than the human. Even assuming you made Constitution your second-highest stat with the human, and had an Amulet of Health +6 (as opposied to an Amulet of Natural Armor or something), the human would, on average, get 23 HP from those 2 extra levels of Fighter (assuming a base Con of 16 for the human, 22 after amulet, and an 18/24 for the half-ogre). The half-ogre is a measely 5 HP behind. In a few levels he won't even be that far behind. The half-ogre's +6 Strength and -1 size penalty to hit give him a net +2 to hit over the human, which balances out the +2 BAB the human got instead.
The half-ogre's greatsword deals 1d6 more damage than the human's. Assuming both maxed out their Strength, the human has 34 (18 base, +6 Belt, +5 Manual, +5 levels) while the half-ogre has 39 (24 base, +6 Belt, +5 Manual, +4 levels); sure, in that case the half-ogre nets only a +1 higher attack bonus instead of +2, due to the 20th-level increase of the human. But the half-ogre deals 3d6+21 damage compared to the human's 2d6+18, before factoring in Weapon Specialization etc. (which both would have anyway). Full power attacking still leaves the half-ogre marginally better in damage, but so what? He's got a higher attack bonus, more damage output, and more AC, with a tiny pittance less HP. But he also has greater reach and better grapple, bull rush, and trip modifiers. It works out fairly evenly.
Don't bother comparing a sword-and-board PC to a greatsword-wielder as some kind of argument against one race or another. A half-ogre greatsword-wielder will do more damage and have more AC than a human greatsword-wielder, as will a half-ogre sword-and-boarder compared to a human sword-and-boarder. The half-ogre may be marginally less optimal as a sword-and-boarder, perhaps, but remains advantageous.
Overall, with other, minor factors involved, the half-ogre is, at worst, just marginally less useful than the human at high levels, but he's definitely better at low levels. There are few magic items and spell slots at low levels to make the human match up better to the half-ogre, so the half-ogre's natural advantages are more prominent then. And that extra 1d6+4 or so damage per hit, along with the extra +4 on grapples and such and +2 or so to-hit, really matters at lower to middle levels. But he's still worthwhile at upper levels.
You know, I'm starting to think you just theorize all of this without much play experience using, DMing for, or playing alongside characters using stuff like a Level Adjustment +X race, let alone any kind of decently optimized PC like that. I have been, and am still playing/DMing each week, with such PCs in the group since my very first 3E game (and with the equivalent sort of races in 2nd Edition, where it was handled differently). The first 3E game I DMed had a drow cleric in the party, alongside more standard PCs, and it wasn't long before I was playing alongside folks using lizardfolk and stuff, then half-ogres and half-dragons, etc.
I base my opinions as much as on direct play experience and DMing experience as from the numbers. Although a half-ogre's attack, damage, and AC bonuses don't matter quite as much at upper levels, they're still worth at least a +1 Level Adjustment when added together with their Large size benefits and reach. I've seen LA+1, 2, 3, and 4 PCs in play from low levels to upper levels. Even though WotC gave many races too little in exchange for their last point or two of Level Adjustment, there are still viable ones, and LA is not pointless nor worthless. Half-ogre PCs and others have still easily outperformed other PCs in the games I've been in. Not always, but they're certainly worthwhile to play and effective in a group.
You can very easily blame the lower usefulness of SR on 3.5. That's where so many spells from 3.0 got changed to ignore SR and so many new spells were made to ignore or reduce SR significantly.
Nonetheless, you're downplaying the usefulness of SR (just as you overstated the limited nature of natural armor earlier, claiming it was unimportant because it didn't work against rays; I assure you, natural armor very much matters. Many a PC in my games has easily thwarted my NPC rogues' sneak attacks and such simply through a massive armor/shield/natural armor AC that made the rogues miss despite their bluffing, surprise, invisibility, or flanking). Spell Resistance is useful but I never claimed it was freaking awesome and uber.
You're just ignoring everything as something that can be duplicated one way or another, though; yet that takes up feat slots and spell slots and lots of gold pieces and item slots over time. That's not inconsequential, it's an opportunity cost. Just because a human PC can fork over a chunk of his loot, feats, and some of his comrades' spell slots to match the drow PC in some ways doesn't mean he isn't paying a price, just a different one. Plus the drow's Darkvision is better than almost anyone else's. Anyway, I've already made it clear that I agree a Drow isn't worth their +2 Level Adjustment, I just think they're worth a +1 instead.
Again, blame 3.5's stupid design practices with poor oversight. Greater Spell Penetration was a supplemental option in 3.0, anyway, where it was much easier for a DM to just veto its use in a game (with less player argument) because it came from a splatbook and thus wasn't as well-vetted as a core rule. Assay Resistance and whatnot didn't even exist then.
WotC was toying around with stuff during 3.5's development to prepare for their next necessary major rules-revision, for when Hasbro would next insist they needed to be more profitable again, just as 3.5 got shoved out sooner than expected because they needed to boost lagging sales (probably from that reduced quality in the splatbooks). And thus did WotC devote insufficient attention to their main 3.5 line. While it did give us such different and new ideas like the Sublime Way, Incarnum, and so on, along with stuff like Binders, Truenamers, Shadowcasters, and such, it also resulted in less effort and less playtesting for everything. 3.5 was more 'testing the waters' than it was a refining of 3.0.
Poo-pooing? You seem to be insisting that I WASN'T giving detailed opinions and stats, that I was just ignoring the facts and your remarks as inconsequential. Which I most certainly was not.
The drow is more likely to win initiative and more likely to successfully put his enemy to Sleep first. And that's what TEAMMATES are for, anyway. Even if the drow gets hit with an acid arrow, the party cleric can cast Resist Acid on him and then Cure Light Wounds on him, while the party's fighter and rogue shoot the enemy mage down. Do you think a human mage would've survived or evaded that Acid Arrow or Web any better? Of course not. Even though he'd be more likely to remain standing after the initial hit, he may very well drop from the repeat damage on the second round. And of course, since the drow is more likely to win initiative, he might just drop the enemy mage before or after that enemy has cast True Strike, before the Acid Arrow even gets started casting.
That line of argument is fairly moot. And in a dungeon environment, the drow wizard is going to notice enemies sooner and either take them out or retreat well behind the party's warriors before the enemy starts shooting or zapping him. During the day, the drow has a measely -1 penalty, big deal. His racial Spot bonus is better than that. And what's -1 matter if he casts a ray or melee touch attack spell? Not much, especially since the drow has higher Dexterity than a human, so his rays will be just as accurate in the daytime as a human's, and more accurate in the dark.
For upper levels, I already mentioned that they should have a +1 LA instead of +2, and you ignore magic items in the equation, as magic items might make up the lost spell slots with cash that the human might've spent on higher Intelligence and stuff instead. And yes, drow non-spellcasters don't have much reason to be drow from a PC point of view, which is one of the flaws in racial design in 3rd Edition from Wizards of the Coast. We houserulers can fix that, though, in our games. It's not Level Adjustments that make that problem, but rather the racial designs and the multiclass rules combined with the handling of spellcasting.
When I eventually get my Final Fantasy d20 rules posted in this forum at some point (I have the spellcasting, classes, feats, races, etc. outlined and many parts complete, such as limit breaks, fate points, and spellcasting), you'll see how I handle multiclass/LA+X/racial-HD-mixing spellcasters. At least for that game......I'm always tinkering, so I use different houserules for each of my D&D/D20 settings and such. And at some point I'll update my Aurelia thread with my multiclass/nonstandard-race rules (I already have my revised favored classes rule there).
And anyway, as I already said, I know that spellcasting with multiclass or +LA characters is kind of broken/underpowered in the RAW, and that deserves some houseruling. But again, it does not make LA invalid or worthless or excessive. It just means that the spellcasting rules could use a bit of a houserule to fix that problem.
