LA Revised

[Sylrae]

I just had a moment of inspiration.

Here's how a Level Adjust works in RAW. Say You have a level adjust of +2. That means that when you take your level 1 class, youre now a level three character.

While this might work well at low levels, at higher levels you find the class abilities are much better than the now pitiful racials you have. And youre paying more and more for each level than your companions are.

What if you didnt have to, and yet would still be compensating for that Level Adjust.

Instead of going by the levels, why not go by experience?

So Lets make a drow.

Drow Have a Level Adjust of +2
We'll give him a level of wizard, since he's a male drow.

Under standard rules, that makes him a level 3 character.

For argument's sake, let's say he's not third level, he's first level, as indicated by his class.

Instead of the standard penalties, we look at the XP/Levels table. A Level 3 character has 3000xp.

So now we can do this 2 ways. We can add 3000 to each level the drow takes, or the drow can start at -3000 XP. He still receives his level 1 class though.

Now our drow will be marginally more powerful than a level 1 human wizard, but the human wizard will gain in power more quickly, because he doesn't have 3000 experience debt.

Once the Drow's 0LA friends reach level 4, he'll reach level 3. He should consistently be 3000XP behind them, but consistently 2 levels behind them.

This way, The drow pays for his +2, but the +2 doesn't keep getting more and more expensive. He'll be 3000xp behind. Normally, by ECL 20 (level 18) he would be 37000 behind, due to the ever increasing cost of a level.

What do you think?

I should NOTE, that you probably dont want to stick a minotaur with full abilities in with a first level party. However, you could easily take the savage species class for minotaur (which is spread over 8 levels) and use it.

Instead of the Minotaur Levels counting for actual levels, you'd give him a separate level progression for them. So if the Minotaur has 3 levels of minotaur and 2 in fighter, he didn't pay XP for a 5th level character, he paid XP for a 3rd level character, and XP for a second level character. Then if he wants to get another Minotaur level, it'll cost 3000 xp (for a total of 6000 spent in minotaur). If he wants his next fighter level, it'll cost 2000 xp (for a total of 3000).

Thi system could be used with casters to make multiclassing easier, but it would take some more thought to make it work effectively.

We can all agree that a Bard 10/Wizard 10 is nowhere near as good as a Wizard 20. Nobody would take it if they saw the difference between their level 20 and another level 20.
But what if they paid the cost for their bardr 10/wizard 10 separately?

A 10th level character has 45000xp. So the Bard 10 costs 45000xp, and the Wizard costs 45000xp. The Character is now expected to have 90000 xp instead of 190000, which makes the sorcerer10/wizard10 just under level 14, which is about accurate in terms of power level.

Obvioiusly this needs tweaking, because a Barbarian10/Fighter10 is just as good as a barbarian20. but as an Idea, it does hold potential...

 

[Nonlethal Force]

It is similar to the system for buying back LA in Unearthed Arcana, and that is a system that I loved before I went into a completely classless game. The nice thing about buying back LA is that depending upon thesize of your LA you eventually aren't even down much XP at all at higher levels. Under your system, you'll realistically always be behind.

For me, I think the UA system for buying back LA is really pretty sweet.

 

[Sylrae]

buying back LA is a bigger penalty, because it puts you a whole level behind in the higher levels. To lower the drow +2 to a +1 youre paying more than the 3000xp youd be behind in the idea im proposing. Then to lower it to a +0 youre paying even more. You'd be behind considerably less in the system I'm describing (but I still need to work out the kinks a little)

 

[Nonlethal Force]

But you eventually catch up as yougain more XP by being behind when you buy back the levels. In fact, you catch up pretty quickly. LA 1 and 2 catches up around the time that their racial stuff begins to be nearly irrelevant - which is when it should go away IMO. LA 3 takes a while longer, of course. LA 4, iirc, cannot be fully caughtup without going Epic. Then again, I usually don't go above LA 1 and 2 in my games so I don't have much experience with greater than LA 2 races.

Oh, and for the record ....

We can all agree that a Bard 10/Wizard 10 is nowhere near as good as a Wizard 20. Nobody would take it if they saw the difference between their level 20 and another level 20.
But what if they paid the cost for their bardr 10/wizard 10 separately?

A 10th level character has 45000xp. So the Bard 10 costs 45000xp, and the Wizard costs 45000xp. The Character is now expected to have 90000 xp instead of 190000, which makes the sorcerer10/wizard10 just under level 14, which is about accurate in terms of power level.

Obvioiusly this needs tweaking, because a Barbarian10/Fighter10 is just as good as a barbarian20. but as an Idea, it does hold potential...

This is exactly how Complete Control works. A Bard 10/ Wizard 10 would cost just a bit more than 90,000 XP (since things like feats and attribute increases could potentially benefit both classes). But the equivalent Bard 10 / Wizard 10 would not cost near as much as a Bard 20 or a Wizard 20. Simply put, because they're just notas powerful. So if you are actually thinking along these lines, you really mightwant to check out CC if you haven't done so already.

And for the record, I'm not sure a Barb 10/Fighter 10 is equal toa Brab 20 or a Fighter 20. The hybrid has a weaker rage, weaker trapfinding, and weaker saves than the full Barb in exchange for a few more feats. Granted, their BAB is the same, so most of the power is still there. As for the hybrid versus the pure fighter, it probably isjust as powerful because thefighter can loose a bit of their feat glut in exchange for a few class abilities picked up by the hybrid.

 

[Sylrae]

Why are you catching up? I mean, I can see you catching up in terms of levels but still being behind in XP.

Oh, you mean because of the different xp rates for combat.

That depends on how DMs award XP. We were finding people in our games tend to run off and do encounters by themselves, or with one person missing, so the level spread was getting too big between players. Now we award session XP, but not combat XP (when I run it or when other people run it.

and I should note, having your +2 LA character start at -3000 xp would still catch up pretty fast if they started receiving higher xp for things. When everyone was level 1 they'd get the same xp, but eventually they'd be facing CR 3 monsters and only being level 1, they would catch up fairly quickly in that respect.

Your complete control book sounds appealing, but I can't buy a new book right now so I can't check it out. and I don't know that I would end up using it. I hope to have my book done by the end of summer, and then I will only be using my D&D books for fluff. Possibly maps and pictures.

And I've played things with an LA +6 and like 6HD before (Succubus - but this is from memory i may be off). youre totally crippled in terms of classes, and it really hard to advance. And the UA rules you'd never work that off. Especially since our campaigns have never gone epic.My Idea, would make the Succubus a level 6 character with 16000 experience debt(assuming youre using them in a 6th level party), and you could have picked up the abilities gradually with savage progressions if you started the game at a lower level.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Why are you catching up? I mean, I can see you catching up in terms of levels but still being behind in XP.

Well, because a player down a level gains more for group experiences than their fellow mates who are a level higher.

We were finding people in our games tend to run off and do encounters by themselves, or with one person missing, so the level spread was getting too big between players. Now we award session XP, but not combat XP (when I run it or when other people run it.

Well, that is unique for your games and cannot be assumed by your OP. As for how that balances your system, its kind of a moot point since you don't award XP according to the industry standard. Note, I'm not judging how you do it, just pointing out that it is a variant from how 3.x was set up to run.

and I should note, having your +2 LA character start at -3000 xp would still catch up pretty fast if they started receiving higher xp for things. When everyone was level 1 they'd get the same xp, but eventually they'd be facing CR 3 monsters and only being level 1, they would catch up fairly quickly in that respect.

If youwere to do as you suggest, then I would even moreso prefer the UA method. If a character who is powered as a 3rd level character is gaining XP as a 1st level character they will catch up very quickly. Too quickly. They will catch up well before their LA isn't really making them all that more powerful. Under that system, you'd be stupid to not take an LA race so long as there was someone in the party that didn't have an LA. It's like getting your cake and being able to not only eat it but somther it in ice cream too.

And I've played things with an LA +6 and like 6HD before (Succubus - but this is from memory i may be off). youre totally crippled in terms of classes, and it really hard to advance. And the UA rules you'd never work that off. Especially since our campaigns have never gone epic.My Idea, would make the Succubus a level 6 character with 16000 experience debt(assuming youre using them in a 6th level party), and you could have picked up the abilities gradually with savage progressions if you started the game at a lower level.

Yeah, you would never work that off. However, allowing an LA +6 character with one class level to gain XP as a 1st level character would also be unbalancing. They'd make up the gap really fast, and at that point they wouldn't be experiencing much of a penalty for their LA at all. {And I am assuming you meant 15,000 instead of 16,000, right?}

Even if you don't let them gain XP faster than usual, I still think it is a bit unbalanced. Take a level 15 party with one character who has an LA of +6. So they have a 15,000 XP debt. At that level, they are exactly 1 level's worth of XP behind. But what that means is that forevery level above 15 they are going to get to te level of the party before the party gets to the next level. Sure, it is delayed a good bit (like 10 - 13 encounter's worth of XP). But the reality is that you are saying a character with an LA +6 is less than 1 ECL different than a character with an LA +0 at level 15 and above. I'm not sure that's balanced. In fact, I'm pretty confident that it isn't balanced.

 

[Sylrae]

Hmm. While you make a good point, I'm still not persuaded that the UA variant makes LA much less crappy at higher levels.To do a good job of it I'd have to stat out some different characters With LA & class levels and compare them to non LA characters, then play with numbers.

and of course, the hard part is that a melee LA race stacks better with melee classes than a caster LA race stacks with caster classes.

And nope, I meant 16000, cause I was going to make them pay 1000xp for their level 1.

They wouldnt have been getting a higher amount of XP per encounter, they'd just be gaining levels as if they were a lower level.

Maybe instead of having them start at 1, have them start at like 1/2 their LA, and give them an experience debt for the rest... I'll have to play with some character stats and see what I come up with.

But yeah, as for encounter XP, while its the standard, we dropped it so long ago that I forgot most people use it completely. It's great for when the party is always working together on the same encounters.

But when they make regular stops and run off doing their own thing, then getting back together, you end up with characters who get in more combat than others, and those characters end up being a higher level.

Then you get someone who skips games once in a while..

and a Party with a 5th level, 8th level, 9th level, and 13th level character can end up as the result. Now that is hard to DM. lol

In fact, I'm actually shocked that that's not how most games end up, because I've had this happen with 4 groups of entirely different players. Maybe it's because I dont actively discourage it, or that the players have alot of choice in what they do - I think my games might be more open before. Once the players decided NOT to fight the evil marauding orcs attacking a town. They went to the orcs, got a payoff, and left. None of the players in that group had an alignment of good, they were mostly neutral, but I was shocked by it. Then a while later, they attacked the next villains. For whatever reason, they decided not to fight the marauding orcs.

Theyre always adventurers, but unless I tell them they cant be, they tend to come out more as selfish treasure hunters and mercenaries than heroes. That also means the group cohesion tends to be more flexible, and there have been occasions where one player decided they would benefit from another player's death, then carefully plotted it and made it look like an accident...

 

[Hawken]

What do you think?

You're missing a very obvious point in your calculations, Sylrae. Your XP cost is fixed, but XP requirements scale with each level. Doing it your way means that by 190,000xp (level 20), an LA +2 race will be only 3,000xp from 20th anyway--and at that level that's the difference of only 1 or maybe 2 encounters. So, one encounter later, your LA +2 races are 20th level along with the LA +0 races that are still 20th level. This isn't so bad, but the real burden with this idea and the regular LA rules, is that low level LA race characters are more vulnerable than their non-LA race allies.

Your method penalizes LA races at the worst possible levels, the first two or three! A Drow 1st lvl wizard (to use your example) may be the equivalent of a 3rd level character, but he's not going to be able to handle an encounter for a 3rd level character. One good hit, or even a bad one, and he goes down! His SR may help, but his saves, AC and BAB are also going to be lower than what they need to be for the character to have even a fair chance to survive.

This also burdens other PCs with the duty of watching over the character until he is tough enough to hold his own, which he won't be until around 5th or 6th level. And this 'babying' phase is going to last longer if he wants to spend XP to make magic items or cast certain spells.

XA Table.xls

This links to a table I've been working on for LA. Instead of LA (Level Adjustment), I've renamed it XA (eXperience Adjustment) since I'm adjusting the XP and not exactly the levels. LA = XA. The table lists the XP required for each level for an XA +0 race. To the right of that is a progression showing that XP amount being added to a fraction of the needed amount to come up with the XP required for an XA +1 race to level, up to XA +4 races.

Example: XP to get to level 2 is 1,000. For an XA +1 race, 1/4 of that is added to the amount needed; 1,250xp to advance to 2nd level. At 5th level, the fraction is reduced to 1/8 (needing only 11,250 instead of 10,000 to go to 5th level), and by 6th it is eliminated, so that from 6th on, the XA +1 race character needs the same XP as any XA +0 race to advance.

For XA +2 races, they advance normally at 8th, 10th level for XA +3 races and 12th for XA +4 races; until then, they advance at a slower rate.

LA +0 races level up first, of course, but the other races will level up within a matter of a few encounters (I think maybe 1 extra encounter per +1 of the race's XA) after the XA +0 race levels. By 12th on, all XA +4 and below races will advance at the same rate. There is no 'baby' phase or having to be watched over by fellow PCs because at nearly the same time, the characters will be the same levels.

This table factors in the difference in power at lower levels, lower XA races will advance faster to mitigate the superior racial abiliies of higher XA races. But after a certain point, all XA races pass the same learning curve and advance together. It is at this point that XA racial abilities begin to make less of a difference in play and while a 10th level Drow fighter may have a few advantages due his race, he'll be roughly on par with a Human fighter of the same level.

 

[Arkhandus]

Not a good solution. And it doesn't really compensate for the lost Level Adjustment; to use your first example, not only is a drow wizard better by several feats worth of value than a human wizard of equal level, but at the middle to upper levels, being down 3,000 XP isn't going to matter much. He'll still be the same level as everyone else most of the time, ergo 1 or 2 levels' worth of greater power most of the time. And 3.5 rules for XP awards would cause him or her to catch up quicker during the times when he's 1 level behind, so the duration of his 1 virtual level deficiency will be terribly short.

In 3.5, also, the normal Level Adjustment rules result in an LA+X character advancing more slowly because of his higher ECL, as his comrades will earn slightly more XP per encounter, so your XP-debt doesn't really amount to the same slowness in reaching 2nd or 3rd level compared to normal party members. Your method would just make the LA adjustment races suffer a minor, mostly temporary slowness in gaining their first few levels, without any notable mid-to-upper-level impact. They'd be getting, for example, the drows's 11 + level SR, +2 on Will saves, +2 Intelligence and Charisma, etc. for free.

In 3.0 D&D rules, there's no extra XP for lower-level party members, but your variant would still have about the same effect as in 3.5, just with a slightly longer gap between LA+X PC 1 reaching the same level as LA+0 PC 2. They'd still catch up in level easily enough, it would just take another encounter or three (out of the 13.5 average encounters expected per level by the rules, that doesn't amount to much).

I'll have to run the numbers later, but I'm wondering what an XP debt of 1,000 points per LA at every level would do as a replacement for LA (maybe 500 points per LA instead). Off the top of my head, it's better for a drow striving for 2nd or 3rd level, at least, but I dunno if it works out worse for them, much worse for them, better for them, or much better for them at levels beyond that.

I.E. a 1st-level drow wizard starts with a 2,000-XP debt; once he's earned that many XP, he starts accumulating XP towards his 2nd-level normally (and can finally spend XP on item creation or whatnot). Once he's gained a total of 3,000 XP, he'll attain 2nd-level as a wizard, while the rest of the group will have just reached 3rd-level, putting him only 1 level behind but actually equivalent in power to being one level ahead. He acquires a new XP debt of 2,000 XP, so once he earns 4,000 XP (putting his total earned at 7,000, but his actual XP at 3,000), he attains 3rd-level as a wizard, while his teammates are now 4th-level (and have been for the past 1,000 XP). He again receives 2,000 XP worth of debt, and once he pays that off, he needs another 3,000 to attain 4th-level. At that point he'll have earned a total of 12,000 XP, but lost 6,000 from paying off his XP-debts. His allies will be 5th-level (with 2,000 further XP towards their 6th), and the gap in XP will continue to expand slowly over time, but the drow will fluctuate between being 1 and 2 levels behind, but usually just 1 (of course, he starts out roughly 2 levels better than the rest at 1st-level). I dunno how it'd work out at further levels, because I don't feel like crunching the numbers right now.

But there definitely HAS TO BE some trade-off in power for removing the Level Adjustment; a character of equal level to anyone else but with 1, 2, 3, or more levels worth of extra benefits is just plain unfair and imbalanced no matter how you look at it. I don't care if he's Og the World's Ugliest and Most Unlikeable Ogre, who nobody will even allow into town, let alone do business with; he'll still totally outperform the other PCs in combat and make them all look like nothing more than cheap sidekicks, plus the other PCs will just buy his supplies and gear for him, even if they do fleece him a bit in the process, taking all of his money and only spending most of it on his new magic weapons/armor/etc. And that's only one possible case; a Blink Dog, Celestial, or other creature could have other advantages besides combat ones (or more likely, IN ADDITION to combat ones), without the stupiditiy, gullibility, and inability-to-deal-with-civilized-people problem of most ogres.

 

[Hawken]

LA is supposed to be an offset for perceived racial advantages (one race having more or more powerful advantages than another race), but racial advantages generally do not scale in power, they are static and for the most part, passive; not something the player can actively use. Power gained for leveling is not static but increases as levels increase (access to more powerful feats, more powerful spells, abilities, etc.), so it does not make sense that LA should persist and indirectly become more penalizing as power increases. It should phase out as a character's relative power increases where the increase in power compensates for or exceeds any racial advantages.

Arkhandus, you're missing the point. Experience points scale, the amount needed increase as the levels increase--your static debt hurts characters most when they need the hurt least, at their lowest levels. Over 20 levels, you're wanting to penalize someone a total of 19,000XP. That's neither fair nor balanced (not that you should emulate Fox) and only ensures that LA races will ALWAYS be behind. And since this is a game and not a credit card company, if you're going to impose an XP debt, it has to get paid off at some point. There is a point where the power increase in leveling surpasses any racial advantages and that is the point where the LA penalty should be eliminated.

And, your point about a 2nd level Drow wizard being the equivalent of a 3rd level character (or 4th if you go RAW), just doesn't hold up. He has a few good racial abilities, but he just can't go the distance a 3rd or 4th level character can. He doesn't have the resources (skills, feats, class abilities or wealth) to do the same things or the skill (BAB, Saves, HD) to endure the same things. His racial abilities are helpful, but they do not in anyway make him the equal of a higher level character.

LA, as written, is a pathetic way to equalize races, but I can only guess that it is all the authors could come up with while having to keep a single XP table. Level limits is wrong--and has died a well deserved death from 2nd edition, but LA is just as bad, if not worse. Somewhere around 10th level, racial abilities (LA +X) do not equal the power gained by leveling, even for high LA characters. So, whatever 'trade-off' you mean, cannot last the entire career of the character, but only up to a certain point, after that, the racial abilities aren't even worth one level worth of power.

Keeping with the Drow theme, lets go with LA +2, this means that the Drow has 2 levels worth of abilities. Two levels costs 3,000xp (going from 1st to 3rd level). At the opposite end of this, that means a Drow would be 18th level where non-LA races would be 20th. That's a difference of 37,000xp (from 18th to 20th). I don't know about any of you, but I don't think Drow abilities are worth anywhere near 37,000xp! And 3,000xp for all the stuff Drow can do is a steal!

Maybe better--or an alternative--to my XA chart I linked to in my earlier post, is this:

Start at the XP for 10th level (45,000), which is in the middle of the scale. Go down 1 level per point of LA and subtract the XP for that level from 45,000. This is the amount of XP the character has to add (spread out over 10 levels) to the XP needed to level. This is not "extra" XP the character has to earn, but is the amount that increases the XP needed to level.

So, a Drow (LA +2) would have to spread out 17,000xp (45,000 - 28,000--10th - 8th lvls for LA+2). The Drow starts off at 0xp/level 1 like everyone else, but must earn 2,700xp to get to 2nd instead of 1,000. He is then 2nd level while his friends are 2nd level and almost to 3rd. It took him a little longer to get there, but get there he does, and while they are still there too. To get to 3rd, he has to earn 4,700xp while his friends still only need 3,000. Again, he gets there a little while after his friends, but is still the same level as them.

This is a significant difference at the lowest levels but by 5th level, he would have to earn 11,700 to get to 5th, while his friends need only 10,000 (a difference of less than 20%). And once he hits 11th level, 56,700xp (55,000 + 1,700), his 17,000xp "debt" for his LA-worthy abilities would be "paid off" and he would then need only the standard amount of XP to level up.

The difference between this and other XP debt ideas is that this 'debt' gets paid off. Its not like a payday loan, lingering around and taking a wish or a miracle to get it resolved. But, its not really a debt either, more of a delay, which is all LA should be.