Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hawken" data-source="post: 4853117" data-attributes="member: 23619">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.</blockquote>

Verification