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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 4856723" data-attributes="member: 13966">No, I'm not.  There has to be a trade-off for the extra power of a stronger race.  Being 1 level behind for a few encounters (maybe even just 1 or 2 encounters) does not constitute a fair price for dropping a +2 of +3 LA from a powerful race, and being behind for 1 or 2 encounters certainly isn't enough to pay for the advantages of a half-ogre or the like.  Even if it's for 2 or 3 encounters at each new level.There's no reason the cost should be phased out once a character reaches a certain level.  Frex, a Half-Ogre's Strength bonus alone is worth a 32,000 GP magic item, and is freaking awesome at low levels, and certainly not weak even at upper levels.Seriously, what do you think he's giving up by playing a Half-Ogre?  With his LA, depending on what source you're using either a +1 or +2 LA, he's giving up 1 or 2 HD, +1 or +2 to hit, +1 Fortitude, Mighty Rage, 1 Rage per day, and maybe 1 point of DR.  In exchange?  +6 Strength ALL THE TIME, which far exceeds the extra +2 Mighty Rage would have occasionally given, a Constitution bonus that yields 18 or 19 HP at that point and thus fairly well matches or perhaps even exceeds what a Human Barbarian would have gotten for 20th and maybe 19th level, Darkvision, the Giant type (no Charm Person or Dominate Person or Daze or similar vulnerabilities, which is at least useful at low to middle levels), Large size (extremely useful for a melee type, +4 to grapple and trip and bull rush and such along with an extra damage die with some weapons or at least a moderate damage increase with every weapon, plus greater carrying capacities), possibly 5 extra feet of reach, and some inconsequential drawbacks for the Barbarian.  How is the +1 or +2 Level Adjustment not a fair cost?There's no reason the half-ogre should ever be exactly the same level as a human warrior-type who started play at the same time in the same campaign.  The half-ogre is outright stronger even if he starts at 3rd-level with just over half or one-third as many HP as the human barbarian (but makes up for it by killing enemies twice as quickly and at the same total attack bonus).  Sure, he doesn't get the human's bonus feat, big whoop, he's wielding a massive weapon and could kill his human rival in one blow if he really felt like it.  Sure the difference in power diminishes as they go up in level, but that just means the half-ogre becomes more equal to his human counterpart over time, rather than being much more fragile and unskilled yet much stronger as is the case at low levels.There most definitely has to be a price at 1st-level, and not a trivial one, for playing a strong race.  It's the lower levels where a powerful race makes everyone else look like chumps, so that's when they should be paying a price for their initial uberness.  Those advantages, although comparatively less significant at upper levels, remain in place no matter how high the character goes, and he or she should still be paying some price for them.  I could see some creatures getting a reduced LA at upper levels, but not an eliminated LA.  And I'm talking from actual play experience, too, not just theoretical arguments; I've played alongside and DMed for several PCs with Level Adjustments, most commonly half-dragons and half-ogres, plus a few drow, lizardfolk, one satyr, and a few others (and one attempt at a half-dragon half-ogre, but the background was so absurd and the lethality of that brute was so high that I denied them that PC, and they made a different one).I actually agree with that point to an extent.  I would prefer to see a drow, for example, start with a +1 LA and some minor drawback, that would change to a +2 LA after a few levels, when their Spell Resistance is more likely to become important.  Though their SR is fairly high for a low-level PC, so maybe my minor drawback would be to cut it down to SR 5 + level until they gain their LA+2.  Maybe at high levels they would deserve to have the LA stepped back to +1 again as the likelihood of most spellcasting enemies having Greater Spell Penetration increases by that point.But even so, with SR 26 at 15th-level, for example, an enemy caster of 17th-level with Greater Spell Penetration will fail to affect them an extra 20% of the time compared to a human or high elf of 17th-level.  That's worth something at least, as is the +2 Int and Cha, the great Darkvision (despite Light Blindness, which they can typically eliminate with a feat or cheap magic item anyway, such as that found in the FRCS), the +2 on Will saves versus spells and spell-like effects (another +10% chance of avoiding many magical effects!), and the minor spell-like abilities.  They're easily worth a +1 Level Adjustment even at high levels.LA is most certainly not as bad as AD&D level limits.  At worst it just delays your access to the highest spell levels and such.  Although WotC has admitted to giving many creatures a higher LA than they deserve simply to preserve the playability of the core races, that doesn't mean LA is terrible.  Just reduce some critters' LA by 1 point and it should be more fair (though some races are fully worth their listed LA and should be left alone).And again, look at my half-ogre example.  Even an 8th-level half-ogre barbarian isn't giving up much compared to a 10th-level human barbarian.  They got plenty of offensive advantage to make up for the lag in acquiring those minor class features from 9th or 10th level.  An 8th-level drow wizard has no 5th-level spells, sure, but those aren't that awesome for a 10th-level human wizard anyway.  The drow's higher Intelligence leaves them only marginally behind the human in skills and spell slots.  Although his caster level is a bit lower and he has no Cone of Cold (boo-hoo, a cold equivalent to Fireball), he has a higher save DC and is fairly resistant to enemy spellcasters (SR 19, still a 20% chance of avoiding enemy spells from enemies of equal ECL assuming they have Greater Spell Penetration, which is less likely at that level than at the upper levels).Really, the main problem with Level Adjustment is that it hurts casters more than others.  The drow wizard is obviously at a minor disadvantage with a +2 LA, but not a huge disadvantage.  It's something that deserves to be addressed in some manner, but it's hardly a reason to throw LA out altogether.  As mentioned, drow may deserve to have their LA reduced to just +1 after reaching a certain level.Not really.  A delay doesn't really compensate for the advantages.  Being equal in level much or half of the time leaves the character better than a core race that much of the time, and at worst just makes them roughly equal the other half of the time (which means that they're simply more awesome than the other PCs in half the encounters, and on-par the rest of the time........which is still obviously broken).I'll look over your XP-delay idea or whatever later, I'm taking a break.</blockquote>

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