Level Adjust Buyoff

[Bartman84]

Hi

I was wondering if anyone could expain to me how LA Buyoff works? I tried reading UA but it just confuses me a bit.

Also, I do not know if I am understanding level adjust properly. My group works it as a "lost level" of sorts, for example, if I wanted to play a 5th level fighter who hppens to be an Aasimar, who as a +1 LA, I would be a 4th level fighter, with the 1 level of Aasimar. when I level, I would take m 5th fighter level.

going with that method, then the UA way of reducing your LA seems very confusing.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

 

[irdeggman]

Welcome.

Here is an important fundamental to remember about LA.

ECL (Effective Character Level) = Class Levels + Racial Hit Dice + Level Adjustment (LA).

When you say play a 5th level fighter what your are actually saying that you are playing a 5th level character (or an ECL 5) character.

In your example:

ECL = 5 = Class levels (4 levels of fighter) + Racial Hit dice (0) + Level Adjustment (+1).

Now for you character the formula works like this:

You have +1 LA so you need to have 3 class levels to buy it back.


You pay (ECL-1) x 100 xp to buy it back.

With 3 class levels you are an ECL 4 so you must pay (4-1) x 1000 = 3000 xp to buy it back.

Several caveats also apply:

- you must buy back the level at the first eligililty - so as soon as you gain enough xp to reach 4th level - you must immediately buy it back.

- you also must lose suffient xp to end up being at least 1 level lower.

 

[Bartman84]

OK, think i got it now. I was wondering about buying off the LA for a pixie, but it seems I would have to be epic leveled to buy it off completely. if my group is tarting at lvl 16, how much could I buy off without losing too much? would it be better for me to buy off or just create a 12th class level pixie? (im going warlock)

 

[irdeggman]

Based on the table in UA (1-1) a pixie with a LA +4 can only buy back 1 level and then must have 12 class levels first (i.e., have an ECL of 16).

The table has no means of adjusting for epic progressions.

The system also doesn't work well for starting at higher than levels since it is difficult to calculate the xp cost for buy back.

It is (ECL-1) x 1000 or the amount necessary to drop to 1 xp below the next lower level (whichever is more). So for your PC at ECL 16 it will cost 15000 xp and then the PC will be an ECL 15 character (12 warlock, +3 LA)

And you must do at as soon as you reach the required level.

Whenever I start games at higher levels I usually tell the players that they start with XXX amount of xp and yyy amount of gp and then let them figure out how they want to use their levels.

In general whenever dealing with a caster level type of class it is always better to buy back your LA.

Remember that since your character is now 1 level lower than the rest he/she will gain xp quicker than the others.