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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 5977941" data-attributes="member: 6669384">Treating "monster levels" as hit dice works, sort of.  Acquired templates could reasonably be taken as class levels, so a person who becomes a Werewolf would spend some time learning about their new nature.  That would make sense.But true races with LA above and beyond their hit dice are another matter.  Converting the "Character adjustment" portion of the description into hit dice does a few things.Primarily, it adds to their actual hit points as a starting character, as well as skills and feats and everything else.  Possibly even affecting stat bumps, either giving them "early", or subsuming them into the character at creation time.The solutions proposed are interesting, but problematic.First, a higher level character already suffers an EXP penalty.  They get less Exp from a given encounter than their lower level counterparts.  It's spelled out in the Experience table in the DMG.And it should be that way.  Consider the 1st level party that has a WereBear with them.  He's a 10th level character (6 dice of Were Bear, +3 character adjustment, plus his initial class level).  The Orc war party that's a tough fight for these intrepid adventurers will be worth exactly zero Exp for him.  He's 10th, they're something under 1st, way way off the bottom of the Exp chart for him.Why?  Because they don't represent any challenge for him.  His attack bonus is higher than their AC (+13 Melee, for an average, vs an AC of 14.)  He only misses on a 1, and his minimum damage kills the Orc (and probably half his family).While the Were Bear is the extreme example, he illustrates the point clearly.There is no way to include a full Lycanthrope with a party of typical 1st level Humanoids and have it balance.The only way to make it work as a class that can be advanced would be to have him come in as a child, with all the stat bumps tuned back and no real hit dice yet.And the idea that he could then decide whether to take class levels or Bear levels would presume that he can somehow decide whether or not to get any older.Now call those Bear dice true Levels or not, call the +3 ECL Levels or something else, the reality is that he'll never attain 20 Fighter levels without going Epic.  He'll be effectively Epic by the time he's taken 12, in that he'll be a match in melee for a 20th level fighter.  The typical Were Bear from the SRD will have advanced Strength from 29 to 32, not counting any items he's acquired, so his effective attack bonus will be +27, before any magic weapon adjustments, stat boost item adjustments, or feat adjustments get counted.  He'll get as many attacks (At BAB +16, +11, +6, and +1) as the Fighter.  He won't have had as many Feat choices to make (Fighter will have 4 more), but he'll have Power Attack, Multi-Attack, Run, Track, Endurance and Iron Will as racial bonuses, so he's actually up by 2.  He'll also have a +11 damage bonus.  He'll have fewer hit dice, but with an extra 4 hit points per dice because of the racial CON bump he'll more than make up the difference.  The only place he's weaker is on Saves, and even there it isn't by much.So, comparing apples to apples, that particular ECL adjustment is well deserved.  It is, if anything, understated.So, to call that one anything but what it is would require you to completely rewrite the Were Bear template.  Make it less Bear and more Human.The same is probably true of any other ECl adjusted race, and making them more Human kind of defeats the purpose of having non-human races.</blockquote>

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