D&D 3E/3.5 Level Adjustment Debate Thread for CC 3.5 Overhaul Project

[Leopold]

Boz,

After finding this rare gem on the boards I am hopping on this train to see what I can do. Only thing I know pretty damn good how to do is the ECL/LA's for the monsters. After doing all the ECL/LAs for hundreds of monsters myself ala Savage species sytle i might have something useful to contribute.


If no i can just bask in the aura of monster goodness and play nicely

 

[Krishnath]

Cool, someone to compare LA notes with.

So, leo, what's your LA estimate for the Berblang?

 

[Leopold]

Initial thoughts are thus:

Unbalanced stats:1
Natural Armor:1
Flight (good):2
Astral Jaunt/Travel (?) and abilities:1

Now that's a LA of 5 for a total ECL of 9.

Acid Test:
Now it's got the HD of D8 and good saves that would be on par with a cleric and not ranger. Now we take A Cl 1/berbalang against a 9th level cleric.

HD: Cleric wins with 9D8
Saves:Cleric wins
BAB: Cleric gets slightly better but berbalang has higher 2nd attack. Tie

Now if we fought a 9th level cleric against a 1st Cleric Berbalang. Cleric on avg has 36 while a berbalang has 26 (avg of HD for cleric and level of cleric). Cleric has 4 feats compared to the berbalangs 2 feats. Avg equipment a Cleric has would give more than likely a better to hit and better AC 9again fighting cleric here) so it would sway toward the cleric on that jaunt. cleric would hit more on the lower AC of the berbalang rather than the other way around (figure cleric would have Avg dex and wear at least +1 Chain mail ).

End result: Cleric wins

Ok let's drop it down one notch to ECL 8. Hit points drop for teh Cleric to 32, saves drop slghtly still in it's favor. Now it's a lil trickier as both have decent hit points, AC is slightly in the clerics favor, saves are on still in the clerics favor, feat drops by one for the cleric, but the combat can go either way here. Depends on who get initiative first and what each one does.

End result:Tie

Acid test equates the LA to be a 4 as the astral jaunt matters little in true combat and it's got downfalls. Pros are improved stats, some natural armor and it's flight abilitiey which is a big bonus.

LA=4
ECL=8


Questions, comments, concerns?

 

[Conaill]

And should we even assign a LA to the berbalang? I mean, a creature which spends most of it's time on the Astral plane and needs to keep its physical body tucked away in a lair somewhere could definitely qualify to be considered "unplayable", right?

Plus, imagine all the abuse a player could make of that DC 15 chance of dying...

A Berbalang Clr2 with Luck domain, Iron Will, and an item of +4 Will saves (should be about 1/2 price of a cloak of resistance: 8000 gp) would have a Will save of 14, so would need to roll a natural 1 to fail his save... and then he gets to roll again because of his Luck domain...

 

[Leopold]

Give it an ECL/LA? OF COURSE!! Give EVERYTHING an ECL/LA! Hell when i tore through the Tome of Horros doing ECLs/LAs I gave everything that had more than 3 INT a chance and even the elementals and constructs them. Wanna play an astral shark paladin? Sure why not!

If it's got brains it can be given levels in something, heck give it levels in monk. But give DM's the choice to do that. It only takes a few minutes to crank out an ECL/LA if you get the hang of it. Thank god for savage species!

As for the berbalangs having luck and so forth as it's domain and such, remember we go off of 1 level in something +critter=ECL of class compare it to.

 

[Conaill]

I figured you would say that.

As for the berbalangs having luck and so forth as it's domain and such, remember we go off of 1 level in something +critter=ECL of class compare it to.

I know. The point is that the berbalang's Material Projection ability quickly becomes much more powerful because of the fixed DC to save against death.

For the standard berbalang that ability by itself is probably only worth +1 LA. For a berbalang with class levels and/or items to raise its Will save, the material projection can become effectively indestructible (or at least, it automatically regenerates every HP days), and thus might be worth a higher LA.

Anyhow, I'd be fine with a +4 LA, but I would prefer upping the Strength (so it can actually carry a human), and/or its natural armor (so it has a chance of actually killing a human, before it takes damage and "has to" flee). If that means a +5 LA, fine with me.

 

[BOZ]

as far as the berbalang having an LA, i say why not? does it say anywhere that the berbalang cannot spend time on the material plane? it seems to choose to spend its time on the astral, not liking the material much. a berbalang PC would be one that has found that life on the material is not so bad. a PC would retain the ability to travel the astral, either looking for something there, or needing to get away to contemplate something or whatnot. i'd say LA, definitely.

 

[Leopold]

Anyhow, I'd be fine with a +4 LA, but I would prefer upping the Strength (so it can actually carry a human), and/or its natural armor (so it has a chance of actually killing a human, before it takes damage and "has to" flee). If that means a +5 LA, fine with me.

Remember this thing is CE, it is out for itself and only itself and to cause as much havoc as it can and not give a rat's behind about anyone or anything that gets in it's way. Also upping it's STR does not cause the LA to flucatue up any if it's only a few pts . Now if we give this thing a 34 STR wellllll that's a diff story!

What's next boz?!? I love this stuff!

 

[Krishnath]

Should we agree on LA +5 then?

 

[Leopold]

I'm shooting for an LA of 4 here for the berbalang 5 just seemed way too high for such a creature. Upto Boz on this one. His call it can go either way.