D&D (2024) Level adjustment from 3.5 and how to handle it in 5(.5)E?

[jmartkdr2]

if you were playing a caster, anything more than +1 was awful, even that had to come with good synergy for casting class.

best was draconic creature for +1. The OG dragonborn. It was great for STR based martials

and half-dragon for +3 LA for STR based martials, but for this you would need to be atleast party level 6.
being 1st level while everyone is 4th is a death sentence.

I do recall a lot of the +1 LA options being pretty good, but anything higher than that would start causing problems.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Gonna be honest. I think the truly correct answer is: don't. Don't do that thing. Level Adjustment was a well-meaning idea (like many, many things in 3e) that went Extremely Wrong. It tries to perfectly standardize something that isn't capable of standardization.

But if you absolutely, positively MUST have ways to hobble an OP species so that it can be played and even out over time, forced feats is probably the least-awful method of the proposed methods. That's a bit like saying that of your body's organs, the spleen is the least-bad to have removed from your body if you must entirely sacrifice something (e.g. no weaseling out by sacrificing only one of two lungs/kidneys). You still really, really don't want to have to do that.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I do recall a lot of the +1 LA options being pretty good, but anything higher than that would start causing problems.

Biggest problem for +1 LA was things that were obviously too powerful to have no adjustment at all, but much too weak to be worth sacrificing an entire level for. Full-blooded Aasimar and Tiefling were two perfect examples, because the Outsider (Native) creature type was pretty strong (especially at early levels), but not at all worth sacrificing a full level once you were, say, level 15+.

Half-dragon was certainly fun, but the LA becomes very problematic at both low and high levels. Low-level, as noted, your HP are minuscule and thus you're at risk of imminent death. High level, you're now three levels behind the curve and that massive Strength bonus is now merely avoiding falling even further behind, rather than actually helping proper.

 

[Distracted DM]

Race as class, a la Savage Species. I guess that's the more complex version. Failing that, feats aren't a bad way to do it. I don't love the idea of "starting powerful." I think classic level adjustments are another way of going about it.

Edit: oh I see race as subclass/archetype is another suggestion- that's a good one, but you have to remember that differently classes have different levels of subclass/archetype power. Iirc 5e14 paladin and fighter had more tame subclass features compared to some other classes, because the core class was stronger.