Level Adjustment Races and Starting XP

[Quasqueton]

Say a player was going to take a lizardman as his character race.

Lizardfolk: +1 Level Adjustment on top of 2 HD = ECL 3

Standard Lizardman (no class levels) = 3rd level character; has 3,000xp; needs to earn 3,000xp more (6,000 total) to get first class level -- then will be 1st-level fighter lizardman.

Is this right? Does a standard lizardman have a base 3,000xp? Or does the lizardman start at 0xp and need to earn 6,000 to gain a class level?

Quasqueton

 

[Magic Slim]

IIRC 3,000 / 6,000.

Slim the concise

 

[Silver Griffon]

You are correct. The character would start with the minimum XP for level 3, and the DM would use the ECL of 3 to determine appropriate challenges. For everything else, though you would use the actual HD. So your lizard man would have one base feat, quadruple the skill points from his first racial HD (I think (2+Int mod)x4), and the normal skill points from his second racial HD (Again, I think its 2+Int mod).

 

[Iku Rex]

For everything else, though you would use the actual HD.

(Except for starting equipment.)

 

[Silver Griffon]

(Except for starting equipment.)

D'Oh! I forgot that.

 

[The Souljourner]

An easy way to understand it is to think of it as multiclassing into the race. So a lizardman fighter 3 is really a lizardman 3/fighter 3 and needs as much XP to level as a human rogue 3/ fighter 3.

-The Souljourner