No Racial Hatred

[Dragoslav]

Out of curiosity, what was wrong with level adjustment? I never played 3.5 except through Neverwinter Nights 2.

 

[Derren]

There must be support for all races playable in former editions, and more.

Tools should be provided to assure diverse worlds and styles of DMing can be played.

My suggestion is to have all races in the MM and rules for play monster characters (some are of course easier to do than others).

 

[prosfilaes]

Out of curiosity, what was wrong with level adjustment? I never played 3.5 except through Neverwinter Nights 2.

In theory, I always think that it should be workable. In practice, it sucked. There were a few LA +1 races that people took, but LA +3 races usually traded 3 levels of good stuff for 3 levels of random racial stuff. At the highest levels, especially with hit dice, it was just ludicrous. A sand giant (MMIII) PC starts out at 19th level (15 HD, LA +4) and is a CR 10. A human PC at 19th level is a CR 19. Admittedly, a PC with wealth by level will have equipment that will raise that CR, but even so a 19th level sand giant PC would get crushed by a 19th level human fighter PC.

In any case, I love the planetouched races; the tiefling, the aasimar, the gensai, the axani and cansin, especially where the bloodline appears out of nowhere.

 

[Sunseeker]

That's why I stated only LA +1 races, as more LA goes up, the harder is to balance.

Also some races have special and unique powers, so if you wan't to give them that, you must reduce their power somewhere and best solution is to give them LA not penalties to skills and abilities.

But all LA +1 races have to be carefully balanced so we don't see half-dragon syndrome form 3.5e

Generally speaking LA+1 creatures came in two kinds.

The incredibly flavorful but horribly underpowered.
And the incredibly OP.
Take Drow Noble or actual not lesser tiefling. These characters were statistically more powerful than a LA+0 character, and there were pretty obvious examples that it didn't take a lot of nerfing to get them into line with normal, playable races.

Taking a quick look at the playest doc for the upsoming Pathfinder book on building your own race, it's pretty clear-cut that there was no rational math used to balance various racial aspects. For some reason being Large, but not having reach, have a -1 AC, -1 attacks, was worth a higher LA than being small, with a +1 ac, and a +1 attacks.

In theory the LA system works, but it needs a kind of math that would make even 4e look vague and wishy-washy on the math subject.

 

[Iapetus]

I think there should just be a raised XP cost, so it takes longer to level up and only is a level down for lets say, half of a quest or so. From this these races are neither left too far behind nor able to become much more powerful than the rest of the group. Note that I have yet to test this idea, not currently having a 3.5 edition group and 4th edition not having level adjustment (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[Iapetus]

Also, warforged, drow, and full blooded orcs are what I would like to see played.

 

[Sunseeker]

I think there should just be a raised XP cost, so it takes longer to level up and only is a level down for lets say, half of a quest or so. From this these races are neither left too far behind nor able to become much more powerful than the rest of the group. Note that I have yet to test this idea, not currently having a 3.5 edition group and 4th edition not having level adjustment (correct me if I'm wrong).

The downside to this though, is that increased XP costs used for balancing means it's impossible to run a balanced non-XP game, which is my personal preference.

 

[Iapetus]

That's an essential game mechanic, how do the players level up? Do they at all? I am interested in this system, if nothing else it seems like it would get rid of the motive of killing purely for XP. Why do *you* do it this way?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

That's an essential game mechanic, how do the players level up? Do they at all? I am interested in this system, if nothing else it seems like it would get rid of the motive of killing purely for XP. Why do *you* do it this way?

These days, all of my campaigns are run sans-XP.

Instead, the players level up at appropriate story points. Ferinstance, I "recently" ran a short campaign, starting at 1st-level, in the Great Dale in the Forgotten Realms.

It was a kind of murder-mystery-meets-geopolitics-meets-dwarven-tunnels kind of mash-up.

So, when the players found their way to the dwarven tunnels (which took a couple play sessions), they gained a level. When they figured out who had murdered a bunch of people (which took a couple more), they gained a level. Etc.

This works because, since I've been DMing and playing for years-and-years, I've got a decent handle on pacing, and have decided that I can achieve the results that an XP system tries to provide (e.g., meaningful, tracked progress towards incremental character power) by just shoe-horning in the results. I don't particularly need the intermediate step of calculating and assigning XPs.

EDIT: I don't think it would work for all groups or all campaigns, and certainly not for new DMs who are still learning the ropes.

 

[am181d]

This works because, since I've been DMing and playing for years-and-years, I've got a decent handle on pacing, and have decided that I can achieve the results that an XP system tries to provide (e.g., meaningful, tracked progress towards incremental character power) by just shoe-horning in the results. I don't particularly need the intermediate step of calculating and assigning XPs.

I do this as well, and I know a bunch of other folks who do as well. In discussions around XP right here on Enworld, I've gotten the impression that a sizeable number of gamers ignore XP. (At least 10%, maybe much higher.)