Please help with ECL

[Celebrim]

Please help me estimate ECL of the following race:

Size: Tiny

Attribute Modifiers
---------
-4 STR
-2 INT
-2 WIS
+6 DEX
-4 CON

Skill Modifiers (ignoring effect of Tiny)
---------
Listen: +2, Spot: +2

Racial Abilities
---------
Wild Empathy (as Ranger)
Low Light Vision
SR: 10
Winged Flight, 40 ft. (Good)
Change Self (at will)
Type is Fey
Prefered Class: Sorcerer

 

[buzzard]

Pulling a number out of thin air, I'd say something like ECL 2. I should probably check Savage Species to be correct, but I don't think it would be too powerful at 2.

buzzard

 

[rrealm]

Please help me estimate ECL of the following race:

Size: Tiny

Attribute Modifiers
---------
-4 STR
-2 INT
-2 WIS
+6 DEX
-4 CON

Skill Modifiers (ignoring effect of Tiny)
---------
Listen: +2, Spot: +2

Racial Abilities
---------
Wild Empathy (as Ranger)
Low Light Vision
SR: 10
Winged Flight, 40 ft. (Good)
Change Self (at will)
Type is Fey
Prefered Class: Sorcerer

2 sounds good to me also.

Here’s my logic: I would say that the ability to fly is worth at least 1 ECL. The fact that you have "Good" maneuverability is worth another 1 ECL. SR 10 is nice but since it doesn’t increase it too should be worth ECL 1. Wild Empathy and Change self (at will) combined should be worth an ECL of 1 (change self more so than wild empathy). IMC I have yet to see anyone use wild empathy (and I do have rangers in my group.)

If you followed the rules for “Modifying a common race” on 171 to 174, you would end up with 6 ability points less than normal.

The +6 Dex would counteract the -4 Str and 2 of the Con.
That leaves you with a -2 Con, -2 Wis, -2 Int to counteract some of the ECL’s

Ability points are worth a lot so I’d say that if you gave up 6 ablity points, you could knock the ECL from 4 to 2.

 

[reanjr]

Please help me estimate ECL of the following race:

I am only nitpicking because SOOO many people get confused over these terms and I don't want to let this stand uncorrected to confuse more people, but a race has a Level Adjustment. A character, complete with classes or whatnot, has an Effective Character Level equal to the sum of his class levels, level adjustment, and racial hit dice.

[edit]: Oh yeah, I'd say a LEVEL ADJUSTMENT of +2 would be pretty close, though I might prefer a +3 only because the class can be weighted so well for certain character types (archers).

 

[Aaron2]

Pulling a number out of thin air, I'd say something like ECL 2. I should probably check Savage Species to be correct, but I don't think it would be too powerful at 2.

I used Soldarin's old ECL calculator and came up with 2 as well. For races with more than +1 LA, I prefer to make a small racial class for them so they can start at first level and gradually gain their powers. The wimpy racial levels tend to even out the power and provide a little more survivability early on.

Here's one I whipped up. It might make a good starting place.

http://jtjaguar.home.texas.net/Fairy.html

I plan to add a similar creature to my home campaign.


Aaron

 

[Celebrim]

Rules aside, why so high?

Can anyone show me that at +2 LA, there is an effective build for this race at any level? I'm inclined to think that a human character built in the same way with 2 additional levels would almost always be more playable. I mean seriously, would you put up with -4 CON, -4 STR, -2 INT, -2 WIS and the loss of 2 character levels for any reason other than role playing flavor? Could you show me an archer build that is worth +3 LA? Consider that the character would at 20th level have 40 less h.p. and 46 less skill points than a human character.

As far as I'm concerned, the major issue with this race is the advantage of being 'tiny'. How big of an advantage is being 'tiny'?

Pro's
+2 to AC
+2 to hit
+8 to hide

Con's
Very small weight allowance
-8 on grapple checks
No reach

 

[Aaron2]

Rules aside, why so high?
<snip>
As far as I'm concerned, the major issue with this race is the advantage of being 'tiny'. How big of an advantage is being 'tiny'?

I see the main advantage to be the ability to fly. Being tiny helps a little. However, flying is great at first level and ok at 5th. By 10th level or so its pretty meaningless. I mean, a fighter could find boots of flying and doesn't lose a level using them. That's why I adjusted it in my racial class to +1 LA.

Now that I look at it, Change Self (shouldn't that be Diguise Self) isn't all that great. Just what other Tiny person are you going to look like that will make a difference?!

However, as a flying slightly spell resistance sorcerer, a character of this unnamed race wouldn't be too bad. Being behind a whole spell level is a killer.

The only other viable build would be a sneak thief.


Aaron

 

[argo]

I don't have the book in front of me but this race doesn't look all that different from the Spryte from AU. IIRC that race requires three racial class levels to get to the tiny-and-winged stage and since racial levels come with (sub-par) HD and BAB I would say that tends to support the LA +2

Just eyeballing the race myself my gut reaction is that it falls somewhere in the LA 1.5 - 2 range. If +2 seems a bit high to you maybe you could drop the Int penalty and reduce the Con penalty to -2, that I think would cement the race more firmly in the LA +2 slot.

Remember, size Tiny has no ill effect on sneak attack or spellcasting and can even help play to its strengths. Loosing 2 levels will put this race 1d6 of sneak attack or one level of spells behind his LA 0 counterparts. Sure this race won't make the greatest barbarian, but it is the nature of LA races to be specalized towards a few classes. You should balance the LA against the worst case of them putting all their synergies to work.

 

[rrealm]

I am only nitpicking because SOOO many people get confused over these terms and I don't want to let this stand uncorrected to confuse more people, but a race has a Level Adjustment. A character, complete with classes or whatnot, has an Effective Character Level equal to the sum of his class levels, level adjustment, and racial hit dice.

Doh!!
I must have failed my spot check while reading this thread.

 

[Squire James]

I'd say that race is a weak +2 LA that would nonetheless need to be weakened considerably to be +1 LA. I'd reduce the Con penalty to -2, and then the +2 LA is on more solid ground.