Point Buy Variant: Level Adjustment Variant

[comrade raoul]

Does this sound reasonable? Would these level adjustments be fair for these point buy values?

Plausibly, a balanced +1 LA race would be one of the standard races, but with +2 racial bonuses to two or three ability scores. If characters assign the racial bonuses carefully, they're using them to maximize their point-values -- improving good scores to even better ones. So they're likely using one racial bonus to boost a 16 to an 18 (worth +6 points) and could be treated as using the others to boost 14's to 16's (worth +4 points each). That's +14 points. I'd scale this down to 11 or 12 points, because a +2 to three ability scores is probably a bit too much, and because racial bonuses are usually not quite assigned as optimally.

Thus, if 25 points is worth LA +0, I'd say a good first pass would be to peg 36 points at LA +1. I'd do 48 points for LA +2, and not make any higher LA's an option, because the tradeoff becomes increasingly unbalanced.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

Welcome to the boards, Dragonblade.

I think you've got a pretty good idea, there (and one I may be gaffling for my own upcoming campaign). Like others, I'd be wary of allowing the players to slap too many LA's onto their characters, and would probably limit it to +2 LA to be taken in this manner.


I have some questions, also. Are you going to allow the characters to have +LA races, as well? And, if so... What ECL are you thinking of starting the campaign at? Also, it seems that you are talking about having the characters' ECLs start off being unequal (for instance, if one guy opts to use the 25 pt. buy, he'll be starting at level one and if another goes with the 32 pt. buy, he'll be level 2). Is that right? I'm not sure that I like the idea of charcaters starting off at different levels, though I don't suppose that it's considerably different than having characters end up being different levels due to character death, experience point expenditure, or other circumstances. Lower level characters will eventually catch up, after all.

As far as you numbers go... I'd probably go 25 points for +0, 34 points for +1 and 42 points for +2. As I mentioned earlier, I don't think going more than +2 LA is a very good idea, although problems with LA can be mitigated by simply starting the characters off at a slightly higher level (so that they have some hit dice to go along with those levels).

Later
silver

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Honestly, I'd just accelerate the rate of stat improvement. 1 point every 4 levels is less than satisfactory, in my opinion.

 

[Crothian]

Honestly, I'd just accelerate the rate of stat improvement. 1 point every 4 levels is less than satisfactory, in my opinion.

THis is something I'm going to look into next camapign I run.

 

[Dagredhel]

House rule from the current "Design & Development" article:

Stephen “Shoe” Schubert, Developer
It’s You, Not Your Gear: Treasure is reduced 10-15% and permanent ability score boosting items are banned. Instead, characters get a stat increase at every even level (instead of every four levels) and a feat at every odd level.​

Development Doesn’t Like Much, part II

I think it would be interesting to combine this with Andy Collins' Umber Campaign feat variant: characters gain a feat every level, but at every third level (3rd, 6th, 9th, etc.), the feat must be selected from a limited list themed to the character's race.

Umber Feat Rules

One could also treat the stat increase as equivalent to a feat, and allow the player to choose between the two. Players who lust after high ability scores could devote all or most of their choices to stat increase, while players who choose feats instead will have more options available to them or excel at certain tasks.

I'm in agreement with the comment below:

Originally Posted by comrade raoul
Thus, if 25 points is worth LA +0, I'd say a good first pass would be to peg 36 points at LA +1. I'd do 48 points for LA +2, and not make any higher LA's an option, because the tradeoff becomes increasingly unbalanced.

But this could be combined with options for further stat boosts with level advancement, which I think would work out better in the long run as compared to the higher level adjustments.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

THis is something I'm going to look into next camapign I run.

I keep the scaling point-buy system and give an increasing number of extra points every level. (Ranges from 25 points at 1st to 85 at 20th.) I cap the ability scores to 18 + 1/4th character level to imitate the bonus point every fourth level; characters can choose to either focus on two ability scores or to spread their points out more evenly, as they prefer.

Conan uses the standard +1 to one ability every 4th level, but also adds +1 to all abilities at 6th and every 4th level after that. I'd probably go with every 6th level, instead, simply to keep a regular progression.

I've seen a few other systems, but none I can remember off-hand.

 

[Cabral]

I add +1 to a DM assigned stat at 2nd level and every 4th after that (resulting in a stat boost every even level)

 

[Shellman]

I add +1 to a DM assigned stat at 2nd level and every 4th after that (resulting in a stat boost every even level)

DM Assigned!

I don't like that idea at all. I think your taking the character developement out of the hands of the player. It is his character, let him build it the way he wants. Unless the build is somehow unbalancing, the DM should not get that involved in the character build.

 

[Shellman]

My group has all been playing for quite awhile, so we always start new games out at 5th level using a 36 point buy.

We find that to be strong enough for us anyways!

 

[Dragonblade275]

Playtesting is the best way to figure anything.

I agree, Crothian. I've been thinking about how some orcs with higher scores faired in battle a while back and how their scores impacted the battle. It was considerably harder for the PC's to deal with them. This is also part of the reason why I need a good system of determining how much improved scores improve CR. Elite is covered in the Monster Manual, but what happens to the CR when a creature has scores two or three higher than elite in all scores?