Reincarnation and Level Adjustments

[Erywin]

Wanting the infinate wisdom of ENWorlders on this topic, please discuss.

Situation: One of my players died last session and was reincarnated by a friendly Lizardfolk Shaman (don't ask). After death and reincarnation his XP is sitting at 37,000. Currently all characters are running with a +2 LA adjustment from High Stats and being Gestalted (CL 7 + 3LA = ECL 9). Just wondering if the +1 LA Racial adjustment would add in to give a total of +3 LA?? Currently with +2 LA his is sitting at a character lvl of 7 but with the +3 LA it would bump him down to character lvl 6 (CL 6 + 3LA = ECL 9).

Discuss and thanks,

E

 

[Infiniti2000]

Wanting the infinate wisdom of ENWorlders on this topic, please discuss.

We'd be happy to discuss it again.

One of my players died last session...

I'm very sorry to hear that. It's truly tragic when a friend passes...oh, wait, you probably mean player characters. With that in mind . . .

Just wondering if the +1 LA Racial adjustment would add in to give a total of +3 LA??

The rules don't say whether you apply the LA adjustment after reincarnation, but the prevailing majority (in my recollection) is to not apply it. Basically, reincarnation has the significant risk of coming back as something like a kobold, which should be LA -1 or worse, so getting "lucky" with a +1 LA race should be considered 'free'.

What race did you roll, may I ask? What is the character's class?

 

[Erywin]

Oops forgot to mention that he rolled to come back as a Bugbear (+4 str, +2 dex, +2 con, -2 cha, DV 60', + other racial stuff), started as a Human. Pretty crazy as far as stat bonuses go, he is currently a Ninja/Conjurer that fills the rolls of scout/sneaker and battlefield controller. He is currently building his own Prestige class called Terraformer, based around battlefield control.

Cheers,
E

 

[Plane Sailing]

Oops forgot to mention that he rolled to come back as a Bugbear (+4 str, +2 dex, +2 con, -2 cha, DV 60', + other racial stuff), started as a Human.

Darned lucky rolling that 01% !

The only time I've had a character reincarnated he came back as a kobold (in 1e). Another guy that I know was reincarnated twice and got troll both times (again 1e).

 

[Thanee]

As much as it would be applied when you gain a template (i.e. become a vampire), I do think that the Level Adjustment would be applied here, actually.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Alzrius]

I agree with Thanee here. How one changed races is of no consequence. It's nice if you got a powerful race, but if they have a level adjustment, you apply that normally.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Darned lucky rolling that 01% !

It is indeed intriguing that this question is asked based on arguably the best reincarnation form to get.

 

[Thanee]

There is still 'Other'.

Yep, from a pure mechanical perspective, it's a pretty big advantage to reincarnate from a human to a bugbear, since apart from the rather nice physical ability bonuses, you do not get the negative modifier on Charisma and keep the human bonus feat (AFAIK).

But 1% or not, the character now is stronger than his level suggests, which is what LA is for to cover this difference.

If a race had a negative LA (is there such a thing?), you would gain that, too, of course, and effectively not lose a level then.

Bye
Thanee

 

[blargney the second]

This is an interesting discussion! I'm co-DMing the campaign with Erywin, and I was running the game on the night this particular character died. Since it was an NPC who cast reincarnate, I actually rolled the percentile die myself. I think my jaw dropped about four inches when it came up 01!

The text of reincarnate says to "eliminate the subject’s racial adjustments" then it "gains all abilities associated with its new form". The way we ended up ruling it is that he lost his human feat (just as well - we found out in that combat that he had an illegal feat anyways) and 10 skill points. He then gained everything from the bugbear except the racial hit die, feats, and skill points.

I'm kind of torn on the issue. His character is now two levels behind the two highest-level PCs, and the cohort of one of those two currently has more experience than this poor dude! I guess ultimately I want to make sure he's happy playing his character. I think screw the LA - he's twenty thousand xp behind everybody else already, why penalize him more?

Maybe I'm not so torn about it after all.

-blarg

 

[Thanee]

Do you give more XP to the lower levels? You definitely should do that (sometimes even more than the book suggests, to have them catch up).

You can also just cancel the LA (there are rules to buy off LA, because LA has a rather high impact, which is lessened a bit that way) with the thought in mind, that the character is already lower level. But that's an individual decision, my replies above are for the general case.

Bye
Thanee