UA LA Buyback

[prosfilaes]

How balanced are the Unearthed Arcana LA buyback rules? I can see it being useful for races that derive their LA from DRs or Energy Resistences that matter less when you have a hundred hit points, but what about races with high attribute bonuses? I just added it to my campaign, and was thinking that the one player that could take advantage of it, took the race largely for a +4 to Dex, which is effectively unnamed bonus to Dex that gets no less useful at 10th level than at first.

 

[the Jester]

I think the LA buyback rules work best with high-LA creatures. For instance, I don't think I'd let a character completely buy off their LA, but I gave the opportunity to buy off a point of LA to a doppelganger pc. Didn't hurt anything, but the player moved shortly thereafter.

 

[Bront]

I didn't see anything too bad with it, but keep in mind that once they've baught it off, they will be advancing faster since they are now a lower ECL than the rest of the party.

 

[Azrael]

We play these rules and they don't seem too bad. Characters with Low LA seem to benefit alot more from it, as the high LA people tend to be quite far behind the rest after buying their levels off (however they would eventually catch up for the reasons Bront mentioned).

The effect is very dependant on what level your game starts at and what level it is likely to reach. If for example it was an epic then people may as well have LA +2 or 3 as it won't make much difference to them after a few sessions. But LA+3 is still a problem around mid levels.

 

[Question]

Seems perfectly balanced. For a time being they are significantly weaker than the rest of the party, but they will eventually catch up.