What ECL for a race with +4 to every ability score?

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Azul, don't forget drow get quite a bit of stat bonuses themselves, and they also have an SR of 11+their character level, which overall makes them seem stronger than simply +4 to all stats IMO.

Also, you can compare them to the Githyanki and Githzerai in MotP, which both have various psionic abilities for ECL +2.

 

[Elric]

Ability score increases are very hard to balance with ECL:

Consider: which character would have more hit points, a fighter with an extra level of fighter or a fighter with +2 Con.

Well, a fighter gets 1d10 (lets say 6) HP + Con bonus per level, or his level in hit points for +2 Con.

So, assuming Con 14 (+2), at 8th level an extra level of fighter is the same (in terms of hit points) as +2 Con. At level 15, +2 Con will be much better than an extra level of hit points. At level 2, an extra level of hit points is much more valuable than +2 Con. In general, future ability score increases are less powerful (compared to class levels) when your ability score is already high.

The same is true for attacks- until a character gets +6 BaB (iterative attacks), their strength bonus will be much more balanced. If your first attack hits 75% of the time, an extra attack at -5 increases your offensive power by roughly two thirds. Once a character gets +11 BaB, the last attack (at BaB +16) is much less useful than a bonus to strength. An 11th level fighter (with a two-handed weapon) would rather have +10 Str than +5 base attack. A first level fighter with decent strength would rather have +5 base attack. This explains why half-orcs are so powerful-starting at mid-levels, having +2 Str gives you an extra level of offensive power (magic items excluded).

If players take incredibly powerful prestige classes, the value of an ECL race is much lower than if players stick with the normal classes. A 16th level Smackdown character, for instance, wouldn't trade 2 levels of Singh Rager/Iajitsu Master/some other abusive class for +4 to every stat, even though a normal character would probably be more powerful as a result.

RangerWickett's idea is good, since it avoids this problem to some extent by making stat bonuses harder to come by and including levels (and hit dice) to make characters more balanced between high ability scores and class levels.

Essentially, ability score increases make all of your levels more powerful, so they are very hard to balance as a set ECL.

 

[trentonjoe]

Trentonjoe's ECL calculator says +2.

 

[Al]

If I remember U_K's ECL calculator (which I think is very good btw) it was +0.1 ECL/stat point. So +4s across the board would equal +2.4 ECL- you can drop it to +2 or bump it up to +3 depending on how nice a DM you are.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I kept thinking of a cross between Captain America and Khan, so I think it works fine for d20 Modern. But you should do more than just straight stat boosts.

Give them a few miscellaneous other bonuses and +3 would be perfect. For example, maybe they heal naturally (keep it a slow rate, say 1 HP per minute?). They should have Low-Light Vision. Maybe they have Fast Movement (+10'). If you drop the normal Human bonuses (Feat and skill points), you could stack a few more things on.

Let's see... using Soldarin's system (far better than anything I've seen from WotC), you could do:

SUPER-SOLDIERS
+4 STR: 0.4
+4 DEX: 0.4
+4 CON: 0.4
+4 INT: 0.2
+4 WIS: 0.2
+4 CHA: 0.2
Speed +10': 0.2
Low-Light Vision: 0.0 (lack of this is -0.2)
Fast Healing: normally 0.5, but since I'm making it be so slow let's bump down to 0.2.
Natual Armor +2: 0.4
So far we're at a total of 2.6, which'd round down to 2, so let's add a few random skill boosts to put us over 3.0. For example, +2 to Listen, Spot, Climb, Swim, Tumble, and Balance. Now we're at 3.2.

There, an ECL +3 race.

EDIT: Forgot to say, Soldarin's system seems to work even better for d20Modern in some ways. Without magic-wielding classes, the physical stats can be much more useful than the mental ones, so having INT, WIS, and CHA only cost half as much isn't a bad thing.

 

[Andion Isurand]

adding the ability increases by themselves... will add an additional +2 ECL to whatever creature you may be applyling them to

 

[Grog]

+2 ECL still sounds a bit high, but that's just me. And like I said, keep in mind that if everyone in the party is going to be playing this race, the +ECL will hurt the spellcasters far more than it will the other classes.

 

[Spatzimaus]

the +ECL will hurt the spellcasters far more than it will the other classes.

It's d20Modern, so probably no magic.

But yeah, if you want it to be just like a Human (with bonus Feat and skill points intact) AND get +4 to each stat, ECL +2 is fine.

 

[kreynolds]

I'd go with +2 as well, even when taking into account slow aging or an extended lifespan. Age has nearly no effect at all on the game. It's a time limit on how long you can play a character and little else. I don't see either of those having an ECL modifier higher than +0.000001.

 

[Mistwell]

Well depending on whether he is using one of the expanded campaign settings, like Urban Arcana, he could very well be using plenty of magic.

That said, d20 Modern lifts the restrictions on muticlassing. That kinda changes the value of +4 to all stats, since it is much easier to take a level in all the classes, getting their best Talent which will benefit from a high stat, and move on to an advanced and/or prestige class. Not sure how that would impact an ECL analysis.