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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elric" data-source="post: 905650" data-attributes="member: 1139">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.</blockquote>

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