What is Level Adjustment for?

[mattcolville]

Ok, I'm looking at Savage Species and I understand what ECL is and, obviously, I understand what Hit Dice are, and I see that Level Adjustment is ECL - HD. But why do I need to know that? What do you use Level Adjustment for?

 

[Cheiromancer]

Some monsters are more powerful (allegedly) than a character of their hit-dice. LA expresses that difference.

For example, a medusa with 6 HD is thought, by the writers of SS, to be equivalent to a 10th level character. Thus there is a +4 level adjustment.

 

[mattcolville]

Yeah, I understand the definition of LA, I just don't know why I need to know that if I already know the creature's ECL and HD. What do you do with LA?

 

[drnuncheon]

Yeah, I understand the definition of LA, I just don't know why I need to know that if I already know the creature's ECL and HD. What do you do with LA?

Nothing, really - you only use LA to figure out ECL, so if you already have the ECL, you don't need it at all.

J

 

[Staffan]

The way I see it, LA is one of the two "source" values used to compute ECL (the other being HD), not the other way around. Instead of going "Oh, here's a 6 HD race with ECL 10, I guess that's LA +4" you'd go "Oh, here's a 6 HD race with LA +4, I guess that makes it ECL 10."

It also makes things easier with 1 HD things that replace their "base" HD with class HD.

 

[Baron Von StarBlade]

As others have stated its really just a guide to show how to make monsters with multiple HD playable. Of course I was wondering if you could take a 1HD version of a monster (say a Lizard Man) with only the LA as the ECL. That would probably be broken though

 

[Spatula]

Yeah, I understand the definition of LA, I just don't know why I need to know that if I already know the creature's ECL and HD. What do you do with LA?

A monster PC's Effective Character Level isn't a static value, it is the sum of the PC's HD + the race's level adjustment. Hit dice go up as you add on class levels, so you use the LA to compute the PC's new ECL as it's HD increases.

 

[mattcolville]

Right, but if I have a monster here that says it's ECL is 8, and I give it 2 more HD or 2 class levels, again, I don't need to know the LA. In both cases, I just add 2 to the ECL.