Which of these template possibilities strikes you as more fair?

[Xeoble]

Mordane, your new option doesn't sound too bad, what kind of exp penalty were you thinking about?

 

[Bean 2.0]

I liked the give him exp as a 16 lvl character while everyone gets exp at their own level

also the January 2003 issue of dragon magazine will have a prestige class that allow PCs to become monsters or gain templates.

 

[Hashmalum]

Option 1, definitely. In fact, I'm going to make that one a house rule in my campaign. They should have included rules for balancing existing PCs who acquire templates in the Forgotten Realms setting, since they have included a number of templates that PCs could potentially acquire in the setting book, Magic of Faerun, and Monsters of Faerun: Chosen of Mystra, curst, the Magister, revenant, spectral mage, and even lich (since FR liches don't have to be evil, a PC lich is very much a possibility even in games where the DM won't allow evil characters).

 

[Mordane76]

Option 1 is very strict -- if a template is taken at low levels, it doesn't hurt as much, because the XP totals we're dealing with are a lot lower, but the example character has an XP total of a 15th level character when the rest of his party is crossing into 17th level, yet he's still considered a 16th level character. I know the concept of interest in banking, but this could create a situation where an ECL 16 character is facing CR 18-20 monsters with the rest of his party because they're all LV18-20. This is where the character makes up his XP debt ---> when he's lower level because the challenges the group are facing are set for the party level.


Option 3 is possibly a little nicer. It allows the DM to weigh the true power of the template and levy an XP penalty according to the power of the template. This means that the character gives up XP advancement until his fellows catch up, and then still has to take a hit on XP even after they've caught up.

Khorod's random thought isn't a bad idea, either. It gives a 10% penalty to XP advancement... but when do you think this penalty should end? Or should it ever end? I'm of the mind that if I went this route, it would be a forever thing, as a mark of the trials of taking the template.

 

[Xeoble]

You could also have the ECL 16 character gain as a 12th level character with a 10% penalty until they make up the difference between 12th and 16th

 

[Mordane76]

** looks around both corners with wild look **

* surreptitious BUMP *

 

[Aust Diamondew]

How about instead you level 'em down some to balance out the ECL. I did it to one of my players once. I bumped his character level down 3 so he could play as a half dragon.

 

[Khorod]

That would only make in-game sense if the shock of adding the template did a partial brain fry. Its perfectly reasonable to think adding a major template would do that...

But I suspect most players would scream blood murder.

 

[Technik4]

If it were my group and I, we would give everyone without template an exp boost (maybe 10%), calculate all exp correctly (16th "level" guy gets less for helping with CR 12 foes), and possibly give "level" 16 guy a negative exp boost (-10%). The overall goal being have the 16 guy get level 17 when everyone else is getting 15, then have everyone meet for level 18 (more or less).

Technik

 

[Mordane76]

Technik's idea isn't a bad one, either, just a little math intensive...


Yeah -- I want the group to meet up again at a certain level, but not take the span of like 8 levels to do so. That would create a disparity that I don't like: party members that are dreadfully weaker than one member, which then turns around to one member being dreadfully behind the others. I don't want to the hassle of multi-tier encounter planning because of such a large disparity. As it goes, I think the XP number equal out before Epic levels, but the question comes of what happens if someone takes a template later in play before Epic levels that doesn't make them Epic... and then the disparity would occur when the rest of the party crosses the threshold while their templated friend is still lagging behind...

I also like the idea of partial brain fry, Aust, but I think my player(s) would cry foul. So many good ideas... not sure how though...