XP Debt

[Hawken]

I've been thinking of an alternate system for characters with ECL+1 or higher to reduce and eventually eliminate their level adjustment for racial abilities. I'll call it XP Debt. The character starts play as normal but has an XP Debt of 5,000 per +1 of ECL (10,000 for ECL +2 races, 15,000 for ECL +3, etc.). The character must spend a minimum of 10% to a maximum of 50% (character's choice) of all XP gained to pay back this debt. Every 5,000 paid to the debt reduced the character's racial ECL modifier by +1, until it is paid in full and the racial ECL modifier is reduced to +0.

This is different than the method used in Unearthed Arcana; allowing for greater choice on the player's part to pay early, if desired, or prolong it for whatever reason. These amounts are less than what a character would have to pay using the method in Unearthed Arcana, which allows for the sacrifice of XP in other areas (magic item creation, etc.) without setting the character too far back behind his peers. By also paying gradually, the character isn't hit with a large penalty all at once, which saves the DM and the player the hassle of possibly dealing with level loss from a sudden and sizable loss of XP and possibly more than once if the racial ECL is higher than +1.

If you think this is a good option, let me know. If you think its a bad option, let me know. And, whether good or bad, let me know why. If you have any suggestions for improvement or constructive criticism, I would appreciate hearing from you.

 

[ARandomGod]

I've been thinking of an alternate system for characters with ECL+1 or higher to reduce and eventually eliminate their level adjustment for racial abilities. I'll call it XP Debt. The character starts play as normal but has an XP Debt of 5,000 per +1 of ECL (10,000 for ECL +2 races, 15,000 for ECL +3, etc.). The character must spend a minimum of 10% to a maximum of 50% (character's choice) of all XP gained to pay back this debt. Every 5,000 paid to the debt reduced the character's racial ECL modifier by +1, until it is paid in full and the racial ECL modifier is reduced to +0.

This is different than the method used in Unearthed Arcana; allowing for greater choice on the player's part to pay early, if desired, or prolong it for whatever reason. These amounts are less than what a character would have to pay using the method in Unearthed Arcana, which allows for the sacrifice of XP in other areas (magic item creation, etc.) without setting the character too far back behind his peers. By also paying gradually, the character isn't hit with a large penalty all at once, which saves the DM and the player the hassle of possibly dealing with level loss from a sudden and sizable loss of XP and possibly more than once if the racial ECL is higher than +1.

If you think this is a good option, let me know. If you think its a bad option, let me know. And, whether good or bad, let me know why. If you have any suggestions for improvement or constructive criticism, I would appreciate hearing from you.

I like the option to pay slowly, in fact, I've been thinking about this for a while... Including the "you have to" portion of it. On the other hand, I think that 5k is too much for a +1 ECL character. Possibly you should consider some form of scaling, similiar to level scaling for paying back ECL debts... the only remaining question would be should you have to pay the larger amount of scaling first, or the smaller amount first? ... Hrmm... I think you'd have to pay the larger amount first in order to be consistant (IE, If you're +3 ECL you have to pay X^3, then you become +2, at which time you pay X^2 and become +1 ECL, for which you must pay a total of X...)

Something like that. On the other hand, I haven't worked any of that out... I simply think that 5k is too much for a +1ECL character. And might be too little for the first reduction of a +12 ECL character.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I've been thinking of an alternate system for characters with ECL+1 or higher to reduce and eventually eliminate their level adjustment for racial abilities.

As opposed to Unearthed Arcana's system to buying off your Level Adjustment?

 

[ARandomGod]

As opposed to Unearthed Arcana's system to buying off your Level Adjustment?

Yes, as opposed to that method.

 

[ARandomGod]

As opposed to Unearthed Arcana's system to buying off your Level Adjustment?

Yes, as opposed to that method.

 

[Hawken]

This is different than the method used in Unearthed Arcana; allowing for greater choice on the player's part to pay early, if desired, or prolong it for whatever reason.

As stated above, yes, different than the method in UA.

I think that 5k is too much for a +1 ECL character.

It doesn't seem too steep considering the abilities of an ECL +1 character. Look at an Aasimar (ECL +1 race): +2 bonus to Wisdom and Charisma, no ability penalties to balance that out. Three forms of minor energy resistance. Ability to create Light (or is it Daylight?) at will, albeit a limited number of times a day. Racial skill bonuses. (And I'm not sure what else off the top of my head), but if the Races of Faerun is used, they can take a slew of feats to gain/improve even more racial powers. All together that is pretty impressive and paying 5,000XP doesn't seem too much to get all that and be able to advance on par with a human!

I didn't really think about this for character races with an ECL higher than +4. I have never been a fan of PCs playing monsters and think that the Savage Species book is just so much garbage! If someone wants to adapt this idea to consider higher ECLs, go for it. I won't be using that though. This idea of XP Debt was just to resolve ECL modifiers for PC races (ECLs of +1 to +3 or +4). If you want to use this for an ECL +12 creature, that would be an XP Debt of 60,000 (12 X 5,000XP), which is quite a hefty debt! 5,000XP might not seem like much to get rid of an ECL modifier, but remember, some of that XP they gain still has to go to advancement and at the middle and higher levels 5,000 can work out to one ECL reduction per level while still advancing on par with any non-ECL companions.

I think UA includes an example of reducing ECL of a drow and that costs 10,000XP in the example and forces the drow to wait until 9th or so before eliminating the ECL modifier completely. So, if 10,000 is not excessive for an ECL +2 race, then 5,000 for an ECL +1 race couldn't be excessive either. If you still think it is, you could look at the 'high' cost as mitigated by having the option to eliminate the ECL modifier as quickly or as slowly as the player wishes.

 

[Vrecknidj]

For me, the whole problem with LA and ECL is that the differences are usually magnified at low levels and reduced at high levels.

Between 1st and 2nd level, the XP difference is 1000, between 10th and 11th level the XP difference is 11000. For some LA +1 creatures, the benefits that the more powerful creature gets are easily worth the 1000xp difference, but not worth an 11000xp difference.

When I saw the debt system proposal, I was hoping that I'd see something that required payment at all levels. But then I realized that this was, in effect, just an XP penalty, like the multiclassing penalty.

And, so, this gets me to thinking. Couldn't the Level Adjustment be accounted for with a percentage-based penalty to earned xp?

Dave

 

[SSquirrel]

of course you could do like the EQ RPG and have XP penalties. Trolls have a 20%XP penalty (so they earn 1800 when they would have earned 2000) and that seems to be the equivalent of an ECL 8 race. So convert based on every 2 levels ECL is a 5% XP penalty.

Hagen

 

[ARandomGod]

It doesn't seem too steep considering the abilities of an ECL +1 character. Look at an Aasimar (ECL +1 race): +2 bonus to Wisdom and Charisma, no ability penalties to balance that out. Three forms of minor energy resistance. Ability to create Light (or is it Daylight?) at will, albeit a limited number of times a day. Racial skill bonuses. (And I'm not sure what else off the top of my head), but if the Races of Faerun is used, they can take a slew of feats to gain/improve even more racial powers. All together that is pretty impressive and paying 5,000XP doesn't seem too much to get all that and be able to advance on par with a human!

Well, the higher the ECL the more it costs to reduce it.
I said it seemed too much because you can remove a +1 ECL for only 3K via UA... well, that and because I've played +1 ECL (the only one's I'm willing to play, in general) and I've done math on it... and it's not so very worthwhile to buy it off. Even with only 3K.

Personally, I do the math and figure out how much those abilities would be worth as slotless magic items (XP wise). In fact, in general I feel that is the best way to really balance out the characters. You figure out how much it would cost in XP to make those items, and then you give that character that much less treasure as well, and he's perfectly balanced with the rest of the group.

After all, what's the difference between an Aasimir with +2 to two ability scores +some resistances and a human with a free slotless item of +2 to two ability scores and some resistances?

(Answer, the Aasimir can get items of +6 to ability scores and have that stack. So you have to take that into account too).

At any rate... It's not too difficult at all to buy off a +1 ECL, it's the higher ECL's that are difficult to buy off, like +2 and +3, they become highly expensive. But +1 is pretty cheap and easy with the UA buy off system.

Perhaps too cheap? Your 5k thought suggests this. And you might be right. But three thousand... the only time you're likely to care (enough to pay the cost) to get an ability score item of +8 is when it's your main ability... generally main caster ability score. And 3k is 75000 worth of item, and the difference between +6 item and +8 item ... well, there IS no +8 item without going epic. So as I said, it might be worth that in XP. But I know that I only play +1 ECL characters when the concept is right, not for the power, because in general I care more about concept than power... AND because I think that the cost is more than the power gained.

 

[Hawken]

...he's perfectly balanced...

I hate the 'B' word. Despite what anyone says or writes about the game, game balance is virtually impossible to achieve and even worse nearly impossible to be perceived. The only way balance can be achieved is if every PC and NPC were the same race and the same class. Racial benefits are far from balanced, even with LA and ECL penalties (as this thread has discussed). Same with classes; clerics and druids rule in 3.5, fighters are bland feat factories and arcane casters got nerfed. Caster vs. caster; caster vs. non-caster; race X vs. race Y; no one is going to say those are balanced except the people who wrote the books because that is what they want you to believe. If everything was balanced, there wouldn't be discussions on this site touting this class or that race, or the drawbacks to class or race.

Sorry for the rant and going off on that tangent. Its a pet-peeve of mine when 'balance' gets brought up. And that's just from a PC perspective. When you get into PC vs. DM what semblance of balance that does exist goes right out the window! I'm not saying the game isn't fun, just that its not balanced. And when you have to deal with encounters from the DM, CRs and such aside, encounters are still either too easy for the PCs or too hard!

Ok, ranting tangent over with! I promise!

ARandomGod, I can see what you're saying. And in my defense, that XP Debt was just the best alternative I came up with at the time to the method in UA for getting rid of LAs. Maybe 5K is too expensive for just +1 ECL, maybe not. Maybe it should be lower. However, I never intended for my method to consider anything higher than an LA +4 as I do not like/intend to have PC monsters in any of my games.

One thing I do not agree with that you stated was giving less treasure to LA race characters. And how do you do that anyway unless it is a solo game or everyone is an LA race and you just don't tell the players you're giving out less jink? That has the potential to get racist if the elves, dwarves and humans all get more cash (items, gems, etc.) than the aasimar, tieflings and drow, especially if they're doing the same job, killing the same monsters and sacking the same treasures. It seems like the LA races would eventually notice this and definitely not be happy about it. You cut back their rewards (in addition to standing penalties against their race), what incentive would they have to play those races or (if they played those races) to go out and 'save the princess', kill the BBEG or whatever? I can see you doing something like that for the roleplaying, but if you're already penalized by level/XP for your race, suffering a penalty to treasure on top of that seems too much.