Drow Noble plus cavern sniper


Advice

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Cavern sniper from ARG, is it any good? I cant decide. Also, got a guy who wants to play a drow noble going into cavern sniper, so he can use his abilities at will. if he takes the 'level adjustment' i'm okay with it honestly, thoughts? also, for the noble level adjustment, i always feel bad with them losing out on a level totally, so what are the thoughts on giving drow noble a single 'humanoid' hit die for their level adjustment? It's about the worst racial hit die you could get after all. level one would be REALLY painful, but it'd be worth it methinks, in the end run.


The drow noble is vastly superior to any other race PC race, just look at the ARG numbers (41 race points I believe?). If the player is interested in the race that much they will happily take the 3 level adjustment (40+ points is a +3 adjustment per the table), for certain character concepts I know I would. Depending on how you do XP, either the character will get less per encounter (slowing the characters progression) or is causing the party to slow progression (less per encounter as the party level is higher).
I personally would keep track of the characters XP seperately instead of penalizing the whole party. It will eventually "even out" at the later levels.

And no HD should be awarded for the level adjustment.


Noble drow has only +1 "LA". IMO it's worth it, but I'm a sucker for big ability scores.

Dark Archive

Any GM would have to be a loon to actually let a PC play a Drow Noble at anything less than starting level 10, with a 1-2 level adjustment.


ImperatorK wrote:
Noble drow has only +1 "LA". IMO it's worth it, but I'm a sucker for big ability scores.

The advanced race guide lists the drow noble at 41 race points, the rules in the ARG, state that a party with a 40+ RP race should be treated as a level 4 party. This penalizes the entire party for 1 players choice, which I don't like at all. The party shouldn't be punished for the choice of 1 selfish player. I would rather split the XP up, give the normal party full appropriate XP and give the overpowered character the reduced XP as if he/she were a 5th level character overcoming the encounter CR (1 level + 1 LA + 3 from the RP table in the ARG page 219 if you want to see the rules). The player gets their cool race, the rest of the normal party levels regularly, everyone is "happy."

So yes your LA is only +1, but your actual "rating" in regards to encounters is +3 more than that (with the new rules) from level 1-5, +2 from 6-10, +1 from levels 11-15 and then normal (class level+1) from levels 16-20. Basically it works like the level buyoff from 3.5.

Just to go over it again, a noble drow at 1st level would be considered a 2nd level character (LA from the bestiary I'm guessing?) and have a +3 modifier from the ARG. For XP reward calculations that means they are getting XP as if they were 5th level characters from the start.


Carbon D. Metric wrote:
Any GM would have to be a loon to actually let a PC play a Drow Noble at anything less than starting level 10, with a 1-2 level adjustment.

ARG shows them starting out at 5th level which is much more reasonable. 10 is entirely too high for a creature with 1 class HD.


... races have two LAs now?


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Only a loon allows drow nobles, period.


ImperatorK wrote:
... races have two LAs now?

Races in the ARG are broken down at the end as to how many "race points" it takes to build. More points mean more powerful obviously. Drow noble have 41 as opposed to 8-11 of most core races (goal being 10ish as a balance point for non LA I guess). I haven't read the entire book but I've not seen anything that said to ignore LA in regards to the RP table RAW. Just bump the APL according to the RP values.

Personally I'd treat the drow noble as a 4th level character with 1 HD (4th level @ 1st class level) and not include the LA. I understand the ease of book keeping for bumping the party level but none of our group has ever played that way and people who have played LA races understood the reason for reduced XP for them and not the rest of the party. I mean would you rather the cleric or wizard get spells faster or take the XP hit for your LA race? The best thing for the group is to suck it up and delay your progression, so we do the extra math happily.


Skylancer4 wrote:
ImperatorK wrote:
Noble drow has only +1 "LA". IMO it's worth it, but I'm a sucker for big ability scores.
The advanced race guide lists the drow noble at 41 race points, the rules in the ARG, state that a party with a 40+ RP race should be treated as a level 4 party. This penalizes the entire party for 1 players choice, which I don't like at all.

The Advanced Race Guide states: "For groups with mixed power levels, average the RP and round the result to the nearest multiple of 10."

That means if there's one drow noble and three humans the Average Party Level would be considered one higher for the first 5 levels, not 3 higher. And if people don't like having the drow being that much stronger it's completely possible to allow them to upgrade their races by buying traits they usually would have had to exchange others for.


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Given that there are a bunch of new Drow feats to make a PC into a Drow Noble, why don't you just have your player do that? He or she can have all three feats in the Drow Nobility line by level 5 (though the Improved Drow Noble feat seems the most important to you) and could even get the two Umbral Scion feats and be set by level 9. This avoids the massively powerful Drow Noble option nicely and keeps your players on an even field as they level up.

As for Cavern Sniper, since that is a Fighter archetype, your player will find that it is easier to keep up with all of the feats they are going to need for their archery to be effective despite the need for the Drow Noble feats. They are not going to be on par with other archers of their level for a little while, but sometimes it is the flavor of a character that is most important, right? You will want to give the player some way to access poison as well (or they're going to want to dump some skill points into Craft (Alchemy) and get a couple of feats to bolster their ability to make their own) because otherwise that aspect of the character--small though it may be--is going to be pretty weak. As shame they didn't give the character Poison Use at some point in the progression.

Overall, I would hazard that this character is going to be a little tough to play, but should do fine by the time they hit level 10. It sounds like a good RP character too.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

luckily drow get poison use for free as a racial. yeah i looked at the feats. i still dont fully understand the whole "average party level" thing. is it like 3.5 where it says the party level is +1, so everyone.. what.... needs more to level? so you're level four but you need the XP for a level 5 to level? since in pathfinder, it's not like 3.5 where you get less xp if you're higher level, the XP chart in pathfinder has you getting the same xp for hte same monsters regardless of your level. or am i missing something?

cavern sniper is a very niche character, and once he can get his SLAs at will, it means lots of deeper darkness and such all the time which is kinda cool. and he's an archer, so even an poorly-optimized archer will still out-damage a lot of other classes, heh.


Xavier319 wrote:

luckily drow get poison use for free as a racial. yeah i looked at the feats. i still dont fully understand the whole "average party level" thing. is it like 3.5 where it says the party level is +1, so everyone.. what.... needs more to level? so you're level four but you need the XP for a level 5 to level? since in pathfinder, it's not like 3.5 where you get less xp if you're higher level, the XP chart in pathfinder has you getting the same xp for hte same monsters regardless of your level. or am i missing something?

cavern sniper is a very niche character, and once he can get his SLAs at will, it means lots of deeper darkness and such all the time which is kinda cool. and he's an archer, so even an poorly-optimized archer will still out-damage a lot of other classes, heh.

Average party level and XP charts are meant to keep the book keeping more simple in PFRPG. Part of the design philosophy when it was announced was to streamline things to enjoy the game more. Less number crunching, more play time. Unfortunately another part of that was supposedly removing LA's and such (notice races like tiefling who no longer have one). So now you are bringing in something that the system wasn't meant to have any longer, you need to adjust again.

The average party level simplified the XP charts, so when an encounter was completed, end of encounter give everyone # XP. But now that you have this really powerful character at first few levels, everyone else in the party is getting less XP, thus taking longer to level even though only one character is really "shining." By taking and supplying the rest of the party with the appropriate XP for the level of the party (IE 3 1st level normal characters getting full XP for a CR 2 encounter) and then the "powerful" character getting the adjusted (let's say getting XP for the CR 2 as if they are 4th level) the balance is enforced over the career of the powerful character by leveling slower in comparison. They are more powerful so they get less from the encounters and level more slowly in the beginning. This actually slowly goes away as the character gets to higher levels as the table adjusts the level modifier over level ranges (simulating that the difference in power becomes less at higher levels) and eventually just means the character is a few thousand XP behind towards the end of the adventuring level career.

What it comes down to is being fair to everyone involved. The XP chart is a simplification of the 3.5 system, and works with the assumption every one in the party is of the same power level (which works with the core races as the only option, which they basically were when the book came out). You are messing with the foundation the simplification was based on, so it stops being "fair." The easiest way to deal with it is just look at the chart for the (total adjusted) level of each party member and give them whatever it says for that CR encounter. Basically look up the level 1 award for CR 2 (200xp) then look right next to it for the award for level 4 (or 5 if you include the LA) and give the Noble Drow 150xp. Do this for levels 1-5, then at level 6 drop the adjusted by one, at level 11 by two, at level 16 it is gone.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

right i get the idea. but i wasnt aware that higher level people got less XP.. that's what i'm confused about. i dont see ANYWHERE on the XP chart where it takes into account the party level. just everyone gets the same amount of XP. be they ten or first level. so for the more powerful character, they just have a higher xp needed to level, like in 3.5? i'm sorry if i'm being dense, i'm not confused on the concept, just on the math and mechanics of it, since i havn't seen anything that alters XP based on PC level. on the Xp chart i only see diffs for number of PCs in a party, not their level.


Xavier319 wrote:
right i get the idea. but i wasnt aware that higher level people got less XP.. that's what i'm confused about. i dont see ANYWHERE on the XP chart where it takes into account the party level. just everyone gets the same amount of XP. be they ten or first level. so for the more powerful character, they just have a higher xp needed to level, like in 3.5? i'm sorry if i'm being dense, i'm not confused on the concept, just on the math and mechanics of it, since i havn't seen anything that alters XP based on PC level. on the Xp chart i only see diffs for number of PCs in a party, not their level.

You are right - in Pathfinder higher level characters get the same amount of xp as lower level characters. The same amount of xp for a higher level character is less valuable than for lower level character as fixed value is lower percentage of xp needed for another level but absolute values are the same (except when CR is much lower than APL, when no xp is given as there is actually no challenge).


Xavier319 wrote:
right i get the idea. but i wasnt aware that higher level people got less XP.. that's what i'm confused about. i dont see ANYWHERE on the XP chart where it takes into account the party level. just everyone gets the same amount of XP. be they ten or first level. so for the more powerful character, they just have a higher xp needed to level, like in 3.5? i'm sorry if i'm being dense, i'm not confused on the concept, just on the math and mechanics of it, since i havn't seen anything that alters XP based on PC level. on the Xp chart i only see diffs for number of PCs in a party, not their level.

By no means are you being dense, the tables work on the assumption of 4 players running the same level thus the "average" party level or APL. It isn't written out anywhere because it is understood as being "averaged." If you have 4 1st level members the APL is 1, but when you have 3 1st level and 4th level, it becomes roughly 2nd. The rest of the party is being treated as a level higher because of 1 character with significantly more power than the rest. That character will outperform/outshine the rest for its entire career (aka not be fair). That is the problem with an "average" table using races that were never meant to be playable races.

By giving the more powerful character the reduced XP, it simulates that the character is getting less out of the encounter (rightfully so as they are so much more powerful). It isn't learning as much as the less powerful characters. As all the characters need the same amount of total XP, the more powerful character just levels slightly slower than the rest of the party. You can figure this out by looking at the average column for the level of the higher level character. Give them that much XP. This slower leveling is the "cost" for being so much more powerful. Basically you are using the average table in to do the work for you, instead of doing the math with the XP total yourself.


My 2c is that 3.5's level adjustment system made a lot of sense. I played a Pixie in a 3.5 game. And I had to take 5 levels as a pixie before I could even start to level up as a rogue.

Every level I got some stat improvements, or some SLA's, so I was always happy to level up. I leveled up at the same time as everyone else. I didn't completely OP the group, so they were happy, etc...

I would homebrew it. If he wants to be a Noble Drow... he's an adolescent noble drow and has to grow into his abilities. Break down the stats and abilities so he progresses a little at each level, until 4th, and then he can begin to take levels in a class. It will slow him down. But for 41 RPs he *should be* slowed down.

Or similarly, you could take wildonions advice and start him out as a regular drow (already somewhat OP), and then take feats to obtain most of the nobles abilities as he advances.

Anyhoo... my 2c. It'll be less fun for the other players if there's one who's uber powerful, so balance it somehow.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

okay, i see what all of you are saying. but let's say at level 1, a drow nobel, whow is effectively a 4th level character, is in a party of four people. they kill a CR 2 monster, which gives 150 xp to the party. what would you suggest the drow noble gets? bump them up to the last bracket? or past it, and lower the XP even more? would they get 100 as if the party had 6+ people or would you take it to "8+" and do the math, giving them 50? that's at least half as fast, and as the party levels up, you'd reduce it slowly until they're getting the full amount the rest of the party is. it only breaks down if you have five or more people in the party, as that way, he's getting too much, and you'd have to do some maths to figure out how much less he's getting.

let's assume you bump it up to an 8+ bracket, then he is essentially getting a third to one half of the XP the rest of the party is getting, depending on the CR. so in the end, just hyave them get XP is if the party were X number of people bigger, equal to their "adjustment" based on the chart in the ARG, which means when the rest of the party i8s level 5, in a four person party, they'd be roughly level three or four. and as they go up in level, it'll be a smaller gap. but the HARD levels will be the first five, where the gap in levels will be the biggest. that's GOOD, since that's also when the noble's abilities will be the strongest.

thoughts?

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

also, i dont see what you're talking about with the rest of the party getting less experience if you're playing a more powerful race. let's say you got a party of a human, a dwarf, a half-elf, an aasimar and a drown noble.

Human 9 rp
Dwarf 11 rp
Half-elf 10 rp
Aasimar 15 rp
drow noble 41 rp

This is 17.2 average race points. by the chart, you round up to 20, which for levels 1-5, the party counts as average party level of one higher. so a second level party, counts as level 3, for what you should send against them. yes, it makes things more dangerous until level 6, when that is no longer the case, but people dont get less XP. SO i'm not really sure what is being said in this thread about the non-drow party members getting less xp.


Isnt there a reason why they have the noble abilities as feats now?

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

You're not listening. I'm not talking about the drow noble in specific, i'm using it as an example for including other non-standard races in regular games, trying to figure out a balancing system, offering my thoughts as well as the rules in the book for comparison. dont hyper-focus on the drow noble.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Xavier319 wrote:
You're not listening. I'm not talking about the drow noble in specific, i'm using it as an example for including other non-standard races in regular games, trying to figure out a balancing system, offering my thoughts as well as the rules in the book for comparison. dont hyper-focus on the drow noble.

Mixing races above 20 RP with standard races doesn't really work, and there are no good solutions. 3.5 had LA, which blew donkey balls for a host of reasons, and was ditched in Pathfinder.

At lower levels, the high-RP race will be above and beyond the "normal" races, and you'll scramble for a solution to balance advancement and keep them all in check. But as levels progress, the power level difference diminishes - casting a bunch of SLA's and having superior stat bonuses is a big deal at early levels, but as the advancement curve goes up, this gap closes.

That's why LA system failed - you got docked 2 levels for playing a drow, but at later levels you suddenly discovered that your race gives you no longer an edge and you're 2 levels behind everyone for nothing.

The only viable solution is to keep all PC races at the same power level.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

alright, i agree. I'd probably let them play a drow noble at higher levels, but not lower. got it. thanks for actually responding to the questions and ideas. how about a race like svirfneblin. lots of SLAs and stuff. i've noticed that if you drop the SLAs, the RP of the race goes down significantly


Xavier319 wrote:

alright, i agree. I'd probably let them play a drow noble at higher levels, but not lower. got it. thanks for actually responding to the questions and ideas. how about a race like svirfneblin. lots of SLAs and stuff. i've noticed that if you drop the SLAs, the RP of the race goes down significantly

It isn't a matter of playing them at a higher level as opposed to a lower level either, if everyone in the party is the same high RP race, it doesn't matter what level they "start" at. The problem is the mixing of various RP races with more than a handful of point variance. Someone is going to be much less powerful than another.

You have access to the ARG obviously at this point, if the player who wants to play a drow noble was interested in it that much, just use the feat chain. As a fighter (cavern sniper) they will have numerous feats to use so it will be much less difficult to obtain the entire chain.

As for the LA system failing, only in the beginning. Once they introduced the buy back system it was fine. The character ended up being a few thousand XP behind if they bought back their level every so many levels. Mid to end game, they were back on track with all but the highest LA races.

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