Custom Monstrous Humanoid Race as a PC question

[Curmudgeonly]

Hey everyone,

I'm about to start running a new campaign with my friends. We're starting the campaign at level 5.

One of my players wants to mess around with the custom race builder. Let's take the centaur in the ARG as an example: 28 RP points used.

Everyone else is making a standard level 5 race / class combo. He will be playing a fighter.

Should he be making a level 2 fighter to compensate for the RP points? I'm unclear how to determine how one factors in the extra power the RP points provide.

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Helcack]

You can make ridiculously overpowered races in the race builder, your best bet is limiting him to no advanced traits and setting his RP max at the lowest RP in the party(thus making him not Overpowered)

[cheechako]

Race Points don't even equal Race Points, so there is no way to equate them to class levels, feats, traits, and so on.

[Bob Bob Bob]

The approximation is that a 10 RP race is normal, a 20 RP race is a +1 level adjustment, and a 30 RP race is a +2 level adjustment. How they do level adjustment and all that is detailed in the book, I seem to recall it tapers off as you get to higher levels. Seems to be about +10 RP equals +1 level adjustment.

[Curmudgeonly]

Thanks for the responses, but I'm still confused.

Are you saying we don't compensate that on the character side, but adjust the encounters to be more challenging?

Would it not be simpler to just reduce the character's level so he's on par with the rest of the group?

[Bandw2]

it would be simpler if he didn't make his own race.

look up what so far the RP is of the most powerful race that a PC has chosen so far. Ask the player what he wants his race to be. Make the race for him with that much RP. DO NOT let him make his own race.

[wraithstrike]

You can not compensate by lowering his class level. It is not accurate, and it will become less accurate as the party levels up. The race builder itself is not even all that accurate. If you can't tell how powerful a race is by looking at it then don't allow the player to build the race.

[Bob Bob Bob]

Level adjustment works by giving the character virtual levels. So a level 5 character with a 30 RP race would be a level 3 fighter (or any other class). The other two levels are the race. It's... exactly what you suggest doing. The only difference with the Paizo rules is that at a certain level (don't remember off the top of my head) you stop counting the virtual level and catch them up to the rest of the party.

[Eltacolibre]

What people mostly means by it's not going to matter, assuming you are going the medium track, the centaur will catch up to them naturally just because of how exponentially the xp required to level up keep increasing. He might be slightly behind but usually by level 10-11, he won't be a couple of thousands xp and probably even be the same levels that they are most of the time.