I'm launching a game in which some of the players are playing non-standard races. Questions re: feats and ability adjustments have come up, so I thought I'd turn here to see what everyone else thinks.
One player is playing a lumi (from the Monster Manual III). The lumi has two hit die and an LA of 2, making it's ECL 4. The player believes that the total ECL of the character determines when the character gains a bonus feat and ability adjustment (meaning that the lumi straight from the book would get the ability adjustment as well as have the ability adjustment). He's using the Player's Handbook to back up his arguement.
My thought is that this is based on total hit die, so the lumi straight out of the book only has one feat (outside of the bonus Improved Initiative feat the lumi has a racial trait), and would not get the ability adjustment until it takes its first actual class level, gaining that third hit die (using the material presented in Savage Species)
What does everyone here think? And what material backs this up?
The rule on this is as follows:
Actual Hit Die is what determines feats, skills, and all level dependant benefits. These hit die can come from race, or from class levels. Level Adjustment doesn't count.
EXCEPT
LA does count when determining the starting wealth for the character. So, if you have an ECL 4 race with 2 Hit Die, they get the starting wealth of a 4th level character (or their class levels +4), while they gain the feats and skills of a 2 HD/2nd level character (or class levels +2).
In short, each hit die is a class level in their race. Level Adjustment is a bump in the road to balance out power that results in them paying 'extra' xp.
Creative Director
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ECLs are used only to determine XP awards. A characters feats and skill points and ability increases are tied to Hit Dice, so a 1st level lumi would have 2 racial Hit Dice and 1 from its class level, for 3 Hit Dice in all. Which would give it 2 feats.
Check pages 290-291 of the Monster Manual under the heading "Monsters and Class Levels" for the actual rules concerning feat aquisition for monsters with racial hit dice and ECLs.
The player needs to wait for the character to have a total of 4 hit dice, through either race or class to qualify for the additional feat.
The feats are provided by Character Level, not Effective Character Level.
The rules to back this up are on page 22 of the PHB, where it lists that it's every three levels after first that character gets an additional feat.
Also, on page 15, of savage species where it lists that for a second feat granted by racial hit dice that a character would need to have at least 4 racial hit dice.
I'm just going to go ahead and back up the other posters by saying that Skills, Feats and Ability score increases are based off of Hit Dice, not ECL. Otherwise, calculating when a creature "goes epic" becomes a headache of epic proportions.
To back up your argument, though, open up the Monster Manual to the Vampire entry and count how many (non-bonus) feats the sample vampires have. Or any other creature in the MM, for that matter. Heck, some creatures don't even have a listed LA - this is not to say that they have +0 LA, but that they simply don't have one. ECL is only for generating appropriate experience and PC treasure - period.
TK
I was pretty confident that feats and ability adjustments were based on hit die (both Savage Species and the Monster Manual support this), but the player in question was quoting the Planar Handbook. There was something in there for the higher-level races (the chain devils, etc.) that gave him cause to believe that feats and ability adjustments were based on ECL . . .
Thanks for the info . . .
The Planar Handbook? Core books always, ALWAYS trump supplements. And the core book in question for playing a monster character is the Monster Manual. Your player has 2 HD, granting him exactly 1 feat. When he gains a level, he will have 3 HD and have 2 feats. When he gains another level, he will have 4 HD and gain an ability adjustment. One more gives him diddly, but the next one comes to 6 HD and another feat. As everyone else has stated, it's actual HD, not LA or ECL or anything like that, that determines feats, skills, and level adjustments.
Also, to prevent them from pulling anything else, if the creature has more than 4 HD to begin with, they do not gain ability adjustments for those base HD. They have to progress to the next multiple of 4 to gain an ability adjustment.
You gain extra stat points for every four hit dice you GAIN. Starting hit dice are not part of the equation for stat boosts, at all.