Level Adjustment: a great idea that sparked unending confusion. What does it add to? What does it modify? Instead of being a flat number to alter other numbers, why not let it work like every other character-building block in the system?
When creating a PC from a level-adjusted race, make it mandatory to add a level of Commoner per point of LA. What will this accomplish?
- Character level = HD
- XP table will remain the same
- Token additions to hp (d4), BAB, saves (all poor) and skills (2)
- Max skill modifier will remain the same
Being the most subpar class in the game, the Commoner will balance out the additional benefits of a LA race.
As an option, you could replace "Commoner" with a new class created specifically for this purpose, making it subpar, but still better than getting nothing.
Opinions? Suggestions?
Just take a look at True20 (I know "enemy"-company) but they just made it not a Level Adjustment but a "Level Lag" which means its just a recomended number of levels the specific race should be "in behind" of the other characters to be of the same power level.
No unnerving mangling with the XP table anymore.
(We all know it was a pain in the ass!)
I'd like to see level adjustments go away and the strengths/weaknesses of a creature equal to their HD (something 4E is actually doing right). Templates would add HD of the creature type, so a half-dragon would add ?d12 HD. The problem is giving a balanced HD value equal to the strengths of the LA. I think 2 HD per LA should work for most templates. So a half-dragon would add 6d12 HD to the existing creature.
This doesn't work too well with PCs and templates though. What happens if a character becomes a lich or contracts lycanthropy?
Something like a minotaur (6HD +2LA) would either still be 6HD but a little waeker to make it equal to a 6th level character, or take it up to 8HD.
One thing I really don't like in D20 is the mixture of HitDice and Level Adjustment.
Explanation: For PCs levels indicate Experience.
For Monsters, it mostly indicates Overall power, especially size.
I think this is a bad concept.
The only clean way would be to give all races and monsters with special powers a powerlevel (aka level adjustment/level lag) and representative ability adjustments and let them all start at level 1.
If they are "experienced" monsters they gain level in the monster class (or the according monster-type-class) OR gaining levels in the heroic classes if they are of an intelligent species (like Dragons!)
Level adjustment itself should not be a real modifier to the XP-table, but a reminder for the GM at which level the monster would be a good encounter.
But I see the main problem here. HITDICE.
The only solution I can see is to give creatures bonus hitpoints (points not dice!) according to actual size.
Just take a look at True20 (I know "enemy"-company)
IMO, Green Ronin is a great company that makes a great product. It was designed to be a rules lighter d20, and they did a good job with it. And they don't act like a Microsoft-ish, "evil empire" company. Enemy, no. Rival, heck no. Competition, maybe; I could see how someone could see them as that, but I don't.
The ECL/LA system isn't fantastic, but the biggest problem with it is, and always has been, unrealistically high ECLs. In the entirety of monsters with ECLs printed in WOTC books, only a handful of them are even close to being worthwhile; the overwhelming majority of ECLs are so high that using those races will cripple your character.
For the most part, creatures with a LA of more than +1 (for creatures with no racial HD; or that only have one HD, which gets replaced by class HD) or more than one-half racial HD (for creatures with 2 HD or more) are not worth playing as characters. You lose more in class abilities and HD than you gain in special abilities.
The LA concept is fairly good, but in practice it's not well executed (as a quick comparison between the CR and ECL of a lot of creatures reveals). IMO, many of the LAs for creatures and templates are about +1 too high.
Just take a look at True20 (I know "enemy"-company) but they just made it not a Level Adjustment but a "Level Lag" which means its just a recomended number of levels the specific race should be "in behind" of the other characters to be of the same power level.
No unnerving mangling with the XP table anymore.
(We all know it was a pain in the ass!)
But this is easier to accomplish in True20 were the ability to resist damage (Toughness) is divorced from your level. System's that use HD will always be harder to balance. Also, True20 use an efects based Powers system, which is much less sensitive to lost Caster levels than d20.
The 2 great problems of the LA/ECL system are:
1) Glass Cannon: lot's of additional powers at the cost of staying power (hp). Glass cannon's are very difficult to balance because their power level is very encounter-determined.
2) Gimped-Casters: The system is skewed heavily in benefit of specialists rather than versatile PCs. For casters, throwing spells one level lower is brutally punishing, power-wise.
Now, fixing the system towarsd a True20 model would work "balance-wise", but I'm not sure how much it will work in regards to "backwards-compatibility".
I think that the soundest way to handle the Level Adjustment AND be backwards compatible is to make it into a Level Lag a la True20. So if the game starts at 4th level, a drow player starts at 2nd, but that is it. Nothing changes according to how he gains XP and so on.
I'd also include a sidebar for low level play (everyone starts at 1st level, but some with LA-races) which suggests that GM's who feel insecure about letting the powerlevel slide amongst the players could deduct 10% x Level Adjustment from the XP of the LA-characters until they reach Level 1+LA for that creature.
So a player playing a Drow from first level would get -20% XP from every encounter/adventure until he hits Level 3, at which point that is removed.
Lol, I have a solution, but NONE of y'all going to like it.
Humans: ECL base 0; package stats for ECL 1, ECL 2, ECL 3, et cetera, with rules for increasing the ECL beyond this.
Similar for other races.
So when some bozo wants to play the ECL +4 half dragon with wings, EVERYONE plays an ECL 4 version of their race. No need for any kind of balancing beyond this. If you make the 'elf' benefits wide enough, the same racial template can be flexible enough to include both elves and drow.
Less optimal ideas follow below this line:
Also reveals another way to the 'racial prestige classes', one single prestige class that increases the base ECL of your race. It also allows for NPCs who are just 'better men/women/fuzzies' without having more character levels.
OR
All races start with ECL 0; characters advance either in class level or race level, choosing their racial benefits as their racial 'level' goes up. In effect, this will make all characters multi-class to some degree; this causes even more problems along the multi-class and balancing, thus FORCING a solution that results in a more balanced way of handling multi-classing than the current system.
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How about this for ECL. For every level adjustment you loose a feat. For example, a player wants to play a first level Teifling. He/she plays like anyother character but looses the feat that they get at 1st level. Same for all others, if someone plays a drow they would loose the 1st level feat and another feat at 3rd level. This may need tweeking but is a better alternative to being levels behind.
Here's my opinion:
* You should get like d6 HD, 1/2 BAB, all poor saves, ect. for each point of level adjustment.
* The level adjustments need to actually be realistic. Drow + 2 LA? Yeah right, maybe a +1. Planetouched shouldn't have a level adjustment at all. Most monsters with HD already have enough HD to compensate for they're powers.
* If you have a power that would be inappropriate for a PC of a level equal to it's HD but everything else is ok the power should just not be useable until the PC is of an appropriate level.