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its unbalanced.
the tiefling and aasimar back in 3.5 had pieces of cheese for abilities that did not make the ECL worth it. if pcs of planetouched races got that feat for free, it would have been different.as for the other races, they were not really worth it either
In the last 3.5 campaign I ran I allowed one player to start the game as a half halfling/half silver dragon paladin of Bahamut. The other players were standard elves and half-elves and the like, nothing that would incur an ECL.
Yes, the half-silver paladin was more powerful at first level, but any major advantage she had seemed to disappear by about 3rd or 4th level, when the party's warblade and wizard got cool powers. And the party was thankful to have someone who was slightly more powerful out of the gate, because she helped to keep them alive!
I never liked the level adjustments and/or ECL. Hopefully that'll be a thing of the past in pathfinder.
If you mean specifically for Teifling and Aasimar, I'm sure that will be changed since the other races got powered up. Similarly for Hobgoblins and many of the other +1 races.
However, something like that mechanic has to stick around: a Troll Fighter is more powerful than a human fighter at the same level, so there needs to be some way to balance that within the party.
Usually the power difference is evened out even for powerful characters after a certain amount of levels, depending on how high up you wanna play your character to.
I, myself have played loads of characters with various templates/powerful races and at some point you even feel that you lag behind the other players, especially when you want to play a spellcasting class. That goes especially at the high/epic levels.
I've used the rules for reducing level adjustments by paying XP. I think it works pretty well, and it reflects that LA is a bigger deal at low levels than high.
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I can agree with the OPs assessment.
Since most +1 ECL races get that modifier because of uneven ability scores (note: Hobgoblin, Aasimar, Tiefling, etc) it should be fair to just allow those races at +0 ECL. Having daylight 1/day as a spell-like ability and some energy resistance is not overly powerful in PRPG.
Basically, for any race with uneven (more positives than negatives) ability scores, reduce their ECL by 1.
I've used the rules for reducing level adjustments by paying XP. I think it works pretty well, and it reflects that LA is a bigger deal at low levels than high.
It works well except for the fact that it's clunky and a pain to calculate. I wouldn't mind seeing something where races with different ECLs use a different experience table for the first few levels.
The problem is, what do you do with ECL at first level? How do racial hit dice work into the mix? In general all of this stuff works Ok for the DM but not so well for someone who wants to play a centaur or an Ogre PC. Racial 'levels' were an interesting idea but wound up even more of a PITA and wound up being serious weaksauce. A drow wizard should lag a couple levels behind a core race then creep up to within a level or maybe a half level of the PCs after 5-8th level.
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It works well except for the fact that it's clunky and a pain to calculate. I wouldn't mind seeing something where races with different ECLs use a different experience table for the first few levels.The problem is, what do you do with ECL at first level? How do racial hit dice work into the mix? In general all of this stuff works Ok for the DM but not so well for someone who wants to play a centaur or an Ogre PC. Racial 'levels' were an interesting idea but wound up even more of a PITA and wound up being serious weaksauce. A drow wizard should lag a couple levels behind a core race then creep up to within a level or maybe a half level of the PCs after 5-8th level.
I agree, XP costs for ECL are a pain, especially when making a high-level character in mid-game.
Have you ever tried the penalty method introduced in thr FRPG?
Basically, you take a -X on AC (from race), saves, skill/ability checks, attacks, and spell DC, where X equals your LA. Then, when you level up, you can eliminate the penalties by 1. For every point you reduce your penalties, you increase your ECL/LA by 1.
So, for a 1st Level Aasimar has -1 to all those things above. Once they get 1000 XP (normally level 2) they lose the penalties and become 1st Level with a +1 LA (ECL 2).
I've used this a few times to good success, and it allows paying off the abilities early.
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Some of the EL races are justified, but they did go overboard on a lot of the early races. The +1 LA area with the new Pathfinder rules should be just hacked off from what I've seen. The MM or Races of Destiny Planetouched are on par with the other PC races. The higher EL ones are the harder to deal with.
Personally I liked the idea of the monsterous classes that came out of Savage Species. It worked really slick for Centaurs in Living Greyhawk.
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It seems to me that the PF core races are strong enough now that LA should be reduced by one across the board. Above this, though the effective penalty for LA get steeper as a PC levels. I like to keep things simple, so I just charge an extra 1000xp per LA to get to second level. It's worked so far, and no one has complained. No one I've run for has tried anything really powerful, though. If someone did want something LA+3 or more, I might adjust this to add the 1000 xp once to each level, rather that paying it in full in advance, so that the PC doesn't fall too far behind.
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I don't like ECL and I don't like LA. It isn't that it's neccessarily a bad mechanic, but I think in a manner of speaking, it's a form of bad writing. The moment you stick that LA on a beastie you make it into a playable PC race - as it is written as a monster. It wasn't really written to be a PC, it was written as an adversary. It's as if on a second glance it looked like something a player would want to play and tried to modify it accordingly. But some things just shouldn't have any LA. Once you get up past +3, it's going to be a bugger until you really get into higher level play.
4E took the interesting direction of banishing it altogether. I've carefully looked over how they did it. I even conducted an experiment my fiancee suggested to me, and took the +5 LA Phoelarch and built it as a 4E playable race. I discovered it wasn't that hard. I had to sacrifice the spell-like abilities (which aren't in 4E anyway), Death Throes, and Rise From the Ashes to do it, but those abilities weren't a terrible loss. I put in some racial feats to buff it out a bit, and I had a balanced race that went from +5 to 0.
I don't think it's impossible to remove ECL and LA altogether as long as you're willing to sacrifice traits to do it. It isn't as if the race couldn't gain so-called "lost" abilities with either levels and/or feats and/or the suggested trait system(s) being discussed in several threads.
I can't disagree with the notion, though, that some things were simply meant to be more powerful and there are DMs that enjoy throwing the occassional PC with really powerful abilities into a game to shake things up. I never have, but I do know some.
It's not an easy decision to make. If you want backwards compatibility, you may have to learn to live with ECL and LA. If you're willing to lose some abilities (I can hear the munchkins crying foul already), it can be done in some very interesting ways and create some very interesting combinations.
Personally, I'd prefer a game without ECL and LA.
Arovyn
The power boost of core races does indeed mean that tieflings, aasimars etc can be dropped to LA 0, which removes that worry from most campaigns 8except those who want to play drows, pixies and whatelse).
Of course now kobolds and such races which were kinda bad ECL 0 races in MM are really bad choices compared to core races...
I personally like LA and ECL
It means you can have two 3rd level fighters, using the same feats and what-not and one would still be stronger. Certain races -should- just flat out be better. Would it be fair to say that a human should be equal to say...a minotaur? Or a dragon? Besides, removing LA means that templated races lose one of their down-sides.
,b ut what GM would allow a player to play a full dragon, in a party of humans and elves traveling through gondor??
Level Adjustments are bad enough, but the ECL has to go
ECL is simply Hit Dice + LA. Pretty much can't have one without the other.
I have no problem with LA/ECL as written. I prefer not to have such races around most of the time, but when I do have them I've also used the rules in Unearthed Arcana for slowly removing LA. For those not familiar - you can remove 1 LA when your level is 3 X (your LA). Then you can remove another after 3 X (your new LA) more levels. For instance, +3 LA can be removed at 9th, 15th, and 18th levels. Rules are in the SRD Here.
I did have to modify those rules to actually be a penalty - as it reads there is no actual loss for removing the LA. I worked it as at any point where you could level, you can lose the XP you would have used to level, and then enough to drop you down one level and remove 1 LA. Those doing this quickly catch up due to the way the XP system works. Faster in 3.5 with level-based xp rewards.
There are aasimar, drow, duergar, feytouched, half-drow, svirfneblin, and tiefling ECL 0 races on the Wizard's D&D website, written by Sean K Reynolds. I can't count how many times I've used these classes, and I haven't found any of them game-breaking.
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There are aasimar, drow, duergar, feytouched, half-drow, svirfneblin, and tiefling ECL 0 races on the Wizard's D&D website, written by Sean K Reynolds. I can't count how many times I've used these classes, and I haven't found any of them game-breaking.
Thanks for the pointer, Dan. Those are really well done. Since I like paragon racial classes any way, I'll be sure to offer these next time I start a campaign. The trouble on our part is that they aren't OGL. They are a great model for what can be done, but those are already the most popular LA races. To put them into Pathfinder, we have to change them.
Sigh.
Hopefully, SKR will be able to come through for us again.
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Racial Hit Die add to the ECL so if you had say a Centaur with +2ECL you would add it's 4 racial hit die so a 1st level Centaur Ranger would be ECL7 with a total of 5 hit die it's 4 racial plus 1 from class and a total BAB of +5.
The problem is, what do you do with ECL at first level? How do racial hit dice work into the mix?
That's where you need to reverse the "Improving Monsters" section of the Monster Manual and make a 0 HD Centaur. Sometimes you can get away with just taking the "X as characters" section, others not.
+6 Dexterity, -2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom.
Medium size.
A centaur’s base land speed is 40 feet.
Darkvision out to 60 feet.
+1 natural armor bonus.
Automatic Languages: Sylvan, Elven. Bonus Languages: Common, Gnome, Halfling.
Favored Class: Ranger.
Level adjustment +1.
Reducing the size to Medium eliminates most of the power from the monster.
Having a bit of natural armor and some extra speed should balance with the human feat/skill.
The +6 Dex is an automatic level adjustment, so that is fine we don't want LA +0.
For PRPG:
+2 Dexterity, -2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom.
Medium size.
A centaur’s base land speed is 40 feet.
Darkvision out to 60 feet.
+1 natural armor bonus.
Automatic Languages: Sylvan, Elven. Bonus Languages: Common, Gnome, Halfling.
Favored Class: Ranger and Druid.
I despise ECLs too. But then you'll limit what races are playable. Some races may need them. But I think most of the usual pc races won't.
Drow could be +0. Gnolls. Githyanki, exc. Some races may need them; half-dragons, Rakasha, giants- if your dm allows these.
I'd like ecls gone for Player Races. The tough ones are like Minotaurs. It's not a Minotaur with just a +2 Str. The 4e minotaur is a joke. I know what they wanted to do, but you really needed a negative stat there so the minotaur can get atleast a +4 Str.
+4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha would work. And you could have no ecl.
Gnoll: +2 Str(or +4), +2 Con, -2 Int(-2Cha). No EcL (4e Gnoll pcs get no Str. bonus, but the ones in the MM have Strengths of 19 or 22). PCs should ALWAYS have a shot at the highest racial stats. They're the heroes- the exception.
Some races like Kobolds and Goblins didn't get enough positives in their stats. Look at the adjustments for Kobold pcs. They get robbed. A -1 ecl they should get (Yoda talk there).
Back on the planetouched I think Genasi could even be improved, because they seemed rather behind Aasimar and Tieflings on their ability scores. + all of them having much less resistances and their 1'day spell like abilities being hardly any better, if not even worse than those of Aasimar and Tiefling.
I'd suggest changing them as follows
Fire: an extra +2 Strength, to represent the potential for destruction in fire
Water: an extra +2 Dexterity to show the flexibility in water (which is almost unlimited)
Air and Earth: Remove the Wisdom penalty which i think has only been there to even out the fact that they had 2 ability bonuses.
That'd give us:
Fire: +2 Strength, +2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma
Water: +2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -2 Charisma
Air: +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma
Earth: +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Charisma
So you see it even gives them a pattern in relation, as every type has an ability bonus in common with 2 other types while none of them has a bonus in common with their opposite element (that is Earth vs Air and Water vs Fire)
Does anyone remember that one of the main purposes of the Pathfinder project was to improve the play viability of the core races which were losing out to exotics like the Genassi? It wasn't to put out a whole set of buffs for every possible player race.Back on the planetouched I think Genasi could even be improved, because they seemed rather behind Aasimar and Tieflings on their ability scores. + all of them having much less resistances and their 1'day spell like abilities being hardly any better, if not even worse than those of Aasimar and Tiefling.
Im not trying to place them back on top, but I think they are rather underpowered. At least to my experience.
(PS: I like exotics, the core races are just boring. I already have a real life for bein (near-)human)
The level adjustment system needs an overhaul, I agree to that.
But getting rid of it is a bad idea. There's races that are too powerful for first-level characters. There's stuff that needs adjudicating, like massive ability score bonuses or racial HD.
There's two options here: Have a decent system that levels the field or don't allow powerful races at all.
Of course, you can also allow everything without adjustment. In that case, do you have a free spot for me and my Solar rogue?
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Well, here is a suggestion that SKR (for his love of monsters built as PCs) can get behind.
Get rid of monster HD for the PRPG monster book. Instead, each monster gets a template (read: starting abilities) and then gains class levels accordingly. The default could just be Warrior, or even Commoner, with certain races taking Adept, and other very special ones having PC classes. In the case of humanoids, give them their favoured class.
You'd keep the LA system, but no longer would monsters have their own seperate HD system. So the monster would keep all of its special abilities, calculated according to HD and ability scores, but would otherwise function identically to PCs.
For example, a minotaur would start as a Medium creature with gore, powerful charge, and natural cunning. After X number of HD it becomes large, using the rules in the MM. But its levels would be Barbarian, giving it Rage, extra speed, and other Barbarian abilities. In fact, in this case you probably don't even need powerful charge or natural cunning, since a Barbarian gets a similar mechanic (Rage and Uncanny Dodge).
Too much of a change? I would find it infinitely easier when giving monsters class levels - only one set of skills and hp to figure out.
I've used the rules for reducing level adjustments by paying XP. I think it works pretty well, and it reflects that LA is a bigger deal at low levels than high.It works well except for the fact that it's clunky and a pain to calculate.
.... It's called basic math.
Though I do agree with what's been said by some, in light of Pathfinder's take on upping base races slightly, it more or less negates the +1 Level Adjustment races 'benefits. Still think humans shouldn't get the +2 but as I've said elsewhere, since 3.0 most of my fantasy adventures I've run have been groups of humans, as opposed to earlier versions of DnD games.
-Weave
Heya, just wanted to say that this is something I want to address. The reason ECL/LA exists in 3e is because we had certain legacy creatures that worked a certain way in previous editions and we (the designers) couldn't deviate from that too much. With PFRPG we can take a look at the system and find a better way to make it work. Ideally, we wouldn't have to have LA or ECL at all, as a +1 LA may mean one thing at low-levels and a much bigger thing at high levels, which makes LA races hard to balance at all levels.
FYI, Jal Dorak's suggestion is very similar to something I've thought up.
Director of Games
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Hi there all,
One of the things we tried to do with the core races was increase their power just a bit so as to make some of the ECL+1 races playable without having to deal with the level adjustment. Monster Hit Dice, however, confuse this issue and this is something we are going to look at when we start working on monsters.
In any case, I think you can safely reduce the ECL by 1 for the purposes of playtesting.
There will be more information on this over time. Stay tuned.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
I did have to modify those rules to actually be a penalty - as it reads there is no actual loss for removing the LA. I worked it as at any point where you could level, you can lose the XP you would have used to level, and then enough to drop you down one level and remove 1 LA. Those doing this quickly catch up due to the way the XP system works. Faster in 3.5 with level-based xp rewards.
So you made people not gain a level and lose a level, simply to remove 1 LA? I always found that not levelling up when everyone else did was effective enough.