With the bumps to the core races, the weaker LA+1 races can just be used as-is without any level adjustment.
I don't remember where I saw it, but I could have sworn someone official responded on this topic quite recently. Unfortunately, the Search feature turned up nothing (not the best search feature I've ever seen, I'm afraid).
The response I recall was something to the effect that they weren't doing anything for Level Adjustments as they had no intention of making monsters into playable races. Or something like that.
Wish I could find it...
I do know that one of the Named Bosses (was it James Jacobs?) chimed in on the thread about someone reincarnated as a bugbear. That thread was about level adjustments, but all I think he said was that most Pathfinder campaigns are designed as roleplay-heavy campaigns in a world where most NPCs would shoot a bugbear on sight. Being a bugbear would create challenges for not being able to roleplay town adventures.
I imagine being a hobgoblin would be just as challenging.
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All will be revealed in the coming bestiary next month.
Yep, looking forward to that. Blake's comment about the "reincarnated as a bugbear" thread was started by me. The issue came down to using a 3.5E monster (with LA) in a PF game where LA doesn't exist (at least, it hasn't been ruled out in the PFRPG but there are no rules saying how to handle races with LA, so...).
I'm hoping that the Bestiary removes the LA for the bugbear and/or the Reincarnate spell gets errata to remove races that players shouldn't be playing. (After all, if JJ said players aren't supposed to be using those races, why does the PF spell still include them?)
Creative Director
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The rules for LA and ECL are not in Pathfinder RPG. Quite simply, we felt that those rules were an ill-fitting band-aid over a larger problem; the fact that while some players want to play monsters, the game itself isn't designed for that (even though you COULD do it, since monsters and player races work the same way).
For Pathfinder, we've adopted a much less rulesy way of handling things. There's a list of races that are appropriate for play alongside humans, and a list of races that are CLOSE to appropriate, and that's about it. The Bestiary has a bit more advice, but it's not rules—it's advice.
Some day, and eventaully, we should and might do a book like 3rd edition's "Savage Species" that goes into detail about how to play monstrous races as player characters, but for now, that option of game play is not directly supported by the rules.
Of course... the rules are compatible, so if you want to use other 3.5 rules and advice for this, they should work! Just keep an open dialogue with your GM and be willing to work with him or her to make sure your non-core race isn't ruining your game, and you should be good to go!
