Putting this out there to all the PPP publishers and their compatible products. No where in the Pathfinder Core rulebook do I find anything about level adjustment. Did they do away with it? Anyone have a discussion thread about this? Do you know what page in the book discusses this aspect? IMO, they don't touch it, but doesn't mean it can't be done. I haven't read the rulebook cover to cover, just what I need and the well known stuff (IE classes, races, skills, feats, mechanics and such), but nowhere can I find anything about LA. Comments?
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Putting this out there to all the PPP publishers and their compatible products. No where in the Pathfinder Core rulebook do I find anything about level adjustment. Did they do away with it? Anyone have a discussion thread about this? Do you know what page in the book discusses this aspect? IMO, they don't touch it, but doesn't mean it can't be done. I haven't read the rulebook cover to cover, just what I need and the well known stuff (IE classes, races, skills, feats, mechanics and such), but nowhere can I find anything about LA. Comments?
It's my understanding they intentionally aren't mentioning it because they intend to revamp the system later on. Some quick guidelines are in the Council of Thieves Player's Guide file, I think...
Putting this out there to all the PPP publishers and their compatible products. No where in the Pathfinder Core rulebook do I find anything about level adjustment. Did they do away with it? Anyone have a discussion thread about this? Do you know what page in the book discusses this aspect? IMO, they don't touch it, but doesn't mean it can't be done. I haven't read the rulebook cover to cover, just what I need and the well known stuff (IE classes, races, skills, feats, mechanics and such), but nowhere can I find anything about LA. Comments?It's my understanding they intentionally aren't mentioning it because they intend to revamp the system later on. Some quick guidelines are in the Council of Thieves Player's Guide file, I think...
which is what I thought, they didn't touch it but doesn't mean it isn't compatible if you have a level adjustment. I am an old school gamer and I believe some abilities are far more powerful at lower levels and this is what the LA is supposed to make up for. A first level character with a race that has innate fast healing is far more powerful then a first level character without. Hence the LA.
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The SE VP is correct. It's covered, briefly, in the Bestiary.
Basically, use the CR as the Level equivalent and every three levels, give a 'bonus' class level until you've given out half as many as the starting CR.
So a CR 4 critter starts equivalent to a 4th level character.
At 5th level he gets his normal class level.
Halfway between 5th and 6th, he gets a 2nd class level as his effective CR reduces by 1
At 6th level he gets a third class level.
This repeats at level 8/9 but then everything continues on normally. with no further phantom levels.
The SE VP is correct. It's covered, briefly, in the Bestiary.
Basically, use the CR as the Level equivalent and every three levels, give a 'bonus' class level until you've given out half as many as the starting CR.
So a CR 4 critter starts equivalent to a 4th level character.
At 5th level he gets his normal class level.
Halfway between 5th and 6th, he gets a 2nd class level as his effective CR reduces by 1
At 6th level he gets a third class level.
This repeats at level 8/9 but then everything continues on normally. with no further phantom levels.
Ahh cool, so it is a level adjustment perse, they just use the CR as the basis for adjustment.
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Ahh cool, so it is a level adjustment perse, they just use the CR as the basis for adjustment.The SE VP is correct. It's covered, briefly, in the Bestiary.
Basically, use the CR as the Level equivalent and every three levels, give a 'bonus' class level until you've given out half as many as the starting CR.
So a CR 4 critter starts equivalent to a 4th level character.
At 5th level he gets his normal class level.
Halfway between 5th and 6th, he gets a 2nd class level as his effective CR reduces by 1
At 6th level he gets a third class level.
This repeats at level 8/9 but then everything continues on normally. with no further phantom levels.
And adjust it as you level as what was powerful at 4th level really isn't at 14th.
Which is, IMO, a terrible system. I am very eager to see a better fix down the road.
Until then, I'm inclined to use LA from 3.5 and maybe apply it as negative levels.
I am still dancing of the grave of the LA system, It never worked, was wonky and lead players to feel they had a given right to play damned near anything
Bout time some one took it out back and shot it.
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It's good to put the power of what to do with non-core races completely back into the hands of the DM running the game. They're the only ones who are going to know the impact of adding a particular race with particular abilities into the game.
I know DM's that would like to ban core races, I know DM's that don't have a problem letting players play vampires or minotaurs along side humans.
The LA system of the past hardly worked well in almost any case and simply took powerful races and made ineffective characters out of them.
Say what you want about LA, but basing an adjustment CR ... it's like everything people complained about LA, but WORSE.
Morgen: Back in the hands of DMs? When wasn't it?
Since 3.5 made LA core and "ok" to play
Except 'monsters as PCs' are in Bestiary.
So it's gone from 'an option in the Monster Manual mainly intended for cohorts but you can apply it to PCs' to 'an option in the Bestiary for PCs.'
So it's about as 'ok' to play as ever, and the power is always in the DM's hands.
Since 3.5 made LA core and "ok" to play
The way we played and I DM'd LA was, if you were a Mino, with a LA of (example only) +1, then your a 1st level Wizard Mino but on the experience table you needed to get to the lvl 3 experience mark, because effectively your a lvl 2 character. So the other people in the party will be level 3 when the LA character gets his 2nd level in whatever.
In D&D you are stuck with a balancing system that rarely works. In Pathfinder you are given a more free-form system that lets you balance things as needed. The rules also encourage GMs to keep a close eye on monster characters. Another advantage of Pathfinder's system over the LA system, is that (with your GM's permission) you have the potential to play ANY monster, rather than being limited to just those with a listed LA (which often end up brokenly strong or brokenly weak anyways).
In the rigid LA system, when it begins to break down in terms of balance (and it often does), there's nothing you can do short of houseruling it. Pathfinder's CR system lets you make adjustments on the go (and it also takes into account such things as diminishing returns from racial abilities, which D&D doesn't).
The differences between PF's system and 3.5's system:
A vague 'sometimes monsters without racial HD are considered powerful enough to 'count' as having 1 class level' (IE: LA +1, with no guidance about which monsters those are)
PF uses LA values equal to CR.
The effective LA used decreases by half over time.
That's it. The entirety of the system is being vague about no-racial HD characters, changing LA to be the same as CR, and having LA diminish in a fixed fashion.
Where's this flexibility and free-form 'system' for evaluating balance? Did I miss a section? (I may very well have!)
This is worse than LA for two reasons:
First, challenge rating has little to do with 'good for a PC.' If you need me to defend this point, poke me about it.
Second, not all components of LA diminish, and those components that do so don't do so equally.
For example, Drow SR is pretty much valuable from level 1-20, because it scales. Most poisons and other effects based on level do, as well.
Flight probably goes on a scheme like PF presents; it starts off incredibly useful, diminishes over time, but then stabilizes (since it's a spell you don't need to cast, an effect that works when magic doesn't, and it's an item you don't need).
Add to that, the relative impact of LA changes over levels; generally it matters more at the beginning. Missing a level of 'stuff' is incredibly more important when you have 10 hit points than when you have 100.
It's a really messy area to be sure.
My own idea on this front was to replace enhanced characteristics and special abilities of level-adjusted races with racial feats that you can gain as you increase in level. Hence you could start off as a normal Drow from the Bestiary, and use feats to gain the ability score increases and powers of a Noble Drow as you advance.
Now this is OK for races without racial hit dice, but I'm not sure how it would work for creatures with them. I think you would still have to have racial class levels with the primary racial abilities worked in as class features and using feats to gain the rest and avoid taking LAs. This will elad you to characters of a race who don't have all the abilities of the race and the feats typical of a member of the race until they are very advanced (if at all) in some cases, but on the other hand it avoids those horrible level adjustments, which are possibly the worst idea ever involved in D&D.