I've recently started changing over from 3.5 to pathfinder for most of my gaming pleasure. I'm playing a 4th Level Dwarven artificer right now.
I was cruising through the bestiary and I noticed that races like the drow no longer have LA and I didn't see a LA for the Half Templates (Half- Dragon, Celestial, Fiend, ect...)
So I was wondering, is LA now a thing of the past? Or did I miss something? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Thaylen
LA was discarded as it was determined by the developers to be fairly inaccurate. Nothing stops you from using it anyway since there is plenty of 3.5 material to draw from to get a half Dragon's LA.
In some of the AP players guides they have a lot of optional rules for allowing minor monster races like tieflings. Basically, they suggest modifying the race so that its within the scope of the standard races.
For a half dragon, IMHO, that is probably +2 Str, +2 Cha, -2 Int (perhaps half dragons are overwhelmed by their feral instincts), or maybe just +2 to any attribute like other half races. 1d4 claws and a 1d6 bite. +2 natural AC. Darkvision. Maybe the Equivalent of Elven Magic trait.
Oooh just remembered something else. It was suggested in one of the APs I believe, that you can take a race with a level adjustement or equivalent level and give them an equivalent number of commoner levels.
Part of the problem with level adjustments is that you may have the powers of 7th level character, but the BAB, HP, and other derived traits of 3rd level character and are unable compete with the monsters you are fighting. If you take on commoner levels to racial abilities, you make a kind homebrew monster class, that gives your PC a level playing field. Its still very loosey goosey, but if you want to keep the racial stats where they are, that is what I would suggest.
there are actually some 'dirty' rules for playing monster races in the bestiary. not perfect, but they are there. somewhere in the back, monsters as PC's or something similar.
In my opinion they make monsters as PC's too powerful though, where in 3.5 they were too weak generally.
I'd houserule it as CR being LA, and it should work ok ish, prolly a bit more powerful at low levels though.
Thanks for the help guys.
-Thaylen
Suppose I wanted to play a Half Dragon
Find out what your GM likes. You might get away as cheaply as a case of good bear, or as expensively as a bottle of really good whisk(e)y.
Or maybe there is a car that needs to be washed, a house to be cleaned.
There's other possible incentives to get a GM to get him to agree, but you'll have to find out for yourself.
Never forget, though, the power of extortion! You need to have something on your GM, but if you do, you could get away with full-fledged dragon!
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My group often plays races with LA. We often play two or more games at the same time. We have normal games and we have "heroic" ones. Essentially, all the PCs are LA races. We decide on LA, let's say +4, and everybody create characters with that LA. Then we continue with normal level progression, ignoring LA.