The Campaign Builder's Guild

Does anyone else find the LA system punitive and horrible?

Especially at higher levels and LAs (and definitely for spellcasting classes), the system just makes creatures unplayable.

I use HD instead (as you'll see in the Ik-Sa and Sihaya of Kahtar) and try to treat racial features as class features - the race gets the HP, skills, feats and saves of a creature of its level, but it just has class features that are... racial.

Does anyone else dislike the system (or indeed, oppose my views?)

yeah... LA is a glass cannon system. You get resistance to X and gain vulnerability to everything else.

Really, monsters as PCs just doesn't work well if they both use the same stats, imo. A pc needs x/day abilities, or abilities that synergize well with class abilities; while a monster needs to be simple, at will abilities (less to keep track of), and it needs to work well with no class levels.

Seconded.  I think one of the most unsatisfying things about D&D is that if you want to play as a monster you have to have some severe limitations, and unless you have something like Savage Species you can't play from 1st level.  Just because they're usually antagonists in stories does not mean that when players get around to deciding their characters they shouldn't be allowed to play something like a troll.  I can find just as compelling a reason to play a red dragon as an orc (in fact, using D&D mythos and whatnot, a red dragon is actually a more fun character from motivational perspective), but with the current LA+HD system that just won't happen.

I have designed a class calculator, based primarily off of the BESM system and a WotC boards poster's original works. The system has a price for everything, even the d4 HD; prices are given level by level, and the goal of the system is to have all class levels add up to 10 (in the case of classes with blank levels, blank levels pay for larger abilities the next level).

Because my system prices HD, I'm able to utilize the system to price level adjustments too. The standard PHB races add up to 9 points on my system, though there are a few exceptions (humans, half-elves, and half-orcs add up to less, dwarves add up to more).

Because the base race adds up to 10ish, and each level of a class adds up to 10ish, if a race with no racial HD adds up to 20, they have +1 level adjustment.

With my system, I was able to craft the non-human races of my world. My anthro races all have two humanoid HD, which are weaker than standard  class levels; their racial abilities then function as class abilities (and I have progressions for them if someone wants to play them at first level).

Additionally, I have several other races which have 2 racial HD and +2 Level Adjustment; I believe that no race should have an adjustment higher than their racial HD. With my calculator, I was able to give them enough abilities, and ability score boosts, to make up for the differences.

I don't think level adjustment is a lost cause, but I do think it should be used sparingly (I do think that caster levels possibly should be determined some other way, so multiclass and level adjusted casters aren't penalized so).

Quote from: XeviatI have designed a class calculator, based primarily off of the BESM system and a WotC boards poster's original works. The system has a price for everything, even the d4 HD; prices are given level by level, and the goal of the system is to have all class levels add up to 10 (in the case of classes with blank levels, blank levels pay for larger abilities the next level).

Because my system prices HD, I'm able to utilize the system to price level adjustments too. The standard PHB races add up to 9 points on my system, though there are a few exceptions (humans, half-elves, and half-orcs add up to less, dwarves add up to more).

Because the base race adds up to 10ish, and each level of a class adds up to 10ish, if a race with no racial HD adds up to 20, they have +1 level adjustment.

With my system, I was able to craft the non-human races of my world. My anthro races all have two humanoid HD, which are weaker than standard  class levels; their racial abilities then function as class abilities (and I have progressions for them if someone wants to play them at first level).

Additionally, I have several other races which have 2 racial HD and +2 Level Adjustment; I believe that no race should have an adjustment higher than their racial HD. With my calculator, I was able to give them enough abilities, and ability score boosts, to make up for the differences.

I don't think level adjustment is a lost cause, but I do think it should be used sparingly (I do think that caster levels possibly should be determined some other way, so multiclass and level adjusted casters aren't penalized so).

That's what I'm talking about.

I give racial HD instead of LA, and calculate racial abilities as class abilities.

My caster classes have requirements, meaning you can't take them from first level - but the more magical of my races can meet the prereqs from first level anyway, sometimes (skills and feats from race).

Golem, I wasn't saying to not use level adjustment at all, but I think level adjustments need to be small in order to be playable.

One oddity I've found in the current system, which is seemingly the reason that casters suck with level adjustments, is that ability scores can shore up a warrior's level adjustment penalties (to hit, hp) or an adventurer's (skill points), but not a caster's (caster level). Sure, a level adjusted caster can get a higher mental score, giving them higher DCs and a few more spell slots, but because bonus spell slots also depend on spell level, it really doesn't work out for the best.

Tome of Battle allows non-initiator class levels to count as 1/2 for caster level. If that were applied to casters, and also level adjustment, some things might be made a little nicer (or heck, for the more caster-oriented races, simply have level adjustment apply as a caster level boost as well; they'll still have lower spell levels, but their potency won't hurt).

In my D&D corrupting days I came up with a very work-intensive option: Create a full racial level, epic stuff and all, for every race. And make them balanced as classes are.



Another, more sophisticated solution: Each race gives a minor bonus each level. That is, level 1 human (of any class) gets common, bonus feat, bonus skills (as normal) and shifting favoured class (as normal). At second level their lowest attribute increases by 1 (roll if there are multiple lowest attributes). When reaching third level, they got a minor special ability, like additional favoured class, any first level class feature (single cantrip a day is considered first level class feature for this purpose), etc.

These cycled every four or so levels.

Multiclassing used Szatany's variant, so that you could have many different classes and use highest BAB and base saves. Each gives feats and bonus attribute points separately, as well as skills (x4 only for the first level of first class). You got to roll hp for every class you take, but onyl highest roll on any given level counts (e.g. fighter 2/wizard 2 who started as wizard would have 4 or d10, whichever is higher, hp from first level and d10 or d4, whichever gives higher result, from second level, plus con as normal from both).

Characters could take racial levels (dragon and outsider take lots of xp). The special perks from race are given at effective level = highest level + racial levels + twice the level adjustment, if any.
E.g. Character who is fighter 4 /human 3 with 1 LA has special human stuff at level 4 + 3 + 2*1 = 9. Ogre 4 / barbarian 2 has highest level 4 + 4 or ogre levels, or 8.

Experience gain is the only sticking point, system-wise. Effective level for gaining experience could be something like highest level + second highest level / 2 + third highest level / 4... , everything rounded up. Favoured class is ignored, unless it is the sole highest, in which case the next highest nonfavoured class is ignored.

Practical problem: You need to come up with 20+epic level worth of special abilities for all playable races, at least.

I recently attempted to get around the LA problem by beating some races down to roughly LA +0 and then giving them advanced classes (since it was done for d20 Modern, essentially prestige classes you enter at level 3) to expand their abilities. Of course, they don't have to take these 'paragon-like' classes, but they won't ever realize their full monstrous heritage without them.

This means they can be played from first level, and means you can play a monstrous race, focus on being a wizard, and simply never 'grow into' your monstrous heritage.

Anyway, the four I've made so far are posted here

Also, Xeviat, do you have your system somewhere?

I'll post the gyst of my system here; I'll probably put it up on my psudo-site soon:


Function: 1 Feat = 2 points.

Class Features Character Points Evaluation
HD: 0.4 points per hit point
d4   20 (1 point per level)
d6   28 (1.4 points per level)
d8   36 (1.8 points per level)
d10   44 (2.2 points per level)
d12   52 (2.6 points per level)
SP: 0.4 points per skill point
2   16 (0.8 point per level)
4   32 (1.6 points per level)
6   48 (2.4 points per level)
8   64 (3.2 points per level)
BAB: 3 points per attack bonus
1/2   30 (1.5 per level)
3/4   45 (2.25 per level)
1/1   60 (3 per level)
Saves: 1 point per point
High   10 (1/2 per level)
Low   5 (1/4 per level)

Then, I looked over all of the class abilities. Anything that grants a feat (be it a set feat or a bonus feat) is 2 points, and then you compare the relative strength of an ability to a feat to determine the cost. The tough one is the abilities that scale with level, like smite or monk spell resistance.

Well, the way you've done hit dice and skill points is to consider the total cost of all 20 levels worth of them as an aggregate. (With no time discount.) You could do the same thing with abilities that scale: rate them according to their maximum at level 20.

I've been looking at doing something vaguely similar (yet also very different at http://69.170.121.6:8080/cgi-bin/GameWiki.pl/ClassTemplates. Don't mind the numerical address, it is my home computer and I'm too cheap to pay extra for a domain name and "static" IP address. (The one I get anyway is functionally static so I'm not really too worried.) If you are interested, you can leave comments there.

I saw a monsters as PCs post where you use a monster's CR and combat type to determin it's ECL.
Same said also has a varient where you shift monster HD and the proposed LA for class like HD to
give the new MPC competing saves and skill point totals while keeping it's HP and attack bonus
relatively close. You have to tweak a little, like with monsters that have unlimited SOD effects.
Races of War: Post 3b: Powerful Races