As mentioned in earlier posts, I sometimes use the bloodline levels from Unearthed Arcana. I also disapprove of too much unnecessary cruft dragging characters down. Particularly in the case of the nearly-useless minor bloodlines - the only good reason to take them is RP.
So I use them slightly differently. In my game, each bloodline level isn't a level so much as it is a level adjustment. At certain intervals, instead of taking a bloodline level, you increase your level adjustment by one. It doesn't count as a class level for any purpose. However, because this is level adjustment, it can be reduced like any level adjustment.
Say you have a minor bloodline. When you ding 12th level, you need to increase your level adjustment instead of gaining a class level. But, since minor bloodlines count as a +1 LA, you may then spend 3,000, 6,000, or 11,000 experience (depending which LA reduction system you're using) to pay it off.
If you have an intermediate bloodline, then when you ding 6th and 12th levels, you need to take a level adjustment. At any time, you may reduce these level adjustments as if you were an LA+2 creature. Same goes for major bloodlines, except you gain LA at 3rd, 6th, and 12th level, and you may reduce them as if you were an LA+3 creature.
You may not, however, ever reduce your LA below +0.
---
I also allow monster classes, as from Savage Species, Libris Mortis, and some of the Races of books.
Monster classes for creatures that have level adjustment include empty levels, where your effective character level increases and you gain some powers, but you gain no hit dice or skill points. HeroForge even represents these empty levels straightforwardly as level adjustment.
I allow these, too, to be reduced as level adjustment. The experience cost is determined by the total number of empty levels of the monster class, which is to say, the total LA of the final creature.
For example, take the myconid monster class I posted some time ago. The full progression includes 6 HD and 6 empty levels. Put another way, a full-power myconid sovereign has 6 HD and +6 LA. At any point, a myconid character may pay off its empty levels, reducing its ECL but losing no abilities, as if it were already a +6 LA creature.
Again, you may never reduce your LA below +0.
Showing posts with label LA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LA. Show all posts
Friday, May 20, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Level Adjustment Reduction 2: Hit Dice
In my post on LA reduction, I mentioned the possibility of doing the same thing, but taking hit dice into account.
I still want the only determining factor in when you can reduce your LA to be the experience cost, and I still want experience cost to be based only on level adjustment. So the natural option is to figure out what the average hit dice are for any given LA.
One of the very nice things about HeroForge and its ilk is that they all contain lists of the relevant information. In particular, MonsterForge contains a list of, apparently, every 3.5e creature (HeroForge contains a list of all or most of the creatures that advance solely by class level, which is much less useful).
So let's analyze the creatures. First, I eliminate every creature with an LA of 0 or --. Now, because creatures with 1 or fewer HD replace their HD with a class level, we change HD of 1 or less to instead read 0. Now it's a simple matter of taking each tier of LA and averaging together the HD of all the monsters in that tier.
The results:
LA : HD
+1 : 1.375
+2 : 3.3
+3 : 4
+4 : 7.85
+5 : 7.79
+6 : 8.2
+7 : 8.19
+8 : 11.67
+9 : 13
+18 : 7
There are only two creatures with LA+9 (the Hezrou and the Sillit), only one with LA+18 (the Aurumach Rilmani), and nothing in between or greater.
Plugging those numbers in generates a chart along these lines:
+1 : 4,375
+2 : 10,300; 12,300
+3 : 15,000; 20,000; 22,000
+4 : 22,850; 30,850; 35,850; 37,850
+5 : 26,790; 37,790; 45,790; 50,790; 52,790
+6 : 31,200; 45,200; 56,200; 64,200; 69,200; 71,200
+7 : 35,190; 52,190; 66,190; 77,190; 85,190; 90,190; 92,190
+8 : 42,670; 62,670; 79,670; 93,670; 104,670; 112,670; 117,670; 119,670
+9 : 48,000; 71,000; 91,000; 108,000; 122,000; 133,000; 141,000; 146,000; 148,000
(To reduce the Aurumach Rilmani's LA by 1 costs 78,000; the 18th step costs 520,000. I will leave it out of further calculations, because it is preposterous.)
How messy!
We can clean it up a little if we take the all-powerful rule that you Always Round Down (and take into account that HD1 = HD0 when class levels are involved):
1 : 3,000
2 : 10,000; 12,000
3 : 15,000; 20,000; 22,000
4 : 22,000; 30,000; 35,000; 37,000
5 : 26,000; 37,000; 45,000; 50,000; 52,000
6 : 31,000; 45,000; 56,000; 64,000; 69,000; 71,000
7 : 35,000; 52,000; 66,000; 77,000; 85,000; 90,000; 92,000
8 : 42,000; 62,000; 79,000; 93,000; 104,000; 112,000; 117,000; 119,000
9 : 48,000; 71,000; 91,000; 108,000; 122,000; 133,000; 141,000; 146,000; 148,000
This is still problematic in that it is inelegant. It is derived from a statistical analysis of creatures, so there's no way to recreate it without the original data set. The UA rules are nice in that they can be described as algorithms to follow.
So let's come up with an algorithm.
Let's try comparing the average difference between LA and HD. Returning to the original dataset pulled from MonsterForge, it turns out that the average creature's HD is slightly more than 2 greater than its LA.
I was all set to complain that low-LA creatures are more likely to have HD lower than their LA and high-LA creatures are more likely to have HD much higher than their LA, but a closer analysis of the data finds the greatest concentration of substantial difference is actually in LA +4 and +5.
So that works out: let's assume all creatures have 2 more HD than they have LA. The numbers are now:
1 : 6,000
2 : 11,000; 13,000
3 : 16,000; 21,000; 23,000
4 : 21,000; 29,000; 34,000; 36,000
5 : 26,000; 37,000; 45,000; 50,000; 52,000
6 : 31,000; 45,000; 56,000; 64,000; 69,000; 71,000
7 : 36,000; 53,000; 67,000; 78,000; 86,000; 91,000; 93,000
8 : 41,000; 61,000; 78,000; 92,000; 103,000; 111,000; 116,000; 118,000
9 : 46,000; 69,000; 89,000; 106,000; 120,000; 131,000; 139,000; 144,000; 146,000
Any one of these charts can work. I'm inclined to go with either this last one or the very first one, from the previous post, as they are the two which are most conceptually elegant, representable algorithmically.
I still want the only determining factor in when you can reduce your LA to be the experience cost, and I still want experience cost to be based only on level adjustment. So the natural option is to figure out what the average hit dice are for any given LA.
One of the very nice things about HeroForge and its ilk is that they all contain lists of the relevant information. In particular, MonsterForge contains a list of, apparently, every 3.5e creature (HeroForge contains a list of all or most of the creatures that advance solely by class level, which is much less useful).
So let's analyze the creatures. First, I eliminate every creature with an LA of 0 or --. Now, because creatures with 1 or fewer HD replace their HD with a class level, we change HD of 1 or less to instead read 0. Now it's a simple matter of taking each tier of LA and averaging together the HD of all the monsters in that tier.
The results:
LA : HD
+1 : 1.375
+2 : 3.3
+3 : 4
+4 : 7.85
+5 : 7.79
+6 : 8.2
+7 : 8.19
+8 : 11.67
+9 : 13
+18 : 7
There are only two creatures with LA+9 (the Hezrou and the Sillit), only one with LA+18 (the Aurumach Rilmani), and nothing in between or greater.
Plugging those numbers in generates a chart along these lines:
+1 : 4,375
+2 : 10,300; 12,300
+3 : 15,000; 20,000; 22,000
+4 : 22,850; 30,850; 35,850; 37,850
+5 : 26,790; 37,790; 45,790; 50,790; 52,790
+6 : 31,200; 45,200; 56,200; 64,200; 69,200; 71,200
+7 : 35,190; 52,190; 66,190; 77,190; 85,190; 90,190; 92,190
+8 : 42,670; 62,670; 79,670; 93,670; 104,670; 112,670; 117,670; 119,670
+9 : 48,000; 71,000; 91,000; 108,000; 122,000; 133,000; 141,000; 146,000; 148,000
(To reduce the Aurumach Rilmani's LA by 1 costs 78,000; the 18th step costs 520,000. I will leave it out of further calculations, because it is preposterous.)
How messy!
We can clean it up a little if we take the all-powerful rule that you Always Round Down (and take into account that HD1 = HD0 when class levels are involved):
1 : 3,000
2 : 10,000; 12,000
3 : 15,000; 20,000; 22,000
4 : 22,000; 30,000; 35,000; 37,000
5 : 26,000; 37,000; 45,000; 50,000; 52,000
6 : 31,000; 45,000; 56,000; 64,000; 69,000; 71,000
7 : 35,000; 52,000; 66,000; 77,000; 85,000; 90,000; 92,000
8 : 42,000; 62,000; 79,000; 93,000; 104,000; 112,000; 117,000; 119,000
9 : 48,000; 71,000; 91,000; 108,000; 122,000; 133,000; 141,000; 146,000; 148,000
This is still problematic in that it is inelegant. It is derived from a statistical analysis of creatures, so there's no way to recreate it without the original data set. The UA rules are nice in that they can be described as algorithms to follow.
So let's come up with an algorithm.
Let's try comparing the average difference between LA and HD. Returning to the original dataset pulled from MonsterForge, it turns out that the average creature's HD is slightly more than 2 greater than its LA.
I was all set to complain that low-LA creatures are more likely to have HD lower than their LA and high-LA creatures are more likely to have HD much higher than their LA, but a closer analysis of the data finds the greatest concentration of substantial difference is actually in LA +4 and +5.
So that works out: let's assume all creatures have 2 more HD than they have LA. The numbers are now:
1 : 6,000
2 : 11,000; 13,000
3 : 16,000; 21,000; 23,000
4 : 21,000; 29,000; 34,000; 36,000
5 : 26,000; 37,000; 45,000; 50,000; 52,000
6 : 31,000; 45,000; 56,000; 64,000; 69,000; 71,000
7 : 36,000; 53,000; 67,000; 78,000; 86,000; 91,000; 93,000
8 : 41,000; 61,000; 78,000; 92,000; 103,000; 111,000; 116,000; 118,000
9 : 46,000; 69,000; 89,000; 106,000; 120,000; 131,000; 139,000; 144,000; 146,000
Any one of these charts can work. I'm inclined to go with either this last one or the very first one, from the previous post, as they are the two which are most conceptually elegant, representable algorithmically.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Level Adjustment Reduction
I don't like the idea of being saddled with a useless LA dragging a character down forever, and I like the Unearthed Arcana rules for reduction of level adjustment.
But I find the rules as presented unnecessarily complicated. You need to be a specific class level, and then you pay an amount of experience determined by your effective character level. It implies without specifically saying that if you fail to pay off your LA at the indicated level, the opportunity is forever lost to you. I don't like it, and want it simpler and clearer.
Let's consider how much you would pay in the old system. Let's imagine a tiefling, with +1 LA and no hit dice. Once she reaches 6000 experience and dings class level LAx3=1x3=3, she may pay (ECL-1)x1000=(4-1)x1000=3000xp and drop the LA. She is now at 3000 experience, precisely appropriate for her new ECL of 3. The system is designed to achieve precisely that result, never having more or less experience than is appropriate. But I don't care about that so much, so I consider myself free to simplify it without any need to maintain the precisely proper amount of XP relative to level.
I explicitly model the experience reduction on the experience cost for casting a spell with an XP component It's axiomatic in Rules-As-Written D&D that you can never spend so much experience that you go down a level. But I'm cool with letting a character spend more than that. So under this system, your total experience can go down as far as zero, and you never lose class levels from it. (I'm inclined to allow you to do the same for spells and crafted items with XP components.) If you treat this in such a way that you can't spend so much your level would go down, then it winds up looking very much like the original UA rules.
UA's system is explicitly set up in response to the fact that, as a character gains levels, his benefit from LA begins to pale in comparison to his class abilities. That's the other part of why they set the specific limits on what levels you can begin to pay off your LA. But I'm confident that this will be achieved to my satisfaction, even if no one else's, simply by requiring you to have enough experience to spend. As a bonus, if you spend all your experience down almost to zero, it will be a long, boring slog before you can increase your level again, which may make players think twice about it.
So we can do away with the restriction on when the LA may be reduced, provided the character has enough experience to do it. We need to change the experience cost to constant numbers, then, and make them depend solely on the LA the character started with. We need to determine, then, what those numbers should be.
UA cares about hit dice. Do we? If so, we need to figure out the average HD of each tier of LA, which adds substantial scouring of the Monster Manuals and extra calculation to our workload. If not, our experience costs will wind up substantially lower than UA's. This could easily go either way, and perhaps in the future I'll make another post, doing the necessary calculations to take HD into account. For now, I'll pretend all creatures have class levels and LA, but no HD.
Let's consider our tiefling again. She may spend 3,000 experience to reduce her LA from +1 to +0, so that makes a good starting point:
+1 : 3,000
What would a LA+2 creature like a drow need? Well, the drow dings class level LAx3=2x3=6 at 28,000 experience, and may reduce his LA for a cost of (8-1)x1000=7000xp. He is now ECL7, with 21,000xp. At 45,000xp, he dings class level 9, ECL10, and may pay (10-1)x1000=9000xp to reduce his LA to zero, leaving him with 36,000xp at ECL9. Thus:
+2 : 7,000; 9,000
Long story short, the complete chart up to LA+10 (if you have LAs higher than +10 in your game, consider the possibility that you are some kind of crazy person) winds up working out to:
+1 : 3,000
+2 : 7,000; 9,000
+3 : 11,000; 16,000; 18,000
+4 : 15,000; 23,000; 28,000; 30,000
+5 : 19,000; 30,000; 38,000; 43,000; 45,000
+6 : 23,000; 37,000; 48,000; 56,000; 61,000; 63,000
+7 : 27,000; 44,000; 58,000; 69,000; 77,000; 82,000; 84,000
+8 : 31,000; 51,000; 68,000; 82,000; 93,000; 101,000; 106,000; 108,000
+9 : 35,000; 58,000; 78,000; 95,000; 109,000; 12,0000; 128,000; 133,000; 135,000
+10 : 39,000; 65,000; 88,000; 108,000; 125,000; 139,000; 150,000; 158,000; 163,000; 165,000
Most of these do indeed allow you to pay off your LA much earlier than UA would allow. Heck, an LA+10 creature needs 66,000xp just to ding class level 2, so it could pay off its first point of LA before it ever levels at all; UA would have it waiting until class level 30 (ECL40). Conversely, paying off the LA before level 1 does almost double the amount of xp it needs to earn before it gains a second class level.
But I find the rules as presented unnecessarily complicated. You need to be a specific class level, and then you pay an amount of experience determined by your effective character level. It implies without specifically saying that if you fail to pay off your LA at the indicated level, the opportunity is forever lost to you. I don't like it, and want it simpler and clearer.
Let's consider how much you would pay in the old system. Let's imagine a tiefling, with +1 LA and no hit dice. Once she reaches 6000 experience and dings class level LAx3=1x3=3, she may pay (ECL-1)x1000=(4-1)x1000=3000xp and drop the LA. She is now at 3000 experience, precisely appropriate for her new ECL of 3. The system is designed to achieve precisely that result, never having more or less experience than is appropriate. But I don't care about that so much, so I consider myself free to simplify it without any need to maintain the precisely proper amount of XP relative to level.
UA's system is explicitly set up in response to the fact that, as a character gains levels, his benefit from LA begins to pale in comparison to his class abilities. That's the other part of why they set the specific limits on what levels you can begin to pay off your LA. But I'm confident that this will be achieved to my satisfaction, even if no one else's, simply by requiring you to have enough experience to spend. As a bonus, if you spend all your experience down almost to zero, it will be a long, boring slog before you can increase your level again, which may make players think twice about it.
So we can do away with the restriction on when the LA may be reduced, provided the character has enough experience to do it. We need to change the experience cost to constant numbers, then, and make them depend solely on the LA the character started with. We need to determine, then, what those numbers should be.
UA cares about hit dice. Do we? If so, we need to figure out the average HD of each tier of LA, which adds substantial scouring of the Monster Manuals and extra calculation to our workload. If not, our experience costs will wind up substantially lower than UA's. This could easily go either way, and perhaps in the future I'll make another post, doing the necessary calculations to take HD into account. For now, I'll pretend all creatures have class levels and LA, but no HD.
Let's consider our tiefling again. She may spend 3,000 experience to reduce her LA from +1 to +0, so that makes a good starting point:
+1 : 3,000
What would a LA+2 creature like a drow need? Well, the drow dings class level LAx3=2x3=6 at 28,000 experience, and may reduce his LA for a cost of (8-1)x1000=7000xp. He is now ECL7, with 21,000xp. At 45,000xp, he dings class level 9, ECL10, and may pay (10-1)x1000=9000xp to reduce his LA to zero, leaving him with 36,000xp at ECL9. Thus:
+2 : 7,000; 9,000
Long story short, the complete chart up to LA+10 (if you have LAs higher than +10 in your game, consider the possibility that you are some kind of crazy person) winds up working out to:
+1 : 3,000
+2 : 7,000; 9,000
+3 : 11,000; 16,000; 18,000
+4 : 15,000; 23,000; 28,000; 30,000
+5 : 19,000; 30,000; 38,000; 43,000; 45,000
+6 : 23,000; 37,000; 48,000; 56,000; 61,000; 63,000
+7 : 27,000; 44,000; 58,000; 69,000; 77,000; 82,000; 84,000
+8 : 31,000; 51,000; 68,000; 82,000; 93,000; 101,000; 106,000; 108,000
+9 : 35,000; 58,000; 78,000; 95,000; 109,000; 12,0000; 128,000; 133,000; 135,000
+10 : 39,000; 65,000; 88,000; 108,000; 125,000; 139,000; 150,000; 158,000; 163,000; 165,000
Most of these do indeed allow you to pay off your LA much earlier than UA would allow. Heck, an LA+10 creature needs 66,000xp just to ding class level 2, so it could pay off its first point of LA before it ever levels at all; UA would have it waiting until class level 30 (ECL40). Conversely, paying off the LA before level 1 does almost double the amount of xp it needs to earn before it gains a second class level.
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