Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sosthenes 12-03-07, 06:04 AM	In my campaign, we had a recurring enemy, who managed to come back as a vampire. But as he was dead for quite a while, the body wasn't as fresh as a vampire's spawn usually is. As the vampire cult doing the taking was quite experimental, they used "troll essence" to easy the transformation, resulting a rather cool troll-dwarf-vampire hybrid. Now the players had a few troll potions once they vanquished the foe this time, but they managed to capture a bit of troll essence. It was rather obvious, that using it would be too much trouble, but in one situation, the sole cleric was dying (or even barely beyond -10) and they used the essence. I ruled that this would basically turn the cleric in a half-troll. So much for the back story. Now I made two mistakes: I said that the transformation was going on over a few weeks, instead of some kind of "savage progression", and I assumed that the cleric wanted to get rid of that stuff. But he's quite happy with a reprieve from stupendous spell memorization and wants to get a bit more physical, where being half-troll is quite neat. Now the LA stumps me a bit. From what I understand, the player would both gain less XP (either through XP by average party level or even more by separate calculations) _and_ only gain a cleric level one he has enough XP for his ECL. So if he's Cleric 13 and +4 LA, he'll be a 14th-level cleric once he has enough XP for level 18 -- which could take a while. Am I correct in this assumption? I could live with that, as this might change his mind about getting rid of the "curse". I know that this has probably been discussed before, but I couldn't find the right thread -- and as I said above, it's a bit late for savage progressions...
Marcus Majarra 12-03-07, 08:26 AM	You are correct in this assumption. You resolve experience through ECL.
Drohem 12-03-07, 11:27 AM	Yes, that's the way it's handled.
Sosthenes 12-04-07, 06:01 AM	Well, I still think the rules are a bit wishy-washy when it comes to adding on templates midcampaign. Normally ECL is no problem, as a _created_ 13th-level half-troll would have the XPs of a 17th level character, while someone who just gained it has the XPs of a 13th-level char, yet still gains them at the same speed as the created one. So the XP progression for someone starting out with LA +4, one gaining it bit by bit (savage progression) and one getting it all at once would look radically different.
Marcus Majarra 12-04-07, 10:39 AM	Be that as it may, if you do it any other way, you're indeed giving out free experience to the character if you don't follow the rules. Templates with LA were never meant to be gained spontaneously mid-campaign by player characters.
Sosthenes 12-04-07, 01:10 PM	Be that as it may, if you do it any other way, you're indeed giving out free experience to the character if you don't follow the rules. Templates with LA were never meant to be gained spontaneously mid-campaign by player characters. I'll have to agree with the first sentence, but not with the last. It really seems that there's no way out of this that#s both fair and mathematically simple. Yet gaining templates mid-campaign is a definite possibility, especially considering lycanthropes... I think part of the problem is that I intended to give out non-uniform amounts of XPs, depending on character level (so the cleric would get less and those lagging behind would get more than the average member). If I go by average party level, things will probably even out, as he won't be as penalized anymore. Hmm, I'll probably have to chart this out ;)
Marcus Majarra 12-04-07, 04:18 PM	Experience point awards are already based on the ECL of each individual character. As such, an ECL 2 character and an ECL 3 character will not earn the same amount of experience from the same encounter. The fairest compromise you can reach would be for the character with the template to continue acquiring experience according to his original ECL, adjusting these gains whenever a new "level" would've been attained, until he acquires the amount of experience necessary to match his actual ECL. The end result is the same as the one he would've had, if the template had been acquired gradually, except that he got the benefit of enjoying the template's full benefits beforehand. This is why templates were not meant to be acquired in the middle of an adventure. I would avoid delving into the entire lycanthrope issue, since it involves a lot more than a simple template. It's also expected that PCs afflicted would seek to be cured of lycanthropy.