Post/Author/DateTime	Post
The Grew Knight 01-07-04, 03:52 AM	My best friend is always complaining about how monsters are not as easily playable as PC's because of the 3.5 ECL rules. And he suggested we use the EQRPG xp percentile penalty instead. Well... While I was working on trying to convert the Level Adjustments to an XP percentile penalty I accidentally came upon something I had NEVER seen before within the frramework of the ECL/LA rules. I found that, and shoot me if anyone else has seen or allready posted about it before... but I came upon the Hypiphony (spelling) about how easy it is to use the LA (Leval Adjustments) and easily make any monster with a LA into a player character. The Hypiphony was that your LA was the key. What I mean is that you pick you monster and whatever their LA is, you multiply that by 1,000 xp and that is what is needed extra to gain EVERY level on the XP Ladder. Example: You decide to make a Nymph (6HD & LA +7). She will automatically count as a 6th level character with her having 6 levels in the Fey Monster Class. That puts her starting XP at 15,000 XP. Therefore she would normally need 6,000 XP to go up to being a 7th level character if she so choose to pick up say a level of Bard. But WAIT!!! she has that +7 Level Adjustment. So you add an additional 7,000 xp to the amount needed to go up to 7th level. (6,000 + 7,000 equals 13,000 xp needed to go up to a 7th level character). I compared this to the old way I saw this done which was... Nymph = 6HD + a +7La = 13th Level ECL, which makes the base Xp 78,000. 14th Level is at 91,000 XP. So the Nymph needs exactly 13,000 XP to go up to 14th Character Level. Which is just the same as EASILY multiplying her LA of +7 by 1,000 XP and adding that to EVERY Level XP Requirement. I have made XP Ladders for EVERY LA. Here is an example of what I mean... Level +0 LA +1 LA +2 LA +3 LA +4 LA +5 LA 1st 0 0 0 0 0 0 2nd 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 3rd 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 4th 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000 11000 5th 10000 11000 12000 13000 14000 15000 6th 15000 16000 17000 18000 19000 20000 7th 21000 22000 23000 24000 25000 26000 8th 28000 29000 30000 31000 32000 33000 9th 36000 37000 38000 39000 40000 41000 10th 45000 46000 47000 48000 49000 50000 11th 55000 56000 57000 58000 59000 60000 12th 66000 67000 68000 69000 70000 71000 13th 78000 79000 80000 81000 82000 83000 14th 91000 92000 93000 94000 95000 96000 15th 105000 106000 107000 108000 109000 110000 16th 120000 121000 122000 123000 124000 125000 17th 136000 137000 138000 139000 140000 141000 18th 153000 154000 155000 156000 157000 158000 19th 171000 172000 173000 174000 175000 176000 20th 190000 191000 192000 193000 194000 195000 We have doen more work on this to give it more of a 2nd Edition feel, by using the rules from the 2nd Ed. Humanoids Handbook, where you would take away all levels of the monster class and just make a normal character, but with the special abilities and any racial bonuses frfom whatever monstar you want. The key is to add the amount of hit dice they have at first level as bonus hit points. I.E. If you wanted to make a Firbolg, which is a 13 HD monster with a LA of +5, and wanted to make him a Barbarian. You would do the following... 1.) Forget all about his 13 HD as it pertains to Skill Points, Hit Points, & Feats. 2.) Roll up stats as usual. 3.) Add his racial bonuses to his stats. 4.) Add in his racial bonuses to any skills. 5.) Finish the character as you would normally. 6.) Write down all of his special/racial abilities. 7.) Add 13 bonus Hit Points to him at 1st level, and 1st Level ONLY. 13 being the number of HD he had. 8.) Write down his experience gained as 0. And under XP needed for next Level, put 6,000 XP. 1,000 for the normal progression to 2nd level + 5,000 (His Level Adjustment of +5 multiplied by 1,000 and added to the xp amount of EVERY Level from 2nd to 20th Level on the Experience Ladder). Now you would have a 1st Level Firbolg ready to go and adventure with a 1st Level group. He will start of ahead of them in the race, but will slowly start to allow them to catch up. all NORMAL 1st level characters will be atleast 1 level ahead of him, helping them to keep on par with his special abilities. PLEASE give me you feedback so I can know how much my LUCK & hard work have paid off. P.S. If anyone has any suggestions, then please send them my way! :smirk:
Solaris 01-07-04, 05:14 AM	Epiphany.
Zherog 01-07-04, 08:21 AM	If you place your table between [/b]] tags, it should be easier to read, like this: [code] Level +0 LA +1 LA +2 LA +3 LA +4 LA +5 LA 1st 0 0 0 0 0 0 2nd 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 3rd 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 4th 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000 11000 5th 10000 11000 12000 13000 14000 15000 6th 15000 16000 17000 18000 19000 20000 7th 21000 22000 23000 24000 25000 26000 8th 28000 29000 30000 31000 32000 33000 9th 36000 37000 38000 39000 40000 41000 10th 45000 46000 47000 48000 49000 50000 11th 55000 56000 57000 58000 59000 60000 12th 66000 67000 68000 69000 70000 71000 13th 78000 79000 80000 81000 82000 83000 14th 91000 92000 93000 94000 95000 96000 15th 105000 106000 107000 108000 109000 110000 16th 120000 121000 122000 123000 124000 125000 17th 136000 137000 138000 139000 140000 141000 18th 153000 154000 155000 156000 157000 158000 19th 171000 172000 173000 174000 175000 176000 20th 190000 191000 192000 193000 194000 195000 As to the idea itself, you will end up with characters that are too powerful for their level early on, and they'll begin to pay for that power as they progress through levels. For example, under your method if there were a monster that had a +5 level adjustment (and no racial hit dice) I could play that character at first level. Things would be awfully easy. And while I would be paying for that ease by needing more XP to level, any of my fellow party members who have a lower LA (particularly an LA of +0) will be riding my coat tails through the first several levels.
Dust Dailo 01-07-04, 08:48 AM	I was always under the impression that the level adjustment is what told how many levels they are equalivilent of having, not their ECL or HD. So the Nymph in your example would start having experience of a 7th level character. So to gain first level of a character class, they would have to get enough XP to become an 8th level character.
Zherog 01-07-04, 10:01 AM	Actually, Dust, the Nymph would start as an effective 13th level character, due to 6 racial hit dice.
Palin the Wizard 01-07-04, 12:24 PM	LA + HD = ECL. People always forget this, it seems.
The Grew Knight 01-11-04, 03:05 AM	I haven's forgotten that HD/Class Levels + LA = ECL. I just wanted to give my players the same options to play their favorite monsters as PC's just like we did in 2nd Edition via the Humanoids Handbook. BTW, I was WAY off on that XP Ladder I posted to begin with. Here is the updated and CORRECTED one... Level +0 LA +1 LA +2 LA +3 LA +4 LA +5 LA 1st 0 0 0 0 0 0 2nd 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 3rd 3000 5000 7000 9000 11000 13000 4th 6000 9000 12000 15000 18000 21000 5th 10000 14000 18000 22000 26000 30000 6th 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000 7th 21000 27000 33000 39000 45000 51000 8th 28000 35000 42000 49000 56000 63000 9th 36000 44000 52000 60000 68000 76000 10th 45000 54000 63000 72000 81000 90000 11th 55000 65000 75000 85000 95000 105000 12th 66000 77000 88000 99000 110000 121000 13th 78000 90000 102000 114000 126000 138000 14th 91000 104000 117000 130000 143000 156000 15th 105000 119000 133000 147000 161000 175000 16th 120000 135000 150000 165000 180000 195000 17th 136000 152000 168000 184000 200000 216000 18th 153000 170000 187000 204000 221000 238000 19th 171000 189000 207000 225000 243000 261000 20th 190000 209000 218000 237000 256000 275000 :D Sorry about it not coming out looking like I meant it to. I am new and do not know how to use the [CODE]'s.
The Grew Knight 01-11-04, 01:56 PM	Just in case anyone was wondering how the ladder worked... Each additional LA Ladder i.e. +6 LA and so on would go up as follows. 1st level goes up by 0 every LA 2nd Level goes up by 1,000 every LA 3rd Level goes up by 2,000 every LA, and so on... :D
Conaill 01-14-04, 06:28 PM	So... If that Nymph has an Equivalent Character Level of 13... why are you surprised that she needs 13,000 xp to gain her next level? At whatever level you're at, the amount of XP needed to reach the next level is equal to your (Equivalent Character) Level times 1000. No need to start making up new XP tables...
The Grew Knight 01-15-04, 10:34 AM	Making the new xp tables does take some time but it is all worth it. I DM for a group that is very new to roleplaying and it makes it easier for them to have that chart right there in ink and paper so that they can look at it, instead of asking me what their next level costs. Besides the Nymph in my campaign is not an ECL 13 character because we dropped her racial hit dice to give her more of a 2nd edition (Humanoids Handbook) feel. And so the person could play her in a 1st level campaign. You would say her ECL is 8 right now. And that is too powerful for a 1st level campaign & not fair to all the other players in the group. BUT!!! every one of my players in this campaign are using a character race with a level adjustment. I am trying this out to see if it works for my group. I just thought there might be someone out there that might like the idea aswell. I wasn't trying to tell everyone to go and use my idea. But, as it goes right now, my group is enjoying their new characters. And this is my first time of really allowing some different things other than ONLY PHB 3.5 classes and races.