LA? [Archive] - Wizards Community - Pages Merged by Solauren

LA? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Fenrir_Greyback
01-19-08, 09:24 PM Um, this may be the wrong forum, but does anyone else have a really hard time with level adjustment for some monstrous humanoids in the MM1?

Take the centaur for instance, it has something like +2 OR +3 LA, and four HD. I am playing a game with a few friends, starting at tenth level, but because of LA, the centaur is only 4th. He absolutely SUCKS! We went up against a young adult red dragon, and everyone could hold their own fine, except him. his attacks hardly hit, and when he charged into battle, the dragon promptly slayed him and ate his flesh. ( His carcass was too maimed for us to put back together once we finished the dragon off...)

Any suggestions for what to do to make things a little bit more even?
Captain_Kobold
01-19-08, 09:51 PM Hmm. Lets see. ECL 10: 4 Racial hit dice, +2 LA, 4 class levels.
From your description, it sounds like you are playing a Fighter or Ranger type.
You'll have two hit dice less than your friends, however this is compensated by the 16 extra hit points that the centaur constitution bonus gives you at ECL 10.
You should have around the same, or more hit points than an equivalent human character.

You should also have a better chance to hit in melee than an equivalent human fighter. You lose two points of attack bonus from your LA, and one from your size, but gain four points from your strength bonus.
At ranged combat, you are almost even with the human fighter or ranger: Two less BAB, -1 size, +2 from dexterity modifier.

Your ability to use large size weapons, as well as your high strength modifier means that you should be doing more damage than an equivalent human. This might change when the human gets his additional attack, but you will catch up much faster when you gain yours.

Without knowing more details of what happened at the game, I would have to guess that you simply had a very unlecky run of dice rolls.
Fenrir_Greyback
01-19-08, 09:57 PM Could have been just bad dice rolls. I don't know, it just seems to me like his character is particularly weak. 'specially in the face of my Druid8 barb1 fighter1.
Rahvan
01-19-08, 10:02 PM I think the Centaur was LA+2 and four monstrous humanoid HD, so he would have the following stats as a commoner, I will be assuming that he has all 10's to start with.

str 18, dex 14, con 14, int 8, wis 12, cha 10
4D8+4D4+16 (44 HP)
Fort +4, Ref +6, Will +3
BAB 6

That would be about the bare minimum that you would have had, assuming that you where not a commoner who tried to go into melee you would have had at least one good save, higher BAB and higher HP.

If you did not like the body, the you could have had him reincarnated, which would give him another body and would get rid of the LA at the same time, assuming the die don't screw you over. Plus it only needs a small part of the body before you can cast it, so a small chunk of his flesh would have done the job for that.

You do not have to forget that the centaur is large, which allows him to wield larger weapons and have reach out to 10', which is a significant advantage, he is quadruped, so he has stability and higher cargo capacity. Which makes him perfect..... for a beast of burden. (Light load would have been 600 lb. Medium 1200 lb. and heavy load 1800 lb.)

But on a side note: No, I do not have a problem with the LA of the races in the MM, I do however have a problem with the LA of the cat from savage species.
Cartigan
01-19-08, 10:26 PM Could have been just bad dice rolls. I don't know, it just seems to me like his character is particularly weak. 'specially in the face of my Druid8 barb1 fighter1.
Well you can turn into a Dire Ape, who can Rage.

But if he is an ECL 10 Centaur and is getting owned worse than the rest of you, he is doing it wrong.

And actually, centaurs have a reach of 5ft.
runestar
01-19-08, 10:36 PM Note that as a centaur PC, you use point-buy or die rolls to generate your stats, not at all unlike other PCs. Coupled with the +8 str (which makes up for -2bab lost to LA and -1 to-hit from being large), you actually come out slightly ahead. Plus, +8str ~ +6 damage with a 2-handed weapon, roughly the equivalent of 3 points of PA.

With gear appropriate for your ECL, and the races of faerun clarification which allows centaurs to take spirited charge without meeting the prereqs, I would say that they are indeed a very strong PC, all the moreso when they have the chance to take class lvs (1 lv of barb gives rage, 2 lv of fighter for feats, then warblade all the way for maneuvers).:)
Sinfire Titan
01-20-08, 01:48 AM Well you can turn into a Dire Ape, who can Rage.

But if he is an ECL 10 Centaur and is getting owned worse than the rest of you, he is doing it wrong.

And actually, centaurs have a reach of 5ft.

Legendary Dire Ape, at that.
Fenrir_Greyback
01-20-08, 08:18 AM Note that as a centaur PC, you use point-buy or die rolls to generate your stats, not at all unlike other PCs. Coupled with the +8 str (which makes up for -2bab lost to LA and -1 to-hit from being large), you actually come out slightly ahead. Plus, +8str ~ +6 damage with a 2-handed weapon, roughly the equivalent of 3 points of PA.

With gear appropriate for your ECL, and the races of faerun clarification which allows centaurs to take spirited charge without meeting the prereqs, I would say that they are indeed a very strong PC, all the moreso when they have the chance to take class lvs (1 lv of barb gives rage, 2 lv of fighter for feats, then warblade all the way for maneuvers).:)

He did roll, and had freaking awesome stats! 26 Str, 22 con, and everything else was like 15-18 except for int which was 12.

Perhaps it is just an 8th lvl druid in the face of a fourth lvl ranger, considering that I can wildshape into creatures with similar stats. It really was like he was particularly weak or something tho. I mean, we have a wererat 7th elven rogue, our problematic centaur, and me, the dwarf druid8 fighter1 barb1. ( we all started at tenth lvl, and we had a practice encounter since we ran out of time by the time we got our characters together)
Xiuhcoatl
01-20-08, 08:56 AM I think you guys are forgetting the four racial HD.

It provides 4d8+24 [from Con] hit points (Average of 40hp), BaB +4, and saves.

If he has four levels of Ranger, that provides: 4d10+24 [from Con] (Average of 44hp), BaB +4, and other features.

That means his Base Attack Bonus is +8 (which should be comparable to the Druid/Barbarian's), and he has 4d10+4d8+48 (Ave. 84hp). His total Attack bonus, then, given the Str score you've provided, would be +15 (+8 BaB +8 str -1 size).

Assuming he has a +2 greatsword, it's got a +17 to hit, and deals 3d6+2+12 damage.

A full attack would look like this: +17/+12 (3d6+14 damage). A bit behind a full-time Fighter, but very acceptable.
Fenrir_Greyback
01-20-08, 02:49 PM I think you guys are forgetting the four racial HD.

It provides 4d8+24 [from Con] hit points (Average of 40hp), BaB +4, and saves.

If he has four levels of Ranger, that provides: 4d10+24 [from Con] (Average of 44hp), BaB +4, and other features.

That means his Base Attack Bonus is +8 (which should be comparable to the Druid/Barbarian's), and he has 4d10+4d8+48 (Ave. 84hp). His total Attack bonus, then, given the Str score you've provided, would be +15 (+8 BaB +8 str -1 size).

Assuming he has a +2 greatsword, it's got a +17 to hit, and deals 3d6+2+12 damage.

A full attack would look like this: +17/+12 (3d6+14 damage). A bit behind a full-time Fighter, but very acceptable.

Not quite. Rangers have a D8 HD, so that's 4d8+4d8+48 (if you average that, it's only 76, a fair bit behind the druid/barb/fighters 8d8+1d12+1d10+50 which averages out to 96.

The BAB is correct, somewhere around 8. But our ranger has only a BAB of 7 maybe less. And of course, with the stupid feats the guy picked, he's a mildly powerful ranger, and a mildly powerful fighter. (He picked ranged as his combat style, and all of his feats are TWF feats. Stupid if you ask me, but maybe not to you guys) But to wrap up, nobody has experienced these problems other than me? (Oh, we did reincarnate him, and he came back as a gnoll. We originally rolled a 100 which is Dm's choice, but since it was my turn to DM and I wanted him to come back as a pixie, I was threatened with mugging by both of the other players. Neither wanted him to come back as a pixie. DUnno why)
Balthanon
01-20-08, 03:12 PM Not quite. Rangers have a D8 HD, so that's 4d8+4d8+48 (if you average that, it's only 76, a fair bit behind the druid/barb/fighters 8d8+1d12+1d10+50 which averages out to 96.

Your druid has a Con of 20 before Wild Shaping? The errata does specify that your hit points don't change while wild shaping.

Druids in general are fairly strong across all levels though-- I'm actually surprised you dropped two levels for fighter and barbarian. 9th level means access to spells like Bite of the Weretiger, which beats the bonuses that rage grants by a fair amount and picks you up a couple of fighter feats for the duration of the spell-- not to mention the two extra hit dice/hours of Wild Shape.

Particularly since the druidic avenger alternate in UA can give up the animal companion/spontaneous summoning for rage and fast movement. :) Getting a bit off topic though.

Anyway, it should have been possibly for your centaur player to compete overall. In all likelihood, it was just a matter of poor luck and some less than optimal choices in the character build/tactics that caused the issues.
Cartigan
01-20-08, 03:17 PM (He picked ranged as his combat style, and all of his feats are TWF feats. Stupid if you ask me, but maybe not to you guys)
All his chosen feats are TWF while he gets the bonus ranged feats from combat style? That makes sense if he is dual wielding light/hand crossbows -_-
Fenrir_Greyback
01-20-08, 07:28 PM That's really about it isn't it? But nooo, he wants to wield a dire flail. Wanted to do a d8 on each side. I don't even know if he took a proficiency feat with it. I was just stunned by the stupidity of it all. It made no sense. at all.
Balthanon
01-20-08, 08:24 PM That's really about it isn't it? But nooo, he wants to wield a dire flail. Wanted to do a d8 on each side. I don't even know if he took a proficiency feat with it. I was just stunned by the stupidity of it all. It made no sense. at all.

Fighting with an exotic weapon without the proficiency would go a long way towards making any character suck. :)
Fenrir_Greyback
01-21-08, 08:20 AM As was demonstrated when the dragon made it's full attack against him as soon as he got close enough for bit. 2claws, 1 bite, and a tail sweep. Every single one hit. He was deader than the fungus on my foot after I hit it with medication.
Balthanon
01-21-08, 01:54 PM As was demonstrated when the dragon made it's full attack against him as soon as he got close enough for bit. 2claws, 1 bite, and a tail sweep. Every single one hit. He was deader than the fungus on my foot after I hit it with medication.

Dragons are almost always deadly if they get to trade blows-- the breath weapon is nice, but it doesn't do half as much damage and they have enough Str and hit dice that they can hit anything but the highest ACs.
Xiuhcoatl
01-21-08, 07:35 PM As was demonstrated when the dragon made it's full attack against him as soon as he got close enough for bit. 2claws, 1 bite, and a tail sweep. Every single one hit. He was deader than the fungus on my foot after I hit it with medication.

Well, there's your problem: a presumably equal-CR dragon. They are pretty well unstoppable against an unprepared group.

So two things: 1) Two weapon fighting with an exotic weapon equals at least a -6 to hit and 2) Getting into melee with a dragon.
KruniacZio
01-30-08, 01:22 AM This is why I ignore Level Adjustments. D&D was largely made with the idea that certain creatures would be killed by the PCs. Certain creatures would never be played by the PCs. The "Core" adventuring races will nearly always be more potent than an equally "level adjusted" NPC creature.

Dont use Level Adjustments. It gets a -bit- silly, but after a while, it balances out.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Fenrir_Greyback 01-19-08, 09:24 PM	Um, this may be the wrong forum, but does anyone else have a really hard time with level adjustment for some monstrous humanoids in the MM1? Take the centaur for instance, it has something like +2 OR +3 LA, and four HD. I am playing a game with a few friends, starting at tenth level, but because of LA, the centaur is only 4th. He absolutely SUCKS! We went up against a young adult red dragon, and everyone could hold their own fine, except him. his attacks hardly hit, and when he charged into battle, the dragon promptly slayed him and ate his flesh. ( His carcass was too maimed for us to put back together once we finished the dragon off...) Any suggestions for what to do to make things a little bit more even?
Captain_Kobold 01-19-08, 09:51 PM	Hmm. Lets see. ECL 10: 4 Racial hit dice, +2 LA, 4 class levels. From your description, it sounds like you are playing a Fighter or Ranger type. You'll have two hit dice less than your friends, however this is compensated by the 16 extra hit points that the centaur constitution bonus gives you at ECL 10. You should have around the same, or more hit points than an equivalent human character. You should also have a better chance to hit in melee than an equivalent human fighter. You lose two points of attack bonus from your LA, and one from your size, but gain four points from your strength bonus. At ranged combat, you are almost even with the human fighter or ranger: Two less BAB, -1 size, +2 from dexterity modifier. Your ability to use large size weapons, as well as your high strength modifier means that you should be doing more damage than an equivalent human. This might change when the human gets his additional attack, but you will catch up much faster when you gain yours. Without knowing more details of what happened at the game, I would have to guess that you simply had a very unlecky run of dice rolls.
Fenrir_Greyback 01-19-08, 09:57 PM	Could have been just bad dice rolls. I don't know, it just seems to me like his character is particularly weak. 'specially in the face of my Druid8 barb1 fighter1.
Rahvan 01-19-08, 10:02 PM	I think the Centaur was LA+2 and four monstrous humanoid HD, so he would have the following stats as a commoner, I will be assuming that he has all 10's to start with. str 18, dex 14, con 14, int 8, wis 12, cha 10 4D8+4D4+16 (44 HP) Fort +4, Ref +6, Will +3 BAB 6 That would be about the bare minimum that you would have had, assuming that you where not a commoner who tried to go into melee you would have had at least one good save, higher BAB and higher HP. If you did not like the body, the you could have had him reincarnated, which would give him another body and would get rid of the LA at the same time, assuming the die don't screw you over. Plus it only needs a small part of the body before you can cast it, so a small chunk of his flesh would have done the job for that. You do not have to forget that the centaur is large, which allows him to wield larger weapons and have reach out to 10', which is a significant advantage, he is quadruped, so he has stability and higher cargo capacity. Which makes him perfect..... for a beast of burden. (Light load would have been 600 lb. Medium 1200 lb. and heavy load 1800 lb.) But on a side note: No, I do not have a problem with the LA of the races in the MM, I do however have a problem with the LA of the cat from savage species.
Cartigan 01-19-08, 10:26 PM	Could have been just bad dice rolls. I don't know, it just seems to me like his character is particularly weak. 'specially in the face of my Druid8 barb1 fighter1. Well you can turn into a Dire Ape, who can Rage. But if he is an ECL 10 Centaur and is getting owned worse than the rest of you, he is doing it wrong. And actually, centaurs have a reach of 5ft.
runestar 01-19-08, 10:36 PM	Note that as a centaur PC, you use point-buy or die rolls to generate your stats, not at all unlike other PCs. Coupled with the +8 str (which makes up for -2bab lost to LA and -1 to-hit from being large), you actually come out slightly ahead. Plus, +8str ~ +6 damage with a 2-handed weapon, roughly the equivalent of 3 points of PA. With gear appropriate for your ECL, and the races of faerun clarification which allows centaurs to take spirited charge without meeting the prereqs, I would say that they are indeed a very strong PC, all the moreso when they have the chance to take class lvs (1 lv of barb gives rage, 2 lv of fighter for feats, then warblade all the way for maneuvers).:)
Sinfire Titan 01-20-08, 01:48 AM	Well you can turn into a Dire Ape, who can Rage. But if he is an ECL 10 Centaur and is getting owned worse than the rest of you, he is doing it wrong. And actually, centaurs have a reach of 5ft. Legendary Dire Ape, at that.
Fenrir_Greyback 01-20-08, 08:18 AM	Note that as a centaur PC, you use point-buy or die rolls to generate your stats, not at all unlike other PCs. Coupled with the +8 str (which makes up for -2bab lost to LA and -1 to-hit from being large), you actually come out slightly ahead. Plus, +8str ~ +6 damage with a 2-handed weapon, roughly the equivalent of 3 points of PA. With gear appropriate for your ECL, and the races of faerun clarification which allows centaurs to take spirited charge without meeting the prereqs, I would say that they are indeed a very strong PC, all the moreso when they have the chance to take class lvs (1 lv of barb gives rage, 2 lv of fighter for feats, then warblade all the way for maneuvers).:) He did roll, and had freaking awesome stats! 26 Str, 22 con, and everything else was like 15-18 except for int which was 12. Perhaps it is just an 8th lvl druid in the face of a fourth lvl ranger, considering that I can wildshape into creatures with similar stats. It really was like he was particularly weak or something tho. I mean, we have a wererat 7th elven rogue, our problematic centaur, and me, the dwarf druid8 fighter1 barb1. ( we all started at tenth lvl, and we had a practice encounter since we ran out of time by the time we got our characters together)
Xiuhcoatl 01-20-08, 08:56 AM	I think you guys are forgetting the four racial HD. It provides 4d8+24 [from Con] hit points (Average of 40hp), BaB +4, and saves. If he has four levels of Ranger, that provides: 4d10+24 [from Con] (Average of 44hp), BaB +4, and other features. That means his Base Attack Bonus is +8 (which should be comparable to the Druid/Barbarian's), and he has 4d10+4d8+48 (Ave. 84hp). His total Attack bonus, then, given the Str score you've provided, would be +15 (+8 BaB +8 str -1 size). Assuming he has a +2 greatsword, it's got a +17 to hit, and deals 3d6+2+12 damage. A full attack would look like this: +17/+12 (3d6+14 damage). A bit behind a full-time Fighter, but very acceptable.
Fenrir_Greyback 01-20-08, 02:49 PM	I think you guys are forgetting the four racial HD. It provides 4d8+24 [from Con] hit points (Average of 40hp), BaB +4, and saves. If he has four levels of Ranger, that provides: 4d10+24 [from Con] (Average of 44hp), BaB +4, and other features. That means his Base Attack Bonus is +8 (which should be comparable to the Druid/Barbarian's), and he has 4d10+4d8+48 (Ave. 84hp). His total Attack bonus, then, given the Str score you've provided, would be +15 (+8 BaB +8 str -1 size). Assuming he has a +2 greatsword, it's got a +17 to hit, and deals 3d6+2+12 damage. A full attack would look like this: +17/+12 (3d6+14 damage). A bit behind a full-time Fighter, but very acceptable. Not quite. Rangers have a D8 HD, so that's 4d8+4d8+48 (if you average that, it's only 76, a fair bit behind the druid/barb/fighters 8d8+1d12+1d10+50 which averages out to 96. The BAB is correct, somewhere around 8. But our ranger has only a BAB of 7 maybe less. And of course, with the stupid feats the guy picked, he's a mildly powerful ranger, and a mildly powerful fighter. (He picked ranged as his combat style, and all of his feats are TWF feats. Stupid if you ask me, but maybe not to you guys) But to wrap up, nobody has experienced these problems other than me? (Oh, we did reincarnate him, and he came back as a gnoll. We originally rolled a 100 which is Dm's choice, but since it was my turn to DM and I wanted him to come back as a pixie, I was threatened with mugging by both of the other players. Neither wanted him to come back as a pixie. DUnno why)
Balthanon 01-20-08, 03:12 PM	Not quite. Rangers have a D8 HD, so that's 4d8+4d8+48 (if you average that, it's only 76, a fair bit behind the druid/barb/fighters 8d8+1d12+1d10+50 which averages out to 96. Your druid has a Con of 20 before Wild Shaping? The errata does specify that your hit points don't change while wild shaping. Druids in general are fairly strong across all levels though-- I'm actually surprised you dropped two levels for fighter and barbarian. 9th level means access to spells like Bite of the Weretiger, which beats the bonuses that rage grants by a fair amount and picks you up a couple of fighter feats for the duration of the spell-- not to mention the two extra hit dice/hours of Wild Shape. Particularly since the druidic avenger alternate in UA can give up the animal companion/spontaneous summoning for rage and fast movement. :) Getting a bit off topic though. Anyway, it should have been possibly for your centaur player to compete overall. In all likelihood, it was just a matter of poor luck and some less than optimal choices in the character build/tactics that caused the issues.
Cartigan 01-20-08, 03:17 PM	(He picked ranged as his combat style, and all of his feats are TWF feats. Stupid if you ask me, but maybe not to you guys) All his chosen feats are TWF while he gets the bonus ranged feats from combat style? That makes sense if he is dual wielding light/hand crossbows -_-
Fenrir_Greyback 01-20-08, 07:28 PM	That's really about it isn't it? But nooo, he wants to wield a dire flail. Wanted to do a d8 on each side. I don't even know if he took a proficiency feat with it. I was just stunned by the stupidity of it all. It made no sense. at all.
Balthanon 01-20-08, 08:24 PM	That's really about it isn't it? But nooo, he wants to wield a dire flail. Wanted to do a d8 on each side. I don't even know if he took a proficiency feat with it. I was just stunned by the stupidity of it all. It made no sense. at all. Fighting with an exotic weapon without the proficiency would go a long way towards making any character suck. :)
Fenrir_Greyback 01-21-08, 08:20 AM	As was demonstrated when the dragon made it's full attack against him as soon as he got close enough for bit. 2claws, 1 bite, and a tail sweep. Every single one hit. He was deader than the fungus on my foot after I hit it with medication.
Balthanon 01-21-08, 01:54 PM	As was demonstrated when the dragon made it's full attack against him as soon as he got close enough for bit. 2claws, 1 bite, and a tail sweep. Every single one hit. He was deader than the fungus on my foot after I hit it with medication. Dragons are almost always deadly if they get to trade blows-- the breath weapon is nice, but it doesn't do half as much damage and they have enough Str and hit dice that they can hit anything but the highest ACs.
Xiuhcoatl 01-21-08, 07:35 PM	As was demonstrated when the dragon made it's full attack against him as soon as he got close enough for bit. 2claws, 1 bite, and a tail sweep. Every single one hit. He was deader than the fungus on my foot after I hit it with medication. Well, there's your problem: a presumably equal-CR dragon. They are pretty well unstoppable against an unprepared group. So two things: 1) Two weapon fighting with an exotic weapon equals at least a -6 to hit and 2) Getting into melee with a dragon.
KruniacZio 01-30-08, 01:22 AM	This is why I ignore Level Adjustments. D&D was largely made with the idea that certain creatures would be killed by the PCs. Certain creatures would never be played by the PCs. The "Core" adventuring races will nearly always be more potent than an equally "level adjusted" NPC creature. Dont use Level Adjustments. It gets a -bit- silly, but after a while, it balances out.