Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Coronat 07-19-05, 05:12 AM	Hey there. One player in my party wanted to be a drow rogue. Now this party is a new party with all being level 1. I read in the monster manual that the Drow have an level adjustment of +3. Does this mean this player has an unfair advantage over other players? I already noticed that his stats were better, so I nerfed his char by not giving him a ranged weapon and not giving him acces to spells. Did I do OK? And how do I get to the point where his char is balanced compared to the rest of the party?
Tiruvel 07-19-05, 05:54 AM	Hello. Level adjustment means that the character at 1st level would be equally powerful to a character of +X levels where X is the level adjustment. According to page 172 of DMG drow has a level adjustment of +2, so he would be as powerful as a 3rd level character. A few ways to fix this would be to start the party at 3rd level, or let the player playing the drow rogue play an other character till the rest reached about 3rd level. I haven't got experience with drow as PC's, and it may work to strip him off some of his powers. If the game goes fine, then you know you've succeeded. Hope it works out.
Lord Ian Stark 07-19-05, 07:04 AM	Basically your asking us if it's ok to have one character be 3rd level and all the others be 1st level in the party. If you want one guy to be 2 levels higher (effectively) then the rest of the party, go for it. Otherwise the answer from you would probrably be no. The problem is, you've already allowed him to make/play this character so consider it a lesson learned for future gaming.
babysamurai 07-19-05, 07:07 AM	The best way to play a Drow of ECL 3, with a party of ECL 1, is to use the racial levels in the Savage Progressions articles on the WotC site (It's archived). Or, as the other poster said, start the rest of the party at level 3. Don't arbitrarily strip the Drow of any benefits it might have.
Emir 07-19-05, 07:19 AM	You can try to make some sort of Drow progression. He could start as a Rogue 1, then the next two levels he would normally take in rogue he must take the Drow progression so that at level 3, he'll be a Drow Rogue. but if you don't like that... You can use the Fearun rule... Let him take the Drow Rogue 1, but he'll have 2 negative levels, and that means -2 to atk, saves and checks. When he gains a level, he removes one negative level giving him -1 insted of -2. Or if you like the 3.0e Apprentice rules...You could let him play Drow Rogue 0 with one negative level... Anyway, that Rogue will be clearly underpowered for a long time...I've seen drow PCs in my campaigns, as a player, and you really don't want to play drows ;)
Iarwain 07-19-05, 07:21 AM	Quite OK. I have a drow wizard in the party myself, and I have no problems with him. His powers are not too insane, and there are two main benefits: SR & darkvision. All other advantages offer minor benefits, so this character should not be a problem for you. Although there is a possible problem for the player, as he is not likely to be treated well by majority of population, unless you judge otherwise. A balance in the party will be "by the the book", when everybody will get an ECL of 3. A last thing: taking away his spells & ranged weapon seems a bit cruel. He has got his +2 LA, why punish him more?
Derren S. 07-19-05, 07:25 AM	Simply give him the Drow savage Progression found here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a) And don't forget that SR is also a weakness when the cleric wants to heal the drow except when he turns the SR off (standard action).
nephtis 07-19-05, 07:32 AM	You can use the Fearun rule... Let him take the Drow Rogue 1, but he'll have 2 negative levels, and that means -2 to atk, saves and checks. When he gains a level, he removes one negative level giving him -1 insted of -2. I think this works quite well. If I understand this correctly, it'll give a -2 (at first ) to spell-like abilities of his race too. I'm not sure how often a day he can use those but at level 1 it will be 2 times less... he'll only gain full access to those when he has reached 3rd level and at that point it shouldn't make so much diffrence. However, drow have weaknesses as well. Light sensivity and the intitial reaction of any npc is hostile. Don't underestimate this. Even with a few boni and spell-like abilities he'll have a tough time.
Zorminster 07-19-05, 08:52 AM	theres always the alternative- drow sits idle till group finds him (After leveling twice). have a session without him in which the group battles to the dungeon, or down the first floor then in the next session have them stumble across him, badly wounded by a trap he missed, in a hallway or room. make sure they found a scroll of cure light wounds up on the first floor to heal him with. that way, you dont have to deal with all the penalties and stuff, he dosnt miss out on a full adventure, and they wil all be at the same ECL.
Coronat 07-19-05, 08:57 AM	A last thing: taking away his spells & ranged weapon seems a bit cruel. He has got his +2 LA, why punish him more? The reason I did this because he was partyed up with a player new to DND, wich was a half-elf rogue. I didnt want him to feel completly useless compared to the drow player. Also, hand crossbows are high level weapons, while I wanted everyone to start off with simple weapons and get the new ones in the adventure itself. I know now that I started off with this character on the wrong foot, but being my first game DMing and my second game of DnD u cant really blame me :p. All I'm wondering is if it whould be game breaking to simply ignore the +2 level adjustment and simply make the enemy's a bit tougher. I already gave him 1000XP for the adventure and let him level up to a level 2 rogue, so it whould be to much of a problem to start changing it now. My question now is, will my game become imbalanced with this character or whouldnt it be such a big deal to simply leave it the way it is? How much impact do the racial benefits combined with the rogue class have on the game, now and later on at higher levels?
Chobemaster 07-19-05, 09:12 AM	If the drow is the only "newbie" player, just let him play the character, I think you've done fine, his metagame inexperience will even out his contribution to the party. If everyone is fairly new and/or young, then I suggest you "nerf" the drow w/ one or more of the suggestions here, to keep it fair for everyone.
ajmastrean 07-19-05, 09:13 AM	Among other things... are you handing this xp out according to the DMG rules? 1000xp for 4 1st-3rd level players requires plenty of EL1 encounters(my group ran 4 sessions with several encounters each before leveling... combat and story awards, too). So, now you have an ECL 3 character in a group with lower levels getting power leveled each adventure... it may tumble in on you if you don't control your rules a little (treasure, xp, items, etc).
Coronat 07-19-05, 09:26 AM	Among other things... You are correct, I do not controll the rules well enough. Here's what I did: The 2 player party, 1 being Half-elf/rogue, 1 being drow/rogue They killed 3 zombies and 1 spider. Zombie CR = 1/3, Spider CR = 1. Not knowing that the drow needed more experience to level being ECL 3, I diveded the XP like this: 3xZombie = 300 XP 1xSpider = 300 XP Having a good time = 400XP Total XP 1000. Should I also divide the total XP over the players? Do I simply divide the XP over the amount of players or does ECL have something to do with it also? On the side note, you could say that I'm powerleveling my players a bit. This is because we dont really have that much time to play (those 3 encounters plus the story/dungeon took us 3 hours) and I dont want to be stuck fighting undead and kobolds all the time. I could've started everyone at ECL 5, but due to my lack of game rule understanding I whould simply get myself into trouble.
ajmastrean 07-19-05, 09:44 AM	@Coronat DMG (pg 37) for the real rules... 1. Determine each character's effective level (1 and 3) 2. Determine each individual monster's CR 3. Reference the XP award based on #1 and #2 (if fractional CRs... 1/3 zombie for instance, multiply by the CR) 4. Divide that amount by the number of party members 5. Add that to the amount for the next monster and so on until you have all awards totalled. 6. That is the xp for one character. In your case, the 1st and 3rd level characters get the same xp, a 7th level character would have gotten slightly less (From tables and common sense... a CR 1 is not much challenge anymore). example. 1. ECL 1 2. CR 1/3 x3 and CR 1 3. CR1/3+ECL1 = 300/3 = 100xp CR1+ECL1 = 300xp 4. 100xp/2 = 50xp 300xp/2 = 150xp 5. 200xp 6. 200xp! not 1000xp! (same numbers for the ECL3 character)
ajmastrean 07-19-05, 09:53 AM	@Coronat You are a new DM... you have more responsibility than a new player to get things straight and keep this game on the tracks. Like I mentioned, I am DMing a game for a group of mostly new players (some have played horrible epic/no-dice/stupid newb). And, it took them 4 sessions and over 10 EL 1 encounters to level. They are currently 2 sessions into level two and at about 7 of 11 planned EL encounters to level 3. If you would like some of my scenarios, I have text files written out all "adventure" style. You can see some different challenges and summaries of XP and treasure. Which is another important point... if you don't want your players to have that weapon/armor that is too good despite coming from a CR of their level, don't give it to them. Or make it a size too big or small, so they can at least benefit from the sale at some point. There are also basic rules on treasure per EL in the DMG (look up Wealth by Encounter, I believe). For when basic monster treasure or that horrible treasure table doesn't work out, you can customize it based on a gp value.
Coronat 07-19-05, 10:05 AM	Cool! Could you send em to <check private message>? I know i'm not the best DM, but I am the only DM of the three. Also, both of them are my friends, so I can openly admit that I did the leveling thing wrong and that there are some problems with the drow/rogue thing. Thanks for the reply's!
Callista 07-19-05, 10:28 AM	Hey there. One player in my party wanted to be a drow rogue. Now this party is a new party with all being level 1. I read in the monster manual that the Drow have an level adjustment of +3. Does this mean this player has an unfair advantage over other players? I already noticed that his stats were better, so I nerfed his char by not giving him a ranged weapon and not giving him acces to spells. Did I do OK? And how do I get to the point where his char is balanced compared to the rest of the party?A full Drow would indeed be a bad idea at level 1. He is effectively a level 3 character. However, there are Drow "Savage progressions" which effectively give him "levels" of Drow before he picks up his normal class levels. (The only real difference between these and normal levels, actually, is that multiclassing penalties don't apply.) Re. your nerfs: No, they are not nearly enough. Drow rogues should not have spells to begin with... are you talking about the Drow spell-like abilities (Faerie Fire, etc.)? If so, you haven't adjusted much, really; these spells are about as handy as a gnome's spell-like abilities (which is to say: Not very, though they come in handy every once in a while). He's not a level 1 equivalent yet by any means. Regarding giving him a ranged weapon only... That's not a nerf... low-level rogues use ranged weapons all the time, due to their low HP. He'll just pick up a dagger from the nearest bad (or good) guy, anyway. If you want to allow him to play a Drow without the Level Adjustment, have him play a dark-skinned Elf. Then make the following adjustments to turn it into a Drow without LA: (From the SRD entry on the Elf race; my comments and additions are in italics:) +2 Dexterity, –2 Constitution. Get rid of the Drow's +2 INT, +2 CHA. This is a big reason for their LA. Medium: As Medium creatures, drow have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size. Drow base land speed is 30 feet. Immunity to magic sleep effects, and a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells or effects. Low-Light Vision: A drow can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. She retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions. Darkvision out to 120 feet. Light Blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light (such as sunlight or a daylight spell) blinds drow for 1 round. On subsequent rounds, they are dazzled as long as they remain in the affected area. (Balances the Darkvision. The feat "Daylight Adaptation" can cancel out most of these penalties; I would also allow a wondrous item--a hood or "sunglasses"--based on the Darkness spell to do the same thing.) Weapon Proficiency: Elves receive the Martial Weapon Proficiency feats for the longsword, rapier, longbow (including composite longbow), and shortbow (including composite shortbow) as bonus feats. A drow is automatically proficient with the hand crossbow, the rapier, and the short sword. +2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks. A drow who merely passes within 5 feet of a secret or concealed door is entitled to a Search check to notice it as if she were actively looking for it. Automatic Languages: Common and Elven. Common, Elven, Undercommon. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Gnoll, Gnome, Goblin, Orc, and Sylvan. Abyssal, Aquan, Draconic, Drow Sign Language, Gnome, Goblin. Favored Class: Wizard (male) or cleric (female). A multiclass drow's wizard/cleric class does not count when determining whether she takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.
Coronat 07-19-05, 10:33 AM	hey! Thats probably a good solution! The only reason my friend wants to be a drow is because of the dark skin he has, and because its an elf. About the crossbow, I think you've missread my words. I didnt give him a crossbow. Only a shortsword. Regards.
Callista 07-19-05, 10:38 AM	Ah, silly me. :) I missed the word "Not"! The argument stands, though--he can pick up a crossbow from the next kobold he kills... it's a bit more of a nerf than not allowing him a melee weapon; but it's still not enough. Changing the Drow template makes more sense. Can someone check my "Drow LA removal" idea though? I've only been DMing for half a year, so a second pair of eyes to look at it would make sense. Also, someone to tell us all where the heck to find those "Savage Progressions" would be good. Speaking of removing the Drow's LA, I'm pretty sure it's been done quite a few times before I did it; there are probably quite a few LA 0 templates to choose from by now.
ajmastrean 07-19-05, 10:47 AM	@Callista Looks pretty solid to me, but I haven't ran any real comparison tests yet! 120ft Darkvision is a little much though... any underground encounters are going to be waaaaay in favor of that character (vs. enemies and in comparison to the other PC). @Coronat All he wants is black skin?! He wasn't trying to pull a fast one by suggesting Drow while knowing that you weren't familiar with LA? Anyway... the Teifling (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/monstersOtoR.html#tiefling) works surprisingly well as a base for an underground elf-type race (as long as your underground elves are significantly different from regular elves). Just remove the energy resistances and it starts to look like an LA 0. Of course, the Outsider (Native) part poses some problems, so make them Humanoid (Elf) again and add those Elf resistances to sleep/enchantment. It starts to look like Callista's again, ha ha!
Coronat 07-19-05, 11:11 AM	He wasn't trying to pull a fast one by suggesting Drow while knowing that you weren't familiar with LA? Haha, no. :P Anyhew, the drow player couldnt simply use a crossbow from the next cobalt it killed because he can only carry Handcrossbows.
Iarwain 07-19-05, 11:13 AM	Again: the game won’t be unbalanced. And as long as you won’t be using magic against the party second player won’t notice a thing. A question to you: what is LA for drow in your campaign?
Coronat 07-19-05, 11:27 AM	@ajmastrean I just took some time to reread page 38 of the DMG, and one thing isnt clear to me: 3. CR1/3+ECL1 = 300/3 = 100xp 1 zombie (CR1/3)for a level 1 guy. Isnt that 300/3? 3 zombies (3xCR1/3) for a level 1 guy, Isnt that 3*300/3 ? @Iarwain The LA of the drow used for this campaign was +2
scott644 07-19-05, 11:48 AM	If the drow is the only "newbie" player, just let him play the character, I think you've done fine, his metagame inexperience will even out his contribution to the party. If everyone is fairly new and/or young, then I suggest you "nerf" the drow w/ one or more of the suggestions here, to keep it fair for everyone. This is not exactly a bad idea. However it requires caution. Last time a "newbie" joined a game group I was in he had never really played a lasting rpg but had read the rules obsessively and was an avid reader of the optimization board. As a result, his characters had to be watched to ensure they didn't get broken, start to finish. Also, if this route is taken *do* treat the character as being 3rd level. This means relatively less experience per encounter, and a longer wait before his next level - this will continue basically until the rest of the party catches us with him, and by then they should all be well-aware of how to play a balanced game. Remember, the DMG has rules for awards after combat and such; the higher-level characters not only require more experience to level but also tend to get less as they've already learned some of what's being encountered. This guarantees parties will tend to stabilize at a certain level so long's you award encounter exp per the DMG. Optional "good time" awards, individual accomplishment awards, and story awards can be used as well, but be careful to observe something similar as a means of balancing your characters. The other idea of applying a -1 per level penalty on all attacks, saves, and checks as an ecl1 character would also work admirably - and allow full access to the drow abilities (albeit with a -2 to the SR at 1st level, -1 at 2nd, and normal at 3rd). This would also allow you to not restrict yourself regarding magic (noting the comment about not using magic). Removing magic is limited anyway; the SR only accounts for about half the +2LA, with the rest being the extra-long darkvision and stronger ability scores.
ajmastrean 07-19-05, 11:56 AM	@Coronat Yes, you give 100xp for EACH zombie.
UltimateReality 07-19-05, 01:31 PM	Hm, no one's mentioned the "lesser drow" mentioned in the back of the Player's Guide to Faerun either...Just mentioning the option for the sake of completeness. If he's happy with a dark-skinned elf...make 'im a dark-skinned elf. :)