View source for Publication:Unearthed Arcana/Reducing Level Adjustments

=== Experience Point Cost ===

Each time a character's Level Adjustment is eligible to be reduced, the character may pay an experience cost to take advantage of the reduction. The character must pay an amount of experience equal to (his current Effective Character Level -1) times 1,000. This amount is immediately deducted from the character's experience total. The deduction should reduce the character's Effective Character Level by 1. If this deduction would not reduce the character's Effective Character Level by 1, the character's experience total is set at the maximum of the level below his current Effective Character Level instead. This experience cost can't be reversed in any way (and so not even by ''[[SRD:Miracle|miracle]]'' or ''[[SRD:Wish|wish]]''), and the payment must be voluntary on the part of the character. The payment must be made immediately upon becoming eligible to reduce the character's Level Adjustment.

For instance, a 2nd-level [[SRD:Gnolls (Race)|gnoll]] [[SRD:Fighter|fighter]] (Effective Character Level 5) who later gains a third class level has a minimum of 15,000 XP (his Effective Character Level has just gone from 5 to 6). He is eligible to reduce his Level Adjustment from +1 to +0. He must pay 5,000 XP, since his Effective Character Level is now 6 (2 Hit Dice plus 3 class levels plus his +1 Level Adjustment). After he pays the experience, his Level Adjustment decreases from +1 to +0. He now has 10,000 XP. His Effective Character Level falls to 5 (2 Hit Dice plus 3 class levels). Even if the experience payment would not reduce him to 5th level—for instance, if his experience total after reaching 6th level were 20,000 or more — his experience total can't remain above the maximum for 5th level, which is 10,000. Effectively, the [[SRD:Gnolls (Race)|gnoll]] has "paid off" his Level Adjustment with an experience cost, and he is now permanently a 5th-level character. 

Similarly, a [[SRD:Elves, Dark&mdash;Drow (Race)|drow]] [[SRD:Cleric|cleric]] who has just reached 6th level (Effective Character Level 8) is eligible to reduce her Level Adjustment by 1, from +2 to +1. She must pay 7,000 experience, and her Effective Character Level becomes 7 (6 class levels plus her +1 Level Adjustment). When she gains her 9th class level (Effective Character Level 10), she can reduce her Level Adjustment to +0 (and her Effective Character Level to 9) by paying another 9,000 experience. 

At first, this tradeoff may look like a bad idea. The [[SRD:Elves, Dark&mdash;Drow (Race)|drow]] [[SRD:Cleric|cleric]] has now sacrificed 16,000 experience points, putting her behind her comrades in total class levels. Now, however, she progresses as if she had never had a Level Adjustment. With the self-correcting nature of the experience point system, she will soon catch up to the rest of her party, and will reach 20th level after earning a total of 206,000 experience (190,000 plus the 16,000 in experience costs for the Level Adjustment reduction). If she had not used this reduction system, she would have had to amass 231,000 experience to reach her 20th class level (which is Effective Character Level 22 for a normal [[SRD:Elves, Dark&mdash;Drow (Race)|drow]] with a +2 Level Adjustment).

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