User:Spazalicious Chaos/XP Adjustment (3.5e Variant Rule)
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XP Adjustment
Introduction[edit]
The goals and idea behind LA are bad, and even more poorly inplemented. However, without drastic reworking of the original creatures, we still find that creatures with LA are simply more powerful than creatures without LA, which was why it was concieved in the first place. D&D is supposed to be balanced, or something, thus many feel a need to nerf these epic creatures with reduced stats and abilities, but we are instead left with a ghost of the original creature, and empty shell that lacks the vital spark of kick ass it once had.
The original problem is that these creatures are stronger, right? So why not work off their strength and have it be their balance point. Take a single first level warrior versus 3 first level orc warriors and their 1rst level adept leader. Lets make our apparently doomed hero a human, a drow, then a centaur. We find this happens:
- The human is in for the fight of his life. He has to be careful and step correctly lest his next move be his last. The fight is difficult for him, if not impossible.
- The drow will almost certainly begin by blinding her foes, then using her effective immunity to spells to kill the supporting caster before finishing off the rest. She can also see further in the dark, thus she can out distance her foes and feather them with arrows. Still difficult, but far more options and thus winable.
- The centaur just tanks right through them. Stronger, larger, and three times as many hit points at minimum, the centaur has nothing to fear. Victory is almost certain.
What have we seen? The higher the LA, the better the fight went. But rather than up the challenge (forcing the drow to fight an ethereal marauder and never having her deal with petty orcs), why not deal with the actual problem: they aren't learning as much. The human nearly died and will carry the lessons her whole life, but the drow learned more about how her powers can work for her, and arguably the centaur learned nothing past "I'm higher in the food chain, yay me!"
Rule Mechanics[edit]
Each race that would recieve a level adjustment instead recieves an experience adjustment per session, equal to Level / (Level + LA), with level being the current level of the character. In the case of creature with an ECL, the ECL is used in the place of this formula and experience adjustment does not apply. Creatures that suck so bad they have negative level adjustments instead gain extra experience equal to their Level / (Level + LA).
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