Yes, this again

[Inaubryn]

All right. Before I start this debate let me throw out one point that I think we can all agree on. ALFA can be a very lethal place for low level PCs. Hence, the now famous addage, "Good luck on your second character." Most people would agree that you don't really reach a respectable level of survivability until around 3rd or 4th level, the former for melee classes and the latter for pure spell casting classes with everybody else in between.

Okay. Now that that's outta the way. There are many here that do play and will play ECL races. There are those who have yet to join us that will wish to play them as well. Here's a little ECL 101. For those that don't know... ECL stands for Effective Character Level and ECL races are races such as drow, svirfneblin, duergar, and planetouched. These races are a bit more powerful than normal races because they receive special racial abilities such as, spell resistance, AC bonuses, the ability to become invisible, or shroud an area in darkness, and so on. To compensate for these extra abilities, these races progress much more slowly than normal PC races. This is represented by their level adjustment or LA.

For example: Drow are LA +2. Which means they effectively play as two levels higher than their actual level. So, a drow fighter 1st level would have an effective level of 3rd, even though he is not actually a 3rd level fighter. His racial abilities and modifiers make him essentially more powerful than a normal 1st level fighter thus the increase in effective level. Okay. Now that that's explained, moving on.

A 1st level drow fighter has the same hitpoints, base attack, saves, and number of feats as a first level human fighter even though his effective level is 3rd. The human fighter will reach 4th level at about the same time the drow reaches second providing both start at 0 experience points. Using the default Obsidian ECL system which shipped with a the game, the human needs 6000xp to reach 4th, the drow requires 6000xp to reach 2nd. With me so far? This is how it should be. A drow should effectively be two levels behind a non-ecl race, which a human is. All is right with the world... except.

It takes quite some time to earn 6000 experience points, even in a video game environment like ALFA, especially in ALFA! We are slow leveling after all. Well, as the human fighter gains in strength, hitpoints, feats, base attack bonus and saving throw, the drow does not. He remains at 1st level for quite some time. This is a huge disadvantage for the drow PC in ALFA. A third level human fighter with at least 18 hitpoints and no more than 33 hitpoints is reaching a point where a critical from a kobold won't send him to the fugue. But, the drow fighter with 11-12 hitpoints still sits well within that range. And since the drow is effectively third level, if he groups with 3rd level PCs and encounters challenges worthy of 3rd level PCs, well... he stands a greater chance of heading off into that great web in the sky.

All that being said... what I would like to see is something viable proposed to increase the survivabilty of these PC races. The way I would do it is proposed below. What I'm asking for is the pros and cons of what I propose AND any alternatives to what I propose. I am proposing this because we as a community have not yet made a decision on what system we're going to officially use. Fair enough?


My System:

All ECL races begin play with half the needed experience points to move to second level, while all non-ecl races begin with 0 experience points as they would normally. Which means, humans, elves, gnomes, dwarves, halfings, half-elves and half-orcs, all begin play with 0xp or 1xp. And, duergar begin with 1500xp, drow begin with 3000xp, and svirfneblin begin with 5000xp. Yes, yes. There are those of you shouting to the heavens right now. "NOT FAIR! He gets more xp than I do!" Let's remember that as a non-ecl race you will advance much faster than your ECL counterparts. And also we're not in Kindergarten. But let me finish.

All, experience points awards would be reduced to a percentage of what would be a normal award based on Level Adjustment. The higher the LA, the lower the percentage. An example using arbitrary numbers would be, if a human, elf or dwarf received 100xp then a tiefling would receive 75xp as an LA+1 PC, a drow would receive 66xp as an LA+2 PC and a svirfneblin would receive 33xp as a LA+3 PC. Again numbers are for show only.

This reduces the rate at which the ECL races gain xp, essentially slowing their progress. So, yes, they may start at 3000, but by the time they reach 6000 and 2nd level that human PC has just about reached 4th level. Now the argument was presented that this would slow down ECL races to the point that it would take the same amount of time to gain that other half of the xp as it would the whole thing. Example: It would take a drow just as long to go from 3000 to 6000 as it would from 0 to 6000 with the xp reduction in place. Well, not if you adjust the numbers correctly.

The drow would actually hit level 2 before the human hit 4 but the human wouldn't be that far off. It would be a respective gain of somewhere around 3000xp to 5000xp. Using the above example numbers it would be 3300xp (drow) to 5000xp (human) gained. The drow would gain another 660xp as the human gained his next 1000 and level 4 using, again, the percentages above. Don't forget those numbers are for example only. So, the human would outgain the drow by a full 2000 experience points on the way to 4th and 2nd level respectively. So though the drow starts out with more xp at 1st level, the human quickly catches and surpasses the drow's xp total.

Anyway, the point of this system as opposed to the default NWN2 system is to try and keep the slaughter of would-be ECL race player's PCs from being so overwhelming there's no point and no hope to play them, which I'm sure some of you would just love. I realize some of you don't care whether it takes the svirfneblin 10,000 experience points to hit level 2... but what 1st level PC is gonna survive for 10,000xp w/o sittin' in a tavern for 4 or 5 months only playing when a DM is online. That's not fair to penalize that player that harshly because he wishes to play a non-conventional PC race. We are here to play and have fun, and I don't know about y'all but that ain't what I would call fun. The default system is great for a single-player game where xp is handed out every two minutes as if it were Halloween candy and you're level 5 before you finish the first quest. See. I can mix in a relevant holiday analogy.

But for a PW like ALFA, this is beyond handicapping. So, what I'd like to hear is pros and cons of what I proposed... not that you like the system or hate it. That's fine too, just explain why in a pro and con way. If you don't understand something and need me to clarify before you present your pros and/or cons, lemme know. Not to mention, I'd like to see alternatives proposed as well. And people... try to use logical reasoning. I know that's like asking a suicide bomber... nevermind.

Special note: I've been made aware that this may or may not be a lotta work to add. It's going to depend on a few things that have yet to be determined.

[JaydeMoon]

[Insert requisite flame here]

[Insert personal attack here]

Heh.

I don't have any issue with this idea. I don't have an issue starting out all PCs at level 2. You'd have to make some pretty convincing arguements, with real numbers to back it up to convince me that this was a bad idea.

That said, even if it is not a bad idea, I'm also perfectly happy if everyone just starts at 1 XP, like we do now.

[Veilan]

Lesser races.

It's an option in the rules, and it leaves nothing for either side to bitch.

Course...

let the horse-beating begin.

Also...

Rotku's compromise! PT yes, UD no.

Har.

[Mikayla]

The Lesser races option sucks - I can bitch about it plenty, thanks.

[Zelknolf]

It seems to me that the slow advancement and the longer period of high vulnerability was exactly what restriction there was for ECL races. If you'd like to play a drow, you'd best be able to make a drow survive. Yes, it's tricky; yes, it's difficult (and would and should continue to be difficult throughout the PC's life); and yes being level 1 is a very precarious place to be.

I would go so far as to say that that's the entire point of that ECL race. If you're in it for the twink, and would gripe about the slow advancement, you're probably not ALFA material in the first place. If you're playing a drow to play a challenging and interesting character, you don't need the XP.

[Inaubryn]

If you're playing a drow to play a challenging and interesting character, you don't need the XP.

You can pretty much say that about any PC, Zel. Point is, as interesting and as challenging as it may be, it doesn't do any good if you're dead. Still, needing 3000 to 5000 experience points to hit level 2 is still, by every definition, "slow advancement and a longer period of high vulnerability". And, let's face it, people have a hard enough time surviving with normal races let alone somebody who starts 6,000 to 10,000 experience points in the hold. And, there's not a person here who can effectively argue that point otherwise. It potentially makes the races unplayable. There 's no figuring out how to make one survive. Combat is not an option unless the DM is willing to throw first level content at you, and even the chances of that ending your character's existence is increased exponentially over normal races.


But, Zel, what I would like to hear are any pros and cons, and any alternatives. As a code monkey, I'd be interested in hearing such thoughts from you.

Alara, I appreciate it. Lesser races is one alternative. Is there any reason besides the potential bitch-fest you believe the lesser race would be a more viable alternative? In other words, if nobody was gonna bitch about someone starting with more experience at 1st level, is there any other reason you wouldn't want to institute the system I proposed?

[Rick7475]

What if a special PC advances at a regular pace (the same as all PC's) in their own natural habitat, but when they leave, they advance at the slower rate.

The example I am thinking of is a Drow. In Drowland they advance as a normal PC. All Drows would start out the same level, and theoretically, to leave their natural Drowland they would probably be at an advanced level. When they do, they are subject to exp penalty. Most drow are going tom play together, so it doesn't make sense to give them an exp penalty in their own Drowland. But mixing with other PC's on the surface gives them a distinct advantage, so they take a penalty.

The same with other races, they would need a natural area (ie Rock Gnome village with statics and exp creatures to hunt). Drowland will probably be built, but I am not sure about Rock Gnome land.

But from a scripting point of view, in Drowland we switch the slow exp scripts off, and switch them on in non-Drowland.

[Veilan]

The system you propose, Inny, is entirely arbitrary, not supported by the rules of the game (lesser races are), and still allows a character to not only start above ALFA's starting level, but also above ALFA's starting xp. It does not address the fully, even rule-book, acknowledged imbalance of LA races in a level 1 campaign.

On a very minor additional point, it also rubs me the wrong way that the current (perhaps interim) solution of a system is basically what you proposed back then, and imho seriously undermines credibility that you wouldn't care if other people started with more xp than you. Don't take it the wrong way, maybe I'm just misunderstanding you due to the medium, but to make a consistent argument I think you should be either lobbying for lesser races or for an increase of ALFA's starting level to 4, not to say "well what I suggested back then isn't good enough anymore, I want more.". Not to say I don't believe you (because I actually do), but it rings a little hollow to say "I don't care if others started with more than me" if you are the only one getting that more. Instead you give us examples about snapshots at level 1 CvC - which has only marginal bearing on balance, but seems to fit in very well with "omg I am treated unfairly, I need more power/xp/skills/lewt/extra areas for me to play in." .

The Lesser races option sucks

Why?

Rick:

Your idea of an accelerated advancement scenario in the safety of one's home supportive environment seems interesting at first glance, but is very dangerous for a persistant world. It means you can level at an accelerated pace with a more powerful character, and the only reason to go out and above would be to start CvC fests. You're not out there for the gameplay or experience, apparently, since you likely get more in your supportive guaranteed fast advancement UD home (to a lesser degree, part of this is what happened in ALFA 1 - blame training, but knowledge and application of LA rules has been inconsistent at best even by those directly involved with them).

What I'm saying is, I don't really buy into the concept of "this is your premium fast gain area, where only you can play". Or would surface PCs down there also gain accelerated exp? Doubtful, no? It would just further highlight the point that UD PCs are, by and large, unconducive to the overall campaign, part of the reason why I see merit in Rotku's "compromise" suggestion of ban UD, allow PT for NWN 2. It would be something entirely new to try, too, and likely, overall, less hard for DMs to accomodate, it wouldn't require highly specialized infrastructure for starters - PT and "normals" can share the same infrastructure, after all, UD races and normals cannot.

Anyway, one could enhance your idea by saying "UD and normal ALFA are in no way interconnected so UD LA races can advance as fast or slow as they like down there since it has no bearing on anyone else", but that is, basically, the same as telling them to play in another project.

[Rick7475]

Actually, you read my intentions completely opposite. It evens the playing field for CvC and RP'ing.

We are basically talking level 3 (or ECL). Whether a PC or a special race, it is the starting adjustment from level 1 that is at issue. No PC below level 3 should really be leaving their home base (so to say): whether drow or regular PC. Once they are level 3 equivilent, they can enter into each other's world at their own risk. We can enforce that rule by whatever RP'ing rules to make it game consistant and impose a real barrier through a script in the portal.

You can't leave Drowland unril you are ECL equivilent to level 3 or 4 (or whatever). And the PC can't enter Drowland until they are level 3 or whatever (foolish at level 3 anyway).

We can impose rules and barriers to prevent visiting each other's worlds until a cetain ECL or level, when the 'playing field' is even.

So yes, two separate worlds until a certain PC or ECL level. Then you can travel, at your own risk.

It is not like a level 1 drow is going to be starting in Silverymoon, and a level 1 PC is going to be in Drowland, it will never happen, so make it that way with the modules.

[Veilan]

Drow start ECL 3, so they could cross over immediately?

Also, my point wasn't level 1 CvC, my point was "build your character up in safety in your supportive environment... then go out and have a ball."

But maybe I'm still misunderstanding you. Part of the problem in ALFA 1 were people pretending to be good to pass the lower levels, where everyone was groaning knowing they'd turn CvC-y evil eventually once they had the levels and gear under their belt. While I think the CvC card is often overplayed in arguments, to give UD races their special "build up" starting area with additional benefits compared to a normal character seems to be encouraging that, though.

Rules governing interaction between those races are neat, however, again, they only stress the basic point: UD races are unconducive to the overall, mainstream campaign. I don't think we should exacerbate this, but somehow try to integrate - Inny's idea of a "free for all" settlement, imho, is a very good step in that direction. We're one PW, not a set of competing guilds, even though it often seems that we have many cliques. We should not encourage that behaviour, I think.

[Brokenbone]

Aren't there about three published systems for LA out there, in one sourcebook or another? Why wouldn't we try to shoehorn one into ALFA as opposed to creating a homegrown that isn't playtested, and probably will never be agreed upon as the holy grail that somehow solves any perceived shortcomings of existing systems.

Probably 50% or more of ALFA's DMs have some PnP experience, and I'm sure that all, from time to time, are asked by a player if they agree with the interpretation of "something or other" from links players can furnish (often from SRD sites, especially for deep dark rules mechanics stuff). Learning a bunch of extra "twists" away from published stuff may be a recipe for a messed up implementation. Maybe you can find the reasoning for a twist somewhere in the guts of the forums (to the extent not culled) or the wiki (to the extent anyone ever updates it, which doesn't happen), maybe you never find it at all though.

It is nice to have agreed, accessible resources, especially the sort that presumably thousands of players out there have been exposed to (like it or not).

Homegrown systems are going to be some pretty ugly babies, with all kinds of realizations and adjustments made, sometimes even post implementation. Not necessarily a ride all DMs or players want to take. Note this is not a poke in particular at Rick's idea, but doing things like "this is a high speed XP zone" or "this is a normal speed XP zone" sound completely unfair to me... though it's probably what happens in practice anyhow. Find a DM who disagrees with LA rules (whether published, homegrown, whatever), and you may find that his or her LA PCs seem to advance just as fast as non LA. It's like magic! Alternately, that DM might make sure his non LA PCs advance far far faster than the LA PCs, since he feels LA wasn't handicapped enough (i.e., him deciding that if he can't penalize LA in the way his favoured sourcebook would, he can at least sneak more XP to the non LA).

I don't have reasonable amounts of faith that a homegrown system is going to be "better" for ALFA, I further don't think there'd be sufficient DM buy-in to systems that can't be traced back to sourcebooks, or playtested a great deal (unfortunately, over low, mid and high levels) prior to implementation. There's plenty of personalities in the project, and it's my strong feeling that there's a different reaction to following systems that can be traced back to published stuff, vs. "oh lord more ALFA rules created by (insert list of three, five, ten, twenty people you feel cooked up a crazy system)."

[Veilan]

BB touches an important point, imho - you have to convince why your system is better than our current system, than any of the actually published rules, and even than the Obsidian system - which, fwiw, is actually a decent attempt at a compromise.

[Zelknolf]

If you're playing a drow to play a challenging and interesting character, you don't need the XP.

You can pretty much say that about any PC, Zel. Point is, as interesting and as challenging as it may be, it doesn't do any good if you're dead.

Very short response to this: don't get killed. I've made very low survivability characters make it to level 4 in ALFA three times now. I think that all I can say to people who aren't surviving for that first 10k experience is "Stop picking so many fights. Life in fantasy worlds is riddled with violence when you don't look for it."

But, Zel, what I would like to hear are any pros and cons, and any alternatives. As a code monkey, I'd be interested in hearing such thoughts from you.

Frankly, this looks to me as a way to give more advantages to ALFA's most-twinked race. I have yet to see a character leave NU who was not actionably wealthy, usually actionably wealthy for a PC two levels higher than they are (my own included, though I believe she was actionable for her level +1 when she left). Adding free XP to the long track record of giving drow wealth advantages and the free spell-like abilities, spell resistance, ability scores and whathaveyou is very clearly and directly nerfing the only disadvantage that these races have to worry about.

It becomes more problematic in that you propose to nerf the disadvantage at the only point that the disadvantage is really noticeable. It doesn't take a mathemetician to see that ECL's slow advancement becomes less of a disadvantage as you gain levels. You advance at 33% the speed from lvl 1 -> 2 for ECL+2, advance at 50% the speed from 2 -> 3, advance at 60% the speed from 3 -> 4, and then 66%, 71%, 75%, 77%, etc, up to 91% at level 20. By the time an ECL+2 character is level 8, bad multiclassing is a bigger worry to their XP.

Indeed, I'm sure this is very much your point -- my counter point is that by this system, some characters get special powers and much better ability scores, and they don't have to pay for it. That is the definition of unbalancing, and I can promise that it will cost ALFA players once CvC happens between ECL races and non-ECL races.

[Mulu]

It would be interesting to actually split the world so that UD became a sub-project, and allow people to have a PC in each. Then you could let the UD server run rampant under a totally different set of standards. It would be like ALFA's Vegas.

Otherwise, we have to have the same standards everywhere, especially in regards to xp acquisition. I mentioned in standards several times that any system that allows a DM to knowingly or accidently twink UD races as a "work around" for LA systems would cause heartache. The advantage of the out of the box system is that any increased xp awards are obvious, since parity is a flatline, and of course it requires no work or extra training. Though I did like the idea of just giving everyone starting xp and making ALFA a level 2 campaign.

I also like that this discussion is highlighting the fact that UD races are *much* more problematic than the now banned planetouched.

On a more serious note, I was under the strong impression that the UD was a particularly nasty place, and that therefore UD PC's should have a much higher turnover rate.

[Inaubryn]

Alara, I think we are completely misunderstanding each other. First, yes... this is a completely arbitrary system. The only way that it's similar to any currently published system is that it keeps all ECL races behind non-ECL races in their level progression. But, what I suggested back then, which I'm not entirely sure to what time frame you're referring, is the same as I'm suggesting now. Since, we've known what Obsidian's ECL system was, which I knew before most here as I was in their beta testing, I've made this same proposal. So... I don't think I understand exactly what you're talking about on this point, man. If you could clarify, that'd be cool.

The system does indeed address balance issues as no matter what happens, the ECL race is always 1, 2, or 3 levels behind a non-ecl counterpart. That's the overall goal of the ECL system in any form. There's no advantage there. Also, I never referred to CvC in my post. That wasn't the intention. I may have referred to combat, but I was talkin' about combat against stuff, not each other. Even, if we were talkin' CvC, the duergar, drow or smurf are behind all other races as far as advancement is concerned.

And, I believe you all are missing the point. The disadvantage of being level 1 for six thousand to ten thousand experience points is HUGE. I'm not sure you guys are completely grasping that. Zel, you say how you've kept 3 PCs alive long enough to reach level 4. But, you forget that during that time, your base attack, hitpoints, saving throws, number of feats and such all increased giving your PCs greater survivabilty. During that same time none of that stuff would increase for a drow or svirfneblin and it would only increase once w/ a duergar. So, simply saying "don't get killed", is a helluva lot more difficult to do than it is to say. Running around with a drow wizard at 4 hitpoints and only being able to cast 3 spells per day, in ALFA, until you hit 6000xp is a recipe for death every time you run across a rat whether you're picking a fight with that rat or not.

Can you truly tell me there's no difference in having 4, 6, 8, or 10, xp for 6000 to 10000 experience points isn't a difference maker in the survivability category? I guarantee none of your PCs to date have had to do that.

By the way, Zel, I kept stressing those numbers were examples even though they do keep the ECL races behind non-ECL the same amount as it is in PnP. 1, 2, and 3 levels for duergar, drow, and svirfs, respectively. Again, Zel, offer me a better alternative.

Again, the whole point of this system is to keep people alive. Y'all are beginning to turn the argument toward the implied point that surviving in ALFA is an easy thing. well, frankly it's not. I don't care what type of PC you play. You have people that make non-combat oriented PCs. That's great. But part of playing a character in DnD and by extension ALFA, involves some combat. Think a DM's gonna say, well, I know you're playing a non-combat PC, I'll make sure to keep you out of all combat situations until you reach level x? Doubt that. And there's always the random spawn. The rat that's on the street that you don't see as you walk to the tavern to get in some good ol' table sitting, non-combat, RP. 4 hitpoint wizard? Gone.

But, Alara, I personally love starting at level 1. I think starting at a higher level cheats you out of some great character growth opportunities. I don't care what type of PC I'm playing, I always like starting at level 1 and building my PC up through his actions.

As far as the Lesser Races thing, the reason I don't like those is because I feel it detracts from the flavor of the race. If you said, for example, dwarves have no skill bonuses to work with stone and they're no longer resistant to poison or spells, that kinda takes away the flavor of what it is to be a dwarf. Yes, the LA races have special powers, but these races have built up these immunities resistances, and abilities of thousands of years because of where they were born or their culture. It's just as much what they are as anything else.