How do you play a LA+1 race at level 1?
I have a group starting, and want to keep things equal with the players. I have one player who would like to play a LA+1 race.
How do I balance all of this to make it fair with all the players?
[RPG] How to play a LA+1 race at level 1
character-creationcharacter-levelsdnd-3.5eraces
Related Solutions
Large Level Gaps Are Bad
Here's the problem. You have a level 9 party. They're probably fighting stuff somewhere around their power level. If you throw a level 1 character into that, they are both highly ineffective (anything with a save will be made, few spells, limited ability to contribute), and absurdly fragile (very low HP, lower saves, probably limited money for gear unless you give them level 9 equivalent treasure).
That combination just doesn't work in 3.5. An experienced player can maybe make it work by knowing all the tricks to get the most out of their tiny allotment of level 1 spells. A newbie will not, and one mistake will get them killed. They do not have a margin for error, and as a new player they need a margin for error more than anyone else.
As the DM, you'd have to avoid trying to kill that character. You can't even do things like throw fireballs around with your NPCs, because a single one anywhere near that character and it's dead.
You could tone things down instead, but then the level 9 characters will steamroll over everything and not be challenged. That's also bad.
Given that, your best bet is to start the new character at level 9.
Mentorship
You and the other players will have to help mentor your new player. That goes with a level 1 character, and it goes with a level 9 character. The main difference is that the level 9 character is going to have more abilities, and some margin for error (a single melee attack won't kill a level 9 character very often).
Your new player will need help building a character, picking gear, learning what their stats mean, when to use skills, and so on. You and the other players can help with that in the first couple of sessions, mostly by helping with character creation, answering questions, encouraging questions, and offering hints and suggestions.
Gradual Spellbook Additions
Since your new player wants to play a spellcaster, the real overwhelming thing is trying to master the spell system and the large spell list. That's where you can help.
Shrink the list. A lot. Start the player off with a pared down spell list, where you pick out a handful of essential spells. If the player wants to, let them look through the book and pick out a few more that sound interesting. Don't give them 100 spells to start. Use a much smaller number (under 30).
As the player starts to grasp things in future sessions, start adding spells. For a Wizard this is easy, as you can say what's in the spellbook initially, and you can introduce spells to add to it later. For a Divine Caster, you may just have to explain why you want him to focus on a smaller set of spells initially to get the hang of it, and that the other ones are available if he wants to use them in the future.
I know when a friend of mine played a caster for the first time (a Cleric, which is a great class), we sat down together and built a "typical daily memorization list". Those were the spells he'd prepare each day, normally. He could make additions or changes if events warranted it, but I built the first list with him and he didn't have to try to figure out what spells were must have on his own. It made trying to figure out what to cast at first a lot easier for him, because that list is much shorter.
For a spontaneous caster, you can handle it differently depending on the class. Something with a fixed list like Beguiler you can treat like a Divine Caster: shorten the available list up a bit initially, and then add spells back as the player starts to get the hang of it. For Sorcerer where you have to pick the spells you will use forever... well, I'd pick an initial list of spells, and then give the new player the option to swap them out later if he decides he wants something else. Sorcerers already have this option every even numbered level, but he will have missed some chances to do it by starting at level 9 and by not knowing what to pick initially. You can be a bit more flexible with the swapping rules by allowing one time swapping of any spell that he came into the game with, so he can customize his character once he understands how it works.
So Which Spellcaster Should He Be?
You mentioned spells, but not which class he's going to play. If he's already picked a class to play, great! If he hasn't picked a class yet, I have a couple of recommendations.
- Beguiler - Spontaneous caster, so no preparation of spells at the start of the day is required. Preparation can often be a real stumbling block for new players, so this takes it out of the way. The fixed spell list is a bit limiting, but he won't have to choose which spells he knows, as he just gets all of the ones the class has access to. Also gets d6 HD and access to light armor, which makes them tougher than the Sorcerer (handy for a new player). A lot of skill points and a good skill list is handy too. This is a pretty solid "pick up and play" spellcaster that doesn't need much book keeping.
- Cleric - Has to prepare spells, which may be an issue. But other than that, there's a lot to recommend here. It's easy to make a Cleric that's tough as nails (full plate, two good saves, and d8 HD go a long way!), their spell list is strong, they can be strong melee combatants, easy access to healing whenever you want it, and there's no spell book to manage.
Druid and Wizard are both great classes, but they're also harder to play and may not be an ideal choice for a new player. That's not to say he can't play them, because he can. He'll just need more help:
- Druids have to also manage an animal companion, and wild shape. The animal companion can be a plus, because at level 9 you can get something that's pretty tough (like a Brown Bear or Dire Wolf), but now there's more stats to know and more things to manage. Wild Shape exacerbates that problem even more by changing the player's stats themselves.
- Wizards not only have to prepare spells each day, but also have to keep track of which ones they're allowed to prepare due to what's in their spellbook. They're also very, very fragile if you don't know how to mitigate that, and the familiar is an extra thing to manage if you don't trade it out for something else.
My Rule of Thumb
There isn't an official rule of thumb. Mine (and it seems to be pretty common amongst players I know) is that the party should be the same level unless there is a good reason why they're not (someone spending XP on item creation feats for example). If a new player joins, I put him at the same XP as everyone else, and try to keep treasure from being too different (though the new person may start with a bit less, as I typically give new players standard wealth from the DMG).
Level is one of those things that can make someone horribly ineffective if you set them back too far. They can make that up by being more optimized than everyone else is, or know how to use their abilities more successfully, but the game in my experience just works better when party members don't have level gaps between them.
A small gap is one thing, but a level 1 new player in a level 9 party is just unworkable.
Be A Diva
You are essentially looking for some way to handicap your pure-kill potential, and you're looking for some way to act that will generate that. There are an unlimited number of ways to do this, here are some that are famous and/or have worked for me:
- Lazy Hercules Syndrome: I once rolled up a 2e character that was hell on wheels compared to the others in my party (19 STR gladiator). So one of the things I did was inspired by one of the Hercules movies I saw on MST3K, where Hercules is always lazing about - Antaeus stopped his wagon where he was snoozing in the back, hassled his wife and friend, but he wouldn't rouse himself to fight the guy until he came around the back and started directly messing with him. D&D combats often don't last that many rounds, and simply not being in the initial rush to contact is a decent handicap. Or a wizard who's paranoid about being without his top level spells ever in case his enemies find him, so while he can cast a couple third level spells he never ever does and relies on lower ones instead.
- Weapon Master Wants A Challenge Syndrome: You've seen this in many forms. Inigo Montoya fighting with his left hand in The Princess Bride. Top samurai swordsman Miyamoto Musashi choosing to fight with a wooden sword because he was kicking everyone's ass too much with a metal one. Derived from that, Ruroni Kenshin's backwards sword. With that same character since he was a gladiator, once he killed someone with a weapon in a fight he left the weapon in them and went to another weapon, going from larger to smaller down to cesti and head-butts. These are just examples, do something that either gives you disadvantage to hit, or does low damage, or loses you actions.
- Cursed Badass Syndrome: You have a curse, or a handicap (missing arm, gimpy leg, a curse that makes you sneeze when spellcasting) that lets you have high potential while seldom living up to it. This requires more GM collaboration, but should be easy enough. Or just some code of ethics or phobia (in my newfound respect for human life, and near-death immolation experience, I'm not going to use all these fire spells in my book any more). I often use this device when putting a high level NPC with a party to restrain them from dominating play.
Best Answer
Officially, you cannot.
A 1st-level character of an LA +1 race is an ECL 2nd character—so in order to play one, you must be starting at 2nd level or higher.
There are official alternatives
Wizards of the Coast themselves recognized this flaw, and others, with the ECL system, and in later books introduced alternatives to mitigate some of the problems.
Monster Progressions
Savage Species debuted the concept of “monster progressions” instead of “just” starting with LA. A few other books also included some of these progressions, and there was also some follow-up material on their website with more progressions, including for templates rather than races.
These progressions effectively allow you to start from ECL 1st, and then build up the various benefits—and LA—of the race or template in question as you level-up. In this way, a more powerful race becomes more like a class than just a race—but a class you are obligated to continue taking until you complete it.
“Lesser” versions of races and templates
Monster and template progressions are still a poor system. LA is crippling, no matter how gradually you accrue it. Wizards of the Coast seemed to recognize this, too, printing a number of “lesser” versions of races and templates that provide less benefit, but also incur less LA. For instance, the core LA +3 half-dragon saw the LA +1 draconic in Draconomicon (which even got its own 5-level prestige class, the dragon devotee, that parallels the 10-level dragon disciple).
In the extreme, LA was avoided altogether—for example, all of the LA +0 “dragonblooded” races in Dragon Magic instead of even the LA +1 of draconic. Similarly, the dragonborn of Bahamut “template” (that’s more like a race) from Races of the Dragon. Player’s Guide to Faerûn offered “lesser” planetouched, which aren’t true outsiders but also have LA +0. Necropolitan is a weird case from Libris Mortis—it’s basically like an LA +1 template with free buy-off.
Negative level adjustment
Player’s Guide to Faerûn suggests that a “negative level adjustment” might apply LA −1 along with a −1 penalty to skill checks, ability checks, level checks, attacks, saves, saving throw DCs, and any AC bonuses from the race. Take as many as you need to reduce your LA to a point that the race is playable in the game, and then as you level-up, instead of actually gaining a level, just remove one of these negative LA.
I’ve never played with this variant, but my gut feeling is that it’s highly game-able. Creatures with LA have large ability score bonuses which can largely offset those penalties. In fact, since one of the few things that isn’t penalized is your hp, you’d almost certainly wish to keep your negative LA and get real levels rather than remove the negative LA.
Unrelated, but there is also a template with negative LA, the incarnate construct of Savage Species that removes the Construct type from a construct in exchange for reducing LA by 2. This is largely irrelevant since there are very few playable constructs to begin with, and the most playable one (warforged) doesn’t have any LA to reduce (and anyway the interactions between incarnate construct and the warforged’s living construct subtype are incredibly wonky, and even if you really want to go there, dragonborn of Bahamut is the better route).
LA Buyoff
One of the variants published in Unearthed Arcana was “LA Buyoff” rules that they published to allow characters to “undo” LA later on in their careers, effectively losing their LA (but also the level that went with it)—since this left them as a lower-level character, they should get more XP than their peers and thus begin to “catch up.”
Plus plenty of homebrew or fan options
I’ve seen games where one could replace the level adjustment of a race or class with a reduced point buy, or that characters of certain, weaker classes could use options that would otherwise require LA for free. So, for instance, a half-minotaur fighter might have lower point buy, or you could play a half-dragon monk but not a half-dragon wizard.
But these basically don’t work
Progressions solve the ECL 1st issue but nothing else. Even reduced amounts of LA are still too much; even LA +1 is near-crippling. Some of the no-LA options are good (dragonblood races, dragonborn, warforged), but others are overpowered (lesser planetouched, necropolitan), so that’s pretty hit-or-miss. And all of the above only apply to a select few races and templates that they bothered to do it for. Buyoff is more general and covers everything, but it only helps later on, and even when it’s in play it makes handing out XP so much more annoying for the DM and at best it results in “suffer early to be overpowered late” which is not exactly what I call “balance.”
The lower point buy, or LA restricted by the power of the class, are better ideas, but I’ve never really found a good one-size-fits-all approach that I think works well. The games I’ve been in that have used it, have felt much higher power as a result of it.
So for my own games, LA is banned. Any content with an LA that a player wants, I try to convert into a balanced LA +0 option. As I said, some of the official LA +0 versions of things are good; some are not. I try to make more that are good. For LA +1 things, this often just means toning down the ability score adjustments; sometimes it doesn’t even mean that—goliath and half-giant are fine as LA +0 even as-is, and blues aren’t even good enough for LA +0 as they are.
For stronger things, I either start just stripping features away, or sometimes I’ll split features of the LA +1 race across an LA +0 race and a mandatory 1st-level feat. But crucially, both the race and feat have to be balanced like an LA +0 race and like a feat. One of the big takeaways there is that feats don’t offer ability score bonuses—and LA +0 races always offset ability score bonuses with at least as much penalty, and almost never exceed +2 to any score. Ability score bonuses are a big part of the problem with LA’d options, and something I take pains to avoid.
If I cannot do come up with a fair 1st-level version of something, then the content is unavailable. Unfortunately, in my (strongly-held, expert) opinion, this is the only workable solution. LA is just that problematic.