Making LA worth it

[Littha]

I had a thought, what if instead of reducing LA to meet underpowered templates you instead buff the templates to meet the LA?

With this in mind I created this:

Power Level.
Power level is the sum total of a creatures racial HD and its level in all classes.
For example a nymph druid 5 has a power level of 11.

Half Celestial.
[spoiler]
LA+4

Size and TypeSpeedSpecial AttacksDaylight (Su)
Half Celestials can use a daylight effect (as the spell) at will.

Smite Evil (Su)
A number of times a day equal to its power level a half-celestial can make a normal melee attack to deal extra damage equal to its power level (maximum of +20) against an evil foe.

Abilities
Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4, Int +2, Wis +4, Cha +4.
Skills

Skill PointsArmor Class
A half celestial gains a sacred bonus to AC equal to its power level.

Spell Like abilities
As a half celestial grows in power it gains the ability to use many spell like abilities, To use any of these abilities the half celestial must have an intelegence or wisdom score of 8 or higher.

Power Level  Abilities
1         Protection from evil, bless, detect evil
3         Aid, Align Weapon, Remove Paralysis
5         Cure serious wounds, neutralize poison, remove disease
7        Holy smite, Divine Power, Death Ward
9         Dispel evil, hallow, Rightious Might
11         Holy word, True Seeing, Heal
13         Holy aura, Forbiddance, Resurection
15         Mass charm monster, Greater Planar Ally (Good Outsiders only), Sunburst
17         Summon monster IX (celestials only), True resurection, Miracle*

*Unlike usual spell like abilities, you must still pay the appropriate xp cost for a miricle.

Caster level equals power level and DC is based off your choice of INT WIS or CHA (chosen upon acquiring the template).

These abilities may be used a number of times a day equal to your power level minus the required power level of the ability. For example a half celestial fighter 10 may use protection from evil 9 times a day. Once a Half celestial has 10 or more uses of an ability per day that ability is then at will. [/spoiler]

Thoughts? is it worth 4 LA? I still don't think so, possibly 3 so it obviously needs more power. That much LA completely screws over a caster but for a melee character the utility of the spells along with ex flight etc it just might be.

[RobbyPants]

It's a good idea and a bad idea.  It's good in that if you're level X, you should be of power level X.  That makes sense.  It's bad in that in 3.x, if you add two classes together that add up to X, you don't necessarily get power level X.  Also, some classes are stronger than others.

So, even if you re-stat a race so that LA + RHD = X, once you add in class levels, it will probably stop working.  If your race doesn't advance caster levels, it's still a trap option for casters.  It might make it an interesting alternative for a melee class, but that's a fundamental issue you'll just have to accept with 3.x classes.

[Littha]

Well it as fairly obvious that the only people who use LA 2+ templates would be the ones to benefit from this, that said I don't think that templates being better for melee than they are for casters is really an issue.

[RobbyPants]

Power Level.
Power level is the sum total of a creatures racial HD and its level in all classes.
For example a nymph druid 5 has a power level of 11.

What was this part then?  I assumed you were talking about casters and non-casters alike.

If you want to assume that LA templates are never for casters, then that's cool.  I'm fine with minotaur being a melee-only race.  It's stereotypical, but if it's worth the investment, it can make for interesting characters.

[Littha]

Oh I am talking about both, casters can use them just like they can now. The thing is the issue with templated casters is that pretty much nothing is worth losing caster levels on. You could make a minotaur caster, it would just be strait weaker than a human. Use of templates is one of the few things that melee characters actually have over casters and while it could be interesting to see a minotaur wizard at some point it only has to be possibly not optimal.

The power level thing is just to avoid having to write out "The total of your class levels and your racial HD" in every other line. I didn't want to make it run off ECL because I wanted to penalise stacking templates.

I hope I'm making some sense here and I'm not coming across as much of a doushe as I sound in my head writing this. I generally appreciate criticism but am not great at explaining things that make perfect sense in my head.   

[RobbyPants]

So you're saying "Power Level" is shorthand for RHD + LA.  So when you say a Nymph Druid 5 is PL 11, you're not saying that it's the same actual power as a Human Druid 11, right?

I think I misunderstood what you meant by PL, and that you were indeed positing that the two were equal.  That makes more sense.

[Littha]

lol, maybe I should have come up with a better term. I had dragonball going through my head as I wrote it.

That said Nymph druid 5 is probably just a but weaker than human druid 11... well sort of, +1 caster level and some nifty racial stuff but loss of the 6-11 enhancements to animal companion and wildshape hurts.