Ask a Simple Question: Have At Thee!

[Ithamar]

He meant Were-Dire Tiger, as in Lycanthrope, I believe.

[Viletta Vadim]

Ware Dire Tiger

......eh?

It's a really, really big tiger where you store crates and stuff.

[Littha]

Like Weretiger only Dire. Not the most optimal race but the game I'm going to play in has odd rules...

Yea spelling fail on my part though

Edit: Actually I think ill probably just make a thread about optimizing the thing...

[kevin_video]

If you want to buy off your LAs, but only three of them, you can buy them off at 9, 15, and 18. If you're going for all four, then you start at lvl 12, and no sooner. Are are you talking about taking the LAs, and not buying them off at all? Because you could do that as you've got written if you wanted to.

[Negative Zero]

Q25 Does bloodstorm blade advance initiator level, I know it doesn't grant knew manuvers but, it just seems so out of place.

Only at 1 IL per two levels, just like levels of Fighter or Wizard or Half-Elf Paragon.

[McPoyo]

Q25 Does bloodstorm blade advance initiator level, I know it doesn't grant knew manuvers but, it just seems so out of place.

Only at 1 IL per two levels, just like levels of Fighter or Wizard or Half-Elf Paragon.

I'm afb, but I'm pretty sure BSB advances at full I'LL, like the other ToB prcs...

Edit: failpoasting from phone for formatfail

[Littha]

i was aiming for buying them all off but because I gain them one at a time i thought:

 1   1 LA
 2   1 LA
 3   0 LA (Buyoff at 3)
 4   0 LA
 5   1 LA
 6   1 LA
 7   0 LA (Buyoff 2 levels after I acquire it as it 1 LA)
 8   0 LA
 9   0 LA
10  1 LA
11  1 LA
12  0 LA (Buyoff 2 levels after I acquire it as it 1 LA)
13  0 LA
14  0 LA
15  1 LA
16  1 LA
17  0 LA (Buyoff 2 levels after I acquire it as it 1 LA)
18  0 LA
19  0 LA
20  0 LA

Edit: Point is sort of mute now as my DM said yes anyway but im still interested in an answer

[kevin_video]

Edit: Point is sort of mute now as my DM said yes anyway but im still interested in an answer

That kind of buy off would be when you take the bloodline levels, but the actual buy off is here http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm

[kevin_video]

Q 25 Why does a creature, such as the Goatfolk, have a +1 LA when it says right on there that it has 3 HD? If it has 3 HD, does that not mean it's LA +3?

[bearsarebrown]

Q 25 Why does a creature, such as the Goatfolk, have a +1 LA when it says right on there that it has 3 HD? If it has 3 HD, does that not mean it's LA +3?

Because a HD is not the same as ECL. 3 HD and 1 LA means ECL 4.

[kevin_video]

Q 25 Why does a creature, such as the Goatfolk, have a +1 LA when it says right on there that it has 3 HD? If it has 3 HD, does that not mean it's LA +3?

Because a HD is not the same as ECL. 3 HD and 1 LA means ECL 4.

Which makes no sense to me whatsoever. The Goatfolk creature alone has racial HD 3d8, a CR of 2, and for PCs being one is LA +1. A Sand Giant has 15 HD, a CR of 10, and LA of +4.

From my understanding of how LAs work, a +1 would mean that I could have someone be a catfolk fighter at  1st level, take a -1 penalty to BAB, skills, saves, etc, and next level he or she could buy off that +1. That makes that person even. Now another player does the exact same thing here for the goatfolk. That makes no sense to me.

[Littha]

Q 25 Why does a creature, such as the Goatfolk, have a +1 LA when it says right on there that it has 3 HD? If it has 3 HD, does that not mean it's LA +3?

Because a HD is not the same as ECL. 3 HD and 1 LA means ECL 4.

Which makes no sense to me whatsoever. The Goatfolk creature alone has racial HD 3d8, a CR of 2, and for PCs being one is LA +1. A Sand Giant has 15 HD, a CR of 10, and LA of +4.

From my understanding of how LAs work, a +1 would mean that I could have someone be a catfolk fighter at  1st level, take a -1 penalty to BAB, skills, saves, etc, and next level he or she could buy off that +1. That makes that person even. Now another player does the exact same thing here for the goatfolk. That makes no sense to me.

That isn't the way it works unfortunately. Catfolk fighter cant be played till level 2.
CR is to be ignored for player characters.

Goatfolk are ECL 4, Sand Giant is ECL 19

[kevin_video]

That isn't the way it works unfortunately. Catfolk fighter cant be played till level 2.

Oh sure you can. There's rules for that. For every LA you've got, you can take a penalty equal to your LA, which you can buy off. Or, you can go the Savage Species route, figure out what the base race for +0 would be, and take the +1 later as an actual level.

[Negative Zero]

Q 25 Why does a creature, such as the Goatfolk, have a +1 LA when it says right on there that it has 3 HD? If it has 3 HD, does that not mean it's LA +3?

Because a HD is not the same as ECL. 3 HD and 1 LA means ECL 4.

Which makes no sense to me whatsoever. The Goatfolk creature alone has racial HD 3d8, a CR of 2, and for PCs being one is LA +1. A Sand Giant has 15 HD, a CR of 10, and LA of +4.

From my understanding of how LAs work, a +1 would mean that I could have someone be a catfolk fighter at  1st level, take a -1 penalty to BAB, skills, saves, etc, and next level he or she could buy off that +1. That makes that person even. Now another player does the exact same thing here for the goatfolk. That makes no sense to me.

That isn't the way it works unfortunately. Catfolk fighter cant be played till level 2.
CR is to be ignored for player characters.

Goatfolk are ECL 4, Sand Giant is ECL 19

A Catfolk Fighter 1 would be identical to a Human Fighter 1 (except with Catfolk racial traits), except that he would count as a level 2 character for the purposes of XP and the like. When he became a Catfolk Fighter 3, he could 'buy off' that LA, going from a level 4 character with 3 hit dice to a level 3 character with three hit dice. (You can buy off LA after a number of levels equal to the LA times three. 2 LA takes six levels to buy off one, and then three levels to buy off the other LA). A Goatfolk is basically a character with the racial traits of a Goatfolk, three 'levels' in his racial class (I assume Monstrous Humanoid), and one level adjustment. A Goatfolk with one level in Fighter would have 4 hit dice and count as a level 5 character.

That isn't the way it works unfortunately. Catfolk fighter cant be played till level 2.

Oh sure you can. There's rules for that. For every LA you've got, you can take a penalty equal to your LA, which you can buy off. Or, you can go the Savage Species route, figure out what the base race for +0 would be, and take the +1 later as an actual level.

Right, right, but them's variants.

[kevin_video]

Oh sure you can. There's rules for that. For every LA you've got, you can take a penalty equal to your LA, which you can buy off. Or, you can go the Savage Species route, figure out what the base race for +0 would be, and take the +1 later as an actual level.

Right, right, but that's a variant those are variants.

Corrected. I had more than one example there.

I mentioned it because that's the only way I know how to play with LAs. I've yet to meet a DM who actually has a template with the full +5 to make a character ECL 6, and allow a buyoff. It's always been the way I've mentioned. I understand the concept though, and this is why my confusion exists. Expecially when you look at Savage Species and you see 14 levels for something that's supposed to be LA +5. It just blows my mind to the point of inducing a migraine.

[Littha]

Savage progressions are LA + HD, hence succubus has 13 levels despite having nowhere near that much LA.

You can only buy off 1 level of LA 5 every 15 levels... so you would need to be level 75 before you could do it, its no wonder you haven't seen it.

[Negative Zero]

Oh sure you can. There's rules for that. For every LA you've got, you can take a penalty equal to your LA, which you can buy off. Or, you can go the Savage Species route, figure out what the base race for +0 would be, and take the +1 later as an actual level.

Right, right, but that's a variant those are variants.

Corrected. I had more than one example there.

I mentioned it because that's the only way I know how to play with LAs. I've yet to meet a DM who actually has a template with the full +5 to make a character ECL 6, and allow a buyoff. It's always been the way I've mentioned. I understand the concept though, and this is why my confusion exists. Expecially when you look at Savage Species and you see 14 levels for something that's supposed to be LA +5. It just blows my mind to the point of inducing a migraine.

Well, the other 9 are racial hit dice. Level adjustment are 'empty' levels in addition to the hit dice. In Savage Species, they didn't really make progressions for races that have LA and no hit dice, because "leveling up" without gaining hit dice sucks.

Savage progressions are LA + HD, hence succubus has 13 levels despite having nowhere near that much LA.

You can only buy off 1 level of LA 5 every 15 levels... so you would need to be level 75 before you could do it, its no wonder you haven't seen it.

Sort of. You can buy the first one off at level (5*3)=15, the second one at level (15+4*3)=27, the third at (27+3*3)=36, the fourth at (36+2*3)=42, and the final at level (42+1*3)=45.

[kevin_video]

Savage progressions are LA + HD, hence succubus has 13 levels despite having nowhere near that much LA.

You can only buy off 1 level of LA 5 every 15 levels... so you would need to be level 75 before you could do it, its no wonder you haven't seen it.

Kind of explains the Medusa and Harpy too. But also not. I actually thought that all creatures were the same. But that makes sense too. I guess that means a Harssaf is going to be 10 levels too for the 6 HD and LA +4. Damn. Same as the Medusa.

As for the +5, that was just an example. But that doesn't mean it's unheard of in the group I'm in. It's what I'm going to be dealing with next campaign. I think the average person in our group has around 10-20 LAs that they can take.

Well, the other 9 are racial hit dice. Level adjustment are 'empty' levels in addition to the hit dice. In Savage Species, they didn't really make progressions for races that have LA and no hit dice, because "leveling up" without gaining hit dice sucks.

Just noticed that while going through it.

[Glutton]

Q27

Is a multi-martial adept character with prestige classes who chooses the optimal recovery method hurt by picking it for IL purposes?

Example a Swordsage 6 / Warblade 1 / Master of Nine 5 who pick their maneuvers to be recovered by their warblade mechanic. Would their IL be 11 or 9? And if they continued leveling after as a swordsage would their IL be 10 or 12 at swordsage 7?

[drako_beoulve]

On Soulknives:

Q 28:Since Mind Arrow (Soulbow) is treated as Mind Blade for Feats that affect the last, would the following feats favors both mind weapons?:

Melee Weapon Mastering - Slashing
Melee Weapon Mastering - Piercing (For throwing mind blade / shot mind arrow)
Ranged Weapon Mastery - Piercing (For throwing mind blade / shot mind arrow)


Q 29:Is the Psionic Handbook Overrided by Expanded Psionic Handbook?, meaning PrC SoulKnife has been updated to a regular class and I cannot use SoulKnife X / PrC Soulknife Y builds.