LA vs Progressions. Buyoff?

[LargePrime]

If you take a LA, Unearthed arcana Suggests you might regret it at higher levels.
Savage species introduced Progressions, which you take as class levels.

Should progressions have buyoffs, like LA does?

[archangel.arcanis]

arguably yes but it would be exceedingly difficult to define and implement.

[LargePrime]

Thanks.  I was feeling kinda like I was all alone.

I am thinking the same sort of thing.  I was thinking the progression levels that suck could be 'buyoff able', and others not.  This might add a balancing effect to creating progressions, and make more progressions attractive.  But it relies on an optional rule anyway.

[PhaedrusXY]

I don't see what's so difficult to implement. Having a huge LA sucks, with or without "savage progressions". Allowing people to actually buy those off piecemeal would actually make those races semi-playable.

What I mean by "piecemeal" is that they could take a few levels of the savage progression, buyoff a LA, take 1+ more levels of savage progression, and buyoff another LA, etc. I doubt this is going to really break anything for most races with big LAs. In most cases, they'll still be weaker than a "normal" character.

[Bauglir]

Yeah, if you're allowing it for LA I don't see a problem in principle with allowing it for progressions. I do think that LA buyoff is a bad idea in general, but I also think that's because it's a fix for LA that doesn't actually fix it.

[LargePrime]

I am gonna take the other side for sake of discussion.

Look at the ghost progression*.  One level dip is hella worth it.  Better than any class or PrC I can think of, although you might do better.  Would you allow a buyoff for it?  I am thinking not.

But perhaps the last level, which kinda sucks.

*Obligatory thanks to TML

[archangel.arcanis]

well for it to work
1)you would need to require that someone take the entire progression, the later ones don't have this requirement.
2)You would probably not want to allow them to buy off levels of progression that grant HD as that could get messy quickly.
3)Find some way to allow them to take enough class levels to be something other than a weak monster for several levels, but not so much that there is no cost for the race choice.

[LargePrime]

well for it to work
1)you would need to require that someone take the entire progression, the later ones don't have this requirement.

Why?
2)You would probably not want to allow them to buy off levels of progression that grant HD as that could get messy quickly.[/quote]LA buys off explicitly does not cover HD, which is always a separate ECL adjustment, right?
3)Find some way to allow them to take enough class levels to be something other than a weak monster for several levels, but not so much that there is no cost for the race choice.[/quote]Yes, I think.  To make it a viable choice compared to class choices.

[nijineko]

with the la buyoff, you are only nixing the "dead" levels, in effect. with the buyoffs, it spreads all the abilities across the hd granting levels and the non-hd levels. thinking for it a bit, i would say that you should be able to buy off the same number of levels with a progression as you should be able to with the more standard la versus hd setup.

[Brainpiercing]

with the la buyoff, you are only nixing the "dead" levels, in effect. with the buyoffs, it spreads all the abilities across the hd granting levels and the non-hd levels. thinking for it a bit, i would say that you should be able to buy off the same number of levels with a progression as you should be able to with the more standard la versus hd setup.

There are progressions for stuff with HUGE LA. You cannot buy off anything larger than +4, pre-epic, with the UA rules. Also, the problem with Progressions is when to buy off the LA, if you don't have a fixed level when you could do this. Normally the first level you can buy off is after triple the total LA. But if your total LA is +7, then you can only start buying off at 21+ your RHD.

The problem with Buy-off is the scale. And it doesn't change for progressions. Low LA is irrelevant, high LA is really hard to get rid of. With fixed levels this might change, although I guess they put in this funny triple multiplier for a reason. I suggest a fixed mechanism, nevertheless:

With a fixed mechanism you could buy off a level after every three levels,i.e. after 3rd, 6th, etc. You pay the cost for the next level +1000XP.

So, for instance, you take a +2 LA race and one class level or three levels of a progression containing at least one "empty" level, i.e. a level without a HD, then you wait until you have 4000XP surplus, waste them, and you are now ECL 2. Your next level costs 2000 XP, you are 2 ECL behind your companions, which means on average you get (at that level) about 10-15% more XP than them. That won't really help you catch up, much, BUT at least you'll have more open levels. However, as levels go up the benefit of -2 levels will increase to up to 50% bonus XP, IIRC.

Now I'm not sure about retroactively buying off levels. Say you become a Lich after level 11. By normal rules, you can buy off the next level 12 levels later, IIRC, which sucks. With retroactive normal rules, you buy it off at 12th, and so on. By fixed level rules, you can buy off a level at 12, 15, 18, so you won't lose all the LA before level 20. With retroactive buying off you could buy it all off pretty quickly immediately after getting it, for 4000+7000+9000 XP, and the last LA for +13000 XP after gaining level 12.

[archangel.arcanis]

I said they should have to take the whole progression because most are front loaded with abilities. If you are allowing them to buy off the dead levels they will take just enough to get the ability they want and not suffer under the additional LA from the higher levels. Ghost 2 is insane because it gets you so much good stuff for 2 levels of investment, which under this concept could be easily bought off so it essentially costs nothing.

[LargePrime]

I said they should have to take the whole progression because most are front loaded with abilities. If you are allowing them to buy off the dead levels they will take just enough to get the ability they want and not suffer under the additional LA from the higher levels. Ghost 2 is insane because it gets you so much good stuff for 2 levels of investment, which under this concept could be easily bought off so it essentially costs nothing.

But is that a problem with the progression, or progression buyoff?
Something like the first 3 levels of ghost are so strong one should not be allowed to buy them off.  But the later levels one could make a argument for making them buyable.

[Brainpiercing]

I said they should have to take the whole progression because most are front loaded with abilities. If you are allowing them to buy off the dead levels they will take just enough to get the ability they want and not suffer under the additional LA from the higher levels. Ghost 2 is insane because it gets you so much good stuff for 2 levels of investment, which under this concept could be easily bought off so it essentially costs nothing.

Oh, I agree they should take the entire progression, and then let buyoff take care of some of the dead levels. HOWEVER, using the rules in UA this is just really clunky.

[nijineko]

I said they should have to take the whole progression because most are front loaded with abilities. If you are allowing them to buy off the dead levels they will take just enough to get the ability they want and not suffer under the additional LA from the higher levels. Ghost 2 is insane because it gets you so much good stuff for 2 levels of investment, which under this concept could be easily bought off so it essentially costs nothing.

Oh, I agree they should take the entire progression, and then let buyoff take care of some of the dead levels. HOWEVER, using the rules in UA this is just really clunky.

clunky, agreed. ^^

[wotmaniac]

I'm not really sure where the debate/confusion is.  Check this out:
- The UA buy-off rules explicitly state that the only levels that count towards the buy-off matrix are actual class levels, disregarding any racial HD.
- Savage progressions were designed simply as a way to play a monster starting at a lower level than you would normally be able to.  All HD gained from a savage progression are racial HD; any reference to "class" in regards to savage progressions is simply a misnomer -- any time that the words "class" or "level" might be used in reference to savage progressions is simply a way to translate the concept to players, and not really to be considered "character class levels".

So, the "levels" gained from a savage progression are simply a quantification of racial HD and racial LA -- making these "levels" inapplicable and irrelevant to the buy-off matrix (except for the total LA in regards to how many class levels you need to qualify for buy-off).
Seems pretty simple to me.
Furthermore, taking the FULL progression is probably necessary; think about it: you can't just decide to stop physical maturation -- it just happens by itself, irrespective of whatever wishes you may have.

but hey, that's just my 2 cp.

[LargePrime]

So allow LA buyoff for any level that does not have racial HD.

Furthermore, taking the FULL progression is probably necessary; think about it: you can't just decide to stop physical maturation -- it just happens by itself, irrespective of whatever wishes you may have.

That got me thinking, so I re-looked at savage species.

So I think we have an answer.  LA Buyoff for levels without HD, and you cannot multiclass progressions.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Except the web progressions, because they're approximately 354% more awesome than the savage species progressions.

[LargePrime]

You are suggesting this as a general rule?  No buy off for web progressions at all ever.  REASON?  They fail at buy off due to awesome!

[The_Mad_Linguist]

No, I mean that you're able to multiclass them.

[LargePrime]

No, I mean that you're able to multiclass them.

Hows that now?  If you cannot multiclass savage progressions (SSp27), how can you do the online ones?