The Powerful Races

[Lord Vectra]

Is there any point in creating characters with powerful races besides Arena or is Arena the only way to play them?

[maerchen]

The math is against using them in adventure mode. Drow sorcerer looks cool until you realise they will always significantly fall behind any other non-powerful race in terms of xp: level comparison.

I made a catfolk sorc for adventure mode and he is doing ok as his leveling is comparable to a multiclassed char, but I made that decision for fluff reasons.

[Kosiciel]

Of course there is, when you are high level already.

[Lord Vectra]

Originally posted by Kosiciel:

Of course there is, when you are high level already.

How do you do that? Adventure mode starts you out at lv 1 unless there is a way for me to change that.

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by Kosiciel:

Of course there is, when you are high level already.

Except not really?

I mean, you're getting the only functional Spell Resistance, so that's certainly something, especially against large numbers of lower-level spellcasters, but spellcasters tend to be uncommon units behind waves of melee tanks.

The +2 in your main attribute is outweighed by the fact that you get a +1 to attacks, saves, and AC per two levels... and two levels is what you lose for being a drow. The +1 to your spellcasting DC (which is now an attack roll) is offset by the relative -1 you get from being two levels behind. You get one or two more spell slots, but that's a spit in the ocean by higher levels. (I'm presuming "high levels" here means 18+, where you already have level 9 spells, so that the most painful effect of Level Adjustment, being a whole spell level behind in spells, is neutered.)

There's a +2 to all saves, but again, all saves are at a relative -1, so it's a net +1, and only to Will and only against spells, which considering how little is implemented, basically amounts to the charm and sleep spells... and elves are already immune to the latter!

Shortsword and rapier proficiency aren't worth writing home about, and hand crossbow is a liability considering its range is as bad as a thrown weapon, making you move your sorc in close. I'd honestly rather use the heavy magic-guided crossbow. I guess if you have the feats to spare in upper levels, you can dual-wield with those hand crossbows and hope for that poison to take effect. I haven't tried that on a PC, but presuming it works as advertised, it's certainly useful to have a not-a-spell ability that renders enemies unconscious. If you're playing without materials (including in the arena), however, it's a waste of your Sorc to not be casting, anyway. This is 3.5 era, where you have exactly as much chance to succeed at any status effect as any other, and at high level you have AoE death spells. Unconscious is a pretty bad status effect to have, but the best status effect to inflict on your enemies will always be "dead". The ones that are immune to death, for that matter, are nearly all immune to unconscious, at that.

The extra darkvision, spell-like abilities, etc. aren't worth talking about for a high-level party.

Now keep in mind, you're also giving up hit points, your non-will saves, AC, etc. (+2 Dex means nothing for AC when you're at high level and you're bumping into even that +8 cap.)

So all told, what are you getting out of it? You'd have to do it mostly for the spell resistance, but honestly, I can count on one hand the number of times enemy wizards have been a major obstacle to my party. (A priority target, yes, but not something that threatened my party the way that a iron golem a few levels higher than me can one-shot any of my party members while being immune to most status effects and crits...) Some decent energy resistance and a troll ring will make up for the first fireball, and they shouldn't get more than one off before dying.

[Lord Vectra]

I just want to make an Assamir character that I can add to my party either at the beginning or sometime later. Unless I'm supposed to go town to town looking for the character I made.

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by Lord Vectra:

How do you do that? Adventure mode starts you out at lv 1 unless there is a way for me to change that.

To copy over something from another thread:

For LA +1 races, like Aasimar, you need a level 2 party. For drow, you need to have a level three party, because being a drow adds 2 levels to the character, and you need a class level. Lizardfolk have LA and are forced to take racial levels, but can start without a class level, although you're a level 3 character with no class (heh). I can't stress enough that this means your character will gain levels at the same slowness as a character one, two, or three class levels higher, meaning a level 1 character is treated like a level 3 character. A drow sorcerer will continue having only level 1 spells until level 6! Level adjustments are a concept that were wildly disproportionate to the actual advantages that a couple extra +2s to stats would provide, and notably no future version of D&D or even Pathfinder used them. Do not use level-adjusted races, you're only shooting yourself in the foot, and the dev should not have added level adjustments in the first place.

With that said, the adventurers tab in most towns is a trap. Ignore it, and never use it. Go to towns with adventurer guilds (tan shields with crossed swords), and on the bottom left, you can recruit adventurers (you can also buy substitution slots and put old characters into semi-retirement), and this menu is the same as the one used to put your original party together. You can choose what level they start at, but it costs a decent chunk of change.

Keep in mind that you can also retrain characters for much less and it's not terribly expensive, takes no time, and lets you adjust everything but race and for some reason, alignment. Basically, unless you wanted a barbarian in the place of your paladin, or want to change a character's race, this is almost always a better idea than getting a new character.

[blindseye]

I am kind of bummed. I spent a couple hours making my dream team and it turns out I could start with only one of them, the Lvl 1 Barbarian (sigh). How do I recruit the other characters I hand crafted which apparently are Lvl 2 and 3? It sounds like I may be able to find them in the towns with adventurer guilds (tan shields with crossed swords)?

[TheDiaz]

Originally posted by blindseye:

I am kind of bummed. I spent a couple hours making my dream team and it turns out I could start with only one of them, the Lvl 1 Barbarian (sigh). How do I recruit the other characters I hand crafted which apparently are Lvl 2 and 3? It sounds like I may be able to find them in the towns with adventurer guilds (tan shields with crossed swords)?

The characters you added to your party when creating the game join you after like 2 missions. The first quest tells says you are going to rescue them.

[SpiralRazor]

level adjusted races are pretty trash..i have to agree with Wraith.

[DragynDance]

I've been heatedly arguing with the dev about the level adjusted races since he implemented them, level adjustments/racial HD are absolutely the dumbest thing 3.5e ever brought, and I always homebrewed it away. He finally made the houserule that can remove them, but then you get 20% less loot for the entire campaign in return for...having a slightly easier first level up. It's really dumb.

I have found a way to edit the game files to remove racial HD and level adjustments though, it's what I used before the house rule was implemented and I can perhaps post a steam guide on how to do it so everyone else can play with those races too without having to work their entire campaign around towards the inconvenience of recruiting one, or getting less loot.

Edit: Guide is up, hopefully it's easy enough to follow.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2619098795

[Tal'Raziid]

Originally posted by DragynDance:

He finally made the houserule that can remove them, but then you get 20% less loot for the entire campaign in return for...having a slightly easier first level up. It's really dumb.

This. I was like "sweet" but hten saw that you get penalized for it all anyways :/

[Bacon]

where do you see the 20% less loot penalty?

[TheDiaz]

Originally posted by The Baron of Bacon:

where do you see the 20% less loot penalty?

It got removed, now mosnters have a bonus to attack rolls.

[The Former]

"I like Drow Sorcerers" would be a good enough reason for me, to be honest.