AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Biased Balance Discussion

Cerpin Taxt wrote:

The Great Equalizer wrote:

The thing is if you play a drow "dexer, wizard, bard/bg/sorc" you are getting a stat bump you want and then a bunch of far less useful stat bumps at a rather significant cost. The point isn't if it is worth it because playing a lot of other get "ability changes" too but without the +2 ecl.

Really drow stat bonuses are ones that you can hardly really take advantage of more than one or maybe two on a build anyway so really all that it means is that the race has more variety in what you can play and still get useful bonuses for the class, if they were con, str and dex or wis, cha and str or something then yeah, maybe more useful for certain builds than the ECL hit but dex, int and cha with -2 con is hardly the most OP combination of stat bonuses.

Drow are a bit weaker than they should be, which kind of sucks when they are supposed to be menacing and dangerous. I don't want them OP because that sucks too but they should be stronger than they are now.

Name a build that does not benefit from at least 2 of those ability boosts, other than shifter.

Ability boosts are only really worthwhile when you need more than 14 in a score, as it frees up ability points at creation. It's slightly different for drow because they get more +s than -s but it's not worth +2 ECL. It's not even worth +1 ECL, however +0 ECL and it is certainly OP.

Epic feats count for a lot, and don't forget you're losing out on AB, skill point ceiling and saves by being stuck at level 28.

Bobo_Underhill wrote:

The Level Adjustment has never seemed to impede people en masse from playing a drow before, which makes me think there is another cause for it.

If we're going to look at drow Level adjustments, we may as well look at all of them.

Ðraco wrote:

If you want people to play more "evil" drow you should've suggested making good drows request only.

Oh God yes, this! I remember getting chased around on evil drow back in the day, getting tortured and shiz like that. This was before the silly "no graphic torture" rule was, I don't know if it was already implemented and just made official, but it didn't seem to be enforced back then, at least. I remember Tormak's April's Fool joke about Ultrinnan getting destroyed, and I even remember Ultrinnan actually being destroyed. Back then I had a ton of fon with the UD drowsies, both as their enemy and as a sort of "double agent" selling them surface items and information. Then suddenly they vanished, and all that was left was the good drow. Man that's boring. Also, I'm not huge on DnD lore, but Amia has to be like the epicenter of followers of The Dork Dancer, right? The concentration of them here is so high that She ought to take up living on the island.

In all seriousness though, it's kinda ridiculous. I don't understand why something like Fey was made request only when good drow is just fine and dandy.

Dakotaen wrote:

In all seriousness though, it's kinda ridiculous. I don't understand why something like Fey was made request only when good drow is just fine and dandy.

Yes, I find the concept of "good" drows also slightly irritating. I do not mind exceptions, but when the population of good drows > population of "real" drows, then there is something wrong.

The_Last_Helmite wrote:

Dakotaen wrote:

In all seriousness though, it's kinda ridiculous. I don't understand why something like Fey was made request only when good drow is just fine and dandy.

Yes, I find the concept of "good" drows also slightly irritating. I do not mind exceptions, but when the population of good drows > population of "real" drows, then there is something wrong.

Elistraeen Drow are Real Drow, Grow up, seriously.

With love, From Everyone.

Not being able to max out skills to 33, loosing +2 epic feats and 1 BAB isnt worth the +4 skillpoints , and many spe do not even count spell resistance.

at least dock them down to +1

ps - A drow can never take hellball

The1Kobra wrote:

I don't think that they need the ECL lowered, tbh.

I haven't played a drow but I have played the other underdark. +2 ECL race. Try -4 net ability points, only one favored class, and ability bonuses that don't even correspond to your favored class primary ability score. Drow have way more build options and way better ability scores. Which is one reason they are 50 times more popular than svirfneblin. I played mine to Max level over a period of 9 months and never saw another member of the race. I found the racial SR to be quite useful by the way in PVM. Don't short sell it.

I'm not hip for making Drow OP to help Amia "get more badguys". There are a hundred ways to skin that cat.

Stronglikesumo wrote:

The_Last_Helmite wrote:

Dakotaen wrote:

In all seriousness though, it's kinda ridiculous. I don't understand why something like Fey was made request only when good drow is just fine and dandy.

Yes, I find the concept of "good" drows also slightly irritating. I do not mind exceptions, but when the population of good drows > population of "real" drows, then there is something wrong.

Elistraeen Drow are Real Drow, Grow up, seriously.

With love, From Everyone.

As you may have noticed, the real word in my post is in quotation marks. Which means it is not literal.

Also, I have nothing against good drows. I am more concerned about numbers of good drows on the Island. If you allow me a note from Wiki :

Wikipedia wrote:

Eilistraee's followers are fairly small in number

... well not here on Amia. Which is why I would dig for the idea of good drows on request only, as they should be an exception. But we are drifting away from the original topic now.

maglorine wrote:

I found the racial SR to be quite useful by the way in PVM. Don't short sell it.

I had a drow weaponmaster, on max. level and I agree with above. Where I have troubles now, even with Arcane Defiance armor, I had no problems whatsoever with my drow. The SR is pretty much useful and great.

No, drows are definately not under-powered, if such term even exists.

The_Last_Helmite wrote:

I was always living with the premise that people pick the race based on the character they want to play, not based on how uber the race is.

Hobgoblins have no ECL and they gain only bonuses, yet I haven't seen a single hobgoblin ever. The problem with the lack of drow isn't due to being "underpowered", but the difficulty of the RP environment. I reckon aasimar at +1 ECL are way overpowered, but bringing drow up to their level isn't the solution.

Good drow being request-only is a no-brainer for me, but I guess the great number of Eilistraeeans is an Amian oddity. "Dark elves who turn to good are few and far between..." (Underdark, p. 10) and "Most drow on the surface are evil and worship Vhaeraun..." (Races of Faerûn, p. 34)

The_Last_Helmite wrote:

The problem with the lack of drow isn't due to being "underpowered", but the difficulty of the RP environment.

Mhm. I agree with this.

Drow SR is worth at least +1 ECL. And those ability bonuses are very good and allow for more combination of classes than svirfneblin or strongheart halflings. Intelligence bonus is good for every class combo since you always need skill points, so you have at least two stats that help. And I really don't know where did you folks get that drow lose 2 epic feats. You lose one, and that one no-ecl races usually have to spend on stat increases anyway.
And even with +2 ecl many folks still play drow. On the other hand, duergar who got their ecl completely removed (and with a reason) are played by practically no one. And I doubt they are less populous race in UD, probably quite the opposite.

Remal wrote:

And I really don't know where did you folks get that drow lose 2 epic feats.

I guess that has to do with the lesser amount of levels which could potentially be bonus feat levels at epic.

I'm almost a little offended by the Shrine/Eilistraeen bashing I've seen in this thread, as I do play an Eilistraeen priestess that doesn't fit into the mold of being a PvP Happy, Temper Wielding, crazy-drow. But, I've had to remind myself that my character has -always- been an oddity in the Shrine no matter what type of residents. I also have to remind myself that most of the players commenting on it have never run into me, so I'm the exception not the rule (as it were).

However, yes, the amount on Amia is a bit strange. My character has commented on that several times. -I've- commented on it several times. But, part of the amount is IC as well, due to the creation and openness of the Eilistraeen Shrine itself.

But. This thread is on the ECL, so my thought is this -

I have a few different drow builds, and I honestly don't feel the ECL needs to be messed with. Being unable to access some of the level 30-only feats can be somewhat annoying, but outside of my pure Eilistraeen cleric build (which I purposely made non-combat oriented), the rest of my builds work quite well and the ECL doesn't really bother me. So, I agree with the people who've said there's no real reason to mess with the ECL on the drow (like The_Last_Helmite who basically said they are not underpowered at all).

Last edited by Liz on Sun, Sep 29 2013, 14:45 PM, edited 1 time in total.

It’s not really viable to make some drow request-only and leave others an unrestricted race, I think. If a race is going to be request-only, it should be that way at character generation. Otherwise you’re either forbidding evil drow from *ever* finding Eilistraee and having a change of heart, which is completely unacceptable, or else you’re requiring that anyone who wants their drow to follow the “traditional” Eilistraeen path of Underdarker-made-good has to go through all the conversion and acculturation RP and then submit a request for permission to play a type of character that’s freely available to every other race, only to possibly find out that their RP is suddenly retroactively invalidated by a denied request. And even then, a request like that isn’t really requesting the race, it’s requesting the alignment change. And alignment changes are already only done by request anyways.

Here’s what I’d advocate for: drop the drow ECL to +1 but make their daylight penalties absolutely, overwhelmingly massive. None of your piddly little -1 to AB and Spot. I’m talking about like -10 to attack, a Dodge decrease to AC, reductions to all saving throws, and ridiculous penalties to Spot and Search. And these should only be lessened, not eliminated, during night-time hours: even moonlight and starlight are described as being painful to them. The penalties should only be fully eliminated in areas flagged as “underground;” while they stay on the surface, they should be just absolutely, thoroughly boned.

Recall here that being intolerant of daylight is not the drows’ natural state. It’s not genetic, it’s not physical, it wasn’t bred into them adaptively through generations of mundane selection. Their daylight intolerance is not located in their eyes. It’s a mystical curse, externally imposed upon their race by the gods. They were intentionally altered, such that they were banished from the world of light and could only survive in places where they would never have to see the sun. In the span of the single moment in which Corellon pronounced their curse, every member of the race everywhere on Toril instantly went from being Ssri-tel’Quessir perfectly adapted to daylight, to dhaerow who are utterly intolerant of it. That’s not the sort of thing that should ever be overcome by any normal means without serious game-mechanical investment. Claiming that drow should gain significant resistance to daylight simply by repeated exposure is like saying that they should be able to get fire resistance by hanging around inside a furnace.

Last edited by Sakkran on Sun, Sep 29 2013, 13:29 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Liz wrote:

It’s not really viable to make some drow request-only and leave others an unrestricted race, I think. If a race is going to be request-only, it should be that way at character generation. Otherwise you’re either forbidding evil drow from *ever* finding Eilistraee and having a change of heart, which is completely unacceptable, or else you’re requiring that anyone who wants their drow to follow the “traditional” Eilistraeen path of Underdarker-made-good has to go through all the conversion and acculturation RP and then submit a request for permission to play a type of character that’s freely available to every other race, only to possibly find out that their RP is suddenly retroactively invalidated by a denied request. And even then, a request like that isn’t really requesting the race, it’s requesting the alignment change. And alignment changes are already only done by request anyways.

Here’s what I’d advocate for: drop the drow ECL to +1 but make their daylight penalties absolutely, overwhelmingly massive. None of your piddly little -1 to AB and Spot. I’m talking about like -10 to attack, a Dodge decrease to AC, reductions to all saving throws, and ridiculous penalties to Spot and Search. And these should only be lessened, not eliminated, during night-time hours: even moonlight and starlight are described as being painful to them. The penalties should only be fully eliminated in areas flagged as “underground;” while they stay on the surface, they should be just absolutely, thoroughly boned.

Recall here that being intolerant of daylight is not the drows’ natural state. It’s not genetic, it’s not physical, it wasn’t bred into them adaptively through generations of mundane selection. Their daylight intolerance is not located in their eyes. It’s a mystical curse, externally imposed upon their race by the gods. They were intentionally altered, such that they were banished from the world of light and could only survive in places where they would never have to see the sun. In the span of the single moment in which Corellon pronounced their curse, every member of the race everywhere on Toril instantly went from being Ssri-tel’Quessir perfectly adapted to daylight, to dhaerow who are utterly intolerant of it. That’s not the sort of thing that should ever be overcome by any normal means. Claiming that drow should gain significant resistance to daylight simply by repeated exposure is like saying that they should be able to get fire resistance by hanging around inside a furnace.

Daylight Adaptation: (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, p. 34)

[General]

Through long exile from the shadowed homelands of your kind, you have learned to endure the painful sunlight of the surface world. Region; Drow, gray dwarf, orc.

Benefit:

If you are a type of creature that suffers circumstance penalties when exposed to bright light (such as a drow.v or duergar), you no longer suffer those penalties, whether the light comes from natural or magical sources of illumination.
Also appears in: Player's Guide to Faerûn, Races of Eberron

So yeah. Daylight adaptation is a thing. I think it'd be great if it were an option for Drow and Duergar to take by way of the Feat list. Yes, it can be argued against, but it's just as much a piece of the rules as the Drow having +2 ECL.

No one would play drow if the penalties were that extreme, as all the "bonuses" in the world wouldn't stop them from being PvP targets and getting absolutely, and horrendously, mauled in PvP by people who've held off before due to the fact they -can- match up to others in their current state. They'd have to waste points and feats to even remotely counteract that, and no other race is that extreme in penalties. I'd advocate more than a -1 to AB and Spot, but nothing -that- drastic. Plus, Drow who have been on the surface for a great deal of time can (in PnP) take the Daylight Adaptation feat. I'd think as far as Amia is concerned, most drow who have been on the surface for a great deal of time have eventually adapted to working through the painful, blinding evil daystar slapping them in the face.

If it's a feat, they should have to buy it as a feat.

Mmh. No Request-only. We Eilis are fine just the way we are, and people not playing Lolthites shockingly isn't BECAUSE we can play Eilis instead. It's because we don't want to play Lolthites.

But seriously. I have Liress, who's your stock-standard 27/1 wizard, and she works juuuuust fine.

Aly...not so much, but that's less "drow" than "player who can't build for shit".

Last edited by IronAngel on Sun, Sep 29 2013, 13:34 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Ed Greenwood estimates that a little more than 22% of Faerûnian drow worship Eilistraee in a polytheistic sense. Drow who only worship Eilistraee are almost exclusively her clergy, and fall somewhere between 10-12% of all Drow. I have provided these figures time and again on these forums but somehow people always seem to default to stereotypes and untrue generalizations.

So no, they're certainly not something you should have to request, or even an oddity. An Eilistraeen drow should be more common than a human adventurer.

As has been pointed out, by Bobo and others, there's no shortage of Drow characters on Amia. So clearly they are not that unattractive a choice. There's almost no build that can't benefit from +2 Int or Dex. Free saves and skillpoints are super. Lack of winterwight is indeed lame for a race with a dedicated goddess of undeath.

I guess you could nerf drow and then make them +1 ECL, like Liz suggested. Cutting their SR in half would do that. Alternately, give them some small lore-appropriate bonus that can be used by any build. Changing the ECL without changing something else is too drastic, given how popular they've always been. There's no reason to encourage any more people to play drow.

EDIT: I love the idea of increasing the Light Sensitivity penalty and giving them the option of picking Daylight Adjustment as a feat, though! Now with a more reasonable cycle of daylight, it could add some serious flavor and strategy to the game.

Ramika wrote:

No one would play drow if the penalties were that extreme, as all the "bonuses" in the world wouldn't stop them from being PvP targets and getting absolutely, and horrendously, mauled in PvP by people who've held off before due to the fact they -can- match up to others in their current state.

All good things, IMHO. And people would still play drow. A lot fewer would play *surfacer* drow, though. Which, again, is a good thing.

Liz wrote:

If it's a feat, they should have to buy it as a feat.

I think that sort of goes without saying, honestly.

If it were an option, I'm certain that it'd be pretty popular. I, for one, advocate the existence of it in the Amia feat list. Of course, that's assuming we could get it coded and functioning and all that jazz.

The ECL isn't a barrier to me. It would be same as if I were playing a surfacer human, finding people that I like to roll with. I would quickly get bored of playing one drow character all on her lonesome and go do something else.

Sakkran wrote:

Liz wrote:

If it's a feat, they should have to buy it as a feat.

I think that sort of goes without saying, honestly.

If it were an option, I'm certain that it'd be pretty popular. I, for one, advocate the existence of it in the Amia feat list. Of course, that's assuming we could get it coded and functioning and all that jazz.

I'm pretty sure it's possible, but I would rather see something like that be request only, though with no DC cost. You can level to 30 in a week (apparently, wtf people?!) so to just have it in there for a character that's only bee 'alive' a week is silly. People can just say 'oh my character has been on the Surface all his life' to justify it. I'd rather see that feat be something reasonably bestowed by the DMs. It would still have to be taken in level progression, but it makes it something to work for rather than something that you can just take for no reason.

Plus, any character that recently left the UD (there are a few in my time, at least) shouldn't be able to take it just because they haven't finished leveling yet.

And no, whoredancers are not 'real drow' <3

Signed,
The Evil Below

Disclaimer: Anyone that knows me should know I'm joking, but some will get pissy so I put this.

And why do people think there are no UD drow? There's a ton of us, silly'ums.

Last edited by Ramika on Sun, Sep 29 2013, 14:57 PM, edited 2 times in total.

IronAngel wrote:

Ed Greenwood estimates that a little more than 22% of Faerûnian drow worship Eilistraee in a polytheistic sense. Drow who only worship Eilistraee are almost exclusively her clergy, and fall somewhere between 10-12% of all Drow. I have provided these figures time and again on these forums but somehow people always seem to default to stereotypes and untrue generalizations.

So no, they're certainly not something you should have to request, or even an oddity. An Eilistraeen drow should be more common than a human adventurer.

As has been pointed out, by Bobo and others, there's no shortage of Drow characters on Amia. So clearly they are not that unattractive a choice. There's almost no build that can't benefit from +2 Int or Dex. Free saves and skillpoints are super. Lack of winterwight is indeed lame for a race with a dedicated goddess of undeath.

I guess you could nerf drow and then make them +1 ECL, like Liz suggested. Cutting their SR in half would do that. Alternately, give them some small lore-appropriate bonus that can be used by any build. Changing the ECL without changing something else is too drastic, given how popular they've always been. There's no reason to encourage any more people to play drow.

Indeed, cutting the SR wouldn't be that big of a deal (at least to me) as a counterbalance to giving them access to one more level like aasimar or tieflings.

Liz wrote:

All good things, IMHO. And people would still play drow. A lot fewer would play *surfacer* drow, though. Which, again, is a good thing.

I really don't see how being afraid to go anywhere would be a good thing for those players who play drow, UD or otherwise. They're already cut off from quite a bit, so making it so they can't even leave the Shrine or the UD would make it worse. It would stop being fun for those who play surface drow if the minute they stepped out the door near Kampo's, there was some Shevarashan just waiting to shoot them in the face. ICly, that could be the case without making the Drow an even bigger PvP target because they're easy prey. I'm sure there's ways around it, but I don't think 1 level would counteract losing 10 attack and AC.

Ignoring that though, an average character can have trouble when they lose -5 attack, imagine already having a -10, then getting hit for another few points (such as being taunted). At that point, you may as well not go leveling at all, because you won't be able to hit a damn thing and it would get frustrating in a hurry. The UD drow already have trouble leveling (from what I've been told. Feel free to correct me), so that would just make it worse. They'd have to stick to UD only and for those who have surface drow, they'd have few places to go (because I don't know of any Eili that would go prancing around in the UD to level to avoid the penalties. Well, they might, but that would be kind of silly ICly).

If we were to add +1 ECL to drow (which I'm not opposed to, I just don't see it as necessary), I'd rather see a maybe -2/-3/-4 to Spot and AB and maybe a drop in SR. In the end, I just don't see the need to mess with the race as it is. If people just don't like the fact there are so many surface drow, then just don't RP with them. Most of us stay in the Shrine anyway for the most part (and possibly Kohlingen).

Edit: Actually, a high penalty to Spot/Search doesn't really bother me at all. It's a penalty to AC, ALL saving throws, and AB that would become an issue. I don't really see how being outside would affect your will save (for example).

Amia is just, in general, a mishmash of weird ass adventurers, races that wouldn't be normally be in such high concentration, and strange situations. Drow aren't any different. I've seen metallic RDD kobolds, why is a surface drow so weird? lol

Liz wrote:

Here’s what I’d advocate for: drop the drow ECL to +1 but make their daylight penalties absolutely, overwhelmingly massive. None of your piddly little -1 to AB and Spot. I’m talking about like -10 to attack, a Dodge decrease to AC, reductions to all saving throws, and ridiculous penalties to Spot and Search.

This. Absolutely this.

Yeah, if we're gonna do that, I want the feats for those of us that have played surface drow for years to get over it, since there's precedence in source material.

Bertnard wrote:

Liz wrote:

Here’s what I’d advocate for: drop the drow ECL to +1 but make their daylight penalties absolutely, overwhelmingly massive. None of your piddly little -1 to AB and Spot. I’m talking about like -10 to attack, a Dodge decrease to AC, reductions to all saving throws, and ridiculous penalties to Spot and Search.

This. Absolutely this.

No, and penalties like that are stupid.

For all my off and on wishing drow were better, in the sense that they are not quite worthy of +2 but more OP than +1, I like how they are. Changing anything really would mess things up a bit.

Or we could just give them Faerie Fire by default as well

No, Drow are fine where they are.

Quote:

Racial Traits: Abilities: +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma; Spell Resistance = 11 + Class Level; Feat: Darkvision; Saving Throw Bonus: +2 Will Saves versus Spells and Spell-like Abilities; Spell-like Ability: Darkness; Light Sensitivity.
Favored Class: Cleric (Female), Wizard (Male)
Recognized Keywords: drow
Level Adjustment: +2

Pro: +4 conditional abilitypoints, +2 will vs spells, darkness, spell resistance, darkvision.

Con: Light sensitivity (situational -1 ab spot seach) and +2 LA.

An argument is that you miss out on 1 potentially 2 feats, I say you don't miss out on anything because the abilitypoints can be worth just as much as an epic feat if not more. In fact the spell-resistance alone is very powerful and easily worth a level adjustment by itself. Even lowering the LA by 1 would make them way to powerful.

Terra_777 wrote:

No, Drow are fine where they are.

Yup.

1-2 *epic* feats, 1 AB, 1 universal saves, -2 skill ceiling, two levels of skill points, decreased build flexibility - really, you lose quite a bit by not having two levels. All of that's a hefty price when most builds will only find one of the ability score boosts to be more than marginally beneficial. And *every* class is hurt by a con penalty, the lack of two levels' worth of HP doesn't really help, and oh god just look at how excruciating it is to level them. Phwow. I love the Underdark zones to death but they are so far from player-friendly (and I don't mean that in a "hurray the difficulty of our Underdark properly represents the lore difficulty of getting around" I mean "I'm so sick of carving through hordes and hordes of ogres for minimal exp and getting instagibbed by 100 damage traps in an ECL 5 dungeon, also no one is around to hunt with").

I'm for not changing drow at all but holy crap guys, there's really no validity in the statement that drow are "okay". But, it's a symptom of a broken system (3rd edition) and 100% unfixable.

I think the only thing I would really like to see on drow is some way of letting them max skills. I mean, LA is because they are arguably stronger than a character of their same level, but their skills don't cut it. It would be nice to see a drow be able to get 33 Discipline or whatnot so they can actually -be- as strong as a 0 LA race (because someone that is a level 30 will have more discipline and such than a drow of ECL 30, or more spellcraft, or anything, which is weird).

I don't know if that's even possible with NWN, though.

If your going to make drow request only every subrace should be request only, seeing how Plane-touched characters are just as rare as Surface drow, unless your living in like Calimshan, Mulhorand or some extraplanar city and then somehow inexplicably moved to an Obscure island off the sword's coast.

I think the facts are on the table, and purely from a building perspective, I wouldn't even build a drow even if they had +1 ECL, if I was building for power. I'd still just go elf. To any good PvP'er, relying on 38 SR that's dispellable is really just a joke. Even if it wasn't, a dedicated caster isn't going to miss a spell on you with GSP. That being said, I did build a drow, for RP, and it was actually still decent, but it would be so much better if it was a wood elf. Keep in mind, I am talking about PvP with high end items where people actually know to counter/play. I'm sure it's different with people who don't know what they're doing. Though, that said, you shouldn't actually balance a game like that. My drow still has a tome of mystra and spell mantle potions always up for a reason.

With all due respect, Needled, I will repeat myself - you are not supposed to pick a race out of building perspective. I know many people over the years, including myself, who are picking races according to the RP concept of their character. For example a pure human or half-elf. Sure they could pick a subrace and be even more powerful, but they did not because it just does not fit the character.

Guys, it's basics of every RP server.

Terra_777 wrote:

No, Drow are fine where they are...

Yes, leave them as they are. Those who want to play drow will, and kudos to them.

In case it wasn't obvious from my last post, we're not changing drow ECL. Final word.

I'd still argue for changing winterwight to be accessible to +2 ecl races. Because seriously making a palemaster need to be a level 29 character for that? Always seemed like a dick move.

PaladinOfSune wrote:

In case it wasn't obvious from my last post, we're not changing drow ECL. Final word.

It's a shame the topic got shut down so fast, But at least think of what serbiris wrote:

Drow pros;

Drow cons:

The above cannot make up for the +2ECL level. But it makes up for ECL +1.

Bobo_Underhill wrote:

If we're going to look at drow Level adjustments, we may as well look at all of them.

And this. Can we not look at them all?

Unfortunately, only some things need to be balanced and other things just stay the way they are. This is why I made the 2nd post in this thread, lol. I don't think anyone should lose sleep over this though. There's far more things that are far more imbalanced that should be looked at, but won't, first.

The Great Equalizer wrote:

I'd still argue for changing winterwight to be accessible to +2 ecl races. Because seriously making a palemaster need to be a level 29 character for that? Always seemed like a dick move.

I'm sure something can be put into place that makes and exception for ECL+2 races, also, so it's universal. Same with Hellball and such.

See, I can get Drow not having Hellball. Hellball in a cavern would just make a pressure cooker.

I personally think the ECL+ thing needs to just be fixed. I know it sounds like an awful balance move but those races are just supposed to be more powerful. If they were supposed to be less powerful they should have either been different races or not offered at all. If we're going on FR canon drow are horrific monsters.

I don't play drow but I'd like to see them ungimped. I don't think the ECL+ system we use as we use it should be applied to any race at all, and would like to see their exp requirements increased instead.

I'm all for Liz's idea, even if it's an unpopular one. Give surfacers an equal (but in opposite circumstances) penalty, too.

And I don't care how many Eilistraeens Ed Greenwood says there are, there are far too many on Amia.

IronAngel wrote:

Ed Greenwood estimates that a little more than 22% of Faerûnian drow worship Eilistraee in a polytheistic sense. Drow who only worship Eilistraee are almost exclusively her clergy, and fall somewhere between 10-12% of all Drow. I have provided these figures time and again on these forums but somehow people always seem to default to stereotypes and untrue generalizations.

Also, 22% and 10-12% of drow would still not represent and adequately justify the number of them on Amia since they're the drow majority. That means for every 1 surface drow there should be 8 to 9 underdark drow.

Uh...no, that means for every one there should be four to five. The 10% ratio is only for devout monotheistic Eilistraeens.

And seriously, if you don't like the number of Eili drow....don't play one. I'm not ripping on the elves that don't RP like proper elves, or the tieflings that want to be LG, or any of the other crap that goes on, and I (speaking as myself) don't appreciate my work being blown off by people who barely, if at all, interact with me IG, and I know I'm not the only Eili player who's more than a little insulted and dispirited by how this thread has gone.

The number of Eilistraeen drow is one of the smallest inbalances in Amian lore. It is not even surprising that such a marginal group flocks together around their religious site and community. If one in five drow serve Eilistraee and we happen to have one of the relatively few shrines to the goddess on the island, why would it surprise you to find a concentration of Eilistraeens here? It's not like the ratio of Eili-to-Lolth is constant in all locations on Faerûn, that's the average made up of all fortresses of Lolthite monotheism, outposts of mercantile cosmopolitanism and surface camps of Eilistraeens and Vhaeraunians.

Paladins should be pretty damn rare and exceptional, too. And yet there are dozens on Amia. But hey, it makes some sense because Kohlingen's fame is likely to attract them to the area. Let's not even talk about the number of sorcerers and dragon disciples.

Not that this has anything to do with balance. You can be pretty sure there will never be a need to request a certain alignment for an open subrace race.

I'm not really ripping on Eli's. I'm just being bad at math at 3 am. But you get the intent. I'd just love to see the Underdark more active. They're a cool faction even if I don't play there.

Very_Svensk wrote:

Drow pros;

Drow cons:

The above cannot make up for the +2ECL level. But it makes up for ECL +1.

if you reduce drow ECL to +1, they no longer get -1 Less BAB, -1 Universal save. They can take Hellball and winterwight. And they do not loose the 1-2 Epic feats.

Everyone is pretty much saying they think its worth +1 but not +2. Instead of sounding like whiny brats how about make some suggestions to what the Drow could lose to balance them out at +1? Or get added to meet +2 ?

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

I'm not really ripping on Eli's. I'm just being bad at math at 3 am. But you get the intent. I'd just love to see the Underdark more active. They're a cool faction even if I don't play there.

Which is fine, but there's a difference between denigrating our play and boosting the play of others.

Biased Balance Discussion - The Drow ECL level

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