Are the UD races OP ECL wise?

[The Man of the Moon]

This is a mechanical comparison, RP away (every chaarcter must RP, so RP can't be taken as a disadvantage for balance purpose is my guess)

Let's say... Drows!

DROWS get:

Extra Int +2, Cha +2
Darkvision
Spell Resistance: 11+level (capped at 32)
Spell-Like Ability: Darkness 1/day
Tongues bonus:
- Xanalress
- Undercommon
- Drow sings language

TOTAL: +2 ECL
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Getting features drow get but through Gifts and Awards:

Gift of Learning (INT+2)= +1 ECL
Gift of Confidence (CHA+2)= +1 ECL
Darkvision = ? Let's say +1 ECL
SR 32 (drow get it at level 21)= +2 ECL (and requiring a normal award!)
Gift of Darkness (Darkness 1 / day)= +0.5 ECL
Gift of Tongues (to try compare it with the +3 bonus tongues they get)= ~+1 ECL

TOTAL: +6.5 ECL (and the invest of a normal award...)


And then, drows can get gifts too, while it is not posible get all the bonus drows have as there is a limit of three gifts plus one award...
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DUERGAR:

Listen +1
Move Silently +4
Spot +1
Darkvision EDITED: standard dwarves got it yet.
Immunity: Paralysis
Immunity: Poison
Spell-Like Abilities: 1/day Invisibility

TOTAL: +2 ECL
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Duergar bonus compared with gifts...

Listen +1 = + 0.1 ECL
Move Silently +4= +0.8 ECL
Spot +1= +0.1 ECL
Darkvision= +1 ECL ?
Immunity: Paralysis= +2 ECL ?
Immunity: Poison= +2 ECL?
Invisibility 1/day= Gift of Hiding +0.5 ECL

TOTAL: +5.5 ECL (Being not posible to get the immunities through gifts, etc...)

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GNOLLS:
+2 CON
Listen +2
Spot +2
Darkvision

ECL +1

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Gnolls comparison with gifts:

Gift of Endurance (+2 CON)= +0.5 ECL
Listen & Spot +2 ~= +0.5 ECL
Darkvision= ? +1 ECL

So, Gnolls, Kobolds and Orogs (who are going in the same line of right balance) are lower races under Drows and Duergars... Ok, ok. I may say instead, those are balanced while Drows and Duergars are clearly way so OP in ECL wise.

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Then, let's take a look on the surface:

Well... all the surface races are pretty balanced or even nerfed.
None is above what the gifst may worth, and some are below!

Wild elves? (Int -2, Con +2) +1 ECL - 0.5 ECL = - 0.5 ECL ... But they don't receive the reduction of ECL.

Wood elves? (Str +2, Int -2, Cha -2) +1 ECL - 1 ECL - 1 ECL= -1 ECL! ... But they don't receive the reduction on ECL.



Conclusion:

1. As Drows and duergars are not really cursed in the surface under daylight... That was told to be anathema, but not really mechanically balanced... The conclusion is clear (at least in my humble perspective), the UD main races are above the surface races with no balance ECL wise.

or...

2. The ECL on races and the ECL on Gifts are not balanced.



What am I missing on this?

I played in servers where drows, where like this, but balanced by their weakness (and real anathema) of big penalties under the daylight... They could go to the surface during the night time without too many troubles (other than some penalty when on Moon light... but during the day, if not covered by magical darkness, they went blind...

Light Blindness [Ex]: Abrupt exposure to bright light (such as sunlight or a daylight spell) blinds drow for 1 round. In subsequent rounds, the drow are dazzled as long as they remain in the affected area.

[Peppermint]

What am I missing on this?

- Darkvision is crap and doesn't work for drow anyway. And why are you including an ECL bonus for duergar here, when the non-subraced version gets it naturally?
- Drow spell resistance isn't quite as good as the gift version. Sure, it's very handy, but not so much that it makes all casters at low levels a breeze -- on account of the fact that it scales.
- Bonus languages are pretty well useless, mechanically. They're a flavor thing.
- Poison immunity is definitely not worth +2 ECL. It's situationally useful, at best. Were it an actual gift, it'd likely clock in at 0.5 ECL. And I can guarantee you that no one would even take it, unless it suited their RP.
- Paralysis immunity is likewise situational. Maybe +1 ECL or so.
- Your approach is flawed. What makes gifts powerful is that they, typically, have some actual synergy with the character. What use is duergar's move silently to a fighter, or drow's charisma to a barbarian?
- Underdark races don't suffer mechanical sunlight penalties, but DMs will slap you if you go dancing about on the surface ignoring whilst bloody orb in the sky. The restriction is still there, if not actually scripted.
- Of course, yes, subraces are imbalanced anyway. I feel that drow give a bit too much for +2 ECL, whereas duergar give not quite enough. On the other hand, the whole gift system is pretty broken. +2 constitution for a mere +0.5 ECL, anyone?

[Barradoor]

No.

[The Man of the Moon]

Yes Peppermint, your insight is keen.

And agree too with the gifts being unbalanced (as with most of things you say here).

Anyway, there is a huge diference between RP a pain in the snugybear when you were catched under daylight in the surface but allowed to see the path to return into any cave, than if you mechanically couldn't see a damnit cause becoming blind by the Sunlight and then, you would be really in a real pain, rtying to cover wherever untill the night came.

Believe me, this is a HUGE diference. (And I played drows in servers where certainly, you became blind if stroke by the daylight or some spells as Sunbeam (if the SR or saving didn't worked).

But returning to the main theme... Yep, Gifts are odd, like skills should be really more cheap that abilities... or like that odd +0.5 on CON... so tasty.

EDIT: Ah... not agreeing the ECL on the immunities! skills are not as good as to be immune to poisons, perhaps... also, SR award should require a higher ECL, but I guess that being a award is why you get it for a cheaper price ECL wise...

Drow's ECL is certainly scalated, so my analysis giving to it +2 ECL could count only once they are "seasoned" enough like to have 32 SR. So at level 21... I don't see as useless that SR since will almost make you immune against most of hostile wands and innate powers from trash mob that otherway may place you in a serious situation. Personally, I apreciate the 32 SR my monk has.

[KarlaFatehart]

Just how often do you see drow walking in the sun to necessitate such a change?

Drow, duergar, and all the UD races are often outnumbered *severely* on the surface (and sometimes in the UD as well). I doubt that whatever their build is, or subrace, will help them in most cases.

Maybe the tradeoff to the ECL is the RP of being cold and alone and everyone hates you?

What about going places like the Abyss where there is, presumably, light? Can drow fashion nifty sun-goggles to block out this light? Does spamming darkness spells (which as far as I know is the go to for getting trapped outside for short periods of time) count as a fix? Seems like something easy could be done about that in a world of magic and strange technology.

[The Man of the Moon]

Travell to the Abyss is not something "easy".

You usually need to be an epic character, and all planes have their issues/risks... and defo, certainly I don't think drows should merrily walk through the Flamed levels of Abyss without some specific Dark shield spell to protect them...

In a PnP I would let the drow be blind forever if he went into the Abyss without the propper protection and not just sunglasses (that seems as a pretty joke).

[Yma23]

Another thing to take into account

Drow cannot enter most surface settlments at all, due to the kill script. So that's another huge penality

Yes, there's no 'mechanical' penalty to being in sunlight, but honestly I'd actualy rather there -was- in some ways.
Which would you prefer after all - that during daylight a drow was made say, blind? Or with a -3 to all stats? Or the chance that, if a DM saw you, they could lower your rpr? Or tell you off? Or spawn a tonne of monsters on you?(1)
Also playing a Drow is a significantly dangerous business. It it almost mandetory that you are going to be playing in a very hostile, dangerous area full of people who want to murder you (the underdark.) And trust me, whilst it is perfectly possible to survive on the surface as a Drow, it is not easy nor without it's unique challenges.

Finaly - I don't see the issue with Drow being OK in the abyss (well, no more than anyone else anyawy). Their goddess lives there after all. The 'sun' there isn't like the normal 'sun' on the surface. I always figured that it isn't just the 'light' of the surface sun that hurts them, but the power of the Seladrin ect. If you start constricing yet more places the Drow can go, eithre by DM enforcement or mechanics - you'll likely just get a lot of bitterness - and people venturing that way any how.


(1) Disclaimer - Which is fair enough. Drow shouldn't be out in the daylight without reprocussions and I'm in favour of DM's upholding this, given there's no mechanical reprocussion.

[Norfildor]

According to D&D sourcebooks even very bringt light gives the drow a penalty that could be considered rather minor even on the low levels and virtually negligable on high levels (it's like -1 to AC/AB and saves if I remember correctly - certainly not enough to warrant the continual ressurrection and beating of this ancient epic dead horse lichlord). The drow are not vampires who'd burst into flames in daylight - they just don't like it and being a paranoid race of twisted minded sociopaths that they are they'd not enter an environment that gives them a disadvantage unless they have another option (meaning : drow raids happen at nights).

I'd say that the abyss is equally unwellcoming to all living natural inhabitants of the prime material plane. Actually, I'd say that a human is much more likely to end up blind after a visit to the Abyss than a drow would, because they are much more likely to claw their own eyes out after witnessing the atrocities and horror that takes place there.

As for subraces being OP ECL wise, I do not agree. Peppermint nailed it - while choosing a subrace might net you more benefits in exchange for less ECL than choosing the same combination of gifts would, the combination of said benefits makes it so that they are almost never all relevant in regards to your chosen class, whereas you can pick a combination of gifts that fit your chosen class perfectly. In other words, when you choose a subrace, you get more but a good half of it ultimately won't matter.

[Preacher]

As pointed out above Drow and all UD races already have Major disadvantages in that they are HATED by everyone.... even others of their own race often. There are kill scripts which no others have, many of them are required to be evil (or at least non-good) which is in itself more complicated. The Underdark has harder monsters which more often then not are less forgiving of mistakes then those on the surface. (example, the driders, Sure their arrows may hurt but a cleric gets close to you and I hope your fort save or SR holds off their DEATH spell)

tdlr: The "ballance" is fine as there should not be a "ballance" Drow are the ultimate evil race on the server. they are the most well known lore wise and are a wonderful lure to join Arelith. They should be the most powerful mechanically as to encourage playership, while at the same time the RP repercussions to playing such a race itself make things harder.

[The Man of the Moon]

All right.

Many things from what was said makes sense and convinced me about the "ballance".

Thank for your answers, bring a good view on the mather.

[Anime Sword Fighter]

They are over-powered in regard to their bonuses compared to other races- but is that necessarily a bad thing? Eh, probably not in the current climate of the server as stated by others.

[Scurvy Cur]

The Duergar subrace bonuses are actually laughably awful from a utility-to-ECL standpoint. Of the UD subraces, Drow is really the only one that's really good for the adjustment given (I'd put it at +3ish). Smurfneblin is also pretty good, if it still has that dodge AC bonus, but at +4 ECL, it doesn't feel too bad.

Also, not one of the underdark subraces can be slapped on a vanilla human, which is hands down the best base race from a mechanical standpoint.

A few extra observation:

There's a good reason the con gift is only 0.5. It's never going to be as useful as a primary stat gift, and Con should never be anything other than a secondary, or perhaps even tertiary stat. Everyone gets a little benefit from constitution, but nobody gets a massive benefit from it. The only real exception is on a character going for epic DR feats. 0.5 for con is fair, sometimes I take it, sometimes I don't, and that usually strikes me as a pretty good sign; a gift I always take is probably OP, and a gift I never consider is probably underpowered (for reference, the old SR gift that didn't take a normal reward was one that I put on every single character for as long as it was available)

Regarding immunities: immunities are nice, when they're good against something that is a legitimate threat, such a death magic or mind spells. They're pretty mediocre when they're against a trivial threat that your fort save will probably handle fine such as poisons, against a dangerous but highly niche threat like paralysis, or against something with readily-available counters and cures (both poison and paralysis count here). I don't think I'd even go so far as paying Peppermint's +0.5 ECL for poison immunity, because it'd be wasting a gift slot on a trash bonus.

[Norfildor]

Let's say we consider the drow subrace for a moment as it probably nets you the most benefits for it's ECL "cost".
The class that benefits the most from the drow subrace would probably be the bard (warlock) or a sorcerer as they get +2 CHA (being their main class attribute), then they get +2 INT (which translates into up to 29 extra skill points), SR that gradually rises with level progression and is capped at a 32 value (which is strictly worse than the SR gift that benefits low level characters the most as it boosts your characters SR instantly to 32 at lvl 1. Also, one could argue that SR 32 is not good enough as it essentially has only situational uses in PvE) and one daily cast of darkness (which is nice, but certainly not something amazingly powerful).
Now, these benefits all translate as +29 extra skill points, SR 32 and darkness 1/day for all other classes WHILE forfeiting any benefits from other gifts. A say, fighter for example would probably prefer the +2 STR and +2 CON gifts over all of the above.

[The Man of the Moon]

Now, these benefits all translate as +29 extra skill points, SR 32 and darkness 1/day for all other classes WHILE forfeiting any benefits from other gifts. A say, fighter for example would probably prefer the +2 STR and +2 CON gifts over all of the above.

And what else do you want from +2 ECL?

About the hostility... they are demons incarnated in elven flesh... you wouldn't expect them to be loved

But yes, not a significative OP then under this perspective above made.

[soundsofastream]

Also bear in mind that these are monster races we are talking about. You're playing races that should be hated and feared by surfacers. Yes, you're outnumbered as a UD'er but most of the monster races (svirfs excepted) have an ecological purpose to the story and that is, to be a formidable opponent for surfacers to fear (conflict) which in turn, gives surfacers something to do when not standing around giggling in the town square.

Most of the Underdark, is deadly and most of the other races, and characters down there, you cannot trust and are probably plotting your downfall. In the lore, the UD is a place of scarce resources where might is right and all races are competing for these scarce resources. Life is cheap and your every move could be your last. That sort of environment, breeds tougher races. Take the Duergar, who were genetically engineered by the illithid or the Drow, who as we know, spend a great deal of time, killing each other off, including their siblings.

Or take the svirfneblin, who go to great lengths to be resilient, unseen and distrusting of other races for their very survival.

ECL doesn't really need to come into it, as the story of the Realms is far more important in my honest opinion. It would make no sense, ecologically, if Underdark races, weren't tougher individually and on average, than a weakling surfacer who spends all his or her time, in a loving family relationship, instead of one, where your brother and sister are trying to kill you off before you've even hit teenage years.

[Scurvy Cur]

One very minor point, Norf:

You can stack subrace with other gifts just fine, if you're willing to suck up the ECL hit, or at least you could on the last subrace character I made, for which I stacked a subrace bonus on top of a dex gift on a base race elf character for a stupid +6 staring dexterity. Was running a hefty ECL, but subrace gifts don't bar you from the other gifts.

[Preacher]

One very minor point, Norf:

You can stack subrace with other gifts just fine, if you're willing to suck up the ECL hit, or at least you could on the last subrace character I made, for which I stacked a subrace bonus on top of a dex gift on a base race elf character for a stupid +6 staring dexterity. Was running a hefty ECL, but subrace gifts don't bar you from the other gifts.

not +6
drow (and all elves) get +2
you can get the gift for +2 more
total is +4.... not 6.

I understand the confusion, the actual drow stat bonus's that are different from the normal elf stats are only +2 cha and +2 int. All elves get +2 dex and -2 con drow are no different in this case.

[Scurvy Cur]

It wasn't a Drow

Also, my point was not that Drow can stack subrace bonuses uber high (they actually have sort of an awkward split on int/CHA), but that one can stack subrace bonuses with gifts in general.

[Lorkas]

Either way, the subrace stats do take up a gift slot, so they do bar you from 1 gift.

And as far as I know, the only way to get +6 starting DEX is either to be a fey with the +2 DEX gift or to be an elf-based planetouched (which is a 5% roll now, and considering that you can just ask for a stat increase of more than +2 DEX with your 5%, is probably not a reasonable way to do it).

No elf subrace is meant to get +4 DEX after subrace bonuses.