The LA-assignment thread II: Where The Em Dash Doesn't Exist

[Inevitability]

Is negative LA legitimately not allowed by the rules? Or is it just that it has no real precedent? Because some creatures have enough worthless RHD to make them require negative LA to be in line with other characters.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a rule out there forbidding it, but there is precedent. Both Incarnate Construct and the ELH have material with a negative LA (though the second mentions it indirectly and both are 3.0). (EDIT: Ninja'ed on this one, curse my long posts!)

However, there's a number of reasons why I'm not going to use negative LAs beyond -0, which I have stated a number of times before already.

To put it simply, I'm not doing it because it breaks assumed assumptions of level and HD limits. Almost all PrCs are enterable much earlier if your HD exceeds your ECL, many feats (including some horribly broken ones) become available before they're meant to, and spells that should be effective against low-level PCs (such as Cause Fear, Color Spray or Sleep) aren't all of a sudden.

Also, there's going to be situations where a creature is underpowered at +0 LA, but strengthened so much by suddenly being ahead a skill rank and HD on everyone that it's too strong at -1. Those will be a bit trickier than I was hoping for when creating this thread.

In some cases, people are going to pick something completely horrible and useless (like a gas spore) only because of the massive negative LA it'll get, then enter Ur Priest or something equivalent first chance they get. I don't want to encourage that.

I already advise people who want to play something with -0 LA to ask their DM for a houserule, fix, or variant, which I feel is a better solution at this time than trying to measure the exact point at which the headstart on the party starts to outweigh the drawbacks of HD.