LA-Buy off Confusion

Question

So our game is starting at ECL5 due to the fact that everyone is given a +1LA at the very beginning as part of the story. I wanted to use Unearthed Arcana to buy the level off at lvl 3 and instead start at level 4 however I have a player stating that I would be lvl 3 instead. He is incredibly stubborn and I don't know the rules or math involved well enough to actually figure this out and was hoping someone could break down which of those is actually right because The LA Buy Off rules are weird.

Answer 1

I assume that the game is starting at 10,000 XP, which is what you need to reach ECL 5th, and that you chose to buy off LA +1 at ECL 4th, when it cost 3,000 XP out of the 6,000 XP you have at that point. That drops you down to 3,000 XP. Then the remaining 4,000 XP is doled out, so at a bare minimum, you are at 7,000 XP: enough for ECL 4th (6,000 XP), and a quarter of the way to ECL 5th.

However, that’s not really accurate: after you buy off your LA +1, you are no longer ECL 4th, but ECL 3rd. That means that, when you participate in encounters that earn your ECL-4th party members a certain amount of XP, you should be getting more than that, because you are lower-level. We already have a Q&A about that, where I worked out how much XP a 5th-level character who bought of LA +1 at 4th would have: there, I come up with 7,333 XP. So that’s what you should have.

Finally, note what else I have to say about this situation in the other Q&A: the buy-off rules are problematic. And it doesn’t really make sense to use them in a game where everyone has the same LA—or, alternatively, everyone in the game should be using them. In short, what I recommend is that everyone in the game be at the same XP total. Whatever it is, whatever ECL it counts as, the DM should set it and everyone should use it.