Probably an installation mix-up. I think I activated the co8 mod after installing the templeplus mod. Maybe that's what fouled things up.
Strange, the drow/duergar/aasimar races all have a level adjustment, but neither the troll nor the hill-giant seem to have one. I wish it was possible to remove the level adjustment. I consider it very racist/anti-non-human, anyway, and forces most players to choose human characters for the most part.
I used a Hill Giant PC for a while. The Hill Giant never received any XP from any combat or quests. This went on for at least 7 or 8 levels before I gave up on it. There are also issues with the Hill Giant being able to get through some doorways and openings.
I think the level adjustments make sense, and I also think that humans don't have any advantage over other "standard" races. They all have different advantages. For the non-standard races, level adjustments are definitely justified. The Drow, for example, get amazing stat bonuses, not to mention their spell resistance.
The drow also get ability losses as well. Since humans always get an extra feat plus a myriad extra skill points, they are at an enormous advantage over non-human races.Sames goes for humans over duergar etc. The level adhustments/xp-penalties really should be removed. It's like old ad&d where non-human races were forbidden to advance beyond a certain maximum level.The claim by Gygax et al, was that humans somehow "needed" to be supreme in any fantasy world, but that was illogical as an idea.
Hill Giants and Trolls certainly do have level adjustment--as florian says, Hill Giant PCs don't gain XP for a prolonged period of time because they are counted as being higher level than their class level. This isn't unreasonable as their racial hit dice and ability score modifiers give them the characteristics of much higher level PCs of standard races. One could argue that multiclassing penalties and favoured races in D&D3e are unbalanced (but they are probably the most houseruled away rule in the game), or that the game undervalues the additional starting feat and skill points for humans relative to the advantages of boosting a starting ability score (which is variably useful but can be very good for 'single ability score' classes--qv Gray elf wizard), or that it overvalues low-level racial spellcasting abilities, but I don't think you can seriously claim that a Hill Giant fighter that starts off with +8 to hit, multiple racial hit dice each with a +4 Con modifier, and natural armour that more than compensates for a - 1 size mod to AC, should be treated the same as a human fighter with a measly +1 BAB.
Well, I think that is reasonable. I mean, if one takes the fantasy world as a workable alternative to the real world, then one has to assume that some races have more or fewer advantages than others. Nerfing any which are superior seems therefore just pro-human bias. The hill giant already gets a vast reduction in terms of lower intelligence etc. So, on top of having 1 less feat, and far fewer skill points, forcing the hill giant to have level adjustment issues as well, is ridiculous.Humans, on the other hand, could theoretically have a much lower CHA score etc.,but because of the extra skill points can easily more than make up for that.Plus, the extra feat makes a hell of a lot of difference to a human who is not a fighter, level for level. I looked at the tpdata folder and cannot make head or tail of it. Is there a tutorial of some sort?
For the core races, <i>choice</i> of extra feat for humans is more valuable than 'you get what you're given' in terms of racial weapon proficiencies, ditto for free choice of where to allocate an extra skill point per level. Ability score modifiers are an attempt to codify the fantasy racial tropes of quick-but-fragile elves, sturdy-but-surly dwarves, etc, and the whole thing is a way of explain why (as is the case in most fantasy literature) humans remain relevant in a world filled with orcs, dwarves, elves, ogre etc: they are adaptable, and while they aren't the toughest, strongest, quickest or brightest, they occupy a goldilocks position of being just right for most choices. We'll have to agree to disagree on Hill Giants. I agree it sucks if you are trying to build a Hill Giant wizard that not only do you have an Int penalty but you have to earn a whole load more XP to get to second level, but your extra hit dice, strength bonus to hit and so on still give you the benefits of effectively being about a level 8 fighter, whether you are taking full advantage of that in your build or not.
I noticed one error that seems to come from TOEE. My cleric of Nerull(domains death and trickery) should have 2 options at 3rd level for a domain spell: animate dead(quite useless) and suggestion. But, as of now and previous games, I only have animate dead as an option. Someome should correct this, please!
@StrontiumDog that isn't a Temple+ issue so this is the wrong thread for your query, which patches are you using currently?
Well, I downloaded the latest co8 mod on top of the gog version of TOEE. Also the latest temple+ mod. https://co8.org/community/index.php?forums/download-central.90/ and temple+ very recently from moddbb.