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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
[D&D] Kobolds of Wyweria - 2nd Session
This is an adventure summary from a Dungeons & Dragons Campaign I'm currently DMing. For information on the campaign, check out the introductory post here first: (link), the Genesis of Wyweria: (link), and the 1st Campaign Session: (link).
We last left off with our four kobold warriors, each reincarnated from the dead spirits of their people, about to descend into the hideout of a ringleader of thieves. Front and center is Calhar (Monk), followed by Errantspark (Bard), Sandwhale (Wilder), and Vodkaholic (Druid).
The players reconvene, and the descent into darkness begins.
The Session
The group moves down the ladder, weapons drawn. It's dark. Each of them is under the effects of Alter Self, and so outwardly appear to be humans, so that the fact that kobolds are alive isn't revealed. It took some discussion to determine this, though-- Sandwhale, ever cautious, urged the use of Alter Self to hide their true nature for as long as possible. If you remember, it was also he who urged going after Bloody Jack first, given that Bloody Jack lives a quiet life and his disappearance would be unnoticed. The drawback of Alter Self, however, is that many of their racial abilities are unusuable. The Monk, for example, relies quite a bit on his half-dragon Kobold racial traits to provide him with bonus strength and natural armor, and without these bonuses he's substantially weaker.
However, prudence won over power, and the group of 4 "humans" proceeds through the darkened halls, ears and eyes straining to perceive danger. The walls are of hewn stone in some places, raw rock and earth in others. The floor is a mixture of packed dirt, smoothed stone, and wooden planking-- clearly poorly maintained. The hideout is 2 floors deep, and the first floor contains 2 wooden doors, both closed, and an open trapdoor with a ladder leading down to the floor below. Of the two closed doors, the monk keenly listens and perceives conversation and meal-eating behind one-- the other is silent. The group decides they will not investigate these doors yet, but first explore the lower area. A fight might bring men running from below, and they want an idea of their surroundings.
They descend to the second level of the hideout, and find themselves in a grand hall, 60 feet wide and nearly 200 feet long, filled with benches, tables and chairs. Errantspark speculates that it may be a meeting-hall, or a church. Sandwhale notes the large capacity and urges caution. Calhar goes scouting ahead, and finds his way to the other end of the hall. He carefully creeps forward, down a short hallway, and sees torchlight beyond the next bend he hears the sounds of men talking and eating. He pokes his head around the corner, and sees 6 men eating and drinking. He recognizes one of them immediately as Ser, Gloves' man around town who acts as a go-between and negotiator with various criminal elements. The other 5 men he doesn't recognize, but they are wearing armor, and he sees clearly the crest of the City Guard upon them. Behind them is a closed wall hatch.
Calhar creeps quietly back to the rest of the group, and in hushed whispers describes the situation to them. They begin discussing a plan of action, since their target, Gloves, is not there with them. Mid-discussion, they are jolted back to reality as shouting fills the room. Gloves, the ringleader, had descended the ladder and walked a few feet into the hall before spotting them.
"Enemies in the burrow! Enemies in the burrow! Men, to me! Weapons!"
Everything descends into madness over the course of the next several rounds. Gloves wins initiative and flings 3 darts at Sandwhale, wounding him severely. The other players haphazardly charge into melee with him as his henchmen, Ser included, rush down the hallway. Sandwhale stays focussed, and the City Guard and Ser suddenly find a Large-sized Astral Construct blocking their path into the room. Although it is not terribly strong, their weapons are having difficulty damaging it. In the meantime, Ser finds himself outnumbered. He attempts to back up, and finds that the unarmed human behind him is suddenly a massive bear. He drinks a potion and winks out of existence. Invisible.
Calhar, the Monk, turns to Vodkaholic, the Druid. "What are you waiting for?"
Vodkaholic gives him a blank stare. "What?"
Calhar gestures. "Dispel the invisibility!"
"Oh, how?"
"*ugh* use Dispel Magic. You have it prepared, right?"
"Ummmm"
"We're fighting a rogue. You know rogues, right?, masters of disguise and trickery, use stealth and hiding to win?"
It's clear the group has no way of dealing with the invisibility. Facepalms all around the table. The Astral Constructs finish off the last of the City Guards, and Ser is dispatched with a flurry of punches.
"Look, I didn't know he'd use invisibility, okay?"
"You should have! It was obvious!"
The group settles down, and Sandwhale once again offers a plan. "Okay, so there's only two ways out of this basement: the wall hatch in the room Ser was eating in, and the floor/ceiling hatch leading back to the surface. Calhar will use his custom Cape of the Mounteback (5 uses per day, but substantially more expensive than the normal 1/day version) to get to the surface and lock the floor/ceiling hatch from the other side, and the rest of us will guard the wall hatch. His potion should only last 3 minutes, then he'll be visible again."
The Kobolds spring into action, and secure their exits without incident. Calhar closes the hatch, descends the ladder, knocks it over, and crouches in the darkness. The rest of the party huddles in the back room-- Vodkaholic casts Antilife Shell and begins slowly walking around the room, paying close attention the status of his spell. Antilife Shell, in addition to preventing living creatures from approaching the Druid, ends immediately if it is forced over a living creature. In this way, Vodkaholic gradually sweeps the back room for invisible enemies.
Sandwhale decides he wants to make for the top exit while his Astral Constructs are still in effect. He has no way of communicating this to Calhar, so he sets off carefully. He reaches the bottom of the ladder to Z-1, and ascends to find himself (or rather, his constructs) face-to-face with Gloves and more of his men, presumably gathered from the lit room the group passed earlier. There are 3 City Guardsmen and 2 archers dressed in dark clothing. Cries go up and fighting breaks out immediately.
Calhar hears this right away and comes running down from the other end of the hall, but the rest of the party does not hear the sounds of battle. Calhar charges right into Gloves and his two archers, taking one down quickly with his Stunning Fist attack. Gloves fumbles around with a wand and fires a dark, necromantic beam at Calhar, narrowly missing, and Calhar turns on the other archer. As the Astral Constructs batter the remaining City Guardsmen, Gloves sees a chance to escape. He shouts to the living archer and the two of them race down the hall.
To their chagrin, the two escaping bandits find the ladder has been knocked down. The archer drops his bow and tries to lift the ladder into place, as Gloves curses at him. To their further chagrin, Calhar has activated his cape again and is above the ceiling/floor hatch, holding it closed. Gloves begins searching around in his bag for a scroll. Sandwhale has been relieved by the Druid and Bard in his fight against the City Guard. He tells them to clean them up then follow him, and he runs past the guardsmen and towards the hatch, hoping to overtake Gloves.
Finding at last his scroll of Knock, Gloves blasts the ceiling hatch off its hinges, and his henchman is immediately up through the gap and fighting with Calhar. Calhar takes the henchman down as Gloves comes up to the surface. The two combatants immediately spring into melee. Drawing a small, curved dagger, Gloves dodges the first flurry of attacks from Calhar-- some of the monk's blows miss entirely, one is parried. Gloves feints left, then stabs right, catching the monk between the ribs and wounding him deeply. The gloved thief smiles, then frowns as the monk is still standing. Calhar boasts, "I've grown far beyond poison, you fool!"
Gloves turns, and runs, making for the door. Calhar can't stop him. The horror of the situation fills him-- Jack will be out and into the bustling crowds of the city, lost among the throngs of merchants and peasants, free to either warn Bloody Jack, or if Gloves is the man, escape forever. It's all over-- all their plans, all their secrecy, everything, because this rogue would escape their grasp. In a moment, he'd be gone. In that moment, though, Sandwhale bursts up the ladder, and fires a beam of psionic energy, crystallizing the escaping rogue in place. Gloves has been caught-- he cannot move, he cannot escape.
"I really hate using save-or-dies," Sandwhale remarks, "but it had to be done."
The Four Kobolds gather around the unconscious figure, deep in the woods outside Telport. He's bound, stripped naked, and gagged. They are within the trunk of a great tree, the wood hollowed out and grown naturally around them to create a perfect, lightless prison. They are The Four Kobolds, as opposed to four kobolds, because they are all that is left of their race. They want vengeance on the Champions who led the campaign of genocide against them, but first they must question this man, this man who is not Bloody Jack, this man who is his lookalike.
After some intimidation and questioning, they learn that Gloves is one of Bloody Jack's three lieutenants, each stationed in a different major city. Gloves is in charge of Telport, and the other two (also disguised as Jack) operate organized crime in the Capitol of Sternen and the Forest. When asked why they didn't run organized crime in the Mountainhomes, Gloves smirks and says, "have you ever heard of the Dwarflord, man? We wouldn't last long under the fist of Urdol."
It was good they questioned him in total darkness, because they strike a deal with Gloves. He gives them the information they need to take down Bloody Jack, and they let him live. When they ask him why he co-operates so easily, he says he's after Jack's job. He wants to be the richest man in Lerka, not just the richest man in Telport. And if Jack dies, why, all the better for him. After questioning him, they beat him unconscious then leave him to recover in the woods with his armor, his crossbow, and enough gold to get back to the city.
They finally find out what they need to know, and learning it is hard. Bloody Jack, of course, is disguised and goes by an alias. He lives in the Capitol of Lerka, Hoft. He's an influential man, an advisor to the King. He'll be hard to get at. He is Tarn Merus, head of the Royal Inquisition, said by some to be the most powerful man in the Kingdom. Merus the Bloody-Handed. Funny, that he should acquire two names so similar in his two lives-- it might say something about his character.
Men quake at his name, or at even the mention of the Inquisition. Tarn Merus commands an army of Inquisitors and they an army of Practicals, and it is by his vigilance that there has been no insurrection in these long years. He is a paranoid man, living mostly in the castle, surrounded by guards, traps, and magic defenses at all times. There have been many attempts on his life, and all have failed-- the assassins have been executed for treason, but not before, under severe torture, giving up the names of their employers.
The heroes look around at each other. This would not be easy. But then again, few things worth doing on. The Druid casts his spell, and the group passes through a gate-tree, to emerge near the Capitol, and the first target of their divine vengeance.
 
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This is starting to sound like some of the difficulties I ran into running an evil campaign. When you're very much the enemy of everything in the general area, if not the continent, there's a LOT of strategic thought and planning that needs to occur, and it frequently doesn't, making for amusing moments.
By the way, you absolutely need one of them to have a halfling ranger trying to do him in.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
OMG NINJA 1 STAR RATER STRIKES AGAIN. He always waits until a few minutes after I make a blog, and there he is, waiting, to strike with his 1 star vote.
On August 02 2012 10:48 JingleHell wrote:
This is starting to sound like some of the difficulties I ran into running an evil campaign. When you're very much the enemy of everything in the general area, if not the continent, there's a LOT of strategic thought and planning that needs to occur, and it frequently doesn't, making for amusing moments.
By the way, you absolutely need one of them to have a halfling ranger trying to do him in.
There was actually a philosophical question about whether their moral imperative, handed down from them by their deity, allowed them to co-operate with humans, or spare lives, or otherwise do anything nice to the races that annihilated the kobold race. They decided the ends justified the means.
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^lol
Dont let him get to you, I just five stared it to balance it out ^_^
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On August 02 2012 10:49 Blazinghand wrote:OMG NINJA 1 STAR RATER STRIKES AGAIN. He always waits until a few minutes after I make a blog, and there he is, waiting, to strike with his 1 star vote. Show nested quote +On August 02 2012 10:48 JingleHell wrote:
This is starting to sound like some of the difficulties I ran into running an evil campaign. When you're very much the enemy of everything in the general area, if not the continent, there's a LOT of strategic thought and planning that needs to occur, and it frequently doesn't, making for amusing moments.
By the way, you absolutely need one of them to have a halfling ranger trying to do him in. There was actually a philosophical question about whether their moral imperative, handed down from them by their deity, allowed them to co-operate with humans, or spare lives, or otherwise do anything nice to the races that annihilated the kobold race. They decided the ends justified the means.
Regardless of your technique, I'm talking about the fact that if you're found out, it's torches and pitchforks.
The evil campaign I had had some interesting stuff going, where the cleric and wizard from the original party of do-gooders that caused all the fluffy bunnies to overrun things (being more on the chaotic good side) decided that since they didn't like Sorcerers and Druids/Rangers for doing things differently, they'd work together to get Druidic magic and sorcerers banned as heretics.
So, first town my party of slightly poor tactical thinkers shows up at, the Ranger has his animal companion with him, and 0 ranks in bluff, with like an 8 in Charisma. Needless to say, he fails horribly at convincing people he's a trainer of exotic animals...
It went downhill fast, and eventually turned into nobody wanting to play anymore, even though I damn well warned them. They decided they'd rather just drink beer. The joys of running a game for soldiers.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On August 02 2012 10:56 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2012 10:49 Blazinghand wrote:OMG NINJA 1 STAR RATER STRIKES AGAIN. He always waits until a few minutes after I make a blog, and there he is, waiting, to strike with his 1 star vote. On August 02 2012 10:48 JingleHell wrote:
This is starting to sound like some of the difficulties I ran into running an evil campaign. When you're very much the enemy of everything in the general area, if not the continent, there's a LOT of strategic thought and planning that needs to occur, and it frequently doesn't, making for amusing moments.
By the way, you absolutely need one of them to have a halfling ranger trying to do him in. There was actually a philosophical question about whether their moral imperative, handed down from them by their deity, allowed them to co-operate with humans, or spare lives, or otherwise do anything nice to the races that annihilated the kobold race. They decided the ends justified the means. Regardless of your technique, I'm talking about the fact that if you're found out, it's torches and pitchforks. The evil campaign I had had some interesting stuff going, where the cleric and wizard from the original party of do-gooders that caused all the fluffy bunnies to overrun things (being more on the chaotic good side) decided that since they didn't like Sorcerers and Druids/Rangers for doing things differently, they'd work together to get Druidic magic and sorcerers banned as heretics. So, first town my party of slightly poor tactical thinkers shows up at, the Ranger has his animal companion with him, and 0 ranks in bluff, with like an 8 in Charisma. Needless to say, he fails horribly at convincing people he's a trainer of exotic animals... It went downhill fast, and eventually turned into nobody wanting to play anymore, even though I damn well warned them. They decided they'd rather just drink beer. The joys of running a game for soldiers.
Another way of running an evil campaign (though I haven't done this myself) is to run a lowercase-e evil campaign. Your guys don't have grand designs of world domination or destruction, and they don't worship dark gods, but they aren't do-gooders-- hell they aren't even do-neutralers. They're mercenaries, assassins, soldiers of fortune, you name it. Evil, vicious people through and through. Maybe one of them is on a quest to bring back a gem that will free his father's soul from an evil lich, but maybe he's also a murderous bastard, and will kill and bribe his way to the top. Maybe he works for the King, hoping to run errands to defend the kingdom and earn the favor of the King who will help him find the gem, but when a better offer comes along-- from say, a dark prince trying to raise a hellish army, or from an order of paladins sworn to fight him, he'll work for whoever offers him more.
This campaign is full of Evil characters, but a campaign full of evil ones can work much better, simply because society allows such people to exist.
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That could be fun. Although that requires even more thought than a "big E" campaign, since that kind of person really needs to avoid being caught out to exist within society. When they don't have the grand plans of destroying society or so on, if their plans are more continues existence and profit, they really need some sort of contingency planning.
It seems like it would be a very advanced campaign. But fun to play.
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On August 02 2012 11:00 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2012 10:56 JingleHell wrote:On August 02 2012 10:49 Blazinghand wrote:OMG NINJA 1 STAR RATER STRIKES AGAIN. He always waits until a few minutes after I make a blog, and there he is, waiting, to strike with his 1 star vote. On August 02 2012 10:48 JingleHell wrote:
This is starting to sound like some of the difficulties I ran into running an evil campaign. When you're very much the enemy of everything in the general area, if not the continent, there's a LOT of strategic thought and planning that needs to occur, and it frequently doesn't, making for amusing moments.
By the way, you absolutely need one of them to have a halfling ranger trying to do him in. There was actually a philosophical question about whether their moral imperative, handed down from them by their deity, allowed them to co-operate with humans, or spare lives, or otherwise do anything nice to the races that annihilated the kobold race. They decided the ends justified the means. Regardless of your technique, I'm talking about the fact that if you're found out, it's torches and pitchforks. The evil campaign I had had some interesting stuff going, where the cleric and wizard from the original party of do-gooders that caused all the fluffy bunnies to overrun things (being more on the chaotic good side) decided that since they didn't like Sorcerers and Druids/Rangers for doing things differently, they'd work together to get Druidic magic and sorcerers banned as heretics. So, first town my party of slightly poor tactical thinkers shows up at, the Ranger has his animal companion with him, and 0 ranks in bluff, with like an 8 in Charisma. Needless to say, he fails horribly at convincing people he's a trainer of exotic animals... It went downhill fast, and eventually turned into nobody wanting to play anymore, even though I damn well warned them. They decided they'd rather just drink beer. The joys of running a game for soldiers. Another way of running an evil campaign (though I haven't done this myself) is to run a lowercase-e evil campaign. Your guys don't have grand designs of world domination or destruction, and they don't worship dark gods, but they aren't do-gooders-- hell they aren't even do-neutralers. They're mercenaries, assassins, soldiers of fortune, you name it. Evil, vicious people through and through. Maybe one of them is on a quest to bring back a gem that will free his father's soul from an evil lich, but maybe he's also a murderous bastard, and will kill and bribe his way to the top. Maybe he works for the King, hoping to run errands to defend the kingdom and earn the favor of the King who will help him find the gem, but when a better offer comes along-- from say, a dark prince trying to raise a hellish army, or from an order of paladins sworn to fight him, he'll work for whoever offers him more. This campaign is full of Evil characters, but a campaign full of evil ones can work much better, simply because society allows such people to exist.
I tried so hard to get my party to play evil. No one took the bait and they are all a mix of good or neutral. (although the druid is insannnnnely close to becoming evil). My way around the bit of alignment however is that each major country is at war. They for the most part are also insanely racist towards half breeds and anything that isn't clearly from their country. Each race basically has its own domain. Of my characters 2 chose half breeds, 1 chose to be a druid (shifters in 4th ed) and remaining two chose to be an elf and a human in a human dominated country. As such near universally they have had to deal with being treated as lesser beings and forced to behave in ways that are not alignment breaking but extremely alignment testing while forcing them to think on their feet.  i forgot how much fun dming could be.
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wait, you let them make half-kobold half-dragon monster characters? How did you parse the racial traits out on that one (no breath weapon i'd imagine)?
Edit: owait Kobolds are a 0 LA, so they have the racial traits for both yes (are you doing 3.5 or...)?
Playing an evil campaign can but super fun. We had a group of of us who used the BoVD and built a campaign around being worshipers of Orchus, the revival of that religion per se, and the whole plan was to eventually resurrect him. Was a pretty fun campaign.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On August 02 2012 22:10 wo1fwood wrote:
wait, you let them make half-kobold half-dragon monster characters? How did you parse the racial traits out on that one (no breath weapon i'd imagine)?
Edit: owait Kobolds are a 0 LA, so they have the racial traits for both yes (are you doing 3.5 or...)?
Playing an evil campaign can but super fun. We had a group of of us who used the BoVD and built a campaign around being worshipers of Orchus, the revival of that religion per se, and the whole plan was to eventually resurrect him. Was a pretty fun campaign.
The campaign is in 3.5e-- we never really scraped together the money to buy the 4e sourcebooks, and after years of running 3.5e without any problems we never saw a reason to switch over.
Making a half-dragon kobold is pretty easy. Half-dragon is an inherited template, so you apply it over the kobold racial stats before making the creature. The net racial features for a half-dragon kobold are:
Size: Small
Type: Dragon
Speed: 30
Armor Class: +5 Natural Armor
Attacks: Bite 1d4, 2 Claws 1d3
Special Attacks: 1/day Breath Weapon. 6d8 Damage, Reflex Half DC (10 + Con Mod).
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60, Low-Light Vision, Immune to Sleep and Paralysis, Light Sensitivity
Abilities: Str +4, Dex +2, Int +2, Cha +2
Skills: +2 Search, +2 Craft (Trapmaking), +2 Profession (Miner)
Automatic Languages: Draconic. Bonus Languaes: Common, Undercommon.
Favored Class: Sorcerer
LA: +3
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I don't see a reason to switch 4e either, especially as wotc announced work on a new version not too long ago (that and 4e is very simplified especially when compared to 3.5 from what I skimmed through). I still chuckle that the half-dragon modifier is only a +3 adjustment though, that and a bunch of other broken races like githzerai (+2 mod lol).
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On August 03 2012 03:20 wo1fwood wrote:
I don't see a reason to switch 4e either, especially as wotc announced work on a new version not too long ago (that and 4e is very simplified especially when compared to 3.5 from what I skimmed through). I still chuckle that the half-dragon modifier is only a +3 adjustment though, that and a bunch of other broken races like githzerai (+2 mod lol).
Part of the reason the half-dragon modifier is +3 is that it has a bunch of abilities that are good on certain races. Large half-dragons grow wings; half-dragons with racial HD have the racial HDs boosted by a size, and the skill points from the racial HD increased to 6/level. A Ogre, for example, has an unfortunate HD setup, which is 4 Giant HD and +1 LA. Giant HD provide d8s and 2 skill points per level-- they basically suck really bad. If you apply the Half-Dragon Template to the Ogre, though, he gets a bunch of sweet stuff in addition to the normal half-dragon bonuses. Since he's Large, he gets wings, and his racial HD become D10s, and he gets 6 skill points per level instead of 2.
A kobold, being both Small and without Racial HD, doesn't benefit from many of the half-dragon template's bonuses, which is why the +3 LA seems so out-of-place.
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On August 03 2012 03:20 wo1fwood wrote:
I don't see a reason to switch 4e either, especially as wotc announced work on a new version not too long ago (that and 4e is very simplified especially when compared to 3.5 from what I skimmed through). I still chuckle that the half-dragon modifier is only a +3 adjustment though, that and a bunch of other broken races like githzerai (+2 mod lol).
One of the other books, can't remember which, explained level adjustment, and apparently there was more to it than most people assumed. The better version really made more sense and was balanced better though.
Was one of the source books that was about that stuff though.
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United States10328 Posts
man, I really want to play a 3.5e campaign, but we only have 4e rulebooks...
great read btw 
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On August 03 2012 03:33 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2012 03:20 wo1fwood wrote:
I don't see a reason to switch 4e either, especially as wotc announced work on a new version not too long ago (that and 4e is very simplified especially when compared to 3.5 from what I skimmed through). I still chuckle that the half-dragon modifier is only a +3 adjustment though, that and a bunch of other broken races like githzerai (+2 mod lol). One of the other books, can't remember which, explained level adjustment, and apparently there was more to it than most people assumed. The better version really made more sense and was balanced better though. Was one of the source books that was about that stuff though.
Wait, githzerai? Aren't they like, not that great for an LA +2 race? No Damage Reduction, No Spell Resistance, and very limited Psi-like abilities? Like... Shatter and Mage Armor 3/day? I mean, +6 Dex is nice, but what are you gonna do with all that dex anyways? It'll give you +3 to hit, at range or with finesse, sure, but you're 2 HD behind, so that's 2 BAB less you'd have... I guess as a Monk you'd have a pretty decent +4 AC from Wis and Dex, but you're losing 2 HD of skill points, progression for flurry, speed, slow fall, and other good monk abilities. The Mage Armor is ok, but if you have a mage in your party with Extend Spell he can replace that racial feature with a level 2 spell slot.
A real cool LA +2 Race is like... Drow? I guess? Or Celestial Human, which will give you Spell Resistance, Damage Reduction, and Elemental Resistance. Not great, but ok.
I have trouble getting any race with Level Adjustment to be good, just because you lose HD. I could be doing it wrong, though.
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EPT
