ECL [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTimePost
thymus_backbreaker

07-12-07, 09:51 PM		Can someone please tell me how to figure out an ecl when creating a race??

Any help would be much apreciated
Leilond

07-13-07, 03:22 AM		The factors that create your ECL are:
1) Racial HD, if there are (bugbear have 2 HD for example)
2) Class levels (10 level fighter for example)
3) Level adjustment, if there are (vampire got +8)

A 10 level bugbear vampire fighter ECL is 20
runestar

07-13-07, 03:26 AM		A 10 level bugbear vampire fighter ECL is 20
ECL 22 actually. ECL4 for bugbear, 10 from fighter, +8 from vampire template.
eamon

07-13-07, 08:40 AM		ECL 22 actually. ECL4 for bugbear, 10 from fighter, +8 from vampire template.

Indeed ECL 22. Bugbear have 3HD and +1 level adjustment, hence the ECL4. Simply put: the ECL of a char is the sum of all level adjustments and all HD that character has.

So the example, fully decomposed is:
- 3 HD humanoid(goblinoid)
- Level adjustment +1 (bugbear)
- 10 HD fighter
- Level adjustment +8 (vampire template)

;-)
Leilond

07-13-07, 08:44 AM		Thanks for the correction, I used my memory.... and it look like I need a new memory ;)
Frugal

07-13-07, 09:43 AM		Can someone please tell me how to figure out an ecl when creating a race??

Any help would be much apreciated

A lot of people have answered this as the usual how to calculate ECL question. Where you say "when creating a race," I'm wondering if you mean how to calculate the LA for a custom race? There's no real formula to go by, you need to figure out what the long term impact of having a race with the abilities you plan to give will be within the party. You might want to do a search for yabathewhat's feature points system, it's not perfect but it does give you a rough idea of what LA a creature should be.
Marcus Majarra

07-16-07, 12:39 PM		Doesn't Savage Species provide guidelines for this?
Arrowstorm

07-18-07, 09:57 AM		Here's the problem with savage species and ECL. SS is a 3.0 book and the rules have evolved well beyond some of its advice. We are running a monstrous campaign and here are some of the problems. According to SS Stone Giant has a LA of +4 and 14 HD making it an ECL of 18, but a CR of 8 or 9. SOmething is wrong with the formula. The test according to the SS is what would be a better character 18ECL Stone Giant or 18 Level Fighter? The system breaks down quickly. In fact due to new rules, I feel the entire monster CR has broken down. Most monster books don't have monsters using all the new rules such as swift spells, feats, etc. This gives players a bigger edge over the monsters than reflected by CR.

A guy I've gamed with for years and I discussed this after our session the other night. DnD was very simple in past editions. That was its strength and weakness. WoTC has made it a very complicated game with all the rules additions. Now this is not necasarily a bad thing. If you want a simple game, then stick to core rules. The more books you add the more house rules and interpretations that will have to be made. I think it is a strength of the new DnD over the old. The problem is you have to get flexible. Our group has been pllaying together for almost 7 years. The DM changes between us and rules are debated with the DM of the moment being the ultimate arbiter. And then each of us learn and decide if the change worked.

DnD is no longer a simple game with simple rules. But it is a better game than the one I played out of the blue box when it first came out.

Arrowstorm
Marcus Majarra

07-18-07, 01:01 PM		DnD was very simple in past editions.
Simple is not an appropriate word here. It was arbitrarily inflexible and inconsistent. It's simple insofar as you don't mind the inconsistency in the rules (the eternal "must I roll high or low?" dilemma in previous D&D editions illustrates this best) and care little for any deviations from the RAW (as the system offered little in terms of possible variations before the Options books of revised AD&D).

You should also take notice that you're establishing a correlation that doesn't and shouldn't exist between CR and ECL. CR represents the immediate danger level of a given creature, whereas ECL measures the longterm benefits of being the creature itself. It's of no surprise that CR will always be lower than or equal to ECL. What's perhaps most inappropriate would be the established CR values for PC classes.

Furthermore, the newer monster books (as well as the newer rule supplements) boast monsters that do use improved rules, including swift and immediate action abilities. Core monsters don't have these features simply because they pre-date them. Tweaking existing monster abilities is within the reach of every DM and it's not overly complicated to do so.
Arrowstorm

07-18-07, 01:32 PM		Marcus,

Simple is appropriate. The original boxed DnD version was 3 levels and 50-60 pages softbound. Character creation took 5 minutes for an experienced player. You are right, though, that it lacked choices. But as one of the first, if not THE first RPG it was the easiest most playable game around. But what happened after time as that as RPGs became more popular and increasingly complex, the creators of DnD responded by increasing the levels of complexity. I'm very glad they did. It is a much better game. But the wide range of books, variants, and new rules means groups need to get on the same page as to what they are doing and what some of the rules mean. The more rules that are printed increases the likelihood of contradiction. Read the boards for five minutes and you will see the results. But once again this is a good thing. Our group takes great pleasure in figuring out new variants and what works/doesn't work.

But the past game was simple. And you are correct that it was inflexible. But the current game is infinitely more incoonsistent as well.


Arrowstorm
Frugal

07-18-07, 01:50 PM		But the past game was simple. And you are correct that it was inflexible. But the current game is infinitely more incoonsistent as well.

More complex I'll grant you since there are rules for way more things now than were ever covered in 1ed or 2ed. But, more inconsistent? That I question. In earlier editions of the game every class had a different xp chart, sometimes even for different race and class combos. Your race and class combo determined what your maximum level was. Just about any activity you could think of had it's own, unique, chart that you had to look up to figure out what you needed to roll. And so on.

I think what you're mistaking is variety, complexity, and options in 3ed/3.5 with inconsistency but most things work off a very small set of key concepts, the main one being rolling a d20 + modifiers to beat a given DC.
Marcus Majarra

07-19-07, 12:57 PM		Quite right, Frugal. Consistency is about being able to apply the same principles through many aspects of the system, and this is something the d20 system features that past editions couldn't even come close to achieving.
Arrowstorm

07-19-07, 01:18 PM		I concede the point about consistency. The new rules have a workable central system.

Arrowstorm
Drakken2672

07-19-07, 05:21 PM		I guess kind of to direct this back to the point, At what point does ECL truely break down? If you look across the board and take for example a giant (4 lvl adj) compared to say a pixie (4 lvl adj) one gets +20 to str the other +8 to cha. The SS book breaks down horribly when the overall impact on the campaign is looked at. The fact still remains that house rules will have to take priority over the books to make the races not only playable but also useable to the players. So my thoughts on the ECL/ CR/ LA situation is don't use it as it is, find what works use the other books as guidelines and eventually come to a happy place in the middle.



-Drakken
::RUMOR::
last time Gary Gygax was at gencon they released 3.0, He is rumored to be there this year.... any thoughts???
Frugal

07-19-07, 05:31 PM		I guess kind of to direct this back to the point, At what point does ECL truely break down? If you look across the board and take for example a giant (4 lvl adj) compared to say a pixie (4 lvl adj) one gets +20 to str the other +8 to cha. The SS book breaks down horribly when the overall impact on the campaign is looked at. The fact still remains that house rules will have to take priority over the books to make the races not only playable but also useable to the players. So my thoughts on the ECL/ CR/ LA situation is don't use it as it is, find what works use the other books as guidelines and eventually come to a happy place in the middle.

Um, you do realize that you're comparing a creature with large number of racial HD vs. one with none right? The pixie is ECL 5 (1 HD + 4 LA) the giant is ECL 19 (fire), 18 (frost), 16 (hill) or 18 (stone), not exactly a fair comparison.
Nom

07-19-07, 06:10 PM		ECL tends to break down for:

(1) Creatures whose LA is a significant fraction of their current HD. Say more than 50%.

(2) Spellcasters. But that's just another instance of the general "multiclass caster" problem, not special to LA or monstrous races.
eamon

07-20-07, 11:39 AM		I also dislike the ECL vs. CR cleft which opens up at high levels. An assertion is made that the difference is necessary to reflect the difference between a short-term encounter and a long-term campaign. However, some opponents are anything but short term, and quite capable of making use of abilities which apparently enhance LA a lot but hardly effect CR.

Something is seriously wrong there. It also means that the DM can make a perfectly playable Minotaur cleric, while the player cannot (because of the ways that non-associated levels don't stack).

The whole system is clearly adhoc: According to the MM guidelines, a monster which advances by an NPC class gains only 1/2 CR per level whereas an NPC gains 1 CR per level, being only one CR behind PC classes (I'm sure the MM rules are more realistic here). In any case, it's kinda crazy that you could use the CR guidelines for, say, a minotaur and end up with a minotaur fighter(6) and a minotaur rogue(6)warrior(6) at the same CR (namely 10). In any case, a minotaur has very few really special abilities beyond it's powerful stats - why then, is the CR 4 but the ECL 8?

Which ability of the minotaur allows it to be so powerful in long-term play which doesn't shine in a single encounter? Are these abilities worth a four level difference?

The "public" reasoning is that CR's are lower because they represent the short-term challenge posed and don't include long-term benefits. However, I have the feeling that although that is a minor factor, the real issue here is that CR represents an estimation of power, and ECL a highest-case when optimized and having a lot of wealth power limit. The core assumption being that DM's aren't as busy finding broken things...
Frugal

07-20-07, 12:11 PM		Let's look at the minotaur example though and assume that CR should determine what he's appropriate for in a party. At CR 4 then he'd be appropriate for a 4th level party (assuming he has no class levels). He has 6 racial HD so he has 2D8 + 2*CON more HP than anyone else, he has +6 BAB so 2 more than a full BAB class, saves of +2 fort, +5 reflex and +5 Will, okay the fort save is weak but the other 2 saves aren't too shabby and really helps for going into a class with a weak will save. He has +8 STR, +4 CON, -4 INT and -2 CHA and large size, darkvision, 6 levels worth of skills from racial HD, 3 feats, +5 natural armour, and some other special abilities.

Now, does all of this sound balanced for a 4th level party member? Of course not, that's a wicked set of abilities for any meleeist with only a few small drawbacks, which are offset by being ahead of anyone with straight class levels in terms of combat ability. So we start with the racial HD for figuring out ECL, that's 6, but he has some extras that would still make him better than a 6th level character (the big stat boosts and natural attacks/armour come to mind) so we'll put an LA on him to make him ECL 8.

Now let's look at him in terms of being an encounter, he has a few more HP than any 4th level PC would have and he hits a little bit better, but other than that what has he got? He'll likely get dropped in a few rounds by any reasonably competent 4th level party.

Now I will admit that the whole adding class levels to monsters thing gets weird. I'd argue though that rogue levels really improve his effectiveness as a fighter so I'd still likely add them as associated class levels, I'd say non-associated levels for him would be something like wizard or sorcerer because that's where his ability score penalties will really hurt his effectiveness and his ability in melee won't help nearly as much.
eamon

07-20-07, 03:10 PM		You absolutely right that a minotaur should not be ECL 4. It's nevertheless disturbing how great a difference there is between the two, however. Don't forget that a fighter(4) is a CR 4, and that's a pretty reasonable benchmark. You could make a party of NPC's, and using the CR calculation rules, they'ld come out at about Party level +4 or +5(if you add the factor of wealth). Using that system, You could consider a EL +5 to be a 50/50 TPK - you never know which party will win. And that looks to be honest, since a everything up to an EL of Party Level +4 should be doable (though the chance of a PC death is of course higher when you use one level+4 encounter rather than 4 normal encounters).

Using Party level +5 as an encounter level which should be 50/50 TPK, and a party-level equivalent NPC party which results in an EL of party level +4, we have a one-level difference. I'm tempted to simple ascribe this to the difference in wealth. Barring extremely low level adventures, PC wealth is greater than NPC wealth - sufficiently so to be worth +1CR, I'm sure (I sometimes play with the amount of equipment NPC's have and it makes an enormous difference - in reality it's probably more than +1, but it's all so imprecise that I'll disregard it)

That means we can assign normal PC classes a benchmark CR towards which all others should be compared, when used as a well-rounded challenge.

A Minotaur is clearly far more powerful than a Fighter(4). It's CR is too low. On the other hand, it's level adjustment is probably too high.

The srd has this to say about gear:
If you choose to equip a monster with gear, use its ECL as its character level for purposes of determining how much equipment it can purchase. Generally, only monsters with an Advancement entry of "By character class" receive NPC gear; other creatures adding character levels should be treated as monsters of the appropriate CR and assigned treasure, not equipment.

Ironically, that means that whenever you increase the LA, you increase a monsters power :-D.

Conclusion
The CR and ECL numbers are interesting, but not much more than an estimate. Wisely, WotC was conservative when assigning ECL's generally assigning them to be so high that it's not usually attractive to play such a race. On the other hand, the CR system is extremely patch together, containing inconsistancies like a minotaur which has no gear to a minotaur fighter(1) which would have 36000gp gear and an improved ability score array, not to mention all the benefits of a level of fighter at only +1 CR. It contains inconsistencies like the fact that all NPC classes are considered non-associated, and only add 1/2 to a monsters CR, but then, in the chapter about NPC's it suggests that when adding NPC levels to normal races, the CR is simply one lower than a normal PC class - two guidelines that are impossible to reconcile. Unsurprisingly, there's no substitute for a good eyeballing when it comes to CR, and if you don't want to penalize players in a campaign allowing monsters as PC's, you'd do well to take into account the fact that the ECL is extremely conservative and penalizes everything except brute force quite heavily.
Arrowstorm

07-20-07, 04:39 PM		I think the rules ultimately STRONGLY discourage LA characters because they are generally not worth the level loss. However, PCs love to play them and they have great roleplaying potential. I think LA has to be looked at carefully on a creature by creature basis and according to campaign. For istance in my current campaign an LA for say DR15/ magic would be worhtless as +1 weapons about. DR15 cold iron would be worth it as that is not a common item. One of my players is playing a sprite with Spell Resistance. In my friends campaign that would be powerfull as he uses arcane magic extensively. My campiagn is very wilderness based using lots of druidic spell casters and lots of spells that ignore spell resistance. So many LAs should be considered i regards to a particular campaign.

The other issue is stat adjustment. Adjusting physical stats should be a higher adjustment than nonphysical stats. 2 players are playing giants with fiighter type characters. The stat increase easily offsets the loss in base attack and damage from the lost levels. The sprite loses spell levels but her spells are tougher to resist. I think the choice a mistake as spell levels are just too important.

I put the campaign together so our group could play different characters and explore these issues and frankly it is a mess to adjudicate. Luckily we've gamed together long enough to work it out. I don't think I would take any level adjustment greater than 1 (maybe 2) because it isn't worth it in the long or short run. My players are 5th level. Hard to hit because of the nat armor and some of their dex bonuses but I only have to him them once to drop them. I put them against rogues with 5 levels of rogue and bugbear and dropped the giant in one hit, though he was tough to hit.

In our last campiagn my 6th level rogue still had more hit points than the cleric with several level adjustment for half dragon. Once again he was tough to hit, but still only a one hit wonder.

Arrowstorm
Marcus Majarra

07-20-07, 04:55 PM		A Minotaur is clearly far more powerful than a Fighter(4). It's CR is too low. On the other hand, it's level adjustment is probably too high.
I see it the other way around. A Fighter 4's CR is much higher than it should be.
Frugal

07-20-07, 05:22 PM		I see it the other way around. A Fighter 4's CR is much higher than it should be.

Agreed, seems very weak. I think a minotaur is quite likely a valid CR 4. Remember that CR is meant to be the level of challenge against a party of 4 PCs at that level, I think that a minotaur is an appropriate challenge against a party of 4 4th level PCs, a level 4 fighter would be killed in the 1st round probably.

So when evaluating the minotaur's CR you shouldn't be comparing it against a fighter (4), you should be comparing it against the party of 4 4th level PCs, in that setup it comes across as valid and the fighter (4) comes across as weak.
eamon

07-21-07, 12:01 PM		I see it the other way around. A Fighter 4's CR is much higher than it should be.
I can see why you say this. But if we're trying to make a benchmark CR, where's my reasoning going astry?

If we call the parties level PL, and consider an encounter of PL+5 to be overpowering (50/50 TPK chance)

A. A doubling of the challenge represents an EL increase of +2
B. Corollary to A, a halving of the challenge is EL -2
C. Increasing the NPC wealth to match PC wealth is very roughly +1
D. A party of four at PC wealth is inevitably evenly matched and thus EL of PL+5
E. Given D and C, four NPC's at NPC wealth levels and equal character level is an EL of PL+4
F. Given E and B, 1 NPC's EL (and thus CR) is equal to PL.

Which step in the reasoning is wrong? I could imagine that the wealth difference accounts for more than a +1, but not at low levels where the difference isn't so significant yet. I think the crucial factor is that the PC's are often optimized more and that NPC's are often lacking proper backup (such as various casters that can buff before a battle). Given a proper party makeup, and no preparation nor optimization disadvantage, I can't see how a normal NPC can be anything other than a CR of it's character level or slightly lower due to wealth. A CR of equal to the party level should be trivial, after all, it's four on one and the poor sucker is... a poor sucker too ;). That's the very intent of the CR system though, a CR of equal to the party level should merely consume resources, not pose a real threat.

Given the way CR's scale (namely twice the difficulty is CR +2), the DMG's contention that the party should consume 20% of it's resources on a battle of a CR of their level is a little unrealistic. That would mean that 6 such battles in succession would wipe out a party, when according to the DMG's own scaling rules, six encounters of PL simultaneously is merely PL+5, and thus should be very risky (expect PC death) but not necessarily a TPK. If those encounters together don't even convincingly wipe out a party, clearly, when split up, they shouldn't get close to doing so.

Of course, PC classes intentionally don't function brilliantly solo. If you want a solo threat, then you'll need to make sure the equipment is built to providing a real replacement for the presence of other party members, and you'd probably be better off nevertheless using at least two NPC's. A fighter and a caster together might be a serious threat, especially if they're well prepared and clearly trained and practiced to fight as a team (such as having complementary abilities).

In any case, if you think that a PC class shouldn't have a CR of equal to it's level, which of the steps is wrong?
Merestil Haye

07-21-07, 12:44 PM		If we call the parties level PL, and consider an encounter of PL+5 to be overpowering (50/50 TPK chance)No, an EL of PL+4 is considered overpowering.

Given the way CR's scale (namely twice the difficulty is CR +2), the DMG's contention that the party should consume 20% of it's resources on a battle of a CR of their level is a little unrealistic. That would mean that 6 such battles in succession would wipe out a party...No, it means five such encounters should wipe the party out, having used 100% of its resources.
Frugal

07-21-07, 12:48 PM		I can see why you say this. But if we're trying to make a benchmark CR, where's my reasoning going astry?

You've gone astray in assuming that a single NPC with PC class levels will ever be an appropriate challenge against a group of equal level PCs, it just plain doesn't work. The CR system doesn't really do a very good job with single NPCs with class levels. Now the problem occurs when you throw a group of NPCs with PC levels against the party, then you can create a credible challenge. So I think the issue is that the CR system for class levels works well for groups but not as well for individuals. This is a parallel to a lot of monsters as well that don't stack up well as a single creature encounter but can be quite effective in groups.
Marcus Majarra

07-21-07, 01:32 PM		Which step in the reasoning is wrong?
The step in which you assume that an encounter against an equal party would be considered overpowering. Overpowering encounters are those in which the party will most likely lose and should almost always flee. The mirror party encounter is, at the best, very difficult, because no side clearly has the upper hand over the other. It's clear, in an overpowering encounter, that one side should flee.
eamon

07-23-07, 11:15 AM		The step in which you assume that an encounter against an equal party would be considered overpowering. Overpowering encounters are those in which the party will most likely lose and should almost always flee. The mirror party encounter is, at the best, very difficult, because no side clearly has the upper hand over the other. It's clear, in an overpowering encounter, that one side should flee.

Thanks for the answer! I'm interested in finding benchmark points for CR based on PC's so that I can compare other monsters to that more objectively. It's not a replacement for comparison with other monsters, but just an additional aid.

Anyways... what you're suggesting is that essentially, an equal party should be EL +4 rather than EL +5. That doesn't really change the rest of the calculations, so then I'd end up with a CR for (well-optimized) NPC's which is their character level -1.

However, realize that if a party encounters a mirror party, there's a 50% chance of TPK and an extremely high chance of at least one death (and conversely, a low chance everyone will survive)

Comparing this to what the descriptions say...

A "Very difficult" encounter is EL +1 upto +4 and "One PC might very well die".
An "Overpowering" encounter is EL +5 and higher, and "they will almost certainly lose".

Well, a 50% TPK chance sounds more lethal than Very difficult, and less than overpowering. However, it's a fuzzy scale.

But I think it's possible to say - with reservations - that an appropriate CR for an NPC with class levels should be one less than it's class level. Of course, what Frugal says is frequently true too, namely that a lone NPC (similar to a lone PC) is rather weak, and works better within a group.
Frugal

07-23-07, 11:46 AM		But I think it's possible to say - with reservations - that an appropriate CR for an NPC with class levels should be one less than it's class level. Of course, what Frugal says is frequently true too, namely that a lone NPC (similar to a lone PC) is rather weak, and works better within a group.

Exactly, at any given level a 4 member party vs. 4 member party will produce an EL 4 higher than the average party level, which represents that things should be challenging and there's a chance of PC death. Now remember that the NPCs have NPC gear so things are skewed a little in the PCs' favour still but other than that, I think that's fairly reasonable.

However, if you then take that same consideration it means that a single NPC of equal level should be an EL equal to the average party level, and in that case he's clearly not an appropriate encounter.

But I think what this mainly illustrates is that the CR and EL system is all a little fuzzy, and generally single opponents will not be as effective as a challenge made up of more lower CR opponents (within a certain break point as too low and they're just cannon fodder).
eamon

07-23-07, 01:12 PM		Exactly, at any given level a 4 member party vs. 4 member party will produce an EL 4 higher than the average party level, which represents that things should be challenging and there's a chance of PC death. Now remember that the NPCs have NPC gear so things are skewed a little in the PCs' favour still but other than that, I think that's fairly reasonable.

However, if you then take that same consideration it means that a single NPC of equal level should be an EL equal to the average party level, and in that case he's clearly not an appropriate encounter.

I thought the consensus had just been reached that the CR of an NPC party would be about EL +3, only being higher when they have full PC wealth? That's what I was trying to get at -assuming an NPC party exists with the same advantages as a PC party, and thus the same power, what's the EL of such an encounter? It's either EL +4 or EL +5, and since it's less than "overpowering" and thus less than EL +5, it would be EL +4?

But I think what this mainly illustrates is that the CR and EL system is all a little fuzzy, and generally single opponents will not be as effective as a challenge made up of more lower CR opponents (within a certain break point as too low and they're just cannon fodder).

Too true :-)

Notice that considering a level X npc to be CR X-1 dovetails nicely with the observation that a single npc isn't a threat. To provide a "normal" challenge, you'd need an npc a level higher or a level X and level X-2 npc. That's already more sane.

Another thing to consider is stats; to be fair, these need to be as high as PC stats. The standard Elite array 15,14,13,12,10,8 is only 25 point buy; if you're playing 28 point buy its more like 16,14,14,12,10,8, etc...
Frugal

07-23-07, 01:54 PM		I thought the consensus had just been reached that the CR of an NPC party would be about EL +3, only being higher when they have full PC wealth? That's what I was trying to get at -assuming an NPC party exists with the same advantages as a PC party, and thus the same power, what's the EL of such an encounter? It's either EL +4 or EL +5, and since it's less than "overpowering" and thus less than EL +5, it would be EL +4?

Well I was saying based solely on what the actual rules say. As you mentioned though, a lot can vary based on how you generate PC stats and other factors. If you did 25 point buy for the PCs then I think that EL+4 for an elite array party of NPCs of the same level makes sense, it's going to be a tough encounter, the PCs still have an edge on gear but that's about it so EL+4 is probably accurate, push it up to EL+5 if you balance the gear as well and then you're really looking at an encounter that's going to be tough and PCs will likely die even if they do succeed.

But as we know, a lot of people use higher point buys or use rolled stats (which usually skew to higher) and I think that with classed NPCs (ones based off "normal races", with no racial HD or little or no level adjustments) then you have to really look at the impact of the PCs having higher stats and adjust the CR of those opponents accordingly (or give them the same stat generation to balance it out again).
Arrowstorm

07-23-07, 08:02 PM		I don't know what happened to my last post, perhaps there is a time lag but I meant to compare Hobgoblin, not goblin to bugbear.


Arrowstorm
Marcus Majarra

07-23-07, 11:57 PM		I'd estimate the CR of a PC character to be equal to its class level -1, based on personal experience. A party of four results in an EL of class level +3. This doesn't take NPC class levels into account; only PC class levels.

Party level +3 is what I equate to 50% chance of defeat, with party level +4 being 75% chance of defeat, and party level +5 being 90-95% chance of defeat.
eamon

07-24-07, 07:54 AM		Interesting. An NPC party with NPC wealth is unlikely to be 50% chance of defeat, however - they're the "same" except weaker because of their lack of wealth. This lack of wealth, if wisely used, can easily account for a CR 1 difference, but it might be slightly less

Is it possible that Party Level +4 is more like a 50% chance of defeat, or is a single NPC even weaker - CR of it's level -2?

If it were CR of it's level -2, then by bumping it's wealth to PC levels it would become CR class level -1, and having 4 (full wealth) NPC's would be EL class level +3 - which matches your 50% benchmark.
Arrowstorm

07-24-07, 08:18 AM		Evidently my post died. A prior poster Drakken is the other guy I game with and I was razzing him in the post.

There are several problems with LA, CR, etc as I see it.

1. CR equal to the party is just too easy an enconter. In order to create a good encounter the PCs must go 3 to 4 CRs higher. This creates a situation where the PCs level very quickly. Could be godd, could be bad, depends on your style of play.

2. All LAs are not created equally and in fact don't work well. A Bugbear is an LA+1 and has a +4STR, +2DEX and CON, and maybe a -2 CHA (Big Deal). It also has +3 Nat armor which is a nice bonus and some other benefits that occur with some standard races. Hobgoblin is also LA +1 and gets 2 +2 physical stats and maybe some Nat armor. Both these races are LA +1. Not equivalent in the least bit but there it is.

3. I propose this. LA is only important when considered in relationship to other PCs to create equality. As I've stated before, level adjustments also need to be campaign specific. SR in my campaigns would not be as big an LA as it would be in Drakken's arcane magic intense environments. Next I would look at the player races and choose the weakest of the races and adjust LAs off that race. Lets say someone wanted the Hobgoblin. Make it no LA, and then adjust other races up from there. The other potential balance is to then adjust the PC overall level for determining experience ONLY. If you have several levels adjusted out you might consider them a higher level for experience earning purposes. This system would allow the characters to better play monster races which I think is a very interesting variant.

Arrowstorm
Zarron

07-24-07, 10:01 AM		I thought in the 3.0 DMG there was a table that gave you a list of general pros and cons for races, and you could use that to add up and make a new race, and help determine its power level (or was that AD&D?)
Frugal

07-24-07, 10:41 AM		1. CR equal to the party is just too easy an enconter. In order to create a good encounter the PCs must go 3 to 4 CRs higher. This creates a situation where the PCs level very quickly. Could be godd, could be bad, depends on your style of play.

I believe this depends on how you run your encounters and how you do stat generation for PCs (among other things), and encounter pacing (number of encounters per day), if your party is routinely blowing past equal CR encounters and handling CRs of 3-4 higher on a regular basis without problem then you're probably doing something wrong.


2. All LAs are not created equally and in fact don't work well. A Bugbear is an LA+1 and has a +4STR, +2DEX and CON, and maybe a -2 CHA (Big Deal). It also has +3 Nat armor which is a nice bonus and some other benefits that occur with some standard races. Hobgoblin is also LA +1 and gets 2 +2 physical stats and maybe some Nat armor. Both these races are LA +1. Not equivalent in the least bit but there it is.

You're forgetting to count racial HD again. Bugbear has 3 racial HD so is an ECL 4 character with no class levels. Meanwhile that hobgoblin is an ECL 1 without class levels, so to get ECL 4 he gets the benefit of 3 more class levels.
Drakken2672

07-24-07, 12:39 PM		Arrow is basing some of his statements on a house rule we are trying in order to make ecl's work.

in doing such he is not including the hd's for any of the race variants taking into assumption that those monsters instead opt to take pc classes instead of monster levels.

Now looking at the variant that is our current house rule and attempting to bring it back into the current discussion, the point is that those monster levels don't translate point for point. such as a stone giant which is 14 or so hit die and gives a level adj. of 4 so in total the CR 8 monster is a total ecl of like 18... which no one would play.

However taking an assumption that the character did not pursue the monster levels and went with pc levels leaves just the LA against the character. that also however is not balanced. I believe that the class dependant stats for physical aspect (str,dex,con) are just more powerful that the level loss for caster stats. That being said and following in line with the assumed house rules above there has to be a happy medium in which it works.

Going back to savage species for a break down of a minotaurs bonus's gained across its monster hit die. Wouldn't it be fair to assume that if a monster character opted out of those monster levels accepted the LA and gained the bonus's of the race across the span of the expected hit die adjustment they would be on the same playing field and closer to a playable race?
Frugal

07-24-07, 01:02 PM		Arrow is basing some of his statements on a house rule we are trying in order to make ecl's work.

in doing such he is not including the hd's for any of the race variants taking into assumption that those monsters instead opt to take pc classes instead of monster levels.

[SNIP]

Going back to savage species for a break down of a minotaurs bonus's gained across its monster hit die. Wouldn't it be fair to assume that if a monster character opted out of those monster levels accepted the LA and gained the bonus's of the race across the span of the expected hit die adjustment they would be on the same playing field and closer to a playable race?

The problem with that is that racial HD tend to suck compared to class levels. So if you're going to remove racial HD and allow class levels to be taken instead then you need to adjust the LAs to be much higher.

Now with Savage Species, you can advance the creature over several levels instead of suffering that big adjustment (ECL and LA) all at once. The thing to look at there though is that the creature's racial features become "class features" at that point, if you then add normal PC classes on top of that then they're essentially gaining 2 sets of class features for every level, 1 from the class and one from the racial features they earn. Come to think of it, that's a good way of looking at things even if you don't do savage progressions. I thought about doing something like this for if you were running a gestalt campaign where one "half" of your gestalt would be your racial HD and LA (until you paid them off) while the other half of gestalt would be a regular class. So you'd be a Fighter/Stone Giant until you paid off your racial HD and then Fighter/Stone Giant LA until the LA was paid off and then after that you could mix in another class.

But I think the best way to look at it is that if you ignore racial HD and allow regular classes instead you're essentially letting players with monster PCs to get the benefit of being gestalt characters in a non-gestalt game.
Marcus Majarra

07-24-07, 01:06 PM		The thing is: the monster's HD help balance out the benefits. You can't rule them out simply to avoid having to take racial HD. You would have to increase the LA dramatically to re-establish the balance.

In some cases, however, it's easy to cut down on HD. For example, a gnoll's racial traits alone are worth +1 LA. Having 2 racial HD is pretty pointless for them
Drakken2672

07-24-07, 01:34 PM		I mildly disagree that the HD for the monster races is that important. Lets take a look again at the stone giant (Have the book with me).

LA: 4
HD: 14
CR: 8
ECL:18 (first char lvl at 19)
stats: +16 str, +4 dex, +8 con, +2 wis
special: reach, size, darkvision, +11 nat armor

so if we made it a modified template.
lvl 1 (LA)
lvl 2 (LA)
lvl 3 (LA)
lvl 4 (LA)
lvl 5 (first class level and first HD)
follow through 14 HD worth of lvls
lvl 18 (last HD to finish of giant)

if you took the above bonus's and stats and spread them over the 14 levels i don't think that it would be too far out of the realm of fair to have said the LA more than compensated for the adjustments.
for example +2 to str every other level
+2 to dex at the 7th and 14th hit die
+2 to con at the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th,
+2 wis somewhere in the middle
Nat. armor goes up every other level till capped
starts with the reach and darkvision.

I don't see this as being fair for a 4 level adjustment BUT maybe the start of what could make it fair. maybe by taking a multiclass xp hit across the HD would balance it. Which i think has really become what the question is... What does it take to not only make it balanced BUT also playable.
Marcus Majarra

07-24-07, 04:26 PM		That's just it: those creatures aren't really meant to be playable. Part of the reason these creatures have so many racial HD is that they're not as vulnerable as creatures with lower HD. You can't just drop an ordinary stone giant with one swing of your greatsword, whereas you could do so against ordinary humans. This durability comes into play when balancing out creatures with racial HD and LA.

In any case, a stone giant without racial HD, but with the same +4 LA is completely unbalanced. The Strength bonus alone is worth at least 6 levels in a full BAB class.
Arrowstorm

07-25-07, 07:32 AM		That's just it: those creatures aren't really meant to be playable. Part of the reason these creatures have so many racial HD is that they're not as vulnerable as creatures with lower HD. You can't just drop an ordinary stone giant with one swing of your greatsword, whereas you could do so against ordinary humans. This durability comes into play when balancing out creatures with racial HD and LA.

In any case, a stone giant without racial HD, but with the same +4 LA is completely unbalanced. The Strength bonus alone is worth at least 6 levels in a full BAB class.

I agree Marcus that many monster classes are not truly meant to be playable due to LA and hit dice. However, this discussion at this point is assumuming a desire to play them and it is good roleplaying fun. I'd like to see a way to make it work because it creates a very interesting world. I've played DnD for a long time and the base races can get old after awhile.

Now, according to the rules LA plus HD = ECL, BUT not CR. The LA+4 stone Giant with 14 racial HD is an ECL 18 but CR 8 0r 9, which I feel is a tacit admission that to play it as a PC race is too weak. Leaving once again the challenge to fix this. The idea of viewing it as a Gestalt I feel was an intrigueing idea, but having run a Gestalt campaign, recognize that Gestalt has some serious imbalance challenges as well. Something to consider though Draken for your upcoming campaign though as it may have some merit.

Here's the thing Marcus about the CR 8/9 Stone Giant. A fighter at 8/9 also will not drop with one swing of a greatsword. The savage species states that the best test of LA and ECL is to compare the race to an equal level character. Whcih would you rather play, an ECL 18 Stone giant or 18 fighter. The fighter will be 18d10 plus con, though I don't know off hand the HP for the Stone Giant. The fighter will also have 10 plus feats to trash the stone giant with. But wouldn't it be good fun to play a stone giant? That's sort of the point but the rules make it real tough. And then heaven forbid you want to play a caster. Look at Doppleganger. Cool monster, but LA +4, not worth the caster level loss.


Arrowstorm
runestar

07-25-07, 08:35 AM		I am not sure how apt it is to compare ECL and cr. It might be tempting to, but they ultimately calculate 2 entire different things. Cr is a measure of how tough a foe is against a group of 4 PCs in a single battle, ECL measures how useful said monster is as a PC in the same group of players.

As such, the formula used for determining cr and ECL would be very different, and unlikely to have any correlation with each other whatsoever.

However, I agree that it is definitely too weak for ECL18. However, it is at least as strong as a 14th lv fighter.
Frugal

07-25-07, 08:54 AM		Now, according to the rules LA plus HD = ECL, BUT not CR. The LA+4 stone Giant with 14 racial HD is an ECL 18 but CR 8 0r 9, which I feel is a tacit admission that to play it as a PC race is too weak. Leaving once again the challenge to fix this. The idea of viewing it as a Gestalt I feel was an intrigueing idea, but having run a Gestalt campaign, recognize that Gestalt has some serious imbalance challenges as well. Something to consider though Draken for your upcoming campaign though as it may have some merit.

No, it's an admission that in an encounter he's likely to be a tough fight for some 8th level PCs but all those extra HD do is equate to making him a little tougher in the fight which will mean a few more rounds of combat but that's it. But in an ongoing campaign you get the benefit of all of what the giant has over and over again, and he gets to make every encounter easier (especially since he'll have PC equipment instead of NPC equipment).

I mentioned the gestalt thing to illustrate what happens if you replace racial HD with class levels, essentially you're playing a gestalt creature because you gain the benefit of 2 classes, the monster class and the class you take. For instance, take that giant's 14 racial hd and replace them with barbarian levels, you can't tell me that wouldn't make for a vastly more powerful PC.


Here's the thing Marcus about the CR 8/9 Stone Giant. A fighter at 8/9 also will not drop with one swing of a greatsword. The savage species states that the best test of LA and ECL is to compare the race to an equal level character. Whcih would you rather play, an ECL 18 Stone giant or 18 fighter. The fighter will be 18d10 plus con, though I don't know off hand the HP for the Stone Giant. The fighter will also have 10 plus feats to trash the stone giant with. But wouldn't it be good fun to play a stone giant? That's sort of the point but the rules make it real tough. And then heaven forbid you want to play a caster. Look at Doppleganger. Cool monster, but LA +4, not worth the caster level loss.

But here's the thing, with 14 racial HD that stone giant is equal to a 14th level character, he has 5 feats, +10 BAB (not as good as the fighter's BAB progression, but equal to a cleric or rogue), +9 fort +4 ref and +4 will saves (equal to the 14th level fighter) and 14 levels worth of skills (and hey, he even has a couple useful skills on his class skill list). So not necessarily the best class but not bad. Now we can argue that racial HD aren't necessarily great classes but it's still pretty close to a 14th level character, so let's start with that as our baseline.

So now what does he get above that?


+16 STR, +4 Dexterity, +8 Constitution, +2 Wisdom. Now that's a net +30 to stats with no negatives. As a 14 HD creature he got 3 stat boosts so that still works out as a net +27 racial bonus to stats, that's huge.
Large size and reach. Usually considered almost worth +1 LA on its own.
40' base land speed. A nice little bonus, especially when combined with a barbarian's fast movement.
Darkvision 60' and low-light vision. 60' darkvision is longer than any of the standard PC races and he gets low-light vision as well, and no light sensitivity either.
+8 racial bonus on hide checks in rocky terrain. That's a limited bonus but far higher than what any standard PC race gets as a racial skill bonus, which are usually +2
11 natural armor bonus. That's pretty tough, especially since it stacks with any class that gets bonuses when not wearing armour or not much armour.
A special attack and a special quality.


Now that's a pretty damn good list of racial bonuses. I think we have to agree that he's got to be higher ECL than 14th level because he's clearly better than a 14th level character. So where does he fall in? If you could get all that at a +4 LA without the racial HD that'd be the deal of the century. Now forcing you to take the 14 racial HD balances that out.

So let's compare him against the 18th level fighter. The fighter has his 10 extra feats, his saves are all 2 higher (by class) and he has 8 more BAB. He also has had 1 more stat boost, let's say he put it into STR so that nets him an extra +1 to hit for a total of 9. He also has 4d10 + CON more HP.

Now the Stone Giant's STR bonus gives him +8 to hit but I'm going to assume that both characters put their stat boosts into STR so let's say he's negated 6 of the fighter's +9 to hit, so the fighter is only +3 ahead (now he does have 2 more attacks though).

His +4 to DEX nets him a +2 to reflex saves so that puts him equal to the fighter's reflex save, same goes for the +2 to WIS which puts him only 1 behind the fighter's will save. The +8 to CON gives him a +4 to fort saves so that puts his fort save 2 ahead of the fighter's.

That +8 to CON also gives him 112 more HP, which easily negates the 4d10 + CON HP that the fighter has.

The +11 natural armour and +4 dex nets him 13 AC more than a fighter wearing the same armour.

Now that's ignoring any equipment but since they're both ECL 18 characters they have the same wealth so could be similarly equipped.
eamon

07-25-07, 09:27 AM		Based on the inferences we previously made, the "real" CR of an NPC fighter should be around his level -1 or -2 (probably -2 in mid-to-high level), and not the suggestion in the rule-books that it's just a CR equal to level. Further, PC classes are quite dependent on each other, so when fighting alone you could figure the EL to by perhaps one lower.

So let's assume that a 10-level fighter is an equivalent to a CR 8. A stone giant looks only marginally stronger if at all than such a fighter at first glance. However, adding one class level nominally adds only 1CR to the hill giant. The first class level however, also improves his ability scores (becoming "elite") and his wealth (which should, RAW, match his ECL - but that's crazy!)

In other words, a stone giant fighter(1) is much more than a CR 9. The abilities and wealth are definitely worth another CR.

So to be fair, An elite Stone giant following PC progression with only one class level is at least CR10, the CR equivalent of a 12th level fighter. That's being optimistic. The feat choice and other factors of MM monsters are laughably inefficient, and fixing those can drastically further improve power.

So taking the CR of a standard specimen, and comparing to PC power, you'll need to add +1/+2 just off the bat as a standard adjustment, +1 for the ability to use elite stats and have normal wealth, +(something) to compensate for all the optimization flexibility granted by the number of HD granted.

You could try CR+1 +1/four HD, rounded down. For a Stone giant, that makes his ECL 12. For a bugbear, this works out to ECL 3. For a pixie, ECL 5, and for an Ogre ECL 5, and for an Elf ECL 1. Of course, a pixie or elf can replace their first level, so this matches fine with the existing scheme.

The problem with this approach, though it's probably more "fair" than the normal level adjustment, is that it's not supposed to be fair. It's supposed to be hard to abuse. And that's unlikely in this situation. Still, if you want to encourage monstrous players, it's possible. But you're still not solving the non-associated class level problem, in which CR rises by only half if you're primarily a caster in a fighter-body but ECL rises by the full 1.

I don't buy the "ongoing campaign argument" at all, especially not for something like this. If it's some weird creature that has regeneration or something, sure, but the difference between CR and ECL is much much more than just some ongoingness factor. That's the official line, but it just doesn't explain it. The real factor includes (in addition to a long-term factor) abusability, higher ability scores and wealth, and other factors which have everything to do with the fact that the players are "elite" and will optimize, and very little to do with duration.
Arrowstorm

07-25-07, 09:39 AM		But here's the thing, with 14 racial HD that stone giant is equal to a 14th level character, he has 5 feats, +10 BAB (not as good as the fighter's BAB progression, but equal to a cleric or rogue), +9 fort +4 ref and +4 will saves (equal to the 14th level fighter) and 14 levels worth of skills (and hey, he even has a couple useful skills on his class skill list). So not necessarily the best class but not bad. Now we can argue that racial HD aren't necessarily great classes but it's still pretty close to a 14th level character, so let's start with that as our baseline.


I think your points are well stated and well taken, but they do support the problem of establishing value according to the rules. I think this whole problem becomes more art than science. That being said I think you have to have a real close knit group to make the "art" aspect work. Drakken and our group have discussed these matters as a group with me as the DM and final arbiter. Frankly time will tell if we are right. Drakken and I ussually spend several hours through the course of the week discussing what happened to improve on it. If we were rules lawyers it would fail. The nice thing about 3.5 over prior additions is the flexibility mentioned before. And though ECL, LA, etc aren't perfect, they do give us grounds for discussion and a system to manipulate the rules to work for our group.

Arrowstorm
eamon

07-25-07, 10:28 AM		@Arrowstorm: Yeah, I agree. I don't think a stone-giant should be much below level 18 ECL. I was just exploring different ways of looking at the problem. I do think 18ECL is too high, but my calculation making him ECL12 isn't any good either. I guess the only real insight I have is that the difference between ECL and CR is largely wealth and optimization. If you as DM actually build a strong stone giant with even a few class levels and real wealth, then the true CR shoots up much higher than the guidelines suggest. Finally, a PC class has less CR than the guidlines suggest, further magnifying the seeming dichotomy. An optimized level 18 fighter might be CR 16, and an optimized stone giant should be similar. I think CR calculation guidlines don't raise the CR nearly quickly enough if you actually add class levels.

A stone giant fighter (2) should have 220k wealth (!) according to the guidlines, and the elite array, and be an appropriate, not very risky challenge for 4 PC's with 25 point buy of no more than 10th level - and merely "very difficult" at 6th level. Can you smell TPK?

The whole system is just riddled with flaws, you might as well wing it.
Frugal

07-25-07, 10:50 AM		I think your points are well stated and well taken, but they do support the problem of establishing value according to the rules. I think this whole problem becomes more art than science. That being said I think you have to have a real close knit group to make the "art" aspect work. Drakken and our group have discussed these matters as a group with me as the DM and final arbiter. Frankly time will tell if we are right. Drakken and I ussually spend several hours through the course of the week discussing what happened to improve on it. If we were rules lawyers it would fail. The nice thing about 3.5 over prior additions is the flexibility mentioned before. And though ECL, LA, etc aren't perfect, they do give us grounds for discussion and a system to manipulate the rules to work for our group.

Well the big problem is that the whole LA system is based on the standard assumptions about the campaign. Depending on your campaign things could vary. For instance, a stone giant is clearly going to make a pretty good melee fighter. If your campaign is mostly RP-heavy and social interaction then the LA will seem too high. Now if you do nothing but hack n' slash then the LA might seem too low (you'd have to balance it out to be sure though).

Plus the stone giant is a pretty straightforward set of abilities and easily compared, then you get into more complicated creatures like the doppelganger you mentioned and then you really have to wonder how to balance that out because its abilities are much stranger and can have a much bigger impact on the campaign.