Post/Author/DateTime	Post
astro_paro 09-02-07, 11:56 AM	I'm a relative newbie. There is much I don't understand but could someone help explain the CR ECL logic. I'll provide three examples: A stone giant has 14 racial hit dice, a LA of +4 and a CR of 8. An 8th level human fighter CR of 8. An 18th level human fighter CR of 18. If you were to to play a stone giant it would be equivalent to an 18th level fighter. If you were to fight a stone giant it would be equivalent to an 8th level fighter. What is the rationale behind this difference? Thanks.
Talisman 09-02-07, 12:03 PM	CR is a measure of how tough a creature is for a party of 4 iconic characters to deal with. It's assumed a party of 4 characters can deal with 4 encounters of equal CR per day. LA/ECL is a measure of how tough a creature is as a PC. The scales are wildly different, since abilities that are trivial for a monster are awesome for a PC. Take the mind flayer. CR 8, ECL 18 (IIRC). Why? Mind blast. As a monster, it doesn't really matter whether the mind flayer's mind blast is 3/day, 5/day, or at will--chances are, it won't get to use it against the PCs more than 2-4 times, if that. As a PC, however, that at-will mind blast becomes staggeringly effective. Likewise, most fiends have greater teleport (self only) at will. For a monster: nice, but not earth-shattering. For a PC: holy crap!