At first we thought the problem was with the size of our parties - we're a pretty big group to start with, and combining characters, henchmen, and hirelings we frequently went anywhere from eight to ten strong into a dungeon or wilderness adventure. Not all of us were convinced, but the size of our group seemed the only reasonable explanation for why we were getting so much more experience than the standard four-character party would get.
Then I read the 3.5 Monster Manual.
Monster's CRs are calculated based on playtesting against a party composed of characters using the elite array (what used to be called the standard array). These characters will thus start out with a total bonus of +5 at first level, and increase with level, magic, etc. Our characters had been rolled using the old AD&D formula of 4d6 six times, reroll any die that comes up '1', and thus the average character in our party had a total bonus of about +12. After thinking about it, I realized that this would obviously have an impact on party effectiveness:
- Higher Str and Dex make characters more effective at delivering damage in combat. (A Dex 18 fighter has the same ranged attack bonus at 1st level that a Dex 14 fighter has at 3rd level, for instance.)
- Higher Int makes wizard spells more difficult to save against, and gives all characters additional skills that a party with lower Int might not have access to at low level (or at least not at such a high skill bonus).
- Higher Con gives characters additional hit points, but not so many hit points as to make up for an additional hit die.
It was the last point that finally suggested the solution - characters with high stats are effectively characters with the benefit of a race that gives a level adjustment, but without that compensating factor. After working up some trial studies, I came up with the following adjustment chart:
And if you say: 'The template replaces the ECL from the ability scores' then everybody is playing a race or template with the ecl they would have otherwise.
Like I said, the idea is fine, but I think it's hard to implement.
factoring stat-buy into the partys LA is a bit strange imo, especially if everybody used the same point-buy.
otherwise, just change to point-buy.
then i would say you should make the monsters stronger accordingly, i.e. give them higher stats as well.
on the other hand its a fair solution to get standard-monsters as viable opponents.
be sure to get the big party as a "higher level virtual standard party"
it should not be possible to get more XP for a bigger party unless they have some real good synergies that allow them to fight better then the sum of their parts.
i did never encounter problems like this in my group, but after all i did never write book about how fast we got a level, everybody had fun, thats the main thing.
gs
Funny
a. Different values mean different amounts to different classes and builds. For example, a wizard with stats 8 11 14 18 8 8 is noticeably more effective than one built using the default array, yet both are 25 points, and has a much lower total bonus.
b. The relationship between points buy and total value varies. 28 points buy _can_ give a total value of +8, but often only gives +5 or +6. This means your table could do with balancing.
Both these concerns are purely theoretical, as I tend to use 28 points buy exclusively, and hence have little experience with the problems this system is designed to avoid.
He took the 23 Strength and applied the level-based stat increases ([i]9th level character, so +1 at 4th level and +1 at 8th level) and put both of them in Strength for a score of 25. He's hit 16th level recently, and so I'm sure you've guessed that his Strength is now 27.
This is significant for a character that can get even stronger with spells and magic items, so I've always been treating him as if he was one level higher... before I'd even heard the term "Level Adjustment."
So, when it comes to XP & EL, I run things somewhat like this:
--
If the monster(s) is at an advantage, the EL stays the same
If the monster(s) is on even ground, the EL lowers by one
If the monster(s) is at a disadvantage, the EL lowers by two
--
If the PC’s party level is over NPC’s, it lowers the EL by one
If the NPC’s party level is over PC’s, it raises the EL by one
I also do an ad hoc +/- 10% for how the encounter went. If the PC’s did not break a sweat -10%, if the cleric is attempting to bind intestines back into the bloody fissure that was formerly the Barbarian's stomach +10%.
One thing that I do not do, which you explained in your second example, is divvy the XP per each PC’s character level. If a PC expires or we add a new player, I bring them in at ECL with the party and on the rare occasion that a player misses a game, I have their character vamoose and put the character on a solo adventure between games. Giving the player a chance to keep their character on even keel with the party and giving me the opportunity to insert new story hooks.
What I do factor in is if a player is out of combat during the encounter. I give them a portion of XP equal to how far they made it and give the reminder of their share amongst the PC’s who saw the encounter through to the end. Example: The rouge that stays up to see eight of the twelve goblins meet their demise before falling in combat or showing ‘the better part of valor’ gains 75% of her share while the other 25% of her share is divided amongst the other characters left standing.
If any PC has a henchman, the henchman gains half a share of XP with the other half being divided amongst the players’ main characters. *side note* I once had a player retire his character and want to play another player’s established henchman. The other player agreed to relinquish control of his henchman’s actions from his commands and from my hands (for moral decisions) to the other player. I gave the former henchman a 25% (on top of a character’s standard share) bonus on XP until he was on an ECL with the other characters. The characters noticed the henchman’s new zeal and Om’rex, the now player control version, explained it as “A fiery vigor swelled within when I touched the symbol of Kord. Never again shall I sit idle! I will bend every effort to…”
Alas, I digress as my little system might change when I finish reading the 3.5 DMG and add the 3.5 MM to my RPG library.
However the higher-end characters definitely could use this adjustment.
Originally posted by Ertai Planeswalker:
The idea is fine, but what when a pc takes a template?
A template with a level adjustment would be equivalent to a race with a level adjustment, so yes, if the character started at 25-point buy with templates there would be no stat-based LA. A character starting with 30-point buy gets a +1 stat-based level adjustment before adding in templates or what-have-you, so a 30-point buy half-dragon would have a total ECL of +4 under this system.
If the DM prefers to let the players roll for stats, just total up the bonus for the stats rolled before the player applies any racial mods, templates, or anything else that would modify the stats.
One thing I didn't mention in the earlier post but have considered since is that a stat-based LA can make it worthwhile for a player to consider taking on a race that otherwise would be considered 'unplayable' because of poor stat adjustments - a kobold with +2 Dex but -2 Str, -2 Wis, and -2 Cha for example could be considered a '-1 LA' and thus could still be considered ECL 1 in a party built on 30 or so points where everyone else is ECL 2 because of stat LA. Just something to think about.
Originally posted by Funny Slaughter
i think every party member should get his own XP based on his level
This is what I do, using Tiera Starr's Encounter Calculator. (I use the 'CR-based' calculation which, if you test it, gives the same encounter XP for a character of a given level regardless of the level of his party mates - this might not be entirely realistic in itself, but it seems fairer to me.)
it should not be possible to get more XP for a bigger party unless they have some real good synergies that allow them to fight better then the sum of their parts.
I agree with you in principle, but in practice, a larger party can more easily deal with 'gimmick' encounters - i.e.: encounters where a particular skill or ability makes the encounter significantly easier. (See the description of 'easy if handled properly' encounters on p.50 of the 3.5 DMG, and notice that the DMG proposes that 1 out of 5 encounters your party faces should be of this type.) The most extreme example of a 'gimmick' encounter I can think of is a rakshasa - CR10 and a vicious opponent, unless a 4th level paladin with Wis12+ casts bless weapon on a crossbow bolt and then *poof*! Fights with undead when a good cleric is in the party fall into this category, as do fights with plant or animal creatures with a druid in the party. And yes, you could ad-hoc the XP downward for such an easy encounter, but then you're in the position of punishing your players for having the right characters for a given situation, which again seems unfair.
Still, after seeing the effect of the stat LA system in our groups games, I'm inclined to agree that simply having a large party isn't nearly as large a factor in a group being overpowered for their character level than is the average total stat bonus for each member of that party. Mere party size, except in the case of the 'gimmick' encounters I talked about above, doesn't seem to require a balancing factor at all - total XP earned in an encounter is divided by the number of characters in the party before being distributed, so large parties already have that built into the system as a 'balancing factor'.
Originally posted by Six of Clubs:
Different values mean different amounts to different classes and builds. For example, a wizard with stats 8 11 14 18 8 8 is noticeably more effective than one built using the default array, yet both are 25 points, and has a much lower total bonus.
Different values do mean different things to differing classes and builds; that is true without a doubt. And it's probably possible to classify the different boundary lines where total bonuses get more valuable, or at least render a distinction between what used to be called 'prime requisites' and other non-critical stats. But I'm not sure the added complexity would be worth the work - a simple chart showing the relationship between points, total plus, and LA is easy to add in to the character creation process, while a matrix involving different levels of stats and different classes is more difficult to use. I doubt I'll go that far for my own use - the system is clean and simple enough to be nearly transparent, which is the way I like it.
If you wanted to break out a LA table by class, though, it would be clear that classes with few 'prime requisites' (wizard, for example) require fewer 'total plusses' to become powerful as long as those plusses are focused in their prime requisite (Int, to continue the example). A wizard with stats 8, 11, 14, 18, 8, 8 is clearly more potent than a monk or paladin built on the same stats - no matter how freely you rearrange the order of the stats.
Your point is well-taken, and this comment further illuminates the issue:
Originally posted by Thrudjelmer:
One of my players is using a character that he's been playing since 2nd Edition. In the conversion to 3rd Edition, the Strength chart listed a 2E Strength score of 18(100) converts to a 3E Strength of 23....
This is significant for a character that can get even stronger with spells and magic items, so I've always been treating him as if he was one level higher... before I'd even heard the term "Level Adjustment."
This is the obvious, clear example where stats need some sort of adjustment factor. It is less obvious that a character with 18 Str, 16 Dex, and 18 Con needs an adjustment factor, because those sorts of stats were de rigeur back in AD&D - heck, stats below 15 generally didn't even give you a bonus back then, so in many cases a 14 score wasn't appreciably different from a 7. That's clearly not the case anymore, where there's a far bigger difference between a 7 and a 14 than there is between a 14 and an 18.
The question is, how do you make that adjustment in a way that is both fair to the player and keeps the system in balance? Sounds like Thrudjelmer had already hit on one of the clearer solutions well before I did.
Originally posted by PureNRG:
While I have never ran a game with 8+ player controlled characters, I have found that since I run with advanced players (using advanced tactics), letting the monsters use tactic befitting their natural cunning and intelligence tends to make up for the high stats.
The system you describe seems like a workable one - it's not that much different in spirit from the straight percentage adjustment recommended in the DMG for encounters that prove particularly easy or difficult. The problem I had with the percentage system is that there's no way to bend it back to encounter level - even if you agree (as our party did for a time) that our group was beating monster groups nearly half again our effective level (getting 70% of the XP for an encounter means that your party was a bit more than 140% as powerful as the 'expected' party for that EL - 100/70), how do you incorporate that into your adventure design? Instead of three orcs, make the encounter with four orcs and a stirge?
Basing the system off of EL makes the adjustment much easier - if your game uses 36-point buy, your party can handle two ELs higher than their effective level - this could be twice as many monsters of the same CR, add in a 'boss' of one or two CR higher than the rest of the monsters (say an orc with some fighter or cleric levels, for instance), add templates to increase the CR of the monsters (half-fiend kobolds, perhaps), or even swap out the monsters completely for monsters of +2 CR (ogres instead of gnolls, maybe). It uses the system's strengths instead of fighting against the system, which is why I like it. Your system seems to work similarly, giving CR/EL adjustments to monsters based on tactics and circumstance, which probably works in your game.
I disagree, though, that 'using a monster's natural cunning' makes up for high stats - for exactly the reason described in the original post. Monsters are balanced against parties of adventurers with total bonuses of +5 and +6; when the party's average total bonus is twice that or more, you have to give the monsters some advantage (striking from concealment/ambush, for instance) to make up for that. Leaving the CR adjustment 'in play' by making monsters 'smarter' only encourages imbalance in other areas (for instance, if the party is constantly being ambushed by monsters, the ranger probably feels pretty useless). By taking the CR adjustment out of the play of the game and making it a meta-issue, the players can actually do things like occasionally ambush a party of ogres and the game can still be reasonably balanced.
Originally posted by Evanta:
28 pt characters are not significantly powerful enough to warrant a level adjustment IMHO. Also this is about the average using the standard 4d6 roll.
This is where I struggled the most with the initial table, so I'll let you know why I drew the line where I did.
The elite array starts characters out with a total plus of +5. A typical 25-point buy build starts out with a total plus of +6 (14, 14, 13, 12, 10, 10 for instance). As far as I could figure, these were equivalent in power. You could add in a racial package to make one of the 14s in to a 16 and drop the 12 to a 10, but it all pretty much washes out in the end.
However, add in just three more build points, and suddenly you find 18s popping into the builds - 10 points for a 16 (in a build that looks like 16, 14, 12, 12, 10, 10), then add in a racial bonus. And as Six of Clubs points out, having an 18, for a number of classes, is enough to give you power to live with even a +0 total bonus, much less one higher than the elite array. So 28-point buy is clearly more powerful than 25-point buy. Meanwhile, 30-point buy gives you that same 18, but uses the two additional points to negate whatever racial penalty you took to grab the 18, so while it isn't significantly better than 28-point buy, it's even more potent over 25-point buy or elite array than 28-point buy is. (Which is kind of a 'duh' observation - five extra points should be better than three extra points, right?)
It's not until you get to 36-point buy that you have enough points to try for a second powerful stat without giving yourself a potentially fatal weakness, so that's why I put the plateau there. (18, 16, 12, 10, 10, 10 is a typical 36-point buy fighter build, for instance.) You can also legitimately go for a starting stat of 20 (including racial mods) starting at about 36 points, which is another reason for me to draw the line there.
If you really think 28 points is too low, then you could probably push the lower limit of the +1 stat LA band to 30 points, and likewise push the next boundary up to 38 from 36. It'll take a bit more convincing to get me to change those boundaries for my own game, but feel free to give it a shot if you want to.
Originally posted by Shade West:
I usually run higher stat characters, and while I don't really have a problem with the rapid advancement, this gives me a good idea of the level I'll need to throw at them when I want to really push them
That's a perfectly valid way of using the system. One of the other DMs in our gaming group feels the same way you do, and will probably use the system the same way.
Again, thanks for the feedback, and I hope to read more soon.
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Pauper
The system you describe seems like a workable one - it's not that much different in spirit from the straight percentage adjustment recommended in the DMG for encounters that prove particularly easy or difficult. The problem I had with the percentage system is that there's no way to bend it back to encounter level - even if you agree (as our party did for a time) that our group was beating monster groups nearly half again our effective level (getting 70% of the XP for an encounter means that your party was a bit more than 140% as powerful as the 'expected' party for that EL - 100/70), how do you incorporate that into your adventure design? Instead of three orcs, make the encounter with four orcs and a stirge?
Adding an orc and a stirge to increase an EL is pointless. My answer to your question would be to increase the threat with quality. I would add a first level sorcerer with sleep and magic missile and/or a pair of trained badgers to aid in hunting game. I then scale the xp as I do not believe that a person learns as much when they breeze through something versus having to hunker-down. Meaning that a fighter with 18 strength would have to defeat more goblins to gain combat knowledge than a fighter with strength of 14 the 14 may actually use attack maneuver #7 (lunge, parry, thrust) where the 18 may never get past lunge.
I disagree, though, that 'using a monster's natural cunning' makes up for high stats - for exactly the reason described in the original post. Monsters are balanced against parties of adventurers with total bonuses of +5 and +6; when the party's average total bonus is twice that or more, you have to give the monsters some advantage (striking from concealment/ambush, for instance) to make up for that.
This was meant to be in conjunction with my system, not as a stand alone.
Leaving the CR adjustment 'in play' by making monsters 'smarter' only encourages imbalance in other areas (for instance, if the party is constantly being ambushed by monsters, the ranger probably feels pretty useless). By taking the CR adjustment out of the play of the game and making it a meta-issue, the players can actually do things like occasionally ambush a party of ogres and the game can still be reasonably balanced.
Yes my system is in the spirit of the book and mathematically, is close to the 30% ad hoc rule that your group implemented at your table. The difference would come in to play if I were to run a campaign with more than 6 players; I would adjust the xp mathematically for the number of players. Meaning a game ran for 8 player control character that was built with 6 in mind would be scaled 25% more difficult since they have 25% more than what the adventure was structured around. Stats do impact combat greatly, but, also, the sheer number of possible melee/range/magic attacks from PCs and/or NPCs has an effect as well.
Having a "hero" array instead of an 'elite' array is what makes the great into "heroes". The group can go accomplish tasks without worry that the best adventures in any given town would have difficulty in putting down and possibly lose a party member or two along the way.
Having the ability to add quality creatures ('bosses you called them') to the encounter aids greatly, if done well. This does not make the monsters smarter. A group of skeletons would never come up with the idea of an ambush. The PCs could fall upon the graveyard roaming menaces with ease, but if the skeletons had an evil cleric guiding them (adding to the EL), they may be in shallow graves and hold for an opportune time.
If the group of PCs has a ranger or anyone with the tracking feat (in ref to my goblin example from before, with my system), I'd have them roll a spot check to see if they notice tracks, if they make the roll, the ambush may be foiled. If the tracks are scrutinized, and the party searches, the trap may be foiled as well. Dropping the situational bonus from the encounter from the goblins being at an advantage with an ambush and/or trap having a standard EL to being on even ground -1 EL. Backtracking the defeated goblins may reveal where their band operates from and the PC may ambush the remaining goblins -2 EL. Another option would be if the goblins do not think their numbers would be enough to handle the band of adventures, they may attempt to sneak away (move silently vs. listen) to return to the base of operations, talking about the adventures, bring the EL of the entire band of goblins to a -1 EL instead of -2 if the PCs do not get an ambush off. I, pretty much, try to keep my world static and adjust the xp by the dynamics of the characters and situations. As I stated, my players use advanced tactics (including attacking from ambush) and I found that the creatures are not nearly as much as a threat. So instead of the players, with 5th level characters gaining 1500 xp for a 5th level encounter, they get 750 as though the encounter level was a 3, not including ad hoc +/-. The fates favored the PCs.
Another way to increase the difficulty is to multiply (one, some or all) of the monsters base hit points (before con bonus) by 1.33. This puts a little more beef on the rack.
exactly the reason described in the original post
Actually, reading the original post again has spawned a new suggestion in reference to your system. Take the average stat modifier and devide it by the elite array. If the party you are with has a +12 average, give out 5/12th of the experience allotted (41.6%). Thus you can increase the original encounter however you choose.
I believe we are looking at the same destination, but are taking different routes to get there.
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I edited my sarcasm out.
I very much like your original essay. A friend and I have been thinking along similar lines, and had been discussing a similar solution. I'm thinking of starting a new 3.5 game at 1st level, and had wanted to use point-buy for stats (something our old-school gaming group has never done ), since IMO the wide possible variation in rolled stats is the single remaining massively unbalanced feature in D&D (our last group had total rolled stat bonuses ranging from +4 to +11). He opined that it wasn't really D&D if you didn't roll for stats. ;) So we started kicking around ideas for how to allow rolled stats, yet maintain balance. We discussed XP adjustments, something like +/- 10% per average stat bonus/penalty outside the average range, but I like your "Level Adjustment experience fix" better.
We also discussed other possibilities. My favorite was adding/subtracting starting feats. For example, adapting your table, before any stat adjustments for race:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TB Feats
under +5 +1
+5 to +7 +0 (normal)
+8 to +11 -1 (1 feat if Human, no feats if nonhuman)
+12 to +15 -2 (no feats if Human, no feats plus no feat at 3rd level if nonhuman).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I looked into the same topic a while ago, and decided that +1 LA is worth about 10 point-buy points. This was based on some of the fan-built ECL calculators available online. Soldarin's ECL Calculator is probably one of the best ones out there.
If you want, you could set 25 points be the "middle" of +0 LA, so you get a table like:
Originally posted by Conaill
Good idea, but I do think you are way off with your point-buy values.
Well, you're welcome to your opinion, but obviously I disagree.
The main reason is that the 'power' of a certain total plus doesn't increase linearly with the value of that total plus.
For instance, comparing the 25 to the 28 point builds in my previous post, you see that there's an 18 in the latter build that wasn't there before. However, you can't just add another three points to get a second 18 - it takes pretty much another eight points to be able to get a second 18 without throwing in some serious stat weaknesses.
But while the first few bumps can get you to 18s, or even 20s with racial mods, the higher you go, the harder it gets to get any individual stat up very high. All that happens is that your overall stats get better, most of which won't be germane to your character (falling back on the old idea of the 'prime requisite' from AD&D).
I'd argue that a fighter with a total bonus of +30 probably isn't all that much better than a fighter with a total bonus of +20 - your most important stats will already be maxed at +20, which means you'll be increasing stats with only a peripheral benefit to your character with those last +10 in bonuses. The additional bonuses aren't pointless, but they're far less significant than the bonuses that allowed you to max your Str and Con in the first place. Of course, most characters aren't going to have a total plus of +30, or even +20, so this is kind of a non-issue. But it's important to note that the relationship between total plus and character 'power' isn't linear.
Originally posted by allenw:
We also discussed other possibilities. My favorite was adding/subtracting starting feats.
I like this idea. I don't think I'd use it for my own game, but it makes an excellent alternative for those DMs who aren't comfortable with the whole alphabet soup of ECL, LA, and such. Very nice work.
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Pauper
to stop this, we use the default array. we have been using it for two years now. it works and it really helps bring balance back to the game. some cried for a bit, but the rule sticks. now nobody even notices, they just play.
Originally posted by Mucknuggle
Pauper, you said that your group advanced more quickly because of the higher stats. I don't see how this can be possible as a level 4 character with 18s across the board and a level 4 character with 12s et the same experience for an encounter of the same challenge. Maybe I misunderstood what you were trying to explain, so, would you mind clarifying this for me?
Particularly at low levels, characters with straight 18s in stats are not even going to break a sweat on encounters that would seriously challenge characters with straight 12s. This means that they can deal with more encounters that give the same experience or deal with higher CR encounters, meaning that they will gain experience faster.
I don't see this as unrealistic, but do think that it screws up game balance.
Originally posted by Mucknuggle
Pauper, you said that your group advanced more quickly because of the higher stats. I don't see how this can be possible as a level 4 character with 18s across the board and a level 4 character with 12s et the same experience for an encounter of the same challenge. Maybe I misunderstood what you were trying to explain, so, would you mind clarifying this for me?
No problem.
The difficulty lies in the fact that an encounter of a given EL is not as much of a challenge for a party with high stats as for one with low stats - we started out fighting level-appropriate encounters and simply destroyed them, so the DMs responded by bumping up the encounters, increasing their effective EL and thus the experience we got from them. At first, the DMs dealt with the XP inflation by imposing a flat 30% reduction to all earned XP.
The kicker was when our party defeated a band of 25 ogres with barbarian levels, which even with our flat reduction caused almost everyone in the party to go up two levels in a single encounter. (Yes, you can say the DM should have applied an additional ad-hoc XP reduction, but that isn't the real issue.) That encounter convinced many in our group that the CR/EL system simply didn't work, period, and the few that did try clinging to the system at least conceded that the flaw might lie in that the system was designed to work for a party of four, not one of eight (plus two NPCs). That was when I became motivated to study the issue, and didn't have a breakthrough until reading the 3.5 Monster Manual.
Since adapting this rule, the encounter/experience ratio in our games is much closer to where the DMG presumes it should be; to me this is added evidence that the 'fix' presented above is the correct one. It certainly doesn't solve every issue with CR/EL, but it takes care of the one big one we had in our games, which is how to balance a party of characters with wildly different stats.
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Pauper
As a rogue-player, I must disagree. As Nuth must have said: "Half of combat is avoiding it. About half of that half leaves Them dead. You don't like the other half of combat."
For instance, a wizard or sorcerer REALLY benefits from a single 18, but can do fine with otherwise poor stats.
Conversely, a stat hungry class like the monk or paladin, needs a LOT of good stats but won't be particularly better than the spell casters.
It was said that foiling an ambush decreases the ECL.
Underbough, I presume that you are referring to the post that I made since it is does mention 'ambushes' and 'traps'. If your post was not in relation to mine, please disregard the following...
By that logic, if having traps set around the room that only They (They - you know, the Enemy) knew about, the ECL would increase. Then, finding the hidden switch and making all of the traps appear before taking a secret passageway onto a balcony and getting rid of Them with potshots...
Before you attempt to apply logic to the way I've modified the xp standards know that if I were presented with (or presented) this scenario, the first half of your example - the sneaking and finding a "hidden switch and making all of the traps appear" - would be treated independently of the following combat. Finding and disabling traps has it's own xp resolutions and - if handled independently of combat xp - works well.
The example in my post hinges on the trap and the band of goblins lay in waiting; watching to see if their trap ensnares the party ergo part of the encounter vs. moving through traps to get to the encounter.
I wouldn't get very much experience if I did that, would I?
If you were in a game I happen to be running with this scenario, you would get a pool of xp for defeating the traps and then a separate pool of xp for defeating Them (Them - you know, the Enemy).
As a rogue-player, I must disagree. As Nuth must have said: "Half of combat is avoiding it. About half of that half leaves Them dead. You don't like the other half of combat."
Summery: Sneaking past the King's security to coup de grace him while he lay sleeping would gain you lots of 'sneaky' point but little 'combat' points. Presented this way, would you, as a rogue-player of course, still disagree? Surely even Nuth would find the 'logic' here.
Savvy?
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BadNRG
Me bad? Chomp ba-chewie chomp.
http://www.montecook.com/arch_dmonly27.html
It's what the CRs, DCs, and every single die roll and break point in the game was based around.
I'm toying with the idea that for every power of 2 you add to the normal points range that ECL should go up by one, starting with either 2^2 (4) onto 22-28 or 2^3 (8) onto 25.
Starting with 2^2 added onto 22-28:
18 would be ECL -1 (14 14 12 10 8 8)
22-28 ECL +0 (14 14 12 12 10 8, elite array, 16 14 14 12 10 8)
32 ECL +1 (16 14 14 14 10 10)
40 ECL +2 (18 16 14 12 10 10)
56 ECL +3 (18 18 16 14 12 12)
88 ECL +4 (18 18 18 18 18 15)
So under this, when planning encounters I'd assume 40 point PCs were 2 levels higher than they actually are. One might also use that when considering XP - so that at second level defeating a CR 3 creature would be worth only 800XP and not 900, because the party would be treated as a level 4 party and not a level 2 party.
Or if I started with 2^3 onto 25 it would be like this:
17: ECL -1
25: ECL +0
33: ECL +1
49: ECL +2
81: ECL +3
ECL -1 is of course, a meaningless term - in essence we're saying this character is handicapped as if it had one less level than it actually does.