Paragon Template ECL?

[Brekki]

The paragon template is in the Epic Level Handbook ... and you can also find it here:

http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/epicNonAbominations.html#paragon-creature

 

[Pyrex]

The problem im seeing with that is that would up the ecl for the paragon mind flayer a lot as well...its a CR 23, ECL 26. However, a NORMAL mind flayer is an ECL 15.(8 HD + a LA of +7). So if its an ECL of 20-25, shouldnt that be an ECL for the mind flayer paragon of 40?

CR != ECL

Applying the Paragon template to a Mind Flayer produces a CR 23 creature.

Applying the Paragon template to any other creature increases its CR by +15.

The problem is, the template applies such huge bonuses that any given LA value you assign to the Paragon template will be wrong at least half the time so it needs to be balanced on a case-by-case basis.

Also, it's even harder to determine the appropriate LA when LA > HD. (for this reason, I wouldn't allow the Paragon template in a game where the PC's were less than ECL 35)

Taloras, you've told us that you're trying to create an ECL 25 character for your game. But aside from wanting to use the Paragon template you haven't told us anything about the character you are trying to create. If you give us more info we can do a better job of determining a balanced LA in this instance.

 

[Taloras]

The idea is to make a Paragon Knük monk. Knuk has 4 arms, +4 dex, +4 wis, +2 natural armor(which gets overridden by the Paragon's +5), and multidexterity(it takes no damage penalties for off hand attacks). +1 or 2 ECL(+1 in book, +2 is what I think it should be).

 

[SolitonMan]

A bit old thread, but it seemed to be pretty good matchup for my current effort. I'm thinking about running a gestalt game, but instead of the normal two class division each character would choose one class and would have paragon abilities (from the ELH template) as the second class. To that end I've broken down a 20-level progression of those abilities. This is my first draft, so I'd appreciate any feedback from anyone interested. Thanks!