Conaill said:
Check Savage Species, which is supposed to be THE authority on Level Adjustments! HD are supposed to count *fully* towards ECL, and then you possibly add a LA on top of that for extra abilities.
If I understood you correctly, you're claiming that an (awakened) animal's ECL should be HD/2? Or do you mean LA = HD/2, so ECL = HD * 1.5?
I use a mishmash of SS and Soladrin's ECL generator. It works out rather well.
http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/shadows/Handbook/ECLcalc.html
Now in answer to your question as to a cleric. SS says that if it's a d12 barbarian ,d10 use a fighter, if it's a d8 use a cleric, d6 rogue d4 wizard, etc.
I find that if I use a cleric who has combat abilities that are normally associated with some monsters and casting abilities that some may have that it's more well rounded a PC than a monk. Also it's one of the 'core' clases that I would use as I would consider fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard all 'core' outside of the whole sphere of all 8 or so classes that comprise the d20 SRD core classes. It works rather well for use and comparisson standards.
The way one of the guys in my game came up with LA was CR/2 and add it to HD. It worked out ok but it is FAR from accurate.
I don't goto the WOTC boards. Don't like that place. So I don't go there.
Now to get onto your monster:
Soladarin comes up with a 4.7 which says you are supposed to round down, but I would round up to 5. So it says an ECL of 5 an LA of 1
Savage species mode (I am a bit rusty):
HD:4
Extra Movement:1
Scent:1
Unbalanced stats: 1
With Natural Armor, 1 Bonus Feat, and 4 skill points it doesn't require a point in addition to what is above.
So we got a total ECL of 7
Now we figure that this is a woodsy animal and that it would do well as a ranger so we make it a Awakened wolf/Ranger 1 vs. a Cleric/8 now pit them together in combat.
Awakened wolf has 5d8 (20) hp's, +5 to attack, only 1 attack, and an AC of 12. This is all base with no equipment and just going on avg no bonus',
It can't use weapons as it has no hands, it's saves would be avg as a clerics, it would gain 3 feats to use as it may choose as well as it's 1st level ranger stuff, favored enemy, wild empathy and track but it gets track automatically as a bonus feat anyay. A 1st level ranger gets no spells so we don't have to worry about that, but if it did it would need the feats Eschew materials and Natural Spell to use them.
Now an 8th level human cleric has 8d8 hp's (32), +6/1 to attack with 2 attacks, an AC of 18 (gave it halfplate). He will probably have a magical weapon to use but we won't count that right now.
He can use upto 4th level spells that include cure serious wounds which is a huge benefit in a fight. He gets 4 feats (3 normal 1 for being human) , saves are pretty good to use +6/2/6 and he gets to turn/rebuke undead which is good if your going against undead or you can use feats to use them for something else.
Right off the bat I would choose the cleric hands down over the wolf as he gets spells, can wear armor and weild weapons, and can turn/rebuke undead. In combat he would crush the wolf in 3 rounds or so as all he would have to do is hit 2 or 3 times, step back 5' and heal, and move in. A straight up slugfest has the cleric.
So what about if we drop the ECL down to 6. Cleric has 7d8 hit points, still gets big spells and is down to one attack, still gets 4 feats and saves are about the same. Points still on the cleric for winning the day as he can follow the same attack pattern and win.
Let's take it down to a +1 LA. Now it gets tricky. Cleric loses some of it's higher spells, it's BAB is worse, it's HP are roughly the same by about 1, it can still wear armor and use weapons but the wolf is still onpar with the cleric for abilities for the level. The cleric gets 4 feats still but unless they are pure combat it could go either way in combat. If the cleric follows the same attack pattern it can win, but the wolf could win if it hit every round and the cleric missed.
So in retrospect an LA of +1 is fair as if we go lower with no LA then I would pick a wolf/ranger anyday but if we go higher a cleric will hand it's own azz to it in a standup fight.
Does this explain my methodolgy in use for LA determination? I am using Soladarin's as a good guestimate and then using savage species to determine another on the high end and mediating somewhere in the middle if applicable.
Questions, comments, concerns? I'm outta here for the day!
