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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shin Okada" data-source="post: 4621444" data-attributes="member: 1956">First of all, when making an encounter as a DM, you do not need to care about ECL. CR is all you must concern. (Though you use ECL when using default NPC wealth value rule in DMG. But I will write about it later.)>how do magic items play into ecl/cr's?Default rule in DMG has wealth amount table for NPCs. And that table is using ECL for giving gps to each NPCs. And assuming that something without LA simply has treasures and monsters are using if something useful is in their treasure pile.But later modules such as Red Hand of Doom or later monster supplements such as MM IV or V are suggesting another method. Use that NPC wealth table, but give total wealth based on opponents' CR, instead of ECL.So, CR 15 Drow (14th-level character, ECL 16) has gears as a 15th-level NPC.A CR 10 Blackspawn Exterminator (Blackspawn Raider Ninja 6, no LA is shown and thus we cannot calculate it's ECL) has gears as a 10th-level NPC.In my experience, this method works better.>how do templates play into ecl/cr's?Basically, increase CR as per the rule. But some combination works better and yet some combination works miserably. So, as the MM says, you, as a DM, should estimate the CR of the resulted creature by comparing to existing ones.You should better be careful when applying multiple templates or when applying template(s) to an advanced creature.>multiple monsters?I am not sure what the intention of this question. Encounter Level table of an encounter with multiple creatures is already in DMG. So you should just follow that rule.If you are asking if you should better use multiple monsters instead of one big monster, I strongly say YES. An encounter against a single big monster tends to end in one way or another. Single round win by PCs or total annihilation of the party.>monsters with classes (or are they just +1 per level cr/ecl)?You can find the rule in MM Chapter 4 "Advancing Monsters". But again, as the rule is emphasizing, you should not only use calculation for determining the resulted creature's CR and instead estimate CR by yourself, comparing the resulted creatures to already existing ones.Hope this helps.</blockquote>

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