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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thels" data-source="post: 1071998" data-attributes="member: 12176">There's 2 things that relate to the ECL of a character:- Starting Hit Dice. Any hit dice you get for your race count just like class levels. They add to your Character Level, thereby increasing your skillpoints, base attack bonus, saving throws, feats every 3 levels and ability score every 4 levels. Your 1st level is actually the 1st HD as the monster, so you get 4x the number of skill points at your 1st monster HD, not at your 1st class level. Likewise, you don't automatically get a feat at your 1st class level.- Level Adjustment. This is a counterweight for the special abilities from the race beyond those related to it's hit dice, including ability modifiers. If you add the Level Adjustment to the Character Level, you get the Effective Character Level.Both Starting Hit Dice and Level Adjustment cost levels, and therefor experience. If you're allowed to make a 14th level character, you subtract the Level Adjustment and the Monster Hit Dice and then you know how much levels are remaining.The Effective Character Level is Level Adjustmust + Starting Hit Dice for those that actually have Starting Hit Dice or Level Adjustment + 1 for those that have no Starting Hit Dice. When you create a character, you can only make characters with an ECL equal to or less than the level you're allowed you make.For example, the Mind Flayer (according to the 3.5 Monster Manual) has 8 Starting Hit Dice and a Level Adjustment of +7. Say you want to be a Mind Flayer Bard. With 1 level in Bard, that would be:7 (Level Adjustment) + 8 (Starting Hit Dice) + 1 (Class) = ECL 16. So you need to be allowed to make a 16th level character to do that.Since the Mind Flayer has Starting Hit Dice, you might want to check up with your DM if you could play one that starts without Class Levels (for an ECL of 15). In most cases, this would be possible. This would never be possible for races that have no Starting Hit Dice.The Character Level would be:8 (Starting Hit Dice) + 1 (Class) = CL 9.You could also count like:ECL 16 - LA 7 = CL 9.You have 9 CL, so you get 4 feats (1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th) and 2 ability bonuses (4th, 8th).You have 8 HD as a Mind Flayer, but since 1st level counts 4 times, you get 11 skill levels for Mind Flayer (2 + Int Bonus/level) and 1 for Bard (6 + Int bonus/level). You do not get 4x the skillpoints for bard, since you already got the x4 for the Mind Flater. Likewise, the 1st HD for Mind Flayer is maxed, while you roll the 1st HD for Bard as normal.Finally, you may add the BaB of +6 and the Saves of Fort +2, Red +2, Will +2 to your scores as a bard. These get the threaddownads like normal, so the +6 allows an additional +1,Hope that clarifies.</blockquote>

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