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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JustinA" data-source="post: 3732391" data-attributes="member: 51618">Agreed. What you can do, however, is get to a system where a HD is a HD is a HD.Step 1: No matter where a HD comes from, it should be accompanied by a set of balanced abilities. Thus, a level 1 fighter is equivalent to a level 1 wizard. And both of those are equivalent to a plain vanilla 1 HD animal or 1 HD aberration or 1 HD ooze.Step 2: However, for flexible creature design, you need to be able to give monster's abilities which would not be balanced if they belonged to a PC with the same number of HD. One easy way to balance this is to use the wealth-by-level guidelines: Assign a value to the creature's extra abilities, and apply that as a modifier to the party's total wealth (since those abilities are resources, just like magic items are resources).For example, let's pretend that the 3.5 beholder's 11 aberration HD actually equated to 11 levels in a PC class. (They don't, but I want to simplify the example.) The beholder's "extra abilities" are the antimagic cone, the ability to fly, and the eyestalks.You can go through and price every one of these abilities very precisely using the existing magic item creation rules and get a total "wealth value" for the beholder's abilities.Why is this useful? Because it eliminates the concept of ECL/LA. A HD is a HD is a HD, and any unusual or powerful abilities a creature are factored into the party's resources just like any other resource.This doesn't mean that you've gotten to a point where you can play a creature just because their HD is equal to the party's current level. You'll never get to that point (as you rightly point out). The wealth value of their abilities will frequently outstrip an equivalent PC's resources.But it does mean you've dropped a layer of complexity from the system. And you've also gotten away from the wonkinees where a creature's LA/ECL makes them over-powered in the short-term and then ridiculously underpowered forever after.Justin Alexander<a href="http://www.thealexandrian.net" target="_blank">http://www.thealexandrian.net</a></blockquote>

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