CRs..Are they poor?

[BeholderBurger]

Hey,

Does anybody agree that CRs are very difficult to justify. I had a party start a first level adventure but in character creation on of my players wanted to be a Drow. I ended up having a 3rd level starting party. This is wierd.

 

[BeholderBurger]

Sorry

Sorry,

Ive been awake all night in work...what i meant to say was ECLs.

 

[babomb]

Some of them do seem rather high, not that I've playtested them or anything. I would probably change Drow to +1.

 

[hong]

ECLs are easy to justify. Some races, because of their inherent abilities, have an easier time grabbing the spotlight than others. The ECL is a way to compensate for this: everyone else gets to be higher level, which means more goodies and powers, which means being able to grab the spotlight back.

The hard bit is in agreeing on a suitable ECL for a given race.

 

[Garmorn]

They are justifible but no one knows how to do the rating yet. I don't expect a good soild system in place until the next edition of D&D. The whole concept is just to new and based on lots of subjective critiria.


(edited to correct improper word)

 

[Shimrod]

Most ECL´s are a bit high. Ideally you should be able to use CR. After all a level 9 PC is CR 9 so CR9 monster should be equivalent of level 9. I like that method (a bit like the one in DMG) best. Unfortunatly CR´s where not at all balanced right (just look at the low CR of most dragons)

 

[Bonedagger]

Some of them do seem rather high, not that I've playtested them or anything. I would probably change Drow to +1.

Aren't the Drows already only +1 CR?

 

[Ruvion]

Garmorn
They are justifible but no one knows how to do the rating yet. I don't expect a good soild system in place until the next edition of D&D. The whole concept is just to new and based on lots of objective critiria.

Don't ya mean subjective criteria?
I think the balance point of ECLs is transformative. IMO, low ECL characters (meaning +1 to +3) get their pay off around mid-levels (around level 10ish): at low levels (level 1 to 3), they get creamed due to low hps and high levels (level 15+) they are less useful due to lower character levels.

 

[Numion]

Most ECL´s are a bit high. Ideally you should be able to use CR. After all a level 9 PC is CR 9 so CR9 monster should be equivalent of level 9. I like that method (a bit like the one in DMG) best. Unfortunatly CR´s where not at all balanced right (just look at the low CR of most dragons)

That doesn't take into account any continuous / usable at will abilities of the monster. As monsters, they usually get to use them once (in the battle they die), but as PCs they'd get to use them always. Like trolls regeneration. For an NPC troll it means around 30 extra HP maybe, but for a PC it's limitless HPs.

Thus, CR != ECL

 

[Henrix]

ECLs are obviously difficult to adjudicate.

I think that the main function of ECLs today is to help avoiding the other players to feel cheated.

This means that, in that perspective, it is much better for en ECL to be too high then for it to be too low.
The important thing is that the ECL races should not upstage the normal races.

It is a rather poor system, but it's all we've got at the moment.

There's some hope that WotC may get a better version working for Tooth & Claw (the monster splatbook).

Until then, I would advise any DM who is not certain that he and his players are fully aware of the limitations of the ECL system, and that the ECL character probably will be less powerful than non-ECL characters, to go with the default situation - only allow standard races.

Boring, but there you have it.

And the next implementation level is that the players are allowed to start their characters at a certain level, as decided by the DM, 0xp (as is, again, the default), 1000 xp, or whatever.
IF that is not sufficent for a character of the race the player wants, well, sorry, you're not allowed to make a third level character either!