ECL and CR

[SurfMonkey01]

Okay, can someone please clear this up for me? I'm completely lost on these two concepts and just how they differ... what is each one to cover? Why do we need them both? Is there a way to convert from one to the other, and if so, what is it? Any and all insights that anyone has on this subject would be simply wonderful...

PS - Does Monte still post around here sometimes? If so, help, please?

 

[Orco42]

This my become ugly.

Basically the reason for the difference is that players stay alive longer.

Mosters (for the most part) are only involved in the game for a few rounds, but players are around a long time.

Because players are around longer creatures have a higher ECL than CR.

Personally I don't agree that ECLs should be much higher than CRs, but they should be a little higher.

 

[Victim]

For example, consdier Fast Healing 5. In the average life of monster with this power, it will only 15 to 20 points of damage in the combat, unless it has significant escape abilities. On the other hand, a PC with this power will never need healing except in combat, and with 5 points regained every round, he won't need it as often there. If he's injured, the group can just wait a few minutes and the wound will disappear. You can see how much more useful Fast healing is for the average player as opposed to the average monster, therefore, the level adjustment is more than the CR adjustment.

 

[EricNoah]

As I understand it...

Challenge Rating (CR) and Encounter Level (EL) are tools for helping the DM decide how tough an individual NPC or monster (CR), or group of opponents (EL), is going to be against a party of 4 characters. As I've heard it explained elsewhere, certain magical or natural abilities that might seem really "wow" might not be so wow when this NPC or monster will only live the next minute or two after being encountered. An NPC with 15 wands still only gets to fire off one per round and probably won't get to use all of that versatility.

CR is also used to determine experience point awards after the creature has been defeated.

Equivalent Character Level (ECL) is a tool for the DM and a player to determine what class level a monster PC should be in order to comfortably fit into a group of other PCs and not be "too good" in a way that makes the game unbalanced. ECLs are stated as +# -- lizard man might be +5, let's say, which means the lizard man with one level of druid or fighter and with his couple of hit dice and natural attacks and permanent natural armor and STR and CON bonuses is roughly equal (in some way) to any other run-of-the-mill core rules 6th level character.

The reason ECL is different from a creature's CR is that a PC is going to last many many sessions and have many many encounters.

The argument that was going on over in the Rules forum is that the recent Dragon Magazine article that gave proposed ECLs for just about every monster and template in the MM is that they seem out of whack, usually too high. And the major sticking point is the assumption that ECL starts with the creature's number of hit dice and just goes up from there.

I would imagine that good feedback and playtesting could help contribute to changing and improving those lists.

 

[EOL]

One of the good points that was made in the thread Eric mentioned was that getting to play a monster is very cool, and as such when in doubt you should probably go high on the ECL. Because getting to play a dragon should not be both cooler and more powerful than playing a gnome.

Sometimes ECL is more art than science for a couple of reasons. Firstly it depends on the campaign. If the campaign is very lethal and starts at level five taking an ECL +4 half dragon would be a very bad idea, because while the other party fighter was walking around with 50+ hit points you'd be lucky to have 16 and would probably die in the first combat.

Secondly splitting it by levels is not very precise some races are just barely +1 ECL (gensai, teiflings) while some are at the high end Drow at +2 ECL. Which sometimes makes me think that there should be an additional mechanic to help increase the precision, like a 10% experience penalty or something similar.

 

[Orco42]

I like this thread much better than the other one.

Everyone has given good advise. One thing I will add (If you are thinking to let a player run a nom basic race) is to play test a lot first to find a ECL that works for you.