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<blockquote data-quote="EricNoah" data-source="post: 60423" data-attributes="member: 4">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),&nbsp; is going to be against a party of 4 characters.&nbsp; As I've heard it explained elsewhere, certain magical or natural abilities that might seem really &quot;wow&quot; might not be so wow when this NPC or monster will only live the next minute or two after being encountered.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; &nbsp; 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 &quot;too good&quot; in a way that makes the game unbalanced.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; I would imagine that good feedback and playtesting could help contribute to changing and improving those lists.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EricNoah, post: 60423, member: 4"] 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. [/QUOTE]

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