ECL Calculations

[Tiberius]

Hi, everyone.

Has a formula for calculating the ECL of a creature ever been published? I know that Wizards has at various points put out the ECLs of certain creatures, but I would like to know how to make those calculations myself, rather than rely on finding published sources. Thanks!

-Tiberius

 

[Axiomatic Unicorn]

No.

ECLs can not be developed based on a simple formula.

For example, creating a race of troll with fire resistance would increase the ECL of the creature a lot more than creating a race of orcs with fire resistance.

ECLs are 90% art.

 

[Tiberius]

Weak. Oh, well. If there are no formulae, are there guidelines anywhere, or must we try to extrapolate from the published creatures?

-Tiberius

 

[twjensen]

Tooth 'n claw

WoTC is planning to publish a set of ECLs for lotsa monsters. At that point, you can find the most similar creature in there, and then bump the ECL up or down based on whether your creature is more or less powerful than the guideline.

There is no formula because monsters have some weird powers that don't lend themselves to simple math. Give me 20 grand and two months and I could write a computer program that would do a reasonable job, but then it would take an army of interns to enter all the creatures and run it.

WoTC has decided that its a lot more fun to just playtest.

 

[kreynolds]

Try this site - RPGCosmos Race ECL Calculator

It's not exact, but it's really close.

 

[gnfnrf]

There is an unofficial formula, primarily created by soldarin.

It worked pretty well until the Dragon article. We were in the middle of revising it when the new ECLs came out and, well, it kinda stalled.

You can get it at:
http://www.webspawner.com/users/enbsoldarin/index.html

--
gnfnrf

 

[Gilwen]

When a character wants to play a non standard race or template for the monsters manual this is what I do...It seems to work well but I haven't tried it with anything over CR 3.

If the CR of the creature is 1/2 the ECL is 1
If the CR is 1 or greater I simply add 1 to it and that is the ECL number.
If the player wants to add a template then I simply calculate the ECL for the Race and the template separtely and then add them together to get a final ECL value. A drow half dragon would be ECL 5.