ECL & feats

[Lonely Tylenol]

Well the book doesn't quite contradict itself. As you noted, the bugbear example explicitly states that the epic rules work with ECL for epic attack and save bonuses. It doesn't state they apply to calculating anything else - such as feats or ability point increases.
When the Bugbear hit an ECL of 20 he stopped getting BaB and saving throw progressions and started stacking the epic progressions in their place.

Right. But he still gets a feat every 3 levels and an ability score increase every 4, not counting his level adjustment. He counts his monster hit dice as levels for the purposes of determining his total character level, to figure out when he gets these increases.

FWIW, a character with a level adjustment of 20 (and no more than one hit die) would have an ECL of 21 at first level. He would be epic, and would get epic BAB and save bonuses instead of the normal BAB and save for his class (he would never get normal BAB and save bonuses, only epic). He could also take an epic feat as his first level feat. But he'd only have one feat.

 

[glass]

FWIW, a character with a level adjustment of 20 (and no more than one hit die) would have an ECL of 21 at first level. He would be epic, and would get epic BAB and save bonuses instead of the normal BAB and save for his class (he would never get normal BAB and save bonuses, only epic). He could also take an epic feat as his first level feat. But he'd only have one feat.

That may or may not be trye (the rules seem to contradict themselves on this point), but if it is, IMO it is largely unplayable.

It introduces a huge disconnect between PC suitable and non-PC suitable races as to when they go epic. It also, therefore, requires a decision to be made about whether a race is PC or cohort suitable, just to build an NPC with it.


glass.