ECL of monsters: Playtest of a centaur

[omedon]

Thanks for the help CRGreathouse.

I have a further question regarding this issue. Does this mean that the stock, or typical, monsters found in the Monster Manual whould have an amount of treasure equal to their ECL or are PC ECL characters seen as unique among their NPC counterparts?

 

[CRGreathouse]

Thanks for the help CRGreathouse.

I have a further question regarding this issue. Does this mean that the stock, or typical, monsters found in the Monster Manual whould have an amount of treasure equal to their ECL or are PC ECL characters seen as unique among their NPC counterparts?

PC ECL wealth creatures are rare, just as PC baseline creatures are rare - a typical (NPC) 10th level character only has 16,000 gp, but an elite (PC) 10th level character has 49,000 gp.

 

[David Eckelberry]

Nice analysis, CRGreathouse.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

To me it's beyond arguing that a centaur fighter 12 would be completely outclassed by a human fighter 20.

It is far from beyond arguing, as CR as proved.

And again I'm telling you that ECL creatures fare much better as they gain level.

An ECL 8 creature compared to an ECL 0 creature fares better at level 12 vs 20 than at level 1 vs 9.

 

[chilibean]

It is far from beyond arguing, as CR as proved.

And again I'm telling you that ECL creatures fare much better as they gain level.

An ECL 8 creature compared to an ECL 0 creature fares better at level 12 vs 20 than at level 1 vs 9.

Proved? Really?

Perhaps the following minor oversights can be explained:

How do both get +5 ability points when one is 8 levels lower than the other?

How does a suit of full plate barding fit on a centaur? That's a nice pretty bare chest you have there ... or does the Walmart magic item shop carry those nice fully articulated mithril full plate centaur armors at no extra charge? I'll take some large fries with that also.

How does a centaur wearing full plate get a +3 bonus to AC from dex? Is that some special barding thing?

How does a large creature avoid the -1 to AC from size?

How does the centaur get an extra attack from sources other than BAB?

It's also kinda funny how the 4 extra feats don't seem to add any real value to the human in this wonderful proof.

Also, it's so easy to overlook how stupid the centaur looks the first time it's confronted with a trap door at the top of a ladder when exploring a dungeon. Or when it needs to climb a rope.

Or when the wizard is overweight for the teleport because the centaur weighs half a ton and the centaur gets left behind when the party has to evacuate quickly.

Or when the centaur has to carry 4 times the food everyone else does.

Or all the extra money he wasted during his whole career because he could never resell his old suit of armor when he upgraded (or perhaps the market for centaur armor is better than I imagine and it's easy to recoop your investment).

If you min/max the example properly, you can probably make the centaur technically able to fight as well as a fighter 8 levels higher. After watching some of the smackdowns on this board I no longer doubt that it can be arranged so. But in every normal campaign I've ever seen, the centaur would be at a huge disadvantage. Just making one up and being able to buy anything you like in the DMG is not a real example to me. So feel free to min/max this example to death just to technically "prove" me wrong. Whatever makes you happy.

 

[Archer]

Normal campaign and centaur PC don't even belong in the same sentence. Obviously with a centaur there will be more outdoor adventures where speed and size are advantages just like foe hunters and undead specialists go after their favored enemies and ignore other adventure opportunities.

Chilibean: If you paid attention you'd see that most of your points are in error. The only valid ones in the bunch are both got 5 points for levels when the centaur should only have 3 and the -1 AC modifier for size.

The cost for the barding is already calculated, armor isn't discarded when it is upgraded. The centaur can carry a ton more than anyone else so weight of food isn't a consideration even though bags of holding are common at that level as are fly spells/items. A cheap potion of reduce would solve the teleport problem.

Furthermore you even admit in your last paragraph the centaur can be the equal of ECL 0 character hence the orignal value of
the ECL is correct.

Originally posted by chilibean
To me it's beyond arguing that a centaur fighter 12 would be completely outclassed by a human fighter 20.

I used to think this meant that it was so obvious that the centaur and human were equal that is was pointless to argue otherwise which apparently was not your intended meaning.

 

[Victim]

The centaur gets a +3 dex bonus because Mithral armor increases the max dex bonus by 2. Full Plate has a +1 max bonus so it would increase to +3.

Being able to sell armor is of little value. Upgrading a magic item over various levels costs nothing extra over creating new items. Therefore, once the centaur gets the Mithral full plate, he could wear for the rest of his career. Since he has lots of starting gold, he could afford that item at the beginning of his career.

Large creatures and mounts already have a cost penalty for custom armors.

The centaur has +12 base from fighter levels, another +4 base from centaur HD, and a speed weapon. His 16 bab gives him attacks at +16/+11/+6/+1 with an extra attack at +16 before any other attack modifiers apply.

Some the stats do seem to be in error, so the AC should be 30 instead of 31 and the HP should be 196.

While the human does have more feats, at higher levels, characters often run out of good feats to take. Even so, we'll say that feats are giving the human about 10 - 15% extra efficiency. The centaur is still pretty close.

While the centaur is hindered in enclosed environments, it's natural speed gives it an advantage in open areas. Large creatures can carry more weight, so having to carry more rations isn't that bad - if the character even needs rations at that point. While being large can be a drawback, it also provides advantages against grappling and such.

A centaur Fighter 18 is in no way balanced with a human fighter 20. Even if we discount all stat, speed, natural armor, and size, the centaur is obviously better. It has 22 HD versus the human's 20!!

 

[CRGreathouse]

How do both get +5 ability points when one is 8 levels lower than the other?

That's an oversight of mine; sorry. Since the centaur's stats are still much higher than the human's, the analyis remains.

How does a suit of full plate barding fit on a centaur? That's a nice pretty bare chest you have there ... or does the Walmart magic item shop carry those nice fully articulated mithril full plate centaur armors at no extra charge? I'll take some large fries with that also.

The centaur paid a kingly fee for the barding, using the rules in the PH.

How does a centaur wearing full plate get a +3 bonus to AC from dex? Is that some special barding thing?

Yes, it's mithral (as stated). Like I said, that makes it very expensive. It may actually be cheaper than I listed; there's some ambiguity, so I chose the possibility that's worst for the centaur.

How does a large creature avoid the -1 to AC from size?

Oops, my mistake again. The centaur still has a higher AC.

How does the centaur get an extra attack from sources other than BAB?

The weapon of speed, of course, just like the human.

It's also kinda funny how the 4 extra feats don't seem to add any real value to the human in this wonderful proof.

It was noted as a strong advantage for the human. It doesn't affect AC or attacks, though, because all of those basic feats are taken.

Also, it's so easy to overlook how stupid the centaur looks the first time it's confronted with a trap door at the top of a ladder when exploring a dungeon. Or when it needs to climb a rope.

Or when the wizard is overweight for the teleport because the centaur weighs half a ton and the centaur gets left behind when the party has to evacuate quickly.

Or when the centaur has to carry 4 times the food everyone else does.

These are minor concerns at best. How about adding the centaur's prodigious carrying capacity as an advantage, as a Str 31 Large quadruped? I didn't think it was a real concern for this character. Plus, RP shouldn't affect rules.

Or all the extra money he wasted during his whole career because he could never resell his old suit of armor when he upgraded (or perhaps the market for centaur armor is better than I imagine and it's easy to recoop your investment).

He paid a mage to enchant it, as he never found any centaur-style barding.

If you min/max the example properly, you can probably make the centaur technically able to fight as well as a fighter 8 levels higher.

But I didn't min/max. Their equipment is similar or identical for purposes of comparison.

As a final note, I didn't have to show that the cenatur was better or even equal to the figher - though I think I did show that. I only had to disprove:

To me it's beyond arguing that a centaur fighter 12 would be completely outclassed by a human fighter 20.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I have little to offer the comparison, but I would like to say something about ECL.

As a poster stated before, basing ECL off of one single class is overlooking the fact that a PC can be one of ten other classes. Completely ignoring (to carry the example) Centaur Wizards because Centaurs don't get spellcasting ability is dubious at best. Consider how the benefits of the Centaur affect a Wizard - are they the same, or similar, to those granted by seven levels of Fighter? Is a Centaur Druid 13 equal in power to any other 20th level character? (I will not voice an opinion here, since I have not played a Centaur Fighter, Wizard, or any other Centaur).

I realize that the goal is to balance things when they are min/maxed, and so perhaps Fighter would fit best with the most creatures. I just think it's foolish looking over other classes just because they don't mesh as well.

LightPhoenix

 

[Seule]

Every time a thread like this comes up, people ask things like "But the Centaur Wizard! He's at a disadvantage! A 10th level wizard is better than a 3rd level Centaur Wizard!"

This ignores the point. Centaur is worth about 7 levels. That's 7 Fighter levels. Of course a Centaur Wizard isn't a very good wizard, in the same way that a human Fighter 7/Wizard 3 isn't a very good wizard. Exactly the same, in fact. The Centaur/Wizard is a far better fighter than wizard at 10th level overall. Isn't that worth something? Everyone knows that diluting wizard levels (or cleric, or sorcerer, or monk, or whatever) is a bad idea. Why do people keep insisting that they should be able to dilute them with raised ECL races without any penalty?

--Seule