ecl questions

[Crothian]

I'm a bit unclear of how ecl works in terms of character feats, max skill rankes, etc. So, if I have a character with 8 class levels and a template with ecl+2 does he get a feat for ninth level? Does he get max skill points for the character level 10 or 8? I tried to find some clear rules for ecl but the section on them is very limited.

 

[Staffan]

There are several variants of the ECL/LA rules, but the 3.5 ones are reasonably consistant at least. There are four values to keep track of:
Class levels = the sum of levels you have in various classes.
Racial HD = The number of HD you have because of your race. If your race normally has only 1 HD, that gets exchanged for your first class level.
Total HD = The sum of any HD you have because of your race, and your class level.
LA = A racial value that measures how much more powerful a race is compared to humans.
ECL = The sum of total HD and LA.

Now, the only time ECL is used is when it comes to XP, and when generating a character and equipping him. For everything else: skill points, spell effects, feats, ability increases, you use HD (although you don't get ability increases for those HD that are racial - they're considered part of the base racial stats).

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Max ranks, ability increases, feats and the like only use total HD/Levels. The ECL (that's total hd/levels + level adjustment) is used to determine character wealth, xp needed for the next level, and xp rewards.

So your Drow rogue 8 has 3 feats (1,3,6), max rank of 11, got two ability increases (4,8), but has the same amount of gold as that human fighter 10 (should be 49000), gets the same XP for defeating that duargar fighter 9 (CR 10 the get 3000 for defeating him alone, 1500 each if they worked together), and needs 55.000 xp to advance a level (so if they have the same amount of XP, the drow will turn rogue 9 at the same time as the human will turn fighter 11)