ECLs for MMII Creatures (Myconids and Others)

[Valen]

This may be the wrong forum for this question (if so, please forgive me).

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas as to the ECLs of a few creatures out of MMII.

In particular, I was wondering about Myconids and Needlefolk (I'm toying with a few ideas for one shots or short campaigns involving fey and forest folk--I am going back to PA for Thanksgiving and I've got fall leaves on my mind). My guess is that the benefits of plant traits (with the list of immunities) alone would give these creatures an ECL of at least +3.

I have been looking over Soldarin's ECL calculator located here
(I hope that link worked.) Still I question my calculations and I am not sure how to classify immunity to critical hits (+.5 - Medium Power?).

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

(I edited the link so it goes directly to the ECL calculator).

 

[Knight Otu]

I'll have to look if I still have my old calculations, but I think I used a +1 increase for plant creatures. +0.5 for immunity to criticals could be correct.

 

[Valen]

Thanks for the tip on crit immunity, Knight Otu. Can you provide any further insight on how the +1 ECL was obtained?

I re-examined my approach and came up with a +2.3 ECL, which rounds down to +2 ECL. I assumed a +.2 for "immune to a handful of spells" and considered that plants are immune to a few "handfuls". I calculated as follows:

Plant traits:
Immune to poison +.5
-sleep +.2
-paralysis +.2
-stunning +.2
-polymorphing +.2
Not subject to critical hits +.5
-mind-affecting effects (including morale effects) +.5
Low-light vision +0

This means that any creature that has the plant traits has an ECL of at least +2, provided that it has no vulnerabilities or weakened characteristics. In most monsters, these immunities are balanced out by lack of movement (generally) and a lack of skills and feats. But, if onehad, say a race of plant elves, which had all the characteristics of the PHB elves AND had plant traits, they would have a +2 ECL. Does that sound correct?

I suppose I may be being overly conservative in assigning values to each immunity instead of lumping them together.

I appreciate any critiques of my methodology and/or comments.

 

[Knight Otu]

After looking over my calculations again, I saw that I used a +0.5 increase for plant creatures. In retrospect, I cannot really say why i did so, but it is certainly not enough. Personally, I'd go with +1.5 (+0.5 for 3 groups of moderate immunities) if I were to do it again. (which means that my calculated ECLs on Soldarin's list are likely off by 1 point)

An ECL of +1.5 for plant traits, if added to a PC race, would result in an ECL 2 race, as most of these races are in the upper regions of 0 ECL.

I'll see if I can point Soldarin to this thread.

 

[Soldarin]

Plant traits:
Immune to poison +.5
-sleep +.2
-paralysis +.2
-stunning +.2
-polymorphing +.2
Not subject to critical hits +.5
-mind-affecting effects (including morale effects) +.5
Low-light vision +0

These are grouped together as "Plant traits", so they rank as a single major power at +1.
Same as the Tanar'ri and Devil traits, or Undead/Construct.

 

[Knight Otu]

Thanks for stopping by, Soldarin!

 

[Valen]

Thank you both!