Equipping Monster NPCs

[Mapleaxe]

In your campaign, how much equipment/treasure do you give monsters with character class levels and added templates? Here's a few examples from my current campaign to give you an idea what i'm talking about:

Drow (CR1) + Ranger 3 (+3 CR, 3 HD) + Shade template from FRCS (+2 CR)

Goatman from MMIII (3 HD, CR2) + Fighter 3 (+3 CR, +3 HD) + Monster of Legend template from MMII (+2 CR)

I know that either the DMG or MM suggests taking the treasure level for the monster and adding it to the equipment value for the creature's class levels, but I find in practice that the monster NPC tends to be under equipped. I've heard suggestions of equipping them per the ECL of the creature, but again in practice, I find that this generally leads to an over equipped monster NPC. I'm considering equipping such creatures either as NPCs of an equivalent CR (i.e. a CR5 creature would be equipped as a level 5 NPC) or as NPCs of equivalent hit dice with template CRs added in (i.e. a 5 HD creature with a +2 CR template would be equipped as a level 7 NPC). Which do you think would work better? What do you use?

 

[shilsen]

I usually equip them as NPCs of an equivalent CR, varying it depending on the creature's background. The ogre Brb2 who lives in the wildlands and the Duke's elite bodyguard (human Ftr5) may both be CR5, but the latter will have slightly better than normal equipment and the former will have worse. It's never caused a problem.

 

[Darkness]

CR, roughly. Usually a bit more but I play in the FR.