Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Urbannen" data-source="post: 1095422" data-attributes="member: 7643">Reread the sidebar.  It says "in any other place [besides Table 1-1] in this book where "character level" is indicated, you can use effective character level instead."  According to a literal reading of this rule, you can choose to gain any character level benefits of Table 1-2 based on your ECL, not your character level.  Or am I misreading this sentence?  Table 1-2 says "character level".  The sidebar says that you can replace that with "effective character level."  The fact that the sidebar mentions eligibility for epic feats is not incorrect; it's just one consequence of the given rule.  What is it then?  The official ruling, AFAIK, from WotC is that you use only character level for determining when a character reaches epic level.  Personally I think the rule makes much more sense.  ECL is a term that only applies to PCs, after all.  The sidebar would have the DM calculate the ECL for high level NPCs characters and monsters.  According to the sidebar, every frost giant with 4 class levels is eligible for epic feats, even though such a creature's CR would be, what, 13?  (I think a frost giant's CR is 9, might be wrong.)  So here you are, a 13th level character, fighting a frost giant and it suddenly it has epic level abilities, even though it only has 18 HD.</blockquote>