Help me get LA, ECL and other stuff straight...

[Klaus]

I'm trying to understand LA, ECL and what they affect. Tell me if I'm right or wrong.

You use ECL (class + HD + LA) to determine the appropriate ammount of gold for your character, the ammount of XP needed to rise a level and how much XP you get from an encounter.

You use Character Level (class + HD) to determine when you gain feats, ability score increases, max skill ranks, epic levelness and wether you get x4 skills at 1st level.

Is this correct?

 

[Zandel]

As long as by HD you mean racial HD and not class HD then yeah that's right.

 

[werk]

Right.

Instead of character level, they call it hit dice, but it's the same thing.
HD = racial HD + class levels.
ECL = HD + LA

The last bit about 4x skill points for first level...

Characters with more than 1 Hit Die because of their race do not get a feat for their first class level as members of the common races do, and they do not multiply the skill points for their first class level by four. Instead, they have already received a feat for their first Hit Die because of race, and they have already multiplied their racial skill points for their first Hit Die by four.

Basically, if you have any racial HD, you are not a new character, so you don't get the new character starting package.

 

[Klaus]

Thanks!