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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jairami" data-source="post: 134450" data-attributes="member: 1148">No, an NPC Hill Giant would go from CR7 to CR8 with one level of sorcerer.  But you were talking about PC's.  PC's are judged on a different scale.CR is a rough estimate of "How hard is it for 4 PC's to kill it?"ECL is an even rougher estimate of "How far does this PC need to be set back so that he doesn't outshine the other PC's?".The reason these two questions have such vastly different answers is because at the basest level they are totally different and aside from that, it also has largely to do with lifespan.In general an NPC shows up for an encounter, uses his little ability, and that's it.  For example, a troll shows up, the PC's beat him down, he regenerates some of it but in the end they torch him.  Regeneration was only about as important as his rend attack and high strength.However, if a PC is a troll then all of a sudden every encounter he starts he is at full hit points.  All of a sudden his average 23 CON becomes a PC 30 CON with who knows how many hit points that he will always regenerate.  Every combat of the entire campaign.  Plus reach, rend, 3 attacks a round, and a number of other qualities that draw the spotlight on the troll.So to keep things fair, he plays with a bump to his effective level meaning he has to pay more XP to level and is generally playing with characters of a higher level than his HD would indicate.  CR doesn't even begin to factor in to that.So yes, WotC says a Hill Giant Sor1 PC is ECL 17 and should play with 17th level Wizards and Fighters.  I don't personally like their most recent unreasonable jump in the ECL ladder and prefer to use <a href="http://www.webspawner.com/users/enbsoldarin/index.html" target="_blank">Soldarin's System</a> to figure such things out.  So I'd say a Hill Giant Barbarian 1 would be ECL 13.  Not a bad trade off for a probable 39 or so strength after magic items and such get figured in.  Not to mention 12d8+1d12+xx hitpoints.  Be a good character to have compared to a 13th level fighter.</blockquote>

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