Monster, ECL's, and Epic feats

[Elchaim]

Greetings all! I am a lurker no longer... I was wondering how everyone else handled monsters regarding the acquisition of epic feats? Is there any method of calculating ECL's of creatures that do not have one listed? I'm going to be introducing a Hellfire Wyrm (CR 26) in my game this weekend and would really like to modify him for epic level play... how many epic feats would he get (if any)? Thanks in advance!

P.S. It's great to finally be a member of this great community!

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

My understanding is that its technically zero because the creature is starting out at CR26. The other dragons get extra age catagories though and those grant the nifty epic abilities.

Welcome to the community!

 

[LGodamus]

I am temted to say ,well since you are modifying hime calculate his feats and skill points as it tells you in the monster manual, then any feat he takes when he has more than a 20 cr take epic feats. Or its your game make a house rule on it.

 

[Wolfspider]

But what do you use to determine if a monster is epic level: ECL, CR, or Hit Dice?

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

To the best of my knowledge there is no "official" answer for this. In my own games, I give some creatures with a CR of 21 or more access to Epic Level Feats, though I may well decide a creature doesn't have any.

I like basing it on CR, since that represents the level of PC the creature is supposed to face, which means I give Epic feat to things designed to deal with Epic heroes, which seems fair to me.

 

[the Jester]

Welcome to the community!

I'm with Owen: if it's for epic-level pcs to battle, perhaps it should have epic-level feats and resources...

I'd swap out one or two of its existing feats for epic level ones, or else (if you want to be really nasty) just add some fighter levels and let it get epic level feats with those.

 

[-Warlord-]

Let's see....

It's not when a creature has more than 20 HD.
The paragon Mind Flayer has epic feats with only 8 HD.

It's not when a creature has a CR of more than 20.
The Behemoth Eagle has epic feats at CR 18 (while the Behemoth Gorilla does not, at CR 19).

It could be that a creature needs either more than 20 HD or a CR of 20 or more..