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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kreynolds" data-source="post: 854291" data-attributes="member: 2829">Well, one thing I keep in mind for ability score bonuses, from a design point of view, is the number of hit die of the creature. You never want any one ability or feature of a creature to dominate its CR. For example, a 1 hit die creature with a Strength of 80 and DR 20/+10 isn't a well balanced creature.The guideline I use (actually Upper_Krust's guideline from his up and coming Immortal's Handbook) is that no ability score should exceed one-quarter the number of hit die + 18 of the base creature. For example, a 12 hit die creature should not have any ability scores over 21. If the creatuer has an ability score that high, it begins to dominate its CR or ECL.But, I do get what you're saying. However, the problem is this; while having a 26 strength at 6th level is awfully powerful, and quite deserving of an ECL modifier, a 26 strength at 20th level is about the norm, so an ECL modifier is no longer warranted. Its just like having spell resistance of a static amount. A drow's spell resistance is useful throughout its career, but if your SR is static at 15, its only useful for so long. At some point, the ECL modifier for that SR is no longer warranted. For situations like this, you have two choices; 1) You can take into account that the static SR will only be useful for a limited period of time and reduce its initial ECL modifier accordingly, or 2) you can 'charge' the full amount of the ECL modifier, but then credit it back later when the static SR is no longer useful.Some of this stuff can get weird.</blockquote>

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