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Laurellien
2012-03-09, 07:35 AM
So my campaign has the potential to go as high level as the players are happy for it to, and we've been discussing some things around the table, namely epic cohorts and replacement PCs.

One of my players asked me what the ECL was on various sorts of epic dragons, but I couldn't find them. The only thing I could find was the (obviously silly) listing of an old prismatic dragon and an adult force dragon having an ECL equal to their HD.

That was back in the 3.0 ELH, which also listed the wyrm white dragon as having an ECL equal to its HD. The white dragon's ECL was revised in the ELH update, but not the prismatic or force dragon (they weren't reconfirmed, just not mentioned).

So my questions are these:

1. Has WotC published the ECL of epic dragons in all 12 stages of life?
2. Has WotC published the ECL of standard dragons in all 12 stages of life?
3. Have any reputable 3rd party publishers (e.g. Green Ronin, Sword & Sorcery etc) published the above?
4. Have any redoubtable fixtures of the D&D online community published the ECL of epic dragons in all 12 stages of life?
5. Do you know a guy who has made a reasonable stab at the ECL of epic dragons?
Yora
2012-03-09, 08:29 AM
To my knowledge: No.

To every question.
Alleran
2012-03-09, 08:42 AM
No, no, no, no, and no.

Respectively.

As far as I know.
gkathellar
2012-03-09, 08:48 AM
Likewise, I'm pretty sure your answers are: no, no, no, no and no.
Randomguy
2012-03-09, 01:20 PM
ECL is HD+LA+class levels, and most dragons have LA -, meaning they don't have an ECL, just a CR. I think.
Shotaro
2012-03-09, 01:22 PM
My understanding was that for single monsters CR=ECL, it's only when you get to combinations of monsters that ECL becomes more intricate. Could be wrong but as I say - that's my understanding of it all.
Yora
2012-03-09, 01:25 PM
No. If the LA is 0, then it says "LA: +0". LA - is "no LA given", because they just don't know what would be appropriate.
Laurellien
2012-03-09, 04:18 PM
:smallfrown: That's a pity. I wonder why they never released them? They had them for certain dragons, like the wyrm white dragon...
Yora
2012-03-09, 05:38 PM
I assume because they were really mostly guessing, often being much too high or too low, and at some point you have so much power that it becomes pretty much impossible to say to what character level they are equal.
Flickerdart
2012-03-09, 05:43 PM
My understanding was that for single monsters CR=ECL, it's only when you get to combinations of monsters that ECL becomes more intricate. Could be wrong but as I say - that's my understanding of it all.
That is not correct. Otherwise, you could easily have a character with more hit dice than ECL, which obviously makes no sense.
Godskook
2012-03-09, 06:58 PM
My understanding was that for single monsters CR=ECL, it's only when you get to combinations of monsters that ECL becomes more intricate. Could be wrong but as I say - that's my understanding of it all.

CR is a DM measurement of how dangerous that monster is against a given party, scaled so that a CR X monster is supposed to represent 50/50 threat against single human with X class levels.

ECL is a Player measurement of how many 'effective' class levels a character has, counting things like RHD and LA. There's many homebrew formulas but the 'industry standard' is ECL = HD + RHD + LA. Unless someone says otherwise, that's what you should assume.

With CR, you can often times have RHD that exceeds CR(Dragons, Animals, and Elementals, oh my!). With ECL, that's impossible.
Urpriest
2012-03-09, 07:31 PM
My understanding was that for single monsters CR=ECL, it's only when you get to combinations of monsters that ECL becomes more intricate. Could be wrong but as I say - that's my understanding of it all.

You're thinking of EL. You may or may not need to read my monster guide, linked in my sig. You may enjoy doing so anyway.