How to determine LA?

[flamewolf393]

Is there a good guide out there for determining what the LA of any given creature should be? I like the savage species guide, but most of the monster I want to play are not in it. At the moment I am specifically trying to figure out a good LA for the carrion crawler, as I wish to make a monk out of it.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A Carrion Crawler has an Int score of 1, no member of the species is even capable of learning anything beyond very basic tricks. You certainly couldn't ever teach it any sort of martial arts or similar.

If you want a Carrion Crawler Monk, then you should make a Wizard or Sorcerer with a Monk's Belt and Polymorph into one. Note you cannot combine its tentacle touches with unarmed strikes. An unarmed strike attack deals unarmed strike damage, a tentacle attack deals paralysis, a given attack cannot be both, even if it's an unarmed strike made with the tentacle appendage, it's not a tentacle attack and it doesn't paralyze.

[Yora]

Not really. Which is the reason pretty much every creature that has LA is considered to be rated way to high, or too low.

For creatures without special abilities that mostly rely on melee attacks and armor, I think the best way is to find at what level a fighter is mostly identical.
Substract the racial HD from that level, and the number you end up with is the LA.

But damage resistance, fast healing, and regeneration can really throw this of and it's very hard to judge how good they are. If the enemies have the right attack, it's useless. If they don't have it, it can be super-powerful.

If they have many spell-like abilities, it entirely depends on what abilities exactly and how often per day, and so on.

[TuggyNE]

Is there a good guide out there for determining what the LA of any given creature should be? I like the savage species guide, but most of the monster I want to play are not in it. At the moment I am specifically trying to figure out a good LA for the carrion crawler, as I wish to make a monk out of it.

Creatures with Int below 3 are not playable.

[flamewolf393]

Its easy enough to have it awakened or any other number of ways of granting intellegence. But mental stats have no effect on the question.

[AmberVael]

Is there a good guide out there for determining what the LA of any given creature should be?

1) Note the strongest abilities of the creature
2) Note the hit dice and type of the creature
3) Compare these items to comparable, classed characters
4) Have trouble finding anything near a decent match
5) Flail limbs wildly and repeat first four steps frantically
6) Realize this is impossible
7) Weep quietly

[Eldan]

Step 8, if your players keep bugging you, pull a number out of thin air and hope no one calls your bluff.

[Crake]

If you're DMing, then pick a number you feel is appropriate (better to start high then drop it IMO, rather than the reverse), then monitor the situation and adjust it. If you're a player, then why're you asking? If you're neither, then there's no real point.

Edit: If it's for an NPC, then LA doesn't matter at all anyway, it's CR that you want to note.