Gearing up monsters

[DevilsAttorney]

Reading into the "improving monsters" rules, they mention the following:

"If you choose to equip a monster with gear, use its ECL as its character level for purposes of determining how much equipment it can purchase. Generally, only monsters with an Advancement entry of “By character class” receive NPC gear; other creatures adding character levels should be treated as monsters of the appropriate CR and assigned treasure, not equipment."

My sample encounter is a Greathorn Minotaur (MM IV, p. 100) that does NOT have any barbarian levels. If I choose to give it armor regardless of this (and assume that it is proficient with it), would it affect it's CR?

[Averis Vol]

Reading into the "improving monsters" rules, they mention the following:

"If you choose to equip a monster with gear, use its ECL as its character level for purposes of determining how much equipment it can purchase. Generally, only monsters with an Advancement entry of “By character class” receive NPC gear; other creatures adding character levels should be treated as monsters of the appropriate CR and assigned treasure, not equipment."

My sample encounter is a Greathorn Minotaur (MM IV, p. 100) that does NOT have any barbarian levels. If I choose to give it armor regardless of this (and assume that it is proficient with it), would it affect it's CR?

I think it really depends on what all you give it. After all, the CR system is pretty finicky.

[atemu1234]

Reading into the "improving monsters" rules, they mention the following:

"If you choose to equip a monster with gear, use its ECL as its character level for purposes of determining how much equipment it can purchase. Generally, only monsters with an Advancement entry of “By character class” receive NPC gear; other creatures adding character levels should be treated as monsters of the appropriate CR and assigned treasure, not equipment."

My sample encounter is a Greathorn Minotaur (MM IV, p. 100) that does NOT have any barbarian levels. If I choose to give it armor regardless of this (and assume that it is proficient with it), would it affect it's CR?

Depends on the equipment, really. It may or may not affect it (the CR system really isn't good enough to begin with, but this probably wouldn't affect it much).