ECL Help!!!!

[Pavbat666]

So I have been playing D&D (3.5 edition) for a few years. However, this will be the first time I am DMing. I was wondering if someone can help me with ECL. Can someone just explain it in general for how it affects players, and my main question is, how can you find the Encounter Level of an encounter, and use it in your adventure? Thanks in advance!!

[GilesTheCleric]

ECL is effective character level. It is the net power of a character, calculated by adding their HD (hit die) to their LA (level adjustment). It has no relationship to CR (challenge rating). PCs use ECL, while NPCs use CR. CR can be calculated for a single creature with the rules in the glossary of MM1 (different creature types advance at different CR increases). CR can be calculated for a group with this tool (http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/). It's important to note that the effective CR for an encounter can change based on variables like terrain and how intelligently the creatures are played, so it's better to use CR as a guideline.

How does ECL affect players? It changes the CR of creatures that they might otherwise face, and reduces the amount of experience points for completing challenges. However, unless they have LA or extra HD from something like a template or a race, their ECL = their class level, and everything plays as normal.

[Andezzar]

What GilesTheCleric said. I just want to remark that hit dice come in two types, Racial Hit Dice and hit dice from class levels. The PCs will only have RHD if they take weird non-PHB races like the Gnoll. RHD are marked in the creature entry. Most creatures with 1 RHD can exchange it for a HD form a class level.

[Malimar]

What the others said, plus:

The basic rule for calculating Encounter Level, so you have it as a guideline to start with (the tool GilesTheCleric linked is excellent, but it does help to understand the theory behind it), is that every time you double the number of creatures, EL goes up by 2.

So take CR1 wolf skeletons: two skeletons would be EL3, four would be EL5, eight would be EL7, and at around eight monsters the system completely breaks down because a horde of weaklings can be easily dispatched with a single fireball or whatever.

The rule is different for creatures with CR lower than 1. Those, you just add, until you hit 1. Three CR1/3 human skeletons is equal to EL1, and after that the doubling rule applies, so six would be EL3, and the system breaks down before you hit twelve.

[ericgrau]

Not sure if you mean effective character level (ECL) or encounter level (EL).

ECL = effective character level = level adjustment + racial hit dice + class levels. Someone with an ECL of 10 should play alongside someone who is level 10 in a class (assuming he has no LA and no RHD). For experience and balance purposes treat him as a level 10 character. For game rule purposes such as spells treat his total HD as RHD + CL, ignoring LA. Note that LA is determined based on characters made only with the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual I, and often they round up. So for more optimized characters or races that should be LA 0.5, they can be painfully not worth it to the player. Consider decreasing the LA or giving out small bonuses to the race in those situations. Also realize that RHD acts like partial LA since it's weaker than class levels but better than LA. So a creature with a lot of RHD is similar to one with a lot of LA and should be reduced more, though not as much as it would if it were pure LA. If your group is bad at optimizing or uses mainly core, I've actually run the numbers a bit and found that it isn't off by more than 0.5. Maybe some minor +2 stat boosts are nice here and there *cough* gnoll *cough*, but you don't need to reduce LA for such a gaming group. Also of note that in spite of popular myth LA is much more painful at low level than high. Again I ran the numbers on a few MM I races. The myth is the abilities get diluted at high level. But actually the LA usually gets diluted even more and having pitiful low level HP and so forth is far worse. So even without a group of optimizers it can be nice to temporarily reduce LA at low level (or reduce it more if you already did).

EL = encounter level. A routine fight is a fight where a party of 4 of level X goes against EL X (some resources expended but low risk). A trivial fight is EL X-4 (virtually zero resources expended and no risk), an easy fight is EL X-2 (minimal resources expended, almost no risk), a challenging fight is EL X+2 (some resources expended and a player might die), and an overwhelming fight is EL X+4 (all out battle and possible TPK). Note that again depending on the situation, terrain, player skill, player makeup vs monster makeup (special abilities, proper counters), etc. actually difficulty may vary. Again player optimization may also affect actual difficulty, especially with splatbooks letting the players take on higher EL fights. Having fewer or less than 4 players also affects things. Fewer than 4 can cause luck to be a much bigger factor, especially with 1 player frequently faced with instant death from a single lucky roll. More than 4 players can mean individual players can die from what should be an easy encounter for such a large group, especially if monsters focus their attacks on one player or if it's a solo monster. This is a very rough guideline. Be conservative in your challenges until you've done a few and see how your players respond. Again adjust as needed for your group. For a solo monster EL = CR. For a group use the above linked calculator from GilesTheCleric.

In short ECL = LA + RHD + CL, EL is based on CR and the calculator GilesTheCleric linked, and is a *routine* (not challenging) fight for a 4 man party of that ECL. Add or subtract to difficulty as needed. And most of all, these are all rough guidelines that you may need to adjust a bit. Hope that helped.

[Uncle Pine]

If you are actually asking about Encounter Level (EL) works, then the aforelinked Encounter Calculator (http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/) should clear your doubts. The whole explanation is in the DMG (in the section about rewards if I'm not mistaken), but the Encounter Calculator is a good and automatic sum.
Instead, if you're looking for a comprehensive explanation about Effective Character Level, Urpriest's Monstrous Monster Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?207928-Urpriest-s-Monstrous-Monster-Handbook) will be an amazing read for you.