[3.5] Level Adjusted Creatures: CR = LA?

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

Pathfinder, last I heard, had a similar system where level adjustment = challenge rating regardless of hit dice. I assume certain creatures are unfit for a typical campaign (mindless, no limbs, etc.), but in general, how well does this system work for 3.5?

[Inevitability]

I'm pretty sure that in pathfinder ECl still can't exceed HD.

On the topic of your question: not all that great. Monsters are often massively over- or under-CR'ed, and various abilities are more or less powerful on a PC than on a monster.

Ask yourself this: would you let a player play a shadow at ECL 3?

[Troacctid]

Templates are super overpowered. I would never allow this.

Many monster abilities are also much more powerful in the hands of a PC. It's quite common for a monster's CR to simply not even consider abilities that aren't useful in a single combat, even if they're very powerful, like a lantern archon's at-will greater teleport or a vampire's ability to create spawn.

Then there's the problem of monsters like the marrutact (CR 5 with casting as a 5th level wizard), hobgoblin warsoul (CR 8 with casting as a 9th level wizard), sylph (CR 5 with casting as a 7th level sorcerer), and other monsters with racial spellcasting that are now suddenly rendering actual casting classes obsolete by being strictly superior. Balance-wise, this is clearly unacceptable.

[OldTrees1]

CR = LA(not pathfinder) or CR = ECL(pathfinder) both suffer from fundamentally flawed understanding of what is being talked about. Yes, WotC messed up their estimates badly enough in 3.5 than a completely dissociated statistic is generally more accurate. However using an unrelated statistic throws away precision.


ECL and CR are unrelated because what a PC goes through is notable different than what an Encounter goes through.
1) Remember why people dislike fumbles? Individual PCs are meant to be around for a longer time than individual monsters. As such PCs are more likely to eventually suffer a significant string of bad rolls than an individual monster. The reverse is also true in that PCs are more likely to eventually see a string of great rolls. As such any potential for long lasting results of being lucky/unlucky impacts ECL in a way it would not impact CR.

2) Limited use abilities are stronger for shorted lived beings for the same number of uses (Daze 3/day is much stronger for an Encounter than for a PC). However longer lived beings benefit from limited use abilities recharging (Wish 1/year is much stronger for a PC than for an Encounter). As such limited use abilities can result in dramatically different ECL and CR

3) Finally a big one: Out of Combat Utility! PCs are creative and even if they were not some abilities readily lend themselves to be much stronger outside of combat (and CR only accounts for value inside the encounter). Wish 1/year is not much in a combat but outside of combat it is very powerful.


There are more differences of course but my main point is this. While using CR as ECL is often more accurate than WotC's estimates. You, as a DM, can do so much better than that by evaluating the monsters your Players want to play.

[Endarire]

This answers the question in a way I suspected it would be: ECL and CR are unrelated (and should remain that way), and that a fair ECL for a creature is usually case-specific.

Thanks, all! Smile! Jesus loves you!

[Troacctid]

They're not unrelated—obviously there's a positive correlation between them, and they're both measuring similar things. They should line up to some extent. It's just that they serve different masters, and as a result they often fail to translate 1:1.

I think you could have an interesting game using CR instead of ECL. But the landscape of that game would be very different. Exotic monsters and HD abuse would probably be dominant strategies. Template-stacking would be mandatory. It would turn a lot of optimization strategies on their head, and most traditional races and classes would be rendered obsolete.