On the "Paragon" template

[Asmotherion]

I'm about to do it. After a series of quests, I'm about to give my players the option of aquireing the Paragon template. Story reasons give us that they are facing something far beyond their wildest nightmares, and they need to find some way to deal with it.

Beyond the reasons I'm giving it (I'm determined to do so), what are some things I should look out for?

Namelly:

A) How do I balance encounters? As their new CR or by their character level?
B) How do I give them XP? How much Xp do they need to level up?

[Crake]

I'm about to do it. After a series of quests, I'm about to give my players the option of aquireing the Paragon template. Story reasons give us that they are facing something far beyond their wildest nightmares, and they need to find some way to deal with it.

Beyond the reasons I'm giving it (I'm determined to do so), what are some things I should look out for?

Namelly:

A) How do I balance encounters? As their new CR or by their character level?
B) How do I give them XP? How much Xp do they need to level up?

By the time you get to this power level, standard CR structure is well past having completely broken down. The only way you can balance encounters is by feel and experience.

Equally, the amount of xp they would begin to get at these levels is completely arbitrary, so I would just transition to milestone leveling

[Biggus]

A) How do I balance encounters? As their new CR or by their character level?
B) How do I give them XP? How much Xp do they need to level up?

A) Theoretically I'd say it'd make most sense to use their new CR as their ECL, but I'm not sure how accurate that is in practice. What level are they?
B) Again, I'd treat their CR as their level for levelling up.


By the time you get to this power level, standard CR structure is well past having completely broken down. The only way you can balance encounters is by feel and experience.

Equally, the amount of xp they would begin to get at these levels is completely arbitrary, so I would just transition to milestone leveling

This is very much dependent on how you play. In a high op game CR breaks down completely by around level 13 at the latest. However I'm currently GMing a lowish (but not very low) op game at level 21 and CR and XP are still both working fine.

[Asmotherion]

A) Theoretically I'd say it'd make most sense to use their new CR as their ECL, but I'm not sure how accurate that is in practice. What level are they?
B) Again, I'd treat their CR as their level for levelling up.



This is very much dependent on how you play. In a high op game CR breaks down completely by around level 13 at the latest. However I'm currently GMing a lowish (but not very low) op game at level 21 and CR and XP are still both working fine.

At the moment they are level 2, but after they finish the questline they started (at the ending of which they get the item that enables them to get the Paragon Template), they will be level 10.

[Biggus]

At the moment they are level 2, but after they finish the questline they started (at the ending of which they get the item that enables them to get the Paragon Template), they will be level 10.

Just had a look at the paragon template and for a straightforward melee type like a Barbarian, the +15 CR works out about right. For a full caster it's not going to be that much though, even in a not-particularly-optimized game there's no way big bonuses to AC, HPs and so on are going to equal 9th-level spells, and that's before we get onto epic feats like Multispell. It's harder to put a number on it with casters because so much depends on spell selection, but I suspect it'll be more like +10 to +12 CR (again, in lowish op game).

[Crake]

This is very much dependent on how you play. In a high op game CR breaks down completely by around level 13 at the latest. However I'm currently GMing a lowish (but not very low) op game at level 21 and CR and XP are still both working fine.

Without any serious optimization, the CR rules say that a succubus Iaijutsu Master 5, who has 11 HD, and a high enough iaijutsu bonus to practically one shot any party member is only CR 9.

Even at super low levels, you have that damn crab and allips at CR3.

The CR system is iffy even for unmodified characters, but as soon as you start tinkering (and at high levels, you need to, otherwise you run out of monsters to throw at your party) it gets even worse. Part of it just becomes the fact that “number go up” is a really poor advancement of characters, especially when they go up at different rates, to the point where a nat1 success for one character is a nat20 fail for another, and CR has no way to account for that

[loky1109]

Paragon template has LA. +15 iirc. But I don't think it's a good idea.

[Crake]

Paragon template has LA. +15 iirc. But I don't think it's a good idea.

I see this often quoted, but i never actually see a substantial source for the assertion

[loky1109]

I see this often quoted, but i never actually see a substantial source for the assertion
3.5 Update Booklet.

[Crake]

3.5 Update Booklet.

Nope, I checked that, and then double checked it again just now after reading your post, not in there.

[Maat Mons]

According to the table on page 156 of Epic Level Handbook, a Paragon Mind Flayer has ECL 26. Since Mind Flayer by itself has ECL 15, that implies the Paragon template has LA +11.

[Quertus]

According to the table on page 156 of Epic Level Handbook, a Paragon Mind Flayer has ECL 26. Since Mind Flayer by itself has ECL 15, that implies the Paragon template has LA +11.

My limited testing placed the Paragon template at around LA +10. So +11 sounds reasonable - at least as reasonable as the rest of the terribly unbalanced system.

[Crake]

According to the table on page 156 of Epic Level Handbook, a Paragon Mind Flayer has ECL 26. Since Mind Flayer by itself has ECL 15, that implies the Paragon template has LA +11.

Except that table was actually written before mindflayers were given an ECL of 15. The earliest record I can find of mindflayers being attributed to having an ECL of 15 was in savage species, released in 2003, while the ELH was released in 2002, much more into the 3.0 era, where level adjustment wasn't actually even a thing, but rather monsters were just given flat ECLs that they added onto their class levels, sort of like a proto-level adjustment. Mind flayer was not, however, included as one of those creatures with a proto level adjustment, or an ECL, and since these things were not at all set in stone back then, you can't really use the logic of books that hadn't even come out yet, in determining the LA of a template which explicitly is not given an LA at all, even when given an opportunity in the update booklets.

I'd say paragon creature is probably one of the most extreme cases of "LA should vary, as the bonuses' value varies wildly between both characters and level ranges", and trying to give it a set value is just folly.

[Biggus]

Without any serious optimization, the CR rules say that a succubus Iaijutsu Master 5, who has 11 HD, and a high enough iaijutsu bonus to practically one shot any party member is only CR 9.

Even at super low levels, you have that damn crab and allips at CR3.

The CR system is iffy even for unmodified characters, but as soon as you start tinkering (and at high levels, you need to, otherwise you run out of monsters to throw at your party) it gets even worse. Part of it just becomes the fact that “number go up” is a really poor advancement of characters, especially when they go up at different rates, to the point where a nat1 success for one character is a nat20 fail for another, and CR has no way to account for that

I don't know about Iaijutsu Master specifically, I've never seen it used. But you're right that in some cases, adding specific class levels to a creature can be considerably more or less powerful than the advancement rules suggest.

There are some wildly inaccurate CRs, but they're nearly all in MM2 and FF. There are a handful in 3.5 books, but they're much rarer there and even the worst ones aren't as bad.

And you're right that adding a LOT of HD to a monster often doesn't translate to the official CR adjustment, so at epic levels you do have to be careful.

But these are all just specific problems with the system that you need to be aware of. In general, it still works. I've spent a lot of time looking at inaccurate CRs, and as far as I can tell less than 5% of the published monsters have CRs which are off by more than one, and two-thirds of those are in the aforementioned two books.

[Chronos]

There are some bad CRs even in the core books. For instance, a 4th level kobold adept is CR 1, but would eat a level 2 party for lunch. And a planetar is CR 16, even though it casts as a 17th-level cleric and is strictly better than a cleric in almost every other way.

[RNightstalker]

Except that table was actually written before mindflayers were given an ECL of 15. The earliest record I can find of mindflayers being attributed to having an ECL of 15 was in savage species, released in 2003, while the ELH was released in 2002, much more into the 3.0 era, where level adjustment wasn't actually even a thing, but rather monsters were just given flat ECLs that they added onto their class levels, sort of like a proto-level adjustment. Mind flayer was not, however, included as one of those creatures with a proto level adjustment, or an ECL, and since these things were not at all set in stone back then, you can't really use the logic of books that hadn't even come out yet, in determining the LA of a template which explicitly is not given an LA at all, even when given an opportunity in the update booklets.

I'd say paragon creature is probably one of the most extreme cases of "LA should vary, as the bonuses' value varies wildly between both characters and level ranges", and trying to give it a set value is just folly.


My limited testing placed the Paragon template at around LA +10. So +11 sounds reasonable - at least as reasonable as the rest of the terribly unbalanced system.


According to the table on page 156 of Epic Level Handbook, a Paragon Mind Flayer has ECL 26. Since Mind Flayer by itself has ECL 15, that implies the Paragon template has LA +11.


Paragon template has LA. +15 iirc. But I don't think it's a good idea.

Paragon template is dependent upon the HD of the base creature: up to 6 is +18, 7-15 HD is +15, and 16+HD is +12.

[loky1109]

Paragon template is dependent upon the HD of the base creature: up to 6 is +18, 7-15 HD is +15, and 16+HD is +12.

What is source?

[lylsyly]

ELH p. 210 under challenge rating.

[Biggus]

For instance, a 4th level kobold adept is CR 1, but would eat a level 2 party for lunch.

How do you work that out? As far as I can see its CR should be at least 2:


Dragon, outsider, nonassociated class levels +1 per 2 HD or 2 levels added


Levels in NPC classes are always treated as nonassociated.

Edit: also, there's this, which suggests it should have CR 3 (4 class levels, -1 for adept being an NPC class (DMG p.38)).


When adding class levels to a creature with 1 or less HD, you advance the creature like a character..

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#advancedMonsterChallengeRati ng


And a planetar is CR 16, even though it casts as a 17th-level cleric and is strictly better than a cleric in almost every other way.

There are some bad ones in the MM certainly, but other than arguably the Phasm I'm not aware of any which are off by more than 2. In some 3.0 books there are CRs off by as much as 10.

As for the Planatar specifically, it has very low HPs and relatively low Fort and Will saves even for a CR 16 monster. If you have a way of overcoming SR or use spells which ignore it, it's pretty easy to kill. It is under-CR'd but not that dramatically; I'd rate it at 18 personally.


Paragon template is dependent upon the HD of the base creature: up to 6 is +18, 7-15 HD is +15, and 16+HD is +12.


ELH p. 210 under challenge rating.

It's was errata'd to +15 for all HD. The SRD has the up-to-date version.

[Maat Mons]

It's right in the Kobold entry:


Challenge Rating
Kobolds with levels in NPC classes have a CR equal to their character level -3.

[AvatarVecna]

Yall are confusing CR and LA. ELH provides a table for the ECL of most creatures in it. Including the templated ones.

Paragon LA is either +11 (Rules As Written) or LA +19 (Rules As Intended).

Of course the real answer is that LA is a concept that fundamentally doesn't work because it's a flat increase, and the cost gets more expensive the higher level you are because the difference between lvl 16 and lvl 17 matters more than the difference between lvl 6 and lvl 7.

[Biggus]

It's right in the Kobold entry:

Ah, thank you. And wow, that's definitely going on my list of worst CRs.


Yall are confusing CR and LA. ELH provides a table for the ECL of most creatures in it. Including the templated ones.

Paragon LA is either +11 (Rules As Written) or LA +19 (Rules As Intended).

I can't recall the details right now, but didn't LA work differently in 3.0?


Of course the real answer is that LA is a concept that fundamentally doesn't work because it's a flat increase, and the cost gets more expensive the higher level you are because the difference between lvl 16 and lvl 17 matters more than the difference between lvl 6 and lvl 7.

That's true with level 16 to 17 specifically because of 9th-level spells, but the difference between level 18 and 19 is typically much smaller. And at epic levels it slows down compared to high nonepic levels. So you're certainly right that the value of a level varies considerably, but I don't think it's true that it generally increases as you go up levels.

[AvatarVecna]

I can't recall the details right now, but didn't LA work differently in 3.0?

It's hard to be sure because at least within the ELH it's soo poorly explained that it's hard to tell how they intended it to work. However, what's clear is that LA and CR aren't the same thing, and were never intended to be, so answering the question "what's the LA" with "the CR increase" is wrong. PF kinda works that way, I think, but not 3.5 (even if for a lot of races and templates, the CR is way closer to a reasonable LA than the actual LA).


That's true with level 16 to 17 specifically because of 9th-level spells, but the difference between level 18 and 19 is typically much smaller. And at epic levels it slows down compared to high nonepic levels. So you're certainly right that the value of a level varies considerably, but I don't think it's true that it generally increases as you go up levels.

1) It kinda is. Even if you're not a caster at all, levels get more valuable the higher they are. You get better class features, you have more opportunities to multiclass, you have access to more powerful feats. A fighter 14 can take Melee Weapon Mastery. A paragon fighter 3 can't even take Weapon Specialization. A lvl 15 party can have someone who's finally completed their PrC, and can also have a paragon character who can't even theoretically qualify for the vast majority of them yet.

2) Casters are the default measuring stick. It is a game of magic, and not engaging with the magic system is actively disadvantaging yourself. I'm willing to amend my statement that if you're already playing a beatstick or skillmonkey, paragon is probably a sidegrade at most levels and is at its worst when you first get it. While I maintain that the benefits of lvl X are lower than the benefits of lvl X+1 for most builds, including most mundane builds, I can also acknowledge that the difference is small enough that paragon can overcome it for a lot of them. But a party of all beatsticks and skillmonkeys will fall short frequently, and that doesn't change if they get the paragon upgrade. You need casters in a way that you just don't need noncasters. And for the actually necessary/important classes, LA of any kind is basically a death sentence, because their quadratic advancement is fast enough to be noticeable, especially if you're falling behind.

[Maat Mons]

If you're putting together a list of under-CR-ed encounter ideas, my favorite is the Spectral Creature template (Dragons of Faerun, p109) applied to a Grell (Lords of Madness, p108).

[Quertus]

Paragon template is dependent upon the HD of the base creature: up to 6 is +18, 7-15 HD is +15, and 16+HD is +12.


Yall are confusing CR and LA. ELH provides a table for the ECL of most creatures in it. Including the templated ones.

Paragon LA is either +11 (Rules As Written) or LA +19 (Rules As Intended).

Of course the real answer is that LA is a concept that fundamentally doesn't work because it's a flat increase, and the cost gets more expensive the higher level you are because the difference between lvl 16 and lvl 17 matters more than the difference between lvl 6 and lvl 7.

Yes, there is a lot of conflating CR for LA... or, rather, CR Adjustment for LA, or CR for Level, in this thread. :smallamused:

The Paragon template lists a variable CR adjustment by HD. AFAIK, it does not list a LA.

@AvatarVecna, how do you get "LA +19 (Rules As Intended)" - both the +19 and the RAI halves of that statement?

[AvatarVecna]

@AvatarVecna, how do you get "LA +19 (Rules As Intended)" - both the +19 and the RAI halves of that statement?

To make a long story short: ELH 156 has a table of ECL for a bunch of the epic monsters that's never been overwritten. Even within the book, because LA and ECL are such new concepts, there's basically nothing else in the book that even talks about them at all, so this table is the end all be all of the LA/ECL of creatures in that book. However, the table gets weird if you look at it too long. There's a bunch of monsters that have LA +0, and a few that have negative LA. Ruin swarm is 50 HD but ECL 25? High epic dragons are LA +0? I mean I don't necessarily disagree that +0 would be fitting, or even overly-high, but WotC generally waaaaaay overvalues monster abilities and gives things way too much LA.

There are two other places where the text explicitly lists the LA of a creature:

1) The text describing how LA is supposed to work, which seems to be described by somebody who doesn't really get it, but explicitly lists Winterwight as LA +25, while the table listed Winterwight as ECL 25. (Later errata changed the table listing to ECL 32, but left the part in the text unchanged.)

2) In the monster description for the mercane (under "Mercane characters", it lists that Mercanes have LA +7. They also have HD 7 in their statblock. According to the previously-mentioned table, Mercan is ECL 7.

The RAW is pretty straightforward. For every monster in the table except the mercane and winterwight, there is nothing to contradict it, so the table is their official ECL. With the listed ECL of the paragon mind flayer and some easy math, we find that Paragon is a LA +11 template.

The RAI feels...obvious. The only places in the text that talk about LA other than the table disagree with the table, and in fact list the creature as having LA equal to the ECL the table gave them? This doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out. That column in the table that's labeled "ECL" was supposed to be labeled "LA". If you act on that assumption, there's no longer a ton of LA +0 monsters, and there's no negative LA monsters, and the table agrees with those two pieces of the text, and quick math indicates Paragon is a LA +19 template.

[Crake]

To make a long story short: ELH 156 has a table of ECL for a bunch of the epic monsters that's never been overwritten. Even within the book, because LA and ECL are such new concepts, there's basically nothing else in the book that even talks about them at all, so this table is the end all be all of the LA/ECL of creatures in that book. However, the table gets weird if you look at it too long. There's a bunch of monsters that have LA +0, and a few that have negative LA. Ruin swarm is 50 HD but ECL 25? High epic dragons are LA +0?

The reason for this is because 3.0 handled LA differently, or rather, it didnt have a concept of LA to begin with, rather, monsters simply had an ECL, and their HD was not factored into their “effective level”, which is why you can sometimes get monsters with more HD than their ecl. Part of this reason is because, back in 3.0, not all HD were created equal. Unlike in 3.5, for example, some HD got feats at different rates, and some not at all, regardless of intelligence, so there wasnt the notion of “1HD = 1 level”. That is why you cant take the paragon mind flayer, subtract its HD from its ECL, and say “this is the de facto LA for paragon template”, because it just didnt work like that back then

[Crichton]

monsters simply had an ECL, and their HD was not factored into their “effective level”

Except that they claim that it was factored in, supposedly:



the effective character level (ECL) of any creature more powerful than the standard races in the Player’s Handbook is equal to the creature’s Hit Dice and class levels (if any) plus its level adjustment. This replaces the rule in the Monster Manual that states that a creature’s “monster level” is equal to its Hit Dice.


So, RAW, any ECL published in ELH is a sum of HD, LA, and any class levels they might also have, and any of those factors that are also listed can then be subtracted to find the remainders

[Crake]

Except that they claim that it was factored in, supposedly:




So, RAW, any ECL published in ELH is a sum of HD, LA, and any class levels they might also have, and any of those factors that are also listed can then be subtracted to find the remainders

Sorry, to clarify, the HD isn't factored in as a 1:1 hd:level basis, but more that the monster as a whole was considered and graded based on it's abilities and HD, and stats as a whole, rather than "here's what it's HD is valued as based on level, and then we'll apply a level adjustment based on how much we think it's abilities are valued ontop of that". My point was more that LA as we know it today is not appliccable to the ECL of monsters back then, because HD was not given a 1:1 level value, and we're only assuming that the mind flayer's original ECL was 15, when that was only codified in savage species, after the new, properly implemented, and practically 3.5-ified LA system had come out.

[Crichton]

Sorry, to clarify, the HD isn't factored in as a 1:1 hd:level basis, but more that the monster as a whole was considered and graded based on it's abilities and HD, and stats as a whole, rather than "here's what it's HD is valued as based on level, and then we'll apply a level adjustment based on how much we think it's abilities are valued ontop of that". My point was more that LA as we know it today is not appliccable to the ECL of monsters back then, because HD was not given a 1:1 level value, and we're only assuming that the mind flayer's original ECL was 15, when that was only codified in savage species, after the new, properly implemented, and practically 3.5-ified LA system had come out.


I guess I'm not tracking your logic. Even if we only look inside ELH itself, we have the formula they claim for calculating ECL (HD+LA+classlevels), and we have published ECLs for monsters. So you can subtract the HD from that listed ECL, and the remainder HAS TO BE the LA+class levels, and nothing else. And if it's a monster without any class levels in its statblock or entry, then the remainder is, by definition, by RAW, the LA of that monster.


There may be conflicts in the actual values of the numbers themselves, if they're listed in multiple places, or text vs table, etc, but the formula is right there.



So a paragon mind flayer is ECL 26, and has 8HD and zero class levels. Base mind flayer has LA +7(in the 3.5 monster manual. Doesn't matter what it was before that, even if it was different or wonky). So does that not mean that the paragon template has an LA of the remaining +11?

And an Old Prismatic Dragon has ECL 58, and 58HD, so it has LA +0 (by the math. A sane person would have that be LA -)
A ruin Swarm has ECL 25, and 50HD, so do the math on that


Yeah, it's wonky, and the numbers are silly, but they're RAW, and it's not, as you claimed above, because "3.0 handled LA differently, or rather, it didnt have a concept of LA to begin with, rather, monsters simply had an ECL, and their HD was not factored into their “effective level” "

They did, by their own words, have LA as a concept in ELH, and they DID, again by their own words, factor in their HD to their effective level.

AvatarVecna is right that it seems like they had two or more different authors who didn't understand the concept, and we do have several text vs table discrepancies, etc. But RAW we have a formula, and we have ECL numbers that supposedly includes all the variables in that formula


So perhaps LA as we know it today *shouldn't* be applicable to monsters from those older sources, but RAW, it is, because they made the claim that it was, and even claimed that they used the same formula for ECL that the 3.5 DMG uses, with LA and RHD and class levels all included

[Crake]

I guess I'm not tracking your logic. Even if we only look inside ELH itself, we have the formula they claim for calculating ECL (HD+LA+classlevels), and we have published ECLs for monsters. So you can subtract the HD from that listed ECL, and the remainder HAS TO BE the LA+class levels, and nothing else. And if it's a monster without any class levels in its statblock or entry, then the remainder is, by definition, by RAW, the LA of that monster.

Actually, if you read the section in the ELH, it just mentions "level adjustment" when discussing the ECL of a creature, no mention of HD whatsoever. Creatures back then were simply given a "level adjustment" value for their whole package, and templates didn't have a flat LA value given to them, so the only thing we can infer from the ELH table that has ECL is that a 3.0 paragon mindflayer with 3.0 aberration HD, and 3.0 mindflayer abilities is considered to be ECL 26. You can't go and apply retroactive logic on the ECL and level adjustment of a 3.5 mindflayer with 3.5 abberation HD, and 3.5 abilities on that creature of the past and then try and use that as definitive proof of the definitive LA value of a 3.0 template. Especially when that LA value is actually LOWER than the CR adjustment of the template, which has NEVER been the case as far as I'm aware.

[AvatarVecna]

There's definitely a good bit of disagreement even within the book on the subject.


MONSTERS AS EPIC CHARACTERS
As first introduced in the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Setting (and discussed in detail in Savage Species), the effective character level (ECL) of any creature more powerful than the standard races in the Player’s Handbook is equal to the creature’s Hit Dice and class levels (if any) plus its level adjustment. This replaces the rule in the Monster Manual that states that a creature’s “monster level” is equal to its Hit Dice. Regardless of its ECL, a monster with class levels uses the base attack bonus and base save bonus progressions of its class (rather than the progression shown on Table 1–1) until it has 20 character levels. Beginning with its 21st character level, it uses the progressions shown on Table 1–1. In any other place in this book where “character level” is indicated, you can use effective character level instead. For example, a creature with a level adjustment of +5 who is also a 13th-level fighter/3rd-level blackguard is ECL 21 and eligible to select an epic feat provided he meets the prerequisites. Savage Species has level adjustments for most monsters in the Monster Manual. Use these modifiers to estimate appropriate modifiers for other nonstandard PC races that you might choose to include.

The bolded section and the underlined section only agree if the LA +5 creature in question has no racial HD. The first part reads like 3.5 LA and the second part reads like what Crake is describing.


When creating a character using a nonstandard race, add that race’s level adjustment to the character’s class level (or levels) to determine its actual character level. In this special circumstance, the character level is now referred to as effective character level (ECL). For instance, a winterwight with a level adjustment of +25 who is also a 1st-level sorcerer has an ECL of 26.

This certainly makes it sound like the ECL is not taking HD into account, just class levels and LA.

Epic Level Handbook is a 3.0 book about epic levels that touches on how LA/ECL work. Savage Species is a 3.0 book about how LA/ECL work.


Effective Character Level_(ECL): A creature’s effective character level is the sum of its level adjustment, Hit Dice, and class levels. Use character level for all game functions except awarding experience, determining starting equipment, and determining how much experience the character needs to gain a new level. All three of those functions use effective character level instead.


Starting ECL: A monster’s starting ECL is defined as:

Base creature’s Hit Dice + level adjustment.

A monster character’s starting ECL should be equal to or less than the party’s average character level. In the latter case, add class levels to the monster character until its ECL equals the party’s average character level.

[quote=SS pg 21]



Monster
Type
Hit Dice
LA
Starting ECL
Base Skill Points


Mind Flayer
Aberration
8
+7
15
(2+Int mod)x11



Without leaving 3.0, we can still do the math. If the ELH column is correctly labeled as ECL, paragon mind flayer is ECL 26, and mind flayer is ECL 15, therefore paragon is making a difference of 11 ECL. Since that includes no HD or class levels, it must be LA. If the ELH column is supposed to be labeled LA, paragon mind flayer is LA +26, and mind flayer is LA +7, so paragon is LA +19.

How LA and ECL used to work is irrelevant. 3.5 updated a lot of stuff, including how LA and ECL work, and not including the new LA/ECL for a lot of the monsters in the ELH. 3.0 material that wasn't updated is grandfathered in. Paragon Mind Flayer was either ECL 26 or LA 26 under the old system. Whether that could've been used to figure out the LA/ECL of a Paragon Human or not doesn't matter, because these days, how LA and ECL work is very different. Under the current rules, those things can very much be mathed out. The change to ECL to include HD, without a simultaneous change to the listed ECL, would theoretically make paragon cheaper today than it was in the past. That's silly, but that's the rules as they exist.

[Crake]

There's definitely a good bit of disagreement even within the book on the subject.



The bolded section and the underlined section only agree if the LA +5 creature in question has no racial HD. The first part reads like 3.5 LA and the second part reads like what Crake is describing.



This certainly makes it sound like the ECL is not taking HD into account, just class levels and LA.

Epic Level Handbook is a 3.0 book about epic levels that touches on how LA/ECL work. Savage Species is a 3.0 book about how LA/ECL work.





[quote=SS pg 21]



Monster
Type
Hit Dice
LA
Starting ECL
Base Skill Points


Mind Flayer
Aberration
8
+7
15
(2+Int mod)x11



Without leaving 3.0, we can still do the math. If the ELH column is correctly labeled as ECL, paragon mind flayer is ECL 26, and mind flayer is ECL 15, therefore paragon is making a difference of 11 ECL. Since that includes no HD or class levels, it must be LA. If the ELH column is supposed to be labeled LA, paragon mind flayer is LA +26, and mind flayer is LA +7, so paragon is LA +19.

How LA and ECL used to work is irrelevant. 3.5 updated a lot of stuff, including how LA and ECL work, and not including the new LA/ECL for a lot of the monsters in the ELH. 3.0 material that wasn't updated is grandfathered in. Paragon Mind Flayer was either ECL 26 or LA 26 under the old system. Whether that could've been used to figure out the LA/ECL of a Paragon Human or not doesn't matter, because these days, how LA and ECL work is very different. Under the current rules, those things can very much be mathed out. The change to ECL to include HD, without a simultaneous change to the listed ECL, would theoretically make paragon cheaper today than it was in the past. That's silly, but that's the rules as they exist.

For reference, I did note that savage species codified some of that, however, like the draconomicon, savage species is in essence a proto 3.5 book, and includes a lot of systems and content that would eventually be included in 3.5, plus the book came out over a year after the ELH.

In the end, my point is simply that, in such a proto-system, trying to infer the LA of a template doesn’t really work out.

End of the day however, its kinda irrelevant for the OP, as, if all the PCs have the template, then you dont need to stack them against each other for balance, the only issue becomes how to divvy out xp and balance encounters, but the answers to that are “use milestones” and “play it by ear until you get a feel for what they can handle”

[Beni-Kujaku]

There are a few things to consider here. First, while "Level Adjustment" hasn't always meant the same thing, "Equivalent Class level", or ECL always meant the total number you have to add before class levels. The first mention of playable monsters is (as far as I know) in the Manual of the Planes 3.0 (FRCS has introduced LA before, but only for creatures with no RHD). In that book, everything is very clearly explained, with a table and everything. The level adjustment was, at that point, simply synonymous with the ECL of a classless monster, with no mention of having to add the RHD. The Spinagon had a level adjustment of +4, and a Spinagon sorcerer 1 was supposed to be equivalent to a sorcerer 5, despite the spinagon having 3 RHD. More interestingly, the Uridezu had a level adjustment of +5, despite... Having 7 RHD. What? Negative level adjustment? Blasphemy! Well, yes, but also not necessarily, you'll see why a bit later. The point here is that though the ECL adjustment was always positive, it could be lower than the number of RHD of the monster.

Fast-forward a few months, the Epic Level Handbook is released. The ELH explicitly refers to Savage Species for character level adjustment, but all sources I found say that SS was published after ELH, which makes me think that there were still a bit of confusion between the two books. At this point, in the ELH, they still weren't sure they had a good idea of what they wanted their LAs to be. We have a big section about level adjustment, and once again LA and "classless ECL" are used basically interchangeably. In fact most of the section is copy-pasted from Manual of the Planes. It's pretty clear it's supposed to be the same system. And once again, we have negative level adjustments, with the Ruin Swarm being the biggest offender. However, there is one key difference.

[...]these characters only get the special abilities naturally attributed to their monster class : natural armor, natural weapons, special attacks, and any extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural abilities the creature has.

[...] nor do these characters gain Hit Dice or other special powers from their “monster class” other than the special abilities naturally attributed to that race.

Yep, the ELH clarifies what wasn't really clear in the MotP: at this point in development, monstrous characters didn't get any racial hit dice from their race

That's how Mercanes can both be LA+7 and ECL 7, that explains why we seemingly had negative LAs in complete opposition to WotC's politics in later years, where they tried to inflate LA as much as possible. And that explains why they use LA and ECL synonymously while they refer to SS for characters with LA.
Do note that using the ECLs in the ELH while keeping all the creatures' hit dice would break absolutely nothing, especially in the already ultra-high-power environment of epic levels, I'm only interpreting what is written in the books here. Also, if you're worried about creatures with negative LA getting too many epic feats, remember that being considered [Epic] takes into account level adjustment (ELH p.25).

[Quertus]

The first mention of playable monsters is (as far as I know) in the Manual of the Planes 3.0 (FRCS has introduced LA before, but only for creatures with no RHD).

Not the 3.0 DMG? :smallconfused:

[Beni-Kujaku]

Not the 3.0 DMG? :smallconfused:

Indeed. It's pretty weird that they kept the RHD in the DMG then removed it for the ELH... However, even in the DMG, LA and ECL were synonymous, which is a point for allowing the negative LAs in MotP and ELH.