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Greengiant
2008-10-27, 10:44 PM
Hello! I am Greengiant, here on behalf of our DM, and myself. We are relatively new, and we don't know much about the ECL of our party. The rule version is 3.5. In our party we have:

4 Human Wizard
4 Human Cleric
4 Human Warblade
4 Cantremember Rogue
4 Human Ranger

The Warblade I think should be made into an adjusted level of 5 because he's crazy overpowered (damn the book of nine swords).

How would we figure out our effective character level. It says for four people it's the average level. But since we have five, the ECL should be higher, by how much, exactly? And how would this scale with the number of party members? Many thanks! :smallcool:

Rei_Jin
2008-10-27, 10:48 PM
The way that we do it in our home group, is that for each player beyond the first 4, you increase the CR of the encounters that you take on by 1. So...

4 level 4 characters = CR4 for combat
5 level 4 = CR5
10 level 4 = CR 10

Of course, this doesn't mean that 10 level 4 characters could take on a CR10 dragon. Instead of using 1 large opponent, you use several smaller ones. This gives a better chance for your party to defeat them without dying horribly.

Greengiant
2008-10-27, 10:52 PM
The way that we do it in our home group, is that for each player beyond the first 4, you increase the CR of the encounters that you take on by 1. So...

4 level 4 characters = CR4 for combat
5 level 4 = CR5
10 level 4 = CR 10

Of course, this doesn't mean that 10 level 4 characters could take on a CR10 dragon. Instead of using 1 large opponent, you use several smaller ones. This gives a better chance for your party to defeat them without dying horribly.

Thanks! Also, I find that with one big monster, it's hard to take down, but I've also found that with alot of smaller monsters, it's about as hard. I believe the sweet spot for easiness of battle is two or three monsters.

Greengiant
2008-10-27, 10:55 PM
But what about mixed levels, since our character has the altered level of the warblade (Level 5), how would this affect the ECL?

Knaight
2008-10-27, 10:57 PM
Call it 6, although given about 2 more levels the war blade falls behind(it iterative attacks bring everybody up, and spells will catch up by then).

Proven_Paradox
2008-10-27, 10:57 PM
The Warblade I think should be made into an adjusted level of 5 because he's crazy overpowered (damn the book of nine swords).

Mmm, warblade only seems overpowered when the casters aren't working at their average potential. What are the cleric and wizard doing, if I may ask? And what's making the warblade overpowered? (I'm a huge advocate of the Tome of Battle, and tend to rush to its defense when it's maligned. Apologies for the inevitable thread derailing.)

Anyway, as I understand the CR system, with a fifth person of the same level at the rest, your party's CR would be one higher than normal; so you should fight combats of 1 CR higher than a party with one fewer member. I've never been terribly clear on how that works for parties with more than four people Now, the CR system is far from perfect, and I encourage your DM to do a lot of eyeballing in addition to calculating proper CRs. If the wizard start doing things like wizards should, he can flatten an entire encounter meant to be challenging with one spell. There are certain monsters that are listed at a certain CR, but would crush a party not prepared for them. One has to be careful with this sort of thing.

The Glyphstone
2008-10-27, 10:58 PM
Don't make the warblade count as a higher ECL just because of his class. If he's playing a non-standard race that has racial HD or a LA, then he would have ECL5, but it's not fair to him just because he's a warblade. If you think ToB is OP (the power 3 casters are laughing), you should ban it or just weaken the classes. It probably does look powerful right now, but you're at level 4, right before the casters start their meteoric ascent - the PERFECT time to be a warblade, basically.

Rei_Jin
2008-10-27, 11:00 PM
But what about mixed levels, since our character has the altered level of the warblade (Level 5), how would this affect the ECL?

To work that out, you're now looking at the Average Party Level, or APL as I've had to call it.

You add together the Effective Character Level (ECL) of all your characters, and then divide it by the number of characters.

As an example

Level 4 Fighter
Level 6 Wizard
Level 7 Rogue
Level 5 Cleric

4 + 6 + 7 + 5 = 22

22/4 = 5.5

So, you balance it out. Some encounters will be a CR 5, others will be a CR 6.

In your case, the difference to the power level is minimal. It's like having a barbarian in a party compared to a wizard at low levels. Just let it ride for now, within a few levels you won't be noticing that much of a difference.

The main thing with the classes out of the Book of Nine Swords is that they are more naturally optimised than the classes in the PHB. Thus, when you're learning the game they can come across as more powerful.

Greengiant
2008-10-27, 11:04 PM
It probably does look powerful right now, but you're at level 4, right before the casters start their meteoric ascent - the PERFECT time to be a warblade, basically.

Oh, I see now, he just scales differently, ah.

And, as for what the wizard and cleric are doing, the cleric is using mainly inflict wounds or something like that, and the wizard, during the battle that I am basing these assumptions on, he was swamped (me) by three guys, and only escaped because he succeeded on his concentration to cast invisibility, and get out of there.

Knaight
2008-10-27, 11:05 PM
Yes, but then you need to consider the amount of people. Every time you double the amount of people(except for 1 to 2), you add 2 to the Cr, so find the APL, then go from there, with 5 people add 3 to the cr, meaning that you have 8-9, meaning that a 9th level monster should be a tough fight, although most of the time you will be dealing with 5th and 6th level monsters.

streakster
2008-10-27, 11:08 PM
Oh, I see now, he just scales differently, ah.

And, as for what the wizard and cleric are doing, the cleric is using mainly inflict wounds or something like that, and the wizard, during the battle that I am basing these assumptions on, he was swamped (me) by three guys, and only escaped because he succeeded on his concentration to cast invisibility, and get out of there.

For your perusal. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18500)

Now pity the poor Warblade...

Rei_Jin
2008-10-27, 11:09 PM
And, as for what the wizard and cleric are doing, the cleric is using mainly inflict wounds or something like that, and the wizard, during the battle that I am basing these assumptions on, he was swamped (me) by three guys, and only escaped because he succeeded on his concentration to cast invisibility, and get out of there.


There are a couple of different ways to play (this is an understatement), but from the sound of it your party is trying something unusual. Generally speaking, casting Inflict spells is a poor use of a cleric. He could instead be casting Cure spells on his allies to keep them fighting longer, casting buffing spells to make people fight better, or even just whacking things with his weapon (he does get heavy armor proficiency for a reason, after all). Also, a Wizard should be protected at all times, whether by his own spells, an ally, or some kind of cover on the battlefield. He won't survive in combat (unless he's built specifically for it), but I'm thinking that you know that already :smallamused:

Just hang in there, and I'm sure you and your friends will work through it all just fine.

Greengiant
2008-10-27, 11:12 PM
Thank you all. Let me recap what I've learned, and you can tell me if this is correct.

First, I'd find the average character level of the party.
Example: 4 5 6 7 4 = 5.2

BUT since there is one more character in the party, I'd add one more to the ECL to get to a final ECL of: 6.2 for this party. Correct?

Greengiant
2008-10-27, 11:17 PM
There are a couple of different ways to play (this is an understatement), but from the sound of it your party is trying something unusual. Generally speaking, casting Inflict spells is a poor use of a cleric. He could instead be casting Cure spells on his allies to keep them fighting longer, casting buffing spells to make people fight better, or even just whacking things with his weapon (he does get heavy armor proficiency for a reason, after all). Also, a Wizard should be protected at all times, whether by his own spells, an ally, or some kind of cover on the battlefield. He won't survive in combat (unless he's built specifically for it), but I'm thinking that you know that already :smallamused:

Just hang in there, and I'm sure you and your friends will work through it all just fine.

Thanks for the advice, but I'd like to point out, no one needed healing at this time from the cleric, except the wizard, who was, at that time, too far away. Also, the reason the wizard had no protection is because we were totally not expecting a fight soon. The wizard was about 70 feet away from the cleric and warblade, together, and around 55 feet away from the rogue and ranger.

The baddies, on the other hand, were 5 feet. :smallwink:

Rei_Jin
2008-10-27, 11:21 PM
Thank you all. Let me recap what I've learned, and you can tell me if this is correct.

First, I'd find the average character level of the party.
Example: 4 5 6 7 4 = 5.2

BUT since there is one more character in the party, I'd add one more to the ECL to get to a final ECL of: 6.2 for this party. Correct?

That is correct!

And in regards to getting jumped, it happens. Sometimes you just don't expect a fight, and the bad guys manage to ambush you. It's times like that that a strategic retreat is in order. Which you probably did anyway. And invisibility is a great option.

Another good one is Mirror Image, which gives them more targets to try and pick from, so that if someone DOES get into melee with you, you've got a pretty good chance of not taking damage that round.

Iku Rex
2008-10-27, 11:31 PM
("Effective Character Level" is not the correct term here. It's used when players play monster races more powerful than the PHB races. Your ECL is your character level + your level adjustment.)

Greengiant
2008-10-27, 11:33 PM
("Effective Character Level" is not the correct term here. It's used when players play monster races more powerful than the PHB races. Your ECL is your character level + your level adjustment.)

This started from when my DM and I were looking at:

http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm

and were confused as to what we should put into this tool in the ECL section.

Rei_Jin
2008-10-27, 11:35 PM
I was using the term Average Party Level, or APL. There are that many acronyms in D&D that I'm not surprised people make mistakes. It hardly matters, because he knows what he's talking about, and so does anyone else who reads his post.

Be nice to new players, they'll stick around longer that way :smallwink:

Iku Rex
2008-10-28, 12:04 AM
This started from when my DM and I were looking at:

http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm

and were confused as to what we should put into this tool in the ECL section.Right. Since none of you are playing extra-powerful monster races, ECL = level. (Level adjustment is +0.)

Number of player characters: 5
ECL : 4