Questions To Chapter Six

[Nightmare]

Hello,

I am currently preparing a major battle involving several units and heroes. I have most of the basics down (seems pretty good system by the way), but I have some serious doubts as to how to interpret the Heroes EL.

I have difficulty determining the encounter level of a given character with regard to mass combat. Any pointers, anyone?

Maybe it is just me, but I have serious trouble getting from DMG p. 100 to determining EL for characters in the mass combat system.

Other than that, I think the chapter seems very well written, and fairly consistent. There are a few things which are not entire consistent (I will try to point them out later when I get the time), but overall it seems good. I specially like the way the various units are made modular, so it is possible to tailor a specific unit to suit ones needs. E.g. I built two special units, or named units, for the battle and it was very easy and straight forward. The only thing I have difficulty with, is determining the heroes EL.

[Mark_Aurel]

A character's CR equals his character level. The EL of a party of characters is determined in the same way it is for monsters in this case. For instance, two characters of CR 6 is an EL 8 encounter; four characters of CR 6 is an EL 10 encounter, and so on. Determining this is easiest if all characters are of the same level, of course - for other cases, the DMG gives a good run-down on this. Otherwise, base EL around the highest-level character in a party and determine how much the other characters add to his power.

There's one essential error in the playtest system here, and that is that PCs do not have CRs or ELs in the standard sense - PCs tend to have much more equipment than equivalent NPCs, which makes some of the calculations come out differently. If you're asking about a party of PCs, I'd adjust their overall EL for this purpose up by one or two levels, if you use a wealth level per the DMG, and depending on their levels (the higher the level, the greater the discrepancy in the PCs' favor).

[RaspK_FOG]

An idea for changing the overall (party) EL is this: increase the EL by 1 for every 5 party levels. An interesting side-effect is that the party's EL adjustment I propose is affected by the number of PCs as well. For every 4 PCs, calculate their EL adjustment, then add up the adjustments up to their own EL using the EL table.

[Nightmare]

Originally posted by Mark_Aurel@Aug 14 2003, 10:13 PM
A character's CR equals his character level. The EL of a party of characters is determined in the same way it is for monsters in this case. For instance, two characters of CR 6 is an EL 8 encounter; four characters of CR 6 is an EL 10 encounter, and so on.

So, if I have 3 characters, two are level 7, and one is level 5. This would give me an EL of what? 10-11? Two level 7 = EL 9 + 1 level 5 = EL10-11?

[Mark_Aurel]

So, if I have 3 characters, two are level 7, and one is level 5. This would give me an EL of what? 10-11? Two level 7 = EL 9 + 1 level 5 = EL10-11?

Basically. A 7th-level plus a 5th-level character is EL 8. Two 7th-level characters are EL 9. EL 8 and EL 9 makes for EL 10-11; I'd err on the high side if they are PCs, and even add +1 more to account for that, depending on their equipment, making them as high as EL 12.

[Nightmare]

Originally posted by Mark_Aurel@Aug 15 2003, 10:46 AM
A 7th-level plus a 5th-level character is EL 8. Two 7th-level characters are EL 9. EL 8 and EL 9 makes for EL 10-11; I'd err on the high side if they are PCs, and even add +1 more to account for that, depending on their equipment, making them as high as EL 12.

Gotcha. Thank you for the reply.

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Nightmare+Aug 15 2003, 07:57 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Nightmare @ Aug 15 2003, 07:57 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Mark_Aurel@Aug 15 2003, 10:46 AM
A 7th-level plus a 5th-level character is EL 8. Two 7th-level characters are EL 9. EL 8 and EL 9 makes for EL 10-11; I&#39;d err on the high side if they are PCs, and even add +1 more to account for that, depending on their equipment, making them as high as EL 12.

Gotcha. Thank you for the reply. [/b][/quote]
I got this reply from Skip (Sage Advice) it may shed some light on how to do this.


In a message dated 8/9/03 7:40:39 PM, irdeggman@cox.net writes:

<< This is a question my group had with the 3.0 rules and it wasn&#39;t really
made
any clearer in 3.5, although the other tables and descriptions were. How do you determine the effective party level of a party with more than 4 players?<<


Same way you do for any other party.


>>The assumption for an EL is that an even EL for an average party using
>>4
members is the norm or an even challenge (i.e., the effective party level is the average level of the members with a 4 member party and an even EL would be an EL equal to the effective party level). What if the group size is 7 players with various character levels? For example say the party is comprised of 7 players; 1 at 6th, 2 at 5th level, 2 at 4th level and 2 at 3rd level? >>

Figure the average party level by averaging the levels. If the party has
double the normal number of characters (4) add 2 to the ELs it can handle. Add 1
of the party is only 50% bigger. Your party of seven (about 50% bigger), should
handle ELs about 1 higher.