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Yeah, I understand that its generally special abilities that crank that up. I'm just irked because it leaves them underpowered against level appropriate encounters. Not all of them are that bad, I'd say the Worg makes sense as an ECL 5; but all of the outsiders, dragons, and other creatures with lots of special abilities get shafted. I'm not intending to rant really I suppose... I'm wondering if anyone has come up with a better way to measure these.
Looking for example at a young brass dragon. Its an ECL 15 for the purposes of being a cohort. Most CR15-17 encounters, which would be appropriate for the party its attached to, would eat it alive.
Its defenses, 76hp, AC 21, Fort +9, Ref +8, Will +7.
Average save DCs at this points are likely going to be in the range of 24 or higher, and its not uncommon for single CR 15-17 monsters to be capable of doing in excess of 76 points of damage with a single attack, nevermind actual spell casters or slightly optimized melee or ranged combatants.
It just doesn't seem like special abilities add up the same as raw staying power and hit dice.
Flight, Blindsense, Greater Teleport at will, are all cool, but they don't do much to increase survivability except in specific situations or running away.
You can always ignore that table and use the monsters level as if they were PCs for their effective cohort levels, but I wouldn't recomend using it even for PCs, because it ends up being overpowered.
Maybe using the CR +1 as level ¨adjustment¨, intead of simply the CR, may do the trick.
Humbly,
Yawar
*ponders* not a bad idea. That seems to be the biggest issue, that special abilities don't make up for the lack of hit dice when you get to higher levels. CR+1, or maybe +2 as the ECL feels like it might work. if We go with +2, an Erinyes would be an ECL 10, which would mean you'd need to be 12th level before being able to acquire one as a cohort. A young brass dragon would be an ECL 9.
hmmm...
Those seem like they might be slightly low, but not by much. What if it was by creature type?
Dragons, Fey, and Outsiders CR+3
Monstrous Humanoids, Magical Beasts and Undead +2
Humanoids +1
Something like that maybe?
In another post I reversed engenired a formula for monstrous PCs from long past Noble Drow discussion. Being may main issue that, under the current provisional rules, a CR X critter was usable as a level X PC when said critter, with ability adjustments for PC, being a CR X +1 as PC and a PC of that level being CR -1.
Taking this into account I came up with:
¨Level Adjustment¨= CR + 1 - Class Levels - (NPC Class Levels)*
*If any
The problem with is this that it doesn´t take into account special abilities, but is a close aproximition in terms of raw power.
Note that most special abilities become redundant as the players level up so any extra ¨level tax¨ that the cohorts take for their extra abilities probably should be taken away as they level, much like the ¨level adjustment¨ for PCs.
Humbly,
Yawar