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View Full Version : Expedition to Castle Ravenloft - CR Question (SPOILER)



Nargrakhan
2008-12-27, 12:50 AM
I need serious help understanding something about the vampires in Expedition to Castle Ravenloft (3.5 naturally).

EDIT: Careful... I kinda spoil with the NPC's. Don't look if you're going to be a PC... :smallbiggrin:

Count Strahd is a vampire necromancer 10... however his CR rating is a "mere" 15. According to the SRD, adding the vampire template to a character results in a +8 CR. Thus doesn't Nec10 + Vampire = CR 18?

The confusion hits me harder with the other vampires: crazy "kill-kill-kill" Barbarian 5 vampire and hot chickie Sorcerer 5 vampire are both CR7. Shouldn't they both be CR13?

I was thinking, well maybe this is a case of Nonassociated Class Levels... yet the vampire template meshes with just about anything.

What gives? I'm pretty good with the d20/OGL stuff... but I'm totally lost on how this works. What am I missing? Please help...

PurinaDragonCho
2008-12-27, 12:55 AM
IIRC - the thing is this: CR does not necessarily equal effective character level. If a PC became a vampire, it would increase his or her ECL by 8. But the vampire template only increases the challenge rating by two.

Also, I think Strahd's CR is raised 1 by each of the 3 fanes.

shaddy_24
2008-12-27, 12:57 AM
I need serious help understanding something about the vampires in Expedition to Castle Ravenloft (3.5 naturally).

Count Strahd is a vampire necromancer 10... however his CR rating is a "mere" 15. According to the SRD, adding the vampire template to a character results in a +8 CR. Thus doesn't Nec10 + Vampire = CR 18?

The confusion hits me harder with the other vampires: crazy "kill-kill-kill" Barbarian 5 vampire and hot chickie Sorcerer 5 vampire are both CR7. Shouldn't they both be CR13?

I was thinking, well maybe this is a case of Nonassociated Class Levels... yet the vampire template meshes with just about anything.

What gives? I'm pretty good with the d20/OGL stuff... but I'm totally lost on how this works. What am I missing? Please help...

I can see your confusion. Determining CR can be confusing, and you've made a minor mix-up in the bonus the vampire template provides.

It is +2 CR. The +8 you're looking at is Level Adjustment, or LA. This is the bonus you add if you're making a vampire character. The idea of LA is that some creatures (such as vampires) provide more bonuses to a player than a monster. At-will dominate person? Fast healing, damage reduction, their ability to change to gasious form and return to their coffin instead of dying? Each of those provides a huge bonus to players that would unbalance the game. A level 10 vampire wizard is much, much stronger than a level 10 human wizard. To a NPC, that is expressed with the +2 CR, making them a level 12 challange. To a player, it comes out to +8, making them an 18th level character overall.

Strahd is CR 15: 10 from wizard levels, 2 from being a vampire, and +1 for each of the fanes, which are explained in his stat block. The other two vampires are both 5th level, with the +2 CR provided by the vampire template.

Does that help? You may want to announce spoilers in the thread title, or spoiler any information that people playing through shouldn't know.

Nargrakhan
2008-12-27, 02:16 AM
Ah... thank you! It makes sense to me now. :smallsmile:

All this LA, ECL, CR, NCL stuff was driving me crazy. It's so much clear to me now. Thanks again. Saved me from going insane!


***EDIT***
Oh! There is one more thing that I want to ask. Generally speaking, ECL still count for NPC's? To clarify: let's say I decide to generate a 2nd level rogue succubus as a key encounter. Would she get "NPC wealth by level" as an 8th level character or 2nd level character to be a CR9 encounter (if I were following the suggestions of the DMG at least).

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-27, 06:07 AM
I can never remember if NPCs get WBL by ECL or character level - it's not stated anywhere, and you basically have to deduce it from example PCs. I'm inclined to say it's based on ECL for NPCs and PCs both. Be warned, though: this will mess up your treasure-per-encounter even worse than NPCs without ECL (since they, at least, have CL equal to CR, rather than up to 6 higher).

Blood_Lord
2008-12-27, 01:05 PM
NO, NPCs always use CR. They are given Wealth by CR, and they are counted by CR not ECL.

A Succubus Rogue 3 is CR 9, not 12 or 18 or anything.

It has the WBL of a CR 9 encounter.