Snake, Large Viper

[Benejeseret]

Is SRD for this animal completely off/misprint?

Comparing it to Medium Viper, this is the comparison

+1HD
+4 HP
-1 AC
+1 Damage
-4 Hide
+1 Swim
+1 Spot

??

And that is worth a +1 CR?

Advancing Animals is supposed to be 3 HD for +1 CR

Advancing size would increase +1CR...but it gains NONE of the bigger size bonuses...just the -1AC/Hit drawback

[Volos]

Yeah, the Vipers don't get all that much better as they go up in size. They should be getting the standard medium to large increases... but they don't. The Poisons have a slightly higher DC and they get improved Initiative.

[ericgrau]

You're forgetting how little the medium viper gets. The large viper has 50% more HP, 50% more damage and another feat. Maybe the CR is borderline, I dunno, but it's not a trivial difference.

[Benejeseret]

Unless SRD is off, it actually does not 'really' gain a feat. It looses the bonus feat that the small vipers have and selects the same one as the feat...

If I took a medium and advanced it 3 HD (which is somehow not allowed/suggested by SRD) those +3HD/1CR would give an average

+13 HD
+2 BAB
+1 to each save
+1 Attribute point (either increase Dex for AC/hit or Con for +5 more HP and better poison)
+1 feat of my choosing
+3 skill points
+1 Poison DC

That is what SRD 'improving monsters' suggests as the baseline for +1CR for advancing animals

If I instead just made it large (+1 CR) gains
+8 Str
+3 to hit
+4 damage
-2 Dex
+4 Con
+8 HP
+2 Poison DC
+2 NA
AC (-2 size/dex but +2 NA)
Bite should be 1d6 damage (1d6+3)

???

And a medium viper indeed starts low on the CR1 scale as it is.

[Benejeseret]

And the reason for my particular rant is that my brother and I are starting an evil campaign and I had this amazing vision of a druid handler of a serpent avatar of the evil church. Possibly going Arcane Hierophant to give it an elder serpent style sentience of Nagini

But then I read the snake entry...

[ericgrau]

I was only looking at the medium viper vs. large. I didn't notice that small vipers get weapon finesse as a bonus feat. Weird. Maybe it's a general rule for for anything with a horrible strength and high dex.