Swordwraith CR borked

[moritheil]

I'm having tremendous difficulty seeing what would justify the CR on a by-the-book swordrwaith. The one presented on the web is the same as the one in the Fiend Folio, a CR 7 human fighter swordwraith (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=fr/pg20011205b) with 5 HD. Clearly the magic weapons and armor are intended to make the swordwraith a little tougher to fight, but 32 hit points all but guarantees that it will die in the opening round of combat, and 20 AC is not high enough to prevent that.

If we accept that melee types tend to have twice their BAB in overall attack bonuses (that is, a +5 BAB will likely have at least another +5 from strength, weapon focus, enhancement bonus on weapon, etc.) then an EL 7 PC can be expected to have +14 to hit, hitting the swordwraith on a 6 or better. I'm pretty sure charge builds do 80+ damage by this point; 32 damage is not hard at all to get. A wizard could probably drop it with a single Evard's Tentacles, and a cleric could probably turn/rebuke it long enough for the melee line to beat it down.

We might guess that the CR is due to the swordwraith's offensive capabilities, but it's really sub-par there as well: the six-headed cryohydra is also CR 7, but comes with fast healing 16, 66 hit points, and 6 attacks per round. Compared to this, the swordwraith just does 1 point of strength damage per hit. It's not even strength drain; just strength damage. It will never kill a character outright, or create spawn. It has DR 10/magic, but I can't think of any reason the PCs wouldn't have magic weapons by level 7.

. . . Is the real use of the swordwraith a delivery mechanism, when the DM wants to give the PCs a bunch of +1 magic items to adjust their wealth relative to level?

[Runestar]

The template is little better than necropolitan. I suggest you revise it to +0 cr.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It looks like the example creature just has what items an NPC of ECL ~8 would have, or maybe they added the standard treasure for a CR 7to its NPC gear.

It's not a bad template at all, their example creature is just extremely suboptimal. I'd put it on a monstrous humanoid with considerably higher HD than its CR, a good example would be a Dragonkin from the Draconomicon (7 HD, CR 3). It would need a level of Fighter, I'd give it at least two with Dungeoncrasher and Knock-Back (RoS), plus that gives it the elite array. Since it can fly and has exceptional reach, it can Dungeoncrash opponents against the ground without much personal risk. That would be a CR 7 with 9 HD and it's nearly impossible to melee it, but you could skip Swordwraith and it would be just as strong but at CR 5.

Swordwraith gets Hide and Move Silently bonuses, and deals 1 Str damage per melee attack. That looks better for a TWF Ranger than a Fighter, so take levels in both and something like Ghost-Faced Killer (CV) would be extremely fitting. Maybe even make it a Thri-Kreen, take Wild Shape Ranger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#ranger) 1 which gets Barbarian Fast Movement which can be swapped out for the Lion spiritual totem for Pounce, get Multiweapon Fighting and some Fighter levels with Zhentarim Soldier (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a), Imperious Command (DotU), and the Never Outnumbered skill trick, then jump into Ghost-Faced Killer and it can be a fairly scary opponent in the mid-levels.

You could throw it on a Harpy with a Fighter level and Improved TWF, put a high stat on Cha and get Ability Focus: Captivating Song, and just Str damage down some captivated opponents. Harpies should always try to fight near a cliff or similar obstacle so it can escape quickly, especially if multiple opponents make the save versus its song. It could also fight them at night with a lot of trees/bushes/etc. and use Flyby Attack to harass them and always end its turn with total concealment. I'd say Vampire is still a better undead template for Harpies, especially since you can Flyby Attack with their level drain or just grapple a captivated opponent and fly away.

Don't forget you can throw on other undead-specific templates, such as Evolved Undead (LM) and Spellstitched (CA). You'll run into the same problem of those increasing their CR without adding any HD, but if you use a monster whose HD is already higher than its CR you can use those to make them more interesting if you think they're already under-CR'd.

[moritheil]

you could skip Swordwraith and it would be just as strong but at CR 5.

Yes, this is the root of the problem here.


Swordwraith gets Hide and Move Silently bonuses, and deals 1 Str damage per melee attack. That looks better for a TWF Ranger than a Fighter, so take levels in both and something like Ghost-Faced Killer (CV) would be extremely fitting.

Hmm, maybe a Skulk Swordwraith TWF assassin of some sort? I'm starting to think it's really mechanically a better fit for a rogue.


Don't forget you can throw on other undead-specific templates, such as Evolved Undead (LM) and Spellstitched (CA). You'll run into the same problem of those increasing their CR without adding any HD, but if you use a monster whose HD is already higher than its CR you can use those to make them more interesting if you think they're already under-CR'd.

I'm reserving spell stitched for bosses, so as not to shut down a counterspell-built player. But the fundamental problem is the swordwraith template itself; it's not that it's so bad that no amount of CR optimization can fix the NPC it's placed on, it's that it's so bad it isn't worth bothering with. Thanks for helping me brainstorm, though!