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Jon_Dahl
2012-08-28, 06:29 AM
This monster is downgraded version of a certain powerful demon lord. I left the HD unchanged but took almost everything else away. I didn't want to touch the HD because low hp might leave vulnerable to sudden death from a single powerful attack.

The ?
Huge outside (chaotic, evil, extraplanar, incorporeal, demon).
Int: +11
HP: 136 (HD 16)
AC: 21 (touch 21, flat-footed 21)
Reach/space: 15 ft. /15 ft.
Attack: Melee touch attack +11 (2d8 cold damage) + dex drain
Full attack: 3 melee touch attacks +11 (2d8 cold damage) + dex drain
Fort: +14, Ref +17, Will +17
Special attacks: Dexterity drain, spell-like abilities
Special qualities: Damage resistance 15/good, Fire & Acid Resistance 10, Immune to Cold, Electricity and Poison, Telepathy 100 ft., Spell resistance 25, Darkvision 60 ft.
Feats: Blind-fight, cleave, improved initiative, weapon focus (incorporeal touch attack).
Str –, Dex: 24, Con 18, Int 20, Wis 20, Cha 22

Dex drain:
? drains 1 point of Dexterity each time it hits with its melee touch attack. For each drained Dexterity point, the ? gains 5 temporary hit points.

Spell-like abilities:
At will – Desecrate, detect good, detect law, animate object, nightmare (will DC 21), read magic, suggestion (will DC 19), unholy aura (Will DC 24), unholy blight (Will DC 20). Unholy blight (Will DC 20). Caster level 16.

Sorry that skills are missing, both they are nothing radical. Also the name is missing because my players might reading this. So "The ?" is better.

Mordenkainen
2012-08-28, 08:55 AM
This monster is downgraded version of a certain powerful demon lord. I left the HD unchanged but took almost everything else away. I didn't want to touch the HD because low hp might leave vulnerable to sudden death from a single powerful attack.

The ?
Huge outside (chaotic, evil, extraplanar, incorporeal, demon).
Int: +11
HP: 136 (HD 16)
AC: 21 (touch 21, flat-footed 21)
Reach/space: 15 ft. /15 ft.
Attack: Melee touch attack +11 (2d8 cold damage) + dex drain
Full attack: 3 melee touch attacks +11 (2d8 cold damage) + dex drain
Fort: +14, Ref +17, Will +17
Special attacks: Dexterity drain, spell-like abilities
Special qualities: Damage resistance 15/good, Fire & Acid Resistance 10, Immune to Cold, Electricity and Poison, Telepathy 100 ft., Spell resistance 25, Darkvision 60 ft.
Feats: Blind-fight, cleave, improved initiative, weapon focus (incorporeal touch attack).
Str –, Dex: 24, Con 18, Int 20, Wis 20, Cha 22

Dex drain:
? drains 1 point of Dexterity each time it hits with its melee touch attack. For each drained Dexterity point, the ? gains 5 temporary hit points.

Spell-like abilities:
At will – Desecrate, detect good, detect law, animate object, nightmare (will DC 21), read magic, suggestion (will DC 19), unholy aura (Will DC 24), unholy blight (Will DC 20). Unholy blight (Will DC 20). Caster level 16.

Sorry that skills are missing, both they are nothing radical. Also the name is missing because my players might reading this. So "The ?" is better.

Here are the steps to find challenge rating as presented by Fax Celestis here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10313) and The Vorpral Tribble here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43009).

Fax Celestis says,


Challenge Rating: I've seen a variety of methods to set CRs on creatures, but I've really only found two that work 95% of the time. The first is the one I use: the creatures CR should be between a 3:2 to a 1:1 ratio for BAB:CR, generally, so that a BAB of +9 would be a CR between 6 and 9

This method is simpler but gives you a ballpark estimate. For you, (and I'm assuming that 11 is your BAB), your total CR would be between 17 and 11. A pretty large range.

The other way to find BAB and Fax Celestis's other method was actually quoted from The Vorpral Tribble:


A challenge rating is how tough an encounter with this beast will be. Generally a creature of, say, a CR of 5 should be a standard challenge for a party of 4-5 5th level characters. To defeat this creature will cause them to use up roughly 1/4th to 1/3 their daily resources such as spells, potions, etc. This depends on the build of the party, their items, terrain, and many other factors, but in general it is more or less accurate.

Figuring out this challenge rating is the real fun part, and probably the most challenging bit of monster making. Its as much guestimating as anything, and there are no true rules to determine it exactly. Here is the closest method I've been able to come up with, though creatures with an enormous ammount of hit points or really low-leveled creatures will still be innacurate. The best way is to play-test the creature with parties of varying CR and find out which one most closely fits. Here though is the guestimator method:

#1. Divide creature's average HP by 4.5 to 6.5.
4.5 for 5 HD or lower, 5 for 6-10 HD, 5.5 for 11-15 HD, 6 for 16-20 HD., 6.5 for 20-25 HD.

#2. Add 1 for each five points above 10 its AC is, subtracting 1 for every 5 below.

#3. Add 1 for each special attack (+2 to +5 or more if its got a decent number of spells in its spell-like abilities).

#4. Add 1 for each quality unless you deem it worthy of more. Add 1 for each resistance and 10 points of DR it has, and 2 for each immunity. Subtract 1 for each vulnerability.

#5. Add 1 for every two bonus feats it has.

#6. Divide total by 3. This should be its rough CR.

This way, your CR would be 14 or 15. You choose.

TuggyNE
2012-08-28, 04:39 PM
This method is simpler but gives you a ballpark estimate. For you, (and I'm assuming that 11 is your BAB), your total CR would be between 17 and 11. A pretty large range.

This is actually incorrect; Outsiders gain full BAB progression, so the monster should have BAB +16. Therefore, the melee touch attack is also wrong: it should be +22 (+16 BAB, +7 Dex, +1 weapon focus, -2 size). Flat-footed AC also appears to be incorrect, and should be 14 (+6 Cha, -2 size). Two feats seem to be missing, and the Will save is 2 points too high (which can be solved by assigning a missing feat to Iron Will).

Note that its melee touch does not gain iteratives from high BAB, but instead has however many natural weapons you desire; 3 is fine.

2d8 cold + 1 dex drain seems a bit weak for a monster at this level; it will probably prefer to spend most of its time using SLAs, except that those are also weak (only suggestion and unholy blight are worth spamming, or possibly animate objects). I'd suggest giving it something like telekinesis (a bit overused, but very fitting for incorporeal) or hold person/hold monster, depending on what the original had, as well as cranking up the drain a bit. Cleave seems to be almost useless for a monster that does so little melee damage.

dspeyer
2012-08-30, 12:23 AM
Another approach is to compare it to an existing monster. Check out the Forest Landwyrm from Draconomicon. Attacks at +21/+19/+19 for 2d6+6/1d8+3/1d8+3, with an AC of 19 and 16 good HD (pretty similar to the ?). That's a slightly better attack, but incorporeal is nifty. Forest Landwyrm is CR 10, or slightly less than 2/3 its BAB. That sounds good for the ? too.

I wouldn't put the CR much lower, because anything incorporeal is hard to finish off without force spells.

NichG
2012-08-30, 05:01 AM
I'd say its anywhere from a difficult 8 to a 12 if played intelligently and not as a footsoldier (that is, using its incorporeality to be 7/8 in walls, spying on the party and using Nightmare on their caster the night before the encounter, etc). Once it actually hits combat, this guy is probably more annoying than a real threat - his damage isn't going to take out PCs very quickly, but his defenses are good enough that he won't be taken out quickly either if he's played intelligently.

Honestly, he's probably best used as a non-combat antagonist. Huge size is annoying for that though, since it gets in the way of him being stealthy. My gut says he should probably flee any fight that develops against anything above 5th level if he's being optimally intelligent, which I think is consistent with CR 8 (CR +3 for an enemy generally means you're inevitably going to lose, but you'll do some damage before you die).

dspeyer
2012-08-30, 10:18 AM
With Int and Wis of 20, it shouldn't have a hard time figuring out how to use hit-and-run tactics to kill off an 8th level party.