Increasing CR by adding magic items to creatures.

[Nibbens]

I get the feeling like I remember reading somewhere that if you wanted to make an encounter more challenging for PCs one option is to add WBL to the monsters to increase their CR. This WBL can then be used to purchase magic items to enhance themselves with...

Am I remembering this correctly, because I can't seem to find it in my searching. If it is true, can someone provide me with a link.

Thanks in advance!

[sakuuya]

The closest I can find is this bit from Savage Species,:


Monsters can “buy” equipment using the average value of their treasure

Even if the CR increase is real (and it well could be; my not finding it means nothing when it comes to PF), it seems like a bad idea. Most monster equipment is ultimately just loot, and if it's enough to increase a monster's CR, it's probably pretty nice. Unless it's all consumables used during the fight, or it melts when the monster dies or something like that, I'd be wary of giving monsters much more treasure than their treasure stat (treasure entry? Y'know, the "treasure" bit in their monster entry) indicates.

[Seerow]

Giving the creature class levels automatically grants them equipment based on the NPC WBL charts for their new CR. It also grants a changes to all stats (+4, +4, +2, +2, +0, and –2 placed where you like)


So going from Hill Giant (CR7) to Hill Giant Fighter 1 gets you a CR8 Hill Giant with CR8 NPC WBL (7,800gp) as well as the level 1 class features and stat adjustments.


I'm not aware of any rules in either 3.X or Pathfinder for just adding straight wealth to an NPC to boost CR. Due to the exponential way wealth scales, and the fact that PCs can loot anything you give monsters after the fact, it'd be really hard to balance. Like if you try to set a CR boost for flat gold amounts, a 20,000gp boost will be a huge increase to a CR1 enemy, while to a CR20 enemy it won't even be noticable. And if you tie the bonus gold to CR (say a CR boost to gain PC appropriate WBL instead of using the NPC table) it'll have the opposite issue, where it becomes worth exponentially more at higher levels. A CR2 gaining PC wealth gets a +1 weapon, not worth a notable CR increase. A CR20 gaining PC wealth can grab immunities to all of their inherent weaknesses, grab some powerful items relating to their primary shtick, and still have some leftover to grab random utilities to throw off prepared PCs, all of which adds up to making the creature MUCH harder.

[Bhaakon]

The Gamemastery guide has CR adjustments for varying gear levels. It's -1 CR for an NPC with significantly sub-standard gear and +1 CR for an NPC with PC-level gear. That's not RAW for monsters lacking NPC levels.

Personally, though, I'd just wing it based on how optimized you make the gear. Slapping a 144,000 gp Headband of Mental Superiority +6 on an ogre barbarian isn't going to help it in combat nearly as much as a cheap potion of haste would.