How should conditions affect CR?

[TurboGhast]

The monster creation rules in the DMG don't bring up conditions at all, despite many of them being very problematic.
I want to make monsters using them, but don't know how to judge how much it will cause the difficultly of the fight to increase.
Help?

[Ardantis]

What conditions?

[HoarsHalberd]

What conditions?

Poisoned, Charmed, Restrained, Grappled, Prone. I'd imagine.

[Kryx]

Related: Spells aren't on that table either. At least a general "highest level spell" would be nice.

EDIT: Setting Offensive CR to the spell casting level and then averaging with the Defensive CR seems to be how it works for the Mage and Priest in the MM.

[TurboGhast]

Related: Spells aren't on that table either. At least a general "highest level spell" would be nice.

EDIT: Setting Offensive CR to the spell casting level and then averaging with the Defensive CR seems to be how it works for the Mage and Priest in the MM.

Ah! This helps for multiple ideas I have in mind (Cannon that fires spells, BBEG w/ class levels), but conditions still can exist in non-spell contexts.

Thanks!

[pibby]

I for one wouldn't be worried about the exact CR of a creature at any given moment, especially ones that are easily removable or last only a turn. Then again I say this having DM'd experienced players who destroy difficult encounters with ease. At the end of the day I feel that it's never about numbers or even challenging encounters, but rather it's about whether or not players actually enjoyed the encounter. CR is just meant for ballparking anyways.

If you do want numbers though I'd base CR on their average damage per turn. I'm afb but iirc there's a table for such a thing in either the MM or the DMG. That should give you a good start on some conditions.

[Flashy]

Setting Offensive CR to the spell casting level and then averaging with the Defensive CR seems to be how it works for the Mage and Priest in the MM.

That also works for the Kuo-Toa Archpriest, the Sahaugin priestess, and sort of the Orc Eye of Gruumsh. It broke down when I tried it on Sphinxes and the magic user Mind Flayer template, however. So this is at least a fairly legitimate approach for low-mid CR monsters without a lot going for them beyond their spellcasting.

[Kryx]

That also works for the Kuo-Toa Archpriest, the Sahaugin priestess, and sort of the Orc Eye of Gruumsh. It broke down when I tried it on Sphinxes and the magic user Mind Flayer template, however. So this is at least a fairly legitimate approach for low-mid CR monsters without a lot going for them beyond their spellcasting.
A mindflayer is a 10th level caster, so 10 offensive CR, 71 HP so CR 1, 15 AC so CR 5. Defensive CR of 3, offensive CR of 10 = CR of 6.5 (or 7 when rounded). Not too far off.

An Androsphinx has a damage CR of 4 (32 dmg per round), but a +12 to hit which is a CR of 24, save DC CR of 13. I have no idea what math (if any they used).

I assume legendary = CR + X (maybe 3 or 4)

The Lich seems better 18th level caster = offensive CR 18. HP CR of 5, AC CR of 10.


It is definitely not very straightforward after the lower levels - especially with legendary creatures.