CR vs. LA

[RNightstalker]

I'm still a little mixed up on these things and can't really tell the difference.

For example an Astral Stalker from MMIII has a CR 12 but only an LA +6. If you use one as a PC, it's technically a 7th level character when you start at 1, but if you advance it as an NPC/bad guy, it's CR plus class level?

[MisterKaws]

I'm still a little mixed up on these things and can't really tell the difference.

For example an Astral Stalker from MMIII has a CR 12 but only an LA +6. If you use one as a PC, it's technically a 7th level character when you start at 1, but if you advance it as an NPC/bad guy, it's CR plus class level?

You also count Hit Dice, so an Astral Stalker starts at ECL 18. Yes, it's dumb.

[ExLibrisMortis]

No. You add its racial hit dice to its LA to figure out its "technical level", called "effective character level" or ECL. That means that an astral stalker, with 12 HD and LA +6, is an 18th-level character.

[Zanos]

When used as a PC, for the purposes of experience calculations a monster counts as a PC of (Racial Hit Dice + Level Adjustment + Class Levels). Also, you must have at least one class level.

So at minimum an Astral Stalker Fighter 1 for example is considered a 19th level character (12 RHD + 6 LA + 1 Class Level).

CR is used to determine experience and treasure rewards by the DM, it isn't generally used by players.

[MisterKaws]

When used as a PC, for the purposes of experience calculations a monster counts as a PC of (Racial Hit Dice + Level Adjustment + Class Levels). Also, you must have at least one class level.

So at minimum an Astral Stalker Fighter 1 for example is considered a 19th level character (12 RHD + 6 LA + 1 Class Level).

CR is used to determine experience and treasure rewards by the DM, it isn't generally used by players.

The class level bit is wrong. That's only true for Lycanthropes. All other monstrous characters with base RHD can be played classless, but have to be advanced by class.

[Zanos]

The class level bit is wrong. That's only true for Lycanthropes. All other monstrous characters with base RHD can be played classless, but have to be advanced by class.
Yeah I just double checked, apparently if you have more than 1 RHD you can start without class levels.

[MisterKaws]

Yeah I just double checked, apparently if you have more than 1 RHD you can start without class levels.

And if you have only 1 it's swapped into a class level :)

[JNAProductions]

It's not an especially good system.

A Fire Giant, for instance, is CR 10. That means that, nominally, they're equal to a Level 10 PC.
They're also 15 HD and +4 LA, meaning that, as a PC, they're equal to a level 19 PC.

The only real difference is that a stock Fire Giant does NOT have PC WBL (stands for Wealth By Level), but is that really worth +9 Levels?

Edit: Not to mention that PCs aren't even close to equal either. A poorly-built level 15 Monk is nowhere near the power of a well-built level 15 Monk. And if the well-built PC is a Druid or Cleric or something...

Really, if you're DMing 3.5 or playing it, you just kinda have to have a feel for what works, sadly.

[Zanos]

The fire giant will also get the PC array, whatever you happen to be using.

CR and ECL being separate does make sense, since abilities that are valuable to monsters fought once aren't the same thing as abilities valuable to PCs. 3/day and At-Will are pretty much the same for an encounter but very different for a PC.

But yes, barring a few edge cases monsters are not particularly good picks.

[JNAProductions]

The fire giant will also get the PC array, whatever you happen to be using.

CR and ECL being separate does make sense, since abilities that are valuable to monsters fought once aren't the same thing as abilities valuable to PCs. 3/day and At-Will are pretty much the same for an encounter but very different for a PC.

But yes, barring a few edge cases monsters are not particularly good picks.

While that's true, is a Fire Giant getting PC Array (generally the Elite Array, or at least that's the books' assumption) and PC WBL worth +9 levels over a standard Fire Giant?

I'm sure it's POSSIBLE to abuse the wealth sufficiently to make them a CR 19 threat, but I doubt that's gonna happen by picking stuff that compliments their natural abilities, or even anything that a level 19 Commoner couldn't do.

[Biggus]

Yes, it's dumb.

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks that...


The fire giant will also get the PC array, whatever you happen to be using.

CR and ECL being separate does make sense, since abilities that are valuable to monsters fought once aren't the same thing as abilities valuable to PCs. 3/day and At-Will are pretty much the same for an encounter but very different for a PC.

But yes, barring a few edge cases monsters are not particularly good picks.

The elite array only gives +1 CR. If you're using a very generous point buy it might amount to +2.

You make a good point about the difference between 3/day and At-Will abilities, but even in cases where they don't have any SLAs or similar, there's often a large level adjustment. Do you have any idea why that is? Whenever I've tried to make a monster character they've nearly always ended up substantially weaker than using one of the standard PC races.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

In about 99% of cases, monsters are vastly over-LA'd. Oftentimes, you want to knock off a couple of points of LA for any race to be even somewhat reasonable, with a few notable exceptions.

What you give up is almost never worth what you get.

[Necroticplague]

In about 99% of cases, monsters are vastly over-LA'd. Oftentimes, you want to knock off a couple of points of LA for any race to be even somewhat reasonable, with a few notable exceptions.

What you give up is almost never worth what you get.

When you consider RHD as part of ECl, a few more could stand to have negative LAs.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

When you consider RHD as part of ECl, a few more could stand to have negative LAs.The devs obviously don't want players playing characters that are anything but humans-with-the-serial-numbers-filed off.

How dare there be non-human creatures in a fantasy game!

[Eldariel]

The elite array only gives +1 CR. If you're using a very generous point buy it might amount to +2.

You make a good point about the difference between 3/day and At-Will abilities, but even in cases where they don't have any SLAs or similar, there's often a large level adjustment. Do you have any idea why that is? Whenever I've tried to make a monster character they've nearly always ended up substantially weaker than using one of the standard PC races.

Actually, At-will is WAY stronger than say...100/day for low duration abilities. It means the creature can spend its out-of-combat standard actions spamming the ability meaning it will start any encounter with N of it active (many Illusions in particular benefit hugely of this). 3/day is strictly encounter only. But yeah, the general idea of more uses generally being more important to a PC than to an NPC is true - At will is just an exception, because it amounts to 14400 times per day.

[Crake]

The devs obviously don't want players playing characters that are anything but humans-with-the-serial-numbers-filed off.

How dare there be non-human creatures in a fantasy game!

Yeah, because every bad design decision must have had bad intent behind it! Or, y'know, they overestimated the value of many things during the early design phases of 3.5. The reason why lots of things have ECL that outweighs CR is because the scope of CR is an encounter, while the scope of ECL is a campaign. Something that might be of rudimentary use in an encounter could be of massive use over the course of a campaign, especially at-will and escape-based abilities. For example, being able to greater teleport at will has almost no impact on affecting the challenge of an encounter, while it has a massive impact on the strength of a character over the course of a campaign. At least that was the logic the designers had. Whether or not that's true comes down to the style and power level of game you run.

[Bronk]

A Fire Giant, for instance, is CR 10. That means that, nominally, they're equal to a Level 10 PC.


Since it’s CR though, this doesn’t mean it’s equal to a level 10 PC, but that it’s a credible threat to a well balanced group of four level 10 PCs. That makes its higher worth as a player character a bit easier to take.

[Eldariel]

Since it’s CR though, this doesn’t mean it’s equal to a level 10 PC, but that it’s a credible threat to a well balanced group of four level 10 PCs. That makes its higher worth as a player character a bit easier to take.

It's direct derivation of the system that CR14 is a life-or-death 50/50 for a party of 4 level 10 PCs, CR 12 for a party of 2 and CR 10 for a party of 1.

[JNAProductions]

Since it’s CR though, this doesn’t mean it’s equal to a level 10 PC, but that it’s a credible threat to a well balanced group of four level 10 PCs. That makes its higher worth as a player character a bit easier to take.

You're thinking of 5E, kinda.

In 3.5, a Level X player is supposed to be a CR X monster.

[MisterKaws]

You're thinking of 5E, kinda.

In 3.5, a Level X player is supposed to be a CR X monster.

Yes, which is exactly why a class level is exactly equivalent to 1 CR.

Associate levels, anyway. ¬¬

[Zaq]

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks that...

I’ll just leave this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?518086-The-LA-assignment-archive&p=21798987) here...

(Come join us, friend (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?581177-The-LA-assignment-thread-Making-monster-PCs-VI-able).)

[Crichton]

In 3.5, a Level X player is supposed to be a CR X monster.

I think I need an explanation of that statement, because that's not what I see when I read the definition of CR:





Challenge Rating (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm#challengeRating)

This shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty.



An encounter where CR=the party's level should take about 20% of the party's resources and it then takes a party of that level 13.33 encounters of that CR to level.

But from where are you getting the idea that Monster CR=Player ECL? Citation or at least reference so I can find it, please?

[Covenant12]

I think I need an explanation of that statement, because that's not what I see when I read the definition of CR:

An encounter where CR=the party's level should take about 20% of the party's resources and it then takes a party of that level 13.33 encounters of that CR to level.

But from where are you getting the idea that Monster CR=Player ECL? Citation or at least reference so I can find it, please?It is somewhat an extrapolation, but serves as a simple and useful guideline.

A standard 4 person party is supposed to fight CR opponents near their average level. A mirror match of NPC's is CR+4, meaning for a 4 person 7th level party, a 4 person 7th level NPC party is CR 11. This implies the party needs to use their best resources, 1 or more deaths are likely, and a total wipe (TPK) is a real possiblity.

Noticing that 1 7th NPC is CR 7, 2 is CR 9, and 4 is CR 11, you could make the argument that a single PC should be a close match to solo a CR opponent at his levels. Again, use best resources and real chance of wipe. (So here a 7th level barbarian should struggle to solo CR 7 encounters)


This makes sense, because for NPC's the CR is their ECL, at least for PHB races. So you are just extending 7th level PC barbarian vs. 7th level NPC barbarian to other CR 7 encounters.

Caveat that this is far from perfect. A bard is better in larger parties, and suffers especially in solo play. A rogue brings things like trapfinding, presumably doing that instead of raw combat power. A rogue may excel at anything he can sneak attack, and be sub-par for anything immune. Balanced does not mean perfectly balanced in every situation, but on average near 50% in a variety of encounters.

TL;DR: A PC being an ECL=CR encounter is a good guideline because an NPC outright is defined as ECL=CR for a solo encounter. Guideline means nitpick exceptions, PC wealth vs. NPC wealth, etc. But a good starting point.

[Crichton]

It is somewhat an extrapolation, but serves as a simple and useful guideline.

A standard 4 person party is supposed to fight CR opponents near their average level. A mirror match of NPC's is CR+4, meaning for a 4 person 7th level party, a 4 person 7th level NPC party is CR 11. This implies the party needs to use their best resources, 1 or more deaths are likely, and a total wipe (TPK) is a real possiblity.

Noticing that 1 7th NPC is CR 7, 2 is CR 9, and 4 is CR 11, you could make the argument that a single PC should be a close match to solo a CR opponent at his levels. Again, use best resources and real chance of wipe. (So here a 7th level barbarian should struggle to solo CR 7 encounters)


This makes sense, because for NPC's the CR is their ECL, at least for PHB races. So you are just extending 7th level PC barbarian vs. 7th level NPC barbarian to other CR 7 encounters.

Caveat that this is far from perfect. A bard is better in larger parties, and suffers especially in solo play. A rogue brings things like trapfinding, presumably doing that instead of raw combat power. A rogue may excel at anything he can sneak attack, and be sub-par for anything immune. Balanced does not mean perfectly balanced in every situation, but on average near 50% in a variety of encounters.

TL;DR: A PC being an ECL=CR encounter is a good guideline because an NPC outright is defined as ECL=CR for a solo encounter. Guideline means nitpick exceptions, PC wealth vs. NPC wealth, etc. But a good starting point.



That makes sense by the numbers, but what Bronk said, and what the post I responded to was a supposed rebuttal to, was a very close rephrasing of the actual definition entry of what CR is, from the MM.

[MisterKaws]

I think I need an explanation of that statement, because that's not what I see when I read the definition of CR:






An encounter where CR=the party's level should take about 20% of the party's resources and it then takes a party of that level 13.33 encounters of that CR to level.

But from where are you getting the idea that Monster CR=Player ECL? Citation or at least reference so I can find it, please?

As I said early, an NPC with class levels of N has a CR of N. That is supposed to take 20-25% of a party's resources, and as mentioned by Covenant12, a mirror match of equal-level parties would be CR N+4, because every doubling of characters is a +2 to CR, which means two characters of CR=N are a CR N+2, and four are CR N+4.

Which basically means CR=ECL... But there's exceptions. Teleportation, wishes, at-will abilities, movement types, very high stat bonuses, among other things, are far more powerful for players, but in all fairness, ECL should be calculated by CR+LA, not RHD+LA.

[Zanos]

While that's true, is a Fire Giant getting PC Array (generally the Elite Array, or at least that's the books' assumption) and PC WBL worth +9 levels over a standard Fire Giant?
Not at all, which is why I said that monsters are, baring edge cases, almost always bad options. That said 'bad' option is relative, warblade is a 'bad' option next to wizard. Even most monsters can be hammered into something viable.

Personally I think people are a little too grumpy about the situation, it's a bit unreasonable to ask the designers to even roughly balance the hundreds of monsters with assigned LAs. I am personally okay with the most viable options being humanoid or humanoid adjacent to maintain theming.

[JNAProductions]

Not at all, which is why I said that monsters are, baring edge cases, almost always bad options. That said 'bad' option is relative, warblade is a 'bad' option next to wizard. Even most monsters can be hammered into something viable.

Personally I think people are a little too grumpy about the situation, it's a bit unreasonable to ask the designers to even roughly balance the hundreds of monsters with assigned LAs. I am personally okay with the most viable options being humanoid or humanoid adjacent to maintain theming.

I think you misunderstand my gripe-it's not that Fire Giants make bad PCs. It's that, when viewed as a monster, a Fire Giant is CR 10. But when viewed as a PC, it's Level 19, despite the only difference being a slightly better stat array and more money. And, technically, they don't even HAVE to get that to be a Level 19 PC, and therefore a CR 19 monster.

The inconsistency is annoying.

[Zanos]

I think you misunderstand my gripe-it's not that Fire Giants make bad PCs. It's that, when viewed as a monster, a Fire Giant is CR 10. But when viewed as a PC, it's Level 19, despite the only difference being a slightly better stat array and more money. And, technically, they don't even HAVE to get that to be a Level 19 PC, and therefore a CR 19 monster.

The inconsistency is annoying.
In theory, there is the possibility as mentioned above there there are abilities more useful to PCs than monsters, since the roles are asymmetrical.

But the real answer is that almost all monster adjustments are an after-thought. The guy looking at it probably saw +20 strength and wrote down a big number so people wouldn't take it. When time is limited, 'fire giant isn't a viable option' is a smaller problem than 'fire giant is a better option than any of the in theme options'.

[HouseRules]

And if you have only 1 it's swapped into a class level :)

That only works for Humanoid. For non-Humanoid, DM has an option to keep your Racial Hit Dice.

[Bronk]

It's direct derivation of the system that CR14 is a life-or-death 50/50 for a party of 4 level 10 PCs, CR 12 for a party of 2 and CR 10 for a party of 1.

You only get EL+2 for an encounter that's twice as tough. (DMG p39)


You're thinking of 5E, kinda.

In 3.5, a Level X player is supposed to be a CR X monster.

No, a level X NPC with PC levels is a CR X encounter. (DMG p37-38) CR is geared towards a party of four. (DMG p48)


Yes, which is exactly why a class level is exactly equivalent to 1 CR.

Associate levels, anyway. ¬¬

Unless they're a member of a powerful race, which is what the OP was about. That's where a CR bonus comes in, or a level adjustment if it's a PC. (DMG p37 and 172)



Caveat that this is far from perfect. A bard is better in larger parties, and suffers especially in solo play. A rogue brings things like trapfinding, presumably doing that instead of raw combat power. A rogue may excel at anything he can sneak attack, and be sub-par for anything immune. Balanced does not mean perfectly balanced in every situation, but on average near 50% in a variety of encounters.

Thanks for the explanation, but to me this sounds like a complicated way of saying that this doesn't work because you need a variety of character types working together to overcome obstacles and cover each other's weaknesses.



TL;DR: A PC being an ECL=CR encounter is a good guideline because an NPC outright is defined as ECL=CR for a solo encounter. Guideline means nitpick exceptions, PC wealth vs. NPC wealth, etc. But a good starting point.

That would be harder than a standard encounter, so the EL would actually go up. (DMG p39)


That makes sense by the numbers, but what Bronk said, and what the post I responded to was a supposed rebuttal to, was a very close rephrasing of the actual definition entry of what CR is, from the MM.

Thanks for the backup! I just don't want all of this to confuse the issue for the OP.

[Biggus]

I’ll just leave this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?518086-The-LA-assignment-archive&p=21798987) here...

(Come join us, friend (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?581177-The-LA-assignment-thread-Making-monster-PCs-VI-able).)

Thanks dude! I'd been considering starting a thread about this, I didn't know there were already six of them...

[HouseRules]

Thanks dude! I'd been considering starting a thread about this, I didn't know there were already six of them...

The arbitrary assignment of Tier 1-4 of each monster by the raters give inconsistent LA.
A rater that internally considers a monster to be Tier 1 has a smaller LA than a rater that internally considers the same monster to be Tier 2.

No monster are Tier 5 or Tier 6 in the system means that the LA are too low against extremely weak parties.

[MisterKaws]

The arbitrary assignment of Tier 1-4 of each monster by the raters give inconsistent LA.
A rater that internally considers a monster to be Tier 1 has a smaller LA than a rater that internally considers the same monster to be Tier 2.

No monster are Tier 5 or Tier 6 in the system means that the LA are too low against extremely weak parties.

The default LA is what is assumed for low-tier parties, and it is a homebrew thread no matter what, so if a DM is using it, they should also be considering using their own LA instead.

[CharonsHelper]

Frankly - most LAs are too high to be viable. But really, that's WAI (Working as Intended).

The game is not designed for monstrous PCs. And so when they put rules in there, the designers didn't really test/balance them that hard, so they intentionally erred on the high side for LAs. This was so that hardcore power gamers wouldn't be able to find broken combos. (There are still a few - but much rarer.) They didn't really have any desire to spend the resources math-ing and playtesting all of the various monster/class combos to see which ones were broken.

Are most monsters' LAs too high to make them as effective as a normal race? Sure. If your table wants to have all sorts of weirdness at it - work with your GM to houserule it.

The end.

[Psyren]

It is somewhat an extrapolation, but serves as a simple and useful guideline.

I find it to be neither of those things. Especially when folks incessantly use the guideline as "proof" that a level 20 samurai should be an even match for a level 20 druid or whatever.


I think I need an explanation of that statement, because that's not what I see when I read the definition of CR:

Challenge Rating

This shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty.



This is the only real definition of CR. It isn't even perfect at this, mind you, but it's a lot closer than trying to use it to make 1:1 comparisons between things with class levels.

[Torpin]

Yeah, because every bad design decision must have had bad intent behind it! Or, y'know, they overestimated the value of many things during the early design phases of 3.5. The reason why lots of things have ECL that outweighs CR is because the scope of CR is an encounter, while the scope of ECL is a campaign. Something that might be of rudimentary use in an encounter could be of massive use over the course of a campaign, especially at-will and escape-based abilities. For example, being able to greater teleport at will has almost no impact on affecting the challenge of an encounter, while it has a massive impact on the strength of a character over the course of a campaign. At least that was the logic the designers had. Whether or not that's true comes down to the style and power level of game you run.

this is very much true, i had a player playing a succubus and let me tell you what ability was particularly game breaking, it wasnt the teleport at will nor charm monster or suggestion, it was friggin Clairaudience/Clairvoyance. everytime time it was i use Clairaudience/Clairvoyance to see whats on the other side of the door

[Crake]

Keep in mind by the way that NPCs using PC class levels have CR equal to their level when a) using the elite array, and b) using NPC wealth by level, not PC wealth by level. Thus, unless you're running 25 point buy (which is equivilent to the elite array), and have deliberately lower wealth for your PCs, a player is decidedly more powerful than an NPC of the same level by probably about 0.5-1 CR or so, something that pathfinder actively acknowledges, stating that NPCS with NPC wbl are level -1 CR, but rise up to level = CR if they have PC wbl.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

this is very much true, i had a player playing a succubus and let me tell you what ability was particularly game breaking, it wasnt the teleport at will nor charm monster or suggestion, it was friggin Clairaudience/Clairvoyance. everytime time it was i use Clairaudience/Clairvoyance to see whats on the other side of the doorIt's also a 24,000 gp magic item. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/universalItems.htm#sense)

Is it really worth that much LA?

[Crake]

It's also a 24,000 gp magic item. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/universalItems.htm#sense)

Is it really worth that much LA?

Arguably that power is actually better, because it's range is "anywhere you can accurately designate that's on this plane" wheras clairaudience/clairvoyance is limited to 100ft/level (or 1200ft for a succubus).

As a side note though the 3.5 succubus was updated to not have clairaudience/clairvoyance, so your DM should have adjusted the savage progression that I can only presume you were using from savage species to account for this.

On another note, if at will greater teleport/ethereal jaunt/charm monster wasn't breaking your game, it's because you weren't using them to their full effectiveness. I've always maintained that succubi are some of the most borked examples of "Definitely not a CR7 encounter if played properly", mostly because it would almost never come down to a direct confrontation in the first place.

[HouseRules]

Arguably that power is actually better, because it's range is "anywhere you can accurately designate that's on this plane" wheras clairaudience/clairvoyance is limited to 100ft/level (or 1200ft for a succubus).

As a side note though the 3.5 succubus was updated to not have clairaudience/clairvoyance, so your DM should have adjusted the savage progression that I can only presume you were using from savage species to account for this.

On another note, if at will greater teleport/ethereal jaunt/charm monster wasn't breaking your game, it's because you weren't using them to their full effectiveness. I've always maintained that succubi are some of the most borked examples of "Definitely not a CR7 encounter if played properly", mostly because it would almost never come down to a direct confrontation in the first place.

Which is why they are CR 9 in 3.0 for the same stats, except 1/day what was that 4th-level SLA?

[Crake]

Which is why they are CR 9 in 3.0 for the same stats, except 1/day what was that 4th-level SLA?

They lost unholy blight 1/day, but also lost clairaudience/clairvoyance at will, darkness at will, desecrate at will and doom at will. Additionally, their summon tanar'ri ability was changed from party wipe at 10% chance (10% chance to summon a balor, gg) to 30% chance to be annoyingly difficult (30% chance at a vrock). I would say the main reason for the drop in CR was actually the 10% chance at a balor. It's a completely whack thing for such a relatively low CR creature to have.

[Eldariel]

You only get EL+2 for an encounter that's twice as tough. (DMG p39)

Of course. So a level 10 party of 4 standard race characters is an EL 14 encounter as is a single level 14 PC. If the party is smaller, the fights are harder which is accounted for in the XP gained. (DMG p. 48.) You simply divide the XP by the number of characters in the party (DMG p. 37), which leads to exactly two characters getting the same XP for an encounter two ELs lower. And one character again getting the same XP for an encounter four ELs lower (DMG p. 38). In other words, for a single character a fight of EL = ECL is equivalent to four characters fighting an EL = ECL+4 encounter, which is not Overpowering but Very Difficult. All the math points to EL+4 for four and EL for one character being an equivalent, life-or-death struggle (which is obviously the case since again, the character itself would be an EL = CL encounter).


No, a level X NPC with PC levels is a CR X encounter. (DMG p37-38) CR is geared towards a party of four. (DMG p48)

Level X NPC with PC class levels (level 20 Samurai) is equal to another level X NPC (level 20 Druid) according to the system. All level X characters are of the same CR (supposedly).

[Zanos]

A CR = EPL encounter isn't supposed to be an even fight, remember. Just supposed to consume a decent amount of daily resources.

An EPL + 4 encounter is where there's supposed to be a good chance of a wipe, so it actually makes sense that a party off 4 level 10 class leveled characters is CR 14, since it should stand a good chance off wiping it's mirror.

[HouseRules]

They lost unholy blight 1/day, but also lost clairaudience/clairvoyance at will, darkness at will, desecrate at will and doom at will. Additionally, their summon tanar'ri ability was changed from party wipe at 10% chance (10% chance to summon a balor, gg) to 30% chance to be annoyingly difficult (30% chance at a vrock). I would say the main reason for the drop in CR was actually the 10% chance at a balor. It's a completely whack thing for such a relatively low CR creature to have.

You're missing the final part.
In 3.0, succubus has caster level of 12th level sorcerer, and it stacks with levels of sorcerers.
In 3.5, her caster level is unique to her race, so it does not stack with levels of sorcerers.

If you think of her as a 12th level sorcerer with a specific spell list, and that "at will = 5+/day for DMs too lazy to do book keeping", then it would be reasonable.

[Torpin]

On another note, if at will greater teleport/ethereal jaunt/charm monster wasn't breaking your game, it's because you weren't using them to their full effectiveness. I've always maintained that succubi are some of the most borked examples of "Definitely not a CR7 encounter if played properly", mostly because it would almost never come down to a direct confrontation in the first place.

the teleport was annoying to say the least, but the whole only useable on themselves thing didnt make it broken. the charm and suggestion did foil some things, but it had a large amount of undead

[Crake]

You're missing the final part.
In 3.0, succubus has caster level of 12th level sorcerer, and it stacks with levels of sorcerers.
In 3.5, her caster level is unique to her race, so it does not stack with levels of sorcerers.

If you think of her as a 12th level sorcerer with a specific spell list, and that "at will = 5+/day for DMs too lazy to do book keeping", then it would be reasonable.

I think you're misinterpreting the line "These abilities are as the spells cast by a 12th level sorcerer". Even in 3.0, racial SLAs had their own racial CL that didn't stack with class levels, the purpose of specifically defining which class it was was so that you knew what the spell level was of spells that had varying spell levels across spell lists. In 3.5 this was standardized to "sorcerer/wizard spell, then default to cleric, druid, bard, paladin, and ranger, in that order." unless otherwise specified.


the teleport was annoying to say the least, but the whole only useable on themselves thing didnt make it broken. the charm and suggestion did foil some things, but it had a large amount of undead

Teleport's limitation can be gotten around by using extradimensional storage, pop someone into a bag of holding, teleport, pull them out, rinse and repeat for the whole party. Same goes for ethereal jaunt actually, and the power of charm and suggestion isn't necessarily against enemies specifically, but rather gathering many allies.