CR adjustment for a monster.

[An Enemy Spy]

I've designed the boss of this dungeon to be a Lhosk reskinned as a big mechanical spider creature with its creator's corpse housed inside of it preserving his consciousness. A Lhosk is a CR 4 creature but I've given it spells equivalent to a level 8 Wizard that the corpse will be able to cast on the same turn the spider body is attacking with its legs. What CR should this new creature be?

[PraxisVetli]

I've designed the boss of this dungeon to be a Lhosk reskinned as a big mechanical spider creature with its creator's corpse housed inside of it preserving his consciousness. A Lhosk is a CR 4 creature but I've given it spells equivalent to a level 8 Wizard that the corpse will be able to cast on the same turn the spider body is attacking with its legs. What CR should this new creature be?
I believe the Wizard levels are..I forget the word, but the Lhosk isn't intended to take them, so they count for ½CR. So it would be CR 6, with the exception that it gets 2 turns, sorta. At that point it might be easier to count it as a CR6 + CR4, which really just rounds up to CR7.
YMMV.

Edit:
No idea how I added (½x4)+4 to equal 6.
I should sleep more often.
It should be 8, round to 9 because of extra turns.

[zlefin]

The regular formulae may not work well for that; I'd estimate it to be about cr 8 or 9. The wizard levels alone would lead to cr 8, with a -1 for npc gear or -2 for no gear; but since it gets a good body, with better hp than a wizard that level would tend to have, I'd say that compensates for the lack of gear. The extra action economy is a good deal and quite helpful and could justify upping the cr.

[Thurbane]

Yeah, should definitely be no less than CR 8, for an 8th level caster equivalent.

I'd eyeball CR 8 to 9 or so.

[Biggus]

According to the rules here (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#addingClassLevels) for nonassociated class levels it should be CR8. That sounds a bit too low to me in this case though, I'd say CR9-10.

[JNAProductions]

According to the rules here (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#addingClassLevels) for nonassociated class levels it should be CR8. That sounds a bit too low to me in this case though, I'd say CR9-10.

The same rules that say a Wizard 17 Ogre is CR 18, while a Wizard 17 Cloud Giant is only one CR higher?

Yeah, I'd rely more on comparing like monsters, or if they ever printed a list of expectations for numbers on monsters of a given CR, use that.

Or, probably the best option, just compare to your party's capabilities, and adjust from there.

[Biggus]

The same rules that say a Wizard 17 Ogre is CR 18, while a Wizard 17 Cloud Giant is only one CR higher?

Did you miss the part where I said I didn't agree with the result it produced?


Yeah, I'd rely more on comparing like monsters, or if they ever printed a list of expectations for numbers on monsters of a given CR, use that.


Average HPs, Initiative, AC, BAB and saves for the SRD monsters are listed here: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?172050-3-5-Average-Monster-Stats

[JNAProductions]

Did you miss the part where I said I didn't agree with the result it produced?

Average HPs, Initiative, AC, BAB and saves for the SRD monsters are listed here: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?172050-3-5-Average-Monster-Stats

I didn't disagree-I was reinforcing the point that it's not a very well-done system.

Apologies for the confusion!

But that's a good resource to know about. Thanks!