Taint Beast

[Dhavaer]

This is a monster I've made for use in Urban Arcana, and I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on a challenge rating.

Taint Beast
Medium Magical Beast (Taint)
Hit Dice: 6d10+24 (57vp, 19wp)
Initiative: -1
Speed: 40 feet
Defence/Touch/f-f: 16/9/16 (-1 Dex, +7 Natural)
Attack: Gore +9 (1d8+4)
Full Attack: Gore +9 (1d8+4)
Space/Reach: 5x5/5
SA: Tainted Attack
SQ: Taint Subtype, Scent
SV: Fort +9, Ref +4, Will +0
Skills: +9 Jump, +6 Survival
Feats: Improved Natural Attack
Str 17, Dex 9, Con 19, Init 4, Wis 4, Cha 7

The Taint Beast looks like a large, black canine, except for the boar-like tusks that protrude from its muzzle.

Tainted Attack: On a critical, the damage dealt is Vile damage. It cannot be healed by magic, and heals 1 point per day of total rest.

Taint Subtype: Fire, Cold and Concussion resistance 10, Electricity Resistance 5, DR 10/Silver, takes double damage from Acid and Silver weapons.

[Jestir256]

Good god man! What have you got against players? A critical would be nearly fatal to most characters. If you're trying to pin a CR on it, I would use creatures like the Bodak for a reference; monsters that are not combatively dangerous, but one bad roll and you're heading for the nearest temple.

[Dhavaer]

Good point. I'll make it deal Vile damage instead.

Edit: Since Urban Arcana is fairly low magic, I've changed the rules for Vile damage.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

My calculations come up with a CR of 4-5.

However, truth be told that monster there is barely intelligible. This is for 3.5, right?

A critical would be nearly fatal to most characters.

Not really, average damage would be 8 con. For a 4-5th level character this would be like 16-20 HP from lack of con. Now, if they got hit twice they'd probably be dead, but a critical twice on the same character in the same fight would be pretty unlikely.

Its very strong, but not much compared to a CR 3 Cockatrice which is basically instant death every bite. However, I'd give a Fortitude save against the drain of Con.

[Dhavaer]

The reason the write-up looks a little funny is because it's for Urban Arcana, and uses Vitality, so the stats are a little different. Were there any other problems reading it?

[Jestir256]

You are right vorpal, but that's a lot of HP that you can lose and not heal back, and it isn't the loss of HP that concerns me... gods forbid you run into anything that makes you fort save. As for the cockatrice, I actually don't agree with its stated CR; but then I'm pretty much against instant death creatures anyway. Anyway, your suggestion of a fort save is good... but I like the vile damage solution better. It makes the overall CR easier to compute.

[Dhavaer]

Does it still look CR 4/5, Tribble?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

I hadn't noticed all the details of the Subtype, so all in all I get a CR of 7, possibly 8.

I think concussion damage is usually refered to as force.

[Dhavaer]

Concussion damage is the same as sonic, but they use concussion when it's from a bomb rather than a spell.
That's one vote for 7 and one for 7/8.
Any other opinions?