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Thread: Monster Advancement, LA, and CR
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2007-07-09, 04:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Monster Advancement, LA, and CR
I may possibely be witnessing a gulf between v3.0 and v3.5 rules, there seems to be a discrepancy in making a monster encounter with class levels. Supposedly the CR of a single NPC is its class level, I advance Monsters with class levels, and players get monster levels with LA, but this doesn't work out. To add a class level to a monster do I simplt add one to the CR or do I have to add the LA and one?
Example: is a Minotaur (6 HD, LA+2, CR 4) with one added level of Barbarian CR 5 or 7 as far as difficulty, experience, and treasure are concerned?
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2007-07-09, 04:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
Re: Monster Advancement, LA, and CR
Rules appear in back of the MM, but in short:
If you give them PC class levels that stack well with their innate abilities (barbarian for minotaur, for instance), you add the class levels to the base CR of the monster to obtain the result. NPC or less well-matched levels are messier.
Equip it with an NPC of it's class level's equipment. Loot I'm not sure about.
LA+HD+class levels is ECL, which is the supposed equivalent level for a monstrous PC. This is entirely separate from (and usually higher than) CR,
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2007-07-09, 04:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Monster Advancement, LA, and CR
LA is really only relevant for player characters.
When making an NPC monster with class levels you don't need to worry about the LA.
When you want to advance a monster by giving it class levels you first have to determine whether the class level is associated or non associated.
Your example Minotaur Barbarian would be an example of associated class, while sorcerer would not.
So CR 5, but read more below.
Originally Posted by SRDLast edited by Lord Lorac Silvanos; 2007-07-09 at 04:23 PM.
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2007-07-09, 04:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Monster Advancement, LA, and CR
It depends. There's an ill-defined concept called "associated class" that determines how advancement in a class adds to a monster's CR.
Originally Posted by SRDLast edited by Zherog; 2007-07-09 at 04:23 PM.
John Ling
Frog God Games Lead Pathfinder Developer
Note: unless explicitly stated otherwise, opinions in my posts are my own and not those of Frog God Games.
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2007-07-09, 04:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Bellona