Ways to assess an opponent's CR/power level

[Biggus]

What ways are there which allow you to get at least an estimate of an opponent's CR/overall power level?

Class features:

The Urban Savant's Urban Savvy class feature (CS p.101-102) can tell you detailed information about a creature's abilities (BAB, AC, HD etc) on a successful DC 15 knowledge check.

The Arcane Lord epic prestige class (Dragon #297 p.53-54) gains the Gauge Weakness ability at 7th level which automatically tells them a single opponent's current saving throw bonuses as a standard action.

Bardic Knowledge/ Loremaster Lore can provide information about "local notable people, legendary items". This does not "reveal the powers of a magic item but may give a hint as to its general function". What qualifies as notable or legendary isn't spelled out here, but the Legend Lore spell says "as a rule of thumb, characters who are 11th level and higher are “legendary,” as are the sorts of creatures they contend with, the major magic items they wield".

Vigilant Eye of Helm (Know Greatest Enemy) (CoV p.51) Paladin substitution level tells you who the strongest opponent within 60ft is and whether its CR is 4 or more higher than your ECL.

Percipient (online) has the Auric Sight ability which tells you an opponent's power level relative to yourself (it doesn't say explicitly what this means in mechanical terms, but presumably it gives at least rough idea of the CR).

Skills:

Knowledge (Arcana, Dungeoneering, Local, Nature, Religion, the Planes) allow you to identify a monster and also gain some specific information about its abilities if you roll well enough.

The "assess opponent" use of Sense Motive (CAdv p.102) allows you to get an estimate of an opponent's CR relative to your own level or HD as a standard action. The Combat Intuition feat (CAdv p.106) reduces this to a free action and improves the accuracy of the check.

The "combat prediction" use of Sense Motive (S&F p.11) can give you a rough idea an opponent's character level. Requires 3 rounds of observation.

The value of a slave is based on their CR (LoM p.101), so arguably the appraise skill can be used to assess a creature's CR.

Appraise can be used to estimate the value of items, which can give you a clue as to the power of a creature, or the likely power of its bodyguards and servants. Normally takes 1 minute per item, but can be done as a standard action with a higher DC (CAdv p.97).

The Truespeak skill (ToM p.195-196) can give you a rough idea of a creature's CR.

Spellcraft can identify a spell being cast, thus giving you a minimum value for an opponent's level.

Martial Lore skill (ToB p.28) can identify a maneuver being initiated, thus giving you a minimum value for an opponent's level.

Feats:

Vatic Gaze (PHB2 p.85) allows you to make a Sense Motive check to determine the highest-level spell an opponent can cast.

Combat Awareness (PHB2 p.86) automatically tells you the HP total of all adjacent enemies.

Mindsight (LoM p.126) automatically tells you the Int scores of opponents, which for Int-based casters or true dragons can give a rough idea of their power level. Requires the Telepathy special quality.

Spells:

Detect Magic/(Greater) Arcane Sight can tell you the approximate spell levels of any active spells and caster levels of any magic items, although in the case of Detect Magic it takes 3 rounds of study to gain this information.

Know Vulnerabilities (SpC p.129) tells you an opponent's special qualities, vulnerabilities, and resistances if they fail a will save (a high damage reduction or spell resistance is a pretty reliable indicator of a high CR).

Power Sight (MotW p.92) tells you one creature's total HD, with no save or SR.

Know Greatest Enemy (SpC p.129) sorts enemies into CR brackets and tells you which is the strongest enemy in each group.

Detect Evil etc. give you a rough idea of a creature's level or HD, and also their spells and items, if they are of the relevant alignment.

Detect Thoughts can tell you a creature's Int score, which for Int-based casters or true dragons can give a rough idea of their power level. Requires 2 rounds of concentration.

Arcane Sensitivity (ShS p.44) automatically tells you the maximum spell level a creature can cast. Requires you to touch them.

Powers

Metafaculty tells you which of several wide bands an opponent's level or HD falls into, and also any "significant" items (DM determines what is significant). Costs 1000XP.

Size:

Creatures of large or greater size typically have minimum CR and HD (DMG p.296).

True dragons grow as they age, allowing at least a ballpark estimate of their CR.

[Prime32]

The 3.0 spell power sight^MotW tells you the total HD of a target within Close range, no save or SR allowed. Druid-only, but you could craft a "scouter" based on it pretty cheaply.

[pabelfly]

Truename spell-like abilities are based on the targeted creatures CR, usually 15 + 2 x CR.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Vatic Gaze (PH2) lets you tell the highest level spells someone is capable of casting with a sense motive check.

[Troacctid]

Combat Awareness tells you the current HP total of all adjacent creatures.

Detect evil and friends can allow you to ballpark someone's HD based on the strength of their aura.

[Doctor Despair]

The Paladin level 1 ACF Know Greatest Enemy lets you immediately know who the strongest creature around you is

[Telonius]

Detect Evil, then either Blasphemy or Holy Word (depending on how they ping). Observe the results.

[loky1109]

Sense Motive use from Sword & Fist

Combat prediction. You get a good though general idea of an opponent’s combat skill.
This use of the skill requires you to spend a minimum of 3 rounds observing an opponent who is engaged in combat. You can take no other actions in that time other than moving your normal movement rate. You must keep your subject in view at all times.
The DC is 20 +1 for every experience level your opponent has attained. If successful, you gain a +4 bonus on your first attack roll against the observed opponent. This attack must come within 24 hours of the observation or the bonus is lost. You cannot gain this bonus against the same opponent twice unless the character’s level has changed since you last observed him.

[Biggus]

The Paladin level 1 ACF Know Greatest Enemy lets you immediately know who the strongest creature around you is

What book is that from? I've just looked at two lists of Paladin ACFs and it's not on either of them.

Edit: there's a Paladin spell (SpC) called Know Greatest Enemy, is that what you were thinking of?

Everyone else: thank you, I'll add them in.

[Gemini476]

Truename spell-like abilities are based on the targeted creatures CR, usually 15 + 2 x CR.

This seems... pretty unreliable, I think, especially given typical Truenamer skill checks. Unless the DM is explicitly telling you the target's CR, in which case this is all irrelevant, all you're going to do is look at your skill check and say "well, this goblin is below CR20 I guess".

If you cast a spell at someone long enough that you start failing then you can figure out their CR, but that seems very situational. (Also, that'll usually just let you figure out one person per day.)

So technically it works but it's worse than other options.

EDIT:

What book is that from? I've just looked at two lists of Paladin ACFs and it's not on either of them.

Edit: there's a Paladin spell (SpC) called Know Greatest Enemy, is that what you were thinking of?

Everyone else: thank you, I'll add them in.

The Paladin ACF is the Vigilant Eye of Helm from Champions of Valor.

[pabelfly]

This seems... pretty unreliable, I think, especially given typical Truenamer skill checks. Unless the DM is explicitly telling you the target's CR, in which case this is all irrelevant, all you're going to do is look at your skill check and say "well, this goblin is below CR20 I guess".

If you cast a spell at someone long enough that you start failing then you can figure out their CR, but that seems very situational. (Also, that'll usually just let you figure out one person per day.)

So technically it works but it's worse than other options.

You would be surprised, it actually doesn't work too badly if your check is in the same ballpark as the enemy CR, which it's likely to be towards the end of the day or against especially strong enemies. It's also inherent in your casting and doesn't cost you an action to do (besides the fact that you're playing a Truenamer). For example, if you have a Truespeak check of 35 and you don't succeed on a Lexicon of Evolving Mind Utterance, and you've used that utterances four times that day, you could work out that it's over CR 6 (35 doesn't beat 15 + 2 x CR + 2 x 4).

[Seward]

Something my wife did once.

Detect Thoughts gives you the intelligence of people in the region. We had a meeting with somebody who claimed to be an epic wizard. Her character hated that character instantly but being a cleric of a lawful deity and also with some sense of self preservation (she was maybe level 5 at the time) she used Detect Thoughts on him before they met to hand over the item he sent them to fetch.

He pinged as high intelligence but not especially high.

So no, this is not an epic mage. Even if he somehow didn't have mind blank or some other detection defense running for some strange reason, his intelligence was just too damn low. He was, however, right in the intelligence range of a dangerous (for her party) wizard.

Indeed the wizard made his save against mind-reading but all he knew was somebody had hit him with a will save attack and failed, as the party was out of line of sight and it had been a while since he sent them off on the mission. He scanned with detect magic, found only the remnants of a divination spell (she'd turned off the spell by then), cast his defensive buffs from minute-level upwards (as the meeting was scheduled soon he figured most would be running for that event anyway, so why not play it safe?), but when nothing happened he shrugged, and a little while later the party entered the room.

She didn't tell anybody about this. She'd made an excuse and gone ahead to do it by herself. The party, including herself, were as we'd say, not especially good at acting or bluffing. She managed that problem by hitting him with a sound burst out of the blue, basically as soon as everybody got into the room and as the initial pleasantries were just starting. Needless to say, she surprised both her party and the wizard/doppleganger and it didn't go well for him after that.

[Gemini476]

To be fair, all Detect Thoughts lets you do is group things into four categories:

• 0 Int
• 1-2 Int (with failed saving throw)
• 3-26+ Int
• 26+ Int that's also 10+ above your own Intelligence

You could absolutely have an epic wizard with 25 intelligence. Heck, open the Epic Level Handbook to page 294 and you'll see that Halaster Blackcloak, the mad archmage below Undermountain, has an intelligence of 24.

...Actually, looking into it I guess most of the sample Epic NPCs have less than 26 intelligence? I guess that's what you get from 15 base + 0 racial + 7 level (or 22 before magic items). Looking into it, it looks like the only reason Elminster has 27 Intelligence is because he used wishes to get a +4 inherent bonus. Where did that last point of intelligence go? Who knows.
Notably there's very few attribute-boosting magical items on these sample characters, too: one that stands out is that Storm Silverhand, Rogue 1/Fighter 4/Sorcerer 12/Bard 8/Harper Scout 3 (total level 28) has some gloves of Dexterity... +2.

Also, only a handful of them have the Epic Spellcasting feat and of those three you've got, well: The Simbul (Sorcerer 20/Archmage 2/Wizard 10) with Int 20, Cha 20; Iyraclea (Cleric 15/Divine Disciple 5/Hierophant 5 of Auril) with Int 14, Wis 28; and Mordenkainen (Wizard 27) with Int 27.

[Seward]

[QUOTE]

To be fair, all Detect Thoughts lets you do is group things into four categories:

• 0 Int
• 1-2 Int (with failed saving throw)
• 3-26+ Int
• 26+ Int that's also 10+ above your own Intelligence

2nd Round:Number of thinking minds and the Intelligence score of each.
If the highest Intelligence is 26 or higher (and at least 10 points higher than your own Intelligence score), you are stunned for 1 round and the spell ends.
This spell does not let you determine the location of the thinking minds if you can't see the creatures whose thoughts you are detecting.

She got the exact intelligence score. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was 16-18ish

She also used this logic for expected intelligence score of any epic mage (if they're lower, they're using WBL stupidly)

15 int (elite array)
5 statbumps to 20, 6 at level 24
+6 intelligence item
+4 inherent at 20, +5 at 24

Minimum Int for an epic wizard that doesn't inexplicably forget that they know Wish and that a +6 headband is pocket change (actually a +4-5 book is also pocket change if they don't want to spend the XP) is:

30 intelligence, 32 at level 24.

Seriously, 20 int? What did he do, dump intelligence when he started? Take Vow off Poverty and never use the attribute boosts on intelligence? you have to work HARD to only have 20 int at level 21+

My guess is at minimum those statblocks were "without gear". What are the spending their millions of gp of epic wealth on anyway?

I'll grant that if it really had been Warnes Starcoat, the module probably would not have provided statblocks. (the only time in Living Greyhawk that they did was if you really might be expected to fight them, as with Rary in the final Bright Sands arc). Rary was undergeared, but there was a pretty good reason for that (he had a decent chance of being killed by his ritual by the ritual itself or the opposition, and if he's gonna wake up as a clone anyway, his best stuff is there. He was probably doing that ritual in random cohort gear or stuff in his treasury he hadn't sold yet). He was still damn near impossible to beat barring catching him in an antimagic field by surprise.

When I had to GM a social encounter with Robilar, I actually wrote him up as a level 24 straight core-epic fighter, with stat distribution similar to the old 1st edition "enemies" book. I had exactly one level 12ish character who tested him.

"How do we know you are the REAL Lord Robilar?"

"A fair question. Many people would like to be me."

There was a blur as he charged the person, one hand with weapon and one hand free and basically disarmed (snatch item version) every loose item he had of value (which included metamagic rods, a for-show dagger, spell component pouch, jewelry etc), holding the highest value item in his hand and the rest in a circle around the PC. The best part was the player screamed like a little girl (in character of course) as I described the charge. He had 9 attacks, which resulted in 9 successful disarms, got them all on a charge and no, he didn't have improved disarm. He didn't need it.

[shaikujin]

Thank you for making this post! I was searching for the same thing :)

[Thurbane]

Here's a thread I made a while back: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...-Assess-Others

Some of the things suggested were:

• Knowledge checks
• Archivist Dark Knowledge ability
• Martial Lore checks
• Sense Motive checks
• Truespeak checks
• Combat Awareness feat
• Combat Intuition feat
• Mindsight feat
• Vatic Gaze feat
• Urban Savant Urban Savvy ability
• Deathwatch spell
• Detect [alignment] spell
• Know Greatest Enemy spell
• Know Opponent spell
• Know Vulnerabilities spell
• Metafaculty power
• Power Sight spell
• Percipient Auric Sight ability
• Bardic Knowledge ability

[Doctor Despair]

Here's a thread I made a while back: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...-Assess-Others

Some of the things suggested were:

• Knowledge checks
• Archivist Dark Knowledge ability
• Martial Lore checks
• Sense Motive checks
• Truespeak checks
• Combat Awareness feat
• Combat Intuition feat
• Mindsight feat
• Vatic Gaze feat
• Urban Savant Urban Savvy ability
• Deathwatch spell
• Detect [alignment] spell
• Know Greatest Enemy spell
• Know Opponent spell
• Know Vulnerabilities spell
• Metafaculty power
• Power Sight spell
• Percipient Auric Sight ability
• Bardic Knowledge ability

Did the Know Greatest Enemy ACF not come up in that thread, or was it deemed not specific enough?

[Thurbane]

Did the Know Greatest Enemy ACF not come up in that thread, or was it deemed not specific enough?

A spell of the same name came up, what's the ACF?

[Doctor Despair]

A spell of the same name came up, what's the ACF?

Champions of Valor Paladin ACF - Vigilant Eye of Helm

Requirements
To take a Vigilant Eye substitution level, a character must have Helm as her patron deity and be about to take her 1st, 3rd, or 4th level of paladin.

Know Greatest Enemy (Su): A Vigilant Eye automatically knows which enemy in her presence is the most powerful (in game terms, which enemy has the highest CR). This benefit applies only to enemies that she can see that are within 60 feet of her. She does not need to use an action to know this, and this sense updates automatically if current foes leave or die or if new opponents arrive. She doesn't know why the most powerful enemy is such (for example, she wouldn't know that the most powerful orc in a patrol was a 3rd-level barbarian), just that it is so. She doesn't know exactly how tough this enemy is, but does know if that enemy is significantly more powerful than her (in game terms, if its CR is 4 or more above her effective character level).

This benefit replaces the standard paladin's detect evil class feature.

[Gemini476]

Seriously, 20 int? What did he do, dump intelligence when he started? Take Vow off Poverty and never use the attribute boosts on intelligence? you have to work HARD to only have 20 int at level 21+

My guess is at minimum those statblocks were "without gear". What are the spending their millions of gp of epic wealth on anyway?

Well, to compare with some of the Epic Level Handbook wizards:

Elminster
Signature Possessions: Ring of protection +5, amulet of natural armor +5, bracers of armor +7, ring of regeneration, mantle of spell resistance (includes resistance +5), +5 thundering longsword, Elminster’s eversmoking pipe*, ring of spell storing, necklace of fireballs (type VII), 4 Boccob’s blessed books. As a very powerful wizard, Elminster has access to incredible resources and can acquire or make almost any nonartifact item he might need, given time.

Halaster Blackcloak
Possessions: Ring of regeneration, horned ring (teleport 3/day when within Undermountain, negate arcane lock or nonprismatic magical barriers by touch, acts as a ring of freedom of movement, absorbs all magic missile and electricity effects), 1d20 flying daggers (animated flying objects with a +1 enhancement bonus), robe of eyes, ring of protection +5. In addition to these items that he always carries, Halaster has caches of magic items all over Undermountain containing powerful items of all sorts.

As a general rule, WotC (particularly early in 3.0/3.5!) doesn't assume that NPCs have a lot of magic items on them at all times. Probably because that just makes them big loot piñatas and if they really want to buff their stats they'll just give them arbitrary templates and starting attributes. (e.g. Elminster's presumably at base 12/18/14/16/18/17 stats.)

Also, keep in mind that a 30th-level NPC has "just" 570,000gp in equipment, per EHL p.317. NPCs only get to be equal to three times a typical encounter in treasure, not equal to the sum total of the wealth accumulated during your entire campaign up until that point.

The rules of Third Edition D&D kind of inherently make PCs more powerful than any NPC of equal level for a whole host of very good reasons.

[Troacctid]

Well, regardless of items, if you have 17 Int, you're not casting any wizard spells above 7th level, so it's pretty safe to assume you're not an epic wizard.

[Thurbane]

I love how 20 Int is considered "too low" on these forums

[Seward]

For epic wizards? Damn straight 20 is way too low. Any epic wizard at least started with the Elite Array, and I've yet to see an epic NPC wizard who is a halforc or a wood elf.

That's a 15 minimum starting int, 5 statbumps and not a even a +2 headband or ioun stone. Even NPCs at level 20 can afford a +6 headband. For wizards, Wish is a universal spell. Any of them could get +5 inherent bonuses for what is a trivial amount of xp for an epic wizard, without spending a dime.

(and are you freaking kidding me? Elminster bought a 50k +5 ring of protection and left his 36k headband of intellect in the wash? A WIZARD has a +5 thundering longsword???? The dude can CAST Greater Magic Weapon+5 on a +1 thundering longsword and have it last all day not even extended. That would have saved him 66000gp to maybe get, I dunno, obvious things like a Amulet of Health+6 and Headband of Intellect+6 for a mere 6000gp more. You know what costs more than 6000gp? A level 7 Necklace of fireballs that does LESS than just prepping fireball with a much shorter range. Or if your L3 spell slot is so precious, the scrolls to cover everything that necklace does add up to only 2925gp and 78xp, so to get +3 fort save and something like 80 hitpoints, more spell slots and +3 to all your save DC's on a wizard, you'd only have to pay an extra 225gp by taking scrolls, casting GMW and buying obvious magic items. What is he smoking in that special pipe anyway? Even at a mere 27 intelligence he should be bright enough for that.)

At least the dude had basic AC and resistance items. Except for the +6 dex gloves that would have raised his AC by 3 more cheaply than the last 3 points of armor bonus, deflection bonus and natural armor bonus he paid for, and would also have raised init and reflex save by 3.

Other epic characters might not have the Wish resource. But no wizard can avoid having wish unless he was too cheap to buy a scroll of it, trade Shapeshift or something to copy from somebody who already had it or just take it on their next levelup (by 21 you have 10 opportunities to take wish as a L9 spell for free).

An epic cleric might slide by with a 26 wisdom (15 plus 5 statbumps+wisdom item+6) but a wizards' gonna have inherent bonuses on that stat, if none other, so yeah, 30 is a minimum for any epic wizard under any circumstances I can imagine.

Note that in both entries they said "and a bunch of other magic items, whatever he needs". Presumably any GM would fill in those basic items from that list if either epic wizard was ever possibly likely to fight a combat vs PC's or alongside PCs vs an epic enemy. Had I seen a Warnes Starcoat entry missing such obvious items I would have mentally added them in using that last sentence when calculating his intelligence should he have somehow been caught without his daily mind blank and subject to detect thoughts.

[Biggus]

Thanks for the replies all, I've added them except for Thurbane's post. I ran out of time, I'll try to get to those later.

I've organised the list into categories for ease of reference.

Can I request that if you're telling me about something not from core you say what book it's from (and the page number if you know it) please? It's often easy to find this out from Google but by no means always.

[Dimers]

Arcane sensitivity spell in Shining South, sorc/wiz 1st level. Tells you whether the touched creature can cast arcane spells and the maximum spell level it can cast. Depending on your reading, the two parts might not be tied to each other, so if you touch a cleric17, you'd get "No and 9th". Thurbane, you might add that spell to your list.

It's oblique and situational, but on the other hand, it's cheap and doesn't allow save or SR. A reasonable choice for a wand.

[ericgrau]

Surprised no one has mentioned this: Abruptly suggest to the party the possibility of going all out on attacking the opponent and look at the DM's facial expression and level of fumbling to salvage his campaign.

[Doctor Despair]

Surprised no one has mentioned this: Abruptly suggest to the party the possibility of going all out on attacking the opponent and look at the DM's facial expression and level of fumbling to salvage his campaign.

Err, ahh, make a... make a wisdom check. Yeah. Hrmmm. Only an 8? Uh, I mean, 8s pretty high, good... You get a sense of foreboding at the thought. Oh, you want to roll initiative? Uh... make an intelligence check real quick. 12? You are well aware that there are other ways to resolve conflicts besides combat. Still... still going, huh? Allllrighty. Roll up.

[ericgrau]

Err, ahh, make a... make a wisdom check. Yeah. Hrmmm. Only an 8? Uh, I mean, 8s pretty high, good... You get a sense of foreboding at the thought. Oh, you want to roll initiative? Uh... make an intelligence check real quick. 12? You are well aware that there are other ways to resolve conflicts besides combat. Still... still going, huh? Allllrighty. Roll up.

Actually never mind, let's talk to him.

[Biggus]

Finally got round to adding the rest of the entries, and also SRD links. Thanks for the help all

[Thurbane]

I think this falls within non-necromancy: just stumbled across something while looking in Cerebrex Prc.

Cerebrex 9 - Twist the Neural Skein. You can study a prepared spellcaster, and you get a Spellcraft check to determine a spell that they have prepared. You can also make a touch attack and attempt to disrupt the spell, making them lose it as if cast.