CR that monster!

[Lhurgyof]

Hey playground, I was wondering if you could tell me what CR you would assign to the following monster, and any changes you might make to it. I was shooting for around CR 10, but I'm curious what you all think would think of it. It's designed to be encountered solo.

The monster is based on the Metallian, a creature located on the cover art of Judas Priest's Defenders of the Faith album.

Spoiler: Here's the Art

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The Metallian
Size/Type: Huge Construct
Hit Dice: 14d10+40 (110 HP)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 60 ft. (6 squares), Climb 60 ft., Burrow 30 ft.
Armor Class: 20 (-2 size, +12 natural), touch 8, flat-footed 20
Base Attack/Grapple: +10/+28
Attack: Claw +18 melee (1d8+10 plus 2d4 fire, 19-20/x2), or Gore +18 melee (2d6+15 plus 2d4 fire)
Full Attack: 2 Claws +16 melee (1d8+10 plus 2d4 fire, 19-20/x2) and Gore +16 melee (2d6+15 plus 2d4 fire)
Space/Reach: 15 ft./15 ft. (10 ft. with gore)
Special Attacks: Breath Weapon, Frightful Presence, Sonic Assault, Steam Cloud, Trample
Special Qualities: Construct Traits, Darkvision 60 ft., Damage Reduction 10/Adamantine, Fire Resistance 20, Heated Metal, Low-light vision
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +5
Abilities: Str 30, Dex 10, Con Ø, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 6
Skills: Listen +11, Spot +11.
Feats: Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack, Ability Focus (Trample), Improved Natural Attack (Gore)
Challenge Rating: ?
Treasure: Double Standard
Alignment: Neutral

Breath Weapon (Ex)
30 ft. Cone of harsh metallic sound, once every 1d4+1 rounds, damage 6d8 sonic and deafness for 1d4 rounds, Fortitude DC 17 halves the damage and negates deafness. The save DC is constitution-based.

Construct Traits (Ex)
Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, and necromancy effects.
Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy drain.
Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless).

Frightful Presence (Ex)
Whenever the Metallian makes a full attack or uses any of its special attacks, other creatures within 30 ft. of it must succeed on a DC 15 Will save or become Shaken for 1d6 rounds. The save DC is charisma-based. Creatures that succeed on their will save are immune to the Metallian’s frightful presence for 24 hours.

Heated Metal (Ex)
A combination of superheated water and steam pumps through the Metallian like blood. This grants the Metallian a constant Heat Metal effect. Since this ability is extraordinary and not magical, it cannot be dispelled or suppressed by an antimagic field. Contact with the Metallian (including striking it with a natural weapon, grappling, or being hit by the Metallian’s natural attacks) deals 2d4 fire damage from the heat. This ability grants the Metallian Fire Resistance 20. Any attack that deals 10 or more points of cold damage suppresses the Metallian’s Heated Metal ability for one round. If the Metallian fails a Fortitude saving throw (DC = cold damage dealt), it is additionally slowed for one round.

Sonic Assault (Su)
Once per day as a full-round action, the Metallian can move up to double its speed and in its wake it leaves behind an Energy Wall (Sonic), as the power at ML 10. The Metallian can use this in conjunction with its Trample ability. The saving throw DC for the Energy Wall is DC 13. The saving throw DC is constitution-based.

Steam Cloud (Su)
Once per day as a standard action the Metallian can produce an effect identical to a Solid Fog spell at CL 10. This fog is composed of superheated steam and any creature entering or starting their turn in the fog takes 2d4 points of fire damage.

Trample (Ex)
As a full-round action, the Metallian can move up to twice its speed and literally run over any opponents large sized or smaller. The trample attack deals 2d6+15 bludgeoning damage and 2d4 fire damage to any creature hit. Trampled opponents can attempt attacks of opportunity, but these take a -4 penalty. If they do not make attacks of opportunity, trampled opponents can attempt DC 27 Reflex saves to take half damage. The save DC is strength-based.

[Saintheart]

Going by WOTC's rules on monster advancement, Constructs get +1 CR per 4 HD, so right there that's 3 CR. Size at Large or bigger rates a +1 CR, let's assume the elite array for another +1, it has special qualities that improve its combat effectiveness (assuming it's a single encounter creature) for a +2 to CR. That's CR 7 total.

Trying the analysis another way, which is to say engaging in a little reverse-engineering:

On the average stats of all MM1 creatures , a mathematically average CR 10 creature has:
136.53 hitpoints
+2.79 initiative
22.58 AC
9.26 Touch AC
21.42 Flatfooted AC
BAB +13.21
Fort+11.63, Ref +8.58, Will +9.11.

The Metallian has:
110 hitpoints
+4 Initiative
20 AC
8 Touch AC
20 Flatfooted AC
BAB +10
Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +5.

Which is to say the Metallian is below an average CR 10 creature on every crucial metric except Initiative (and would be below average on that stat too if Improved Initiative wasn't in there.)

If it wasn't already apparent, this is a very blunt analysis. For a start, traits make some indirect impacts on these numbers - Constructs will rarely have to make a Fort or Will save by virtue of their immunities, for example, which makes the saving throw comparisons a little unfair. But on the average stats this sits much more comfortably as a CR 8 monster to me.

Yes, it's a Construct and therefore virtually nothing but bashing it to death works, it has "haha the monk catches fire every time he hits me", and it has DR, which makes it harder for the poor old archer to kite it to death. However, it's got the same problem as the Tarrasque: it can't fly (not even ranks in Jump), and it has no real ranged attack options usable more than once.

So we're down to the party mage flying around the battlefield being the only guy who can really affect it, and do so without real risk of harm. Which is (to me, don't take my word for it) a boring fight because the party has only one way to resolve the encounter: kite with the party mage while the melee'rs get burned to death in order to give the monster something to do.

Reflex save I think is one too high. Constructs get HD/3 for all their saves, so its Reflex save is +4 base, Dex 10 adds nothing, Lightning Reflexes gives it a +2 for a total of +6.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I agree on CR 8, purely from looking at it, so I'm glad to see that it's not contradicted by calculations.
Its special attacks are really not that impressive and do not affect it noticeably as they all require at least a standard action and are not that much stronger than just full attacking. I think it would be CR 10 if it could still move and trample through its own solid fog and produce it as a swift action rather than as a standard action. It would make for an interesting fight where the Metallian only emerges of the fog to run you over, leaving a screaming wall of music behind it, and give an actual reason to choosing to make an AoO rather than trying to dodge the trample.

[Saintheart]

Also, I think the DC of the Sonic Assault ability is low by 4.

DC = 10 + 0.5xHD + Ability stat. It's a (Su) ability, not (Sp). I'd have thought the Sonic Assault accordingly would be DC 17.


EDIT: Also, I might be missing something but there's a little bit that seems hinky about the extent to which Size has been factored in. It might just be from eyeballing it, but Huge size imposes -1 to AC and attack, not -2. Size changes also impact on damage dice, if this thing was being upsized from Medium it would be doing 3d6 base damage at Huge, not 1d8. Also, can't see how Dex changes due to size have been factored in, if it started at Dex 10 its Dex should be 8.

[Metastachydium]

Man, it's a statblock, and I somehow missed it!

The Metallian
Size/Type: Huge Construct
Hit Dice: 14d10+40 (110 HP)

117 hp.

Speed: 60 ft. (6 squares), Climb 60 ft., Burrow 30 ft.

60 ft. (12 squares). Don't forget to add the Skills section detailing the effects of a climb speed (I know we all know, but it's customary).

Attack: Claw +18 melee (1d8+10 plus 2d4 fire, 19-20/x2), or Gore +18 melee (2d6+15 plus 2d4 fire)
Full Attack: 2 Claws +16 melee (1d8+10 plus 2d4 fire, 19-20/x2) and Gore +16 melee (2d6+15 plus 2d4 fire)

Full attack has +18 to hit for claws, +16 for any secondary attacks (Multiattack). I'm not sure what's the deal with gore, though. If it's secondary, it can't have 1.5×STR to damage. (Also, why did gore get the INAtt? It would boost claws more.)

Space/Reach: 15 ft./15 ft. (10 ft. with gore)

Why the decreased reach there? If the creature counts as Huge (long), you want 10 ft. (15 ft. with claws).

Saves: Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +5

Ref +6 (4 base, +2 feat).

Skills: Listen +11, Spot +11.

With an INT penalty, thing has only 17 skill points, not 20 to spend.

Sonic Assault (Su)
Once per day as a full-round action, the Metallian can move up to double its speed and in its wake it leaves behind an Energy Wall (Sonic), as the power at ML 10. The Metallian can use this in conjunction with its Trample ability. The saving throw DC for the Energy Wall is DC 13. The saving throw DC is constitution-based.

What Saint says. DC's 4 too low.

Trample (Ex)
As a full-round action, the Metallian can move up to twice its speed and literally run over any opponents large sized or smaller. The trample attack deals 2d6+15 bludgeoning damage and 2d4 fire damage to any creature hit. Trampled opponents can attempt attacks of opportunity, but these take a -4 penalty. If they do not make attacks of opportunity, trampled opponents can attempt DC 27 Reflex saves to take half damage. The save DC is strength-based.

DC 29 (Ability Focus).

♣

More on point, I'm not good at CR, but so many of the SA DCs being based on nonabilities and the dump stat is something that'd probably not improve that value.

[Job]

Excellent, this guy looks like a fun time.

Just stuff off the dome. I'll try to do something more detailed later.

I'll concur with the above that we are around CR 7-8 and that fighting it solo will be kind of a grind for the melee characters and too straightforward for ranged/magical characters. DR + Solid fog is a huge pain for anyone having to just walk around.

My suggestion would be to make him a living construct
subtype, getting back his CON (boosting his saves and ability DCs), and just making him immune to mind-effecting effects. Or even better, having mental backlash to trying to touch the mind of such an absolutely metal creature. Players only make a mistake like this once, but it can be fun.

There is a ranged option in a geyser(read line) of boiling water.

He could use an attack that Deafens as that can impose 20% spell failure on most casters (not amazing, but it's caster edition)

I love the trample and sonic wall trail.

Having a 'hot bod' is cool, like the ecology angle.

His FP could only effect 'opponents' vs. "all creatures". Unless that was your intention.

I would let him use heat metal as an at-will SA, and maybe a quickened heat metal 3/day.

I like cold mechanically affecting it, good call.

[Tzardok]

I'd like some lore on this thing. The prerequisites for building one, or if one can't, some info on how it comes to be.