Hello there,
I'm a fledgling GM and I am starting a level 5-7 campaign pretty soon where the PC's are going to be dealing with a lot of undead. I was looking through some DND 3.5 books for monster ideas, and in the Fiend Folio I found the Crawling Head (pg 35 for those who care to look it up) which is perfect for my campaign. The problem is, its CR is 20, and while I can certainly save it for later in the campaign, I seriously doubt they're going to make it to 20 before we're through.
So, looking in the Pathfinder Bestiary, I found table 2-1: Monster Advancement in the Appendices (pg 295). Looking in the HP Change column, I see it says going from CR 20 to 19 is a change of 40, 19 to 18 is a change of 30, etc etc. By the time I make it down to CR 7 a monster with 182 HP now is WAY into negative HP. Obviously I am reading the chart incorrectly; even with the other columns, his stats become way too low. Can someone tell me how I SHOULD be reading the chart?
Secondary question-- when dealing with monster death, having never GMed before, I always assumed that monsters were considered dead once their HP reached zero. With PC's the Core Rulebook says you're unconscious at zero and not dead until your HP is at a negative value equal to your CON score. Was I right in my assumption, or is death for monsters the same as PC's?
Thanks for your help!
In relation to the death at zero or negative Con score, it's technically at negative Con score, but since most of the time, once all the monsters are in negative HP there isn't anyone to heal or stabilize them, most GM's just hand wave it and say they're dead once the combat is over. Also, a lot of people don't like the idea of PC's having to essentially execute every single monster to make sure it's dead and won't come back for them, makes things kinda grim, and very questionable on the good/evil axis.
As for the CR change to a monster, I don't think the chart was made to handle 13 points of CR change, but I've never really taken a close look since I usually just use monsters as is or add class levels. If I need a lower CR monster I just find one that is lower in CR. You'd probably be better off just rebuilding the monster from the ground up using the average stats for building a new monster.
Also, even if your game doesn't go to level 20, if they get to level 16 you could use a CR 20 creature as an extremely difficult, but still possible, challenge for them.
So, looking in the Pathfinder Bestiary, I found table 2-1: Monster Advancement in the Appendices (pg 295). Looking in the HP Change column, I see it says going from CR 20 to 19 is a change of 40, 19 to 18 is a change of 30, etc etc. By the time I make it down to CR 7 a monster with 182 HP now is WAY into negative HP. Obviously I am reading the chart incorrectly; even with the other columns, his stats become way too low. Can someone tell me how I SHOULD be reading the chart?
In this case: Not at all, really. The charts assume that you use monsters that are created according to the grand universal chart of monster statistics by CR on page 291. Those statistics represent the changes on the table on page 295. Of course, they're not set in stone even then, as some critters go off the charts (better in one aspect, worse in another).
The monsters from 3e were not created according to those charts. Your example of the crawling head had, as you say, 182 HP on CR 20. According to the master chart, that's ridiculously low - it should have something around 370 HP. 182 HP is in line with a CR 13 critter.
The best bet you have is to not reduce the stats according to the monster advancement table, but rather to reset them according to the monster statistic by CR table.
That means your critter should have about 85 HP (with an AC of around 20 and so on).
You basically recreate the stats using the original critter as a guideline.
Secondary question-- when dealing with monster death, having never GMed before, I always assumed that monsters were considered dead once their HP reached zero. With PC's the Core Rulebook says you're unconscious at zero and not dead until your HP is at a negative value equal to your CON score. Was I right in my assumption, or is death for monsters the same as PC's?Thanks for your help!
The rules apply to everyone. Even monsters become disabled at 0, drop at -1 and die at - (con score).
But most of the time, it doesn't really matter, because once the critter drops below 0, he's out of the action for good. In those cases you might as well assume that they die at 0 (unless you want to raise moral questions like "will you finish off the helpless enemy?").
The only time where exact negative HP actually matter is if a critter has fast healing/regeneration, or someone else is around to heal them.
In the end, it's your game, and you could totally say that not dying at 0 is totally a hero thing (though you might want to grant that benefit to certain "evil antiheroes", and of course regenerating, fast healing and ferocious critters should not be robbed of their special abilities' effectiveness, either.)
So, looking in the Pathfinder Bestiary, I found table 2-1: Monster Advancement in the Appendices (pg 295). Looking in the HP Change column, I see it says going from CR 20 to 19 is a change of 40, 19 to 18 is a change of 30, etc etc. By the time I make it down to CR 7 a monster with 182 HP now is WAY into negative HP. Obviously I am reading the chart incorrectly; even with the other columns, his stats become way too low. Can someone tell me how I SHOULD be reading the chart?
In this case: Not at all, really. The charts assume that you use monsters that are created according to the grand universal chart of monster statistics by CR on page 291. Those statistics represent the changes on the table on page 295. Of course, they're not set in stone even then, as some critters go off the charts (better in one aspect, worse in another).
The monsters from 3e were not created according to those charts. Your example of the crawling head had, as you say, 182 HP on CR 20. According to the master chart, that's ridiculously low - it should have something around 370 HP. 182 HP is in line with a CR 13 critter.
The best bet you have is to not reduce the stats according to the monster advancement table, but rather to reset them according to the monster statistic by CR table.
That means your critter should have about 85 HP (with an AC of around 20 and so on).
You basically recreate the stats using the original critter as a guideline.
Secondary question-- when dealing with monster death, having never GMed before, I always assumed that monsters were considered dead once their HP reached zero. With PC's the Core Rulebook says you're unconscious at zero and not dead until your HP is at a negative value equal to your CON score. Was I right in my assumption, or is death for monsters the same as PC's?Thanks for your help!
The rules apply to everyone. Even monsters become disabled at 0, drop at -1 and die at - (con score).
But most of the time, it...
Umm... that's what I said.