| Basara549 |
I'm currently running a World's Largest Dungeon campaign in Pathfinder, making the necessary adaptations along the way from D20.
I've ran into a few issues (considering the bugs in the module, it's not unexpected - they even managed to even put an item from 2E that didn't make it into 3E into the module):
1. There's a lot of armor showing up with "Unholy" as a property. What should I convert it to?
Dastard? Does damage if touched like an unholy weapon? OR, something else?
Now, the hard part. Are there any guidelines for adjusting the effective CR for an encounter due to environmental conditions and other modifiers?
Here's the issue where this came up.
Party is 4 level 5s (2 5s, a 1/4 and a 2/3) of melee types, and a level 7 cleric.
Foes are CR 3; 6 Ghouls with 2 levels of Antipaladin, created by a curse, so they aren't standard ghouls per se, but aren't quite ghasts either.
But, they have the following innate:
All normal Ghoul properties (including turn/channel resistance), PLUS can effect Elves as ghasts would.
Spell Resistance 14
Feats: Multiattack (so they can 5-foot and use sword/claw/bite routine), Weapon Focus (LS)
Each has an Unholy Longsword +1 (plus the undefined "unholy" chainmail +1), meaning that the typical hit on a good party member will take them down 30-50% of their hit points.
Additional natural armor bonuses to raise their AC to 23, and flat-footed AC to 20.
Skills and stats give them a stealth +9.
While still 4 HD, the original creatures were written up as 4D12 HP.
In addition, the ROOM they are in has the following modifiers
* Area inflicts a -5 penalty to all PC Will saves
* Area has a base DC 14 Fear check when entered, or be Shaken for 1D4+1 rounds - that effectively becomes DC 19, with the will save penalty above.
* Two separate, cumulative, modifiers that give them an additional +10 channel resistance, and a 3rd that prevents use of Turning. Even the 7th level cleric with a +2 Feat bonus to Channel DC only does full damage from a channel if the creature rolls a 3 or less on its save.
* Additional bonuses to Stealth that give the monsters effectively +17 to stealth even with their armor penalties
* Terrain prevents characters (but not the monsters) from using 5-foot step, and requiring a DC 16 dex check to move more than half movement.
* Characters are at -10 to Perception checks
* Characters treat all ranged attacks as if target is Concealed
* Characters take 1 point of negative energy damage every 10 rounds
After the party BARELY survived this encounter, I'm now at a loss to determine the XP value of the encounter, because of all the buffs the module writer gave them - CR 3 is definitely too low.
In my days as a 1E & 2E AD&D DM, I could have used the tables from those books to modify the XP values, but for the later incarnations of D&D and PF, I haven't been able to find any equivalent.
So, what would you suggest I raise the CR to - or what kind of blanket XP bonus would you suggest?