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Yesterday, in one of the campaigns I play in, we were fighting goblins with regeneration. (The DM described it as minor, so I'm guessing 1 HP/round.) We know that fire and acid do lethal damage.
He asked my opinion about what an appropriate CR might be. His first opinion was CR 1/2; I thought CR 1. I'm sure the increased experience for CR 1 played no part in my initial reaction.
8-)
It might help to know that the world is (or seems at present to be) very low tech. We have no access to anything alchemical or even to torches, and even wood is difficult to obtain.
What is your opinion of the most appropriate CR? (Upon reflection, I'd probably increase the goblins' hit points a bit and call them CR 1, since they feel about like CR 0.8 in retrospect.)
I'd tend to look at how many bonus hit points that tends to generate in a given combat. Most combats don't last more than say... 5 rounds?
If the regen is only 1, then I wouldn't bother increasing the CR at all, especially if the PCs have the means to do lethal damage. 5 hit points isn't much beyond the scope of Toughness, and at higher levels is below even the scope of Improved Toughness.
Regen of 2 is borderline, but I could see it increasing the CR by 1 step. So if you have a CR 1/4 or 1/3 creature, bump it to a CR 1/2. CR 1/2 or better to a CR 1. If it's already a CR 1 creature, I'd be reluctant to put it at CR 2 unless the regen was part of a suite that increased its difficulty.
Pretty much, just look at the likely number of bonus hit points it'll result in, and judge the CR based on that. Would those bonus hit points dramatically affect the time combat takes (spiralling into more bonus HP)? If so, bump the CR. If not, no bigs.
I'd go with a little bit more; in a one-on-one combat, the bonus for Regeneration is minor, but if you have trouble dealing lethal damage (eg: your regular attacks don't, you need special actions for it) then the CR increases quite a bit if you're fighting a mob.
Especially goblins, who are usually downed with a single clean blow, become quite more menacing if they keep standing up after they fall. There's usually enough of them to keep the PC's busy so they can't Coup or otherwise permanently deal with the goblins. Since they're also intelligent, they should focus heavily on this tactic; pushing the PC's backwards so any that fall can get back on their feet.
It depends on the tactics; but if used properly, they can easily be CR 1. (specially if fire and acid are hard to come by, which makes a killing blow even harder)
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Let's just say it was an interesting challenge for eight regenerating goblins to attack our group of five third-level characters. Acid Splash only goes so far. (We have a Ranger 2/Sorc 1 and a Bard 3 as our arcane casters.)
The difficulty might be only a result of having a suboptimal group (for good RP reasons), which would argue for a lower CR. But I'm still not convinced that I can assign a CR with any confidence. At that level, though, you pretty much have to take at least one extra standard action for each creature before it's out unless you have area-effect fire or acid.
As an aside, I was surprised to find only nine creatures with Regen in the SRD (IIRC, and including the Tarrasque), and none with Regen lower than 5/round. It makes finding a comparable creature a bit difficult.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Is there a reason for using regen over fast healing? The later has a lot of the same effects as the former, but you don't need a special energy type to deal with the creature.
As for other creatures with low CR's and regen/fast healing, I would look to savage species first. It is 3.0, but the progression of the troll might give you an idea of the value of regeneration. I believe it kicks in at the CR 2-3 point, but a troll has a few more HD and abilities than a goblin.
The other creature I would look at would be the decanter goblins from Monsters of Faerun. They have fast healing 2 or 3, a natural horn attack, and better armor than normal goblins. Their CR is 1.
Generally though, I would agree with Xellan's analysis and conclusion.
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Check out the Sage Advice in the last issue or two of Dragon Magazine. There were a couple of questions about regeneration that I was surprised about. Basically, it seemed to imply that regeneration stops and the creature dies at -10 hp. That ultimately makes trolls (and others) far easier to kill than I remember them being.
If regenerating creatures die at -10 hp, I would not change the CR all that much (if any) due to a regeneration of 1. Basically it gives the creatures 9 extra hit points, all of which it has when unconscious.
If regenerating creatures don't die at -10 hp, (off the top of my head) I would increase the CR by half the regeneration amount each round, round up (give or take).
My thoughts on it...
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Check out the Sage Advice in the last issue or two of Dragon Magazine. There were a couple of questions about regeneration that I was surprised about. Basically, it seemed to imply that regeneration stops and the creature dies at -10 hp. That ultimately makes trolls (and others) far easier to kill than I remember them being.
If regenerating creatures die at -10 hp, I would not change the CR all that much (if any) due to a regeneration of 1. Basically it gives the creatures 9 extra hit points, all of which it has when unconscious.
If regenerating creatures don't die at -10 hp, (off the top of my head) I would increase the CR by half the regeneration amount each round, round up (give or take).
My thoughts on it...
I think your confused as to the mechanics of regeneration. When you do damage with a source other than the type that overcomes the regeneration, the damage is non-lethal. Non-lethal damage is a positive number that increases. Once it exceeds your current hit points, you go unconcious. That doesn't mean you are at -10 hit points though. So, no matter how many times you hit a troll with a sword, he's still going to be at full hit points, and thus not be at any risk of dying.
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I think your confused as to the mechanics of regeneration...
I didn't think that I was confused and then I read the Sage Advice. I re-read it a number of times. I will try and take a look at it again when I get home. As I read it, it seemed to imply that hacking it up into tiny pieces was unnecessary and that it would not regenerate. Needless to say, I was surprised by that answer. I guess that it is possible I read it wrong.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I think your confused as to the mechanics of regeneration...I didn't think that I was confused and then I read the Sage Advice. I re-read it a number of times. I will try and take a look at it again when I get home. As I read it, it seemed to imply that hacking it up into tiny pieces was unnecessary and that it would not regenerate. Needless to say, I was surprised by that answer. I guess that it is possible I read it wrong.
Well, the -10 hp thing is true, but the problem is that you only deal hp damage when you use the appropriate energy type. That being said, I also thought that there was a rule saying that you could kill a regenerated creature with a coup de gras, but when I looked up the SRD I found the following instead:
An attack that can cause instant death only threatens the creature with death if it is delivered by weapons that deal it lethal damage.
and
A regenerating creature that has been rendered unconscious through nonlethal damage can be killed with a coup de grace. The attack cannot be of a type that automatically converts to nonlethal damage.
Well, if the DM insists on using regeneration 1, I'd say bump the CR to 1/2. It may take a bit longer to deal with each individual foe, and if grouped, some of them may get back up, but it really doesn't increase the difficulty all that much, since goblins typically go down in one or two hits, anyway.
However, I'd really suggest switching that to fast healing and making no change whatsoever.
Regarding the rules debate that's sprung up, the article in question sounds more like it's talking about fast healing, which is not as powerful as regenration (tell that to the party fighting a 12-headed hyrda, though!). But, yes, if you attack a troll with a +1 flaming sword in a coup de grace or any attack that would bring him below -9 hp, he dies. However, if you hit him with a +10 vorpal holy giant-bane keen greatsword, he's not going to die, no matter what.
The only other thing that gets by the damage a specific regeneration is keyed to is instant death effects, like slay living and phantasmal killer. That bypasses the entire mechanic (provided the spells work to their full extent).
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I think your confused as to the mechanics of regeneration...I didn't think that I was confused and then I read the Sage Advice. I re-read it a number of times. I will try and take a look at it again when I get home. As I read it, it seemed to imply that hacking it up into tiny pieces was unnecessary and that it would not regenerate. Needless to say, I was surprised by that answer. I guess that it is possible I read it wrong.
Don't suppose you've had a chance to peruse Dragon and see what the sage advice says, have you? I would be curious..
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Don't suppose you've had a chance to peruse Dragon and see what the sage advice says, have you? I would be curious..
I did check it out and I didn't read it right. (That and I think that the answers were poorly written, but oh well.) Basically regeneration does continue to take place until/unless the amount of lethal damage reaches -10.
There were some interesting points in the Sage Advice -- for instance, what happens with a vorpal weapon? With a troll, the entry says specifically that it will regrow a new head in 3d6 minutes (or something similar). Since most other regenerating creatures don't have that mentioned, I forget what the sage said was the final ruling (since, in effect, it is an instant kill rather than hp damage). It really gets a bit fuzzy the deeper you look into it. On one hand, if using a vorpal weapon to cut off the head is an instant kill then cutting off the head with a normal weapon should be just as effective, but it isn't because you are actually doing hp damage. On the other hand, if it doesn't kill the creature, then how much does it need to regenerate to get a new head. If it is the hp damage the vorpal weapon would have done, why isn't it the same for the troll?
It doesn't look like I have been running regeneration exactly right. I don't know if I will be changing all that much -- it seems to me to be a lot more bookwork than I wish to mess with.
Thus, the prefered simplicity and clarity of fast healing. You get X amount of hp back every round, unless you are reduced to -10. Then you die like everyone else. That's all there is to it!
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Thus, the prefered simplicity and clarity of fast healing. You get X amount of hp back every round, unless you are reduced to -10. Then you die like everyone else. That's all there is to it!
Agreed. Fast healing does 95% of what regeneration does. The only extra thing that regeneration brings to the table is the concept that certain attacks are required to bypass the ability/kill the creature.