A Canine Conundrum in the Pathfinder Bestiary preview: riding dogs, wolves, and CR

[A Man In Black]

I was reading the Pathfinder Bestiary preview PDFs while fiddling with a PF version of my old 3.5 druid charop guide, and I noticed something.

Riding dogs have 13 HP, 13 AC, bite at +3 for d6+3 damage plus a trip with a +3 CMD, and are CR 1/2. Wolves have 13 HP, 14 AC, bite at +1 for d6+1 plus a trip with a +2 CMD, and are CR 1.

Riding dogs are scarier than their wild cousins, and are lower CR. What gives?

[The Grandfather]

A Man In Black wrote:

I was reading the Pathfinder Bestiary preview PDFs while fiddling with a PF version of my old 3.5 druid charop guide, and I noticed something.

Riding dogs have 13 HP, 13 AC, bite at +3 for d6+3 damage plus a trip with a +3 CMD, and are CR 1/2. Wolves have 13 HP, 14 AC, bite at +1 for d6+1 plus a trip with a +2 CMD, and are CR 1.

Riding dogs are scarier than their wild cousins, and are lower CR. What gives?

If riding dogs did not have the trip ability, I would uderstand.

[A Man In Black]

The Grandfather wrote:

If riding dogs did not have the trip ability, I would uderstand.

Yeah, maybe that was the intent? Doing that kind of undermines using riding dogs as stats for attack dogs, though. Although I guess you could just use wolves for attack/guard dogs if you really care.

While I'm on the subject, I'm noticing a lot of variability in threat with the low-CR foes in the Bestiary preview.

For example, horses are 15 HP, 11 AC, swing twice at -2 for d4+1, and are also CR 1; is that seriously a threat to a level 1 party? How does that compare to a wolf, who does more damage and has the trip besides?

Weasels hit for one damage and get a free grapple at +0 CMD and have 4 HP, yet they're higher CR than a human skeleton or a goblin, which are in all ways more fearsome except for the free grapple.

Also, it's kind of odd that skeletons do less damage when wielding a sword.

[Quijenoth]

Comparing the two it would seem the only advantage the wolf has over the riding dog is speed (50) and AC (14). The Riding dog does indeed have a greater attack and damage range over the wolf (and a better CMB/CMD) due to its 15 strength.

The only other cosmetic difference is the wolf uses stealth over the riding dogs acrobatics.

I agree this is probably not worth the huge difference in CR and it may have been a typo since in 3.5 the riding dog is CR 1. However, comparing the stats of both from 3.5 the riding dog did receive a nerf in its AC (going from +4 natural armor down to +1), maybe they thought this was worth at least a small reduction in CR.

[Quijenoth]

A Man In Black wrote:

Also, it's kind of odd that skeletons do less damage when wielding a sword.

The skeleton does less damage with the sword because it has the broken condition (-2 to attack and damage)

[Quijenoth]

The Grandfather wrote:

If riding dogs did not have the trip ability, I would uderstand.

Thats a good point - it seems riding dogs have gained the trip ability in their conversion from 3.5 to pathfinder.

[A Man In Black]

Quote:

Thats a good point - it seems riding dogs have gained the trip ability in their conversion from 3.5 to pathfinder.

D20 SRD, Riding Dog entry wrote:

If trained for war, these animals can make trip attacks just as wolves do (see the Wolf entry). A riding dog can fight while carrying a rider, but the rider cannot also attack unless he or she succeeds on a Ride check.

Quijenoth wrote:

The skeleton does less damage with the sword because it has the broken condition (-2 to attack and damage)

I get why it happens, mechanically. It's still really weird to have a monster statted up using equipment that makes it less effective than it is without that equipment.

Actually, man, skeletons are wrecking balls for their CR if you tell them to drop their stupid swords. They're hitting 40%-ish of the time for 1/3 of your HP (and that's if you're beefy, rogues are in Big Trouble), have high enough HP that you can't just overcome their DR with improvised weapons, and shrug off a surprising number of attacks as misses or DR soaks. Except for HP they're +1 across the board over 3.5 skeletons, which were already situationally annoying because of their DR.