Is it intentional that a Skeletal Champion keeps all of the base creature's special attacks, defensive abilities, and special qualities? They seem potentially way more than a +1 CR over a normal Skeleton with that in mind.
For example, I was making a Skeletal Champion dragon for a short "let's play some evil characters for once" mini-campaign my group's planning before our next Adventure Path. As I went through the list of stuff on the Template, I realized it distinctly lacks the "Special Attacks" and "Special Qualities" sections that the Skeleton template has, and the "Defensive Abilities" section lacks the "... loses the base creature's defensive abilities ..." text.
That left me with a Skeletal Champion Wyrm White Dragon that was CR 10, yet still had its breath weapon, spells, spell-like abilities, cold aura, frightful presence, dragon senses, snow vision, icewalking, blizzard, freezing cloud, DR (not that DR/magic is a big deal), SR, crush, and ice shape abilities. I'm pretty confident that it didn't come out to a CR 10 creature considering the Wyrm White Dragon was CR 16 to start with.
CR 10 seems roughly accurate actually... maybe not dead-on, but it's an extreme case.
Consider:
I was looking at it from the other direction. A Skeletal Wyrm White Dragon is CR 9 (well, the chart stops at CR 8 for a 20 HD creature, but there's no restrictions on higher HD skeletons so I just progressed the chart another stage). It has only its natural attacks going for it; it's mindless, so it has no skills or feats (aside from its bonus feat), it loses everything special about its original form except the Cold subtype, which is actually counter-productive since skeletons are already immune to cold but it keeps the fire vulnerability.
Now add the Skeletal Champion template instead of the Skeleton template. Suddenly it has all the benefits of being a Skeleton (namely the vast array of immunities), plus it keeps its mental stats, its spells, its spell-like abilities, all of its various attacks and defenses, oh and it gets +2 Str and +2 HD. I'm pretty sure that the breath weapon, all the feats, all the skills, the auras, and so on are worth more than 1 CR.
Yes, a dragon is an extreme case. The template can be applied to any intelligent creature with a skeletal system, which is about 75% of the Bestiary and includes all kinds of nasty critters. In fact, it's pretty useless applied to a goblin or an orc, so I'm not even sure how extreme a case a dragon is. The Wyrm part is pretty extreme (the mini-campaign is going to be level 20, and my Death Knight needed an appropriate mount...), but not the Dragon part, not really.
Point taken.
Yeah I agree that the CR on skeletal champions is wonky at best. Even taking something that has no magical attacks or defenses can give some weird results.
Take a 15th lvl human fighter. Thats a base CR 14 creature. Only thing he has going for him is his feats, BAB, and hps...at least things that are natural or inherent to him.
Now add the skeletal champion template. He gets a +2 AC boost, 2 bonus d8 HD, a boost of +1 BAB from said racial HD, undead immunities, immunity to cold, DR, 2 claw attacks, +2 to Str and Dex, Imp Initiative for free if he didn't have it already, a bonus feat from the new HD, extra skills, and +2 to Will saves from the bonus HD.
What does he lose? Not anything really. Maybe some hps. Whether or not he gains or loses hps depends on his original Con and Cha scores...he'll likely lose some as most fighters would have better Con than Cha, but hes getting an additional 2d8 from bonus HD either way. Say our fighter has 14 Con and 10 Cha and the Toughness feat. He'll lose 30 hps from what he started with, but will gain an average of 11 from his 2d8+2 from HD. It could be better or worse, but that seems rather typical.
How does all this affect his CR?
He goes from CR 14 to CR 8.
P.S. I think that Wyrm White Dragon Skeletal Champion would be CR 11. He'd have 25 HD, so that would probably make him a CR 10 skeleton, thus a CR 11 skeletal champion.
Mixing with class levels really throws things off. I'm not clear on exactly how the rules there would work, but do you only use the racial (undead) hit dice to determine the new CR, then advance by class level as normal? Or do you count class hit dice and racial hit dice together, then use the total hit dice to determine CR?
For example, with Father Dale's example above, a 15th level human fighter would be CR 14. Becoming a skeletal champion, he'd have 2 Undead HD + 15 Fighter HD. Would he have 17HD, and thus be a CR8 as Dale said? Or would he be a CR2 skeletal champion, then advanced 15 levels of fighter (which would be a key class for a skeletal champion) and so be CR17 (which makes more sense to me, but seems to counteract the rules)?
Actually, if we use the advancement interpretation, the skeletal champion template would only grow wonky with high numbers of racial hit dice (like dragons) - it works fine for things with fewer racial hit dice.
The CR is a little wonky. I was considering making my sorceress PC into a skeletal champion, but then realized that lich was better in every way and would retain just as many class levels (give or take 1) using the monsters as PC guidelines.
Now add the Skeletal Champion template instead of the Skeleton template. Suddenly it has all the benefits of being a Skeleton (namely the vast array of immunities), plus it keeps its mental stats, its spells, its spell-like abilities, all of its various attacks and defenses, oh and it gets +2 Str and +2 HD. I'm pretty sure that the breath weapon, all the feats, all the skills, the auras, and so on are worth more than 1 CR.
How does it keep the spells and such? The template says nothing that makes me think it would.
Unlike many other templates, it does not say "... retains all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here."
Or does the ogre lose its original ogre skill ranks from the original 4 racial HD? And these 12 skill ranks simply replace them?
This is how it works, yes.
Yes, on all 3 questions :)
Skeleton and Skeleton Champion has been discused in the past too.
The skeleton template makes the base creature just an undead, removing all abilities/feats/powers or whatever it has and gains the Undead traits.
The skeleton champion for me has nothing to do with the skeleton template, and adding a +1 from the skeleton template is just laughable.
According to Hero Lab a 14lvl fighter is CR 13, with the Skeleton template is CR 9 while with the Skeleton Champion is CR 15 (14lvl + 2HD = 16lvl). And I fully support this.
As for applying the skeeleton champion template to a Dragon, I've done this in a session one day and I was really disappointed with the result. The next session I applied the Skeleton Champion to a evil 18lvl Paladin (before APG) who was a Lich's bodyguard and master of the dragon. The results ? The Paladin's "theoritical" CR was 19-20(mediocre equipement) while the true CR was over 22 (he was immune to everything that had a saving throw, he had all his pre-undead abilities/powers, he had Cha mod to HP, and against his Smite foe he was like Chuck Norris vs a punny mortal :D)
So from that day when I calcualate CR I take into account everything that a template offers.This is one of the few things that Pathfinders has holes, the precise calculation of CR (especialy when racial HD, monstrous races and templates are included)
Mixing with class levels really throws things off. I'm not clear on exactly how the rules there would work, but do you only use the racial (undead) hit dice to determine the new CR, then advance by class level as normal? Or do you count class hit dice and racial hit dice together, then use the total hit dice to determine CR?
For example, with Father Dale's example above, a 15th level human fighter would be CR 14. Becoming a skeletal champion, he'd have 2 Undead HD + 15 Fighter HD. Would he have 17HD, and thus be a CR8 as Dale said? Or would he be a CR2 skeletal champion, then advanced 15 levels of fighter (which would be a key class for a skeletal champion) and so be CR17 (which makes more sense to me, but seems to counteract the rules)?
Actually, if we use the advancement interpretation, the skeletal champion template would only grow wonky with high numbers of racial hit dice (like dragons) - it works fine for things with fewer racial hit dice.
Any additional insights or official word on how class levels affect the CR of a Skeletal Champion?
Also, if you have a creature with a CR less than 1 (i.e. CR 1/6, CR 1/4, CR 1/2), does adding CR +1 simply turn it into a CR 1 creature?
It seems this template will force GM's to make judgements on a case by case basis depending on the monster's base form.
By the book you go by the skeleton template's CR chart and add 1, but I would ignore that and ad-hoc the CR if it seemed out of sync with other creatures that had a similar CR.I think a human fighter turned into a skeletal champion loses CR, but I don't think a CR 17 drops to a CR 8. By the time a fighter is at level 17 he can have an attack bonus in the mid 30's or higher. Even power attacking he hits level 8 characters with a 2 on the dice.
There does not seem to be a correct flat formula for this one.