Does an NPC's Age Category affect its Challenge Rating?


Rules Questions


I was looking at a module for 3.5 that I've been converting to Pathfinder and it had a Venerable age Rogue 10 that was CR 8. For 3.5, I figure he should have been CR 10 given 3.5 CR reckoning...so I was wondering if there were rules in 3.5 and/or Pathfinder concerning aging and CR for NPCs? Anybody know if there are rules to use for this?

It would seem like a caster would either be the same power level or stronger, but a combat class, especially a barbarian or fighter, would be significantly weaker the more they aged.


There are no rules for that as far as I am aware. After all, that is more or less calculating CR by specific stats, which can be complicated. Plus, you never know when they will have access to Age Resistance.


I haven't read anything about those sorts of rules either. My guess is that they applied the aging penalties then checked the Monster Statistics by CR table to see if the aging penalties reduced him to being a lower CR than usual, by virtue of changing his statistics.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Sir Ellrohir the Shining Lancer wrote:

I was looking at a module for 3.5 that I've been converting to Pathfinder and it had a Venerable age Rogue 10 that was CR 8. For 3.5, I figure he should have been CR 10 given 3.5 CR reckoning...so I was wondering if there were rules in 3.5 and/or Pathfinder concerning aging and CR for NPCs? Anybody know if there are rules to use for this?

It would seem like a caster would either be the same power level or stronger, but a combat class, especially a barbarian or fighter, would be significantly weaker the more they aged.

Unless the character's age modifications really impact it's ability to fight the group than I don't make any adjustments.

Essentially it's one of those seat of the pants adjustments a DM needs to make. Is the character more or less dangerous because of it's age? If the answer is yes, than adjust the CR. If not, leave it as it is.


Such as it is, I'm re-making all the classed characters in the module with Pathfinder classes to make each NPC the same CR as is in the module (which means an extra PC class level or an two extra NPC class levels in most cases), using the feats etc. given as rough guidelines. As such, for my purposes, in this specific case, I need to make venerable male human rogue, and give him enough levels and goodies to make him CR 8.

Yes, I would say that -6 Str, Dex, and Con do hurt a rogue quite a bit, especially the Dex and Con. For an NPC that could easily put his Con Mod as a negative and his Dex around 10, before enhancement. And overcoming venerable age is a high level spell. I could just make him old instead of venerable, which would make it a bit easier to compensate for, and just forget about adjusting CR to compensate.

Anyways...It's probably something I'm just going to have to guesstimate, but I'd prefer to have a 'by the book' ruling. It's also nice to have have such things as precedents for future rulings....

And thank you, Johnico, for pointing out the Monster Statistics by CR table. I don't think it has much use to the current conundrum, but that table should be of great use to me in the future as a DM.

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