I can't find a place in the ARG that explains what CR to give to a race you built. Looking at the examples does not seem to help.
Gnoll: 6 RP, CR 1
Lizardfolk: 8 RP, CR 1
Dwarf: 11 RP, CR -1
Human: 9 RP, CR -1
Drow Noble: 41 RP, CR 1
I don't get it. Why the huge differences?
Racial hit dice need to be factored in there, too (for the gnoll and the lizardfolk).
OK, but the other ones make no sense. Especially the Drow Noble.
Bestiary Gnolls and Lizardfolk have 2 racial HD. Drow Noble just have a lots of abilities but no racial HD.
EDIT: I don't know if that was changed in ARG but according to Bestiary you are erronously expanding difference between standard humanoids and drow nobles - core races have their CR equal to PC class level -1 while drow nobles have CR equal to PC class level +0, which is a 1 point of difference in CR and you presented them as if they had two points of difference in CR.
OK, but the other ones make no sense. Especially the Drow Noble.
It doesn't make sense to you that a race built on 41 RP would have a higher CR than a race built on 11 RP? That sounds relatively sensible to me.
But in general, you won't get a good formula for translating RP to CR because there are things that cost RP that don't affect CR much at all. For instance, a racial bonus to Knowledge checks would almost never make an enemy more powerful in combat.
RP isn't all that great an indicator of the power level of a race anyways.
Really good point hogarth. I am also trying to find a hard fast rule for matching RP to CR but i had not considered marginal abilities like you mentioned.
I think i have to just DM fiat these things and try to find a balance.
Really good point hogarth. I am also trying to find a hard fast rule for matching RP to CR but i had not considered marginal abilities like you mentioned.
I think i have to just DM fiat these things and try to find a balance.
Drow Noble were kinda a goof up on Paizo's end. They got published, were horribly overpowered for the CR and then there was a designer's note made that they should in fact have an LA in a game where they were trying to not use the LA system. Basically don't use them as a measuring point for anything. They were never intended to be used as a player race it seems.
I believe the ARG entry for them was an attempt to point out exactly how over the top the race was, and a stealth "fix" was implemented by providing the Noble Drow feat chain. They've basically said, you want to play one? Take these feats to gain all that nifty stuff they have. This gives GMs who have players opening up the book and pointing to the Bestiary entry saying "I want that" the ability to open the ARG, point and say "Ok, here is how you do it by the rules."
You know, this is a bit off the cuff, but a decent starting point for determining LA would be as follows:
10 (or 9-11) = +0
11-19 (or 12-21 = +1
20-29 (or 22-31) = +2
30-39 (or 32-41) = +3
And so on.
Don't bash me too hard, like I said it's an off the cuff starting point to hopefully get the brains 'a stormin'.