Modifying a creatures CR

[Ledge]

So I was hoping to have my level 1 PCs fight a pack of wolves, I'm attempting 3 PCs, and I'm a bit confused on how I'd apply the young template as it'd drop their CR to Zero? I was thinking four or more wolves, but of course they're CR 1, 4 wolves would be a CR 4 vs the APL of 3 (Or two, because I minus one?).

I was hoping their was some kind of guide somewhere for CR Adjustment, or how to dictate a CR based on skills and abilities gathered as I eventually plan to make my own creatures but as a brand new GM would like to just modify what's there, and add or remove skills and move CR as needed for it (In this reference I'd like to add a negative energy effect to one of the wolves, after reading over Hallow's Last Hope I noticed it was built for a party of 4 level ones, yet the Magical Beast Worg boss was only CR 3?

Sorry if this is in the wrong section... Had a hard time defining where I should post this. Technically a rules question, I suppose.

[Ledge]

Bump? I feel this should be a simple answer, just one I can't answer without actual play.

[Ansel Krulwich]

To calculate APL, you take the average of the party members and round to the nearest whole number. (1+1+1)/3=1. Then you subtract 1 because you only have 3 PCs which... Eh, I guess that makes their APL 1/2.

When calculating an encounter's CR, add the XP of each of the monsters, not their CR values. Four (normal) wolves is a CR 5 (400 XP times 4 equals 1,600 XP—same as a CR 5 monster) encounter, not a CR 4.

More info here: Encounter Design

The young template would drop the wolf's CR by one to CR 1/2. Two young wolves would be a CR 1 encounter or 'challenging' difficulty according to those guidelines but only you can really judge what is challenging to your players. You could probably add a third (or fourth) young wolf with little added difficulty given that the little nippers will be doing only 1d4-3 damage (hp damage reduced to zero does 1 non-lethal) if they can even hit.

[DM_Blake]

As Ansel pointed out APL = "Average Party Level", not Total Party Level, so you need to calculate the average. Don't add them up. Also, the CR system is intended for a party of 4 PCs. Since you are a member short, the APL is lower so really it's Average level -1. An APL or CR of 1 -1 is 1/2, not 0.

So a balanced encounter for these guys should be a CR 1/2. Anything higher than that increases the CR. This kind of increase, at high levels, makes for interesting fights, but at low levels can be deadly. Even a small "pack" of "young" wolves, with free Trip maneuvers on every attack, ganging up on prone PCs (+4 to hit prone, free AoO when they stand up), could quickly result in someone dying, so handle it carefully - level 1 PCs are delicate and must be handled with care.

On a side note, the Young template works for big scary monsters. The penalty they suffer still leaves them as a playable threat. Applying it to CR 1 creatures gets weird, but still might work for wolves.

-1 to attack rolls (-2 from STR, +1 from size), damage goes from d6+1 to d4-1 (-2 from STR and smaller die), -3 CMB (STR, Size), -1 CMD (Size), +1 to AC (+2 from DEX, +1 from size).

[Auxmaulous]

I could answer this but you would have to post it in the suggestions/house rules category.

One beef I have had for years with Wotc and Paizo, is the fact that they do not have a scoring system for monster creation. That is - break apart creatures stats, abilities and special qualities that make them up to generate their CR.

What you could do - and again, this is outside of the rules is tweak the monsters stats. This requires some adjudication and reverse engineering of some stats - but it could pay off if you pull it right.
So this is the long way...So for example you have wolves

Wolf: Base Creature:

CR 1
XP 400
N Medium animal
Init +2; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +8
DEFENSE
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 (+2 Dex, +2 natural)
hp 13 (2d8+4)
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1
OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee bite +2 (1d6+1 plus trip)
STATISTICS
Str 13, Dex 15, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 14 (18 vs. trip)
Feats Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills Perception +8, Stealth +6, Survival +1 (+5 scent tracking);
Racial Modifiers +4 Survival when tracking by scent

Apply the young template – but we don’t want these to necessarily be puppies attacking the party. You can mess around with the young template by not changing the size, but instead trading out some bonus or features of the template.

Step 1: Starving Wolf:

Wolf w/modified Young Creature Template
CR 1/2
XP 200
N Medium animal
Init +2; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +8
DEFENSE
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 (+2 Dex, +2 natural)
hp 9 (2d8)
Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +1
OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee bite +1 (1d6-1 plus trip)
STATISTICS
Str 9, Dex 15, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Base Atk +1; CMB +0; CMD 12 (16 vs. trip)
Feats Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills Perception +8, Stealth +6, Survival +1 (+5 scent tracking);
Racial Modifiers +4 Survival when tracking by scent

So no dex increase to offset the fact that they are staying at medium size, but their STR and CON went down – I would even consider reducing their STR and CON by -2 instead of 4 each, but fundamentally it’s similar to the Young template – you lose the dex bonus gained by the template in favor of keeping the creatures size.

Step 2: Starving Wolf re-feated:

Wolf w/modified Young Creature Template
CR 1/2
XP 200
N Medium animal
Init +2; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +8
DEFENSE
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 (+2 Dex, +2 natural)
hp 9 (2d8)
Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +1
OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee bite +2 (1d6-1 plus trip)
STATISTICS
Str 9, Dex 15, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Base Atk +1; CMB +0; CMD 12 (16 vs. trip)
Feats Weapon Finesse
Skills Perception +5, Stealth +6, Survival +1 (+5 scent tracking);
Racial Modifiers +4 Survival when tracking by scent

Now, let’s remove a key feature of the creature (free trip) and see if we can retain some fighting ability – while downgrading to make it CR appropriate.

Step 3: Starving Wolf re-feated/Sans SA:

Wolf w/modified Young Creature Template
CR 1/2
XP 200
N Medium animal
Init +2; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +8
DEFENSE
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 (+2 Dex, +2 natural)
hp 9 (2d8)
Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +1
OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee bite +3 (1d6-1)
STATISTICS
Str 9, Dex 15, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Base Atk +1; CMB +0; CMD 12 (16 vs. trip)
Feats Weapon Finesse
Skills Perception +5, Stealth +6, Survival +1 (+5 scent tracking);
Racial Modifiers +4 Survival when tracking by scent

Close, but not there yet, checking chart 1-1 (pg 291 bestiary) shows that this creature is still too close to 1/2 cr.

Final Step: Starving Wolf re-feated/Sans SA/Reduced HD:

Wolf w/modified Young Creature Template reduced HD
CR 1/3
XP 135
N Medium animal
Init +2; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +8
DEFENSE
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 (+2 Dex, +2 natural)
hp 9 (1d8)
Fort +2, Ref +4, Will +1
OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee bite +2 (1d6-1)
STATISTICS
Str 9, Dex 15, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Base Atk +0; CMB -1; CMD 11 (15 vs. trip)
Feats Weapon Finesse
Skills Perception +5, Stealth +5, Survival +1 (+5 scent tracking);
Racial Modifiers +4 Survival when tracking by scent

This would be a pretty strong CR 1/3 creature due to its high DEX, may just need to bump that down to 13 or even 11. This would radically affect its AC, to-hits and reflex saves. So it could be a question of fine tuning.

The short way…..(already at CR 1/3)

Side Step: Reskinned wolf:

Dog
XP 135
N Small animal
Init +1; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +8
DEFENSE
AC 13, touch 12, flat-footed 12 (+1 Dex, +1 natural, +1 size)
hp 6 (1d8+2)
Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +1
OFFENSE
Speed 40 ft.
Melee bite +2 (1d4+1)
STATISTICS
Str 13, Dex 13, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Base Atk +0; CMB +0; CMD 11 (15 vs. trip)
Feats Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills Acrobatics +1 (+9 jumping), Perception +8, Survival +1 (+5 scent tracking); Racial Modifiers +4 Acrobatics when jumping, +4 Survival when tracking by scent

Maybe I should have shown you that one first and save everyone the process of viewing all those steps?

The final CR 1/3 wolf is weak, but it still has better AC and a few more hit points than a dog, while still looking like a wolf (same size) so if you introduced normal wolves later on in the game as the players level up, your low-level wolves values and attack ability would be similar, with the players realizing that the wolves they fought earlier wear weakened from starvation/disease. Thematically they would be similar in function and appearance vs. using a dogs stats for a wolf where the dog is smaller (which is not too big of a deal if no one is noticing).

Try to keep it legal, but you can use whatever tricks that work. I wish they did have a scoring system for abilities and templates - but as a DM you can eyeball one combat value, ability or perk vs. another and double check the values presented in the book and score them yourself.

Maybe if they ever release Ultimate Monster? Who knows?

Sorry for the dip in house rules - I don't really consider these changes or modifications as house rules because you are fundamentally still using the game designer’s statistical guidelines. My approach is more of a alternate or uncharted method to get your monster from point A to point C.

Anyway.

[Ledge]

Ah, makes more sense that CR goes to 1/2 not miraculous 0. @Auxmaulous Excellent, that's the type of thing I was looking for, I haven't pilfered through the Bestiary yet, so I haven't look over many stats in that regard, but this kind of modification is what I was seeking. The idea of a Starving Wolf would make sense, I love it! I will play around with this guide draw up some random characters and see how a test play works out (My plan was to test play my scenario Combat wise before real play anyway, just to... Avoid a TPK.)

Thanks a ton, this gives me more than enough to go on, I'll report back after play testing.