Saturday night is the night that is big climatic encounter for my group. I have had them raid a kobold cave system, and they have done a great job in clearing out the denziens. But now, it is time for the BBEG to be seen.
So my thought is to make a Kobold a cleric, but i am having a hard time figuring out what level i should make him, along with creating an entorage of protectors for the cleric. I remember reading something to the effect that if you apply character levels to an NPC, you change the CR from that which is listed of the monster to the CR of the class level you apply. I have looked on the pathfinder srd website, and within the core rulebook, but having a hard time understanding it, so i am hoping that i can have someone say it another way that i can understand to better prep myself for the game on saturday.
the APL=5 (6 pcs at level 4) + 1(for 6 players).
i want to make this a hard encounter, so that would be a total cr of 7.
Now, Could i make the kobold cleric a level 5, and have 4 level 1 kobold barbarians? If i remember correctly, the CR of an npc monster is equal to CR -1 with a pc class level. so the 5th level cleric would be a cr4, and the 4 kobold barbarians would be 0 level, but i feel that i am missing something else... hence my confusion.
It goes to cr 1/3 then 1/4 and 1/8 I think.
Kobolds have a special adjustment to them that lowers their CR by 1. As for designing a kobold encounter, make use of this fact. A kobold Adept with standard non heroic NPC stats is lvl-3=CR. So if you want the main boss to be CR 7, you can make a 10th level adept. Why do it this way? 10 HD, and check out the sweet stuff on the adept spell list. 10d6 lighting bolt or up to 20 HD of undead that doesn't count towards the encounter xp budget.
Boss fights probably should be APL+3 IMHO, but whatever floats your boat. Dropping the adept down a level will give you the budget for some kobold body guards (warior 3 is CR1/2 on kobolds). So an adept9 + 4 Warrior3 is an encounter level of 7 (-2 for NPC class,-1 for kobold adjustment),. If you want to make those PCs classes you reduce it to cleric 8, 4 barbarian 2. (-1 for PC class, -1 kobold adjustment)
Now PC wealth on a PC class brings the CR=lvl. So keep in mind to use the wealth chart for the NPCs and stick to the ability scores for non heroic NPC on the NPC classed characters and the herioc NPC abilitys for the PC characters.
Now those kobold warriors are hardly threatening without feats. Give them point blank shot, a short bow, and deadly aim. Even with pathetic kobold NPC stats they will be hitting on great numbers and 1d4+1 damage can add up. If the kobold wars can somehow get the xp budget to get to level 4, their offense gets pretty scary, even more so at 5 (deadly aim, rapid shot, point blank shot is a huge amount of DPR for a CR2 kobold!)