The monster creation chart seems to think that I am an idiot. Or that it wants all CR 1 monsters to have exactly 15 hp.
The following is said under racial hit dice:
"Adding racial Hit Dice to a monster is a similar process to building a monster from scratch. As additional Hit Dice are added, other abilities increase in power as well. Additional Hit Dice usually results in better attack bonuses, saves, hit points, and skills, as well as more feats. It can also include additional spellcasting capability and other powers."
But it says NOTHING about how many hit dice it takes to increase a monster's challenge rating, and by how much.
I demand to know how many hit dice increases = 1 CR increase.
Don't give me this namby-pamby cookie cutter "10 hit points at cr 1" crap. I want to roll MY monster's hit dice, add MY monster's constitution modifer, and determine MY monster's attack and damage.
i demand that an HD-CR chart be made so that those of us who like to actually customize our monsters not have to be confused by this cryptic garbage. I shouldn't have to reverse engineer all of the cookie cutter, in the box stuff.
Your simple templates do NOTHING for monster challenge. Without the additional hit dice, they are cannon fodder.
Why don't these add hit dice? You would think the ADVANCED template would ADVANCE a monster by an appropriate amount of CR. But no, all it does is jack up ability scores. Fie! A squirrel ten times advanced still falls to a sleep spell. CHallenge rating 10 my arse!
I just want to add some freaking hit dice to a freaking badger. Why must you designers make it so hard?
Also, your advancement chart is a confusing clusterf%+#. My eyes have to go up, down, left, right, and I still can't figure out where i am supposed to go. Who was the braindead moron that came up with the "higher CR, lower cr" chart? its extremely confusing. Why would the higher cr be in the left column, anyway? If something is going UP, it should go up LATERALLY, as in, I shouldn't have to go DOWN A LINE AND TO THE LEFT. I should be able to read left-to-right.
This isn't a rules question.
Pathfinder assumes an average roll on the HD of monsters and then adds in appropriate bonuses.
Also, at least for humanoids enemies CR = HD.
Also, maybe turn down the hostility level a little? The bestiary's are presented to help save time for GM and reduce the work of rolling dice and paperwork of keeping track. A common tactic many people use is giving full hp per HD and increasing CR by 1.
You add the additional HD to match the desired CR, in the example given in the reference or Bestiary the monster had CR 3, you wanted CR 5 - the table says 25 HP is the adjustment.
Lets assume the monster has d8 HD and +2 CON modifier, average of d8 is 4.5 adding the CON modifier means 6.5 per HD. To get close to 25 HP you would do this FOUR times adding 26 HP, adding a total of 4 hit dice and everything that entails from skills, fears and so forth.
Then you adjust the creatures AC using the same line, so in this case we up the creatures natural armour bonus by 3.
Then the creatures to hit chance increases by 3-4 points, factor BAB first then adjust the creatures combat stat (usually strength) to match this value.
Then increase the creatures damage potential, the change from CR 3 to 5 adds 6-7 points if damage to the creatures attack(s), so adjust the creatures damage accordingly.
(If I am wrong here someone correct me, I am flipping between pages on my iPhone answering this ANC trying to figure if out without my books infront of me)
Okay, how is that EASY by any definition of the word?
The chart assumes that I want to "rear load" the monster's power level.
I want to front load.
You want me to choose where iw ant to go and then make adjustments.
i want to make my adjustments and determine wher ei am going BASED on adjustments.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4
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Redesigning a monster from the ground up isn't easy, because there's a lot of moving parts.
You should always be designing a monster with an intention of what you are designing it for. "I'm designing a monster to be very challenging for a party of 10th-level characters." So then you'd shoot for something in the CR 13-14 range.
Just adding numbers to see what CR you come out to isn't really a good design method.
If you're doing it for theorycrafting, "How many HD can I add to a rabbit to make it a CR 20?" the book just isn't designed for those needs, nor should it be.
Working within the confines of a page-count for their books, the designers developed a system aimed at helping GMs design encounters. Encounters are typically based around the level you would like to have them happen at. Functions of monster customization outside of that isn't really in the scope of the Bestiary, and never was the intention of it, as far as I know.
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Find out the CR you want the creature to be, use the chart for how many HD that should be, then set the con modifier to the amount that brings it close to the suggested HP. or you have the option of not using it and name another creature what you want it to be (if you want a CR 7 wolf use a Dire bear and say it looks like a wolf, replace grab with trip if you want) its much easier than making a new creature if you are having trouble. Try any on the monster generators out there, they will tell you the CR of the monster. People are going to be less likely to give you good advice on something if you are rude and remember this is a game, if you are not having fun try something else.
Good lord, what's with all the yelling? Giving me a headache.
If you want to wing it with a monster to see what the CR would be if you add a bunch of stuff, go for it. Seems like a better idea to have an idea of your endgame first. "I'd like this monster to be CR X. To get there, I'll need to do M, N, and O." That's how the rules are set up because that's much more conducive to creating CR appropriate encounters.
Robert Brookes nailed it.
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Suggestion: use the 3.x chart. You find it simple and plain, you don't want to learn the PF chart, so stick with the 3.x. After all, Pf ihas backward compatibility.
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The monster creation chart seems to think that I am an idiot.
I demand to know how many hit dice increases = 1 CR increase.
Crawl before walking, young Sith.
Just because all you have is a hammer, does not mean that all of your problems can be solved by acting as if they are nails.You may also want to consult other areas of the wonderful prd for making better monsters, such as here.
-TimD
edited to remove a violation of the "most important rule" and actual add some potentially helpful content.
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Before you start killing hostages let me answer some of your questions:
I demand to know how many hit dice increases = 1 CR increase.
Answer: It depends. Increasing an Outsider with high stats' HD may very well increase its CR by 1 (or even 2!) As Outsiders have Fighter BAB & Hit Dice as well as a veritable plethora of supernatural abilities.
While increasing a fey creature's Hit Dice may require multiple hit dice before you hit the rough guidelines of the monster creation chart (since they have d6 hd and low BAB).Your simple templates do NOTHING for monster challenge. Without the additional hit dice, they are cannon fodder
They work pretty well in my games. What point buy do your players have? Maybe they aren't challenged because they are playing a higher point buy than the assumed 15.
Why don't these add hit dice? You would think the ADVANCED template would ADVANCE a monster by an appropriate amount of CR. But no, all it does is jack up ability scores. Fie! A squirrel ten times advanced still falls to a sleep spell.
The "Advanced Template" is used to quickly increase the challenge of a monster for groups of more than 4 players, or groups playing on a higher point buy. Applying it more than twice is really counterproductive and you should probably add hit dice instead (see above).
CHallenge rating 10 my arse!
Your arse is worth roughly 9,600 XP! Quite a challenge, I hope you accompany it with 5,450 gp worth of treasure.
It should have roughly 130 hp, its AC should be around 24, its high attack should be at about a +18 bonus and it should deal about 45 damage maximum with said attack, its low attack should be at +13 dealing about 33 hp damage. Its primary ability (probably an at will poison gas breath weapon!) should have a DC of 19 (likely targeting Fort), Secondary Ability (if it has one) should be DC 13. Its good save should roughly equal about 13 and its bad save should roughly equal around +9.Its Hit Dice will vary depending on its creature type.
Who was the braindead moron that came up with the "higher CR, lower cr" chart?
Here is a more polite way of rephrasing that:
"I find the 'higher CR, lower CR' chart confusing. Can someone please help me decipher it?"
Name calling is rude, and inappropriate and if you looked right below where it says "Submit Post" it says this:
The most important rule: Don't be a jerk. We want our messageboards
to be a fun and friendly place. Questions? Check the FAQ.
I really just don't see anything so hard about creating or adjusting monsters. A bit time-consuming? Sure. A bit involved? Yeah. But world-endingly hard?
Hardly.
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CR levels are approximations and not perfect quantifications (is that a word?) of a creature's difficulty. A system with the complexity and interactions of Pathfinder means that any chart that claims to scale only ONE metric (hit dice) with CR would be misleading. And anyone who thinks this is what the CR chart accomplishes is misled.
Honestly the chart in the monster creation section is a bad joke if taken directly. More often than not, if you tried to use those numbers alone the creature is woefully underpowered for its CR. Those might be the baseline numbers, but most real monsters have some very nasty abilities, lots of SLAs, or some other aspect that pushes them above and beyond what those base statistics would imply.
It's not a bad location to begin, or to find the average of something in a given CR range, but it has led to some confusion as to what a creature's CR should be, especially when a creature by its nature, equipment, class levels, or whatever else makes it look less like the chart says it will.
For example, the chart mentions nothing about things like DR. By the chart, a creature that has DR 50/- and SR 30 but 10 hp, 11 AC, +1 to hit, and so forth would be a CR 1/2 creature. By the same account, if it had mass dominate monster at will it's still A-OK as long as the save DC isn't much higher than 11 (so a 1 Charisma could net it a save DC of 14).
It doesn't account for abilities like regeneration, darkvision, or any of the creature's skill modifiers, ecology, or anything else. At the very best, it's nothing more than a push in the right direction to help people make sure they're not terribly off the mark.
If you consider the amount of space it would take to consider the interplay between every possible monster ability... you'd have to put out a book dedicated to nothing but monster creation. And creating a single monster with more than two abilities would take forever.
That's why Ashiel's post is right on the mark. As admitted to in the Monster Creation section itself. That's why one of the steps is "double-check against existing monsters". Because no spreadsheet in the world can accurately encompass everything.
Although, a "maximum DR / SR by CR" and/or a section on "DR impact to HP relative to CR" would be a nice addition to the rules, without eating too much more space.
A monster creation manual?
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If you consider the amount of space it would take to consider the interplay between every possible monster ability... you'd have to put out a book dedicated to nothing but monster creation. And creating a single monster with more than two abilities would take forever.
I can also guarantee that someone, somewhere, will find exploits that allow them to add abilities X, Y, and Z to the same monster for a low cost, and have it benefit from the synergistic effect of the three creating a monster with a CR far lower than the world-destroying behemoth they end up with ;)
Then they'll complain on the message boards that the book is a mess that wasn't playtested properly and that the authors need to be strung up.
Honestly, the only practical way to create monsters is to build them "by eye" and tweak them until they work. There's no magic formula to creating these things.
Edit: Seems the poster above me just proved the point :D
BTW. you do realize a squirrel that was given the advanced template 10 times to be a CR 10 would have a Will Save of +21. I seriously doubt he's going to fall to a sleep spell as he's got a better will save than most paladins or monks of his level.
Edit: ** spoiler omitted **
He may not make a CR 10 but the only way I'd see you killing this thing is basically using aoe's repetitively until the reduced damage is enough to kill him. Heaven knows none of your fighter types will hit and he's certainly not failing any will saves. Your casters will have a very hard time hitting any touch AC like that and the bite, while low dpr for this level certainly won't feel good to it hitting anyone (and with that attack rating its not likely to miss)
The wizard casts cloudkill and the party counts their XP points.
Actually, that's a bit overzealous. Summon swarm is enough to ruin the squirrel. 1d6 unavoidable damage each round, the squirrel has no means to retaliate. The squirrel cannot fly, and has no real means to deal with invisibility (it can spend its move action to pinpoint with scent, but the mage can simply keep moving and the squirrel has no ranged attacks, which means the swarm kills the squirrel or forces it to flee).
This thing is just a punk move, but can be solo'd at 3rd level by a wizard or sorcerer or anyone with a few consumables. As a CR 10 it's a sick joke.
And yet... I've seen parties that would fall to it.
A martial could hit it with an N20, so a Rapid Shot archer with a Mighty-3 longbow (average 7.5 damage) would need only 3-4 hits, or 35 turns to nail it. One crit might well do it. You could try beating it up with a melee weapon, but it would kill you first.
Or 7 magic missiles. So one 3rd-level sorcerer in 4 rounds.
And yet... I've seen parties that would fall to it.
Well, like I said, it's a punk move. It's not difficult to kill at all with even a bit of basic prep (a few 2nd level scrolls is enough to defeat it). The problem is that it's pretty much the only way to defeat it efficiently, which as Thomas Long 175 points out is pretty much pooping in the martials' cornflakes.
The reverse is also true (such as an enemy who is basically immune to everything except physical damage but is otherwise dismantled by some martial attacks), though it's not usually as easy to invalidate casters in this way since everyone and everything can at least try to land some melee / ranged hits (be it summons, undead minions, or gishes).
It's a gimmick monster. It's closer to a trick encounter rather than a real enemy. It has about as much credibility as a combat encounter as making an encounter where - to win - you must drop a chandelier on it (and no other method will work).
It's also probably not the best advertisement for these templates and how well they work in the CR system... :P
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I don't think the advanced creature simple template was ever intended to be applied multiple times.
And, boy, it's been a long time since I've read a post that hostile to Paizo and that entitled. Calling the game developers "braindead morons" is certainly guaranteed to generate their goodwill to help you, I'm sure.
It seems, thoughs, that this is some kind of a tradition with the OP.