As the title says i'm trying to make a Nascent Demon lord. I'm kind of having trouble though. None of the charts in the Bestiary go beyond CR 20 and i'm entirely sure how some abilities affect total CR.
Lets see what is has. Just to begin it has a lot of 3.5 warlock abilities. As the character this nascent was before transforming without dying first. The list is long. Sorry ahead of time.
Size Medium HP: 387 DR 10/Good and Cold Iron SR= 11+CR Fast Healing 5
Str. 21
Dex. 25
Con. 23
Int. 21
Wis. 21
Cha. 25
Base Attack: +31
2 Claws 1d8+Str, Gore 1d4+Str. (Double damage on charge,)Eldritch Blast 9d6 Glare of the Pit: 2 8d6 rays of fire damage 1/day
Invocations: CL= CR (Min 20th)
Deafening Roar, Eldritch Spear, Baleful Utterance, Eldritch Glaive, Beguiling Influence, Fell Flight, Flee the Scene, Eldritch Chain, Devour Magic. Eldritch Cone, Nightmares Made Real, Path of Shadow, Eldritch Doom, Word of Changing
Misc.: Imbue Item, Poison 2/day, Fiendsih Glare, Detect Magic at will, +8 racial bonus to perception, +4 saves vs. Fear, Bleed affects staunch bleed effects but nauseated for 1 round,
Feats: Point Blank Shot, Deadly Aim, Weapon Focus(E.B), Improved Critical (E.B.), Precise Shot, Max Spell-like Ability (E.B.), Emp. Spell-Like Ability (E.B.), Extra Invocation x2, Scribe Scroll, Craft Wondrous Items, Craft Magical Arms and Armor, Improved Initiative
For those with a knack for these things what would you say the CR is?
Need to know more, like AC, Saves, DC of SLA's.
Using CR 20 as a base: AC 36 (+7 Dex, +7 Def, +12 Nat AC)
Saves Fort +23, Ref +24, Will +22
DCs of SLAs Baleful Utterance(19), Deafening Roar(19), Eldritch Cone(22), Nightmares Made Real(22), Eldritch Doom(25), Word of Changing(22), Poison(21), Fiendish Glare(27)
Except for that last one they all assume the usual 10+Spell Level+ Stat Mod.
Ok I would say this guy is just barely on the high-end for CR 20, and probably not quite CR 21. But that is going by the numbers, I don't know enough about any of those SLA's to really say how nasty he is.
I don't know anything about 3.5 warlocks and how they cast, so that might be why I'm confused.
But my idea for pushing this guy into nascent demon lord territory would be something like this...
Give him all the spell-likes he has now as standard sorceror casting. Then add the usual demon resistances and spell-likes on top of the casting. Stuff like teleporting and summoning other demons.
Baleful Utterance= Shatter
Deafening Roar= Save or be deafened for an hour
Nightmares Made Real= Here
Eldritch Cone= eldritch blast in cone form reflex for half.
Eldritch Doom= Eldritch blast in 20ft burst centered on caster.
Word of Changing= Baleful Polymorph.
Fiendish Glare = Here
The typical demon resistances and summoning would be wrapped up in the Nascent Demon Lord Subtype.
MAYBE: If you go by the CR Chart for save DCs one could make the Eldritch Blast related the primary making the DCs 27 and have everything or most everything else at the secondary which would be 20.
So did warlock invocations work the same as spell-casting? Because if so I would port those invocations right over and have this guy cast them as a sorceror of whatever level, then add a shorter list of potent SLA's that would be typical for a demon lord. That's what I'm getting at. Just an idea since his list of SLA's was already long and seemed to be missing some stuff you would expect for a demon lord.
I didn't know nascent demon lord was a subtype though, so maybe that's why.
Invocations are at will abilities that worked like the spells sometimes with a twist or addition.
I might be out of my depth here, especially because this guy started out as a 3.5 class I'm not familiar with, but I love monster building and I love demons so I hope I can help somewhat.
One thing I'm noticing is that he has really high hitdice, but not really the best ability scores for what he's supposed to be. For example he could achieve the same hit points and attack bonus with much fewer hitdice and BAB if he just had higher Con and Str scores. Likewise is spell or spell-like DC's could be higher just from higher relevant casting stat.
Also don't forget the primary and secondary save DC listed on the CR chart doesn't refer to his primary and secondary abilities, it refers to the average DC his abilities should have depending whether he depends on those abilities primarily, or secondarily relative to his combat ability. i.e. Is he a combat monster or a caster-like monster. So you don't look at both entries, you decide which one applies to his role and use that entry.
So for a nascent demon lord, with a lot of casting, his toughest save DC should be well over 27 I would say.
Invocations are at will abilities that worked like the spells sometimes with a twist or addition.
Oh ok, well scratch my idea of having him cast as a sorceror then. And yeah, if all those are at-will SLA's that does give him a bit of oomph.
Well for the HP I took the amount of hit dice took the average and then added the con modifier. I was thinking she would be more of a ranged type with her at will at will Eldritch blast which she could change into cone, burst, and chain configurations.
Her primary melee attack option would be Eldritch Glaive shape invocation. It allows her to shape her 9d6 eldritch blast into a melee touch attack that she gets iterative attacks with. So with a full attack action she would get multiple attacks at 9d6 each.
The DCs are proving a bit funky it seems, but Eldritch blast related effects would be primary and the spell-likes would be secondary.
But what I'm saying is, how did you decide to give her so many hitdice? 31 is higher then powerful full demon lords like Baphomet.
You can give her fewer hitdice, and still get the hitpoints you want by giving her a higher Con score.
Also you are ms-understanding the primary/secondary thing on the CR Table. They want you to decide whether magic is primary or secondary to her role, and then use that entry accordingly. They are not saying her primary abilities should use the high DC and her secondary abiliies should use the low DC. See what I'm saying?
I was going off table 1-2 of the Bestiary. I figured CR 20 would be a good base. I was aiming for a total CR somewhere between 22 and 24.
For her stats I was going off what her starting stats as a mortal then adding hit dice increases, increases from a prestige class she had, and then bonuses from her wealth spent to permanently up grade herself.
As for her role. Considering the focus on blasting magic would be her primary.
On an unrelated note: Why doesn't spell checker recognize glaive and why does it want to change it Lawgiver?
Yeah so if magic is her primary, you want to use the high number from Table 1-2, and ignore the low number. And that is the average DC for her SLA's. So you need to bring those DC's up higher.
I think you should give her fewer hitdice. Maybe 22. Then increase her stats alot until the numbers line up with the table. 31 outsider hitdice is high for a demi-god, that is almost a deity.
I remembered that the Book of the Damned vol. 2 has an extended chart and so does Mythic adventures.
Maybe you can answer this though. How do qualities like SR, DR, immunities, spell-casting/spell-like abilities, etc. affect CR? How much is too much?
Well that's cool you found an extended chart, I don't have either of those books, but it isn't hard to extrapolate out from CR20 as a baseline like you set out to do. The thing is that table is only a guideline anyway and a lot of it has to come down to comparing her to what else is out there.
The table says nothing about hitdice and stats but a quick look at any other demon lord will tell you that you have set her hitdice way too high and her stats way too low.
SR like you said is almost always tied to CR by a formula (+11 I think).
DR, most of the demon lords have lke DR 20/cold iron and good, but being that your nascent demon lord was a non-native to the abyss I think it's appropriate that you set it lower at DR 10.
Standard Immunities seem to be Electricity and Poison, with Resistance 10 vs Acid, Cold and Fire. But if you have info on a nascent demon lord subtype that contradicts this, correct me if I'm wrong because I can't find any crunch on that subtype in any resource I own. Where did you find it? Lords of Chaos?
As for spells and SLA's, you seem to be in the right ballpark, except your DC's are a little low, and if those are all at will she could use a few potent SLA's with limited use per day. Maybe blasphemy. Also definitely greater teleport, telepathy, and summons, maybe at will for those. Again maybe some of that is covered by the subtype?
Caster Level 20 should be enough for a nascent demon lord that ascended from a mere mortal without ever being a larva in the abyss.
Also it wouldn't be too much to give her anther unique special ability and/or magic weapon, a lot of high CR demons have that kind of thing.
Hey, I just looked and I see now what you mean about the table in the bestiary saying 31 hitdice for CR 20 outsider. Sorry I didn't see that before, and I don't know why it gives such high numbers when the examples I looked at of high CR outsiders like Balor and Solar have nowhere near that many hitdice.
Hopefully someone else can explain, I am curious now myself.
No one else wants to help with this?
I really need to get Book of the Damned vol 2!
Sorry for spamming your thread with replies but I hope you post an update, this monster piqued my interest, and I would like to hear some other opinions from people who are experienced at designing high CR monsters. This part of GM'ing interests me very much.
As some-one who wants to stat a demon lord, but is at a bit of a loss, I would greatly apricate seeing any more of your work (and logic used) if available.
while this is a bit of a necro, I would do ask the following questions:
1: What are the nascent demon lord domains and areas of interest?
2: Which of the published nascent demon lords (Shamira, Nightripper, Treerazor) are closest to what you envision him/her/it to be?
3: Grab whatever is closest of the 3 and then add/remove things.
The OP was looking for more of a blaster, so Shamira is relatively close, probably not very seductive, so replace her seductive abilities by something that fits better.
Another question is, what do you want that demonlord to be? The endboss? Does it fight alone or with allies? A lure/source of corruptive power? Something the party has to run away from?