What CR should I assign to my Homebrewed template

[Andre Roy]

I know that the CR system is more of a guideline and you need to be flexible, however I would be grateful if anyone with experience in creating Template could offer feedback or offer their 2¢

At this point here the Template is in process of creation (I'm trying to get it ready for Wayfinder #18) so it's more broad strokes rather than a fully detailled template...but I think it's defined enough to gauge it's CR.

Personally, I think it would be a case of Base Creature +1, but it's my first attempt in creating a template so I may be misevaluating it.

Here are the proposed change:
Special Ability:
The base creature will gain 1 Supernatural ability. It could be offensive (Special Attack), Defensive (Special Defence) or Have an Offensive and Defensive componant.

Spell-like ability
The creature will gain:
2 or 3 0-level seplls at will
2 1st-level spells 3/day
1 2nd-level spell 1/day

[i]Note:[i]
I'm also considering:
- No 0-level seplls
- Making the 0 level spells usable 5/day
- Increasing the 1st and 2nd level spell use to 5/day and 3/day respectively.

Ability The base creatures stats will be modified with a +2(Physical), +2(Mental), -2(Physical or Mental).

Skills Gains 1 or 2 appropriate skill as Racial skill.

Everything else would be as based creature (modified by stat increase/decrease as applicable)

[voideternal]

It's a bit too generic to gauge. If I had to guess, it's CR+1.
1) The Special Ability is ungaugeable. There are powerful Special Defenses like DR/-, and powerless Special Attacks like a racial Hatred quality that adds +1 to damage against gnolls. Instead, you should offer a list of Special Attacks and let the GM choose one, like the Ghost Template.

2) If a template adds spells, it should scale based on the HD or CR of the original creature. If you add the same number of spells, then the difficulty could spike if you added it to a CR 1/8 creature like a bat, and the CR could remain unchanging for creatures that already can cast many spells like a Trumpet Archon. I also advise to not add generic spells like "any 2nd-level spell 1/day". There's a large gap in power level between Glitterdust and Gentle Repose. Instead, pre-pick the spells based on the theme of the template.
See Fey Creature for an example.

[Andre Roy]

voideternal wrote:

It's a bit too generic to gauge. If I had to guess, it's CR+1.

1) The Special Ability is ungaugeable. There are powerful Special Defenses like DR/-, and powerless Special Attacks like a racial Hatred quality that adds +1 to damage against gnolls. Instead, you should offer a list of Special Attacks and let the GM choose one, like the Ghost Template.

I was afraid it would be the case.

The kind of ability I'm considering would be along the line of low level (roughly 3rd or less) touch or protection spell that would be thematic. Probably limited in use by HD or Charisma modifier.

As the template is modifying a fey creature (Wayfinder #18's theme), DR and SR is already covered.

voideternal wrote:

2) If a template adds spells, it should scale based on the HD or CR of the original creature. If you add the same number of spells, then the difficulty could spike if you added it to a CR 1/8 creature like a bat, and the CR could remain unchanging for creatures that already can cast many spells like a Trumpet Archon. I also advise to not add generic spells like "any 2nd-level spell 1/day". There's a large gap in power level between Glitterdust and Gentle Repose. Instead, pre-pick the spells based on the theme of the template.
See Fey Creature for an example.

It's a good idea to scale based or existing casting ability or HD/CR. I didn't think of it.

As for the spells, yes the choice will be predetermined. So creatures with that template will have the same 6 extra spells (3 0 level,2 1st level and 1 2nd level) which for most would be in addition to their original list.

It's still vague and I do apologise, but your points does give me something to reflect on and it is appreciated.

[relativemass]

Seems like about a CR +1. It seems to have kind of a lot of spells, which doesn't both me, but it doesn't seem typical for a CR +1, so you might get some complaints about it.

Once your template is setup to a point you like you could do combat simulations between creatures with your templates and the same creatures with typical templates (Celestial, Fiendish, Advanced, etc.). If the creatures with your templates lose more or less than the creatures with typical templates, then you can tweak your template until the fight ends up pretty even. I find that using averages and sharing rolls between equivalent combatants makes the simulations go faster and reduced the uncertainty from random rolls.

Best of luck to you.

[Andre Roy]

relativemass wrote:

Seems like about a CR +1. It seems to have kind of a lot of spells, which doesn't both me, but it doesn't seem typical for a CR +1, so you might get some complaints about it.

Yes and no. half the spells are Cantrip/Oraison (which I might swith from at will to 5/day) and usually they aren't that much of a game changer after a while.

relativemass wrote:

Once your template is setup to a point you like you could do combat simulations between creatures with your templates and the same creatures with typical templates (Celestial, Fiendish, Advanced, etc.). If the creatures with your templates lose more or less than the creatures with typical templates, then you can tweak your template until the fight ends up pretty even. I find that using averages and sharing rolls between equivalent combatants makes the simulations go faster and reduced the uncertainty from random rolls.

Best of luck to you.

That's actually something I had not considered. Same base creature with established template and see how it turns out. Thank you for the suggestion, I'll definitely run a few runs like that once it's completely written down.