Animate Dream Under-CRed?

[Balkoth]

The creature in question.

The biggest thing standing out to me is +16 touch AB. A Greater Shadow (also CR 8) only has +11 touch AB (and less AC/HP/etc). Something like a Wraith (CR 5) only has +6 touch AB. Even a PC with 20 Dex, Dodge feat, and +2 Ring of Protection would get hit 95% of the time by the Animate Dream for 27 damage.

This seems fine for a CR 10, maybe even CR 9 mob...but CR 8?

[andreww]

Even worse, it has flyby attack so can attack people while popping in and out of walls so should never take a full attack from anyone.

Worse still, if you take the expanded summon monster feat you can add it to the summon monster 6 list.

[necromental]

We fought two at level 13, they almost killed our ranger.

[Keep Calm and Carrion]

It's a tough monster with some deadly powers. Hitting a party with Confusion before swooping in to melee can give a party problems.

But comparing its CR to the Greater Shadow'is misleading, because the CR of the Greater Shadow has been tweaked upwards to represent its notorious lethality. Shadows are notorious for causing TPKs at low levels; Greater Shadows are worse.

Compare the Animate Dream to other existential threats in the CR 8 category and it seems more reasonable. The Bodak. The Erinyes. The Dire Tiger. The Giant Tarantula. It is on the dangerous end of CR 8, I agree. But is it as dangerous as the CR 9 Witchfire? Nnnnope.

[Balkoth]

Keep Calm and Carrion wrote:

Compare the Animate Dream to other existential threats in the CR 8 category and it seems more reasonable.

Going by the monster creation table, a CR 8 enemy has roughly...

100 HP
21 AC
11 (low) to 15 (high) AB
26 (low) to 35 (high) damage (if ALL attacks hit)

On top of that the Animate Dream has some special abilities, but I'm ignoring those for the moment (it just makes the problem worse). Just in raw stats it has...

90 HP
20 AC (with 20 touch AC)
16 AB (that's TOUCH)
27 damage

It's also incorporeal which adds more defenses, especially essentially double HP.

What do you think is a typical AC at level 8? Maybe around 26 for the average character? With something like 15 touch AC? I'll go with these numbers for now, but I'll redo the math for other numbers if you prefer. Everything factored in, the creation table monster has...

100 HP
21 AC
17.5 damage per round assuming high AB and high damage (50% chance to miss for 35 damage overall)

The Animate Dream has...

180 HP
20 AC
25.65 damage per round (only misses on a 1, 27 average damage)

80% more HP and 46.6% more damage compared to a "generic" CR 8 mob seems like a massive difference. Which isn't getting into stuff like immunity to sneak attacks/crits or its special abilities.

Keep Calm and Carrion wrote:

But is it as dangerous as the CR 9 Witchfire? Nnnnope.

And how does the Witchfire rank compared to other CR 9 enemies?

I mean, I did some math. I had a CR 10 brute enemy and set them in an imaginary battle against the Animate Dream...and the CR 10 got crushed if they lost initiative, and still wound up losing if it won initiative. With just straight trading of melee attacks. And the CR10 is supposed to be TWICE as strong as the Animate Dream (2 CR higher -- two Animate Dreams equal the CR of the CR 10 mob).

It just basically never misses and has extremely high effective HP.

[Garbage-Tier Waifu]

I would make the argument that Witchfires are also under CR'd (250% fire damage? With an 8d6 fire ranged or melee touch attack? On an incorporeal creature? That can also possibly summon wisps to the fight on top of this, who are also known for their deadliness? And they throw this fire vulnerability up when they are attacked in melee? And it is a will save? What the hell?) but that's a different argument entirely.

[Alexandros Satorum]

Garbage-Tier Waifu wrote:

I would make the argument that Witchfires are also under CR'd ... but that's a different argument entirely.

I'd say it's more like a patron.