I wanted some other opinions on this.
I've never felt like the drow noble had enough of an advantage over the basic drow race or any of the standard PC races to count it as a +1 to the CR of the creature. It's effectively trading a class level.<---That is my current view.
If the drow noble had see in darkness that might warrant it, at least in areas of darkness.
If there is a strategy that you can use with nobles that make them more effective that normal drow then I'm all ears.
I know about the increased SR. I don't care for the book version. I do allow monsters to drop it as an immediate action so it doesn't interfere with friendly spells. However it stays down until the beginning of their next turn. Otherwise I see it as a trap ability, particularly for monsters/creatures that work in a party.
PS: I did't put this in the homebrew section because the goal of this post is not so much for me to change any rules, but see if others are running drow nobles in a way that I'm not, and then I'll see what I'll do about the race.
I had some Drow Nobles in my last campaign but it wasn't for CR purposes, but rather for storyline purposes. Other than the higher spell resistance, I've found that the +1 CR is barely noticeable.
Drow Noble is in that unfortunate mid-ground where it's far too overtuned for a basic race, but not strong enough to really merit CR+1. There's really no reason it needs to exist when you could just use a regular Drow with an additional class level. Not that you can't use it if you want to, just no reason you'd need to.
I assume you're talking about NPCs; otherwise, CR discussions don't really make sense.
It depends. Like members of any "monster" race, low-level drow nobles benefit far more from the race's innate superiority than a high-level drow noble. A drow noble fighter 2 would be considerably more challenging than a drow fighter 2 in most cases due to the increased spell resistance and spell-like abilities reaching into 3rd-level spells. A drow noble sorcerer 10, on the other hand, is barely distinguishable from a drow sorcerer 10.
If I had a player that wanted to play a Drow Noble I would say they can play a drow and spend the feats for Drow Noble line.
The race is too strong in comparison to others, but not worth a full class level, especially at higher levels.
You can thematically be a Drow Noble without needing all the mechanical bonuses.