running a game and want to reduce the racial hit die of a monster


Rules Questions


as the title says i am running a game and while i sort of understand how to improve a monster i don't know how to reduce a monster. i am trying to reduce a winter wolf to have only 3 racial hit die so that the party has a chance.

how would i go about reducing the hit dice of a monster?


Reduce the HP to just 3hd worth.
Reduce feats down to just 3hd worth.
Reduce saves down to 3hd worth..
"" Bab ""
"" Skills ""

Short version: redo HP and BAB and drop a feat or 2.


With a winter wolf you'd also want to reduce the breath weapon damage from 6d6 to 3d6, and knock a couple off the save DC for the lower HD.


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Alternatively you could add either the young simple template or the degenerate simple template. Each template reduces the creatures Stats and CR. If you really want to nerf the monster you could add both simple templates.


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A monster's hit dice function exactly the same as a PC's; a winter wolf has six levels in the winter wolf class. If you reduce it's HD to 3, you need to recalculate it's hp, base attack, skills, feats, any DC's--everything that's level-dependant.

But that will only get you so far. Monsters weren't really intended to change in level too much, because of their ability scores and a few other features that function independent of level. The Tarrasque with 1HD still has a bajillion Strength and natural armor.

What I would do is take the worg or the wolf and add a few things, make it white and call it a winter wolf.


Keep in mind that most saves are going to be 10 + 1/2 creatures HD + applicable stat. So you will want to keep those proportionate as well.

For the Winter Wolf its breath weapon seems to be 1 die per HD, so drop to 3. The Save appears CON based, so it would drop from 17 (10 + 6/2 HD + 4 CON) to 15 (10 + 3/2 HD + 4 CON). I would consider changing it to only once per encounter or day or whatever as well... frequency of breath weapons seems to increase with the creatures power.

Do creatures get a +1 stat boost every 4 HD? Probably... I would drop STR by 1 as well.

All that said, I like Trokarr's idea of the Simply Young Template. It actually reduces stats as well. At low level how high your STR and CON are can make more difference than a single HD. I would consider reducing to 4 HD but applying the Simple Young Template for the difference.


Sean Mahoney wrote:

For the Winter Wolf its breath weapon seems to be 1 die per HD, so drop to 3. The Save appears CON based, so it would drop from 17 (10 + 6/2 HD + 4 CON) to 15 (10 + 3/2 HD + 4 CON). I would consider changing it to only once per encounter or day or whatever as well... frequency of breath weapons seems to increase with the creatures power.

Do creatures get a +1 stat boost every 4 HD? Probably... I would drop STR by 1 as well.

Yep, so you could easily drop a point from strength or Dex to shave off damage output or AC.

Also, it's not strictly level based, but typically higher CR things have more Natural Armor bonus, and when I am adjusting these things, I usually will just try to find if their Nat armor bonus has any simple pattern (e.g. NA=HD+/-X; NA=HD/X+/-Y) and if none are immediately obvious, divide old NA by old HD, and multiply by new HD. Your winter wolf should have 4 Natural Armor by either method.


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thank yo for the information. this was really helpful i really can't express it enough. thank you.


@OP, if you haven't yet, I'd recommend downloading Combat Manager App to your laptop or ipad, and then you can adjust monsters' HD and CR with a couple clicks of the mouse. You can even add or take away templates, like Vampire, Half-Dragon, Celestial, or Fiend templates. It's super simple and super fast.

Once you have the monster/NPC modified to your liking, highlight the whole thing and copy/paste it to a Word or Excel document, and presto, you've got an encounter.

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