
Quixote |
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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.

Sean Mahoney |

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.

AwesomenessDog |

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.

Ryze Kuja |

@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.