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I was looking at Baba Yaga and noticed this . . .
Exceptional Stats (Ex) Baba Yaga was born a perfect specimen of humanity. As a result, her ability scores were generated using 25 points, rather than using the standard 15 point buy used to create most NPCs. Additionally, Baba Yaga has much more gear than an NPC of her level would normally have. These modifications increase her total CR by 2.
It got me wondering does the same apply to PC's that is you create PC Tim the Paladin and have him use 25 point buy would you give him a + CR and adjust encoutners accordingly or does a PC's CR not get affected by stat point buy and her increase be more due to the extra items she has?
To be clear this is trying to plan ahead in the case this occurs not in relation to any current game I'm running/playing in.
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No, you'd leave encounters alone, since the "standard" for character generation isn't point-buy at all. It's randomly determined by die rolls.
Also, CR of player characters is not really a factor that is covered because of the cooperative nature of the game.
In fact, the Advanced template used for monsters (which also increases the CR by +1) increases all of the creature's ability scores by 4 each (a total of +24 ability points). Far more than the difference between point-buy of 15 and 25 (which wouldn't even give +10 ability points in most cases).
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If you're using 25 point buy you may want to increase the CR of monsters once the players are level 4 or so. (Lower levels can be too deadly / swingy).
The easiest way is to apply the simple Advanced template, but be aware that it sometimes makes things too powerful (EG: Incorporeal monsters can easily become nearly impossible to hit.)
Adventure Paths / modules assume 15 point buy. Pathfinder Society is made with 20 point buy.
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Keep in mind that a PC with no gear at all is considered 2 CR lower than normal, and just NPC/some gear is -1. Also yes, just getting 25 point buy over 15 is considered a +1 CR. In reality tho, the difference between 15 PB and 20 is that now you can afford a +4 instead of just a +3+ in your good stat, and usually its only between 20 and 25pb that people stop dump statting.
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For an AP, the standard is a stat array: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8, which is 15 point buy. You can up the CR if you use higher totals, but I don’t think there’s a guide.
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Thanks for the information. I've been amusing myself trying to make a demigod (CR 26) its surprisingly difficult if I don't toss a bunch of templates at them. 20/10 mythic is CR 24 2 short of demigod range at 26 to 30. So useful to know with no gear they actually drop 2 CR to 22. Did not know that, means I could potentially give them the mighty template taking them to CR 29 dropping to 27 with no gear and probably 26 with my character building.
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The correlation between point buy and power level is way overrated. Class selection and optimization level have a much higher impact on power level than point buy.
There's an NPC in Hell's Rebels that says "Malin is built from a 20-point buy, and possesses equipment suitable for a PC of his level. These changes make him considerably more powerful than the average NPC, increasing his CR by 1." If increasing point buy by +5 and increasing gear more than fivefold is a mere +1 CR, increasing just PB by +5 should certainly not be.
Adventure Paths / modules assume 15 point buy. Pathfinder Society is made with 20 point buy.
I'm not sure about that - there's at least one module with attatched pregens, and those are build with 20PB. The CRB calls 4d6 drop lowest the "standard" method of generating ability scores, and that most closely matches 20PB. The above mentioned NPC also seem to be made to match PCs.
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Rolling 4d6 and keeping the better results is too swingy for the Pathfinder way of playing. I have seen a player roll a 91 point character (four 18, one 17, one 16) and another a -3 point character.
Rolling appeals to me as the PCs will be less optimized, less "perfect" for their intended role, but when a group can have a 35 point character beside a 12 point character there is a perceptible difference in character options.
5 more buy points aren't worth a point of CR, but combined with higher wealth (and so better equipment) and maybe a stronger base race they can be enough for that extra point of CR.
The way in which you spend that wealth matters too. I recall a relatively high level character that had consumables with a high caster level. She had 2 +1 sawtooth sabers with oil of greater magic weapon +5 (CL 20) on them. The loot value for the PCs was pitiful, but the NPC was capable of delivering some meaningful damage with a relatively low wealth investment.
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We have designer notes from within the forums that tell us it was designed for PB 15, even if they don't expect players to follow that because the players are supposed to win the vast majority of the time. And technically, it's just the fact that Malin has gear fit for a PC that gives him the +1 CR.
We also have the statblocks for the evil NPCs in Hell's Vengeance, except for one of them, they all have the requisite 15 pb: The cleric cannot be made to be a specific multiple of 5 pb and has a minimum of 13, the Hellknight has 15 on the dot, the Tiefling Assassin (assuming normal tiefling stats) has 15, the inquisitor has 15, the antipaladin has 15, and the necromancer has 15. The Cleric would have a 15 point buy if they didn't spend their 4th level ability point, which I think is just an error on the editor's part.
And actually, taking a look back, it seems that even in Ileosa's statblock in both original and remastered editions, even with an artifact, PC wealth, and 25 pb (not just 20), she has the same +1 CR that the people with PC gear and 20pb have.
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I can't make Baba Yaga make sense anyway. Her intelligence is 46. But she shouldn't have enough bonuses to reach that number. She doesn't even seem to have an intelligence bonus item or permanent spell on her. Even using Wish to get another +5, I can't get her to that total with what I see on her.
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I can't make Baba Yaga make sense anyway. Her intelligence is 46. But she shouldn't have enough bonuses to reach that number. She doesn't even seem to have an intelligence bonus item or permanent spell on her. Even using Wish to get another +5, I can't get her to that total with what I see on her.
She's Mythic 10, so 46 is about right (My Oracle would have had about a 46 charisma had we not abandoned WotR before the final volume).
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Seriously, try to do the math with what we're shown.
46-3(age)-5(level bonuses)-10(mythic increases)-2(human racial)-5 wish. That still leaves a base of 21 point, so at least 3 unaccounted for assuming that 18 was the starting point.
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Seriously, try to do the math with what we're shown.
46-3(age)-5(level bonuses)-10(mythic increases)-2(human racial)-5 wish. That still leaves a base of 21 point, so at least 3 unaccounted for assuming that 18 was the starting point.
I may have found the missing piece. +4 advanced template. So that’d have a starting base intelligence of 17. That’s assuming that the +5 from wish exists, but it’s completely possible and fits with her super powerful long life.
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They actually do, especially if they get cloned by an animus mural.
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No, do not adjust the CR. Here is why: Take a look at the 'advanced' template. That is +4 to all stats and a +2 natural armor. That gives a +1 CR adjustment. Is the increase for a 25 point buy even close to the increase in effectiveness of the advanced template? If no, then it should not rate the same CR adjustment.
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I may have found the missing piece. +4 advanced template. So that’d have a starting base intelligence of 17. That’s assuming that the +5 from wish exists, but it’s completely possible and fits with her super powerful long life.Seriously, try to do the math with what we're shown.
46-3(age)-5(level bonuses)-10(mythic increases)-2(human racial)-5 wish. That still leaves a base of 21 point, so at least 3 unaccounted for assuming that 18 was the starting point.
Makes sense.
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Adventure Paths / modules assume 15 point buy. Pathfinder Society is made with 20 point buy.I'm not sure about that - there's at least one module with attatched pregens, and those are build with 20PB. The CRB calls 4d6 drop lowest the "standard" method of generating ability scores, and that most closely matches 20PB. The above mentioned NPC also seem to be made to match PCs.
James Jacobs has repeatedly said that modules and APs are designed with 15 point buy characters in mind. Here's an example.
Out of curiosity, which module was written with 20 point buy pre-gens?
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Out of curiosity, which module was written with 20 point buy pre-gens?
Risen from the Sands, which is even free! It has third level statblocks for four ACG iconics at the end.
To be honest, I'm not sure how much thought actually went into establishing a baseline for PC power level and capabilities. I presume writers have a guideline what CRs to use at which level, but I'm not convinced the CR system was every really balanced around some specific point-buy.
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The "APs are designed with 15PB" is more just to show you aren't supposed to need to be good/powerbuilt to win them. And also, the difference between PB and CR is minimal in all these cases in comparison to the effects of WBL on CR.
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Out of curiosity, which module was written with 20 point buy pre-gens?Risen from the Sands, which is even free! It has third level statblocks for four ACG iconics at the end.
Risen from the Sands is an odd one out because in order to play it for Pathfinder Society you had to use the pre-gens that came with it, which is why they were made with 20 point buy.
CR is a silly thing that gives kind of an idea how difficult an encounter might be, but then sometimes it's easily completely wrong.
It's sometimes useful as a guideline but not always. And the players also make it mostly useless.
(I'd go on way too much about it and I don't want to do that right now.)
In the end, each group is different, each group of characters is different. Using things to increase or decrease CR sometimes makes a huge difference, sometimes it's not noticeable at all.
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From what I remember, being based on 15 point buy was a math error, they calculated that as being closer to the results of rolling. By the time the error was pointed out it was already the standard for the APs.
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In a simple practical manner: Ability bonus (enhancement)= 2*1000*(Bonus*Bonus)GP {slotless}
This is only true because we don't let those ability bonuses scale forever. I'm sure it isn't intended for someone to spend all but the last 79k of their lvl 20 WBL on a +26 stat headband and 5 wishes for further statboost, then sling 10 DC 42 9th level spells before any other boosting whatsoever, let alone all the other low level stuff.
Sure 72k for a +6 slotless statboost is still a lot even by the end game, let alone the start, but raw stat boost will always be more valuable than gold (and buying experience is actually worthless as the 2000xp it takes to level up to 2 instantly is less than .2% of the difference between level 19 and 20.
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the game gets a bit crazy above 15th level.
In most of my Home Game experience PC wealth exceeds the WBL chart considerably. I don't know if GMs just don't pay attention to it or just don't value the idea (probably a mix).
The characters craft stuff and so gets items at a discount.
Often they don't use potions and other consumables found in the adventures so they end with some WBL that isn't really worth anything. At level 12, 20 CLW potions stashed in your backpack are worth some money, but have very little impact on your character efficiency. A full wand of CLW is worth less but is more efficient for healing between battles.
The rope of climbing that was so useful during your first 6-7 levels is almost useless at level 15.
And so on for a lot of stuff.
Unless your players are very different from me, some of their WBL is not so useful knick-knacks accumulated while playing. Only characters generated from scratch at a high level have "perfectly" chosen gear with no redundancy and no item with low utility.
My 15th level cleric still has the blodblock brought at level 1 in his gear. :D
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the game gets a bit crazy above 15th level.
In most of my Home Game experience PC wealth exceeds the WBL chart considerably. I don't know if GMs just don't pay attention to it or just don't value the idea (probably a mix).
The characters craft stuff and so gets items at a discount.
Often they don't use potions and other consumables found in the adventures so they end with some WBL that isn't really worth anything. At level 12, 20 CLW potions stashed in your backpack are worth some money, but have very little impact on your character efficiency. A full wand of CLW is worth less but is more efficient for healing between battles.
The rope of climbing that was so useful during your first 6-7 levels is almost useless at level 15.
And so on for a lot of stuff.
Unless your players are very different from me, some of their WBL is not so useful knick-knacks accumulated while playing. Only characters generated from scratch at a high level have "perfectly" chosen gear with no redundancy and no item with low utility.My 15th level cleric still has the blodblock brought at level 1 in his gear. :D
In my case its a tendency to not want to sell things. "Yes I'll probably never use this rod of detect gems and metals while fighting to close the worldwound but if I survive I may want it then." same with gems and thel like I hate selling gems for gold because gold isn't as pretty and shiny as a bowl of assorted rubies, emeralds, sapphires, amethysts and so on. The worst for me are objects of art "Sell it are you mad? Imagine this statue in your home as a decorative item or that scepter on a stand on your bookshelf." Sure they add thousands to my WBL but they're utterly useless for adventuring and thus if actually included would mean my lvl 20 character might have a ring of protection +1 with the rest of their WBL being non-adventuring related items.
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two topics really there: WBL and efficient use of capitol.
WBL is a simple sum of value. You see the importance in OrgPlay where it is used to control power.
bookeeping wise there is cash in overhead and excess stock carried to provide the character options. If the character doesn't use it then it is inefficient and the capitol should be invested in options they are likely to use.
As spell level rises that investment becomes significant.
Which is why I like to only apply WBl to adventuring gear as a check when running games. Sure it may vary up or down a little but what your using as an adventurer should generally be around that level however you are quite welcome to have piles of wealth that doesn't count to that. Lands, titles, businesses, bank vault with piles of gold even. Though this very much depends on players and GM having a gentlemens agreement not to abuse it much like the ones like regarding spells and not stepping on other party members toes.
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In most of my Home Game experience PC wealth exceeds the WBL chart considerably. I don't know if GMs just don't pay attention to it or just don't value the idea (probably a mix).
Exceeding the wealth by level chart is not nearly as impactful as having only around 10-15% of wealth by level, which is what your typical NPC has and is why their CR is their level -1. A Fighter can't afford +5 armor, shield, and weapon; a caster can't afford pearl/runes of power, the best headband, and their rods; pretty much everyone has reduced AC without expensive rings of protection/amulet of Nat armor and low saves with no cloak of resistance. At higher levels, NPCs tend to have some of these things, but not all of them, or other powerful items in their place.
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The important thing to realize is that wealth does not always have the same effect. Not all wealth is in stuff that actually improve your character (but rather in currency, stuff to sell, or currently useless consumables), and even between combat relevant items, differences can be huge. There're many crappy or overpriced items that are straigth downgrades to just spending all wealth on big 6 and rods (and that's not even touching items that occupy otherwise needed item slots). As an example from actual play, my Summoner had found a Ring of Wizardry I. That's 20k gp for (at that time) four more first level spell slots per day. In comparison, four Runestones of Power I would've granted the same effect for just 8k gp, and that's without taking up a ring slot. The ring but the character notably above WBL, but that's with basically 12k dead money. Selling the ring to buy five runestones would have increased the power while decreasing the wealth.
The power level differences (both combat power and narrative power) between classes (and/or builds) is usually bigger than almost everything. Just as a couple points of difference in point buy pale in comparison, do moderately different levels of wealth often have a lower impact. Which is also why one can't draw a line at which more wealth is too strong or warrants an increase in APL, dito for PB. A group of badly created tier 5 class characters at double WBL and 30 PB is weaker than a group of well created tier 1&2 class characters at regular WBL and 15 PB.
Of course, both point buy and wealth affect martial characters much stronger than they affect casters (and the more casting/magical abilities, the more pronounced this usually is). Almost everything a martial does in combat, as well as usually all of their defenses, is equipment dependant, the same is not true for casters. Every turn in combat a Fighter rolls something affected by their Str and/or Dex modifier, including the respective enhancing belt, and (usually) their weapon's enchantment. Every attack targetting the Fighter is affected by their armor's enchantment. Every magical effect targetting the Fighter is affected by their Cloak of Resistance, and checks their Dex, Con, or Wis. Meanwhile, a caster can spend entire combats without rolling anything affected by their stats (and boost headband), e.g. by using buff or summoning spells. A Wizard with Displacement up has a 50% chance of not having any equipment-affected defenses (and Dex) checked on any given attack targetting them. A Resist Energy can make a caster take no damage form a Fireball or dragon's breath weapon regardless of their cloak and Dex. In addition, it's way easier for a caster to have defense and offense improved by the same ability score, and thereby same items (e.g. debuff spells increase your defense while benefitting from the same ability score and items an offensive spell does), which allows them to focus on these items more.
This has the side-effect that higher point buy and higher wealth mainly buffs the classes that were weaker to begin with - which in turn is part of why higher point buy and wealth don't have that big an impact.
Meanwhile, fighting enemies of higher CR favors spellcasters, as they have things not checking the enemies' higher numbers, or more easily affect multiple targets (for when incresing CR is done by increasing the numebr of enemies rather than making the existing enemies stronger). This means increasing PB and/or wealth and increasing CR as a response can very easily result in further increasing the caster/martial-disparity.
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A ring of Wizardry is more valuable for spellcasters that memorize spells, as it allows them to memorize different spells, but even for one of them, it is overpriced when compared to Pearls of power.
There is the action cost of recalling a spell with the Pearl or of casting a spell with the Runestone, but even in that situation, it is overpriced. A remnant of when a Wizard had a larger base number of spells (1st, 2nd AD&D, BECM D&D).
Several magic items have a similar cost problem, they were priced at the start of the 3rd edition and the value is based on how useful they were in the older editions of the game, not on how useful they are in Pathfinder or another 3.x game.
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Hilarious how the ring of Wizardry is really only viable for sorcerers and not actual wizards.
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It is less valuable to a wizard than a sorcerer, and only sorcerer breaks above equivalent value for their version of the pearl of power for extra slots. Does it "work" as in function as intended for wizard, yes, but its a bad pick.