CR of an awakened animal?

C

Corsair

First Post

• Jul 5, 2007

• #1

Awaken adds +2 HD, int increase, and slight charisma bump. On an otherwise already combat-statted animal, such as a dire lion, how much would the CR change for awaken? I assume it would just be +1. Animal HD are normally +1 CR for every 3 HD. Changing over to magical beast will give it immunities to a lot of 'animal' spells, so that alone is probably enough to make up for it.

Does that sound about right?

 

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shilsen

Adventurer

• Jul 5, 2007

• #2

+1 sounds about right to me.

 

Vorput

First Post

• Jul 5, 2007

• #3

+1 sounds ok... until said dire lion starts building traps, coordinating attacks with other dire lions, and taking magic items off the adventurers it kills

 

M

mvincent

Explorer

• Jul 5, 2007

• #4

Vorput said:

+1 sounds ok... until said dire lion starts building traps, coordinating attacks with other dire lions...

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... taking pride in his tactics...

 

C

Corsair

First Post

• Jul 5, 2007

• #5

Actually this will likely be a dire tiger druid using the shapeshift variant and eschew materials. (It will be handwaved to allow spellcasting with paws) Aiming for an eventual CR 16 or 17.

I'm thinking Awakened Dire Tiger (total HD after awakening, 18, CR after awakening: 9) Shapeshift variant Druid 10. Non associated class levels, but better than just wizard levels, so rather than counting them as 1/2, I'd call them 3/4, netting approximately a +7 CR, total CR 16.

Does that sound about right?

 

frankthedm

First Post

• Jul 5, 2007

• #6

Corsair said:

Actually this will likely be a dire tiger druid using the shapeshift variant and eschew materials. (It will be handwaved to allow spellcasting with paws) Aiming for an eventual CR 16 or 17.

I'm thinking Awakened Dire Tiger (total HD after awakening, 18, CR after awakening: 9) Shapeshift variant Druid 10. Non associated class levels, but better than just wizard levels, so rather than counting them as 1/2, I'd call them 3/4, netting approximately a +7 CR, total CR 16.

Does that sound about right?

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Unless you rule the dire tiger has to still spell every spell he casts with a somatic componenet, I'm thinking the druid levels ought to count as associated.

I kinda feel shapeshifter varient monstrous druids more than earn thier full CR and ought to count for associated. Normal druids could be non associated for some time since wildshape sucks when your normal form is better than what you can shift into.

 

Last edited: Jul 5, 2007

Vorput

First Post

• Jul 5, 2007

• #7

frankthedm said:

Unless you rule the dire tiger has to still spell every spell he casts with a somatic componenet, I'm thinking the druid levels ought to count as associated.

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I agree with Frank, but 3/4 doesn't sound all that bad... it's hard to say for sure without seeing the end character though.

 

frankthedm

First Post

• Jul 5, 2007

• #8

Vorput said:

I agree with Frank, but 3/4 doesn't sound all that bad... it's hard to say for sure without seeing the end character though.

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How he will be geared up also is a big thing. 10th level NPC gear may not cover everything a CR 19 needs, but a few choice gear peices really can be make or break.

 

Nail

First Post

• Jul 5, 2007

• #9

Isn't gear based on ECL, though? The ECL of this thing ain't 10.

 

Korak

First Post

• Jul 5, 2007

• #10

Nail said:

Isn't gear based on ECL, though? The ECL of this thing ain't 10.

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For PCs, yes. Not for NPCs. ECL is a non-existent concept for an NPC.