Advancing a monster

[Diomeneus]

I know how to advance monsters, what I want to know is how it affects the cost of one for a mount. Say for a griffin, I advance it by 3 HD, what is the increased cost for buying such a griffin?

 

[Asmor]

Here's how I'd do it

X * ( (Y+Z) / Z )^2

Where:

X=Cost of mount
Y=Additional HD
Z=Base HD

For example, a young griffon costs 8500 (including training price), has 7 hit dice, and you're adding 3 HD. That's 8500*(10/7)^2= 17,350 gp

 

[Diomeneus]

I was hoping for something a little more... official. Plus, you wouldn't include training costs in that formula, the only monster that I know of that increases in difficulty training as it gets stronger is the the hydra (because each head has to be trained independently)

 

[Asmor]

Unfortunately, I seriously doubt you'll find an official answer.

My answer is based vaguely on the pricing rules for enhancement bonuses and several other things, which are usually bonus squared times a constant. For example, weapons are bonus squared times 2000.

With my formula, if you double the creature's HD, you multiply its original price by 4, i.e. 2 squared. If you triple the creature's HD, you multiply its original price by 9, which of course is 3 squared. Coincidentally, that's the same thing that happens when you double or triple an enhancement bonus or other exponentially-growing variable. So... not official, but based on official precedent.

As for the training costs, my reasoning for that is that whether it's a superior specimen or is older/has been trained longer, either the markup or the cost of training should increase consummately. It's simple enough to remove that, though, if such is your preference. Just use 7,000 as the base price and add the 1,500 training fee to the final cost. In this case, the final cost ends up being around 15,800.

 

[Diomeneus]

sounds more to my liking tacking the training on the final cost (not just me trying to pay less, either). Speaking of formula's, do you know what math dictates character wealth by level for making PC's above 1st level? I can't find an easy one like there is for weapon and armor enhancements. It seems very... inconsitent

 

[Asmor]

I'll see if I can figure it out... There's actually a formula behind the Exp chart, believe it or not, but it's kind of hidden because of some rounding they did. Can't remember it right now, much to my consternation.

 

[Asmor]

Yeah, I just took a look at it and nothing's really jumping out at me... You're right in that it's extremely inconsistent. For example, looking at the rate the increase per level changes at, sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down, and at one point it doesn't change at all (level 12 and level 13 both increase the previous level by 22,000). It seems completely arbitrary to me, and I suspect that someone just picked the numbers based on what seemed right.

Actually, I take that back... From about 9th level on, it adds around 30% more wealth from the previous level. Before then, it starts at 300% increase from 2 to 3, 200% increase from 3 to 4, 167% increase from 4 to 5, and drops rapidly...

I'll see if I can come up with something that approximates it. I'm a bit rusty, stupid summer, but it's a good exercise.

 

[Diomeneus]

awesome, I tried to figure it own awhile ago but I only had half an hour and that didn't suffice at the time. Now I'm just lazy, but I am at work and have nothing to do... can you print me out the values for each level? Then we both could work on it

 

[Asmor]

Okay, from level 3 to level 7, the following formula closely approximates the wealth by level guidelines...

X*2^(3/Y)

X = the previous level's wealth

Y = current level - 1

Level 3: 900 * 2^(3/2) = 2545.58 (book: 2700)
Level 4: 2545.58 * 2^(3/3) = 5091.17 (book: 5400)
Level 5: 8562.29 (book: 5000)
Level 6: 12978.01 (book: 13000)
Level 7: 18353.67 (book: 19000)

It drops off pretty quickly from there, though... For example, level 8 by my formula is short 3000, level 9 is short 4000, and level 10 is short 10000. Level 20 is around 180,000, compared to 760,000 in the book.

Of course, it's entirely likely that I was just lucky this formula was so close at the beginning levels, and there's a different formula that I'm missing...

 

[Asmor]

First column: Level (note that 1 is missing, since that's by class. I just guesstimated 100, so the very first calculation is way off.

Second column is book's wealth by level guidelines

Third column is the amount the previous level's multiplied by in the book.

Fourth column is my formula for multiplier, given above.

Fifth column is what my formula would give, seeded with a static 900 for 2nd level. Everything else is derived by multiplying the previous level's value by the appropriate entry in column 4.

2	900	9		900
3	2700	3	2.83	2545.58
4	5400	2	2	5091.17
5	9000	1.67	1.68	8562.29
6	13000	1.44	1.52	12978.01
7	19000	1.46	1.41	18353.67
8	27000	1.42	1.35	24702.21
9	36000	1.33	1.3	32034.81
10	49000	1.36	1.26	40361.33
11	66000	1.35	1.23	49690.62
12	88000	1.33	1.21	60030.71
13	110000	1.25	1.19	71388.95
14	150000	1.36	1.17	83772.11
15	200000	1.33	1.16	97186.49
16	260000	1.3	1.15	111637.96
17	340000	1.31	1.14	127132.04
18	440000	1.29	1.13	143673.93
19	580000	1.32	1.12	161268.53
20	760000	1.31	1.12	179920.51

I've got to go now... Not sure if I'll continue working on this when I get back, depends on how much it eats at my mind.