Races with a Charisma bonus?

[Shin Okada]

Ak'Chazar Rakshasa in MM 3 is another good villain sorcerer monster. As it is a CR 15 creature who casts as a 12th-level sorcerer, it's spell casting ability will be a little bit behind CR. But regarding caster level, Practiced Spellcaster feat or Abjurant Champion level will take care of. And it is much tougher than usual spell casters.

So, for example, an Ak'Chazar Rakshasa Sorcerer 5 is a CR 20 critter who casts spells as a 17th-level sorcerer, with caster level 21 (Practiced Spellcaster) with really high Charisma. Or, you can make him an Ak'Chazar Rakshasa Abjurant Champion 5 and now he casts spells as a 17th-level sorcerer with caster level 22 (=BAB).

If you only give him Abjurant Champion levels, consider giving Rapid Metamagic feat (Complete Mage). If you give some actual Sorcerer levels, give him Metamagic Specialist alternative class feature (PHB 2).

And this critter has very good necromancy spell-like abilities and special abilities, including Rebuke Undead.

I once used this critter in a campaign which is using Complete Divine variant Turning Undead rule.

Of course, Ak'Chazar had a lot of Undead minions. And as I gave him Quicken Turning feat, he could heal all the nearby undead minions' HPs in a rate of 20d6 per turn as a free action. On top of it he could use Pain Wave (20-ft. radius Inflict Moderate Wounds) as another free action

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I just checked- I was dead wrong about the Anthro Animals from SS- nothing there meets your criteria, and most either have a 0 or -2 Cha adjustment.

HOWEVER...

The Mephlings from Planar Handbook have a -2Int +2Cha adjustment, are small, and have a breath weapon and nifty little elemental abilities...all for +1LA.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In addition, I'd be surprised if at least one of the planetouched races didn't have a positive Cha bonus, and most of those races are in the +0-+2 range.

One I'm sure has it is the Fey'ri...but, as I recall, that one is on the higher side of LA mods.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I've always liked the Phrenic template, at least in games with LA buyoff. As an NPC, the LA at least shouldn't add as much to the CR. I know the CR line says to add 3 for someone of your party's level, but that seems kind of insane for the CR bonus to exceed LA...

Anyway! Not only does the template give +4 charisma and some other boosts, it gives a slew of psi-like abilities to complement the arcane casting, ability to take psionic feats, and Power Resistance, which I assume would count as SR in your game (transparency).

It'd be like a psionic version of an Ultimate Magus.

EDIT: If you just want a cheap template for some cha, the Draconic template adds +2 cha among other things for only +1 LA. I foget what book it's from, but I saw it in crystalkeep's templates index.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Star Elf (Unapproachable East) and Spellscale (Races of the Dragon) are both +2 Cha, -2 Con, +0 LA races, with a few tricks each. The latter is stronger, IIRC.

But be careful. That non-associated rule is often broken. You should be careful estimating the final CR of the resulted critter.

Really? 'Adding a nonassociated class level to a monster increases its CR by 1/2 per level until one of its nonassociated class levels equals its original Hit Dice.' So, even with that taken into account?

 

[Shin Okada]

Really? 'Adding a nonassociated class level to a monster increases its CR by 1/2 per level until one of its nonassociated class levels equals its original Hit Dice.' So, even with that taken into account?

Yes. There are creatures with much lower CR than to it's number of HD's.

For example, Dragonkin (Draconomicon) is a CR 3 creature with 7 HDs. Now you add 7 levels of Sorcerer. It is counted as non-assosiated class and thus +3 CR (or +4 if you round it up, though it is not suggested so). So, if you just follow the guideline, that is only a CR 6 (or 7 if you round up).

Now you have a creature who has a full casting ability of a 7th-level sorcerer plus 7d8 more HDs with +7 Natural Armor, Fly speed & better ability scores. And it is a large creature.

What is worth, this critter can take Practiced Spellcaster feat to bump it's caster level to 11th.

The thing is definitely far much stronger than a usual 7th-level sorcerer.

There will be a lot more examples I guess.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Yes. There are creatures with much lower CR than to it's number of HD's.

Huh. Yep, valid. I guess that kind of thing just never came up, with me or anyone else around here as DM. Plus, for quite a while, I've been spoiled by the Immortal's Handbook, appendix v5. And hoping for v6. . . But anyway, I'd kind of forgotten about (if they even occurred to me in the first place) many of the, uh, interesting aspects to the standard EL/CR/ECL system.

 

[Runestar]

The thing is definitely far much stronger than a usual 7th-level sorcerer.

To be fair, there are quite a few cases of monsters with spellcasting capabilities stronger than a spellcasting npc of the same cr. Though they usually compensate by having fewer HD.

For example, a ghaele casts as cleric14 but is cr13 (compare with cleric14 at cr14). The psionic mindflayer is cr8 but manifests as a telepath9. The planetar is cr16 and casts as a cleric17.

MM2 has a few more examples (most notably the bone naga and spellweaver) while fiend folio has the cranium rat, though I am willing to concede that being 3.0 material, their cr might be a tad off. The most infamous example being the elemental weird, with sorc18 spellcasting but only cr12...

The non-associated rule is quite hit and miss, but as a general rule of thumb, I find it is still fairly accurate for monsters with relatively few racial HD (8 or fewer?) and the cr should be at least 3/4 HD. Avoid it on monsters with HD equal to or more than double their cr.

For instance, using this rule, an ogre cleric5 would be cr6 (which seems about right). Though if it gets to buff extensively prior to a battle (eg: it can manage caster lv9 with practiced spellcaster, allowing it to get +3 to-hit/damage from divine favour), you may wish to increase its cr to 7.

Conversely, an elder elemental cleric24 would be cr23, but has an obscene amount of HD, making it ridiculously tough (don't even get me started on what might happen if it gets divine power off).

 

[NewJeffCT]

Ak'Chazar Rakshasa in MM 3 is another good villain sorcerer monster. As it is a CR 15 creature who casts as a 12th-level sorcerer, it's spell casting ability will be a little bit behind CR. But regarding caster level, Practiced Spellcaster feat or Abjurant Champion level will take care of. And it is much tougher than usual spell casters.

So, for example, an Ak'Chazar Rakshasa Sorcerer 5 is a CR 20 critter who casts spells as a 17th-level sorcerer, with caster level 21 (Practiced Spellcaster) with really high Charisma. Or, you can make him an Ak'Chazar Rakshasa Abjurant Champion 5 and now he casts spells as a 17th-level sorcerer with caster level 22 (=BAB).

If you only give him Abjurant Champion levels, consider giving Rapid Metamagic feat (Complete Mage). If you give some actual Sorcerer levels, give him Metamagic Specialist alternative class feature (PHB 2).

And this critter has very good necromancy spell-like abilities and special abilities, including Rebuke Undead.

I once used this critter in a campaign which is using Complete Divine variant Turning Undead rule.

Of course, Ak'Chazar had a lot of Undead minions. And as I gave him Quicken Turning feat, he could heal all the nearby undead minions' HPs in a rate of 20d6 per turn as a free action. On top of it he could use Pain Wave (20-ft. radius Inflict Moderate Wounds) as another free action

Thanks - this looks intriguing as well. But, I was thinking of having this sorcerer as part of a group of evil casters (evil cleric, evil psion and evil sorcerer) all together. So, the Pain Wave & healing undead minions at 20d6 is pretty cool, but might not be the best choice.

 

[Runestar]

Thanks - this looks intriguing as well. But, I was thinking of having this sorcerer as part of a group of evil casters (evil cleric, evil psion and evil sorcerer) all together. So, the Pain Wave & healing undead minions at 20d6 is pretty cool, but might not be the best choice.

Give them all the tomb-tainted soul feat (libris mortis) and you are set. Healing the npcs while nuking the PCs at the same time?