CR for a Old Black Drag. PsyWar5?

[Brace Cormaeril]

Help! I've looked over Draconomicon and the Core, but I can't seem to find an answer...
What CR would be appropriate for a Old Black Dragon/ PsyWar5?

 

[Ceska]

CR 21

Old black Dragon has a CR of 16. He advandces five levels in Psy.Warrior (CR+5).

 

[Shin Okada]

Old Black Dragon is a CR 16 Monster with 25HD. Now all you have to do is decide whether PsyWar is an Associated Class or Nonassociated Class for a true dragon. (Read MM P.294)

I say it is an associated class as Black Dragon is basically a melee monster and PsyWarrior class is also a melee/combat class. So I will simplly add the amount of Class Levels to the CR of 16 and the result is CR 21. Some may argue PW to be non assosiated class for a dragon and if so, CR would be 16 +5/2 = 18.5. I found rounding down this number often cause silly troubles, so I usually round it up to 19. But anyway, I say CR 21.

Remember, a monster with PC class levels are expected to have Elite Ability Array. And with that +5 HD, he can even get another +1 to one of his ability score. So that monster is much powerful than it may sounds.

 

[Ceska]

Shin Okada did the better job in explaining this. I would also treat PsyWarrior as associated class.

 

[frankthedm]

Really depends on the Powers it has. Select the powers, select its gear* and compare it to a 'normal' dragon at CR's 19, 20 & 21 to better ballpark the CR.

*Gear value
DMG says 5th level NPC
MM would give gear of a {HD+LA?+Class} level NPC
MM5 says gear of a [Current CR] level NPC

 

[Brace Cormaeril]

Cool, thanks guys... that's what I thought. One thing: My party of PC's is usually able to defeat monsters of a high CR. 8 CR's over the avg. party level is not out of the question for this group of 7 PC's....
How would you adjudicate this?

 

[Ceska]

For a group of seven PC´s I would double the number of monsters of a normal (for the level of the group) CR.

CR +8 over group level is way to high, such a monster should tpk your party without any problems, even when they´re more characters than normal.

 

[s-dub]

I'm with Frank on this one.

Since dragons normally increase by hit die, you'll need to compare the power of the dragon after advancing it to CR 21 via hit dice versus adding 5 levels of Psy Warrior.

I'm almost positive you will find a Wyrm Black Dragon (CR 20) will be able to mop the floor with an Old Black Dragon Psy Warrior 5.

One of the biggiest areas that the dragons will be disparate in is spellcasting ability. The Old Dragon will have a caster level of 7th and Manifestor level of 5. The Wyrm will have a caster level of 13.

Also, the Wyrm dragon will have a higher armor class, more hit dice, a better BAB, better saves, and better ability scores (even if you use the elite array for the Old Dragon)

I'd probably treat the class levels in Psy warrior as nonassociated, since they do not keep pace with the dragon's natural BAB (not even by half) nor do they augment it's natural spellcasting ability

 

[irdeggman]

Cool, thanks guys... that's what I thought. One thing: My party of PC's is usually able to defeat monsters of a high CR. 8 CR's over the avg. party level is not out of the question for this group of 7 PC's....
How would you adjudicate this?

Remember that the CR for an average party is based on a party of 4 members - you have almost double that.

I had an e-mail from Skip Williams (when he was the Sage) on this issue (our game routinely had 7+ members).

The "guideline" was to take the average level of the party and add 1 for every 2 extra members. Treat this as the equivalent party level for an ""even" CR. But always watch out for the creatures that required something "special" to negate that the party might not have access to - higher level spells, certain types of weapons, etc. So some eyeballing is always required.

So for your case the party should be able to handle a CR of 1 higher on average and 2 higher isn't much out of the question (you round down the number of party members). While a challenging encounter would be one that is 3 levels higher (or possibly 4).

Technically the correct method is to back fit the party using the mixed groups from the CR tables in the DMG - but I find that a bit more difficult to do on a routine basis.

 

[frankthedm]

7 PCs?! Ok, more bodies are definitely needed. Maybe a small harem of young adult female dragons, none of which like each other all that much. The older dragon is basically conniving them and they infight for his favor. This means that there will be plenty of dragons to go around, each PC grouping gets their own dragon to fight if they get split up and IF the players get in over their heads, one rival dragon might decide the time is ripe to strike down a rival female. And if the older dragon's favored mate gets killed by her rival dragon, he might even kill her slayer in anger as he starts tearing into the PCs as befitting the chaotic evil nature of black dragons.

Also there could be a few half dragon psiwarrior children with the dragon. At least one, maybe two using Astral construct powers to augment their numbers.