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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Empirate" data-source="post: 6032213" data-attributes="member: 78958">When determining CRs for homebrew monsters, the first thing I ask myself is: "what kind of party can slaughter this monster in one round?". Your creation has AC 19 and 16 HP (5d8-7). So a 1st level party actually has a good chance of putting it out of its misery in a single round, maybe two!The next thing I ask myself is: "what can the monster do to a party of any given level?". In this case, there's quite a bit of damage to go round (attack bonuses should be recalculated, though, depending on active Whirling Frenzy or not). Paralysis and Poison DCs should be low enough to almost not matter unless the party is super low level, though.Miscellaneous defenses is the next part. SR is high for its HD, but other than that, there's not much, just basic Outsider HD stuff.Given that a 3rd level Barbarian has a good chance of one-shotting this monster, I'd not put the CR higher than 3, despite the damage this thing can pour out. It's just too frail.Concerning monster design in general: interesting, memorable monsters don't die in a single round, but last for much longer. Their offense needs to be dependable, but not overpowering (which can be frustrating). The glass cannon approach, on the other hand, makes initiative even more important than it generally is, and makes battles extremely swingy. For that reason, I'd refrain from glass cannon-y monsters most of the time, unless they're supported by some more durable backbone (buffer caster, tank...).</blockquote>

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