EL Calculation for innebriation

[atom crash]

Way back when in 1st Edition, we once had an NPC who was always drunk. He fell off a cliff and the only thing that kept him alive was the extra HP from being drunk. If he was sober the fall would have killed him.

I'd probably just eyeball it and adjust the XP down by 20% or so if I thought the encounter was particularly easy due to the drunkenness.

- OR -

How would you adjust the CR for opponents with negative levels at the start of the encounter? It seems that fighters who are taking "a –2 penalty on all attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks" are roughly equivalent to an opponent with a negative level. Treat them each as if they have a negative level when assigning CR and EL.

 

[dcollins]

If I'm doing the math correctly, this would be an EL 10, prior to subtracting for the drunk effect, yes? (1 CR5, 2CR4, 10 CR3)

Yes, I agree with that.

 

[Kapture]

I've been fiddling around with ways of making tough encounters easier to use with lower level groups, and wrote an adventure with a drunken NPC recently.

I've kind of decided to treat alcohol as a poison, with a fairly low DC (10) and 1d6 Wis and Dex damage for failure, meaning you can drink for awhile without taking damage, but then it really hits you hard.

My numbers are higher than arms and equipment, which is probably "more real" (reflecting more gradual debilitation over longer periods of time). They have the advantage of being graceful: the damage only comes into play when drunkeness is really debilitating. Not a lot of record keeping.

Most poisons and diseases do about the same damage. A failed save results in -1.5 to a suite of rolls: with drunkeness it's will saves, armor class, and missile attacks. That's a fairly important suite of skills, especially at low levels: they are easier to be hit, a charm or sleep spell has more possibility of ending an encounter withou serious loss to PCs. Plus the potential loss of feats and spells.

Strength and Con would be more detrimental, but I don't know by how much.

I consider age much the same way: -2 to Con/Dex/ and Str is pretty brutal. The pluses to mental scores might improve spell casting, but I don't know how much a benefit that is when the warrior cleaves your wrinkly butt. Weapons are pretty much prime in a lot of combat.

I would note the physical benefits of size make a lot of ability damage less oppressive. -2 Str and Con is far more damaging to a human, or even an orc, with a flat or exceptional stat array, than to a giant with similar.

"a –2 penalty on all attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks" Is potentially more brutal, but not that much more. They aren't any easier to hit, after all.

My rule of thumb has been this: reduce the CR of a creature by one per missed save or level of age per size catagory above small. Sizes below are treated as medium. A medium creatures is one CR lower per missed save, large takes is one CR lower per two missed saves, etc.

For your "sickened drunk," I'd lower them all by one. Calculate the EL around that. It's -2 to hit and damage, all saves, and a few combat relevant skills. That's about two thirds their relevant combat traits, and it makes those rolls twice as hard. Almost -2 CR, but I like to give my monsters the benefit of the doubt.