Help me scale DOWN a monster!

[Klaus]

I'll be running a modified Shadows of the Last War adventure, since one of the players is a DM who also has the books. I'll be scaling the adventure up, from 2nd to 3rd or 4th level. But one of the things I'm keen on doing is replacing the minor carcass crab from the first Mournland encounter with a Corpse Collector (MM3). Here's the thing: the Corpse Collector is a 17HD creature with CR 12. Here's what I aim on doing:

- Lower the CR to 5 or 6, so it's a tough challenge.
- Keep it Large, so it's still intimidating.
- Lose the breath weapon, since it makes no sense for a contruct made for collecting corpses.
- Lower the Wisdom to 10.
- Lower the DR to 5/adamantine.
- Lose the spell reflection part of its spell immunity.

Anyone has any ideas?

 

[diaglo]

injure it or give it below avg hps.

 

[Li Shenron]

From 12 to 6 it's a big downstep... I don't know what special abilities this monster has, but have you tried to find another construct of the same size which has CR 6 or lower? What material is it made of?

For instance, a Flesh Golem has CR 7, and a Huge Animated Object has 5, quite close. Can you try to add the Corpse Collector special abilities on top of a Large or Huge Animated Object?

 

[diaglo]

you could also take a zombie and step it up to larger size and more hd.

zombie brute

 

[Shade]

I'd reduce it to 8 HD and reduce its Strength to 25. This would bring the save DC on its trample down to 21 and its grapple bonus down to +17...still challenging for a party of 5th or 6th level characters, but not nearly impossible.

It would lose 3 feats. I'd keep Improved Natural Attack (slam), Power Attack, and Weapon Focus (slam)

5/adamantine sounds reasonable at that CR.