Low-CR creatures are more useful, but less popular

[Li Shenron]

I suppose this is another one of my typical "minority thoughts"

I just think that I would definitely buy more monster books if there weren't so many high-CR creatures. I know that it is my own problem not be able to run high-level adventures easily... But I also know that if I want to use a monster whose CR is too low for the current needs of the adventure, it's a piece of cake to bump it up with the advancement rules, and it's actually fun to choose between HD advancement (if you just want "bigger stats") or class levels and templates (if you want more abilities). On the other hand, doing the opposite - that is, lowering the CR - is much harder, because there is no guideline to adjudicate the new CR.

It happened recently when my players ended up into a haunted forest that was supposed to be half-shifted between the material plane and the plane of shadows. PC party around level 6th, they faced several Dusk Beasts from MotP, and to make the leader pack I simply advanced it to CR 8. But I wanted also to scatter some Umbral Banyans around the forest, and they were CR 10, I thought about reducing the HP, but it didn't feel fully appropriate, and still I couldn't know how to make the final CR appropriate (I wanted quite many of them around, so they couldn't be too much of a challenge). Well, at the end I forgot about it and just used Assassin Vines with the Shadow template.

I don't know what do other people do to lower the CR of monsters... do you just scale up the whole adventure? But what if I want to use some cool monsters but don't want to play too high in level, for example to avoid issues with powerful divinations/teleportations and too many character abilities to keep track of?

I'm a bit frustrated that there are some of my favourite monsters like the Banshee and the Kelvezu which I would probably never use because they designed them too high CR for me :/

 

[greywulf]

I agree; it can be difficult to scale down Monsters to an appropriate power level. The Fiend Folio stayed on my bookshelf, untouched for months before my gamers reached a power level high enough for it to be usable.

In a way though that's a good thing, because the players do get a feeling that they've crested some milestone (can you crest milestones, I wonder?) when they face their first Stone Golem. That's one of the reasons I avoided putting low-CR dragons against them around 6th-10th level - I want their first dragon battle to be remembered for a Loooooooong time afterward.

That said, I do crave some kind of "Lesser" template that can be added to a critter to produce a younger/weaker/lower CR version of the monster. I'd love to be able to throw hordes of Lesser Mind Flayers at them, just to see the look on their faces

The most difficult part is lessening a monster's special abilities. I tend to knock 5 off the DC to save for each -2 Hit Dice, and maybe drop one or more of the more powerful (read: difficult to GM) abilities too, just to make my life easier.

 

[Huw]

I scaled the Epic Level Handbook monsters down to reasonable CRs with some success. Here's the rather crude rules I used:

Halve the HD: Reduce CR by 2, possibly 3 if the creature has HD linked special abilities.
Halve the Ability score bonuses: Reduce CR by 1 or 2, depending on how high they were to begin with (i.e. Str 30 (+10 bonus) goes to Str 20 (+5 bonus)
Halve the natural AC bonus: Reduce CR by 0 or 1, depending on how high it was to begin with.
Reduce DR, DC for special abilities, etc.: Reduce CR by up to 2.

Spell casting abilities require a bit more tweaking. The ELH monsters still ended up around CR 17-20, so it didn't matter they had 9th level spells.

Anyway, I also like low CR creatures. They're far more flexible.

 

[Li Shenron]

In a way though that's a good thing, because the players do get a feeling that they've crested some milestone (can you crest milestones, I wonder?) when they face their first Stone Golem. That's one of the reasons I avoided putting low-CR dragons against them around 6th-10th level - I want their first dragon battle to be remembered for a Loooooooong time afterward.

Yes I agree, in fact I think everyone may have a different opinion on which level would be the appropriate time to meet a certain foe.

For instance, I totally dislike using dragon puppies, and generally I wouldn't gladly use a dragon that isn't at least HUGE. In my heart dragons are always special, so even if the MM has low-CR dragons I simply wouldn't use them.

But there are however many monster which could have been designed at a lower/higher CR and no one would have find it inappropriate in concept.

The most difficult part is lessening a monster's special abilities.

Absolutely. Of course, if you take away too many special abilities you may lose the reason why you put the creature in the adventure I mean for example, you can't take away the mind powers of Mind Flayers just to lower the CR because those powers they aren't Mind Flayers anymore! But on the other hand, their planar travel abilities could be removed without really changing their concept significantly (they could have items for that). But at least lessening the DC wouldn't change them too much.

 

[Psion]

I agree; it can be difficult to scale down Monsters to an appropriate power level.

Absolutely!

I made this point in the FCI "canon war", but the canon-fiends couldn't be convinced.

 

[DMH]

Deluxe Book of Templates has several templates that reduce the power of creatures. The degenerate sounds like what you are looking for.

 

[Psion]

Deluxe Book of Templates has several templates that reduce the power of creatures. The degenerate sounds like what you are looking for.

Thanks for reminding me...

Legends of Avadnu also has a template to tone down epic creatures.

 

[BryonD]

Absolutely!

I made this point in the FCI "canon war", but the canon-fiends couldn't be convinced.

Actually I agree completely as well.
FCI was screwed up for reasons all its own.....
Reasons that the apologist-fiends never seemed to want to answer.

But by and large I completely agree that a solid distribution of lower level CR stuff is much better and more useful. And that advancing them is easy.

 

[glass]

my one comment on this tangent

Absolutely! I made this point in the FCI "canon war", but the canon-fiends couldn't be convinced.

I don't think I consider myself a 'canon-fiend' but in even if I am, my problem with the stats in FC1 had anything to do with my being one. It had to do with the stats not matching the fluff in the same book, and being even to weak for their 'stated purpose'.*


glass.

(* that being the final boss for a 'standard' campaign).

 

[glass]

and to actually answer the OP

I agree with the idea that lower CR critters are more generally useful, but that has to be weighed against the fact that high level adventures are already more demanding on the DM without having to custom-power-up every monster. I certainly wouldn't want to take that to the logical extreme of having 20x as many CR1 critters as CR20.

Also, as a dungeon subscriber, I actually wish there were more high-CR monsters in the MM that are not outsiders or dragons. I know (because they have said as much) that they really struggle with high level adventures because they have to reprint anything not in the core MM. Unfortunately, barring an XMM, that ship has sailed.


glass.