Manticore at CR 3

[Ry]

Hi everyone; I'm looking to scale down the Manticore, to give a manticore cub variant. I was thinking CR 3, but I didn't have much beyond that. Should I just halve the hit dice and see what happens?

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Hmmm. I rather successfully scaled a manticore down to CR 4 by reducing its strength to 13, reducing its dex to ten, and knocking off a few hit points. Then I let all its attacks transmit the Red Ache that it was carrying. Judging from how it interacts with first level PCs, that seems to be a fairly successful scale-down, though it's still a very tough fight--particulary if the PCs play to its strength (and ranged combat is still a strength).

Scaling the manticore down to CR 3 might be more difficult. You'd need to knock a few HD off, knock down its strength and size, and probably scale back the number of spikes it can throw each round as well as their damage.

 

[FireLance]

Roughly comparing between a lion and a leopard, I would make the following adjustments to the base manticore to get a CR 3 manticore cub:

Reduce HD to 3, adjust BAB, base saves and skill points accordingly.
Remove Weapon Focus (spikes) feat, adjust attack bonus accordingly.
Drop size from Large to Medium, adjust AC, attack bonus, grapple bonus, base damage for bite, claw and tail spikes, and space/reach accordingly.
Reduce Strength by 4 points, adjust attack and damage bonuses accordingly.
Reduce natural armor bonus by 2, adjust AC accordingly.
Reduce the number of spikes it can release in a volley to 3, reduce the total number of spikes it can release in a 24-hour period to 12.

To be sure, you could run it through a simulated combat with a level 3 party and see how it fares.