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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rev. Jesse" data-source="post: 2756618" data-attributes="member: 27673">Well, if you were a dragon with 20 Intelligence, wouldn't you use all the magic at your disposal against a band of deadly adventurers?   Not having intelligent creatures use the full abilities  raises a suspension of belief issue.  An umber hulk might not use a potion of haste, but a mind flayer sure would.I would say that, in most cases, the use of treasure by monsters should not increase their CR because the monster will generally get less use out of the item and then the PCs will.  What's more, determing CR modifications for each item would be extremely time consuming and a lot of magic items are less effective then they would first appear, particularly as monsters and characters become more powerful.  Consider a 9th level barbarian with 18 strength (melee attack bonus of +13).  Give him a +1 weapon and his ability to hit the party only increases by 5%.  If you feel that magic item use has significantly improved the enemy's performance, an ad hoc award of +5% XP or +10% XP or whatever is probably an easier way to adjust the party's reward.That having been said, enemies that use very powerful magic items, like a Mirror of Life Stealing, a Staff of the Magi, or the Sword of Kas probably should have some sort of adjustment.  Of course, by the time the party encounters a Staff of the Magi it should be so powerful and prepared to fight powerful foes that the adjustment shouldn't be that significant.A starting point for this question might be found at the end of the 'improving monsters' chapter of the MM under 'adding special abilities.'  It suggests adding +2 CR if the ability 'stands a good change of [disabling] a character in one round.'  The  magic items listed above fit that bill.  Added abilities that improve the combat effectivness of the monster in a minor way would add +1 to the CR of the creation, but consider that a haste potion is far more valuable and effective for a troll fighting a 5th level party than for a titan fighting a 20 level party (who, at that level, can be assumed to have prepared something like dispel magic).  Generally, I think you will find the usage of magic items by enemies (except for very powerful ones) will be less and less important the higher the party's level and monster's CR.</blockquote>

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