New Monster needs CR

[Purzel]

I've made up stats for a monster, i plan to use in an adventure. I used a monster from a picture i found somewhere around the net. I don't know the artist, so i won't post the picture here because of copyright.

My problem is to find out the Challenge Rating of the beast.

• 
  Gundarc
  Large Aberration
  Hitdice: 8d8+16 (52 hp)
  Speed: 30 ft.
  AC: 13 (-1 size, -1 Dex, +5 natural)
  Attacks: 2 claws +10 melee, sting +5 melee
  Damage: Claw 1d6+5, sting 1d4+1
  Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft./10 ft.
  Special Attacks: Poison
  Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft.
  Saves: Fort +6, Ref +1 Will+6
  Abilities: Str 21, Dex 8, Con 15, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 7
  Skills: Climb +15, Jump +11, Listen +9, Spot +9
  Feats: Alertness, Great Fortitude
  
  Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground
  Organization: Solitary, gang (2-4), or band (5-8)
  Challenge Rating: ???
  Treasure: Standard
  Alignment: Always chaotic evil
  Advancement: 9-13 HD (Large), 14-24 HD (Huge)
  
  Poison (Ex): Sting, Fortitude save (DC 16); initial damage 1d6 temporay Strength, secondary damage 2d6 temporary Strength
  
  Gundarcs are ugly crossbreeds of ogres and vermin. They have six limbs, the two largest are used for walking and fighting, two are manipulators and the two dangling from their lower abdomen are just useless appendices. Their coloring ranges from black to purple. Instead of a pelvic they have a rudimentary insect-like opisthosoma, which contains a poisonous stinger. Gundarcs are strictly carnivorous. They speak Giant.
  
  Combat:
  Confronted with a weak prey they usually attack with all their weapons and simply overpower it. When meeting tougher victims they inject their poison first, retreat and wait. They hardly ever change their tactics, and they always return to a prey they stung ignoring any risks, even chasing it over large distances.

What could be the Challenge Rating? My best guess is CR 7 or 8.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi there!

I worked it out to be 7.7 (rounded down to 7).

 

[Purzel]

I worked it out to be 7.7 (rounded down to 7).

Ah. And how did you work that out? Do you have some good formulas for that?

 

[Spatzimaus]

Ah. And how did you work that out? Do you have some good formulas for that?

I believe he used his own system, the one from this thread:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45989

It's a long-running discussion. BIG thread.

But let's look at your creature in the context of that 7th-level standard party.
DEFENSE: It's got the HP of an 8th-level character, but its AC is only 13, so a 7th-level Fighter with a decent strength almost always hits (and here comes Power Attack...) 52 HP may seem like a decent amount, but a Fireball cast by a 7th-level Wizard averages 24.5 points, and with a +1 Reflex he's not going to be reducing that. (If the Wizard had INT 16 and no Spell Focus, he'd need a 15 or higher to take half)
No DR, no elemental resists, no SR.

OFFENSE: Decent attacks. The claw attacks just aren't that impressive, being comparable to a Ranger dual-wielding nonmagical Short Swords. At 7th-level, this is just a bit behind the curve.
The 10' reach is very useful, of course, and easily adds 1 to the CR in its own right. Unfortunately, the low DEX means you can't get Combat Reflexes.
The Poison is nice and strong (both a high DC and powerful effect). Anyone other than a Fighter hit by it will be out of action once the secondary damage kicks in. But, it's tied to the stinger, so you won't hit very often with it, and you'll need a Full Attack to even try.

OTHER: Good senses. Darkvision, Alertness. Good class skills. No Scent, though.

RESULT: It's probably fine for a 7th-level party. It'll do some damage before it goes down, but it's not any sort of TPK threat to anything of 6th level or higher. The usual hack-n-slash tactics will kill it in two or three rounds, tops. If there's Haste in the group, it could easily die in the first round if the rolls go right.
In some sort of ambush setting, where it's laid a trap to immobilize part of the group, it would be really strong.

****

Ways to make it stronger: (If you want to, that is)
Give it the Vermin trait (Immune to Mind-Influencing Effects). Give it Improved Grab, so that it can sting someone easily.
Its best offense, to me, is the Poison, so you could emphasize that by switching the attacks: make the stinger primary, make the claws be the secondary, and you have Stinger +10 (1d4+7+poison) and 2 Claws +5 (1d6+2).
Also, the stinger on a Large Scorpion does 1d6 base, not 1d4, so you can up that a bit if you want.
Then, you can get the Multiattack Feat (MM) instead of Great Fortitude. That'd really help the secondary attacks, making them +8 instead of +5.

Question: you mention it has two manipulators. Can it use weapons? Can it wear armor? (If so, include those in the stat block; a Masterwork Chain Shirt would really help that AC)
I'd say NO to weapons, YES to armor.

Also, some of the numbers in your original post don't seem to match. The stinger should be 1d4+2, not +1 (half STR mod). An 8HD creature should have three Feats, not two. So, let's say it's Alertness, Multiattack, Power Attack.

Anyways, with these changes, it could easily be a CR 8 or 9 creature, but as is 7 is probably a safe bet.

 

[Grazzt]

I've made up stats for a monster, i plan to use in an adventure. I used a monster from a picture i found somewhere around the net. I don't know the artist, so i won't post the picture here because of copyright.

My problem is to find out the Challenge Rating of the beast.

*snipped*

What could be the Challenge Rating? My best guess is CR 7 or 8.

WotC's "system" as laid out in Dragon 276 is as follows:

1- take the monster's hp and divide by 4.5

2- To this number, add +1 or +2 for each SA and SQ

3- Take this number and divide by 3. This is the monster's CR.

Remember though, playtesting is the most accurate way to determine a monster's CR (or at least get really close to it anyway). The above as detailed in Dragon is just a "guesstimator."

Using WotC's system, your monster comes out to be CR 4.5 (round up or down, just depends on your feelings about it. I would round up in this case however). So, like CR 5 according to WotC's formula. However, its poison is kinda deadly (1d6/2d6 temp Str), so I might be inclined to bump it to CR 6...but I dont see it being higher than that.

 

[brehobit]

The poison is nasty. Has reach.
AC is very very low.

This is a clasic "one dimensional" creature. That is, it is only effective in close quarters. If the PCs can keep at range 5 3rd-level fighters can kill this thing in 3 rounds easy. Up close the thing is nasty but dies quickly and doesn't do all that much damage (did I mention the poison though?). Plus the "weak" +5 bonus on the sting means that it often won't hit the party tank (assuming he is the only one to close.)

I give it a low 6.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hello all!

One thing I have noticed about the difference between my system and WotCs own figures is that mine are often higher because they parallel individual character level much more closely (as a consequence they determine ECL very well also).

In effect the above monster is the equivalent of a single 7th-level character.

However, the real issue is the relationship between Challenge Rating and Encounter Level; which is something I go into in the system and I don't want to expound upon herein, nor hijack this thread, so if you are interested take a peek...

...and thanks for the link Spaztimaus.

 

[Purzel]

Changes

Thank you all for the responses. That's really helpful.

I've decided to spice up the monster a little mostly using Spatzimaus' suggestions. I don't want my beasty to die too fast, but being a pain in the ass of my group (which is mostly at Level 6 at the moment).

My changes:

• Speed: 30 ft., climb 15 ft.
  that monster has a lot of limbs with claws and manipulators, it can almost walk up the wall
• AC: 16 (-1 size, -1 Dex, +5 natural, +3 hide)
  it is wearing the furs and the hides of its prey now
• Attacks: 2 claws +10 melee, 1 stinger +8
  Damage: Claw 1d6+5, sting 1d6+2 and poison
  now it can deliver its poison more easily. i adjusted the damage using a "large" scorpion stinger and the appropriate strength modifier for secondary attacks
• Feats: Alertness, Power Attack, Multiattack
  i like the multiattack more than the old Great Fortitude. and yes, three feats sound better

With these changes the Gundarc could be CR8, thus being more challenging for my group, which will encounter this thing in a cave.

 

[trentonjoe]

Even with the changes I think your CR is to high. I think this guy is still a 5 or 6.


4 5th fighters would tear through this guy. Anything with spells or reach would give it real problems as well.


Just my opinions.

 

[Spatzimaus]

4 5th fighters would tear through this guy. Anything with spells or reach would give it real problems as well.

First of all, you never balance against a 4-man group of all one class. 4 Fighters may do well, but the stereotypical group (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric) has a good chance of getting smacked hard at level 5.

A level 5 Wizard with CON 14 has a Fort save of +3. That means he's only got a 30% chance of saving against the poison, which drains on average 10.5 STR. Even if he uses spells, the Gundarc has decent saves (+6 to both Fort and Will saves). Taking advantage of the weak Reflex save usually means AE spells, which makes it tough for the Fighter and Rogue to do the flanking thing.
More imporantly, that Wizard would only have 24 hit points, so he could easily drop in the first round if the Gundarc goes after him.

The Fighter has +5 BAB, so his full attack bonus might be +9, but that's still only 70% hits, so you don't have much margin for Power Attack. And, he's got no attack progression, so it's one single hit per turn.

The Rogue can't really hide from him, because Listen +9 and Spot +9 will easily defeat his Hide/Move Silently. At that point, you're a fighter-type with a +3 BAB against an AC of 16.

The Gundarc, on the other hand, has 10' reach, THREE shortsword-level attacks with no real drop in BAB (and a 21 STR to boot), and his poison is really difficult to save against. His attack bonus of +10 will get past the ACs of nonmagical armors pretty well, so he's free to Power Attack. Don't underestimate 10' reach; the Rogue's going to have to Tumble if he doesn't want to take a hurting from an AoO, and at level 5 he won't have the skill ranks to make it automatic. 10' Reach is REALLY dangerous in a confined space when you have multiple attacks, because he can hit the fighter with the claws while he stings the Rogue.

Sure, he could be made stronger by adding DR, for example, but it's still plenty dangerous as is. With Darkvision and a climb speed, he could wait on the ceiling of a cavern for the party to walk past, then drop down and hit the casters first. As is he's probably CR 7, but in his element, he's easily EL 8 or higher.