Published Drow NPCs CR ratings?

[Oryan77]

I'm not all that knowledgeable when creating new NPCs. But I always assumed that if you make an NPC with class levels, you just add their racial level adjustment to the class levels you give it (and racial HD if it has any) to get it's CR. Is that correct?

Every Drow NPC I've referenced is always 1 CR lower than I assumed it would be. But Drow have +2 LA. So I thought if it was a 10 lvl Fighter, it would be a CR 12.

Here are the examples I was referencing:

Drow Raider (Fighter 4 but CR 5)
DMG 2 pg 71

Drow Priestess (Cleric 8 but CR 9)
Monster Manual 4 pg 57

So how exactly do you determine the CR?

 

[udalrich]

Challenge Rating

Drow with levels in NPC classes have a CR equal to their character level. Drow with levels in PC classes have a CR equal to their character level +1.

For a more general answer, what your doing is how you calculate ECL (used for PCs), not CR (used for creatures being fought).

For CR, you take the CR of the base creature and add the number of PC classes. (There's a lesser adjustment for NPC classes.)

An Ogre has LA +2, 4 racial hit dice and a CR of 3. A player playing a classless ogre has an ECL of 2+4=6, and belongs in a 6th level party. (Well, at least if you believe the LA and associated rules.)

An ogre with a level of Barbarian is ECL 7, but only CR 4.

 

[Oryan77]

For CR, you take the CR of the base creature and add the number of PC classes. (There's a lesser adjustment for NPC classes.)

Ah ok, the Drow is a CR 1, but if you add 10 levels of Fighter it is a CR11, gotcha. Now I see why all the Drow NPCs are a CR lower than I thought they should be.