Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Nick Caligo 08-16-05, 07:10 PM	Before I get yelled at because someone else posted this subject or something, let me just say that I feel that the subject of deciding CRs for original monsters should be stickied or something because it's rather useful. I never place a lot of stock in the CRs in the Monster Manuals. :rolleyes: Unfortunately, circumstances beyond my control now dictate that I be able to pull up a realistic Challenge Rating for my original monsters; I have to be able to put a price tag on them, and while CR has never served me well as a guide for how tough an encounter is for a group of 4-6 players, it does make a rather nice pricing factor. So how do I do this? There's got to be some kind of math behind it. If nobody can tell me, could someone reference me to maybe a book that's got these guidelines? And if nobody can give me CR guidelines, can you at least give me monster pricing guidelines that don't depend on CR? (Note: The price formula I'm going on is CR squared x 1000 GP to create a monster as per an item creation feat). Any help I could get would be much appreciated.
cammobeast 08-16-05, 08:14 PM	about a month ago i was trying to use a druid animal companion (without the druid) as a monster for my game. i asked around with a similar queation. if the druid animal companion is without the druid, does it get to have a CR of its own? normally its considered a class feature. i got a lot of hard-headed responces (probably from DMs jealous at someone else's origional idea), but i got a lot of helpful ones as well. all i wanted to do was make sure this particular creature would be an appropriate encounter for my party. i toyed with a lot of different ideas i found, many of the most intelligent suggestions dont really apply to your question, but i can tell you this.... regardless of my initial doubt, i found the rules on p.302 of the monster manual very helpful. in the end, i found these rules to be a better resource than any suggestions in my thread. my semi-origional beastie's CR using these rules was actually a "right on the money" prediction of how challanging this encounter would be for the party. as far a putting a price on these origional monsters, my only suggestion is this... take the critters that come with a price tag from the MM (like the pegasus and other mount-like creatures) and use their prices plus a little algebra to determine a formula of you own. i hope this helps.
Nick Caligo 08-16-05, 09:59 PM	Oh, check that out. The 3.5E Monster Manual actually has guidelines! Thanks a lot, man.