okay i know how to create and modify monsters, been doing it on and off in my homebrew campaign but there are a few monsters i like(shadows, rust monsters and others) that have abilities i like and well now my party are lvl 6 these monsters are a little too easy.
my question is, is there a formula for increasing the cr of a pre-existing monster, so the hp, attack bonus, damage etc... goes up by an amount equivalent to the increased cr?
yes i can wing it but i am unsure if i will make it fair and even, so was hoping for a formula or something to keep it consistent. i can see my party meeting shadows a few times as they level up and they can already almost one shot them.
There's a section in the DMG - "Modifying an Existing Creature" that goes through this - but it isn't as clear cut as you're hoping for unfortunately. And that's mainly because CR isn't a particularly clear cut way of measuring the difficulty of an encounter. While yes, upping a relevant stat will up the CR, it's just quite hard to gauge the effect it will have in game:
DMG P.275 - "Creating a monster isn't just a number-crunching exercise. The guidelines in this chapter can help you create monsters, but the only way to know whether a monster is fun is to playtest it. After seeing your monster in action, you might want to adjust the challenge rating up or down based on your experiences."
Matt Colville has a great video on this that will probably give you some suggestions: Clicky
What I'd suggest is rather than just beefing up a creature's HP, AC etc - why not add in some supporting creatures to the encounter? Or add an unexpected resistance, or environmental effect etc?
What I'd suggest is rather than just beefing up a creature's HP, AC etc - why not add in some supporting creatures to the encounter? Or add an unexpected resistance, or environmental effect etc?
i have done that and it works fine, i just like a few monsters and want to level them up so one or two of them who were a challange back at lvl 3 will still be a challenge at lvl13.
suppose i'll just have to fiddle and make it up as i go. was just hoping there was a formula to help bring a monster up, to save me time and to make it closer to right out of the box
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okay i know how to create and modify monsters, been doing it on and off in my homebrew campaign but there are a few monsters i like(shadows, rust monsters and others) that have abilities i like and well now my party are lvl 6 these monsters are a little too easy.
my question is, is there a formula for increasing the cr of a pre-existing monster, so the hp, attack bonus, damage etc... goes up by an amount equivalent to the increased cr?
yes i can wing it but i am unsure if i will make it fair and even, so was hoping for a formula or something to keep it consistent. i can see my party meeting shadows a few times as they level up and they can already almost one shot them.
There's a section in the DMG - "Modifying an Existing Creature" that goes through this - but it isn't as clear cut as you're hoping for unfortunately. And that's mainly because CR isn't a particularly clear cut way of measuring the difficulty of an encounter. While yes, upping a relevant stat will up the CR, it's just quite hard to gauge the effect it will have in game:
Matt Colville has a great video on this that will probably give you some suggestions: Clicky
What I'd suggest is rather than just beefing up a creature's HP, AC etc - why not add in some supporting creatures to the encounter? Or add an unexpected resistance, or environmental effect etc?
i have done that and it works fine, i just like a few monsters and want to level them up so one or two of them who were a challange back at lvl 3 will still be a challenge at lvl13.
suppose i'll just have to fiddle and make it up as i go. was just hoping there was a formula to help bring a monster up, to save me time and to make it closer to right out of the box