Summon monster/nature's ally revised

[Kerrick]

I didn't think this was worthy of its own thread, but it doesn't really fit anywhere else (it's not an epic spell), so screw it.

Anyway, I'm working on revising various spells from the PHB, and I realized something - with the new CR system, no one's bothered to rebalance all the monsters from the summon monster and summon nature's ally spells. So, being bored and not having anything better to do, I sat down and did it myself. Only took a few hours, really - it was easier than I thought. Basically, each level of monsters for both spells has an average CR. Once I figured that out, it was easy to rebalance everything by applying UK's CRs to the monsters and moving them to the proper levels. I had to boost the average CR for each level by 0.5, but as it turns out, that works well with the legendary spell system I've done (summoning a creature of CR 12+ adds +1 spell level per 2 points of CR over 10).

The attachment has the lists for both spells; the average (target) CR for each level is as follows:

L1 - 1.5
L2 - 2
L3 - 3
L4 - 4
L5 - 5.5
L6 - 7
L7 - 8.5
L8 - 10
L9 - 11.5

If you want to continue making summon monster/nature's ally spells, I would probably boost the average CR by 2 (so 13.5 at L10, 15.5 at L11, etc.).

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Kerrick mate!

Very cool - thanks for that. However, now you'll have to do progressions for above 9th-level spells!

A few things of note.

Some of my v5 CRs will be changed in v6 (naturally).

I am sure I outlined the CR progression somewhere in the Epic Bestiary (IIRC)...or was it Ascension.

Edit: I think I stated Spell Level x 1.5 = max CR.

 

[mercucio]

You did state it was spell level * 1.5

 

[Kerrick]

Heh.. I posted this and promptly forgot about it. Got busy with a couple editing jobs and some other things, and just thought of this today when I was digging through my projects folder.

Very cool - thanks for that. However, now you'll have to do progressions for above 9th-level spells!

Working on it. I've got a couple other things going, then I'll get back to my revised spell project.

Some of my v5 CRs will be changed in v6 (naturally).

Shouldn't be too major, right?

I am sure I outlined the CR progression somewhere in the Epic Bestiary (IIRC)...or was it Ascension.

Edit: I think I stated Spell Level x 1.5 = max CR.

Yeah, that's how they work out when converted over... but that only holds true for L7-9. One thing I found when I was reverse-engineering these was that the CR averages follow a progression (which I didn't put onto that sheet):

SM 1: 1
SM 2: 1.5
SM 3: 2.5
SM 4: 3.5
SM 5: 5
SM 6: 6.5
SM 7: 8
SM 8: 9.5
SM 9: 11

When I converted them over to yours, I had to increase them by 0.5 each. I figure SM X would be 13, and then each level after that would be (previous level + 2) - so SM XI would be CR 15, SM XII CR 17, etc. Summon nature's ally follows the same progression (except for SNA IX, which averages CR 12 for some reason). This is also what I use for figuring up the level for spells that summon specific monsters - each 2 points of CR past CR 12 equals +1 spell level.

 

[Kerrick]

Okay, while I was offline, I had time to work on various things, including the summon monster tables. Unfortunately, there aren't enough high-CR monsters to really fill out the tables at L10. This is the best I could come up with:

Level 10
Celestial triceratops (LG): CR 13
Elemental, huge (TN): CR 14
Fiendish monstrous scorpion, Garg. (NE): CR 14
Bebelith (CE): CR 14
Hezrou (CE): CR 14

As you can see, the CRs are just a bit higher than what I want (CR 11.5 average)

For SNA, I had little better luck:

Efreeti: CR 12
Elemental, huge: CR 14
Roc: CR 15

 

[Kerrick]

I was playing around with some stuff, and I discovered that I was wrong - L10 is supposed to be CR 14, not 11.5. L9 is 11.5... but since L10 spells don't come in until L21, we have to increase the CR by 2.5 to account for the missing level. That is, the average CRs go up by 1.5 at 7th, 8th, and 9th levels; while you're going from L9 to L10 in spell levels, you skip a caster level (19th), so you have to account for it - hence the 2.5. (I tried 3, but it didn't quite work out - the formula for determining CL from the creature's CR is CR * 1.5; if you start at 14 and go up +2/level, it works out perfectly.

Unfortunately, it kind of breaks down at extremely high levels - a spell to summon a primal elemental (CR 73) would be 39th level (CL 109) - that's way too high, IMO. The difference probably keeps increasing; I'll crunch some numbers and see what I can find out.