is that CR okay? The Murkel, CR2

Behold, the Murkel!

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Murkel
CR 2
small creature
3d6 plus 8 (19HP)
AC 17 (3 dex, 2 natural, 1 small), Touch 14, Flat 13

str 14
dex 16
con 14
int 7
wi 10
cha 4

Feats: Blindsight, battle jump,

BAB: 2, grapple 4

Atk: jumpcharge aus 20 ft höhe: 8 (2 charge, 1 high ground, 2 str, 2 bab, 1 masterwork spear): 2d6plus 6

Full Attack: MW shortspear 6 (1d6 plus 3)

Murkels attack in swarms. Initially they hide in high trees, then drop with a jumping charge on their prey. Should their prey survive this initial assault, the Murkel fight in the thick undergrowth and try to take advantage of the cover it provides for them, knowing that they themselves are very good at fighting while not seeing well.
Murkels make good use of Aid Another to overcome foes with strong armor.

Climb : 8, Hide: 12, Move silently: 8, Jump: 5, Tumble: 3

save: fort 4, ref 3, wis 0

A party is most likely to encounter murkels when they carry some kind of open flame (like a torch) or a source of light (like an everburning torch) through a jungle. Murkels are not intelligent enough to make fire themselves, but appreciate its use in cooking. They will attack in full force, and try to steal the source of fire/light. They will unscrupeously kill to get a firebrand. Hey, a fire AND something to roast upon it.

the DC knowledge (nature) for this information is 20 (if a character has seen a Murkel in full) or 26 (if a character has only seen a murkel shortly by dropping on someone and then disappearing into the undergrowth)

Railroady hook: Bait your party to use fire by attacking them with stirges in larges quantities.

I want to use these creatures to attack a lvl 4 Party, and give the meelee some trouble (while giving the very new WuJen the option to fire her reserve fiery something into thick meelee, and get abducted afterwards...:smallsmile:)

They mostly rely on cover for defenses.

is the challenge rating aboutishly correct? or do you think its too hard on 4 lvl 4 guys to get 8 of these guys dropped on them?

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Originally Posted by Phaederkiel

is the challenge rating aboutishly correct? or do you think its too hard on 4 lvl 4 guys to get 8 of these guys dropped on them?

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Not totally sure if the CR is correct, but in any case an EL 8 encounter is pretty rough on an APL 4 party.

Thanks a lot for answering!

I always thought it was: double the critters, add one to the CR?

so 1 of them is CR2

2 are CR3

4 are CR4

and 8 are CR5


I shouldnt be wrong about this. I want to challenge them, not curbstomp them.

Do you think the CR2 is rather too high or rather too low for the guys?

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Originally Posted by Phaederkiel

Thanks a lot for answering!

I always thought it was: double the critters, add one to the CR?

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No, every doubling adds two. (Check the SRD Encounter Calculator if you want.)

I'm not too great at estimating CR for low-end humanoids, sadly, but they don't seem completely off.

Although, they have "Blindsight" listed as a feat, which should be Blind-Fight.

Firstly, if it's a humanoid, it probably should be knowledge:local if you're using RAW.
That Strength score is too high for a small creature without levels in PC classes, you should probably lower it to 10 or 11.
Most monsters will have 3 even and 3 odd scores, so consider adding 1 to one or two scores to make that happen.
Also, masterwork weapons are usually reserved for the elite, they should not be carried by every member of the tribe.
Also, a small shortspear only does 1d4 damage.
If they are humanoids, they should have d8 hit dice. Their good save should probably be Reflex, for +1 Fort but +6 Reflex.
With those changes, they should be a good match; their AC is a tiny bit high for that level, but with the decreased STR score and no MW weapons, their offense should be low enough to compensate.

@ tuggyne: thanks for warning me. That means I need to either weaken them quite a bit, or wait a while. I think I need at least 6 of the guys to make my encounter work.

Or I make a second, 1 HD version, who have nothing but blind-fight.


@yitzi: thanks a lot for the analysis! I will change them accordingly.

But first, about Knowledge (local): it is a perpetual point of discourse in my group if you can take points in Knowledge (local) or if you need take points in
Knowledge(local[desert]) and Knowledge(local[swamp]) seperately.

They are small reptilian (or plantsy, i am not entirely sure yet) creatures living in a big, amazonas-like jungle-river.

And I would obviously let a character throw knowledge (local[jungle]) for them, if he brought the skill. Probably with plus 4, for the specialized knowledge.

I know that I need to prepare for knowlegde checks, since one guy in my group is a bard with knowledge inspiration and accordingly high skills.

about the save: I modeled part of the murkel after the Lizard kings (serpent kingdom 68) and - as I see I just misread somewhere. okay, up go the reflex saves, that will also help against the fiery reserve feat of the wujen.

But now I encounter a problem: if I nix their strength score, AND take away their MW spears, they will never hit my party again. The two fighters have a AC 19 and a AC 21. Which should be difficult, but not impossible to hit.
When they are in the undergrowth, it will be okay: they will swarm the characters, flank them and aid each other. But the initial jumping charge should have some hitting capabilities, too.
Should I give them one more point of BAB?

I am happy about the spears dealing less damage, though.

murkel, 1.02

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Murkel
CR 2
small creature
3d6 plus 8 (19HP)
AC 17 (3 dex, 2 natural, 1 small), Touch 14, Flat 13

str 11
dex 16
con 14
int 7
wi 10
cha 3

Feats: Blind-fight, battle jump,

BAB: 3, grapple 4

Atk: jumpcharge aus 20 ft höhe: 7 (2 charge, 1 high ground, 0 str, 3 bab, 1 masterwork spear): 2d4

Full Attack: MW shortspear 4 (1d4)

Climb : 8, Hide: 12, Move silently: 8, Jump: 5, Tumble: 3

save: fort 3, ref 6, wis 0

hmm. now they are somewhat easy, because they deal (at max) 2d4.

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Originally Posted by Phaederkiel

But now I encounter a problem: if I nix their strength score, AND take away their MW spears, they will never hit my party again. The two fighters have a AC 19 and a AC 21. Which should be difficult, but not impossible to hit.
When they are in the undergrowth, it will be okay: they will swarm the characters, flank them and aid each other. But the initial jumping charge should have some hitting capabilities, too.

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Doesn't a charge get +2 to AC? That means a +6 total, which should be enough to have a chance. Not a very high chance, but they are somewhat defensively strong for their CR.

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Should I give them one more point of BAB?

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That would mean another HD and all it implies (you can't give BAB for nothing); it could work, but if you do you should probably reduce their natural armor by 1. Or you could give Blindsight as a bonus feat, and give weapon focus (shortspear) instead.

And if you want at least 6 against a level 4 party to be a level-appropriate fight, they'll need to be a lot weaker. Strip their natural armor and don't boost their attack, and they'll probably be a good CR 1; 6 of those should be a good boss-level fight at level 4.

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hmm. now they are somewhat easy, because they deal (at max) 2d4.

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Keep in mind, they're supposed to be fairly weak individually; you're sending 6 of them, and the PCs are still supposed to be able to win without expending more than 20% of their resources (which is a level-appropriate fight). For that, they're still probably too strong.

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Originally Posted by Yitzi

Doesn't a charge get +2 to AC? That means a +6 total, which should be enough to have a chance. Not a very high chance, but they are somewhat defensively strong for their CR.

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Charges get +2 to attack and -2 to AC.

Other than that, yeah, basically.

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Originally Posted by tuggyne

Charges get +2 to attack and -2 to AC.

Other than that, yeah, basically.

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Yeah, I meant to say +2 to attack, I mistyped.