Crafter Level ; Crafting Proficiency Rank ; Crafting Feat
Formula Price
Tools You have an appropriate set of tools and, in many cases, a workshop; Crafting Materials You must supply raw materials worth
Extra Requirements
Adjusting Creatures
RULE
Sometimes you might need to customize a creature based on the needs of your story or the narrative circumstances as your story unfolds. This section guides you through some basic strategies you can use to adjust creatures. It includes quick adjustments you can make to a creature to alter its level. You might also need to adjust a creature’s languages or gear, or know its proficiency ranks in skills or Perception.
Combat Power
The creatures presented in this book have appropriate statistics for their levels. In many cases, you can make relatively minor adjustments, called elite and weak adjustments, to their statistics to make them function 1 level higher or lower than presented.
Elite and weak adjustments work best with creatures that focus on physical combat. These adjustments overstate the normal numerical gains the creature would make from increasing its level to make up for the lack of new special abilities. As such, when applied multiple times to the same creature, these adjustments cause its statistics to become less accurate for the creature’s level. These adjustments have a greater effect on the power level of low-level creatures; applying elite adjustments to a level –1 creature gives you one closer to 1st level, and applying weak adjustments to a 1st-level creature gives you one whose level is closer to –1.
Creatures that cast spells or rely on noncombat abilities typically need specific adjustments to those spells or abilities.
Elite Adjustments
Sometimes you’ll want a creature that’s just a bit more powerful than normal so that you can present a challenge that would otherwise be trivial, or show that one enemy is stronger than its kin. To do this quickly and easily, apply the elite adjustments to its statistics as follows:
- Increase the creature’s AC, attack modifiers, DCs, saving throws, Perception, and skill modifiers by 2.
- Increase the damage of its Strikes and other offensive abilities by 2. If the creature has limits on how many times or how often it can use an ability (such as a spellcaster’s spells or a dragon’s Breath Weapon), increase the damage by 4 instead.
- Increase the creature’s Hit Points based on its starting level (see the table below).
| Starting Level | HP Increase |
|---|---|
| 1 or lower | 10 |
| 2–4 | 15 |
| 5–19 | 20 |
| 20+ | 30 |
Weak Adjustments
Sometimes you’ll want a creature that’s weaker than normal so you can use a creature that would otherwise be too challenging, or show that one enemy is weaker than its kin. To do this quickly and easily, apply the weak adjustments to its statistics as follows.
- Decrease the creature’s AC, attack modifiers, DCs, saving throws, and skill modifiers by 2.
- Decrease the damage of its Strikes and other offensive abilities by 2. If the creature has limits on how many times or how often it can use an ability (such as a spellcaster’s spells or a dragon’s Breath Weapon), decrease the damage by 4 instead.
- Decrease the creature’s HP based on its starting level.
| Starting Level | HP Decrease |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | –10 |
| 3–5 | –15 |
| 6–20 | –20 |
| 21+ | –30 |
Languages
The languages listed in a creature’s entry are what a typical creature of that type knows. However, you might want to vary these based on the specific creature. For instance, if a creature is interested in speaking with or understanding the people in its region, it would most likely know the language those people speak. This language is most often Common, but you can give it a more appropriate language depending on what region the creature lives in (such as Undercommon if the creature lives in the Darklands).
Beings from other planes are unlikely to know any languages from the Material Plane unless they frequently travel there. If such a creature knows a mortal language, then that creature likely is interested in communicating with mortals. This language is most often Common, although such keep in mind that such a creature should speak Common only if it specifically travels to or studies your campaign’s world and region above others.
The languages in Pathfinder can be found on page 65 of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and in the New Languages section of this book (page 348).