With your support over the weekend, the Fantasy Heroes Unbound campaign is now over 75% of the way to unlocking the $40K stretch goal — bookmark ribbons for the five hardcovers.
So now, it’s time for another sneak peek!
Unbound Bestiary
The 144-page Bestiary features 132 creatures from across the Challenge Rating spectrum. To make it convenient to find the right monster for your adventures, the Bestiary lists creatures in four helpful tables: alphabetical, by Adjusted Challenge Rating, by dominant creature type, and by primary habitat.
What is an Adjusted Challenge Rating?
Although specific creature examples can vary wildly, the Point-based Challenge Rating calculation assumes that all monsters at each CR have roughly equivalent combat talents. While a CR 13 creature is certainly much more capable than one at CR 4, each CR 13 monster build should fall within the same range as all other CR 13 foes. To account for individual monster variations, DMs should consider its Adjusted Challenge Rating, or ACR.
CR Baseline
Determining a creature’s ACR first requires its normal CR assignment based on its Points. Next, three values are calculated based on the creature’s CR and game stats: weighted Hit Points, weighted attack damage, and Armour Class.
If a threat measurement falls outside its expected range, the monster’s CR should be adjusted up or down from +3 to -3 for each variation. For example, having more Hit Points than average (like an ogre) adjusts its CR up while having a lower AC than average (like a black pudding) adjusts its CR down.
Example Creature: Shadecat
One of the more ubiquitous hunters in the Lower Planes is the murderous shadecat. Not aligned with infernal or abyssal powers, devils, demons, and everything in between is prey for this sadistic killing machine. With its speed, Portal Attribute, and Stealth, the shadecat is one of the more dangerous stalkers amongst fiends.
Its size and limited capabilities also make the monster a target for larger and stronger predators. Shadecats will not hesitate to flee to the Shadow plane if threatened, capable of doing this in response to any attack that they survive. Formed from souls that engaged in mindless violence by ambush, shadecats are rarely brave and always cunning.
Despite their vicious and unruly natures, powerful fiends can sometimes bind shadecats into service. It is laughable to call such familiars “tamed,” but they obey rather than suffer punishment. Servitor shadecats are even more vicious than their wild counterparts.
