NPC Resistances based on a CR less than 1

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July 26th, 2021, 23:34
pizentios

NPC Resistances based on a CR less than 1

Hello there,

I have been trying to figure this out for a few hours now, without any luck (via searching etc). I have a player in my Starfinder Campaign who is playing as a witchwarper. They've taken the spell summon creature, so for things to work properly in combat when the spell is used, i am creating a NPC entry for each of the 4 types that the player has picked. As per the Starfinder rules, i use a base stat block from the Tiny elemental (for the creature in question), then apply a graft. The grafts tend to have the damage resistances, immunities etc. An example of one of the grafts i am attempting to use is below.

Shadow Creature
Source Alien Archive pg. 149
Summoned shadow creatures are strange magical beasts native to the Shadow Plane. They appear to be similar to typical predators, but their forms are made of nothing but solid black, with indistinct edges.
Required Creature Type: Magical beast (extraplanar).
Traits: Base speed increases to 30 ft.; immunity to cold, electricity, poison; resistance equal to creature’s CR to acid and fire; SR equal to 5 + CR; if base stat block has DR, change to DR/cold iron.
Skills: Add Perception and Stealth. Summoned shadow creatures can always attempt Stealth checks to hide, even if observed or lacking cover, as long as they are not in areas of bright light. After the shadow creature attacks, it can’t attempt to hide again until its next turn.
Languages: Aklo and Common.
Attack: Change melee attack to touch (cold damage).

At the level that the player is using this spell at (level 1) the CR for the NPC entry is 1/3. As you can see from the example graft above, the NPC entry should have a resistance to acid and fire equal to the CR of creature (in this case 1/3). I assume that in the section for Defensive Abilities i would normally put something like RESIST: x acid; RESIST x fire, where x = to the value of the resistance. In all my attempts, when i add a defensive ability that uses the RESIST effect, when the creature is added to the combat tracker, the resistance effect doesn't get listed and in my testing no resistances are applied even when using something like RESIST: 10 fire.

Am i missing something here? Shouldn't the RESIST: X [type] syntax work in the defensive abilities section for a given NPC entry? I can manually add a RESIST: 10 fire to the creature and see it work, so am i to assume that resistances in NPC entries are non-functional even for creatures from the Alien Archives? I can understand if the fact that the damage resistance in my example is less than 1 and thus not implemented yet (as it requires things like rounding), however a resistance with a whole number should likely work. Is there another way to make something like this work?

Thanks in advance.
July 26th, 2021, 23:42
superteddy57

Quote:

Originally Posted by pizentios

Hello there,

I have been trying to figure this out for a few hours now, without any luck (via searching etc). I have a player in my Starfinder Campaign who is playing as a witchwarper. They've taken the spell summon creature, so for things to work properly in combat when the spell is used, i am creating a NPC entry for each of the 4 types that the player has picked. As per the Starfinder rules, i use a base stat block from the Tiny elemental (for the creature in question), then apply a graft. The grafts tend to have the damage resistances, immunities etc. An example of one of the grafts i am attempting to use is below.

Shadow Creature
Source Alien Archive pg. 149
Summoned shadow creatures are strange magical beasts native to the Shadow Plane. They appear to be similar to typical predators, but their forms are made of nothing but solid black, with indistinct edges.
Required Creature Type: Magical beast (extraplanar).
Traits: Base speed increases to 30 ft.; immunity to cold, electricity, poison; resistance equal to creature’s CR to acid and fire; SR equal to 5 + CR; if base stat block has DR, change to DR/cold iron.
Skills: Add Perception and Stealth. Summoned shadow creatures can always attempt Stealth checks to hide, even if observed or lacking cover, as long as they are not in areas of bright light. After the shadow creature attacks, it can’t attempt to hide again until its next turn.
Languages: Aklo and Common.
Attack: Change melee attack to touch (cold damage).

At the level that the player is using this spell at (level 1) the CR for the NPC entry is 1/3. As you can see from the example graft above, the NPC entry should have a resistance to acid and fire equal to the CR of creature (in this case 1/3). I assume that in the section for Defensive Abilities i would normally put something like RESIST: x acid; RESIST x fire, where x = to the value of the resistance. In all my attempts, when i add a defensive ability that uses the RESIST effect, when the creature is added to the combat tracker, the resistance effect doesn't get listed and in my testing no resistances are applied even when using something like RESIST: 10 fire.

Am i missing something here? Shouldn't the RESIST: X [type] syntax work in the defensive abilities section for a given NPC entry? I can manually add a RESIST: 10 fire to the creature and see it work, so am i to assume that resistances in NPC entries are non-functional even for creatures from the Alien Archives? I can understand if the fact that the damage resistance in my example is less than 1 and thus not implemented yet (as it requires things like rounding), however a resistance with a whole number should likely work. Is there another way to make something like this work?

Thanks in advance.

CR's less than 1 would use the decimal of the fraction. 1/3 = .33. The issue you might run into however is the effects engine doesn't check for decimal numbers. So it might not work as you intended.
July 27th, 2021, 00:10
pizentios

Quote:

Originally Posted by superteddy57

CR's less than 1 would use the decimal of the fraction. 1/3 = .33. The issue you might run into however is the effects engine doesn't check for decimal numbers. So it might not work as you intended.

yes, i've tried with both 1/3 and .33 with no results. Also as i put in my original post, when i add RESIST: x fire (for example, and set x to 10) it's not applying the resistances when the creature gets put in the combat tracker. So there's more going on than just the fractional resistances.

Thanks for your quick reply
July 27th, 2021, 00:48
Evolivolution

So first of all the parser for NPCs uses NPC statblocks as a base line, not FG effects. What you need to do if you want to have the parser add an effect to an NPC when it is dropped on the CT is follow the format of the SF rules, which in case of Resistance would be: 'Resistances acid X, fire Y' You can take a look at that here!

Next thing, if your NPC states that they gain anything equal to their CR and their CR is lower than 1 you round down. Meaning a Shadow Creature summoned by a level 1 Summon Creature spell would gain 0 resistance and 5 spell resistance. Rounding is stated in the CRB and can be read about here.
July 27th, 2021, 00:58
pizentios

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evolivolution

So first of all the parser for NPCs uses NPC statblocks as a base line, not FG effects. What you need to do if you want to have the parser add an effect to an NPC when it is dropped on the CT is follow the format of the SF rules, which in case of Resistance would be: 'Resistance acid X, cold Y' You can take a look at that here!

Next thing, if your NPC states that they gain anything equal to their CR and their CR is lower than 1 you round down. Meaning a Shadow Creature summoned by a level 1 Summon Creature spell would gain 0 resistance and 5 spell resistance. Rounding is stated in the CRB and can be read about here.

Thanks for the help! The piece about the syntax being "Resistances X [energy type]" did the trick for my concerns and you are indeed correct about the rounding down.