How do I increase Challenge Rating(CR)?

[awesometori]

Truth be told I"m still fairly new at this whole dungeon mastering thing.

Right now I'm trying to increase the challenge rating of
Marijkal, Handmaiden Devil

to CR 15 to better suit my party.

XP 38,400
hp 187 (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 86

Is all I'm given of her stats. And that she's a CR 14. I would like to know if there's a good general way to up the CR.

I'm going to have about 8 players that are level 13. And may need to alter all of my encounters. So if there's a general rule of thumb it would be much appreciated. :)

[Savannah]

If you have 8 players, then they're going to get to act 8 times for each time your devil acts -- this will ruin her. It's bad enough that a "normal" sized group gets to act 4-5 times. Instead of increasing her CR, your best bet to make the fight properly challenging is to give her several underlings of a high enough CR to slow down the PCs and force them to split their actions. (As a general rule of thumb, single-enemy combats are very difficult to pull off. Quite often, your single bad guy goes down within a round, sometimes without even acting if the PCs do well in their initiative rolls.)

[awesometori]

Underlings. That's a genius idea! Alright, I'll do that, and similar things for my other encounters. If anyone has any other tips, I'm happy for all of them.

Thanks a lot!

[Kane0]

Alternatively have her make a move twice per round.

My group uses this for fights that are meant to be tough, like against the BBEG or other single, difficult opponent (we are a party of 9). If we go around the table for our turns they get a move at each half way point and if we're using initiative they get a turn on normal initiative and half way between players in the cycle. Works well without having to fiddle with the creature's stats.

[nedz]

There are ways of running a single opponent, though they can go wrong fast. In which case you have a very short fight — which is anti-climatic.

Mind you I've seen fights where the underlings were taken down in the surprise round and the BBEG on round 1; before his initiative even.:smallsigh:

You can also use terrain, battle field control or psychology.

Better still: use all four.

[Knaight]

Truth be told I"m still fairly new at this whole dungeon mastering thing.

Right now I'm trying to increase the challenge rating of
Marijkal, Handmaiden Devil

to CR 15 to better suit my party.

XP 38,400
hp 187 (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 86

Is all I'm given of her stats. And that she's a CR 14. I would like to know if there's a good general way to up the CR.

I'm going to have about 8 players that are level 13. And may need to alter all of my encounters. So if there's a general rule of thumb it would be much appreciated. :)

That's effectively a CR 19 group - you'd be fine boosting this by a little more. For instance, four handmaiden devils would be a pretty even CR fight. Alternately, numerous minions could do a similar job.

[Firest Kathon]

If you need inspiration what to send along, have a look at the oganization line on the stat block (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/devil-handmaiden):


Organization solitary, retinue (1 gylou (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/devil-handmaiden)and 2d4 erinyes (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/erinyes)), or cortege (1–4 gylous (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/devil-handmaiden)and 2d10 erinyes (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/erinyes))

[prufock]

If you need inspiration what to send along, have a look at the oganization line on the stat block (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/devil-handmaiden):

Yeah I would make the 2d10 Erinyes the first line of defense, the "guards" of the handmaiden's abode for the beginning encounter; the 1d4 gylous would be the main villain and her personal bodyguards, to add to the CR of the main encounter. And frankly, with a group of PCs this size, I'd be tempted to use the max value of the above.

Other ways to increase CR:
- add racial hit dice or class levels
- give the villain max HP, better stats, and items above normal NPC wealth
- give the villain favourable terrain; stack the environmental deck - ie gylous are immune to fire and resist acid, so have the battle in an area with flaming pits of acid! They also have true seeing, so feel free to throw some illusory walls in there that they can just walk through. Oh, and they fly, so the pits of flaming acid take up most of the area, with narrow walkways between safe areas...

[Tad30s]

Have the Devil prepared for the party, or perhaps even strike against them first (when they already have expended some resources and require a break)
Prepare the battlefield with difficult terrain, or better yet : concealed difficult terrain. Illusion-covered pits of lava, after an illusion-infested maze of slowly killing poisonous clouds?

In truth, any party of 8 characters will demolish that demon and all the underlings in a straight, "fair" fight. Handmaiden, however, has an insanely potent ability to thwart the unprepared for a few rounds : persistent image.

Normally an illusion-capable BBEG can be a nightmare to take down, especially one that had time to weave lies on top of other lies.
The problem with that is, that true-sight is not a problem for a lvl 13 party, so at best you can buy a few rounds (assuming its not permanent-true sight).

This is when you take it a step further, and have her ready to strike the casters as the warriors are distracted by illusions.

Alternatively, you could try to get counters to true sight : dispel their magics, employ vision-impairing means such as clouds and smoke, have contingencies on top of other contingencies and just elude them indefinitely.

To be perfectly honest with you, just mechanics wise i'd give the CR14 monster ( who is pitted against 8 level 13 characters ) a few class (caster) levels in addition to the underlings.
But you can go different routes to increase the CR without touching the monster itself : Perhaps employ some truly devilish means of 'encouraging' the party to not focus on the foe. Aside from illusions, from the top of my head : A cage of infants 'shares' the handmaidens pain, forcing our noble heroes to commit resources into saving them first?

Ultimately, it all depends on how crafty and prepared your players are, and in the end only you know how tough to make the fight.

[hemming]

Are the fighting in the villians lair/place of power? Maybe she has a few permanency spells enchanted into the architecture (magic circle against good/active dispel effects/etc.) or traps/wards (i.e. the player charges at her failing to notice the pressure plate between them and a solid fog is released)

[Bloodgruve]

These suggestions are great.

Simply increasing hit points is helpful also. Gives you an extra round or so. If it's too much allow your BBEG to die 'at the right time'. Your job is to give the players a fun and challenging session.

EL's are OK for 4 person parties, if you have a larger group they don't work. For npcs and mosnsters AC and DCs should stay within the encounter level range but kicking HP up is an easy way to buy some time. I run a group of 6 to 9 players and always double up hit points for them otherwise things get trivial quickly.

You can advance monsters by using these guidelines. (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/improvingMonsters.htm)

If you have veteran players on your table nothing gets scared faster then the unexpected... and ability damage ;) Custom monsters all the time isn't good but BBEGs should be unique IMHO.


GL
Blood~

[killem2]

Truth be told I"m still fairly new at this whole dungeon mastering thing.

Right now I'm trying to increase the challenge rating of
Marijkal, Handmaiden Devil

to CR 15 to better suit my party.

XP 38,400
hp 187 (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 86

Is all I'm given of her stats. And that she's a CR 14. I would like to know if there's a good general way to up the CR.

I'm going to have about 8 players that are level 13. And may need to alter all of my encounters. So if there's a general rule of thumb it would be much appreciated. :)

I would give it some class levels too :D.


These suggestions are great.

Simply increasing hit points is helpful also. Gives you an extra round or so. If it's too much allow your BBEG to die 'at the right time'. Your job is to give the players a fun and challenging session.

EL's are OK for 4 person parties, if you have a larger group they don't work. For npcs and mosnsters AC and DCs should stay within the encounter level range but kicking HP up is an easy way to buy some time. I run a group of 6 to 9 players and always double up hit points for them otherwise things get trivial quickly.

You can advance monsters by using these guidelines. (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/improvingMonsters.htm)

If you have veteran players on your table nothing gets scared faster then the unexpected... and ability damage ;) Custom monsters all the time isn't good but BBEGs should be unique IMHO.


GL
Blood~




Yup, I hit my part of level 8s, with blindness, nausea, grease, dex and strength penalties (the wizard failed a fort save and lost 8 strength could not fly very well lol)