3.5 to Pathfinder: why did the Kraken jump from cr 12 to 18?

[Da Beast]

I'm planning an adventure for my players that centers around overthrowing the ruler of a port town. Part of how the ruler holds power is through an alliance with a kraken that he uses to control local shipping. I thought it would make for a really cool fight to have the players sail out onto the water to confront the kraken which gradually tears the ship apart until the players are battling on its splintered, sinking shell. I was possibly even going to add in a juvenile green dragon they've fought before to harry them from the air to up the anti when they go out expecting to just fight the kraken and find an enemy from their past has joined in looking for revenge. Since I can't help but overdo things a bit I was even considering giving the kraken mythic ranks to make it a legendary monster that's been terrorizing the town for decades, although I'll only do this if I decide to make the fight a mythic ascension for the players. The party just hit level 8 but is gestalt with a few house rules to make them even more powerful and I have a few more levels worth of adventuring planned out between now and then, so I figured that a cr 12 (as I remembered from 3.5) kraken along with an underpowered dragon would make for a difficult but memorable boss fight a little ways down the road.

Then I actually checked the pathfinder rules for krakens and saw that their cr had jumped from 12 to 18. I don't know if the entire campaign will go that long, the stuff I have planned from now until then definitely won't. Looking at the statistics for the two versions side by side the only major changes seem to be a sizable buff to natural armor (makes sense, it needs it to not get auto hit by everything a lvl 18 party throws at it), an added poison effect to its ink cloud, some abilities to help it grapple with ships, and a few immunities that seem unlikely to come up in the fight. It also gained two more natural attacks but the damage on a few of them have gone down so I'm not sure it comes out too far ahead there. Obviously the ac needs to be rolled back before it can be thrown at a mid level party but the other abilities shouldn't be too relevant if the party fights it from the deck of a ship instead of jumping in the water to swim around with it. The massive grapple bonus could be a problem and I doubt any of my players would have the system mastery to think of freedom of movement going into the fight, but it'd be easy enough for me to point them in that direction. The grapple bonus on the pathfinder one is actually lower than the 3.5 one which is enough by itself to make me worry there's something wonky woth the 3.5 cr.

Is one or both of these CRs way off base? Would throwing even the weaker 3.5 kraken probably result in a TPK with or without the dragon present? I've been more excited about this fight than anything else I have planned at the moment and I'm going to be pretty bummed out if I have to shelve it for another time.

[Sayt]

Pathfinder's Bestiary 1 has a handy-dandy Monster Stats by CR table.

By the standards laid out by the table, the PF!Kraken is ten HP down, 1 ac less, it's to-hit rolls are middling for CR 18, but it's damage potential is extremely high (130 per round). It's fort save is on par, it's Reflex is terrible, but it has resist energy and is cold immune, and it's Will save is bad, but is likewise mind effecting.

It's Ink cloud is also a DC 29 contact poison that nauseates (The DC is 5 over the "Primary Ability DC" value), and it's got a huge threatened area. so CR18 seems more or less in the right place

I'm not hugely conversant with 3.5s CR allocation, or the 3.5 Kraken, but the PF Kraken seems more or less in the right place.

That all said, the CR system is notoriously unreliable in both 3.5 and Pathfinder.

[Fizban]

The 3.5 Kraken is basically a dumb brute (with more mental stats than an Aboleth, the so-called "memory fish") with no ranged capabilities save for it's 1/day Control Weather SLA. Comparing to the Purple Worm (CR12) and Storm Giant (CR13), I'd say it's maybe on par with the worm (more hp helps compensate for lack of Swallow Whole, poison, or the ability to Burrow out of a fight in a single action), and a bit weaker than the giant with more AC and actual ranged attacks. As for the appropriateness of the CRs, well when we went to the desert in my last game around level 13 I was constantly expecting wormsign and desperately making sure I had a way to survive Swallow Whole. The Kraken doesn't have that, but it could probably full attack me from full to dead if I let it.

Water creatures I think usually have more questionable CRs than most. Standard PC races are not built for water combat at all and require multiple spells of varying duration on each party member in order to barely function in the monster's natural habitat, so whenever I see a big nasty water beast I wonder how anyone's supposed to fight that. But then so many plots where it's the Kraken attacking the boat, making itself stationary and letting the players fight without any disadvantages (even capable of taking to the air), which suggests the reason they look so overpowered is precisely because the PCs should never actually fight them underwater.

As for the PF changes, the original Ink Cloud (should) only work underwater, so the nauseating Ink Cloud is completely useless in your scenario unless deployed beneath the boat and then used to contain targets tossed into the water. This would actually be a great way to free up grappling problems and let PCs survive: grappled targets are dropped in the soup and ignored while the Kraken tears up the ship, giving them time to hobble out and escape.

As always the best way to check is to just run some test numbers. It's been sounding to me like Pathfinder thinks CR can be done more formulaic like (or if 3.5 was already doing that, is being more honest), but it's only ever a starting point. Take your PCs at the level the fight will happen, run the averages and see if they can beat the scenario you have in mind. What happens if they fight dumb, smart, get unlucky, etc. The fight is entirely dependent on what exactly you're gonna have the Kraken doing anyway: how long does it take to destroy the ship, how much damage will it take before fighting the PCs, will it waste time attacking crewmen, how much damage will it take before/will it even flee at all, etc. What is the PCs actual goal: defend the ship, the crew, themselves, kill the Kraken now because it's their only chance, or drive it off, or drive it off and hunt it down later?

Big brute monsters are meant to be used in situations where the PCs can't just snipe from afar. Locking them in a box with That Damn Crab isn't fair but it certainly shouldn't approach over open ground, the Tarrasque is threatening not because it can harm the PCs but because the PCs likely are not prepared to stop it right this second. Underwater, the Kraken fights on it's own terms pretty much without fail, and above water it has a limited ability to get flying people down to the water via Control Winds, but only with a good starting wind to manipulate and some failed fort saves. Hmm, assuming Jet is a run-ish, 280/4=70, 70' swim speed is +16 on jump checks, give it 23 ranks in jump, 23+12+16=51, 51/4=12.75, maybe 15' with a roll. Not as awesome as I was hoping and you have to do it from precisely 270' below the water so you end your movement airborne in order to take AoOs and maybe get a single attack before falling. I'd love to see a Kraken soar over the hull of a smaller ship, grabbing the sails and just wrenching it over for maximum style.

I'd also point out that the Kraken has absolutely no reason to ever grapple a ship like you see in movies: it's supposed to be smart, well it should know it will be much safer punching holes in the hull from underwater where it has the advantage. A real Kraken encounter should take place over a terrifying stretch where the ship sails along, is rocked from below, then sails calmly for a few moments before being rocked again. The crew looks at the cracks in the hold below and knows they are doomed.

[Da Beast]

Thanks for the analysis. Maybe I should just use the kraken as inspiration to invent some new monster that's more level appropriate for the pcs. Like the town has legends about a solitary monster birthed into the sea by Lamashtu that has come to terrorize their coast line.

[the_david]

A giant octopus with the giant template would be CR9, so I don't think that would do it for you. Likewise, a kraken with the young template would still be CR17. A giant squid with the giant template would be CR10.
You could just pick a CR12 monster, add the aquatic subtype and be done with it. Your players won't know unless you tell them.
The one thing that comes to mind is the reefclaw. It's only CR1 in Bestiary 2, but in Edge of Anarchy it could be advanced up to 21 hit dice. Edge of Anarchy also introduced the devilfish which could advance in a similar matter. Edge of Anarchy was written for 3.5 though, and I'm not sure if advancing those monsters would work out so well.
You could also use the monster creation rules from Pathfinder Unchained.

Don't make it too hard for yourself. The simple solutions are often the best.

[Kedrann]

If you are looking for a CR12 squid-themed monster, you may want to have a look at the Shrroth demon on the PFSRD (it originally comes from the Tome of Horrors).

EDIT: another option that could work too is to use an Awakened animal, then give it as many class levels as desired. To give an example, I had a lot of fun having the PC play cat and mouse with an awakened T-Rex with ranger level (who was who was a little unclear for them at times).

[Fizban]

I think you could use the (3.5) Kraken as long as the battle goes according to script. Kraken starts tearing up the ship while the PCs are indisposed so the fight starts without them. As the PCs join the battle they see the Kraken is ignoring anyone who doesn't directly attack it, and anyone who does gets wrecked in melee and/or thrown into the ink below the ship, using a tough NPC as demonstration if necessary, at which point the PCs should realize they need to stay out of range via flight or kiting from one side of the ship to the other (note the varying ranges of it's natural weapons and the fact that it's striking from offside and below the ship). Before they can begin the dragon arrives and engages them, giving the Kraken time to cause enough damage to set the mood, and after the dragon is down the PCs can kite the Kraken into submission. If the PCs engage the Kraken first in spite of warnings, have them thrown one by one into the murk. Depending on how well the crew fights/you want them to fight, the Kraken may be damaged before the PCs chip in, possibly enough that they can overwhelm it before it realizes the need to retreat.

The NPC fallguy trope isn't great, but if the battle as a whole is good enough it shouldn't matter. Could replace NPC with some sort of exotic beast or huge mount that's also being transported, maybe a cannon or something. As a full day's worth of encounters/boss fight, EL 12 vs 8th level party is supposed to be just within the doable range, and as a kiteable bruiser there's lots of room to outperform expectations.

[elonin]

Why not throw in a baby or adolescent Kraken at the group? Don't know if they released stats for such a thing but lowering the abilities make lowering the CR to what you are looking for.

You could use a Mcguffin to bring the fight to a manageable level for the group while keeping a sense of suspense.