My party is about to face off with a very evil individual, one of the bigger bads in my campaign world. I want him to be able to single handedly give the players a very good fight, while still not making him impossible to vanquish. You know, since his time has come, but he should still go out like the bad ass he is.
Unfortunately, balancing out fights between villainous "player characters" with the party was never something I figured out, and that was when I had the same amount of fighters on either side. How do I make ONE individual be able to stand up against, say, the average 4 person party? How many class levels do I give him more than the PCs to make him into the epic but doable boss fight I'm hoping for?
I know for monster you're supposed to go 2 CRs over the APL for them to be "boss fights", but two class levels over the party dosen'r seem enough for me. I mean, it's still 1 villain with 1 turn per round versus 4 heroes with a round each, and that's not factoring in pets, summons and what have you.
So I turn to the Paizo boards for assistance on this. One humanoid, class level lugging villain agaisnt a full party, is it doable?