Demons so powerful that they can smite balors to dust, and bring cities to ruin.
And are more threatening than Demogorgon.
Seriously, In the Fiendish Codex, Big D is CR 23; and in the Fiend Folio, a Klurichir is CR 25.
But, in a table listing demons by CR in the back of the Codex, a Klurichir is CR 15.
So is the Fiend Folio wrong, or is the Fiendish Codex?
Klurichirs are demons whose CR does not match their power level. With the 3.5 conversion many of the standard demons got a serious boost in ability scores, AC, abilities, and such. A standard balor wipes the floor with a klurichir (despite having the same hit dice), so the reduction in CR seems commensurate with this change.
Of course, it could also be just a typo. The way to be sure would be to measure up the CR of the other demons in the Fiend Folio with the CRs given in the back of the Fiendish Codex. If the CR of creatures like the wastirilith or myrmixicus have been changed then they have decided to do a little CR house keeping (the same goes with the MMII demons like the kelvezu or jovoc).
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Ever since the Klurichirs first saw print I've been kind of ignoring their existence because I had too much respect for the Balors. Seeing the "corrected" CR in Fiendish Codex made my day. If I remember correctly, the usual method is that any new book supersedes any old book with regards to repeated information.
James Jacobs posted on ENWorld that the CR changes made to such demons as the Klurichir was intentional.
Creative Director
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The klurichir is a tricky critter.
Over the past few years, I've been doing a lot of design and thought about the nature of the D&D demon. I've come to believe that the cap for non-demon lord demons should be the balor; it's traditionally the toughest demon, and it seems to me to be a little disrepsectful and silly to make tougher demons that aren't demon lords. It turns it into a sort of "arms race," where each new book that presents demons tries to one-up the previous toughest demon. If you want a non-demon lord demon that's above CR 20, it's easier to slap some class levels, templates, and/or additional Hit Dice onto an existing demon. Designing demons that live above CR 20 (and thus above the balor) just seems disrespectful of the game's tradition and history. Of course, being the one who designed the myrmyxicus, I'm part of that problem; if I were working on the Fiend Folio today, I'd lower the myrmyxicus' CR a few points.
FORTUNATELY, the stats for the tougher demons already do this work for me. In 3.0, the estimate of how tough a 20th level character really was was quite a bit off. When the game was playtested, there just wasn't enough playtesting done at higher level. As a result, the game was really balanced at low and mid level, but once you got aboue 15th level or so, the monsters in the 3.0 Monster Manual really started to get squishy. This is why all of the tough demons and devils and other high CR monsters got a power boost in the 3.5 edition of the Monster Manual. In fact, I think that a few of these monsters are actually still a bit weak for their CR scores; the balor, in particular, has too few hit points and too low an AC for a CR 20 creature to properly challenge a group. His potent spell-like abilities and gear help a lot, of course.
Anyway, the demons in the Monster Manual II, Manual of the Planes, and the Fiend Folio were unfortunately designed using the 3.0 Monster Manual as a yardstick, and as a result they aren't quite tough enough for their CR scores as listed.
Take the Klurichir, for example. Compared to the average hp, AC, and attack rolls for monsters from the Monster Manual, his hit points would peg him at CR 15, his AC at CR 17, and his best attack roll at CR 19. Further complicating things ar the fact that three his big ticket attacks (fear, improved grapple/grab, and poison) are easilly negated by high-level parties (who should be using spells like heroes' feast and freedom of movement regularly), leaving him really with raw damage, spells, and his vorpal pincers. Those vorpal pincers are certainly tough, and his average damage per round pegs him at about CR 16–17, but his spells are pretty insignificant for a high-CR monster (especially a CR 25 monster), and only a few of his spell-like abilities will make a difference.
At the end of the analysis, the klurichir, as statted up in the Fiend Folio, is CERTAINLY not a CR 25 monster. In Fiendish Codex I we were able to re-evaluate the klurichir and several other high-CR demons as well. CR 17 seemed to be the best fit for the klurichir. Of course, there's one ability that sticks out like a sore thumb; the klurichir's summon tanar'ri ability. We should have put in a note to replace its summon tanar'ri ability as written in the Fiend Folio with something more along the lines of the marilith's summoning powers, but there just wasn't room. Similarly, when we were choosing which demons to update in the book, preference went to those demons like the gorristro, the nabassu, and the rutterkin, who've been in the game since 1st or 2nd edition and are more established in the tradition and lore of the game than newcomers like the klurichir or the myrmyxicus.
Of course, if you like your klurichirs to be CR 25... cool! Before you run one in a game at CR 25, though, you'll need to buff him up considerably if you don't want him to have a glass jaw. Advancing him to 31 HD and making him Gargantuan should do the trick...
Ha...I knew I was right! The power level versus CR of most powerful monsters is just ridiculous. Hopefully MMIV is a bit more sensible in the way it adjudicates the CR for monsters.