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I am a little confused about how the CRs are calculated for the rakshasa opponents in the Escape from Old Korvosa. Vimanda's (Monk 6) is a CR 12, and Bahor's (Rogue 10) is a CR 14. As the Rakshasa is a base CR 8 in Pathfinder, the CR advancement seems a bit off. Vimanda's CR appears to be increased by 1 for every 1.5 class levels, while Bahor's is increased by 1 for every 1.7 or so class levels.
As creature's without level adjustments or racial hit dice (humans, elves, dwarves, etc.) always seemed to have their CR equal to their PC class levels, I had assumed monsters were the same way. So Vimanda would be a CR 14 and Bahor a CR 18. Those are pretty high for the adventure and I am sure they aren't even close to being that powerful, but I still would be interested in knowing how the CRs were figured out in the first place.
It seems like it was an arbitrary calculation, which I don't mind if it was decided that they were appropriate for those CRs. Just color me curious. :)
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Welcome to the wonderful world of associated and nonassociated class levels. :S
The rules text can be found here, Basically if a monster has class levels in something that isn't associated with the base monster (in the case of things like Rakshasa, their favoured class ie. Sorceror) they can take up to their original hitdice in that class for 1/2 CR. The theory is that this is mostly to account for classes not improving the monster's strongest abilities (like say an ogre taking levels in a casting class), to allow casters to get to appropriate level spells (access to magic missile from a level of wizard won't make a CR 10 creature CR 11), and to accommodate the below-average NPC-classes. Unfortunately it's also one of the easiest ways to make an under-CRed creature in some cases, so it's important to sanity check the resulting CR and possibly increase it by a point or two if the resulting monster is obviously too strong.
As I count it Vimanda should be CR 11 and Bahor should be CR 14/15:
Vimanda = 8 + 1/2(6) = 11
Bahor = 8 + 1/2(7) + 3 = 14.5
I'm guessing Vimanda being CR 12 was either a very minor error or she was bumped up a point as a judgement call due to the Rakshasa's strong stat's synergising pretty well with Monk. Or I've lost my ability to count and divide by two which is a distinct possibility...
Either way, from running the scenario, I'd say the CRs are fairly appropriate, they were very challenging but not really deadly.
One thing to remember is tactics. Vimanda has the advantage in knowing the dungeon and being able to f*$k with the PCs by pulling levers, guerrilla tactics, hit-and-run, and being a general "I'm just a damsel" ass which I believe in the PFRPG book at least is worth a +1 CR.
If you don't have militaristic tactically-minded asshats for PCs like I do and the GM has the ability to play her as that much of a problem, then she's definitely worth that extra CR just because she doesn't stand there and ask to be spanked like a more normal (read: Int 4) enemy. No, she makes them work. And die.