Seugathi a CR6 monster?

[carn]

Whenever i stumble across the seugathi in bestiary 2, i ask myself how it can be a CR6 monster:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/seugathi

Its stats lie well within CR6, except for one thing:
"Any sane being within 30 feet of a conscious seugathi must make a DC 20 Will save each round or become confused for 1 round. A creature that fails 5 saves in a row becomes permanently insane, as per the insanity spell. A seugathi can suppress or activate this aura as a free action. This is a mind-affecting effect. The save DC is Charisma-based."

Thats not a "just close your eyes" gaze or a "once affected cannot be affected again for 24 hours", it rolling every round and DC 20 will is pretty serious for level 6.

Furthermore:
"As an immediate action, a seugathi can issue a telepathic command to a confused creature within 30 feet. This allows the seugathi to pick a result from the confusion behavior table, rather than the confused creature rolling randomly for its actions that round."

So the party, at least if its within 30 ft, at least two people constantly somewhat "disabled", as 1 or 2 are confused and 1 confused will attack another.

And then the seugathi can cast mind fog, with combined with madness aura is a save or suck spell at will 19. Or it can just throw confusion at will 18.

The greatest danger arises, if a confusion last several rounds, as then the confused char will attack the one who attacked him last round. That could cause the party killing themselve with the seugathi watching and enjoying.

Whenever i try to think up a scenario where any lev 6 kicks in a door and finds a seugathi, it seems they are in deep trouble with a realistic chance of TPK, although for a lev 6 party a CR 6 monster should not be that dangerous. As a challenging encounter for example for a lev 4 party, its TPK.

Anyone experience with seugathis?

[wraithstrike]

I just dealt with one. It says "CR 6", but I think it should be higher. The save DC for the confusion is on par with a CR 11 monster. Some monsters have powerful abilities for their CR, but if make the save you are immune for 24 hours. This one has no 24 hour clause.

I would either increase its combat abilities and push it up to an 8, while still adding the one save per 24 hour clause, or reduce some of the high saves so it is a or 7 or 8.

edit:I was level 4 when I ran into it. It was almost a TPK. I got some lucky hits in, on round 1 and maybe 2, and when I was taken out the other people got some decent hits in. It could have easily been a party wipe though.

[Icyshadow]

I have to keep this in mind next time my group plays a Darklands/Underdark campaign of any sort.

[carn]

wraithstrike wrote:

edit:I was level 4 when I ran into it. It was almost a TPK. I got some lucky hits in, on round 1 and maybe 2, and when I was taken out the other people got some decent hits in. It could have easily been a party wipe though.

Sounds pretty lucky on level 4 will saves probably just +2 to +6, so decent chance of 3 being confused each round, without the seugathi using spells. DPS of one level 4 normally around 10 at most vs AC 19 and seugathi has fast healing 5.

I would have bet on the seugathi.

[hogarth]

Another thread on the same topic:
Overpowered Monsters Sneaking Through As Bestiaries Increase: Seugathi As Example

[Tarondor]

There is one in the Shattered Star AP. It ate my party.

[notabot]

Spoiler:

Shattered star has more than just the one, in fact there is a combat with multiples that is likely to TPK even harder than the first encounter with them

I actually have more problems with some templates added to certain monsters that don't give a CR adjustment when it definitely should. A fast zombie owl-bear has a damage potential high enough to drop in one round a 5th level character. Its CR? only 3. Had to fight 2 of them with a 3.5 APL in a society session recently. Complete BS. 3 nasty natural attacks + 2 slams = don't even think of letting them full round you. One player went to -30 in one round (GM rolled it back because he realized that he rolled all of his dice at once at one character when there were multiple targets, the last 2 attacks were beating on a dead character, the 3rd attack was hitting an unconscious one...)