Highest "Official" CR Monster?

[thegreenteagamer]

Just was perusing the ol' interwebs, and I found that in Bestiary 4 they actually statted out Cthulhu. (Awesome, btw, awesome.) So far, at CR30, he seems to be the most powerful monster thus released that I found. Am I wrong? Or is there something out there beyond CR30? I found a few 3pp stuff that's higher, but nothing "official".

[Alleran]

CR 30 is as high as Pathfinder goes.

Cthulhu isn't the only one, though. There's also Baba Yaga, Nocticula, Pazuzu, the Oliphaunt of Jandelay and Cernunnos. Whether their statblocks actually warrant CR 30 is a different question, but that's better-suited for a discussion on high-level play and the CR system in general.

[Ipslore the Red]

I think some other demon lords got their CRs assigned to them in AP descriptions- some went up to 32 or 36, but no actual stats.

[thegreenteagamer]

Alleran wrote:

CR 30 is as high as Pathfinder goes.

Cthulhu isn't the only one, though. There's also Baba Yaga, Nocticula, Pazuzu, the Oliphaunt of Jandelay and Cernunnos. Whether their statblocks actually warrant CR 30 is a different question, but that's better-suited for a discussion on high-level play and the CR system in general.

I can't find stats for Baba Yaga or the Oliphaunt of Jandelay. I did manage to find the others, though. Thank you.

[Fnipernackle]

thegreenteagamer wrote:

Alleran wrote:

CR 30 is as high as thePathfinder goes.

Cthulhu isn't the only one, though. There's also Baba Yaga, Nocticula, Pazuzu, the Oliphaunt of Jandelay and Cernunnos. Whether their statblocks actually warrant CR 30 is a different question, but that's better-suited for a discussion on high-level play and the CR system in general.

I can't find stats for Baba Yaga or the Oliphaunt of Jandelay. I did manage to find the others, though. Thank you.

Oliphaunt is in Mythic Realms. Baba Yaga is in the last book of the Reign of Winter adventure path.

[FormerFiend]

Ipslore the Red wrote:

I think some other demon lords got their CRs assigned to them in AP descriptions- some went up to 32 or 36, but no actual stats.

That was in Second Darkness which was back when Paizo operated under 3.5 rules.

There are a few third party pathfinder monsters with absurd CR's; someone statted up Lucifer as a CR 39, for instance, though that was well before mythic rules was released.

Anyway, as far as official Paizo products go, CR 30 is the limit and James Jacobs, at least, seems adamant against going above that.

Anyway, at the very least, aside from those statted up those far, Abraxas, Charon, and Orcus have all been confirmed to be CR 30, though who knows when or if they'll be statted up. And that's just going off memory.

[Athel]

I just looked back at my copy of Bestiary 4 and the highest CR is 30 -- but only technically. If you look at the Demon Lord and Empyreal Lord sections, it says that, when in their own realm, these creatures also count as mythic rank 10 creatures (and makes a point that these numbers are not in their statblocks).

The highest CR Demon Lord in B4 is Pazuzu, and the highest CR Empyreal Lord is Cernunnos, both of which are CR 30 without mythic ranks. And since mythic ranks effectively raise CR by 1/2 its mythic ranks, it means that, in their realms, these guys would become CR 35.

[Alleran]

They don't actually get the benefits of mythic ranks, so there's no CR increase. They just count as MR 10 for the purpose of determining the effects of mythic abilities on them that have different effects based on comparative rank (e.g. Mythic Presence, Seal of the Star Tower and others).

[Athel]

Bestiary 4 wrote:

A demon/empyreal lord gains the following additional powers while in its realm (the statistics presented on the following pages do not include these abilities):

Mythic: A demon/empyreal lord functions as a 10th mythic rank creature, including the mythic power ability (10/day, surge +1d12). It may expend uses of mythic power to use the mythic versions of any spell-like ability denoted with an asterisk(*) just as if the ability were a mythic spell.

Emphasis mine -- this was the sentence I was basing my reading on. You may be right about your interpretation. Maybe some RAW specialist could settle this?

[Alleran]

It says so right there. They function as one, but aren't actually one. They don't get all the extras that come with actual mythic ranks. If they did, then it wouldn't have to specifically call out that they get the mythic power and surge abilities.

See this:

James Jacobs:

Demon lords are "mythic equivalent." They're considered mythic in how spells and effects and the like affect them, and on their realms actually gain some mythic type powers (surge and spells), but they don't actually have the mythic subtype at all. They don't gain the bonuses to natural armor, stats, and feats and hp and all that—those numbers are built in to their basic design, putting them at the CR they need to be.

In this way, they're kinda like the simple mythic templates like Agile and the like—those templates make their targets function as mythic for the purposes of resolving attacks and saves and the like, but don't actually give them the mythic subtype and thus don't give them the bonuses that subtype grants. They get their boost instead from their simple template.

The stats for demon lords, in other words, are complete. There's no assembly required. You can play them right out of the book without having to do extra math to finish our job.

Source here.

Extrapolate outwards for Empyreal Lords, Great Old Ones, and so on.

[Athel]

Well then I guess I've learned something out of this. Thanks Alleran. :)

And to bring it back to the OP, it means that CR 30 is the (current) hard limit.

[FormerFiend]

Alleran wrote:

It says so right there. They function as one, but aren't actually one. They don't get all the extras that come with actual mythic ranks. If they did, then it wouldn't have to specifically call out that they get the mythic power and surge abilities.

See this:

** spoiler omitted **
Extrapolate outwards for Empyreal Lords, Great Old Ones, and so on.

That being said, as much as Mr. Jacobs would like to deny it, many a tale from Wrath of the Righteous games say that the demon lords in that campaign(CR27 Baphomet and CR 29 Deskari) simply aren't up to snuff against mythic pc's.

So slapping on some mythic ranks, or hell, mythic tiers and bringing them up to a CR 35 may not be a terrible idea for any enterprising DM willing to put the work in.

[Alleran]

An extra 100 HP (and other bits and pieces) won't really slow the PCs down all that much. The biggest problem is things like action economy and the need for damage nullification for entire attacks, rather than damage reduction for each attack.

But that's for another topic.