Are you running under 3.5 or PFRPG rules?
I ran as PFRPG, and they are pretty weedy (my group is 5-6) as written. All of them got Pathfinder'ised and largely re-written.
Rowyn was changed to a Rogue 3 / Sorcerer (Draconic) 3, Gut Tugger was left as Rogue 2. The room was made bigger to deal with the extra toons, but Rowyn used the furniture (bed, etc) to limit foes movements. She escaped via gaseous form.
On the Sea Wyvern, Rowyn actually used a permanent alter self and travelled on the Blue Nixie. Knowing she'd struggle against the PC's, she bumped off anyone who they got friendly with.
Rowyn eventually went the same way Noltus did, the PC's finally worked that out way into COBI.
Vanthus got a complete overhaul, ended up being Gestalt, and was a Fighter 8 / Aristocrat 1 / Tempest (from 3.5) 5 // Rogue 5 / Sorcerer (Abyssal) 9. He took on the party solo, to show that his key weakness was action economy (Sorcerer buffs covered the other weaknesses)
He turned out to be a blast... he managed to behead the party paladin and smash a pearl before dying himself, the subsequent savage tide claimed two more party members.
My groups just (last week) killed Vanthus for the last time (in Divideds Ire), where he was a Death Knight (Graveknight templated) Fighter 11 / Aristocrat 1 / Tempest 5 // Rogue 8 / Sorcerer (Abyssal) 9th. This time he was supposed to fight with the shadows, but the PCs cleared them up before he engaged them, and even though 3 of the party were out due to 'save or suck' effects, Vanthus got double teamed by the Mage and Rogue.
To me, Vanthus works great as Gestalt, and thematically too (due to the dual nature of the big bad). Rowyn has more issues, she doesn't seem to have anything massively useful to deal with big parties, so she turned into a bit of a non-event. This is the reason I had her play more in the shadows, making the party ask a lot of questions that were not relevant. My party thought that she was massively linked to Vanthus in some way (far more than the campaign states), and kept trying to scry on her.
She made quite a good red herring for most of my campaign
I see what you mean about Gestalt, but I gave him that as I really wanted to make him memorable. I'd worked really hard to make sure that the party REALLY hated him, I never thought that my group would fall for the trap under Parrot Island, but they did, and it just went from there. Anytime anything odd happened during the next 8 levels, they were all saying 'Bet that's Vanthus, that is'. Days like that I love being a GM.
So Gestalt was there to make sure he lived up to the expectation the party put on him, and also to re-emphasise the fiendish boons that he has been granted. It only worked due to my group being quite OP (they're really good at working together and can easily be on encounter clean up by the end of the first round), any normal party (especially of 4) would have been nailed to the floor by him.
I included Tempest from 3.5, as I wanted to keep his feel from the books, the two weapon longsword and sickle style, and it seemed to be the only real option at the time. And after that I found the Two Weapon Fighter archetype in PF... which isn't much different.
Buffs he had were Shield, Bulls Strength, Resist Energy, See Invisibility, Bears Endurance, Protection from Energy, Nondetection and Stoneskin
If you want to see his statblock, send me an IM with your email, and I'll add you to my google drive where my conversion notes are. (I haven't put Into The Maw Vanthus up there yet, but Tides of Dread Vanthus is there)
Suggest you do your plan for Rowyn, if I could do There Is No Honour again, I would setup more alarms and create a showdown in the training room like you've outlined. (My group did most of the thieves guild totally undetected, most of the rogues died in their beds)
one golden tip: you can try to do a search in the Savage Tide Forum - I believe there should be some discussions already on this subject
(e.g. Vanthus as combat monster)
In my (modified) ST Campaign the battle for Farshore will actually start next Saturday (I think it will take two sessions) & this battle will mark the end of this campaign.
My group is also quite strong (5-6 players, loaded on magic - strategy is usually: buff & heal the barbarian, while druid & sorcerer do their magic) (this almost backfired when the barbarian was one save away from being dominated) & have prepared Farshore to the best of their ability (as evidenced by their high Victory Point count so far).
At first I was not really planning to give Vanthus a power-up - do not forget the PCs will already have fought some quite tough encounters before meeting him, especially the vrocks (& their ability to summon even more vrocks), but I think I will give him some of the buffs TBA suggested.
However:
I have increased the strength of the CF attack force:
+1 ship (but will be smashed against some 'stoneshaped' under water rocks)
- serpent flesh golems
- each ship now has a captain (lvl 7-8) + wizard/sorcerer/cleric officers (lvl5-6) + some specials (ogres; weresharks)- most of these will probably be dealt with by the Jade Ravens and the other Farshore defenders, but some might turn op leading a group of pirates and/or on the Yuan-ti ship for the PCs to fight.
I plan to have a few of these enemy personalities turn up (flying and/or invisible (an aludemon or flying air sorcerer) to assist Vanthus & thus balancing the action economy somewhat, rather than preparing a powered-up Vanthus.
Hagor
Slipknot Peet got a rewrite in mine, changed to a Fighter 7 / Rogue 5, wielding two scimitars and with the Dazzling Display / Shatter Defenses combination.
He was backed up by Anvil (Half Orc Sorcerer (Marid) 7 / Rogue 2) and 6 Rats End Pirates (Fighter 4 / Rogue 3)
But my group have 6 PCs and are pretty OP.
Slipknot shoud get a rewrite. I forget what I did with him but it included two scimitars also.
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If you use 3.5 rules, consider making Rowyn a thrall of Malcathet (from Dragon 353).
Rowyn remained a recurring presence in my campaign until the very end.