I suggest reading this to truly understand the CR system and how to create properly challenging encounters.
Thank you, thank you for that link! And (in case he's reading) thank you beyond measure to Alexander Augunas for writing it!
I recently had a similar question, and this Guide was so very helpful.
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Yeah, the problem with high CR disparities is that they become swingy.
* The players will have a huge action economy advantage, but can't actually hit for toffee or do much damage. AC 20 will be hard to hit, and 84 hit points means that it will take a lot of damage before the party can actually put it out of action. (Although both are about dead average for a CR 7 monster.)
* On the other hand, if they can find ways to limit its actions, they can just sandpaper it down without trouble. It only gets one action a round, so anything as simple as dazing it will essentially eliminate the threat.
* The saves for its spell-like abilities are very high. This is what will kill the characters. As was pointed out, once the barbarian fails his save against the dominate monster or even hypnotic pattern the tactical situation changes radically. So the whole fight can literally hinge on a single saving throw.
* Played intelligently, the party doesn't stand a chance. It will never even see the actual aboleth until it's too late. The aboleth will use projected images to approach, make sure everyone is good and befuddled using the spell-like abilities, then take out the party members one-on-one, thereby negating their one advantage.
I'd suggest four CR 3 monsters or three CR 4 monsters if you want a fair but difficult fight. You could even up the stakes a bit -- CR 7 isn't the problem, it's the action economy. Assuming you want something memorably difficult,... well, let's go for CR 9. That gives you a budget of 6400 xp to work with.
1 wereshark sorcerer (5th level sorcerer) CR 5, 1600 xp
1 wereshark ranger (4th level ranger) CR 4, 1200 xp
3 devilfish, CR 4, 3600 xp
Give the sorcerer illusion and mental control abilities and you'll have a similar fight, but less swingy, because the popcorn can be individually killed.
To the OP: I had my party of 3 3rd-level PCs & 1 6th-level NPC (but who tends to hang back) encounter a CR-5 cyclops before I asked for advice. I was warned against doing so in the future! But it turned out all right; the bladebound magus got a crit at the right moment and killed her at a point when she'd previously only lost 1/4 of her HP. Now, she has a 1x/day ability that lets her "roll" a nat 20 for sure, although she then has to confirm the crit normally. Still, not that hard to do w/ a +7 attack against the magus's AC 16. And the minimum damage a cyclops can do on a crit with that large greataxe of hers would be an instant-kill for my 3rd-level magus!
Now, first & foremost, this was an isolated encounter, not one of three or four for the day. Furthermore, I had her be cautious and wait to use Flash of Insight until she needed it, since it was only 1x/day -- not on the first round. That gave the magus the chance to put serious hurt on her. Even so, if at some point she had been barely standing when she got to act, she would have had to use it. So pitting the party against her was very dangerous on my part. The good news is that I'm using Plot Twist cards & Hero Points. I'm not sure that anyone had an appropriate card in-hand to prevent such a massive blow -- but 2 Hero Pts certainly would have kept the PC alive!
And you should have seen my players' faces when their PCs caught sight of that monstrous greataxe! I have to say, even having analyzed the danger better in hindsight, it was worth it.
So my moral is the following: Is the aboleth an isolated encounter, rather than the end of a dungeon-crawl? Can you as GM find a reason why the aboleth would do something different than keep dominating PCs, round after round? And do you use some of those danger-mitigating, optional features like Plot Twist cards or (especially) Hero Points? (Note that Hero Pts can boost a save, as well as preventing a death.) If the answer to at least two of these questions is "yes," the aboleth might be a lot more doable than if it's "no" to all three.
Single Bosses vs Party is typically a bad idea for many reasons many of which have been explained before. That said Abeloths are great and make very fun enemies. I would wait till they actually hit lv3 or maybe lv4 to throw one at em. Mostly so you can give him some minions and terrain advantages. Perhaps he sends a few waves of mooks to soften up the players before he comes in. Maybe he has a cohort that specializes in summoning magic. Maybe he dominated the captian of a pirate ship. Perhaps he has enslaved the local merfolk. Maybe he has a bunch of trained war Octopuses. Maybe he is allied with a monster that can control the weather giving his side a tactical advantage. What if his territory is littered with proximity mines that the player must try to detonate or avoid as the boat keeps going forward mid battle. All of my best boss fights I have run or been in incorporated more than a single big enemy
Single Bosses vs Party is typically a bad idea for many reasons many of which have been explained before. That said Abeloths are great and make very fun enemies. I would wait till they actually hit lv3 or maybe lv4 to throw one at em. Mostly so you can give him some minions and terrain advantages. Perhaps he sends a few waves of mooks to soften up the players before he comes in. Maybe he has a cohort that specializes in summoning magic. Maybe he dominated the captian of a pirate ship. Perhaps he has enslaved the local merfolk. Maybe he has a bunch of trained war Octopuses. Maybe he is allied with a monster that can control the weather giving his side a tactical advantage. What if his territory is littered with proximity mines that the player must try to detonate or avoid as the boat keeps going forward mid battle. All of my best boss fights I have run or been in incorporated more than a single big enemy
All of that sounds great. I'm not running aquatic, but there will be equivalent nasties, so I'm taking notes...