Been a little while since I posted. My group's Dwarf Barbarian finally died when he tried to take on Black Magga to divert attention away from the church. This ended with half the church destroyed and a Looney Tunes style Enlarged Dwarf hole in what remained of the roof. Then the other party member that was present that session managed to get the killing blow on Black Magga (I tell you, the Dwarf Barbarian did a _hell_ of a job, getting Black Magga down to 17HP; I ran Black Magga as-written with no changes) and jumped up in XP.
The new party members joined in at an equal level 12 (they were already a bit ahead of the XP track due to previous things), so I have to advance things by 2+ CR going forward (it's rolled stats, but only 3 party members). I've already advanced most of the things in Skull's Crossing (still need to look up any good spear-/trident-based Fighter archetypes for Grazuul), but I had to scratch my head at the Skull Ripper.
From what I know, it's a Construct (so Full BAB and d10 hit die) and has 15HD, but it is only CR9...? I tried looking through the Monster Advancement section of Bestiary 1, but I'm not seeing any explanation for why the CR shouldn't be higher to match the HD. Even the guideline table in the Monster Advancement section shows that a 15HD Construct should be about a CR11.
At the bar minimum, I can slap the Advanced template on it and add 1 or 2 HD (+1 a feat), but I wanted to see if there were any other changes I needed to make.
Creative Director
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Hit dice are a poor mechanic to gauge CR by, especially in the case of Constructs, which don't gain hit points from an ability score modifier (this causes constructs to become more and more "fragile" as they gain hit dice, as compared to every other creature). The HD suggestions in the Bestiary are starting points, but the ending points should be the numbers for hit points, damage, attacks, AC, saves, and save DCs, as listed in table 1-1 of the Bestiary. In order for a construct to hit those numbers for hp, they tend to have to have higher hit points, or need significant defenses like high DR. Usually both.
Thank you for the reply, James! :)
I noticed the difference in DR between the Scarecrow and the Skull Ripper, so I was hoping small differences like that were attributing to the "low" CR I was seeing.
I was using the HD as a basis because of the usually-apparent correlation between the two with most humanoid monsters, but it's nice to know I should look at other stuff as well. I understand that the power level of things scales differently at various levels, so it can't be too linear with the "A Construct gains this many bonuses per CR point" style of monster advancement.
I've also seen some rather horrifying reports of the Skull Ripper fight in other campaigns, so I don't want to buff it too much.
The party is now:
Level 12 Paladin of Iomedae {Angelic Bond}
Level 11 Witch {Deception Patron} / Level 01 Druid
Level 05 Sorcerer {Draconic, White} / Level 07 Dragon Disciple
So while I'm one party member less than the typical expectation for CR, they are all level 12. I think CR10 or 11 should be fine, especially since the Paladin can't smite it...