petitioners

[Yqatuba]

According to Bestiary 2 all petitioners are medium and CR 2. What if the petitioner was a colossal dragon in life? Do they just turn into a medium size version of themselves?

[Pizza Lord]

I believe Petitioner is an acquired template (Bestiary 2) that augments a creature, removing subtypes and changing it to Outsider. It doesn't appear to change its size.

I think yours might just be a sample for a typical petitioner, like an example skeleton creature would be a human skeleton, but there are ogre, animal, or dragon skeletons.

I expect a halfling petitioner would be small.

[Yqatuba]

Says they are all CR 1 with 2HD. A colossal creature being that weak seems odd, to put it mildly.

[Hill Giant]

It's not the creature, it is merely soul-stuff on which the creature has left an impression.

Also, "In some cases, at the GM’s discretion, particularly large or unusual petitioners with higher than normal ability scores may begin with a higher CR".

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

A colossal dragon becomes a colossal petitioner. One assumes the Boneyard has facilities to cope.

Bestiary entry wrote:

Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to outsider. It loses all subtypes. Its size does not change.

And the petitioner is most certainly the creature according to the Bestiary and Pathfinder/Golarion canon. The creature == the creature's soul == the petitioner (after its death).

same Bestiary entry wrote:

Petitioners are the souls of mortals brought to the Outer Planes after death in order to experience their ultimate punishment, reward, or fate. [...]

Creatures who die, become petitioners, and then return to life retain no memories of the time they spent as petitioners in the afterlife. [...]

“Petitioner” is an acquired template that can be added to any creature whose soul migrates to one of the Outer Planes following its death (henceforth referred to as the base creature). The petitioner uses all of the base creature’s statistics and abilities except as noted below.

[Hill Giant]

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

And the petitioner is most certainly the creature according to the Bestiary and Pathfinder/Golarion canon. The creature == the creature's soul == the petitioner (after its death).

It is the soul/essence of the creature, but it is not the physical creature. My point is, regardless of appearances the petitioner is merely the "ghost" of the creature. And while the spirit is arguably the most important part of the creature, it is the physicality that makes a creature (especially a colossal creature) dangerous in combat (i.e. determines its CR). (The petitioner also lacks the substitute for physical ability, learned skills.)