If you give a monster with spell-like abilities character levels, does it's CL increase ?

[Kost76]

So, if you give a Green Hag Levels as say, a Bard, Does it's CL in it's Spell-Like Abilities increase ?

A Normal Green Hag has CL 9...it has 9 HD, so that makes sense. but if you add like, 15 levels as Bard, Does it's CL in it's spell-like abilities
increase to 24 ?

Thank you in advance.

[Diego Rossi]

Increasing the racial HD can increase the CL of a SLA, it depends on the creature.
Adding class levels don't change it. The only exceptions are the creatures with 0 racial HD, i.e. the typical playable races. For those, you should read the description of the trait that gives them the SLA:

[Pizza Lord]

Like Diego Rossi mentioned. Increasing a creature's HD with class levels will not improve its spell-like abilities' CL, unless it says it does.
For instance, an aasimar's (1 HD race) racial SLA caster level is linked to their class level.

Aasimar wrote:

Spell-Like Ability (Sp): Aasimars can use daylight once per day as a spell-like ability (caster level equal to the aasimar’s class level).

A True Dragon's caster level is based on their HD specifically, not just their racial HD. It doesn't even matter what class the HD comes from apparently. So a very old red dragon (CL 13) with 4 levels of rogue would still be a 17th level caster.

True Dragons wrote:

Spell-Like Abilities: A dragon’s caster level for its spell-like abilities is equal to its total Hit Dice.

Green hags don't appear to have any exception to this rule. They would have to advance as green hags in racial dice (ie. become Advanced Green Hags) or have some trait, feat, or quality that does it.

[VoodistMonk]

Where does it say that the SLA's are even linked to racial HD?

Is it at all guaranteed that increasing racial HD will, in fact, increase the CL of their SLA's?

Example:
Dreamthief Hag 13HD, CL 10

[Diego Rossi]

VoodistMonk wrote:

Where does it say that the SLA's are even linked to racial HD?

Is it at all guaranteed that increasing racial HD will, in fact, increase the CL of their SLA's?

Example:
Dreamthief Hag 13HD, CL 10

Nowhere, as I said "it can", not "it will". Some SLA description says that they are HD dependent, but most don't say anything.

An Efreeti has 10 HD, a CL of 11, and can cast Wish, a level 9 spell that normally requires a CL of 17. The argument that changing the HD doesn't change the SLA is the basis for the Simulacrum wish cone.

As a GM I would increase or not increase the CL of SLA when increasing the HD of a creature depending on what is my goal when designing the encounter, and what SLAs the creature has.
I could even add new SLAs if they feel appropriate and fulfill the goal of the encounter.

[AwesomenessDog]

If a monster says it has a caster level as if it were X class (e.g. dragons/Rakshasa getting sorcerer casting, mummy lords getting cleric casting, nymphs getting druid casting, etc.) then taking those specific classes will increase the caster level independent of other abilities (bloodlines, domains, etc.). Note dragons are an exception as they have some SLA's that are separate from their normal sorcerer casting pool (and it calls out total HD independent of just its racial HD). Note also that this is actual spellcasting, not proper spell like abilities and doesn't use SLA rules.

If a monster just has random spell like abilities with no explanation, it will 99% of the time require (racial/non-class-based) HD advancement to advance the caster level, and even then, gaining new SLA's is not a guarantee.

If the SLA comes from just being a certain race (e.g. anyone of the race gets the SLA regardless of HD such as Aasimar/Tiefling/etc.'s SLA) it will usually say that the caster level is equal to the Character Level (not class level as Pizza Lord said) meaning in essence you look at total HD like the dragon's actual SLA's.

[VoodistMonk]

Mummy Lords don't get Cleric casting... the Mummy Lord in Bestiary 5 just happens to be a Human Cleric with the Mummy Lord template.