Are Aboleth's CR'd correctly at 7?

I've never ran one before, and looking over their abilities they seem like a pretty tough cookie. Has anyone ran them and found them to be under-CR'd? or are they just right and I'm just worrying too much about TPK'ing my party(all lvl 6)?

They are annoying for their ability to permanently turn a PC into a water-bound creature, but it can be reversed with a Heal scroll.

There are some other CR 7 monsters that have more-or-less equally annoying abilities:
Black Pudding (might destroy weapons and armor)
Medusa (might permanently petrify a PC)
Nymph (might permanently blind a PC)
Red Slaad (implants an egg that hatches out a week later, Aliens-style, killing the PC)
Succubus (Energy Drain that may result in permanent level-loss
Yuan-Ti Abomination (Baleful Polymorph PC into a snake permanently)

I shy away from wanting to throw them at PCs in my games, too. I don't want to speak for you, but I think many people, myself included, are more afraid of monsters that might change a character in some way than ones that just kill a character. For example, most players just laugh if you throw a quantity of Kobolds with crossbows at them with sufficient numbers to make an EL 7. (I think that's about 48?) There's a good chance for a string of criticals in there and that would level a party pretty well.

I realize I didn't really answer your question. I've played in a 1st level party and the (inexperienced) DM threw an Aboleth at us. We managed to kill it, but the transformation thing was a pain in the butt. Granted, she might have been holding back a bit, but still, I think most 6th level parties could get the Aboleth near death before it managed to enslave more than 1 or 2 PCs, allowing the remainder to finish up. If it had an insane AC or damage reduction, it would be a drastically scarier encounter.

Thanks Skelso

On a slightly related topic, do aboleth's and other creatures with the aquatic subtype suffer the -2 to hit/half damage penalty for fighting underwater ?

darthkilmor said:

On a slightly related topic, do aboleth's and other creatures with the aquatic subtype suffer the -2 to hit/half damage penalty for fighting underwater ?

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It's not clearly spelled out, but I'd say "No." The section on underwater combat in the DMG (pg. 93) begins by saying "Land-based creatures can have considerable difficulty when fighting in water," and I generally take the rules there as not applying to naturally aquatic creatures.

I agree with shilsen.

Generally speaking, if you're running an aquatic creature, the stats, as listed, should not need to be modified further. I've seen some aquatic creature descriptions that included different stats for when the creature might fight outside of water. That leads me to believe that any penalties for fighting underwater have already been accounted for, if necessary.