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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 5182723" data-attributes="member: 20741">I think the relevant pages to read aren't 324 of the Bestiary -- they are pages 397 and 398 of the Core Rules. If you must read the PF Bestiary - it's worth having a look at p. 295 "Monster Advancement".Those three pages would tell you that:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Average Party level of three PCs of 4th level is 3</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> CR of a bearded devil with max hit points is, at least, a hard CR6 (treat it as a 6.5 for most purposes ); and</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> APL of  3 facing a monster with a CR of 6.5, i.e, +3 higher than the party level is = Epic difficulty.</li> </ul>A difference of more than three in CR level is asking for a potential TPK. Funny enough, that's what happened.In other words, the party, even with maximum resources, would have been hard pressed to beat the monster. Unrested and depleted of resources, they were likely to die - and in fact, did.There is a difference with using a wandering monster to disrupt resting and "take encounter control" away from spellcasters so as to challenge the 15 minute adventuring day ...and using a wandering monster of +3 CR to do it. (Frankly - with Gestalt characters involved and max hit points on the devil, more like +4 CR).As for the presence of the wandering monster chart in the PF Bestiary -- it's worth mentioning that you will be looking a long time to find Jason Bulmahn (or another prime time adventure designer at Paizo) using that chart in any of his published adventures.Using a monster moving within the complex (which monster is presumably a CR appropriate critter) so as to challenge the timing and flow of when a combat is triggered is one thing; randomly picking said monster off of a chart (with a resulting inappropriate CR level) is quite another.</blockquote>

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