A few questions about my game and the CR of encounters.

[Theone0581]

Alright so in my game we have gotten up to 4 people play in my game. Their all about level 10. So what I have been doing throwing monsters and encounters at them using this method.

(CR X = Y amounter of monsters)

CR 8 = 3
CR 9 = 3
CR 10 = 2
CR 11 = 2
CR 12= 1

What do you guys things? Do I have a pretty fair system set up that will both be challenging yet not being overpowered.

 

[FEADIN]

Two monsters of a CR are equal to one monster 2 levels higher that is 2 x CR8 = CR10.
Each doubling adds 2 to the CR but it depends greatly on the monsters and the math is not always exact.
In your exemple the two CR11 is a challenging/tough encounter it's equal a CR13 but the math seems correct.

 

[Jhaelen]

Imho, the DMG advice on encounter building has it exactly right. Do not try to use encounters matching the effective party level all the time. Use EL+1 to EL+4 for hard encounters. While EL+0 encounters are 'called' challenging, they are actually easy, except for the fourth such encounter in a row.

To calculate the EL of your encounters just use one of the encounter calculators you will find all over the internet. They will allow you to mix monsters with different CR ratings without having to do the math yourself.

 

[Runestar]

Depending on how optimized your party is, and considering that MM monsters tend to be a tad underpowered for their cr, your formula seems about right.

 

[radmod]

I believe it's not necessarily how challenging a single encounter is, but how often encounters occur before rest/healing.

IIRC, the DMG CR 'system' is designed for 4 characters having 4 encounters before resting. It's a bit weak, IMO.

Back before CRs were created, I routinely had encounters where the monster's HD were equal to 1 to 1 1/2 the party's total level (a formula I still roughly use today). My encounters were considered challenging (a fact the players appreciated). In fact, I've recently ran some generic numbers and found a normal encounter this way in 3.5 is considered "very difficult". As such, my players have been very good about resting before continuing.

So while a single encounter can be challenging, forcing several on the players before they can rest can be devastating*. Having a lot of weaker challenges just sets the players up for underestimating more challenging ones. I like what you have.

*Back in a modified 1e/2e world, we had a DM who when the die indicated we would get a random encounter would roll a d6 to see how many encounters we had. This meant by the time we got to the dungeon we would have to run home. It took us three tries before we ever reached the dungeon (walked in, fought an encounter and ran home).