Balancing a game for 8 players

[Kafkonia]

So it looks like, of the two games I'll be DMing in the near future, one of them will potentially have 8 players. While this was par for the course with older *D&D modules, today seems to be primarily geared towards 4-5 players.

Does anyone have any suggestions for running scenarios that are balanced for that many players?

 

[Crothian]

The biggest issues is the dungeon crawl. Many of the passages are 5 feet and can create bottlenecks making one or two people in the action. Normalls that isn't a problem but in this case you could have as many as 6 people waiiting around for opens so they can get into the action.

Combat in which they call all particpate will be ewasier for them as they have many more actions. What I like to do is add a creature or two to each encounter and increase their hit points. Don't add too many creatures as they can gang up and then having 6 goblins all attack the same first level fighter is going to be really bad for that fighter, even thou his seven friends will be okay. For the same reason don't use many higher CR creatures. The party of 8 can take a higher CR monster but each PC is still as weak as their level and the high CR monster can probalby kill one with ease.

The best think with be to get the group together, see what they are playing, and how they work together. I like to have a few test encounters to see what they can deal with. First they fight 4 goblins, then 6. And I see how well they do. You might have to be able to adjust things on the fly.

THe biggest issue though is just keepoing 8 people involved in the game. THat can be hard.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Hiya!

I'm in much the same position as you and made a thread about it a while ago...

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=182128

There were some great ideas in there. Including a few more added after I thought the thread had died.

I've worked out what I'm going to do, but a bit loath to play as I know at least one of my players is likely to look into this thread... got to preserve the element of suprise and fear.

Good luck with it!

 

[Nightfall]

Kafka,

Run Shackled City.

 

[Kafkonia]

Kafka,

Run Shackled City.

Hah, I don't have that kind of money.

Well, I do, but it's already committed. And I'm trying to make the most of what I've already got.

So I think I may run them through an adapted version of the sample mini-adventure from the old Fantasy Hero book to start with -- the group runs into a couple of goblins menacing a kid in a tree, then fights the goblin camp. This will give me a pretty good idea of how they scale with a smaller party, as Crothian suggested, and it's nice and short; running it in the same session as character creation may actually be feasible.

From there, I have a few options open to me depending on how it pans out.

 

[Stalker0]

Two suggestions:

1) More outdoor encounters

2) Greater NUMBER of opponents instead of strength of opponents.

Outdoor encounters allow everyone to move about and do stuff, instead of the dungeon bottleneck.

In combat, 8 pcs is a LOT stronger than 4 pcs, simply because they get twice as many actions a turn. Even if you throw out a BBEG that's stronger than normal, the fact that your party gets 8 actions for the villian's 1 means the BBEG usually gets clobbered. Now, you can of course increase the strength of the BBEG. The problem here becomes in order to get a BBEG strong enough to fight such a large party you risk making him so powerful that he will just wipe everyone out.

That's why in general more enemies is the way to go. Now both sides get a lot of actions which helps to balance things out.

 

[kenobi65]

I've been running for a group that's 8-9 players (if everyone is able to attend) for about 6 years now.

As a general rule of thumb, every additional 2 PCs over the assumed D&D baseline of 4 PCs raises the effective party level by 1. So, if you've got 8, they are, generally, as capable as a group of PCs 2 levels higher than they actually are.

But, don't apply that rule blindly. Each individual PC is still at his "real" level, and, especially when you're just starting out, tougher monsters may wipe out some of the PCs, even if the party as a whole winds up triumphant.

Combats tend to work better if you throw them against a large number of lower-CR opponents, rather than 1 or 2 big guys. The larger number of opponents ensures that everyone will be kept busy, and one BBEG, esp. if you're raising the EL to compensate for 8 players, has a good chance of easily killing a few PCs before he drops. (Then again, maybe that's what you want... )

Managing the table gets tougher when you've got that many players. As you've got more players who aren't doing something at any particular moment, you often wind up with more table-talk and extraneous activities going on (even during combat).

 

[the Lorax]

I've had a similar problem, except the total player count I have is 10.

So I made 3 campaigns to be run concurrently.

Some players are in 2 of the campaigns, and they run on alternating weeks.

If I were to do it over, I would only run 2 groups.


As far as balanceing things out for a large group goes, I really think Crothian hit the nail about square on the head. The real challange will be keeping 8 gamers and long time friends focused on the game that is happining at the table.

 

[frankthedm]

The biggest issues is the dungeon crawl. Many of the passages are 5 feet and can create bottlenecks making one or two people in the action. Normalls that isn't a problem but in this case you could have as many as 6 people waiiting around for opens so they can get into the action. Combat in which they call all participate will be easier for them as they have many more actions.

Tactically it is important to deny your foes actions. Players regardless of party size have to accept this and learn the ins and outs of taking the ready and delay actions. The designers of underground fortifications intentionally do this to get larger units of foes to go through a meat grinder. Pretty soon the DM of an 8 person party will realize that barriers and obstacles are needed to prevent one round kills on foes that need to challenge the party

Don't add too many creatures as they can gang up and then having 6 goblins all attack the same first level fighter is going to be really bad for that fighter, even thou his seven friends will be okay.

Then the onus is on the party to prevent such a situation. One healer readies a healing spell for an ally that gets badly wounded, another tank prepares to take a 5’ adjustment in front of his buddy as he returns fire.

For the same reason don't use many higher CR creatures. The party of 8 can take a higher CR monster but each PC is still as weak as their level and the high CR monster can probably kill one with ease.

I agree. An ogre vs 8 level ones will likely lose, but depending on the terrain and LOS, will splat one or two. Lives are not really an expendable party resource until raising is affordable.

First they fight 4 goblins, then 6. And I see how well they do. You might have to be able to adjust things on the fly.

I’d be insulted if I was playing in an 8 person party and all we got were 4 goblin warriors in the first encounter.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

In terms of raw math, 8 PCs are 2 EL higher than 4 PCs.

Either double the number of creatures in each encounter, as some folks have suggested, or add +2 CR to each creature already in the encounter.

If you don't have the prep time to add interesting templates, 2 levels of fighter is extremely easy to fold into a statblock. That's 2 HD (or 11 hp), +2 BAB, and 2 combat feats, and you don't have to worry too much about anything else. (Skills, yes, but they are negligible.)

EXAMPLE:
Previous encounter: 8 CR3 ogres, EL9.

Solution 1: 16 CR3 ogres (EL11).
Solution 2: 8 CR5 ogres (EL11).