CR's and EL's

[Taliseian]

Sorry if this is a question asked and asked again, but I scanned the first 10 pages in this forum first......

I'm working on an encounter for my regular game.

1) If I had 4 PC's of Level 9, then a CR 9 Monster would be an appropriate challenge for them. -- The reason I ask this, is that I have one of the other regular DM's in the group tell me that I should work on the assumption that the party is EL 11 ( 4 * CR 9) instead of EL 9.

2) What CR would be a good challenge for a party of Six Lvl 9 PC's? -- My thought (based on my assumptions from #1) would be that a CR 10 would be a 20% resource usage for the party (Party of Four Lvl 9 + Two additional Lvl 9 characters), so if I wanted a challenge with some teeth in it, I should look at around CR 12-13 (CR 14 would probably be a bit too much).

Thanks in advance and I hope my questions are too rambling and incoherant..... =)

 

[Kae'Yoss]

1) CR's are made up so that a CR X monster is a reasonable challenge for a party made up of four characters of character level X - so your party of 4 characters of level 9 each is up to the task of fighting a CR 9 monster.

Note that 4 CR 9 characters of monsters make up a EL of 13, not 11! So an enemy party of 4 CL 9 characters would be EL 13 for your party: one CR 9 character would challenge your party enought to make them deplete 20% of their resources (the definition for an encounter of EL equal to party level). But if a party of equal level and equal size (4 9th-level chars against your 4 9th-level chars) would be much harder: you would not lose 20% of your resources, the fight would be a close call for either side! It is not at all certain who would win that fight, but regardless of who wins, the winning party would not be much better of than the losers!

2)I think that with 6 Chars, you can put the CR's and EL's one level up. So for this party, an encounter of EL 9 or less would be easy, 10 would be challenging, 11 - 14 would be difficult, and 15 or more would be to much for them.

This would make juvenile red dragon fair game, a young adult green dragon a normally challenging encounter, a mature adult or old white dragon a dangerous enemy, and an old black dragon to much for them.