EL (CR) for NPCs

[Aopy]

Okay so here is the situation.

The party that I play with (Monk 5, Wizard 5, Rogue 5, Ftr2/Clr3) just ran into a group of NPCs. A sorcerer 8, Rogue 6, Barbarian 5, and Sorcerer 5. The fight didn't go anyway near the way I planned as poor dice rolls and a perfectly placed entangle caught me off guard. Any way, the party managed to kill the Barbarian 5 and the Sorcerer 5 before the other two ran.

My question is this - what challenge rating are those NPCs? Are they both CR 5? That would make the party I play with all CR 5! And an appropriate CR for them is a CR 5. So a challenging fight for them would be one Barbarian 5 OR one Sorcerer5??? Is this right?

I am so confused!!!

 

[AGGEMAM]

I think you have misunderstood some things about EL and CR.

CR is Challenge Rating for a single monster, ie how difficult it is to beat.

EL is Encounter Level for a group of monster, ie how difficult an encounter is.

Only if there are only one monster is the EL equal to the CR.

The party are all CR 5, yes. But the four of them is EL 9.

The first group encountered is CR 8 + CR 6 + CR 5 + CR 5 = EL 10. This should be out of the partys leguea.

Even the two remaining should be a hard challenge for the group, ie CR 8 + CR 6 = EL 9.

 

[shilsen]

So a challenging fight for them would be one Barbarian 5 OR one Sorcerer5??? Is this right?

I am so confused!!!

As Aggemam said, except one point - you're misunderstanding what a "challenging fight" is. Admittedly that's partly due to bad terminology on WotC's case. Check pg. 101 of the DMG. A "challenging" encounter is one that the PCs should win comfortably, while using up about 20% of their resources. For your party, since all four members are 5th lvl, an EL5 encounter would be challenging. An EL9 encounter (four 5th lvl PCs) would be one that your PCs have a 50% chance of winning.