EL's for enemies who come in waves

[Lopke_Quasath]

Scenario: Group is infiltrating a village where a necromancer has been busy making undead.
Clusters of skeletons stand together, randomly placed around the village. Individual zombies shuffle aimlessly about.
Their orders are to attack anything that attacks them, or attack things that are attacking other undead.

The party has Hide from Undead active, but then blow it when they shoot at a skeleton sentry on the 2nd floor of a building (don't ask). So, the closest groups of undead don't notice the group yet (since they couldn't see the skeletone on the 2nd floor being attacked). The group of course doesn't know the undead orders, so they attack the closest group of skeletons with crossbows (bolts have undead bane). The clusters of skeletons and individual zombies see the attack, and start to move in.

Here's the main thrust of my question: About every 2-3 rounds a cluster of 4 skeletons reached the party, and every 3-4 rounds a new zombie came into melee.
How does the EL work for the encounter? Is it seperate for each cluster or enemy that comes in, or does it keep stacking for an eventual, rather high, EL?

Cheers

 

[TessarrianDM]

If the party is able to deal with each cluster before the next arrives, I would keep them seperate. If, however, the numbers of undead build up faster than the party can dispatch them, I would consider it one single encounter and stack the the groups for a high EL.

 

[Lopke_Quasath]

It was about 50/50. They could wipe out some groups, but then have unlucky rolls and more would come in.

Thank you for the advice!

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Of course EL is simply a guage for designing the encounter... XP is based off the CR of the creatures...


Online encounter calculator...

 

[Lopke_Quasath]

AAH, I always forget about that.

Thanks Primitive Screwhead

I use that calculator for my XP, too. Of course, I never thought about how the XP gained doesn't increase versus the EL. Always thought it did. Silly me.

So, the encounter seemed to be within their power level after all. Just not much XP.

Cheers.