Encounter Level and Challenge Rating

Storme

First Post
Hi there.

I'm going to be running a game for a group of level 13s....

TEN of them.

Yep. We have a group of ten players (sometimes eleven)!

Challenge Rating is set for four players.

Can someone tell me a good way to plan out my encounters? Just looking at a mobs CR isn't going to give me a good Encounter.


Storme
 

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Oh my. I tried to run such a large group once. Once.

The best (only?) way to match an appropriate challenge rating is by gut instinct. No, really. Just go with what you think is appropriate. Just remember that a CR too high for the average party level will/should slaughter the party (e.g. don't pit them up against a true Wiz18 with all of his associated minions, etc.).

Why on earth did you start them at level 13? Please assure me that you're not taking over someone else's group! :eek:
 

Its a hassle but you need to up the number of enemies by 2 to 3 times and increase their physical toughness without increasing their offensive firepower.

This is because 10 characters take 10 actions per round. Single larger monsters are still limited to one action, and while it may kill a PC every time it acts, it probably has 5 people attacking before it does.

I have recently been a player in a game like this. Someone dies every game session. Because using 25% of the hp resources of a party in a standard encounter will use up all of the HP of 2 or 3 characters.
 

Storme said:
Hi there.

I'm going to be running a game for a group of level 13s....

TEN of them.

Yep. We have a group of ten players (sometimes eleven)!

Challenge Rating is set for four players.

Can someone tell me a good way to plan out my encounters? Just looking at a mobs CR isn't going to give me a good Encounter.


Storme

I would personally look at the EL tables on p. 49 of the DMG and then triple the numbers of opponents. For example, an EL 13 suggests 1 opponent of CR 12, 13, or 14... or 2 creatures of CR 11... and the chart progresses. Well for your group, give them 3 opponents of CR 12-14 or 6 opponents of CR 11.....and so on. This does slightly give the creatures a bit more of an edge (as they are roughly tripled and the PCs are shy of the triple-size party of 12), so use a bit of judgement: sometimes only double the opponents.

I would not look at simply doing higher CR creatures just because you have more PCs. This could easily result in one or two PC deaths, even though the overall battle is easily won by the group.

None of this is perfect, as CR is really only good for a guideline...but when in doubt, start with the easy stuff and gradually make encounters more difficult as you get used to the size of the group and thier limits.

In any case, be ready for LONG combats and have HUGE battlemats ready to track the number of PCs, all of the effects they create, the numbers of opponents, and then all the space for them to be able to move around in.
 

Think of it this way.

A party of four is typical. You have slightly more than three parties of four. Thus, if you triple (or slightly more) the number of enemies in a battle, you pretty much even things out.

Be careful. Three CR 13 encounters together are EL 16. Don't be fooled into thinking your party of adventurers can take a CR 16 monster, though! High-CR monsters often have abilities that lower-level pcs just can't counter yet. You are usually better off employing more monsters instead of tougher ones.

I have a group of eight regular players, and have run many more. It's quite possible to handle, but you have to keep on track. Combat slows down somewhat, but if you only give each creature a few moments to decide on their actions, limit table talk and use index cards for initiative you can keep things moving pretty well.
 

Roughly, EL 15-16.

4 13th level PCs are good for a CR 13.
Double to 8 PCs adds +2 to CR for 15.
Double to 16 PCs is CR 17.
So your group is between 15 and 17

Beyond that... well, there is no easy way to build/run a combat with that many PCs.
 

You can try having an assistant DM who might help tracking the monsters (as in, take care of 2/3's of em (at least), esp. the BBEG's with many options, so you can concentrate on tracking circumstances and do the other monsters.

I've noticed that a party twice the size is more than twice as powerful, since they're more likely to have all the useful stuff covered, and since things like supporting aura's and so on just become so much more powerful. Conversely, they'll have fewer hitpoints each, and as many have noted, there's a much greater chance they'll die each combat.

You could even try splitting the group into two, perhaps?

In any case, the best thing to do is to use a bunch of monsters (say, 3-4 times as many as normal). You might also tweak monsters (and even player characters, maybe) by giving them all more HP, AC, and saves, to stretch out their life expectancy without improving offense. In principle, the basic idea is that a stable, not-too-lethal combat for 4 people becomes far more lethal as you increase the numbers, and you therefore compensate by scaling back offense in relation to defense.

A large group will also disturb the magic vs. physical balance. In large groups, area effects or even just multiple target spells (say, mass resist energy in the spell compendium?) become far far more powerful, but a fighter is still a fighter (and a rogue is still just a rogue). To make matters worse, in general, most monsters aren't huge area-effect slingers, and don't scale as well as spellcasters, and even if they were, they'd not be nearly as effective simply because one DM can't control them as smartly as 11 individuals that know their characters strengths inside out. How can you fix this? Well, you'll need to increase the effectiveness of fighter-types, esp. melee one-vs.-one types a lot. One simple improvement is to allow max HP for everyone - this helps fighting types more than lower-hitdie magic users. You might also want to make class-by-class modifications to improve classes such as the rogue and fighter. You can also make everyone play a certain race or template which includes a level adjustment and/or a racial HD. This generally hurts fighters and skill users less than magic users. (i.e. consider a party of bugbears or whatnot)

Another thing to be careful about, which is potentially even more annoying than magic users, is aura's. If your party contains a bard, a paladin, a marshal, a dragon shaman, etc, combat will become extremely complex since the radius of these auras will be frequently less than the scale of the battle meaning that each attack and effect becomes a game to determine which aura has effect now. This is exacerbated by the ease with which these effects can change (generally constantly). If you add a cleric using mass buffs, an arcane caster with haste, a druid with mass resist energy and whatnot, then pretty soon an individual creatures (PC and NPC alike) stats constantly change and it's extremely difficult to manage everything. You might simply want to ban especially problematic classes, or not allow them to change their aura in combat (which is an entirely reasonable limitation, considering that such a large group will benefit more than a small group anyhow).

Summary
  • Maximize hitpoints (and improve other survivability stats at the expense of offensive abilities)
  • Consider helping low-magic characters
  • Consider banning or simplifying complex administration heavy abilities such as aura's and certain spells
  • Consider tilting the balance by using races with LA and HD to avoid the worst excesses of magic users.
  • Apply these ideas to PC's and NPC's
  • Use a lot of monsters as opposed to a few strong ones - roughly as many as there are PC's, on average
  • Consider asking for a second DM to help you run the game.
 

If you're willing to spend money, I recommend the Grim Tales Gamemastering pdf. Handy thing, and comes with a spreadsheet to handle all your calculations as well.
http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4036

If you don't feel like spending money...
Here's an EL calculator from ENWorld: http://www.enworld.org/cc/fiend_factory/elc/encounter_calculator.htm

Here's a newer version of it: http://www.geocities.com/edymnionii/EPLvsEL.html

And an even newer version: http://www.quatrilien.com/rpg/Encounter.html

And here's the thingy from WotC: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/ELCALC/Welcome.asp
 

IMC I have 6-7 players as well as 4 cohorts plus the occasional NPC tag along. I feel your pain. The simplest mechanical way to confirm you've got enough foes is to calculate up the XP in comparison to the "default" party of 4. A quick check of the XP charts says you'd need to have a CR of Party Level +3 for a party of ten on a "typical" encounter.

However I would limit your largest creature to party level+5. Yes, the PCs will toss out tons of damage and will be able to ablate a lot. Those creatures that are +5 CR tend to have special abilities or defenses that the party won't be able to deal with easily.

The flip side is that if you only have 2-3 creatures, there's a distinct tag-team effect. So I toss in a couple of "low" CR creatures (~Party level -2 or -3) that help keep the entire party engaged.

But the biggest thing is to have a plan of attack for your monsters. I'm not saying each and every one needs to be Sun Tzu, but with that much going on it's going to be easy to lose control. I generally have a 2-3 round plan for the encounters as well as the likely reaction to the party's most common actions. Sometimes the reaction is "run away" when the mage or cleric opens fire, which is something the PCs tend to appreciate for versimilitude.

Here's my combat notes for the most recent fight my 21st level party went through. They were scouting out a shared dragon lair from the ethereal. That came as a shock to me since the dragons actually laired on the ethereal, thanks to a couple of phase spiders they turned into pets. The dragons also have an ogre tribe as slaves.

The dragon's original plan was to use the phase spiders to move the ogres behind the party via the ethereal. Once the party was out of position, the dragons were going to attack in waves from different directions, with the most well protected one performing a breath weapon strafe first to see if the party was buffed. If the group seemed injured the other dragons would add additional breath attacks, if the PCs were buffed the dragons would default to snatching the most dangerous party members with flyby attacks to either kill separately or just scatter throughout the woods.

With the party on the astral, the dragons did essentially the same thing but in reverse, maneuvering on the material to flank the party. Net result the party's been slaughtering ogres and killed one dragon but has been worn down pretty solidly. The PCs will win, with probably only one or two PC deaths, but they'll have worked darned hard for it.
 

A 10 men party is virtually a equivalent of A 4-men party of +2 to +3 levels. So, EL should be raised accordingly. And as already many people have pointed out, increasing the number of monsters is the way to go. Do not try to toss a single very strong monster. It will either wipes out entire party unscratched, or be killed in a single turn via volley from 10 PCs. It is no fun at all.

If you are planning to use published adventure modules, consider widen the size of rooms and corridors. The party will surely cause traffic jams. If you design adventures by your own hand, use open field encounter more often than dungeons. Buy large battlemat or something.

Now I am running Red Hand of Doom with 7 PCs with a paladin mount. It is fun. But, while encounters in the open field can be easily modified (I just double the number of opponents), I need some more effort modifying dungeon part of the adventure.

And, when using a lot of monsters, don't roll initiative of all the monsters at once, even if they are all 1st-level hobgoblins. Divide them into "squad" of 2-4 monsters and roll initiative for each squads. 10s of monsters, acting in the same initiative, may concentrate their attack on 1 or 2 PCs (because those are the only PCs they can slash or shoot at their initiative) and instantly kill.
 

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