Need help calculating Party CR

[Judas]

When calculating CR of a party your dming, how do you figure it out with different level pc's, and how does thier magic items effect the CR?

I've got a group like this:

Rog7/Sor1/Ftr2
Pal2/Clr3
Rog4/Sor3
Ftr6
Mnk5
Wiz6

So, a 10th, a 7th, 2 6th, and 2 5th level characters. I'm just having trouble developing encounters that aren't too tough for the 5th levels, but also aren't cake for the 10th level.

 

[BeauNiddle]

The range of levels is really too much to really support.

Calculating the EL of the rest of the party means the level 10 guy has a 50/50 chance of killing the rest of the party by himself. [2 5's are a 7, 2 6's are 8, the 7 and 5's are a 9, all of them together are between EL10 and EL11]

That said if you want battles I'd suggest having a big bad guy challenge the lvl10 whilst the rest of the group attact the bad guys henchmen. That might get tedious after a while tho.

If you just want an ordinary encounter an EL 8 or 9 should be about the standard the party can deal with.

If the 10th has very little magic, or the rest of the group has above average magic it starts to balance things out.

[N.B. how do you assign xp? does everybody in the party get the same or do you assign amounts for each level].

 

[Murrdox]

With such a diverse group, you've got to be really careful. Check the capabilities of any CR 8 or above you throw at the party. While a CR 8 or 9 is certainly within the EL of the party, such a creature may have defenses that the level 5 or 6 characters will not be able to defeat, or abilities that can instantly kill a level 5 or a 6.

I'd say you have WAY too large a spread on your character levels. 3 is really the max you should go. An 8, a 7, a couple 6s and a 5 would be okay... but having a level 5 and a level 10 character in the same party?

How did that even happen? Did the level 5s get level drained, or are they just following around a rather powerful PC?

 

[Judas]

The xp is assigned evenly, it's just that some characters joined later on to the group. Not one to play favorites among friends, I just let them choose a single character for me to run, and worked them into a group. I do however, award bonus xp to players that show extra role-playing effort, instead of "roll"-playing.

Is there a guideline to the CR's/ECL's of the party somewhere? And does that supposedly take into account possible magic items, etc. ?

Thanks for your help guys.

 

[Li Shenron]

Is there a guideline to the CR's/ECL's of the party somewhere? And does that supposedly take into account possible magic items, etc. ?

The only help is the DMG chapter "Reward".

Don't try to be precise in evaluating your party, it makes little sense: you don't really need to think about their CR or EL, just get the average party level (6.5 I think) as a start, together with the number of PCs (6). This means that a monster with CR around 7 is probably the most appropriate.

A monster with CR 7 is supposed to be a "suitable" challenge for a party of 4 PCs at level 7 (or average level 7). Note anyway that "suitable" means EASY, at least easy enough for everyone to survive with a little effort and not more than 30% resources used, and obviously without bad luck. Increasing the number of monsters by 50% (or the HP of a single monster) raises the CR by one, so on the other hand being a group of 6 PCs they should easily afford a monster 1 CR higher. Probably most DMs would choose a CR 8 monster, or a group of monsters totalling CR 8 (e.g. 2 x CR 6). That would be a normal challenge for such a party even without the 10th level PC anyway, but I tend to be cautious: better an easy challenge too much than an unexpected loss of a PC.

A second thing to consider is the highest level of Arcane and Divine spells your PCs can cast (most importantly the latter): in your case, 3rd level arcane spells (Wiz6) and 2nd level divine spells (Cle3). Check that your chosen monsters don't go beyond your group spellcasting ability. For example, you can't restore drained levels with your daily spells, so be careful with undead, unless it's easy to buy restoration scrolls or potions.
That could mean also to pay attention to monsters with greater DR, if your party doesn't have good enough magic weapons, and none can cast GMW.

Finally, magic items can indeed raise someone's CR if they are better than the standard for the character level or for the monster entry in the book (otherwise they are already taken into account). But you'll have to figure out by yourself how much, if they are powerful enough to raise it. You can also ignore that and simply award more XPs if you gave the monster a special item, which of course raises the treasure by itself.

Edit: minor changes.

 

[Drawmack]

Rog7/Sor1/Ftr2
Pal2/Clr3
Rog4/Sor3
Ftr6
Mnk5
Wiz6

7 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 3 + 6 + 5 + 6 = 10 + 10 + 10 + 9 = 39/5 = 7.8 = 8

However in this group I would mix strong and weak enemies together as what challanges 10th level will be deadly to 5th level and what challanges 5th level will be a yawner for 10th level.

 

[Chacal]

You should try to avoid most of the damaging area of effect spells (that the rog7 would evade). Temporary ability damage can be frightening at various levels.
Con damage will scale nicely with level (you might want to spare the Wiz 6 though)
Draining the spellcasting ability is gonna hurt the high levels who will lose slots levels, but would only affect bonus spells of the low level casters (it's not the problem here, though).

If the Rog7 goes scouting without the Rog4, you might want to hit him with one or two traps to soften him a bit. You can also have him fight in a pit with one monster while the others must face lesser creatures before rescuing them (some of them might want to target the monster in the pit to help the rog7).
Is there something significant and specific in the Rog7 appearence that would made him the primary target for some monsters/NPCs ? Race/Religion comes to mind.
If he's the only survivor of past adventures, maybe he has some ennemies that would target him first.

The above only works when it's not overdone: you don't want to annoy the Rog7 player.
You can use encounters that put some emphasis on the low level PCs strengths : Turn Undead for the Cleric, monster with DR and low hit points for the Mage.
Have a look at the sorc3 and Ftr6 spells and feats selections and search for situation where they would be the most useful.

I don't have any idea for the monk, since we don't use them IMC.

Chacal

 

[Skaros]

Just use damaging area effects often, and when the low level players die off, let them come in at a more appropriate level for the group

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The only advice that works on the long run without losing all credibility: Make them even! At least, more or less. 5 levels difference is just to much! Three would be the most, and even that's extreme.

If you stick to that set-up, you're forced to design your encounters to that flaw: you have to have fights with one strong adversary and several weaker ones, so everyone has a match, which gets annoying ("What a surprise: it's a tough overlord with weaker sidekicks. Again."). You have to avoid area of effect spells, especially for the stronger attackers. The only other way is to either have enemies that bore the stronger characters to death, or ones that beat the weaker ones there! Or, even worse, they miraculously only attack the stronger ones...

My suggestion: either give the weaker characters free XP to break even (or at least get closer), give them templates that increase their power quickly (make one a lycanthrope, another becomes infused with divine energy, making him a half-celestial, and so on), or (if you don't like that sudden increase), award XP according to character level, not average party level: To do that, you figure out what a character of his level gets and divide it by the number of characters in the party.

Example:
They face a CR 7 critter.
A 10th-level party would get 1000 xp.
7th - 2100
6th - 2700
5th - 3000

Now 1000/6 = 167, so the 10th-level character gets 167 XP
2100/6 = 350
2700/6 = 450
3000/6 = 500

This way, the lower-level characters rise much faster than higher-level characters, and they eventually even up.

BTW: I wouldn't give the lover-leveled characters better magic to even it up: the higher-leveled characters can do the greater deeds so they deserve better equipment.

 

[Judas]

Yeah, I've been doing the singling out method against the higher level player. He fights something tougher while the others are fighting about the same level things.

Just needed help on how to determine the EL/ECL of the party and of each individual player.

Thanks guys!