Adjusting encounters for larger group

Hello everyone, just looking for some advice, i am running my players through phandelver and below the shattered obelisk but my player size is going to be 7 - 8 players, how do I adjust combat encounters so that they don't just steam roll through everything with there numbers but I don't overwhelm them with my adjustments in the process? 

Creating Combat Encounters should be your first step. Or use the Encounter Builder (although I haven't used the 2024 one in MAPS, just the 2014 one. Keep in mind that increasing the number of monsters increases the difficulty of the encounter in a non linear manner.

essentially, your options are:

- add more creatures

- give the creatures more hp and/or damage

- a mix of both

depending on whether you want encounters to last longer, be more deadly, or both. Just adding more low-cr creatures can make combat a slog, but maybe that's the point. At the same time, fighting goblins with 20hp who deal 2d6 damage per turn is too overpowered and might down a few of your players before they even get to attack, and at that point you should just replace the statblock with a different creature. You want to find a balance that creates the tone/urgency you're looking for, but there's no exact science (encounter builder lies sometimes tbh)

Ya I have tried using encounter builder in the past and it's always resulted in the fight being rather too easy or way too hard which is why I came to the forums for advice, my goal really is just to tweak the existing encounters, which I think was balanced for 2-4 players and balance it out for 7-8 players, still winnable fights of course, not exactly to make them take longer just make sure they don't end in an instant lol so seems like my biggest option is just sprinkle in a few extra monsters, make sure they arnt completely outnumbered by the players

The problem is there is no generic "just do this" that will apply to every encounter. In order to give specific advice on each encounter, I would need to know the encounter (terrain, monsters, etc...) and the party composition (this will matter) - and even then it could go terribly wrong.

You can buff CR if you like (i.e, changing a goblin to a goblin boss, buffing hp/ac, etc.). Or, you can throw in additional monsters and tie them into the storyline. If you throw in an owlbear, that looks like it’s been mistreated, and you have a nature-loving character… that can be a very fun encounter.