I've been having some trouble with combat encounters. I have a fairly large group (7 to 10 at any time) of players, currently at level seven. Does anybody have any advice on what CR level I should be looking at for their combat so everyone can get a hit in, but they're not getting absolutely torn to pieces?
Secondly, I would avoid straying from the same number of enemies as there are characters by more than half the number. So I have a party of 5 in my campaign, so I will aim for 3-7 enemies for fights, and adjust the quantity of the CRs I need to make that work. As an example, 8 CR3 monsters would be a Hard encounter for 8 level 7 characters.
Then I adjust what difficulty I am aiming for based on if the monsters are countering anything in my party. EG, if the monsters are all flying and have ranged, and the party is largely melee. Similarly if the party is largely martial and the enemies are resistant to nonmagical damage.
Finally, I add a Handicap character to further balance based off trial and error. In my level 11 campaign, the 5 characters have an imaginary friend called Dwrmun, who is level 6 and is included in the encounter calculator. I adjust his level as they gain abilities that work together and magical items, to try to balance for them. Basically, the more powerful their items, the more powerful Dwrmun counts as , the more dangerous the encounters are calculated to be.
After that, it's all about trial and error. Make a Medium difficulty encounter, run it, and then decide whether that was really medium or not, then adjust the Handicap character for your next one. You'll get it tuned in in a couple of fights!
I've been having some trouble with combat encounters. I have a fairly large group (7 to 10 at any time) of players, currently at level seven. Does anybody have any advice on what CR level I should be looking at for their combat so everyone can get a hit in, but they're not getting absolutely torn to pieces?
Use multiple monsters; any single creature durable enough to survive that many people whaling on it will absolutely obliterate a PC it attacks. A decent rule of thumb is one equal CR monster per 2-3 PCs, depending on how tough a fight you want, so 3-4 CR 7s would be reasonable.
You are a LIFESAVER. That calculator just made my life so much easier. Thank you so much! Our group started out pretty small but, since it's at the local game store, more and more people heard about it. I'm one of five GMs we currently have. Even then when we aren't GMing, we usually join each others games! It's a ton of fun. The GM that actually inspired me to start this game just joined it, now I really gotta do well.
You are a LIFESAVER. That calculator just made my life so much easier.
The calculator is certainly easier than using the DMG encounter rules by hand... but that's because the DMG encounter rules are terrible. The common easy-to-use rule of thumb is "add up total PC levels and divide by 2, that's the total CR of monsters to use", though that's a quite hard fight, you might want to start with dividing by 3. For 7-10 players at level 7, that's 49-70 character levels, so 25-35 total CR if dividing by 2, 16-23 if dividing by 3.
You are a LIFESAVER. That calculator just made my life so much easier. Thank you so much! Our group started out pretty small but, since it's at the local game store, more and more people heard about it. I'm one of five GMs we currently have. Even then when we aren't GMing, we usually join each others games! It's a ton of fun. The GM that actually inspired me to start this game just joined it, now I really gotta do well.
Thanks again!
No, you need to make sure everyone's having fun. It seems, however, that that is currently the case - so keep having fun :)
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Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
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Hi Everyone,
I've been having some trouble with combat encounters. I have a fairly large group (7 to 10 at any time) of players, currently at level seven. Does anybody have any advice on what CR level I should be looking at for their combat so everyone can get a hit in, but they're not getting absolutely torn to pieces?
That is a big group!
Firstly, I would recommend usign an encounter calculator for ease. I use the Kastark one:
https://kastark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th/
because it's very simple to use.
Secondly, I would avoid straying from the same number of enemies as there are characters by more than half the number. So I have a party of 5 in my campaign, so I will aim for 3-7 enemies for fights, and adjust the quantity of the CRs I need to make that work. As an example, 8 CR3 monsters would be a Hard encounter for 8 level 7 characters.
Then I adjust what difficulty I am aiming for based on if the monsters are countering anything in my party. EG, if the monsters are all flying and have ranged, and the party is largely melee. Similarly if the party is largely martial and the enemies are resistant to nonmagical damage.
Finally, I add a Handicap character to further balance based off trial and error. In my level 11 campaign, the 5 characters have an imaginary friend called Dwrmun, who is level 6 and is included in the encounter calculator. I adjust his level as they gain abilities that work together and magical items, to try to balance for them. Basically, the more powerful their items, the more powerful Dwrmun counts as , the more dangerous the encounters are calculated to be.
After that, it's all about trial and error. Make a Medium difficulty encounter, run it, and then decide whether that was really medium or not, then adjust the Handicap character for your next one. You'll get it tuned in in a couple of fights!
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Use multiple monsters; any single creature durable enough to survive that many people whaling on it will absolutely obliterate a PC it attacks. A decent rule of thumb is one equal CR monster per 2-3 PCs, depending on how tough a fight you want, so 3-4 CR 7s would be reasonable.
You are a LIFESAVER. That calculator just made my life so much easier. Thank you so much! Our group started out pretty small but, since it's at the local game store, more and more people heard about it. I'm one of five GMs we currently have. Even then when we aren't GMing, we usually join each others games! It's a ton of fun. The GM that actually inspired me to start this game just joined it, now I really gotta do well.
Thanks again!
The calculator is certainly easier than using the DMG encounter rules by hand... but that's because the DMG encounter rules are terrible. The common easy-to-use rule of thumb is "add up total PC levels and divide by 2, that's the total CR of monsters to use", though that's a quite hard fight, you might want to start with dividing by 3. For 7-10 players at level 7, that's 49-70 character levels, so 25-35 total CR if dividing by 2, 16-23 if dividing by 3.
No, you need to make sure everyone's having fun. It seems, however, that that is currently the case - so keep having fun :)
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.