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)