Right now Challenge Rating is designed for 4 players. How do you guys scale CR for bigger parties?

Like suppose I want a CR 6 creature for a party of 8 players. I don't think the DMG says anything about how to scale it.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;860724Right now Challenge Rating is designed for 4 players. How do you guys scale CR for bigger parties?

Like suppose I want a CR 6 creature for a party of 8 players. I don't think the DMG says anything about how to scale it.

The DMG says a lot about this. Check the paragraph on Party Size, DMG pg 82. If a party has 6+ PCs then you multiply monster XP by 0.5 to set the budget. If you want a Medium challenge for 8 level 6 PCs then your budget is 600x8=4800 xp; with single monster's XPV multiplied by 0.5, ie you need a monster worth at least 9600 XP. Per DMG page 275 you need a single CR 13 monster (XPV 10,000) to provide a Medium challenge to the group.  

Note that a Medium challenge is one that the group is expected to do 6-8 of between long rests, not something that will feel like a big fight. A Hard challenge for eight level 6 PCs has a budget of 900x8=7200 xp, single monster x0.5 so need 14400 xp. Per DMG page 275 you need a single CR 16 monster!

So I did some digging around the DMG.

On page 82 of the DMG, it specifies the amount of XP per encounter per character per level.

So a level 4 character can expect 250 XP from a Medium encounter. That means a CR4 counter with a party of 4 players should be around 1000 XP.

I looked up a CR9 monster that gave 5000 XP when defeated. Splitting that by 4, that gives us 1250 XP per character. Looking at the chart, 1250 XP comes right between Medium and Hard for 9th level players' encounter XP. (1100 and 1600 respectively)

So 1250 XP is what we can expect for a CR9 encounter per player for 4 players. If we multiply 1250 by 7 though, we get 8750 XP for a party of 7 players.

On page 274 in the DMG, there's a chart that states how much XP is equal to a specific CR. 8400 XP for an encounter is equivalent to CR12.

That means a party of 7 level 4 characters can take on a monster of CR12.

Does that sound right?? They are punching pretty high above their weight class here.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;860739So 1250 XP is what we can expect for a CR9 encounter per player for 4 players. If we multiply 1250 by 7 though, we get 8750 XP for a party of 7 players.

On page 274 in the DMG, there's a chart that states how much XP is equal to a specific CR. 8400 XP for an encounter is equivalent to CR12.

That means a party of 7 level 4 characters can take on a monster of CR12.

Does that sound right?? They are punching pretty high above their weight class here.

You need to use DMG page 82 chart and on the page 275 chart go to the next highest XP listing, not the nearest XP listing.

Retro-engineering from your CR 12 8400 xp creature; vs 7 pcs it has a budget multiplier of 0.5, so 4200, then divide by 7 =  600. On page 82 chart, looking at the line for level 4 PCs; 600 xp is above the Deadly threshold of 500 XP/PC. So the system expects likely PC fatalities and possibly defeat, which is what I'd expect. Level 5 PCs though have a Deadly Threshold at 1100 XP though, for them 600 XP is only a Medium encounter. There is a huge power-up from level 4 to level 5 so this makes sense.

Edit: You should not be referencing the page 82 chart line for 9th level PCs when building encounters for level 4 PCs. Use the level 4 line.

If you want a Hard encounter for 7 level 4 PCs, Hard budget is minimum 375 xp per PC. 375x7= 2625. For a solo monster you need at least 2625x2= 5250 xp. Per page 275 that is a CR 10 monster (5900 XP).

This might help you, it works out the encounter maths for you.

http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder