Okay, so I decided to really give my encounters a look see. Maybe I am throwing things too hard at my players as I mentioned in my last post. For those of you who missed it; I've been having lots of PCs die lately and was wondering if my challenge ratings are a bit off--maybe my encounters are too imbalanced. So I looked up Encounter Design in the Gamemastering section of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and did some number crunching.
Only, now I'm more than a little puzzled. Maybe some of you Pathfinder gurus could help me out.
I have 11 1st level players and I want a challenging campaign. So PF says that comes out to a CR of 3.
APL = 1
+1 for above 6 PCs
+1 for challenging
CR = 3
Which means that a challenging encounter would amount to like 5 or 6 Goblins.
Really!? For 11 PCs? That somehow seems off to me. But it is definitely less than what I've been throwing at them.
Any thoughts?
I'd double it. You have effectively 2 parties worth of players, so I'd go with CR 4. Or I'd add +1 for every 2 PCs above 6 (which would be the same thing.)
ReplyDeleteWow, 11 PCs, that is quite a horde. If they work well together, Dak is totally correct. I would consider them effectively at level 5 for encounter design, just watch out for creatures with DR or really high AC they can cut like a knife through low level characters.
ReplyDeleteYeah, so when I threw 12 goblins at them (effectively a CR 5 or so) I wasn't out of line?
ReplyDeleteTho' the CR might have been more like 6 with some environmental challenges (they were stuck on a shaky wooden deck with only one rope bridge for egress when the goblins attacked).
I still feel like it's bad decisions that's killing them more than encounter imbalance, but I wanted to be sure.
Either that or I would add a higher level goblin, maybe a spell caster or mix it up and add a couple of wolves. They you get to use the trip rules that should help make it more of threat.
ReplyDelete