So here is my situation...
I run a bi-weekly homebrew campaign with another co-gm for a player base of 8 people. The biggest problem we have is coming up with encounters that are a challenge to the group, but not so overpowering that six out of the eight would end up dead.
here is my current party group:
Dual-Cursed Oracle of Nature - 3rd level
Merciful Healer Cleric - 4th level
Ranger (ranged path and wolf animal companion) - 4th level
Ranger (ranged path and constrictor snake animal companion) - 4th level
Sorcerer (Infernal Bloodline) - 4th level
Inquisitor - 4th level
Cavalier (Dragon Order) - 4th level
Barbarian - 5th level
All were made using the 20 point build.
I recently did an audit of everyone's character sheets and all stats/attacks/damage/etc. is correct.
As an example of an encounter, when they were all level 3 I put them against 4x Dark Creepers, 2x Dark Stalkers and 1x Dark Slayer, for a total CR of 8 against their ECL of 5.
The party completely blew threw them, even with the darkness and deeper darkness (the party was smart enough to drop sunrods, and even that little bit of dim light helped them immensely). There was one player death on the final explosion of the last dark stalker, but that was because he was down to 3 con from a previous encounters poison.
Is there any way that I can build encounters to challenge this group without just totally exploiting their weaknesses? Should I use max HP for all creatures I bring in? Any other help would be greatly appreciated as I'm fairly new to running a group this large.