I would like to see some sort of guidlines as to how to design an encounter for large parties. For example, I currently have 7 players and one co-DM, and have a terrible time trying to design encounters, based either on CR or on EL.
I know that Monster CRs are based on a 4 player 25% of resources estimation, though it's VERY difficult to scale that out to a 6 or 7 player amount. I suggest an article in Dragon detailing the CR rules, and scaling them out to LARGE groups of say up to 8 players.
Even a discussing in this message board of experences of people who have LARGE (6 or more) players would be of help.
In my experence, large numbers of players usually needs more monsters, though not neccisarily more difficult monsters, along with some good combat tactics, and settings (see DMG page 50, difficulty factors).
I would like to see some sort of guidlines as to how to design an encounter for large parties.
I know that Monster CRs are based on a 4 player 25% of resources estimation, though it's VERY difficult to scale that out to a 6 or 7 player amount. I suggest an article in Dragon detailing the CR rules, and scaling them out to LARGE groups of say up to 8 players.
Even a discussing in this message board of experences of people who have LARGE (6 or more) players would be of help.
My first 3E campaign ended up with 8 players in it, so I might have a few comments that could help, but a lot of what I'd have to say is covered in one of Monte Cook's DMs Only columns on his website:
http://www.montecook.com/arch_dmonly27.html
Overall, it seems to me as if an article about tailoring CRs would be better suited for Dungeon than Dragon, because of its DM focus, and it seems as if Monte already wrote one a while back, but I'll probably be sending in a query...