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I am looking for some help in CR and how to calculate it. I have provided 2 examples of this but if I get it wrong please let me know.
If I have 4 CR 4 creatures this becomes a CR 8.
If I have 8 CR 6 creatures this becomes a CR 12.
What do I do for CR with less then 1 such as orcs? Orcs are CR 1/2 so does this make 4 orcs a CR 2 where I add them or a CR 4 + 1/2 as the book suggests? Clearly a ECL 4 party can take down 4 orcs quite easily, but the GM that "trained me" said that you have to follow the table on page 398 of the Core Rulebook and you don't add them you simply add the number they give to the creature, but this does not seem to provide even a slight challenge to heroes of that level.
Also on groups of larger then 16 if there is a pattern I am not seeing it at the moment as 4 creatures is CR + 4 but 8 is CR +6, The only one I have really seen is if you double the number add +2 to the CR of the encounter. This would also make 32 creatures add +10... please help! :)
Thanks again!
Ruuak
Larger groups have never CR'd properly. It becomes more an art than a science at that point.
The reality is, CR is a guideline. Group make up and playstyle can throw the CR expectations off wildly. As you GM you will eventually get a feel for it.
You can always use the XP table to see how many XP an encounter of a given CR should be worth. Both of your first two examples are correct:
4*1,200 (CR4) = 4,800 (CR8)
8*2,400 (CR6) = 19,200 (CR12)
The CR-Equivalencies table is intended to be used for High-CR encounters and doesn't work very well for low-end CRs. If you want to know the CR of a given number of Orcses:
Calculate number * 200 (CR2) and locate that total in the XP awards table.
Groups larger than 16 creatures are either made up of many goons of significantly lower CR (for example a necromancer with a small army of simple zombies), who could be regarded as part of the main villain's CR, or you could look into the mass combat rules (I'm not familiar with them, but I guess they can handle something like that).
It wouldn't be a good idea to try to micro-manage more than 16 high-CR critters at the same time in any case.
Hope that helps.
I concur with Nullpunkt. The easiest way is to use the XP budget method.
Other than that, here are a few quick rules of thumb:
CRs under 1 get added up numerically until they reach 1. If you have multiple weenies, group them into CR1 clusters that way.
.
CRs from 1 up add as follows:
Doubling is CR+2 (as often as you want to)
Tripling is CR+3 (again, as often as you want to)
Adding something 2 CRs lower to an existing CR results in CR+1.
So, four orcs at CR 1/2 each would sum up into twice CR1, for a total of CR3.
Likewise, six orcs at CR 1/2 each would sum up to CR4.
This having been said, you might find that using large numbers of creatures may lead to encounter difficulties that are not in synch with CR.
Oh, and the conditions the encounters take place under may render the whole 'balanced CR' calculation pretty much worthless.
Damn that's interesting. So the equivalencies table doesn't work for creatures with CR < 1 basically? That is, the little fraction guys?
The simplest way is add up all the EXP for each monster. Then see where total EXP is relationship to CR table for EXP. That is your final CR.
Ok thank you everyone who has posted on this I will be sure to continue looking and trying things out. The more I have done GMing the more I notice its not so much a science but an art, horray :)