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.
I strongly recommend the goal of most encounters not be "kill the monsters" but also have a side goal like rescue the NPC, defend the object, steal the object, destroy the object, kill the NPC, etc. That will add to longevity and will keep your 8 person party less focused, making encounters feel more dangerous even though they're really not.
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Ah, the eight person party. I feel your pain.
You've got to keep in mind that essentially your party out action economies you in almost every situation. Also, even by book, an EL 5 is pretty low for a part of APL 6 (majority 4th level +2 for each two players over 4).
4 dark creepers, 2 dark stalkers and a dark slayers also equates to only 7 bodies on the field. Your party has at least 10 (8PCs and two animal companions). Your poor monsters were outnumbered.
Fortunately, your party seems to be lacking in good crowd control so utilizing hordes of lesser enemies might be a feasible solution once they get a little tougher.
Remember, a larger party is not faced by tacking templates onto monsters, and its not faced by attempting to look at the CR system and being like 'this or that is appropriate according to the math for ECL.'
You need bodies, you need mobility, and you need survivability.
You also need tactics, and by this I don't mean intelligent feat selection, or using the right spells so much as knowing placement, fieldcraft and the like.
Simply putting an enemy spellcaster behind a wall of hobgoblin bodies with weapons set to recieve charge in a chokepoint increases his effectiveness. Especially if the wizard does something like ready action to counterspell.
Know the following tips for large parties though.
1.) Your party will prioritize. If they have 30 mooks and one wizard to deal with, they will 'geek the mage.' You can use this against them.
2.) Do not underestimate the capacity of small things to get in the way. A goblin might not be able to hit a 7th level character, but he can still flank him for a rogue. Also, one goblin in the right place can ruin a charge.
3.) The enemy doesn't want to die. Retreat and invis are your friends.
4.) Don't put your eggs in one basket. Multiple moderate threats are better then one huge threat.
5.) Swarms. The PCs are bringing a lot of friends, so you can too, to the tune of several thousand. They need no to-hit roll, and they eat up those valuable area effect spells.
6.) Combat manuevers. Much maligned, but knocking someone prone or disarming them messes with /their/ action economy. Monk-mooks can be useful for this.
7.) Fieldcraft. Utilize chokepoints, open areas, kill boxes and the like. If the PCs have to smash through an iron fence before they can get to grips with your mooks, then the mooks basically get a few 'free' rounds of shooting.
8.) Your monsters have friends and don't give a crap about encounter design. If the orc knows there are four more of his pals down the hallway, he's not going to fight and die quietly so as to avoid upsetting their nap time if things are going pear-shaped for him.
9.) At Mid to High levels, mobility. Ethereal stalkers, teleporting fiends, bounce in, bounce out, cause problems. Having a hamatula show up while you're stuck in a flood of lemures tends to ruin people's day, especially if he zots out before the heavy hitters can come to bear.
Just a few suggestions.
Brilliant ideas so far guys. I really like the idea of making other objectives more important than killing the BBEG. I'm going to share this with my co-gm right away.