Need help balancing APL / CR with large group, high level

[Denim N Leather]

Hi all,

According to the CrB, if you have more than 6 players, the APL goes up by one.
I am running a group of 8 players, level 12 (96 total levels).

According to the CrB, an Average encounter would be CR 13. This seems rather low to me; should I be looking at the APL as higher than 13 due to the large group?

I have only run high level Pathfinder once before and it was the end of a campaign final boss fight. Since then I have been playing 5e which has very abstract CR values. So, going back to Pathfinder I want to push the party but not cause a TPK.

Would a single CR 16 creature cause a TPK?

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

[blashimov]

It depends hugely on the party's make up, general optimization level, tactics, etc. Probably not cause a TPK at that level, because they should have a bunch of ways to bug out if it goes poorly - teleport, dim door, breath of life, invisibility, fly away, run away (if monk) etc.

That said, if you throw this at them: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/dragon/chromatic- green/green-dragon-very-old

It's unlikely to go well for them.

Additionally, running a high level pathfinder combat is often relatively difficult. Fights can drag on, there are tons of rules and spells, and all this is compounded by a large party. So without knowing anything more, I'd stick to around CR 14-15 first, or if you do go for a higher CR, stick with something relatively simple to run, and that doesn't have a lot of ways to chase them if they decide to call it.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/linnorm/linnorm-f jord

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/golem/golem-mi thral

good luck!

[Denim N Leather]

Sounds logical, thanks for your input! The first encounter is, in fact, going to be against a re-skinned Linnorm. I also have a backup just in case things go sideways for me and they dispatch the Linnorm quickly.

[voska66]

The key with larger groups is encounters with more of the same monsters they'd normally fight at 12th level.

The APL is a guide. I'd increase the APL to 15 only for determining the XP value of the monsters then select the monsters from CR 11-15. You still have to be careful though as some monsters have synergies with more of them. Watch out for thing with area of effect. The characters might be able to take 1 or 2 breath weapons but when they get hit by 6 it's TPK even if the encounter is CR 11 creatures. Had that happen in one of my games so learned the hard way with that one.

Also what ever you do do not put the party up against a single monster. Action economy is just favorable to the party when you have 8. That's double the action economy of typical party.

Another tip which works great for big group and high level. Make use of interesting terrain that gives the bad guys the advantage. I typically put something good for the PCs if they can figure it out too.

[Matthew Downie]

Doubling the number of enemies increases the CR of an encounter by 2. Similarly, doubling the number of PCs from the standard four should increase the CR they can handle by 2.

So CR 14 is the basic routine encounter they should be fighting, and even CR 16-17 shouldn be possible if they're competent.

(Try to avoid solitary high-CR bosses, though. You'll either get mass PC death or they'll kill it in round one.)

[Ectar]

First off: an encounter with a CR equal to the average party level (APL) is not challenging, it should be pretty easy, barring truly horrible die rolls. APL+1 is a bit tougher, and APL+2 is where fights start getting challenging. APL+4, by comparison, should be approximately an even fight. If the party were to fight a mirror of itself, including gear, feats, spells, and everything, that would be an APL+4 fight.
Moving on.
I find the easiest way to do encounter design is to decide how much of a challenge you want the fight to be, ie: APL, APL+1, APL+2, ect.
A tough fight that shouldn't be a TPK was your description, so I'm going to do an APL+3 example. APL +2 could work if you want to be a little more conservative.
First, look up any monster with a CR equal to the APL+3. In this case, that's CR 15, which equals 51,200xp. This is 51,200 xp for an assumed 4 people. To figure out how tough of a fight you need to make for an 8 people party, we do maths.
Divide your xp (51,200) by 4 for 12800. This is your xp budget per person. Take that number and multiply it by your total number of players. 12800*8=102,400xp. This is our xp budget.
Now, you could, in theory, throw a CR 17 baddie at the party, because that's 102400 xp right there. The party might win, but probably with casualties. That monster in question is much much stronger than any individual PC and will probably end lives with a full-attack.

Instead, it's almost always better to use several monsters instead of one big one. This is because of action economy. With 8 players you have 8 sets of actions each round, versus one monster with one. To make that one monster a challenge, it has to be significantly stronger than the PCs.

You can absolutely still have a strongest foe, with supporting ones. I'd generally recommend not having the strongest foe have a CR higher than APL+3, with minion-types to fill in the rest.
For this example, let's start with an adult forest dragon, a CR 15 monster.
We take the xp for the dragon, and subtract it from our total XP budget for an remaining 51,200xp. We could take that and add a second dragon, but we're not going to do that. Because action economy.
Instead, we think "what kinds of creatures would be fighting along side this dragon?" Perhaps there was a Thriae colony in the forest, and the dragon has been stealing seers, soldiers, and dancers for its own purpose.
So we could have 3 seers, bringing our xp budget down to 12,800 xp. Throw in 3 dancers for that maximum bonus, bringing us down to 5,600 xp. With 4 soldiers we get down to 800xp. You can either just add another soldier as excess (they're pretty weak individually) or leave it off.
In total we have One Adult Forest Dragon, 3 thriae seers, 3 thriae dancers, and 4-5 thriae soldiers for a fight that should be challenging, but not overpowering, for 8 level 12 PCs.

For more tips regarding encounter design, I'll leave this link:
GMing advice by Mr. Alexander Agunas

[GM Granta]

My advice is to:

• Choose 1-2 creatures. The CR system is seriously off for combats of 3+ creatures.
  
• Avoid "multi-classed" creatures. Giving a CR 6 combat creature the magical abilities of a CR 5 caster does not make a CR 11 combat, unless you quicken all of the casting abilities. In any given round, the creature can only perform the actions of a CR 6 or CR 5 creature. All the combination really did was increase its hit points.
  
• Improvise. If you choose an APL+2 encounter and it turns out too easy, double the hit points mid-combat. Conversely, if you choose an APL+3 encounter and it turns out too hard, have the creature fail all of its attacks for 1 round.

[Matthew Downie]

GM Granta wrote:

My advice is to:

• Choose 1-2 creatures. The CR system is seriously off for combats of 3+ creatures.

• Improvise. If you choose an APL+2 encounter and it turns out too easy, double the hit points mid-combat. Conversely, if you choose an APL+3 encounter and it turns out too hard, have the creature fail all of its attacks for 1 round.

I disagree with these statements.

The CR system works better when the number of foes is roughly the same as the number of PCs. 4 CR 1 creatures is a CR 5 encounter - something 4 level 3 characters should expect to beat, but might take significant damage from if they're not careful. A single CR 5 enemy is much more likely to die abruptly or kill a PC in round one.

And massive fudging - while it can be useful for inexperienced GMs to counteract their own mistakes - tends to get noticed by players in the long run. They'll start to see their own efforts as irrelevant to their success. "Yay! I did a fifty damage to the enemy! Of course, the GM will now probably just give it 50 bonus hit points, so I might as well not have bothered."

[Denim N Leather]

Ectar wrote:

First off: an encounter with a CR equal to the average party level (APL) is not challenging, it should be pretty easy, barring truly horrible die rolls. APL+1 is a bit tougher, and APL+2 is where fights start getting challenging. APL+4, by comparison, should be approximately an even fight. If the party were to fight a mirror of itself, including gear, feats, spells, and everything, that would be an APL+4 fight.

Moving on.
I find the easiest way to do encounter design is to decide how much of a challenge you want the fight to be, ie: APL, APL+1, APL+2, ect.
A tough fight that shouldn't be a TPK was your description, so I'm going to do an APL+3 example. APL +2 could work if you want to be a little more conservative.
First, look up any monster with a CR equal to the APL+3. In this case, that's CR 15, which equals 51,200xp. This is 51,200 xp for an assumed 4 people. To figure out how tough of a fight you need to make for an 8 people party, we do maths.
Divide your xp (51,200) by 4 for 12800. This is your xp budget per person. Take that number and multiply it by your total number of players. 12800*8=102,400xp. This is our xp budget.
Now, you could, in theory, throw a CR 17 baddie at the party, because that's 102400 xp right there. The party might win, but probably with casualties. That monster in question is much much stronger than any individual PC and will probably end lives with a full-attack.

Instead, it's almost always better to use several monsters instead of one big one. This is because of action economy. With 8 players you have 8 sets of actions each round, versus one monster with one. To make that one monster a challenge, it has to be significantly stronger than the PCs.

You can absolutely still have a strongest foe, with supporting ones. I'd generally recommend not having the strongest foe have a CR higher than APL+3, with minion-types to fill in the rest.
For this example, let's start with an adult forest dragon, a CR 15 monster.
We take the xp for the dragon, and subtract it from our total...

This is superb, thank you. I got it now.

And thanks to everyone else for commenting as well!

[Mike J]

I have a few rules of thumb that I've found work pretty well with the CR system. Keep in mind that the CR system is a guideline and there are always exceptions.

1. Add 1 to the APL for every 1 or 2 additional PCs. 5-6 PCs = +1 APL. 7-8 PCs = +2 APL.

2. No monsters more than 3 CRs from the PCs' class level. CR 9 to CR 15 in your case. The power curve is steep enough that anything outside that narrow band is pretty much in the nat 20's or nat 1's category.

3. Be wary of the invisible jumps at various points on the CR curve. Places where invisibility, negative levels, ability drain, feeblemind, etc. show up in the monster entries.

So, I'd count your party as APL 14 and class level 12, but I would keep all the monsters between CR 9 and 15. A CR 16 or 17 encounter will be a good challenge for them. A CR 17 monster will likely kill them or never get a turn if luck is with the PCs. 16 x CR 8 monsters will likely be a speed bump that takes forever to resolve.

I'd also try to keep the action economy ratio below 3:1 - in your case at least 3 monsters in any encounter. 3 x CR 13 monsters or 4 x CR 12 monsters should make for good fights. If you prefer the "monster + minions" encounter, a CR 14 and 4 x CR 10 works too.

[Mark Carlson 255]

IMHO, I would do some testing. By that I mean throw some easy stuff at them to id they work together as a group and how they work together as a group. Once you have a couple of test cases under your belt and the data you can adjust the CR up or down from there from there.

MDC