Monsters and CR

[The Underlord]

What is a normal diffaculty encounter for lv 1 party. What CR monsters should i use assuming 2-3 monsters?
edit: and i want something more than CR system is broken, do whatever you want

[Salanmander]

(I'm going to be ninja'd so hard...) Edit: Huh, I guess not.

A standard "normal" encounter is an "EL" the same as your party's average level (assuming 4 members). An EL 1 encounter is 1 CR 1 creature, or equivalent.

Calculating EL with CR 1/2 or 1/4 creatures is a little bit screwy, but in general, doubling the number of creatures adds 2 to the EL. So 2 CR 4 critters is EL 6. 2 CR 4 critters and 1 EL 6 critter, or 4 CR 4 critters, is EL 8.

The "normal" encounter of EL = party level is based around the party fighting roughly 4 encounters per day, using most of their daily resources, but having little chance of dying. The other end of the spectrum is EL = party level + 4, which should be roughly an even fight, in which the party will likely have at least one person close to dying, and may wipe. (This depends heavily on the players, what they're playing, and the particular monsters you use, of course.)

So for your players at level 1, you could expect them to fight 1 CR 1 creature, or probably 2-3 CR 1/4 creatures, without much difficulty, and several times per day. On the other hand, 2-3 CR 1 creatures will probably be a major encounter, that may leave them winded and wanting to take some time to recuperate.