How far above CR do you usually go?

[Tvtyrant]

Both in normal scenarios and in the clearly delineated boss/cosmic power cases. How far above CR would you go in a battle with enemy troopers, say, versus the enemies lead general or hellpit bred living weapon?

[AsteriskAmp]

After a certain session we discovered we had gone 10 CRs above our heads, level 7 fighting level 17; DM didn't use chart but online XP calculator and we levelled twice. It was very very lethal and yet we barely took damage.

[Malroth]

our DM typicaly puts us at around 2.5x our CR for every encounter, somehow we wind up lucky and insane enough to win

[Twilightwyrm]

It depends on the circumstances of the fight, on whether it is a random encounter, or a structured event, and what I am hoping to acomplish with the fight. It will also depend on what resources the party has left, how many encounters they've had that day, and how powerful, relative to their theoretical CR, the party actually is.
With this in mind, strictly speaking, if the PCs are being ambushed, I don't go any higher than +1 their CR, most often in the territory of +0 to -1 their CR. If it is a straight fight, I'll go as high as +2 their CR, but generally ranging from -1 to +1. If they have the advantage, surprise etc. the encounters will range from +0 to +2 (note, this should only apply if they actually have the advantage. There's no point applying this standard if I am just going to give the enemy some power that automatically negates said advantage. Note also this does not apply vice versa, if it is smart planning that gave the characters the advantage).
For "boss" encounters, CRs range from +1 the group's CR (this is most appropriate for CR 1 and 2 parties) to +2 and up to +4. +4 and higher only ever apply if the party has the definite advantage, and even then I generally prepare an "out" if things are going badly. Encounters with enemies of +5 CR or higher almost always be "victory optional" encounters, this is to say, ones that require brilliant strategy or extreme luck to actually fight and kill (any more often much of both), and should generally be "overcome" though stealth (that is to say, bypassing them altogether), or some other manner (running from the field being bombed with siege artillery, diplomacy, extensive cover, walking away, etc.).
Keep in mind, most parties I DM for have 2-3 people, so from what I understand, groups of more than 5 need either more enemies, or much higher CRs to constitute a true challenge.

[SowZ]

I saw a sixth level player single-handedly beat a purple worm. Now, they weren't meant to fight the thing. It was supposed to be a deterrant. But the halfling assassin just had to death attack it and it just had to roll a 1 on its fort save. But that is only a little relevant.

In one of my settings, where most magic was initially studied to enhance ones physical/combat prowess and so mages typically only have buff spells and spells in their discipline plus one or two assorted utility spells, I planned on the party fighting a level 11 Necromancy focused wizard. That included a Skeleton. The wizard had used almost every spell slot on buffing himself and his main skeleton, (including magic weapon buffs and things like spider climb, prot arrows, etc.) The party fought him off, but didn't kill him.

I also had the same party fight a level 10 wizard who focused in constructs who had with him a PF wood golem. They killed both enemies.

In both of these fights, the PCs planned the battle and used the environment to great effect. With proper planning and use of their surroundings, (and the DM making very sub-optimal but fluff appropriate spell selections for caster enemies,) PCs can go very, very far above their CR and stand a fighting chance.

It didn't hurt that I maximize HD and was using a stat array equivalent to a 42 PB.

[Flickerdart]

It was very very lethal and yet we barely took damage.
Then it wasn't lethal.

I usually run 1 or 2 fights per day at +2 or +3 each. I have lots of house rules in place that de-dumb a lot of things, so it ends up working out more or less ok. I try and aim for at least one player going down to single digits of HP, just to keep them sweating.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Depends on whether you mean book CR or "real" CR. I've thrown crazy things at my party that, by the book, would be CR +12 or higher, but that are rendered less than invincible due to the party's excellent planning, paranoia, home-ground advantage, and other factors. For instance, in one campaign my party of 8 level 12 characters had to defend a fortress from a landing party of 16 adamantine clockwork horrors, 20 slaughterstone eviscerators, 8 level 10 phrenic warforged psychic warrior/warblades, 16 Daring Outlaw nimblewright rogue/swashbucklers, and 2 paragon warforged titans, but they'd known of the invasion a few days ahead of time so the party bard was able to assemble a bunch of archers to Dragonfire Inspire, the artificer banged out some construct-bane weapons, the ranger and factotum were able to shape (and trap and ward) the terrain to the party's advantage, and so forth.

And of course my group is fairly high-powered to begin with, so CRs need to be knocked down a point anyway. So in "book CR" terms, I range between CR +4 to +5 for days with 4-5 encounters, CR +8ish for 2-3 encounter days, and CR +15ish for set-piece battles like the above. In "real CR" terms (and the terms we use for determining treasure and XP), it's more like CR +2, CR +4, and CR +7, respectively. To keep things interesting, the tougher encounters range between defensive encounters ("You could hit-and-run the army to death without too much trouble, but if you take too long they'll destroy your fortress, go!"), logistical nightmares ("Five of the cities you've conquered are coming under attack, they're all on different continents, you have 14 teleports between your party and all your armies, go!"), puzzle encounters ("Here's the demiplane that you believe contains what you seek. Remember, the BBEG is an illusionist, so don't believe anything you see...even the demiplane itself. Go!"), and similarly epic encounters.

[Doorhandle]

Depends on whether you mean book CR or "real" CR. I've thrown crazy things at my party that, by the book, would be CR +12 or higher, but that are rendered less than invincible due to the party's excellent planning, paranoia, home-ground advantage, and other factors. For instance, in one campaign my party of 8 level 12 characters had to defend a fortress from a landing party of 16 adamantine clockwork horrors, 20 slaughterstone eviscerators, 8 level 10 phrenic warforged psychic warrior/warblades, 16 Daring Outlaw nimblewright rogue/swashbucklers, and 2 paragon warforged titans, but they'd known of the invasion a few days ahead of time so the party bard was able to assemble a bunch of archers to Dragonfire Inspire, the artificer banged out some construct-bane weapons, the ranger and factotum were able to shape (and trap and ward) the terrain to the party's advantage, and so forth.

And of course my group is fairly high-powered to begin with, so CRs need to be knocked down a point anyway. So in "book CR" terms, I range between CR +4 to +5 for days with 4-5 encounters, CR +8ish for 2-3 encounter days, and CR +15ish for set-piece battles like the above. In "real CR" terms (and the terms we use for determining treasure and XP), it's more like CR +2, CR +4, and CR +7, respectively. To keep things interesting, the tougher encounters range between defensive encounters ("You could hit-and-run the army to death without too much trouble, but if you take too long they'll destroy your fortress, go!"), logistical nightmares ("Five of the cities you've conquered are coming under attack, they're all on different continents, you have 14 teleports between your party and all your armies, go!"), puzzle encounters ("Here's the demiplane that you believe contains what you seek. Remember, the BBEG is an illusionist, so don't believe anything you see...even the demiplane itself. Go!"), and similarly epic encounters.

Wow. that's... insanly awesome.

Well, I havn't D.Med much, But I think most encounters I would make would be equal too or less than the players. Every few encounters I would just take any excuse to throw something insane(but not necessarily tougth) at them though, Like a gnome with a wand of death.

[Fyermind]

If I'm grabbing an npc out of one of the books, I usually aim for the level +4 on the BBEG and two or more significant henchmen at CR+1-2. If I'm grabbing a monster and not changing it, it depends on the monster but I've run combinations of 4-6 mosters each individually at or one level below CR without difficulty for my party. It's not very high op, but I've been showing them tricks like DFI bard and entangling exhalation and I give them max HP so I can get away with doing more damage to them.

When I start building my own monsters, changing feat selections, and dipping into class levels, I generally have to aim at or near CR. The fact is a huge earth elemental with two levels of crusader and VOP can cut through an evil party really really easily.

I have a rule of never throwing fewer than two opponents at the party at once unless the party is surprised or am okay with an anticlimactic ending, so that means the CR of encounters is often higher than the CR of the monsters by a good bit.

I try to avoid the CR+7 or CR +10 thing even if I think my characters could handle it because I worry about A)the players neutralizing the threat early or through tactics such that the whole battle is a ludicrous cleanup match or B) the players getting unlucky two or three times in a row and getting TPKed because the mage was eaten before it installed battlefield control. I accidentally had a one hit kill of a character with a critical off a falchion which serves me right for not calculating how much damage a critical would do relative to the rogues HP. It turns out that 21 damage off a level 1 swordsage with good strength on a critical is not unreasonable.

[Crake]

In my current campaign, I think, based on how often we die, the answer is probably too high.

[Adindra]

when i dm i usually run about 8+ cr over the average player level however even then it sometimes doesn't provide a challenge (one time our group beat down a level 16 druid4/fighter10 at level 6 with a level 1 spell) but usually about 8 over is the sweet spot for my group

[AsteriskAmp]

Then it wasn't lethal.

I usually run 1 or 2 fights per day at +2 or +3 each. I have lots of house rules in place that de-dumb a lot of things, so it ends up working out more or less ok. I try and aim for at least one player going down to single digits of HP, just to keep them sweating.Lethal in the sense that if anything hit us we most likely would die horribly (the damage came from OAs of creatures whose SLA and SUs would make a party member lethal to the others but had lacking damage output).