help with cr

[Mage keeper]

So in a couple of days iI'll be mastering the pathfinder module "The Harrowing" which setto be played by a 4 member party, unfortunate the party will be composed by 6 or 7 people, so my question is how much should i raise the challenge rating of the monsters?

[Tuvarkz]

So in a couple of days iI'll be mastering the pathfinder module "The Harrowing" which setto be played by a 4 member party, unfortunate the party will be composed by 6 or 7 people, so my question is how much should i raise the challenge rating of the monsters?

Readjust the encounters so that the total xp per person remains the same. Each CR has an assigned amount of exp (eg CR 1 creatures give 400 exp total), so if the encounter originally gave 1500 exp, for a 6 man party you'd need 2250 exp worth of enemies.

[Beheld]

First off, don't change the CR at all. What you want to change is the EL. And the reason this is important is because fights of 1 v 6 are much less fun, and much more one sided, sometimes in PCs favor, and sometimes resulting int TPKs, than fights against 6 v 2 or comparable.

If you have a 6-7 person party, then the Party level increases by 1-1.5ish I believe. That's good for you because if you look at EL, the chart a "mixed pair" entry that shows an encountering a CR X monster and a CR X-2 Monster equals an EL X+1 encounter.

So what you do, is you look at every single EL 5 encounter, and you add one CR 3 monster, and now it's EL 6. And you do the same thing to every encounter (find a monster of CR two lower than the encounter EL, and add it to the encounter.)

[thecrimsondawn]

I dont know how it is with Mods, but take care of what monsters you throw at the party. Our party consists of 2 power builders, and 2 newish players, and our DM attempts to compensate the difference by throwing harder CR monsters at us. Sometimes those harder monsters mean nothing more then more time in battle, while other times (and this is why I made this post) they have a powerful special ability that alone can be rough, but a pair or more can be an easy party wipe.

Our last encounter had a Banshee. Making my knowledge and perception check, I was immediately aware of what it was, what it could do, and I blew everything I had to take it out in one round. The DM thought that this fight was too easy for us, so he added in a second one....when nobody had any big attacks left.

One wrong move can be a very unfriendly battle for your players, and having several extra monsters that take 2-3 turns for your big hitters to kill is just a threatening to a players mindset as 1-2 monsters with powerful special abilities.

[Florian]

So in a couple of days iI'll be mastering the pathfinder module "The Harrowing" which setto be played by a 4 member party, unfortunate the party will be composed by 6 or 7 people, so my question is how much should i raise the challenge rating of the monsters?

Standard CR is for a group of 3-5 characters using 10 RP races. 6-7 people is the next higher bracket, but as Beheld already said, that does not affect CR of the individual monsters, but rather the EL of the encounter. Also, keep in mind that in groups of this size, the added RP of races like Tieflings also start to add up - a group of 6 characters with 4 high-powered races (RP 15+) also shifts EL up by 2 levels.

So calculate the APL (Average Party Level) for your group, keeping an eye on how RP points modify this, compare the result to the encounter and throw in mooks to compensate the difference, especially on the economy of actions.

[Bucky]

If you absolutely must keep an encounter to a single big monster, I like the following adjustments for a 6-player party:
*Gain HP equal to 10 + 2x constitution mod OR 25% of its HP total, whichever is higher. This lets it cope with the increased incoming damage. If you have a seventh player, add more HP equal to 10% of its starting total.
*+2 to hit. This compensates for needing to hit the party more times.
*+1 to all saves. This helps it avoid being chain-disabled without overly punishing any one type of PC.
*+2 to CMD on the same principle as the bonus to saves.
*+2 to any skills it has that would be opposed by all party members, such as Stealth.
*Give it a weak defensive feat. Dodge is a good default. For a boss monster, Believer's Boon(Liberation) gives it an extra option against lockdown.

This advancement method is similar in impact to adding two levels of Warrior.