Help with explaining how to make encounters

[Batman45505]

My wife is running her first campaign, and was curious as to what appropriate cr encounters she should have. I know the formula, however am having a hard time explaining this too her. She is running a game for 7 players at level one, with the 32 point buyout method for abilities.

What cr should her encounters be and how can she figure out the cr appropriate for the party as they level?

[StevenC21]

http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/

[heavyfuel]

SEVEN PLAYERS?! My god, that's about 4 too many for my tastes. That's especially bad since it's her first time DMing

Anyway, the encounter calculator Steven linked is a really good tool. Characters with 32pb are about half a level stronger than their 25pb counterpart, so she shouldn't be afraid of tossing them a challenge.

Because of the number of players, she's definitely better off having multiple weak enemies rather than one really strong enemy since one big enemy will either die in one round because there are seven guys attacking it, or it will have stats so high that none of the characters can do anything against it. This is much easier to balance with multiple weak enemies.

In your example, a party of 7 lv 1 adventurers has a party level of 1.8. Since you have 32pb, I'd say the party is about level 2.3. So if you're fighting Goblins (CR 1/3), 8 or 9 should be a fairly easy fight, but not a curbstomb by the players.

[Elkad]

SEVEN PLAYERS?! My god, that's about 4 too many for my tastes. That's especially bad since it's her first time DMing

Bah. More players is better. I don't even like running for less than 5, and at 3 I'd let them play 2 characters each. 7 is a great table size.

It also means they are more likely to have all the relevant abilities covered, so the DM doesn't have to tailor encounters to the party build as much. Handy for a new DM.
And if she over-CRs one a bit, they can probably get out of it with fancy position swapping and such.