SRD's Encounter Calculator?

[Tyger]

Does this give any sort of decent evaluation? I'm setting up some encoutners, and according to the calculator, they are Overwhelming... and I think the group is going to breeze right through them.

Anyone use that sort of thing?

[DaMullet]

Remember, the SRD assumes a standard party of four regular guys, Arcane Divine Rogue Meat style layout. You know your players better than it does.

I use the SRD's EXP calculator, though.

[Kyace]

It may pay to keep in mind why the calculator thinks its overwhelming. Are the monsters very high level? Are there very many of them? If the calculater thinks the encounter is overwhelming, it may end up something that your guys could win but have no room for error. If a couple dozen orcs are sitting around a camp in a circle, that could very either a very easy or a very hard fight, depending on if the wizard can cast fireball. If the wizard didn't prepare that, then the fight becomes hard very quickly.

[Demented]

The D20SRD? It makes all those assumptions... though you can change the number and level of the characters in the party.

It's also a bit persnickety... If the encounter is even slightly off, it will be listed as "Easy" or "Very Difficult".

[PinkysBrain]

CR and EL are not an exact challenge. It completely depends on party make up, experience and situation.

[brian c]

The SRD encounter calculator, as stated, is based on having pretty standard parties. If your characters are decently optimized, or if you use strong prestige classes, or if you allow non-core material (stronger spells and items, Tome of Battle, etc) that makes you stronger than you're expected to be.

On a related note, the calculator is also not to be used when determining the encounter level of a lot of low CR enemies.

[Diggorian]

Challenge rating doesnt equal Encounter level, very true.

Besides assumed party make-up, the calculator also considers encounters to be happening during the day on a perfectly level playing field with both sides fully aware of the other. Terrain and surprise are huge factors to be considered as well.

A pair of hill giants behind cover up a steep gravel-covered 70ft. slope with piles of pre-cut toss'in boulders at hand are more challenging than CR 9.

Fore-warned is fore-buffed.

[Jasdoif]

In case someone reading this doesn't know where the calculator is, it's here: http://www.d20srd.org/encounterCalculator.htm

The calculator does an excellent job of collapsing multiple CRs into a single CR, and doing a similar thing with determining party level. To that end, it's a great tool. You'll need to adjust those numbers based on circumstances that favor one side or the other though, just like you're advised to do in the DMG. This is a problem with the CR system in general: it's based on a particular party makeup and generally fair conditions in combat. You have to account for any deviances from this manually.

Also, don't trust what it says the "difficulty" is, it's far too finicky on that part.