APL 1 Group challenge helps

[the clumsy bard]

Good day everyone,

I am starting a pathfinder campaign on Monday.

The game is going to be interim campaign that will be run when are current DM is out of town or not everyone from our group shows up. It is supposed to be a sandbox style game. There will be a story, but I have made it clear that the players can make up their minds and do whatever they want.

I am starting them off in a town called Wellsgrove which will be a kin to New Orleans, except fantasy of course ;)

I have limited humans... as in humans are a minor race due to the history of the campaign.

I have limited some classes as cleric, druid, sorcerer and wizard as well.

This is the first time I will be running a Pathfinder game, so I wanted to ask some good encounter ideas for a group of 4 level 1 characters.

The way the Pathfinder SRD explains challenges seems for certain group levels etc seems to make some challenges a lot easier then I would like.

The SRD section I am referring to is here (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering)

I am just curious about people's experience with the pathfinder system and designing encounters. As well if anyone has any suggestions for some encounters for a group of 4 level 1 characters I would love to hear them!

[LanternOG]

If your starting area is based on New Orleans you could use a swamp/plant based encounter. At low levels that could involve

Assassin Vines (1-2). By the rules this is classified as a CR 3 with one and CR 4 with two I think. I ran a couple of these encounters with a party of level one characters and they did okay (bard, sorcerer, rogue, fighter, ranger).

Vegepygmy (3-4). By the rules this would be a CR 2.5 to CR 3.5 (alone a vegepygmy is a CR 1/2). Again I have run this with the same level one group and they did okay.

After both of these encounters my party was injured, but alive.

If you want something that is not exactly as published you can modify Giant Flytraps down to a level appropriate encounter. The Engulf ability can really mess with a party while not being too painful.

[the clumsy bard]

Swamp/plant based encounter was exactly what I was going for actually! Good on you for suggesting some good ones... I always forget the more basic ones.

I was actually toying around with the idea of throwing some Leshy (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/plants/leshy-template) creatures at them. My only issue is that based on the CR suggestions of the Pathfinder system... I would have 1 leaf leshy per 4 level 1 characters... which to me seems like a dog pile at best.

Much like 3.5 should I add a creature or 2 to make it acceptably challenging or should I see how it plays out before toying with their idea of challenge rating in the first ever Pathfinder game?