[PF] 2 Players = 1/2 CR?

[BigKahuna]

A few weeks ago I started GMing for the first time with an E6 Pathfinder game in a homebrew setting based on the Victorian Era, and things were going quite well until one of my players got too busy with University and had to drop out of the game. This puts me in the slightly awkward situation of having to rejigger my encounters for 2 players instead of the 3 players I used to have.

The player who dropped out was a Level 2 Bard/Gunslinger Diplomancer, leaving me with a Level 2 Oread Flowing Monk who tends to let his fists do the talking (I'm not worried about his effectiveness because its an E6 world and he is by far the most experienced player at the table), a Level 2 Elf Magus who considers himself "the bad boy of the society pages" (the player has very loosely based his character on Sterling Archer) and the Magus' monkey butler who is not designed for combat. So, in broad strokes, would 1/2 regular CR be about right for this party of 2 and their monkey butler? Also, does anyone have any fun encounter ideas for this party?

[Slipperychicken]

SRD says the party's APL is reduced by 1. Although the encounter calculator itself operate more along the lines of [APL/2 for levels 3 and lower, but APL-2 for levels 4 and higher].


Step 1—Determine Average Party Level (APL) (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering)

Determine the average level of your player characters—this is their Average Party Level (APL for short). You should round this value to the nearest whole number (this is one of the few exceptions to the round down rule). Note that these encounter creation guidelines assume a group of four or five PCs. If your group contains six or more players, add one to their average level. If your group contains three or fewer players, subtract one from their average level. For example, if your group consists of six players, two of which are 4th level and four of which are 5th level, their APL is 6th (28 total levels, divided by six players, rounding up, and adding one to the final result).

So a CR 1 encounter will be considered Challenging for two level 2 PCs.