Pathfinder Encounter Confusion

[jguy]

I got into a debate with a friend over the designing encounters (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering#Step-1-Determine-APL) rule. It came about when he said we were getting through fights too easily and I told him it was because he was designing fights well below our CR. Basically it says that based on the level of the party, you get an Average Party Level (APL). This APL is what you can 'handle' as a fight. An APL +1 is challenging, +2 is Hard, and +3 is epic. The issue is that that doesn't make much sense to me. 4 level 5 PC's are APL 5. That means they have 1600 xp to work with as an average fight. That mean a single CR 5 monster is an average fight and a CR 6 is 'challenging'. The monster would be overwhelmed simply by action economy. The equivalent would be 4 CR 1 monsters. They would die due to the fact they have no HP and no attacks compared to the beefy PC's.

What I've been doing and trying to convince him is that it is more like 4th edition. Every CR has an Xp amount E.g. CR 1 = 400, CR 2 =600 etc. The PC's levels are each individually worth the same amount of XP as equivalent CR. So a single level 1 PC has 400 worth of xp to add to a fight. This would mean that those same 4 level 5 PC's each are worth 1600 xp, so a DM can build a fight that is total worth 6400 xp. You have to be careful since technically a single CR 9 is worth 6400 and it's level might make hitting hard but then again action economy takes hold. According to this, I've been making every single 'average' fight my PC's face Epic but my current DM's interpretation of it means that we are forever doomed to cakewalk against fights because either there are more of us vs 1 guy, or multiple very low level enemies that can't scratch us.

[GilesTheCleric]

That points you raise about action economy and to-hit percentages are the most important here. CR is only a rough guide as to the difficulty of an encounter, and will become less accurate as players move closer to either end of the optimization and tactical play spectrums, adjust their party size, change the party composition...basically anything that isn't the cliched four-hero party using their abilities moderately effectively.

For a GM to determine the difficulty of a challenge, they need to compare the creature to their unique party, not the creature's CR to the party's ECL. Even this doesn't always work: I GMed a game where I gave a player an unlimited-use staff with dispel magic and invisibility purge on it at level three, maybe ten sessions in. For the next forty sessions, invisible foes were a recurring theme, but that staff was not used a single, solitary time. Just because players have the resources doesn't mean they will use them. Of course, PCs are also very good at finding resources you never knew they could come up with, too. Further, the environment and un/lucky rolls can easily swing a fight.

[jjcrpntr]

I pretty much only use CR as a baseline to gauge enemy power level. I just build encounters I think will be interesting or challenging and run with it. Sometimes that means i adjust things midfight, but usually it leads to challenging and fun encounters for my players. Then again we tend to not have a lot of combat per session so it works usually.

[Jeraa]

I got into a debate with a friend over the designing encounters (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering#Step-1-Determine-APL) rule. It came about when he said we were getting through fights too easily and I told him it was because he was designing fights well below our CR. Basically it says that based on the level of the party, you get an Average Party Level (APL). This APL is what you can 'handle' as a fight. An APL +1 is challenging, +2 is Hard, and +3 is epic. The issue is that that doesn't make much sense to me. 4 level 5 PC's are APL 5. That means they have 1600 xp to work with as an average fight. That mean a single CR 5 monster is an average fight and a CR 6 is 'challenging'. The monster would be overwhelmed simply by action economy. The equivalent would be 4 CR 1 monsters. They would die due to the fact they have no HP and no attacks compared to the beefy PC's.

What I've been doing and trying to convince him is that it is more like 4th edition. Every CR has an Xp amount E.g. CR 1 = 400, CR 2 =600 etc. The PC's levels are each individually worth the same amount of XP as equivalent CR. So a single level 1 PC has 400 worth of xp to add to a fight. This would mean that those same 4 level 5 PC's each are worth 1600 xp, so a DM can build a fight that is total worth 6400 xp. You have to be careful since technically a single CR 9 is worth 6400 and it's level might make hitting hard but then again action economy takes hold. According to this, I've been making every single 'average' fight my PC's face Epic but my current DM's interpretation of it means that we are forever doomed to cakewalk against fights because either there are more of us vs 1 guy, or multiple very low level enemies that can't scratch us.

Your DM is correct. A normal encounter for a typical 5th level party is worth a total of 1600 xp, not 1600xp per player. The average encounter is supposed to be easy to overcome, only taking up about 20-25% of the parties resources maximum.

The example given below the table even shows that the amount listed on the table is the total amount, not the amount for each PC.


For example, let's say you want your group of six 8th-level PCs to face a challenging encounter against a group of gargoyles (each CR 4) and their stone giant boss (CR 8). The PCs have an APL of 9, and Table: Encounter Design tells you that a challenging encounter for your APL 9 group is a CR 10 encounter—worth 9,600 XP according to Table: Experience Point Awards. At CR 8, the stone giant is worth 4,800 XP, leaving you with another 4,800 points in your XP budget for the gargoyles. Gargoyles are CR 4 each, and thus worth 1,200 XP apiece, meaning that the encounter can support four gargoyles in its XP budget. You could further refine the encounter by including only three gargoyles, leaving you with 1,200 XP to spend on a trio of Small earth elemental servants (at CR 1, each is worth 400 XP) to further aid the stone giant.

[jguy]

The thing that get's me is that it makes no sense if you get really small parties. It says that if the party is 1-3 people, the APL is -1, so 3 level 2 people can fight 1 level 1, but that means a single level 2 can fight a level 1 and it would be exactly the same fight as if there were 3 of them.

[Psyren]

Have your GM read this. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg/edit) Actually it's a good read for anyone.