Where should I look for resources to make my own module

[urmanascrewed]

Hey, everyone. I've got a story in my head that I think would be cool to tell through a Patherfinder or 3.5 module. I'm wondering where I should look to learn how to put the game together. I am the most clueless about level scaling the encounters and the rate encounters should occur at.

[SilverLeaf167]

Are you asking about planning an adventure as a DM, or actually making a module to publish for other people's use? As you probably guessed, you have to master the former (in a very relative sense of the word) before attempting the latter, and probably need a group to playtest your module with.

The Dungeon Master's Guide has a long section on DM'ing, including both general tips, philosophy and actual mechanics. A similar page exists on the Pathfinder SRD (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering). A lot of their advice is pretty subjective, of course, but it's a good place to start.

One problem about encounter scaling is that the CR system is, in 3.5 at least, infamously broken and misleading. Many creatures are outright mislabeled and any challenge can be completely different depending on how you use your creatures, not just what creatures you use. The composition of the party has a huge effect, too: some creatures can be total cakewalks or literally impossible to beat without the right abilities.

In a perfect world, a CR 6 enemy is equal to a level 6 character and in a one-on-one fight there should be a 50/50 chance of either one winning, but obviously that's never true due to characters being so different. Against a party of four level 6 players, one CR 6 encounter should consume (on average) a quarter of their resources like HP, spells and other abilities, so they should be able to handle a maximum of four similar fights in one day. A party of five can handle five, six people can handle six, and so on. Things get more confusing when you want battles at various CRs, which is pretty much always. To reiterate, in theory. What you really need to is to experiment as a DM and learn to estimate encounter difficulty on your own.