Running Pathfinder 2 questions (for those with experience)

[Tanarii]

Anyone with experience running or even playing Pathfinder 2, some questions:

How long does combat take in real time for a party of 4? Can you do a Low difficulty battle in 10-15 min and a Severe one in 20-30? How many combats can be done in 2 hours of a 3 hour session?

The encounter guidelines read as if the game is designed to fight 2 on-level enemies or 4 at PL-2 for the typical Moderate battle. Does it bog down (take significantly longer) if start throwing in larger numbers of weaker enemies? (E.g. 8*PL-4 "Low-threat lackeys")

Is the oft quoted "the party is expected to enter combat full healed" actually true? Does this hold true if they're only getting 10 minutes between encounters? Is Expert in Medicine with Ward Medic feat required on at least on party member in a situation like that?

How many combat encounters do spellcasters usually manage before they need to rest and have daily preparations, assuming 2 casters and 2 non-casters.

(Context: I'm considering relaunching my open table campaign in some game stores using Pathfinder 2 campaign. I'm trying to baseline what players might expect to accomplish in a single session often combat heavy delve before retreating to rest and ending the session. In 5e they could manage something like 4 deadly to 8 medium in 2 hours out of a 3 hour session, and even then could manage another 1-2 before being tapped out of resources if we played another hour, and I did a mix of 3-6 enemy and 7-12 enemy encounters. I'll be playing games before I try to run them of course. But if PF2 is wildly out of step with my current content it'd be nice to know that now.)

[Marcloure]

How long does combat take in real time for a party of 4? Can you do a Low difficulty battle in 10-15 min and a Severe one in 20-30? How many combats can be done in 2 hours of a 3 hour session?

I am running Abomination Vaults, and my group manage to do 1 boss battle and explore some 5 rooms in 3 hours. If it's a standard battle, you can fit 2 if there isn't a lot to do between them.


The encounter guidelines read as if the game is designed to fight 2 on-level enemies or 4 at PL-2 for the typical Moderate battle. Does it bog down (take significantly longer) if start throwing in larger numbers of weaker enemies? (E.g. 8*PL-4 "Low-threat lackeys")

Since enemies PL-4 can barely hit the players, these fights are completely useless. They don't serve even to "chip away" HP as well, since the players can very easily regain HP out of combat. You can use PL-4 creatures mixed with higher level creatures though, they still provide flank, occupy space, and sometimes manage to grapple.


Is the oft quoted "the party is expected to enter combat full healed" actually true? Does this hold true if they're only getting 10 minutes between encounters? Is Expert in Medicine with Ward Medic feat required on at least on party member in a situation like that?

Yes and no. If the players face a boss (PL+2 creature) and they are not almost full health, it can very easily become a disaster. PL+2 creatures can deal 80% of a PC's HP if they manage to get a crit, which is not that hard mind you. It's not unusual for a PC to get dropped from full to 0 in a single round. As for standard fights, they are fine if the PCs aren't full HP; the problem is that they don't know if the next fight is a standard fight or a hard fight, so they should try to always be at full HP.


How many combat encounters do spellcasters usually manage before they need to rest and have daily preparations, assuming 2 casters and 2 non-casters.

Depends on the level. Low level, 2 or 3 fights. However, know that casters in PF2 have problems, so don't bother balancing around them. It gets better around the 5th level, but until then you will see a lot of cantrips flying.


In 5e they could manage something like 4 deadly to 8 medium in 2 hours out of a 3 hour session

Ok, that is waaaay more than I have ever seen in any table ever. I don't know what your trick is, but maybe you can fit 4 fights in a 3 hour session of PF2. In my experience, they are slightly longer than 5e fights at low levels.

[Xihirli]

Anyone with experience running or even playing Pathfinder 2, some questions:

How long does combat take in real time for a party of 4? Can you do a Low difficulty battle in 10-15 min and a Severe one in 20-30? How many combats can be done in 2 hours of a 3 hour session?

The encounter guidelines read as if the game is designed to fight 2 on-level enemies or 4 at PL-2 for the typical Moderate battle. Does it bog down (take significantly longer) if start throwing in larger numbers of weaker enemies? (E.g. 8*PL-4 "Low-threat lackeys")

Is the oft quoted "the party is expected to enter combat full healed" actually true? Does this hold true if they're only getting 10 minutes between encounters? Is Expert in Medicine with Ward Medic feat required on at least on party member in a situation like that?

How many combat encounters do spellcasters usually manage before they need to rest and have daily preparations, assuming 2 casters and 2 non-casters.

(Context: I'm considering relaunching my open table campaign in some game stores using Pathfinder 2 campaign. I'm trying to baseline what players might expect to accomplish in a single session often combat heavy delve before retreating to rest and ending the session. In 5e they could manage something like 4 deadly to 8 medium in 2 hours out of a 3 hour session, and even then could manage another 1-2 before being tapped out of resources if we played another hour, and I did a mix of 3-6 enemy and 7-12 enemy encounters. I'll be playing games before I try to run them of course. But if PF2 is wildly out of step with my current content it'd be nice to know that now.)

Adding in a bit of context myself:

If you're worried about a combat being too hard (and erring on the side of caution is a good thought), Archive of Nethys has statblocks you can look at and you can click "weak" or "elite" buttons that reduce the stats to be a bit more workable.

10 minutes between fights generally is not enough to heal to full. It would be time for everyone to attempt one medicine check to patch up wounds, and for everyone to regain 1 focus point.
Generally the way people are expected to fully heal is to use healing focus spells (which use a resource you can recover by taking 10 minutes of meditation/prayer/study/etc called "refocusing"), and for the character who's actually good at Medicine to spend 30-50 minutes healing everyone.


How long does combat take in real time for a party of 4? Can you do a Low difficulty battle in 10-15 min and a Severe one in 20-30? How many combats can be done in 2 hours of a 3 hour session?
It's certainly possible, but any game with new players (and a new GM) is going to take some pausing to explain, maybe even pausing to look up rules since the GM isn't comfortable enough with the system to say "not sure but for now..." yet.

The Beginner Box has a few "tutorial combats" that I don't think would take all that much time. Not a bad place to start mostly, gives a GM a lot of guidance with the system, but maybe go to AoN and click the "weak" button on the final boss.