No longer 4 encounters a day at APL, instead 6 encounters a day at APL+1


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Sovereign Court

In my quest to get at all of the underlying math of the system I turned my attention to one of the core design assumptions of 3.5, that the system was built so that four players, fighting an encounter equal to their APL, will spend 25% of their resources. How as this changed with Pathfinder?

So if you go with that 25% premise then basically what you're saying is that in a given day the party is supposed to engage in four encounters at APL.

How does this metric get affected by the overall power boost of Pathfinder over 3.5?

I decided to just look at what Paizo is putting a lot out of, that being the Pathfinder Society scenarios. Each one is meant to be a single session and almost always there is a kind of implicit understanding that the adventure you're going to go through is going to happen in a single day in terms of the string of encounters you'll find.

To get the best idea of the stress test on what Paizo is putting out is to look at the Tier 1-2, and make the assumption that you've got four 1st level characters. This is, in my mind, the best vantage point because 1st level characters have the smallest buffer of resources to draw upon. If four 1st level character's can't pull it off then it's gone too far.

So gather together the scenarios that me and my friends have been running for the last year I've done a general survey of the XP value that each encounter. I'm looking at the XP value as it has a bit more granularity than the CR value.

The end result of the survey is that the PFS scenarios are five to six encounters long, and at Tier 1-2 they average out to right around 600 xp per encounter. There is variation among the 16 modules I looked at, but it all roughly evens out to 600xp per encounter.

Now 600xp puts all of these encounters at CR 2, so essentially what is happening is that there is an expectation that four 1st level characters can do six APL+1 encounters a day. When you compare that to 3.5's assumption of four APL encounters a day that is quite a huge bump up in the assumptions of the game.

I've played several games where it was four 1st level characters and they were tough going. If we weren't on our game then we'd like have had a TPK, and there was one module that in fact did produce a TPK. Still, even though it is tough, it is doable, which is what I find really interesting as it is quite a revision of 3.5 assumptions.

Liberty's Edge

Because of the nature of tiers and organized play, you never know whether a group of four 1st level characters or a group of five third level characters will run through them, so the encounters have to be arranged as a mid point between the two or that higher level party's gonna have a cakewalk.

Or to put it another way: This isn't a difference between 3.5 and Pathfinder, but between normal encounter design for a party of specific level and that of Organized Play.

Liberty's Edge

A well-prepared (and balanced) party familiar with tactical combat can cakewalk a Society mod without spending a single consumable -- because the mods have to be survivable by average doofuses.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

You need to read this article about encounter design.

It's written for 3.5, but the gist of it is still relevant.

Sovereign Court

Ninja'd by TOZ

Where is it writtend that a party MUST encounter 4 APL encounters? Seriously? This annoys me to no end!


Hama wrote:

Ninja'd by TOZ

Where is it writtend that a party MUST encounter 4 APL encounters? Seriously? This annoys me to no end!

It is not that there must be 4 encounters a day. I don't know of any GM or AP that follows that anyway. It is brought up on the boards because we must have some common ground to debate on, and the 4 encounters is one of the bases upon which the game is founded.

Another example of board standardization: I don't like seeing people use crafting feats to bypass WBL when in a debate, but I don't have an issue with it in an actual game as an example.


Hama wrote:

Ninja'd by TOZ

Where is it writtend that a party MUST encounter 4 APL encounters? Seriously? This annoys me to no end!

As Wraithstrike mentioned, the classes are balanced based on that assumption. If you do less, the magic users are able to burn all their power quickly and leave all non-casters behind. If you do more, then the non-casters get the upper hand.

I actually try to average on 4-5 encounters (combat, social situations, traps, ...) a day. They can vary from APL-1 to APL+3. Just by knowing that there might be another danger coming around, my casters are careful not to expend all their spells too quickly and sometimes even fight with mundane means or use skills. They also tend to use more group buffing and protective spells than blasts. At the same time, the casters have to be protected better by the non-casters...

It works quite well for us.

Liberty's Edge

TriOmegaZero wrote:

You need to read this article about encounter design.

It's written for 3.5, but the gist of it is still relevant.

And then someone question why the spellcasters pump up the stats to get hard to save spells or why the blaster spells are a bad choice for wizards.

4 encounter with a EL on par with he party. So:
- NPC and monsters have a good chance to save if the caster spells DC aren't pumped up;
- area damage dealing spells generally do very low damage to equal EL opponents. Good against a large number of opponents with a lower EL than the party level, almost useless as soon as they become a small number of opponents of the same EL.

Shadow Lodge

Sangalor wrote:
Hama wrote:


Where is it writtend that a party MUST encounter 4 APL encounters? Seriously? This annoys me to no end!

As Wraithstrike mentioned, the classes are balanced based on that assumption. If you do less, the magic users are able to burn all their power quickly and leave all non-casters behind. If you do more, then the non-casters get the upper hand.

I actually try to average on 4-5 encounters (combat, social situations, traps, ...) a day. They can vary from APL-1 to APL+3. Just by knowing that there might be another danger coming around, my casters are careful not to expend all their spells too quickly and sometimes even fight with mundane means or use skills. They also tend to use more group buffing and protective spells than blasts. At the same time, the casters have to be protected better by the non-casters...

It works quite well for us.

Did you read the article that TriOmegaZero provided? It was NEVER intended that this rough guideline turn into the strict rule that so many have turned it into. (Seemingly a fairly common problem in this hobby...for example the WBL guidelines is really meant only to be helpful for deciding how much equipment a character starting at above 1st level should have...but somewhere along the line it turned into a strict rule that governs how much wealth any given character can have at any given time.)

Sovereign Court

TriOmegaZero wrote:

You need to read this article about encounter design.

It's written for 3.5, but the gist of it is still relevant.

Thanks, that was a good read.

Unless there is a change between 3.0 and 3.5 I mistook the meme to be 25% resources to instead be 20% resources, though the end result is the same... 4 encounters per day.

As for where this comes from, the above article quotes the relevant texts, but you can find it in the Dungeon Master Guide.

Some things that I found interesting about the article...

He doesn't touch upon system mastery as one other huge change that has occurred between 2nd and 3rd edition. In sub-3.0 there wasn't much system mastery going on. I didn't have much experience with 2nd edition and it sounds like there were more ways to trick out your character, but from what I understand, and know about OD&D and AD&D, is that for the most part you were some randomized degree of power at any given level. There was no character building the way we do it now because the older systems didn't emphasize optimization.

Because of that the CR system is fairly hazy because, as Mike Schneider pointed to, your average character in the system can't be assumed to be optimized (because of course you're supposed to master the system) and so CR=APL becomes the baseline of a challenging encounter.

The real problem that I see with Alexander's analysis is that if you don't factor in system mastery then you overlook that a good bulk of the players are going to blow through sub APL encounters without any issues at all.

Overall, what I was reading from Alexander was that he was trying to highlight more simulationist and dramatists sensibilities when one approaches the CR system, and for that I'll slap him on the back and cheer him on because that is what I want out of my games. Unfortunately the system mastery shoves the game system deep into gamist territory, which means every encounter is screaming to be a set piece that tests the gamers skills, and thus when you look at the 3.5 CR system and now the Pathfinder CR system you see the stress of APL (or above) as the emphasis. It really screams with Pathfinder since the scale of the table is slanted to higher challenges, with the spectrum being -1, 0, +1, +2, +3 APL.

One thing I also find interesting is the response from 4E over this issue, which was to make mook rules. 4E was able to retain basically CR=APL but also fix the issue of having lots of easy baddies to cut through by just making a monster variations that can accommodate that. I find it really unfortunate that this had to be a post-OGL invention as it is one of the key "upgrades" that 4E definitely got right to be able to patch the overall system.

Sovereign Court

Kthulhu wrote:
Did you read the article that TriOmegaZero provided? It was NEVER intended that this rough guideline turn into the strict rule that so many have turned it into. (Seemingly a fairly common problem in this hobby...for example the WBL guidelines is really meant only to be helpful for deciding how much equipment a character starting at above 1st level should have...but somewhere along the line it turned into a strict rule that governs how much wealth any given character can have at any given time.)

It might not have been intended that way, but the problem is that both CR and WBL have been etched into stone on a cultural level because the game system has dramatically slanted to stressing a competitive gamist type of play. You can play a simulationist game, but you have to actively shove back at the gamist sensibilities that the system keeps pushing.

The end result is that if players want to be challenged then they need to have encounters that are APL+ and to stay competitive they expect WBL.

I don't like any of that, I long for the "the halcyon, nostalgia-tinged days of 1st Edition" that Alexander mentioned in the article, but you really have to fight the assumptions that the system evokes, which might be quite different from what was intended in the design.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Mike Schneider wrote:
A well-prepared (and balanced) party familiar with tactical combat can cakewalk a Society mod without spending a single consumable -- because the mods have to be survivable by average doofuses.

When you're at a convention, which is where a large amount of PFS play is done, you can't count on a perfectly matched group of 4 players. It's not about them being doofuses, it's frequently that these four players don't want to play the traditional roles of fighter, magic-user, thief, cleric. Maybe they're trying exotic character types, maybe they've got thier favorite mains and it doesn't add up to a the Super-Optimum 4 person party. And frequently even when it theorectically is, they do tend to be strangers who haven't worked together.

If you design encounters only for the super-optimised well-geared machine, you are going to wind up with a lot of TPKs.


Kthulhu wrote:
Sangalor wrote:
Hama wrote:


Where is it writtend that a party MUST encounter 4 APL encounters? Seriously? This annoys me to no end!

As Wraithstrike mentioned, the classes are balanced based on that assumption. If you do less, the magic users are able to burn all their power quickly and leave all non-casters behind. If you do more, then the non-casters get the upper hand.

I actually try to average on 4-5 encounters (combat, social situations, traps, ...) a day. They can vary from APL-1 to APL+3. Just by knowing that there might be another danger coming around, my casters are careful not to expend all their spells too quickly and sometimes even fight with mundane means or use skills. They also tend to use more group buffing and protective spells than blasts. At the same time, the casters have to be protected better by the non-casters...

It works quite well for us.

Did you read the article that TriOmegaZero provided? It was NEVER intended that this rough guideline turn into the strict rule that so many have turned it into. (Seemingly a fairly common problem in this hobby...for example the WBL guidelines is really meant only to be helpful for deciding how much equipment a character starting at above 1st level should have...but somewhere along the line it turned into a strict rule that governs how much wealth any given character can have at any given time.)

No, I have not read it, might do so later. Again, we average on 4-5 encounters (not just combat, but also other situations which qualify for that) each game day. There may be 2 one day, 5 the next, 1 after that and so on. The point is that we do not play a "1 encounter wizards blast all their spells and are gods and the fighters look unnecessary and then everyone goes to sleep" game. I have had those, and had enough sneery remarks from others who wondered why I did not play a caster when "those are the only ones who really can do stuff, the rest is unnecessary". Oh, were they surprised when my 20th level fighter turned their super monster with elemental resistances and spell resistance and high saves into a pile of trash with 7 attacks/round... ;-P

Nothing there is a strict rule. However, I find 3-4 encounters a day to work quite well and allow every class to shine. You always need to make amends to the specific party composition, of course...


Kthulhu wrote:
Did you read the article that TriOmegaZero provided? It was NEVER intended that this rough guideline turn into the strict rule that so many have turned it into. (Seemingly a fairly common problem in this hobby...for example the WBL guidelines is really meant only to be helpful for deciding how much equipment a character starting at above 1st level should have...but somewhere along the line it turned into a strict rule that governs how much wealth any given character can have at any given time.)

...and how "Step Zero: Before you create a character, check with your Dungeon Master for special house rules" in the 3.0 Player's Handbook turned into "Rule Zero:Whatever the DM says, goes" in the gamer zeitgeist. :)


Mok wrote:
The end result of the survey is that the PFS scenarios are five to six encounters long, and at Tier 1-2 they average out to right around 600 xp per encounter. There is variation among the 16 modules I looked at, but it all roughly evens out to 600xp per encounter.

I'm not sure what scenarios you looked at, but the majority of PFS scenarios I've seen have had four combat encounters plus one optional encounter (so "four to five", not "five to six").

Sovereign Court

hogarth wrote:
Mok wrote:
The end result of the survey is that the PFS scenarios are five to six encounters long, and at Tier 1-2 they average out to right around 600 xp per encounter. There is variation among the 16 modules I looked at, but it all roughly evens out to 600xp per encounter.
I'm not sure what scenarios you looked at, but the majority of PFS scenarios I've seen have had four combat encounters plus one optional encounter (so "four to five", not "five to six").

That was my original assumption, but then I thought that I should go and look at the actual data to make sure, that's why I'm writing this post because I was surprised at what I found.

I skipped over year zero modules because they were based off of 3.5 rules, at least most of them and so wouldn't help in seeing where PF stands in its system assumptions.

So I went through all of the year 1 modules that have a 1-2 tier, I also looked at a couple of year 2 modules to see if anything changed. So I grinded through all of those mods, clicking through each page and putting all of the xp information into a spreadsheet. At first I set it up for just five encounters, but immediately I had to shift to six encounters.

Among the 16 mods I looked at, nine of them had 6 encounters. Four of them had 5 encounters, and one module is structured differently and kind of breaks the mold due to what it is trying to accomplish, with 11 encounters. Lastly, just one module has 4 encounters and each one was pretty tough, with a spread of CR 2, CR 3, CR 3, CR 3.

I'm not discounting optional encounters because the optional aspect is based off of game time and not how the party is performing.

In terms of the range of CR XP that players would have to content with in this sample, the low end was a total of 2940xp, it was one of the 5 encounter mods and seemed kind of on the easier side to pull off.

On the high end you have that crazy 11 encounter mod with 6200xp needing to be dealt with, however that one is an anomaly amongst the group.

The overall XP value on a per encounter basis for everything was 674xp.

The year 2 mods I looked at were on the high end compared to the year 1 mods, but I'd need to see a bigger sample to see if that is really a trend.


Now I'm curious, could you give me the name of the mod with 11 encounters?

Liberty's Edge

Mok wrote:


I skipped over year zero modules because they were based off of 3.5 rules, at least most of them and so wouldn't help in seeing where PF stands in its system assumptions.

This is a mistake. As I said previously, PFS modules tell you nothing about Pathfinder, and everything about Organized Play. I'll bet you if you went back and looked at the Year 0 stuff, the average number of encounters would be almost identical.

If you're going to compare Pathfinder to 3.5, compare within the same framework, so PFS modules to PFS modules, or Adventure Path to adventure Path, or something not PFS modules to theoretical home games (which is comparing apples to oranges).


I am not at all surprised that 1st level characters can handle that much. I've been using 2-4 cr +2 to +4 for a long time for just five players.

Sovereign Court

Deadmanwalking wrote:

This is a mistake. As I said previously, PFS modules tell you nothing about Pathfinder, and everything about Organized Play. I'll bet you if you went back and looked at the Year 0 stuff, the average number of encounters would be almost identical.

If you're going to compare Pathfinder to 3.5, compare within the same framework, so PFS modules to PFS modules, or Adventure Path to adventure Path, or something not PFS modules to theoretical home games (which is comparing apples to oranges).

I guess I'm kind of confused as to why all of this analysis is a mistake?

3.5 gave a specific metric that you could use to pace your adventure planning as a GM. The mean was 4 encounters a day, and from that you could vary your encounter difficulty and pacing so that you could hopefully eyeball consistent results.

So when you get a set of material that shows that four 1st level characters can handle six APL+1 encounters, that shifts the previous metric, which for myself ends up being very useful information. Now when I go forward I can plan to up the CR on encounters I design and know that the underlying system can handle the extra stress.

Whether you are in an organized game, or in a home game, there is a limit on the difficulty and amount of encounters that a party can expect to get through without getting a reset on spells and other potential ways to regroup. Knowing what that that benchmark is will help guide the GM in what is going to be thrown at the players.

Getting that benchmark is particularly useful since the Pathfinder Core book doesn't even give one. The encounter design section only gives details on building encounters in isolation, it doesn't mention how many can be handled in a day. Of course, partly this is because the older 3.5 material was not OGL, and thus it wasn't included, but Paizo has demonstrated that six APL+1 encounters is doable. It might not be the upper limit, but it's a value that I can at least use to organize sessions around, knowing that I can get consistent results around this benchmark.

Sovereign Court

Otm-Shank wrote:
Now I'm curious, could you give me the name of the mod with 11 encounters?

Among the Dead


Mok wrote:


I guess I'm kind of confused as to why all of this analysis is a mistake?

Seriously, thanks for the analysis. I've always wondered how other people were even being challenged by the system at 4 CR = ECL / day when my groups were doing way, way more than that.

Sounds like the Adventure Paths (which I've never tried) aren't on easy mode.


Mok wrote:
In sub-3.0 there wasn't much system mastery going on.

That may be true for many people, but it certainly wasn't with the people I played with. If anything, they cracked open, say, 2E a lot worse than 3.X.


Also as a group of players you do not have to stop after 4 encounters unless the Gm railroads that you will have no additional fights. Even if you wanted a rest in the dungeon you could encounter a locked room or a room with an extra thing to bar the door into the room and keep intruders out while you rest and if the party wants to continue they still can. Having a gm that will not let the party be challenged by the characters and railroading the plot so the players do not have more than four encounters per day is also true.

Or the Gm in a larger dungeon or something in wilderness where you could have a hidden campsite or an abandoned farmhouse they clear out.

Liberty's Edge

Mok wrote:
I guess I'm kind of confused as to why all of this analysis is a mistake?

Analysis isn't ever a mistake, but methods of analysis can be. And discounting the closest comparison for the thing you're actually measuring is a hell of a mistake in methodology.

Mok wrote:
3.5 gave a specific metric that you could use to pace your adventure planning as a GM. The mean was 4 encounters a day, and from that you could vary your encounter difficulty and pacing so that you could hopefully eyeball consistent results.

Right. Absolutely correct for encounters designed for a specific party. Various parties broke it, but it's a valid assumption. Or at least was assumed to be.

Mok wrote:
So when you get a set of material that shows that four 1st level characters can handle six APL+1 encounters, that shifts the previous metric, which for myself ends up being very useful information. Now when I go forward I can plan to up the CR on encounters I design and know that the underlying system can handle the extra stress.

Potenially true, and useful. However, that's not how you presented your data. You presented it as a change in assumptions between 3.5 and Pathfinder, and (due to the above mentioned error) we have no idea whether this data actually says that.

Organized play is a very specific venue where things work differently, and thus Organized Play adventures say next to nothing about core game assumptions in and of themselves.

Now, if you looked at the 3.5 PFS scenarios, compared them, and the Pathfinder scenarios actually had more (or higher CR) encounters, well, that would actually provide useful information about the distinctions between the two. But you didn't do that.

Mok wrote:
Whether you are in an organized game, or in a home game, there is a limit on the difficulty and amount of encounters that a party can expect to get through without getting a reset on spells and other potential ways to regroup. Knowing what that that benchmark is will help guide the GM in what is going to be thrown at the players.

True! Absolutely true, and if you'd presented it as "PCs can get through 6 CR+1 encounters in a day" then I'd have no complaint. But that isn't what you said. You said that the core game assumptions of what they should get through every day had changed...for which you have absolutely no supporting evidence.

Mok wrote:
Getting that benchmark is particularly useful since the Pathfinder Core book doesn't even give one. The encounter design section only gives details on building encounters in isolation, it doesn't mention how many can be handled in a day. Of course, partly this is because the older 3.5 material was not OGL, and thus it wasn't included, but Paizo has demonstrated that six APL+1 encounters is doable. It might not be the upper limit, but it's a value that I can at least use to organize sessions around, knowing that I can get consistent results around this benchmark.

Yes, but, well see above. It's useful information, but it's not the useful information you're claiming it is. In fact, by claiming that it's a core game assumption you're being misleading since there's no evidence of that at all.

Actually looking at Silent Tide and the Hydra's Fang incident real quick (two 3.5 PFS adventure I borrowed just to check this) both seem to have a similar or greater number and difficulty of encounters to those you found in Pathfinder adventures of the same level.

So, just from a quick look, your initial premise (that things have changed between 3.5 and Pathfinder) looks blatantly wrong since, y'know, they haven't changed. Whereas my contention that it's simply how Organized Play works is looking increasingly likely. Maybe more data would disprove me, but I tend to doubt it.

The data you've acquired is still potentially useful (since characters can survive the kind of pressure they're put under in PFS, and that's good to know) but it says nothing about the distinction between 3.5 and Pathfinder.


Six APL+1 should be fine, less than that, well you can just about phone them in they are that easy.

There is also nowhere in PF that mentions 4xDay encounters, this is some oddball 3.x thing I had never heard of (I wasn't a 3.x player)

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Organized Play has a tight and sometimes rigid time schedule. At a convention, modules ought not go over time.

So a lot of the minor combat encounters, that would cost the PCs incidental resources, get cut. What are left are major combat encounters, and role-playing / puzzle encounters.


Sure, but lets vary it up - have a huge brawl at the end, like in the 70's movies.

Sovereign Court

Shifty wrote:

Six APL+1 should be fine, less than that, well you can just about phone them in they are that easy.

There is also nowhere in PF that mentions 4xDay encounters, this is some oddball 3.x thing I had never heard of (I wasn't a 3.x player)

It's in the Dungeon Master's Guide, page 49:

DMG 3.5 wrote:
Since every game session probably includes many encounters, you don't want to make every encounter one that taxes the PCs to their limits. They would have to stop the adventure and rest for an extensive period after every fight, and that slows down the game. An encounter with an Encounter Level (EL) equal to the PCs' level is one that should expend about 20% of their resources -- hit points, spells, magic item uses, etc. This means, on average, that after about four encounters of the party's level the PCs need to rest, heal, and regain their spells. A fifth encounter would probably wipe them out.

The fact that the PF Core book doesn't have any guidelines on this issue is unfortunately part of the problem. Perhaps they didn't have an answer to it when the book was going to print.

Sovereign Court

Deadmanwalking wrote:
Mok wrote:
I guess I'm kind of confused as to why all of this analysis is a mistake?
Analysis isn't ever a mistake, but methods of analysis can be. And discounting the closest comparison for the thing you're actually measuring is a hell of a mistake in methodology.

Ok, I get what you're saying now. You're looking for more precision from me. You're unfortunately dealing with someone who's more intuitive than logical.

It's the quote from the DMG above that I'm responding to. That is the holy writ assumption that I'm trying to revise. It's not that 3.5's actual CR system was accurately reflected with what the designers were saying, I didn't really feel it was accurate at the time, but now that 3.5 is dead and gone I'm just interesting in keying into PFs underlying math.

So comparing 3.5 to PF on data isn't really the intent, it's to just put the designers stated assumptions up against what PF is doing. That stated assumption is what needs to be revised. Trying to understand how 3.5 actually performed is a digression that, to me at least, doesn't matter anymore.


Mok great work with the analysis.

I think that theory craft (if that's the right word) like this can be incredibly helpful for many new Dms trying to understand the best way to gauge how hard they can press their players.

Liberty's Edge

Okay, cool. As long as we have that established as the topic.

I really just want clarity in what's being discussed, here.


Mok wrote:
hogarth wrote:
Mok wrote:
The end result of the survey is that the PFS scenarios are five to six encounters long, and at Tier 1-2 they average out to right around 600 xp per encounter. There is variation among the 16 modules I looked at, but it all roughly evens out to 600xp per encounter.
I'm not sure what scenarios you looked at, but the majority of PFS scenarios I've seen have had four combat encounters plus one optional encounter (so "four to five", not "five to six").

That was my original assumption, but then I thought that I should go and look at the actual data to make sure, that's why I'm writing this post because I was surprised at what I found.

I skipped over year zero modules because they were based off of 3.5 rules, at least most of them and so wouldn't help in seeing where PF stands in its system assumptions.

So I went through all of the year 1 modules that have a 1-2 tier, I also looked at a couple of year 2 modules to see if anything changed. So I grinded through all of those mods, clicking through each page and putting all of the xp information into a spreadsheet. At first I set it up for just five encounters, but immediately I had to shift to six encounters.

Among the 16 mods I looked at, nine of them had 6 encounters. Four of them had 5 encounters, and one module is structured differently and kind of breaks the mold due to what it is trying to accomplish, with 11 encounters. Lastly, just one module has 4 encounters and each one was pretty tough, with a spread of CR 2, CR 3, CR 3, CR 3.

Fair enough. I think my recollection may be a little coloured since (a) I've played quite a few Season 0 scenarios and (b) in "dungeon-like" PFS scenarios, the encounters tend to blur together to me.


I have no experience with Pf play style though the characters I seem posted for it seem more power gamey than the ones I see at my local groups. ( I'm nit saying this as a negative just a noticeable play difference)

that said though the groping I'm dming forPf just finished d1 crown of the kobold king did the whole bottom level except fir two encounters and finished the module I'n one go without a break. they were utterly spent but the sense of urgency of the module made them feel the need to push.

so I think it's doable but the type of cr or cr +1 encounters you do may affect it. at lvl 1 a stay hit can drop any one or with luck no one takes damage.

I'n our lvl 10 game that just emcee single fights took up whole sessions.

Liberty's Edge

Thanks for this Mok.

I don't get in Dreamwalker. The question is based upon a sound footing as presented in the 3.5 DMG not on a generic question of how many encounters can a party really fit into PF as opposed to 3.5. Organized play only comes into the equation because it is a sound way of seeing how authors write and number encounters for a single gaming session. I think looking at organized play is the best way to do a comparison. Organized Play contains more variety and just like in lab work, the the more variety one introduces to an experiment the lower the margin of error one will have when calibrating one's finds. Also the adventures are written and edited by PF developers and collaborators. So basically, the creators of the game are inserting sort of the truth of the game as written into all this variety. Lastly the varied adventures, written by those who currently officially define the game, are meant to be played by a variety of PC groups which all conform to specific level, build and item restrictions and basic time limit of play. ... I could go on. But basically, I cannot find any fault in this method save that the DMG is a theory and organized play is an applied system.

I understand that part of the "mistake" was comparing PFS modules to what was written in the 3.5 DMG. I get that this is not a perfect comparison given the known flaws with 3.5 CR's and encounters. Nevertheless this is still the standard set by the developers of 3.5 so it is the standard by which the experiment is being conducted. For purposes of organized play comparisons regarding the transition from 3.5 to PF ,Dreamwalker has a point. But again... that's not the issue at hand - the issue is dealing with something from the 3.X DMG and an assumption that it is an accurate estimation given 3.5 rules. Perhaps there is another question to be asked given the initial issue of the post, maybe comparing Greyhawk or Living City adventures to PFS adventures but again... that's not the question Mok asked nor the data he had available to test formulate his question.

As to PF vs. 3.X: there are six major changes that I can think of off the top of my head that make a huge difference between these two games when it comes to base power comparisons
1) Each race is more powerful in PF than it was in 3.X.
2) Each character class is more powerful in PF than it was in 3.X
3) The skill systems allows characters to be more "skillful" in PF. This is accomplished with consolidated skills and the +3 bump for class skills.
4) Characters in Pathfinder can multiclass more easily for better optimization and can receive a bonus in a favored class.
5) Armor works better in PF than it did in 3.5. Breastplate = 6pts rather than 5 and full plate = 9pts instead of 8.
6) Most monsters did not see equivalent increases in power partially due to the bonuses many no longer received for being large and partially because it seems their AC's and HP's stayed about the same.

Furthermore, and here is another reason why organized play is useful for this sort of issue, many of us have had to opportunity to play PF characters in 3.5 games through organized play and frankly, the encounters don't stack up. The same party that is challenged by an adventure written for PF characters will absolutely stomp the year zero 3.5 adventure - unless the adventure had something that was just inappropriate... in which case it was probably banned as a playable adventure. Just an additional note regard this: those adventures that prove the most lethal in organized play are those that have NPC's with character classes fighting the party. Monsters can be hard but the bad guys with character classes are by far the hardest encounters.

Thanks again, Mok for all the effort.

Dark Archive

LazarX wrote:
Mike Schneider wrote:
A well-prepared (and balanced) party familiar with tactical combat can cakewalk a Society mod without spending a single consumable -- because the mods have to be survivable by average doofuses.

When you're at a convention, which is where a large amount of PFS play is done, you can't count on a perfectly matched group of 4 players. It's not about them being doofuses, it's frequently that these four players don't want to play the traditional roles of fighter, magic-user, thief, cleric. Maybe they're trying exotic character types, maybe they've got thier favorite mains and it doesn't add up to a the Super-Optimum 4 person party. And frequently even when it theorectically is, they do tend to be strangers who haven't worked together.

If you design encounters only for the super-optimised well-geared machine, you are going to wind up with a lot of TPKs.

I remember the 2 modules of Breaking Dawn being extremely difficult with 4 man parties (we had 7, using PLAY PLAY PLAY rules, and still almost died), also The Devil We Know has several encounters which basically means TPK unless you have a cleric. I'm amazed those encounters were so difficult.

My parties were very optimized with lots of dumping of scores to 7.

PFS CRs and difficulty can be hit or miss from my experience. I thought Throaty Mermaid was extremely easy. Citadel of Flame being about just right. Infernal Vault being very difficult. Among the Dead being a Gygax dungeon (if you have no rogues or healers, TPK basically guaranteed, and we had 7 people on that as well) and really dumb.

A well-rounded party in PFS is a luxury. But that's part of the fun. Players play all sorts of different things for whatever reason. I tend to feel PFS is designed with 5 man parties as the standard. 6 man parties are probably for the harder encounters. And it gets weird if there's a lot of playing up or down to suit much higher or much lower characters.

Dark Archive

Mok wrote:
Otm-Shank wrote:
Now I'm curious, could you give me the name of the mod with 11 encounters?
Among the Dead

Quoted for truth. I played up on this with a level 2 rogue in a tier 4-5.

I think there's way more than 11. It's more like 11 traps, 5 combats.

Dark Archive

doctor_wu wrote:

Also as a group of players you do not have to stop after 4 encounters unless the Gm railroads that you will have no additional fights. Even if you wanted a rest in the dungeon you could encounter a locked room or a room with an extra thing to bar the door into the room and keep intruders out while you rest and if the party wants to continue they still can. Having a gm that will not let the party be challenged by the characters and railroading the plot so the players do not have more than four encounters per day is also true.

Or the Gm in a larger dungeon or something in wilderness where you could have a hidden campsite or an abandoned farmhouse they clear out.

In PFS lots of modules are 1 day affairs. Very badly designed after a level 1 party fought 2 or 3 zombies with an evil cleric channeling behind them. Followed up by a 30 point trap that usually kills anybody. I don't even remember what the boss fight was.

Shipyard Rats often gets criticized as too difficult.

Liberty's Edge

Yeah, uh, a 30pt trap will tend to do in a 1st level party....

Quote:
am not at all surprised that 1st level characters can handle that much. I've been using 2-4 cr +2 to +4 for a long time for just five players.

Depending upon the composition of the low-level party, a single CR4 troll or ogre can trash hell out of 'em. Or the pair of 3rd-level rogues with rapiers and Combat Reflexes on either side of a doorway can shred anyone who steps through. Blot! Take 6d6+4!

Sovereign Court

Mike Schneider wrote:
Depending upon the composition of the low-level party, a single CR4 troll or ogre can trash hell out of 'em. Or the pair of 3rd-level rogues with rapiers and Combat Reflexes on either side of a doorway can shred anyone who steps through. Blot! Take 6d6+4!

That's a good point to raise.

Looking over all of the encounters I was analyzing, 94 total, only five rose to APL+3 in difficulty, and none of them were "solo monster" encounters. They were always multiple creatures, sometimes with terrain advantages.

The highest solo monster encounters were at APL+2. I haven't counted out how many of them there were, but from what I remember it wasn't a very large amount of solo fighting.

The overall breakdown:

23 APL
33 APL+1
33 APL+2
5 APL+3

What seems like a general guideline would be to have a solo monster max out at APL+2 and leave APL+3 for just large amounts of APL+0/+1 creatures, or some kind of clear tactical advantage from a decent sized group of these creatures.

Liberty's Edge

A few years ago on an LG char-op list, I wrote a piece detailing how a group of three 1st-leveling halfling rogues and one cleric of Olidamarra could, if run competently, methodically take apart almost any group of PCs up to 6th level or so, by following incessant ready-action snipe & run tactics until the PCs were chewed out of healing and consumables. A 3e halfling rogue with an 18 DEX had a +12 to Hide, and +9 to hit (4[dex] +1[size] +1[racial] +1[MW sling] +1[Blessed] +1[Point Blank Shot]). BAB? We don't need no steenkin' BAB.

....and they'll do just as well in Pathfinder (they lose the sling/throwing bonus, but Move Silently is folded into Stealth, so they effectively get a +2 versus Listen/Perception now).

(I also observe that it is still possible for a wizard's housecat familiar to have a decent chance of killing a 0-level NPC peasant in two rounds if it connects with a series of claw/claw/bites ....down kitty, :P)


Mok wrote:
It's in the Dungeon Master's Guide, page 49:

Cool, well lets leave it out of Pathfinder then; it seems like a bad thing to bring across to a new game.

There's no way four EL equivalent fights would be leaving the party 80% depleted.

Liberty's Edge

Mike Schneider wrote:

A few years ago on an LG char-op list, I wrote a piece detailing how a group of three 1st-leveling halfling rogues and one cleric of Olidamarra could, if run competently, methodically take apart almost any group of PCs up to 6th level or so, by following incessant ready-action snipe & run tactics until the PCs were chewed out of healing and consumables. A 3e halfling rogue with an 18 DEX had a +12 to Hide, and +9 to hit (4[dex] +1[size] +1[racial] +1[MW sling] +1[Blessed] +1[Point Blank Shot]). BAB? We don't need no steenkin' BAB.

....and they'll do just as well in Pathfinder (they lose the sling/throwing bonus, but Move Silently is folded into Stealth, so they effectively get a +2 versus Listen/Perception now).

Barring the PCs keeping a ranged response Readied, yeah, that might still work. Though the -20 Stealth penalty to sniping might make it...somewhat more difficult than you imply. Shortbows are also better now, since the Halfling gets no inheren bonuses with slings.

Mike Schneider wrote:
(I also observe that it is still possible for a wizard's housecat familiar to have a decent chance of killing a 0-level NPC peasant in two rounds if it connects with a series of claw/claw/bites ....down kitty, :P)

There are no 0-level characters any more. A level 1 Commoner is only going to have 3-5 HP, though. On the other hand, a House Cat is literally incapable of dealing lethal damage, so they actually just render the poor peasant unconcious. And if the peasant hits them (which he'll try for) he has a decent chance of knocking the poor cat unconcious in a single blow (especially if he's got Str 12, which isn't gonna be uncommon).

Add to that the fact that only really crappy people are first level Commoners (the average Farmer is officially a Commoner 1/Expert 1) and that the one statted Commoner 1 we've seen (the Village Idiot) has decent odds of smacking the poor cat down before he's rendered unconcious, and I think the actual game's assumption (ie: a cat can take a really pathetic person) is really pretty reasonable.

Especially since Level 1 Commoners are CR 1/3 to the cat's 1/4.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

If the housecat can knock the commoner unconscious, it can kill him due to nonlethal damage converting to lethal damage in such a case.

Staggered and Unconscious wrote:
If a creature's nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage.

Liberty's Edge

TriOmegaZero wrote:

If the housecat can knock the commoner unconscious, it can kill him due to nonlethal damage converting to lethal damage in such a case.

Staggered and Unconscious wrote:
If a creature's nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage.

True! But that'll nearly double the number of rounds it'd take for the cat to actually kill 'em (from two to four), the latter two only occurring if the cat is, like, possessed or of human level intelligence, or something like that (since cats don't eat people and basically only attack them to get away).

Which matters from a realism perspective (which has always been the whole point of the "Housecats Kill Commoners" idea).


The cat being able to kill the human in the first place is kinda where the whole rockshow fell apart, 'questioning its motives to do' so seems a bit of a late attempt at disaster recovery.

Was the Titanic sunk by an iceberg or a torpedo? Either way, the unsinkable ship is lying on the sea floor.

Liberty's Edge

Shifty wrote:

The cat being able to kill the human in the first place is kinda where the whole rockshow fell apart, 'questioning its motives to do' so seems a bit of a late attempt at disaster recovery.

Was the Titanic sunk by an iceberg or a torpedo? Either way, the unsinkable ship is lying on the sea floor.

Uh...cats are physically capable of killing people. Easily. Their claws and fangs are more than sharp enough, and as anyone who's seen an alley cat fight a dog knows, they're more than strong and fast enough. It's almost purely a temperament issue that they don't. Well, and the fact that most actual 'house' cats aren't really 'combat trained'. Hell, mine doesn't know how to properly kill a mouse, much less a person. (In game terms, such cats would probably lack Weapon Finesse.) Feral cats are a somewhat different story, skill wise.

Bobcats commonly kill deer. The size differential's not that different between a human and a house cat...the house cat just doesn't do that.

You give animals human level intelligence and motivation to kill (which basically none of them have) and you get a whole lot of scary sh*t.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Uh...cats are physically capable of killing people. Easily. Their claws and fangs are more than sharp enough, and as anyone who's seen an alley cat fight a dog knows, they're more than strong and fast enough.

Are we seriously having a conversation in which it is suggested a housecat is considered a legit threat to human life?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Are you seriously suggesting that a housecat CANNOT kill you?


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Are you seriously suggesting that a housecat CANNOT kill you?

I reckon I'd be more likely to be killed by a passing random meteorite than killed by a housecat. This concept, however, is apparently not bone out in PF where we are (on paper) apparently more evenly matched.

Somehow, despite having a bigger mouth and larger teeth, and a superior bite strength I am denied a bite attack, which seems silly.

There are no records of a human ever being killed by a cat, yet many violent encounters where humans have killed cats over millenia so therefore we pretty much have to conclude that given the billions of cats and billions of humans and the sheer number of epic scale man v wild housecat encounters the cats should have at least had SOME victories.

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