Determine "between subtiers" before or after rounding?

[rknop]

This has come up -- two of us have different interpretations of the rules under "Determining Subtiers" in page 31 of the PFS Guide to OP version 5.

The question is: for season 0-3, when you have six players, do you decide that you are "between subtiers" before or after rounding?

The first paragraph says that you always round to the nearest integer. To make this concrete, suppose that you've got a party of six characters that are levels 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, and 4. The APL is (2+4+8)/6 = 2.3. You're playing a Season 1 scenario with subtiers 1-2 and 4-5.

Before rounding, this number is between the subtiers. By the rules, then, a party of six in Season 1 would need to play subtier 4-5.

However, if you round before deciding if you're between subtiers, the APL comes out to 2, in which case you need to play subtier 1-2.

My reading is that the "always round" in the first paragraph means that you'd consider APL to be 2, and play the lower subtier. However, I can see how a resonable reading would decide that anything with a fractional subtier over 2 (including in my example) is between the subtiers, and thus one would have to play the higher subtier.

Which is the intention? I'm looking for somebody on the campaign staff here to say what the real (official) answer is, not folks' opinions about their readings. Nothing wrong with opinions-- but given that a reasonable argument can be made either way, it won't settle anything. I need the official word. If, however, this has been answered previously by campaign staff, my apologies for failed Google-fu, and please point me to it.

[Caderyn]

There would be no point in rounding afterwards as you have already determined APL, hence you must round to the nearest integer BEFORE determining subtier.

The only time another reading would be valid is if there was a point to doing the rounding after determining subtier (if something else keyed off the parties APL but nothing does).

[Andreas Forster]

You always have to round the APL before you determine the subtier.

Guide to Organized Play wrote:

In order to determine which subtier a mixed-level group of PCs must play in, calculate the group’s average party level (APL). Divide the total number of character levels by the number of characters in the party. You should always round to the nearest whole number.

[That Porter Kid]

Order of operations. The guide says find the APL then it recommends to always round to the nearest whole number. In taking the second argument the GM would be ignoring the second part of finding the APL, which is round to the nearest number.

Another Justification Against Using Argument 2:

got a party of six characters that are levels 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, and 4. The APL is (2+4+8)/6 = 2.3

Before rounding, this number is between the subtiers. By the rules, then, a party of six in Season 1 would need to play subtier 4-5.

Okay now we round.
APL is 2 oh we have to play down because we are no long between tiers.