I never really did understand how the encounter formula worked?
If 6 level one pc's.. their apl is 2 which is 600 total xp...
Do I split the total xp for monster fir the entire dungeon? Or does that just mean that one room they fight an encounter?
If its only one fight? How do I make sure I dont toss too many encounters in or burn out my players resources before the boss?
What difficulty should a boss be?
This is far more an art than a science, so I have no specific rules. I can however provide guidelines.
First though, the APL of the party is used to set an xp budget per encounter.
Now, remember, this is more of a ball park than a set rule, so don't get caught up on hitting the exact number. Also remember than environmental situations can affect this (rocky terrain, lots of trees, and a group of enemy archers is a lot harder than the same enemy archers in an empty room with no exits).
An especially strong party or group of skilled players may also lead you to adjust their APL up by one or two.
The APL also sets the target Challenge for the 'average' fight. You want to make sure that the players face a range of easy, medium, and hard fights as they go. It is a bit harder at level 1 since players are just learning the characters and just getting a feel for the game, as is the GM, but you want a few APL - 1, a few APL + 1, a couple APL + 2, and a pile of straight APL fights. A boss might be an APL+2 or APL+3 or even higher.
Making fights that are hard enough to be challenging but not too hard is difficult and may take some time, so I'd err on the side of caution. Start slow with the party and see how they do. As everyone gets better, you can make the fights more complicated, have more enemies, or have tougher bad guys.
I prefer to add more bad guys than increase the strength since six players are going to kick the crap out of a single bad guy since it is 6 actions for the players for every 1 action by the bad guy. Though if you go too high in CR, it'll become impossible for the players to hit the thing.
Oh, as for your second question about resource management. That is up to the players. You don't want them to get to the final boss with an average of 5 hit points and the spell casters stuck casting cantrips ("maybe we can drown him with create water?") but you definitely do not want the "Yay we won a fight! Let's go back to town and sleep before the next fight!"
It is definitely a feeling here. I'd suggest giving them a way and place to rest should they feel the need, but you may also want to make sure they know it isn't viable to use it too often. Perhaps let them stay the first time, but when they go back to try to use it again, the site shows obvious signs of having been found and disturbed. If they still decide to camp, they get ambushed while sleeping.
Sorry still confused.. does encounter mean one fight.. or one dungeon?
One encounter = 1 fight.
Break down each PC to what their PC can handle. 1/4 the amount of experience of a CR = to their level. This is FAR easier to create a fight from. For example:
You have 6 level 1 PCs. Each PC can handle a single enemy or threat whose XP = 1/4 x 400 experience which is the total experience gained from defeating a CR 1 monster. So, each level 1 PC can handle 100 experience worth of enemies in an average fight.
If you wanted an average fight for 6 level 1 PCs, your experience budget is 600 experience worth of enemies. You could then have 1 CR 2 monster, a CR 1 monster supported by 1 CR 1/2 monster, 3 CR 1/2 monsters, 1 CR 1/2 monster and 4 CR 1/4 monsters or 6 CR 1/4 monsters.
Try to figure the budget of total experience first. Then "buy" monsters or threats with the experience budget. For more or less difficult threats, change the formula by modifying the initial CR that is then divided between the PCs. In the example above, if you wanted an easy fight (APL -1) you'd start by figuring your budget off CR 1/2 which is a CR 1 -1. This gives you a starting experience of 200 x 1/4 meaning that every level 1 PC can handle 50 experience in an easy fight; 6 PCs then can handle 300 experience in an easy fight.
A difficult fight (APL +1) would be figured like this: CR 1 +1 = CR 2 or 600 experience total, divided by 4 for 150 experience per level 1 PC. For 6 PCs a tough fight would be a 900 experience budget. Then, once you've got your budget set look at the monsters/threats you want to buy.
Let's say you want a fight in a room that involves an automatically resetting Acid Splash trap and a very mobile kobold with a special build that gives him resist acid 5. The fight is intended to be tough, so you know your total budget is going to be 900 experience for the 6 PCs. You could spend 600 on the trap, making it a CR 2 threat; one opponent in the room is going to get attacked by a 1d3 acid splash every round. You spend another 135 experience on the kobold, making him a kobold adept 2. Finally you give the adept a couple henchemen: a kobold warrior 1 with a trained lizard (165 experience). Now you've got the adept buffing the lizards somehow to make them viable in combat; the warrior flanks with them for a round dealing a little damage, and the acid splash trap whittles away at the party a little at a time.
Does this help?
Wow very much so.. thankyou for your insight and abstract encounter idea.. Ill try to make my fights that interesting down the road.
