Adventuring Day Expectations


Running the Game


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Sorry if this has been answered or is in the book but I can't seem to find the info. I see the guidelines for making various difficulty encounters Party to enemy level ratio Xp cost, with a budget for Trivial, Low, High, Sever, and Extreme tier threats.

What I can't find is any info on how many encounters per day, Or how the tiers of threats would affect this (outside of Extreme being best used as a one off fight against a full rested party). I realise it will most likely vary party to party, but there must be some, balanced party expect guidelines for this.


This is a good question and unfortunately the short answer is there isn't a solid answer yet. This is something that's still a struggle to figure out in PF1 and honestly there's a lot of variables including if exceptionally good or bad luck was had in fights.

BUT, that said there are some general guidelines. As you said an extreme fight is effectively the even-footing fight, a hardcore challenge for a full strength party that poses a real chance of beating them. And as you scale down from there the strain on a party doesn't decrease linearly. At least it didn't in PF1 and from what I've seen that's probably true here as well. For example 4 separate High encounters, even though it's the same XP as a Severe, is far less taxing. 4 enemies at x level all at once is much tougher than one at a time. This is because the weaker an encounter is the more manageable it is with at-will abilities and weaker daily powers. But as encounters get stronger you're more likely to need more limited-use abilities and stronger spells.

Also as of the new update this is even more true because weaker encounters are less likely to need magical healing and can be handled with Treat Wounds instead.

So, yeah, sorry I can't give a solid answer but I hope this helps. Basically it's more nuanced than "a party can handle x amount of XP in foes per day" because the more foes you face at once the more draining each foe is on the party.

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