Blueluck wrote:
You offer some excellent insights, thank you!
Check out this Google Spreadsheet with calculations. According to this, the average treasure "loss" is just under 14%.
When D&D 3.0 came out I remember reading that gaining a level required the experience points from 13.33 battles of CR=APL. That seems like a reasonable number to me, 1 challenge per hour, 4 hours per game session, 3-4 game sessions to level. In trying to reconstruct such a ratio for Pathfinder, I get some crazy sounding numbers. 20 fights to gain 2nd level, and 50-70 fights per level after 3rd! Perhaps I'm reading a table incorrectly somewhere?
Problem with the formula in that table. The xp required to level is the total xp required, not the difference between levels.
For example, to get to level 8 you need a total of 75,000 xp. But the difference between level 7 (51,000 total xp) and level 8 (75,000 total xp) is 24,000 requiring 20 challenges equal to APL to level up with a four character party.
According to my calculations, it is ranges from 19-21 equal encounters to level up a four character party, and from 24-26 to level up a five character party using the medium xp totals.