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Is there anyplace in either of the two PFRPG rulebooks that gives a standard percentage for how often a wandering, random encounter might occur? I can't seem to find one. I know appendix 14 in the Bestiary gives tables for picking amonster when there is a random encounter, but not for the actual chance of one showing up in the first place. Am I just missing it or was it removed and left to GM/author preference?
Good question. I don't believe it's documented in the rules, but most modules have their own encounter tables and frequency.
In the old D&D, wandering monster checks were made every 3rd turn by rolling a d6 - on a 1 the party encountered a wandering monster.
Remember that wandering monsters are not creatures that just "beam down" in order to antagonize the players. They are natives of the area that have left their lairs for some purpose - finding food, escaping a more powerful enemy, patrolling the area, etc. So in a small dungeon once the players have cleaned out the level, no more wandering monsters should arrive unless there is some plausible explanation why there are suddenly more monsters here. By the same token, it is not logical that a cave or forest or ruins should remain unpopulated; if the players return to an area that they cleared out some time ago, it is reasonable to assume that some clan of creatures would be living there and would have reason to defend their new home.
One last thing - in game terms wandering monsters discourage players from wasting time. They give the players a reason to keep moving. Otherwise, the players will search every nook and cranny of every room for traps, treasure, secret doors, etc., and will rest/heal after every encounter. This slows down the pace of the game. Random encounters keep the players on their toes and prevent the game from becoming dull.
The same principle also applies in reverse. The GM should reduce the chance of meeting a wandering monster if the dungeon requires more searching (e.g. it is heavily trapped, or there are clues that must be found), or if the party is being stealthy and moving along, not staying
long in any one place.
Hope this helps.
At times during a game when you're looking to liven things up (perhaps during a long overland journey, or maybe when the party's decided to camp in a dangerous dungeon), you can use the following encounter tables to randomly generate monster encounters. These tables do not include all of the monsters in this book—likewise, they don't cover all possible locations the PCs might find themselves in during the course of a game, but you can use these tables as models for generating additional encounter tables of your own design. Note that each of the following tables has been assigned a CR score—this indicates the average difficulty of the encounters that can be rolled up on the table. A CR 4 encounter table works well when challenging a group of 4th level PCs, for example.
This passage from the PRD seems to suggest that there is no interval to check for a random encounters, but rather the GM is to use a random encounter when and if they feel it would make the game a more exciting and enjoyable experience.
Two things that pretty much guarantee a random encounter when I'm GMing:
1. Camping for the night;
2. Searching a room for secret doors / traps / etc.
:)