Page 397 Core rule book Encounters


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Hello all,
I had a question that i hope some one could help me with. I am running Crypt of the Everflame this sunday and i wanted add in a encounter to fix the Xp problem from the first module to the 2nd but i don't understand the APL and CR. On the bottom of page 397 it says to take your chars APL and look at table 12-1 to see the challenging encounter for you APL but that table just tells me how Difficult it is or how i can make it more difficult.

So can some one give me some examples of a 4 person group trying to find the right CR for them?


Salovs wrote:

Hello all,

I had a question that i hope some one could help me with. I am running Crypt of the Everflame this sunday and i wanted add in a encounter to fix the Xp problem from the first module to the 2nd but i don't understand the APL and CR. On the bottom of page 397 it says to take your chars APL and look at table 12-1 to see the challenging encounter for you APL but that table just tells me how Difficult it is or how i can make it more difficult.

So can some one give me some examples of a 4 person group trying to find the right CR for them?

APL = Average Party Level.

So if you have 4 4th level characters, the APL is 4.
Then you reference the chart to see what CR appropriate encounter will be.
APL+1, +2, etc. is jsut a way to make things more challenging. An APL+0 encounter is supposed to use up around a 1/4th of the party's resources (spells, hit points, etc.) at a time. An APL+3 can use all of it up at once, and you may lose somebody.

This help?


Salovs wrote:

Hello all,

I had a question that i hope some one could help me with. I am running Crypt of the Everflame this sunday and i wanted add in a encounter to fix the Xp problem from the first module to the 2nd but i don't understand the APL and CR. On the bottom of page 397 it says to take your chars APL and look at table 12-1 to see the challenging encounter for you APL but that table just tells me how Difficult it is or how i can make it more difficult.

So can some one give me some examples of a 4 person group trying to find the right CR for them?

It's supposed to work like this:

The APL is the Average level of members of the party. CR is the challenge rating of the encounter, generated by measuring how powerful the monster is in comparison to the party.

If the party is, say, 5th level, then a CR 5 encounter should be a "on-level" encounter, consuming approximately 20% of the party resources.


Right So dose that mean that the APL is = to Cr. So like the 4 party members that are all 4th level. 4*4/4 = 4 I should put them up against a CR 4/ or 4 CR 1/ or 2 CR 2? and if i want to drain there resource quicker, i put them up against a Cr 5 or 6 to drain more of it?


Salovs wrote:
Right So dose that mean that the APL is = to Cr. So like the 4 party members that are all 4th level. 4*4/4 = 4 I should put them up against a CR 4/ or 4 CR 1/ or 2 CR 2? and if i want to drain there resource quicker, i put them up against a Cr 5 or 6 to drain more of it?

Kinda. The equation falls apart once you stretch it far enough. 10 CR 1 enemies aren't going to be equivalent to a CR 10 encounter, because they simply won't have the hit chance to challenge the party. As a GM, it does take a little estimation on your end to craft an encounter that's still challenging.


It is often much easier to use the desired CR as an equivalent to XP. So, if you have an APL of 4 and you want to throw a CR 4 encounter at them, you can use Table 12-2 (pg 398) "Total XP" column and see that a CR4 encounter is worth 1,200 XP.

Now, with that set as your XP budget, you build your encounter using the individual CR of the creatures until you get close to your budget. In this example, you can use:

A single CR4 creature
or
A CR3 creature plus a CR1 creature
or
2 x CR2 creatures
or
3 x CR1 creatures
or
6 x CR1/2 creatures

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