You did this correctly. 180xp will count as an "Extreme" threat, but the other thing to keep in mind is what builds up that 180xp. The ghouls, being +1, count as "Low or moderate-threat boss", though in this case it sounds like they were "low threat".
If your goal is to make a fight more challenging, using a higher level creature does this job more than multiple lower level creatures (in most cases, at least in my experience.)
Using your 180xp example: A level 3 (+2 80xp), a level 2 (+1, 60xp), and a level 1 (+0, 40xp) would likely make a more challenging encounter than x3 LVL 2's. Just because of the games tight math, that LVL 3 is harder to hit, and hits easier. Hitting easier also means critting easier, so on and so forth.
The other thing to factor in is the type of enemies vs the type of players. Character roles are more defined in 2e than in 1e, which gives certain parties advantages and disadvantages based on what the party composition is.
A few questions:
* did you increase the level of the ghouls? The bestiary ghouls are level 1, not level 2. You need to give them +1 to basically everything to make them work as 2nd level creature.
* did you roll especially badly (and/or the players roll especially well)? If either side did exceptionally, this could have a major impact
* did you remember the ghoul's special abilities, like forcing a DC15 fort save from everyone they hit to avoid paralysis?
* did the ghouls engage as a group, or one at a time? If they engaged one-at-a-time, this more like 3 consecutive trivial encounters
* did your players have characters or tactics that happened to be perfect for this fight? A party of elf divine magic-users will have a much easier time than a party of human rogues and swashbucklers
Any or all of these could have had a major effect.
A few questions:
* did you increase the level of the ghouls? The bestiary ghouls are level 1, not level 2. You need to give them +1 to basically everything to make them work as 2nd level creature.
* did you roll especially badly (and/or the players roll especially well)? If either side did exceptionally, this could have a major impact
* did you remember the ghoul's special abilities, like forcing a DC15 fort save from everyone they hit to avoid paralysis?
* did the ghouls engage as a group, or one at a time? If they engaged one-at-a-time, this more like 3 consecutive trivial encounters
* did your players have characters or tactics that happened to be perfect for this fight? A party of elf divine magic-users will have a much easier time than a party of human rogues and swashbucklersAny or all of these could have had a major effect.
Valid points, I assumed OP was using Ghasts, which are level 2 haha.
One correction however is the "you need to give them +1 to basically everything". making a creature "Elite" boosts AC/Atk/DCs/Saves/Perception/Skills by 2, not 1. Damage also goes up by 2, unless it's an ability with a limit to how many times it can be used (like a breath weapon) in which case 4.
* The ghouls kinda engaged one at a time attempting to lure the PCs into a position where all three ghouls could spring on the front-most PC. They were never able to execute that plan which may speak to the PCs correct use of tactics.
When designing your encounters, keep this in mind as a very large factor.
Flip the script - set your characters up in some kind of narrow tunnel where they have to squeeze through one by one and get ambushed one at a time, and this would have gone very differently. Or force them into some kind of non-optimal configuration (e.g., wizard has to go up front to open a secret door, which opens and the ghouls charge out), and that ups the difficulty quite a bit.
But an overall comment is that yes, luck has a lot to do with it, and PF2 is designed to prevent people from stacking so many bonuses as to auto-anything. Don't draw too much from a single encounter unless everyone rolled really average-ly, and don't over-adjust. If you need to adjust, adjust one thing that's small enough that you don't think it will make a difference. Unless your players are super impatient, it will take a few sessions to find a good equilibrium, but once you find it, it will be very rewarding.
It sounds like your players reduced the threat of an encounter by outplaying the monsters; splitting a single encounter with three enemies into three encounters with one is gonna make the whole situation much easier to contend with.
In part, it sounds like the tactics you had the ghouls used served to make the fight easier than it should have been.
If you had the ghouls run in attack, and run away, and then the PCs move once and attack twice you've given the PCs a big advantage, two attacks for one. Not only that but if you let them all focus on 1 enemy and the other 2 kept hitting and running away you're letting their tactics work.
If instead you had 1 ghoul attack the champion, one ghoul attack the ranger, and one harass the wizard & druid things might have felt really different for the group. Having a melee enemy in close to your squishy characters feels very threatening.
I agree with arachnofiend that based on your description you essentially let them split each ghoul into it's own mini encounter with the other ghouls not actually contributing much to the fight.
Hit and run tactics really only work if everyone start to split to follow a different character. If the whole party follows one enemy all you've done is split the encounter of 3 ghouls into 3 encounters with one ghoul.
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On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with having your monsters get out-played by the players.
The ghouls had a strategy. They executed to their strategy. If the players had acted the way that the ghouls expected, the players would have been the ones getting picked off one by one.
It looks to me like you also have a group of players that appreciate having tactics make a big difference to the outcome of a battle and wouldn't enjoy a 'rockem-sockem-robot combat' style.
I would counter that with "Ghouls are intelligent creatures, you shouldn't have them just keep using the same tactics that are obviously not working".
The PCs using good tactics is great, in fact it's a necessity in PF2 because the math without the use of tactics to alter it is in favor of the monster, but NCPs shouldn't execute one set of tactics only and ignore the PCs response to them.
The OP's question was "why didn't this fight seem more challenging?" and my and answer is "the PCs used good tactics and you used bad tactics in response, if you had used different tactics the same 3 creatures could have been much more threatening".
Yea. The PCs handily winning is indeed not a bad thing (as even the OP says). Your issue simply being that you wanted to challenge them a bit more and have them say, "Woah.. that was a close one!"
The advice of using a tougher monster with some lesser goons is good (even having one of the ghouls be a bit tougher). Also using their intelligence to realize their tactics aren't working.
Just bear in mind that a level +2 or level +3 creature can be fine at level 6, a 1st level party would get their butts handed to them by a creature of too high a level. So just be cautious when employing this tactic at low levels. One elite ghast with two level 1 ghouls would've been very challenging indeed!
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I have found my players much enjoy having too difficult encounters thrown at them with the opportunity to exploit a significant tactical advantage, then have encounters be too easy.
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* You are correct, I messed this up. I confused the ghoul level 1 with the ghast level 2. I will have to note not to do this in the future when planning encounters. So this was essentially a "severe" encounter at 140 xp.
Three ghouls is actually only 120 xp. Still Severe, but the number seems worth noting.
* The ghouls kinda engaged one at a time attempting to lure the PCs into a position where all three ghouls could spring on the front-most PC. They were never able to execute that plan which may speak to the PCs correct use of tactics.
Fighting the ghouls one at a time, as others note, effectively makes this three 40 xp encounters (which are listed as 'Trivial' for a reason...they tend to be very easy) rather than one 120 xp encounter. That's a combination of good tactics from the PCs, and not particularly good ones from the ghouls, again as others note.
Also, I wouldn't try any more Extreme encounters for a while, possibly ever. They're to be used very sparingly.
An actual Extreme encounter (ie: three ghasts all fighting the PCs at once, or a level +4 opponent) is basically supposed to have a 50% chance of a party wipe since it's a fair fight (ie: one with even chances of both sides winning). Do those more than once or twice and, by the balance of probabilities, a TPK will ensue.
Severe encounters should be more than challenging enough most times.
Mistakes like that happen. I wiped the floor with my party during the playtest by throwing the wrong creature at them. Didn't realize it until months later when I happened to be reading the Bestiary entry and thought to myself "hey wait, that creature had Feeblemind when I used it... oh... oh no... I read off the NEXT monster's stats that whole fight...!"
My experience, generally, is that solid tactics makes a huge difference in this game. Think of the Trivial/Low/Moderate/Severe/Extreme difficulty levels as a general guideline. I've had Severe encounters be a walk in the park, and I've had Moderate encounters nearly kill several characters.
Another thing to consider is that most battles don't happen in a vacuum. Did the party just step off on this adventure, full HP, all spells available, and pockets stuffed with potions? Or is the encounter happening after a long slog, spell slots are running dry, not enough time to top off HP, and the team is out of potions? That will significantly impact the way a battle goes.
A single Extreme encounter is dangerous but prooobably not lethal to a prepared party. A Severe encounter following a long string of Moderate encounters could break the team.
All of that said... sounds like you built it more or less fine. The tactics didn't pan out, but what can you do? Not everything goes according to plan. Keep on plugging.
If I were to re-write this encounter for you, aiming at Extreme, here's what I'd throw at your party of 4:
Extreme 1 Encounter, budget 160 xp
Elite Ghast (level 2+1=3), 80 xp
2 Ghouls (level 1), 40 x 2 = 80xp
The Elite Ghoul will be NASTY to a level 1 party. Using your desire to have a hit-and-run encounter, I'd have the 2 Ghouls enter the fray first to lock down the melee characters. The Elite Ghast enters Strides in, attacks, and Strides out. Each turn. The Ghouls, once engaged, have a routine of Strike, Strike, Stride, and as they stride away they into position to screen the Ghast. The party will have to be drawn further along if they want to keep engaging the undead. They will have difficulty nailing down the Ghast, who can move in, Strike, and move out with relative safety up until the Ghouls start to crumble. The higher level and Elite status of the Ghast will make it likely that a paralysis effect will land.. DC 17 Fortitude Save won't be tooo killer for the Champion who likely has a +6 or +7 Fort save, and the Ranger is probably right up there too, but heaven help the Druid and Wizard who probably didn't invest in CON too heavily and are only trained, not expert, in Fortitude saves. The Fevers are probably going to land at some point, but it's not so likely to crit so for the most part that'll suck later not now - but if one of those lands as a crit, hoooo boy, now you're in a seriously lethal situation for your poor party. And that's just what an Extreme encounter should be!
And if you wanted to run this as a Severe encounter, knowing that your party likes a good challenge, I'd probably do a Ghast plus two Ghouls straight up. That's 140 xp, so it's a bit hot for a Severe, but if your players appreciate being challenged, that'll be OK.
I can't stop typing...
If you don't like cakewalk encounters, then completely ignore Low and Trivial encounters altogether. I'm finding them to be very much foregone conclusions.
I would also advise not bothering with enemies that are lower than Party level -2. Below that, they're really just speedbumps or short-lived flanking buddies.
Building off of Zapp's ideas: Cowardly enemies that vastly outnumber the party, but individually don't want to personally be the fool who is left taking the full retaliation of the more powerful foe can make for great encounters that feel incredibly dangerous to the players, but the GM can be justified by having one or more of the goblins/ghouls/ other cowardly creatures act in a manner that is personally advantageous instead of what is tactically best for the whole group.
Part of the fun of this kind of encounter is that it creates opportunities for players to exploit the situation and even spot some role playing hooks that can lead into turning an enemy in combat, or at least breaking the back of the group by acknowledging that one or more of the creatures will be let go. Let the players know that something looks off about one of the creatures and it might encourage them to make a sense motive check or a recall knowledge check that could enable a diplomacy or intimidation or deception check that flips the momentum of the whole encounter. Plant encounters like this every couple of sessions and you will never have players complaining about the uselessness of using skills as third actions effectively in combat.
It can make for a really memorable and dynamic encounter that starts off feeling impossible, but never actually presents as much danger to the PCs as they imagine.
Adding texture to a combat and making it engaging and memorable are more important factors than raw combat strength.
The d20 is too big of a variable to be reliable anyways. I've had near TPKs on Low encounters because of hot dice and I've had the end boss of an AP roll nothing above 10 and get bodied in 3 rounds.
Having the ghouls all hit and run individualistically, not trying to aid the others too much, looking out for themselves etc. instead of fighting like a football line makes that fight sound way more fun.
Despite your math error it sounds like this fight was executed well if the PCs used tactics to match tactics instead of just running pathfinder.exe. Don't sweat the small things!