Are my Encounters Too Easy?

[Draconder]

Hello everyone

So, I have been running a new campaign for my friends and I had built a encounter where my friend's characters finally chase down and fight one of the big bad guys. So, I figure I'd use the severe difficulty as I thought it was fitting and I even had concerns I might make it too difficult as I added more monsters into the mix. I need not have worried as my small band of adventurers DESTROYED the big bad and his minions.

The first turn the Life Oracle cast Noise Blast, the big bad critically failed their save and they did 30 damage which would had instantly slayed the NPC if it wasn't some fudging of numbers.

Second turn the Life Oracle did 3 action signature spell HEAL to turn all the Skeletal Guards to dust to heal what meagre damage I did to the party.

My friends had a blast, they were cheering all the way which ultimately is the important thing but considering how effortlessly they won this severe encounter I am worried I am doing something wrong.

The Party consists of:
- Level 3 Life Oracle
- Level 3 Champion
- Level 3 Swashbuckler

Against them was:
- 1x Level 2 Prophet (30xp)
- 1x Level 1 Cultist (20xp)
- 1x Level 1 Skeleton Soldier (20xp)
- 3x Level -1 Skeletal Guard (30xp)

So, with a party of 3 level 3 players, my severe budget was 90xp and I had gone over by 10 and still they dominated.

Now, my campaign is dealing with heavy undead themes as the party is dealing with a void cult but might I have shot myself in the foot by having a Life Oracle or is there something I am missing when building encounters?

Thank you to everyone for your help.

[Perpdepog]

I think it's more the fact that one of your players is a life oracle, and another is a champion. Those two classes are going to have an easier time against undead foes, for sure.

There's also the fact that, while you have more enemies than your party, they all appear to be lower level, which lets the abilities your oracle used really shine, making damage and crits more likely.

I'm with you in saying this isn't a bad thing, but it's something to keep in mind going forward. Consider having one higher-level boss, who is a few levels above your party's level, and perhaps more crappy little gribblies who are a few levels below to help with your encounter budgeting. Your oracle may blast through them with Heal spells, but that's OK. I imagine they picked that setup so they could have cool moments like that, and it's nice to let them. You can also have more intelligent undead and baddies clock the oracle as a problem and go after them, forcing the oracle to move or get womped, meaning they won't have the actions for a three-action Heal.

There's also the fact that you just haven't got a ton of big-ticket abilities on monsters at that level. If you really need to stick with your undead theming you could always reskin a creature you like, give it the Undead trait and most of the typical undead immunities, and be good to go.

[Tridus]

Yeah, this is a case of your PCs happen to have good counters for the enemies, and combined with some luck made it roll their way. But your BBEG is lower level than the party is, so it's not really a "BBEG". This is a big enemy pack fight, and AoE is really strong in those.

A Creature 5 is only crit failing on a nat 1 and will be able to hit back a lot harder.

It's good to mix up the type of encounters you have. Your players pretty clearly enjoyed this one and it's fun to feel effective. It just happened to suit them. They won't be so fortunate against every kind of enemy.

[Draconder]

Thank you two very much for helping put everything into context. Reading both of your posts it has given me some ideas how to progress.

I could have a clever BBEG send a few waves of skeletal minions in anticipation to wear the oracle down or something like that.

At the same time I will continue to give more encounters like this, it is nice to feel powerful and heroic when cutting through minions. I do try and mix up the difficulty by throwing a mixture of trivial and low threat encounters in the pot.

I re-read the rules for building encounters and I really misread on part when accounting for different party sizes where it says it is best to reduce enemies and hazards rather than making one enemy weaker. I also didn't appreciate a creature level -1 isn't enough of a threat.

BUT

With a party of 3, my budget of 90xp feels incredibly tight. A severe threat boss party level +2 is already 80xp out of my 90xp budget. Is a single party level +2 creature going to be enough of a threat for a party of three? (maybe add a simple or complex hazard?)

Or should I aim more for a creature that's the party level +1, costing only 60xp and giving me a little more space in my budget for lackeys or a lieutenant.

Or should I not be afraid to go over the budget a little? I hear Paizo maths is very reliable and I do not want to accidently make an encounter harder than it meant to be.

[Perpdepog]

I'd personally lean more to a level +1 creature and throw in a few more baddies rather than a level +2 creature. Having more guys on the field does mean they aren't as likely to get swept through sheer action economy. Then again, if your campaign is going on long enough, why not try both? Varying the kinds of encounters you throw at your party, which it sounds like you're already planning on doing, has two great benefits; you get a feel for places where your party struggles, and where they do well, and it gives you more interesting things to play with.

I'd also suggest being a smidge looser with the encounter budget. Not a whole lot looser, but if you go 10 to 20 points over I don't think it'll hurt too much. And yeah, I think introducing a hazard is a good way to liven up a fight against a singular enemy. I'm not really up on how 5E works, but what I heard about lair actions sounds like a great idea; I say steal it.

[Tridus]

I've never had to balance for a party of 3, but a Creature +2 is substantially stronger than anything below it. You could do a Creature +1 and a minion fight and see how that goes, and work from there. I suspect it's going to feel a lot more threatening to them.

I find in general in PF2 that scaling up encounters is easier than scaling down, but since you are scaling down from what's expected, it's something you'll have to deal with. That may require some experimentation on your part to discover just how much your party can handle and adjust accordingly.

[Claxon]

If you're players are having fun, that's the most important thing.

But, if this was really supposed to be the "boss" encounter, I would have probably recommended using fewer higher level creatures.

When you use many weak enemies...well this is the kind of fight you get. Your party uses an AOE, that the enemy has weakness to...and this all just fall apart. I would have suggested instead using like a CR 5 and maybe 2 CR-4 enemies (the CR-4 enemies are more for flavor and distraction) against your party of 3 CR 3 characters.

Maybe some Severed Head monsters accompanying a CR5 monster. Hard to make an exact choice, cause it depends on how you want to theme it exactly. But if you want to throw your party for a loop, send this after them. It's undead, but doesn't have positive energy weakness.

Anyways, ignoring exact monster selection, if you want to give you party an actual challenge they need to be facing enemies of a higher CR than the party level. On level or lower enemies...are mostly speedbumps.

Those speedbumps can help make an encounter challenging, but they really need to be supporting an enemy who's higher level than the party.

You could also do like a CR4 with 2 CR 1 enemies. But I think for a boss fight the CR5 monster is going to feel more like a challenge. The reduced party size changes the encounter dynamic by making it kind of hard to have enough minions to be worth bringing to the fight.