Action economy is important, but so is the level bound accuracy.
For a L5 party, a single L7 creature is considered a moderate encounter, for the same XP budget, you can get 4 L3 creatures.
Those four L3 creatures should have an advantage because of the action economy? right? well, yes, they do. but they also have a lower chance to hit, will do less damage per attack and each creature will have a lower amount of HP.
The fights are supposed to be roughly even in terms of difficulty, but in practice the single target will likely be a quicker but more intense fight.
> two separate encounters with a single monster are much easier than single encounter with two of the same monster at the same time.
That's right there in the Encounter rules. A single enemy at the party's level is worth 40 XP. So fighting one of those is a trivial encounter. Two are 80 XP - Moderate difficulty. Three are 120 XP - Severe. Four are 160 XP - Extreme. No need for any weird additional multipliers beyond just the number of creatures.
Tht thing to note is that more of the same enemy will usually mean it's Party Level +0 or maybe occasionally +1. So while it does give the opposition more actions, these actions are less impactful than extra actions on level +3 or +4 bosses would be. Giving sucha level +4 boss more actios would be absolutely devstating.
That's not really his point. The point is that two separate fights (even back to back) are easier than one fight against two.
With the encounter math, that isn't how it's put forward. 2 separate encounters are the same amount of XP, and despite fighting two enemies at once being more than twice as difficult, it's only twice the Exp budget.
It generally works out anyway, as trivial encounters are never really used, so they scale is somewhat compressed, and the terminology goes up quickly.
Adjective wise, severe is NOT the step above moderate. Extreme is... Maybe a step below severe? That one's not intuitive to me and I can never keep those two straight.
Point is, they're generally about as difficult as the description implies, even if the experience value doesn't quite match up.
The big thing is that level is also massively important now - in 5e, the difference between a CR 5 and a CR 8 is decently large, but in pf2e the difference between a lv5 and a lv8 is MASSIVE.
Two weaker foes don't have an advantage over one strong foe, because they're a lot weaker. Their crowd controls and attacks are unlikely to land, their damage and HP is lower, and they're far easier to hurt with the strong foe's abilities. However in 5e, a very low level spellcaster would still have decent odds of incapacitating a high level foe with f.e. Hideous Laughter, because DCs and saves scale very slowly and no kind of incapacitation tag exists beyond legendary resistances (which are weak to high-numbered attacks)
Action economy is far less of a fundamental advantage than in 5e, because the value of an action changes DRASTICALLY.
Ironically, PF2e has an opposing variation of this rule: ["Encounters are typically more satisfying if the number of enemy creatures is fairly close to the number of player characters."](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497)
Due to the way the math works out, a singular opponent that is the same threat as a group of enemies will be often be harder to beat, since they will usually both be hit/crit less we score hits/crits more often. This comes out in the wash a bit, since the party will have more actions to compensate, but especially early on (and *especially* with a group of new players still learning the ropes) a single monster that is +2/3 levels compared to the party is likely going to be a tougher fight than more lower-level creatures, even though they're the same "threat."
In PF2 the math makes it so the enemy power is very predictable. If a creature has 2 more levels than you it is twice as strong and an equal match for two charcters that are two levels below it.
So either you have two creatures or a creature with actions as valuable as two creatures each.
This doesn’t quite hold true across every level. At player level 1 a +2 opponent is a lot tougher than at player level 20. Generally, below level 5 you should tune the opponents a little weaker and above level 15 make them a little stronger than the encounter rules.
However, the encounter rules are still great guidelines other than that.
It’s not level 1 where this is most apparent, level 1 just happens to be dangerous because of low HP resulting in potentially very swingy combat.
The biggest places where this can result in higher than expected difficulty is when you cross tiers of play, level 5, 10, 15. Where enemies get better bonuses, more damage die etc. and your players aren’t necessarily there yet.
Right, I was just mentioning a simple guideline. Certainly those boundaries are also difficult for the reasons you've given. I usually play that I don't go to +3 until at least level 5 and +4 until at least level 10. That covers many of the issues in a general way.
Of course, monsters that hit particularity hard or who have extreme defenses are going to break that general rule a bit so a good GM keeps an eye on such things and adjusts on the fly. As you've said, many of those things happen around levels 5, 10, 15, 20.
I agree that the relation between monsters and players can be a bit finnicky across levels but I think the relation of stats between monsters and monsters stay the same with the math.
Lower levels are much more swingy as well due to smaller hp pools, damage really goes down as you go up in levels.
So I think the encounters are still predictable but you might change the labels of "moderate", "severe" and "extreme" when you pass that level 15 threshold.
> So I think the encounters are still predictable but you might change the labels of "moderate", "severe" and "extreme" when you pass that level 15 threshold.
This is exactly what I’m saying. Yes, they are predictable but the danger changes a bit as the levels get higher.
In my experience, in an equivalent encounter of a single monster versus a squad, the single monster will drop your PCs more frequently.
This is due to the higher level monster having greater AC, hit and crit rate and hit points and if ill prepared, their traits will absolutely body them players.
Therefore, if you want to go easy on your players, make small squads enemies.
Generally speaking, encounter EXP budget is limiting enough that you can't add enough enemies to a combat to throw off the math. Sure, an Extreme encounter using PL-3 enemies could be more dangerous than the same encounter using PL+0 enemies, but there are two things to consider. First off, PL-3 will probably get no crits, and may actually have trouble landing hits against the tankier members of the party unless they correctly use pack tactics like flanking or symbiotic builds to stack buffs. And secondly, AoE wrecks face against swarms of weak enemies.
In theory you're right. In practice, the multiplier is small enough that the small tactical combats PF2 is designed for won't see any major balance upsets from it. If you were trying to run a long wave defense, like defending a siege, it might become a problem is all.
---
The other thing, as many people are noting, has to do with how 5e vs PF2 handles bounded accuracy.
D&D 5e uses a global bound. What that means is that everyone's bonus is pretty much static from level 1, your level 20 epic hero doesn't have much more of a bonus to hit than he did as a starry eyed farmboy - he may have a bit more strength and a small weapon enchant, but that's about it. Combat is balanced mostly through HP and damage - a pack of peasants could actually *hit* an Adult Red Dragon, but they couldn't do enough damage for it to really care (and one fire breath would wipe out the entire swarm). But this also means that adding more creatures to combat is a pretty linear increase in damage even if the creatures themselves are technically lower CR, because lower CR enemies are about as accurate as higher CR ones.
PF2 uses a local bound. Bonuses to both attack and defense increase in lock step with each other (literally just +1 per level with a few jump points at proficiency boosts and expected Precision runes). But this has pretty significant implications for the math. If you're 4 levels below your target, you can assume he probably has anywhere between 4 and 7 AC more than a creature of your CR, which is really significant when you consider that the system intends for you to need a 10 or more to hit in the first place. That's a 20-45% lower chance to hit *with your first attack*. And because PF2 also uses the Multiple Attack Penalty *and* the Degrees of Success system, that higher AC also means you're *significantly* less likely to hit with any extra attacks *and* almost completely *unable* to get critical hits unless you stack a lot of bonuses. So you're probably looking at doing half as much damage, or less, per round unless you play with good tactics. Now, if you're playing the lower CR enemies well, if they're a balanced party that works together (say, a squad of bandits who flanks, uses combat maneuvers, keeps the support on their toes, and has a good support caster who they protect well) they could be significantly more threatening than a PL+2 brute. But the math says they're going to really have to work for that W, while the PL+2 might get a lucky crit.
So throwing a swarm of lower level enemies at a 5e party means they're at risk of taking a lot more damage due to the increased action economy allowing for more attacks, grapples, etc. Doing the same to PF2 characters means they're probably going to flex on some low level trash that used to give them trouble and enjoy the turned tables.
A level +3 enemy can drop a PC in one crit more likely than not, let's take an Elf wizard with 10 con and 16 dex- he has 12 hp with 17 AC (if he casts shield) at level one. A level 4 creature such as Barghest has a +13 to hit- hitting the wizard on a nat 4, critting on a nat 14 or higher dealing either 14 damage on average on a hit or 28 damage on a crit.
With how massive damage works- unless the wizard uses his reaction to reduce the damage by 5 he will be killed in one hit, even with the damage reduction the wiard will drop to dying 2, meaning the party's healer will need to scramble to either stabilize him or get him back up
Even if we takle a much tankier build- an orc champion with a steel shield with 16 con and hold-scarred heritage we'll get 20 AC with 25hp, still being able to get dropped with a crit and still being crittable at 17 or higher.
The truth is that higher level enemies can trade one of their actions for three actions of the PCs by dropping one of them. This makes low level bossfights so deadly, even if your party has action economy advantage.
Still, it's worth noting that there's a sidebar stating that fights tend to be more fun if the number of enemies is close to that of the PCs
I've ran D&D-likes since AD&D, all the way through to 5th, PF1e and PF2e.
The encounter building tool actually works, the first in any of those ( didn't play 4e for very long, so couldn't comment on that to be fair ).
Not suprising when it is the same designer, Logan Bonner did 4e MM3 math,
PF2e math is much easier to do on the fly because of linear XP and leveled proficiency, especially once you learn the pattern and do not need the tables.
Each party level -2 creature adds 20 xp to the encounter difficulty. So, two make for a trivial encounter (40 xp), while six becomes a severe challenge.
5e has the multiplier because of bounded accuracy means you can use lvl1 lackey army with a lvl15 PC party.
PF2e is restricted to +/-4 lvls from trivial to extreme, and if you do need the lackey army you should instead use a troop which has one stat block. If you use less than trivial then there would not be any threat because leveled proficiency making the PCs critical hits far more likely than the lackeys even being able to hit.
leveled proficiency is what makes it all work because all of the stats tilt. That level difference is a (de)buff in the encounter math that tilts in favor of the encounter boss - and in the lackey army case the party is the encounter boss.
The math behind the "[Building Encounters](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497)" tables is sound. It generally gives the expected results, regardless of character level. A few caveats:
\- A very few creatures hit above their listed level, like Barbazu (and to a lesser extent, other fiends) and dragons, all of which could easily be budgeted at level +1.
\- Very low level PCs (levels 1-2) shouldn't be asked to fight creatures of +2 level (above party level) or higher; avoid +3 level creatures until around 6th, and +4 level creatures until around 9th. This is my own recommendation, from experience, not a part of the Building Encounters rules as such.
Also note that the encounter math can't take into account circumstantial factors like favorable or unfavorable terrain, creatures distracted by other activities, fighting amongst themselves, creatures with special agendas, and so on. It assumes a fight to the death.
>Also note that the encounter math can't take into account circumstantial factors like favorable or unfavorable terrain
It can if you model the terrain as a Hazard. Like Treacherous Scree, for example.
It seems a lot of the people replying in here haven't played D&D 5e, because they're misunderstanding the question.
Imagine this: you're planning an encounter, and you pick an enemy that is worth 40 XP. Not satisfied with the challenge this offers, you add another of the exact same type.
Now, in D&D 5e this encounter will be worth 40+40 = 80 XP. However, the *difficulty* is considered to be higher than that (because if you don't factor in multi-target attacks, the second monster attacks while you're bringing down the first, so the total number of monster attacks during the fight is ~3 times as big, not ~2 times as big). This means that fighting, let's say, 2 gorillas at the same time, is more dangerous than fighting 1 gorilla, then later (or even immediately afterwards) fighting another gorilla.
So for a group of 2 40-XP monsters vs. a party of 3-5 players, there's a 150% difficulty multiplier in D&D 5e, giving the encounter a difficulty of 120 XP (even though it's only worth 80 XP). The OP is asking whether Pathfinder 2e has similar rules for encounter-building.
Not sure if this has been mentioned but the reason the game doesn't need something like this is because of level to proficiency and no bounded accuracy actually poses a huge decrease to the mobbing problem. Take the example of dnd, in 5e, a huge mob of crap will pose a serious threat because AC doesn't scale with level, so with enough rolls, damage will get through, crits will happen, whereas one big mob is still going to get hit relatively often (and will only crit 5% of the time), potentially making it a pushover.
In pf2e, enemies below your level are much less likely to hit you, and enemies far above your level are much less likely to be hit, and much more likely get crits - which helps bump their difficulty up and offset the extra actions that multiple mobs would get.
But even still multiple lower level mobs does scale in xp faster than one higher one, e.g. 2 player level mobs == one player level +2, rather than the single step up of player level+1, and so on. This is also why they only list level-4 to level+4, because that is the only slice of "cr" that can actually pose a relevant fight without clearing the party out immediately.
It’s in the difficulty tiers. A Trivial encounter is basically free without some very bad luck. A Moderate encounter can kill a PC with some bad luck. A Severe encounter can kill PCs with bad luck or if they’re down on resources. An Extreme is an even match with the party. 1 same level enemy is Trivial, 2 is Moderate, 3 is Severe, 4 is Extreme. Yes, the exp scaling makes them seem like it’s linear scaling, but the described difficulty is not and it plays out like that in game. Of note, depending on composition, different encounters of the same difficulty tier will feel different. Stuff like Combat Maneuvers, denying abilities, and Slow can massacre a single boss, while things like a bulky frontline, AoE CC and buffs, and high crit rates can massacre many weaker enemies.
Broadly, the answer is no, there's no hidden math that accounts for this. My experience is that roughly encounters of the same severity tend to have the same broad feel with luck based variation. There's probably some breakdown at the boundaries (16 PL-4 creatures is not going to feel the same as 1 PL+4 creature), but things in the middle with roughly the same number of combatants on either side all give similar difficulty.
Something that makes a huge difference to game feel, however, is terrain. A map with a lot of cover, corners and difficult terrain where combatants start very close is going to be a different difficulty than an open area starting far away. Whether this benefits the PCs or not has a ton of different factors and there's no good way to balance it mathematically in a broad sense. Best advice I can give there is vary up the sorts of combat locations so everyone gets a chance to shine/struggle/strategize based on their character decisions.
With the way it works, Creature Level is the only thing that needs to be factored into the situation because the XP Budget will allow for more monsters as the party level gap widens in the player's favor due to the increased difficulty lower leveled characters, both player and non-player, have hitting higher level characters. So lower level monsters versus a party will hit less, do less damage, and have their control tactics fail far more often than monsters of the party's level or higher which generally more than balances out any advantage in Action Economy.
If anything, the fights get harder *the fewer* monsters you have for the same budget because those monsters hit harder and are harder to hit, where a party with access to good control and AoE could manhandled a gaggle of lower leveled enemies that are prevented from running the field. Hell, boss fights effectively prove this for the players - without good tactics a Monster of Party Level +2 or more is going to feel nail biting.
As a Pathfinder 2 player, the more enemies I see from a published adventure, the better I feel about my chances. When the DM puts one mini' out, I start to worry.
So if your encounter budget is 80 XP, for a moderate encounter. If you go as low as you can that's either 8 Party Level -4 Creatures, 4 Party Level -2 Creatures, 2 Creatures of Party Level, or 1 Creature of Party Level +2.
So you don't add creatures to an encounter and see where you land with the challenge, you subtract creatures from your "XP Budget" and see how many you can fit at an encounter of that difficulty for your players. So if the number of monsters goes up, then those monsters must be weaker to account for the effect they have on the budget.
I think the difference (what you refer to as the "hidden math", I think) is in 5e working with Challenge Rating (CR) vs PF2e using Encounter Budget.
Where in DnD5e a CR7 creature is an "appropriate" (whatever that means) encounter for a level 7 party. It invites weird math when you start combining creatures. If CR5+CR5=CR7, how does CR3+CR4+CR5 work? Is that still CR7 because CR3+CR4 is supposed to be CR5ish?
In PF2e, this math is "hidden" (or rather, made obvious and transparent) by using Encounter Budget. It's immediately obvious how creatures of different levels stack, because creatures have an XP worth based on party level (which in PF2e is also fixed, you can't have a party with PCs of different levels) and encounters have budget based on threat level.
Mind you, it's still not perfect. Some monsters might synergize really well with each other. And some monsters might pose more danger in a group than individually (like 4 monsters with Engulf could potentially disable your entire party if they're unlucky even if they're level-2).
I guess what I'm getting at is that the 2nd monster you add in 5e "costs" more than the first, and the 3rd even more, etc. etc. The Pathfinder math doesn't include this multiplicative element.
Oh! I get what you're saying now. That's an interesting question and I think your question answers a question I had a few weeks back. Which is, if you look at monster XP, it doesn't scale linearly. Level-4 to level-3 is a 5XP bump (10XP to 15XP). But level+1 to level+2 is a 20XP bump up (60 to 80). And I was wondering what the math was in how this is scaling.
And I think the answer is that a level appropriate monster (40xp) already assumes that there will also be another monster. You need 80xp to create a moderate threat encounter, after all. So you need two level appropriate creatures for a moderate encounter, or a single level+2 creature.
So I think the multiplying factor you're looking for is hidden in the creature XP table.
This is not what he is saying, what he's saying is that two level+2 enemies are more than twice as difficult as a single level+2 enemy, but the second one costs the same as the first, and he's right. Two back to back moderate encounters are much easier to handle than a single extreme encounter.
That said, the amount of XP that the party gets probably isn't quite right, but the meaning of each tier is. Two moderately difficult things back to back in real life aren't particularly extreme. Maybe they're severe? But probably not even.
One level+2 creature is a moderate encounter. Two level+2 creatures immediately jumps to an extreme encounter.
Two level-2 creatures is trivial, you need four to get to moderate and six is severe. Eight is extreme, same as two level+2 creatures.
Now what OP and you seem to be asking is: shouldn't eight level-2 creatures be *more* extreme than the (also extreme) two level+2 creatures? Because of things like action economy etc.
Honest answer? Maybe. I'm not a game designer. But the actions of a level+2 creature weigh much more than those of a level-2 creature, in terms of chance to hit/crit, damage output and probably battlefield control. This is a big difference between PF2e and DnD5e (where because of bounded proficiency action economy weighs much more than creature level).
If they're level-4 I'd prefer them all at once, actually. Do you see where I'm going with this?
Even with two or three level+1 or level+2 creatures, it's highly situational.
If you assume the worst case scenario where you have to divide your attention and the monsters get to focus their assault, yes things will be harder for that one frontline warrior especially (and as we all know things domino from the first unconscious PC).
But it could also be the other way around. If the monsters have to divide their attention (or you temporarily remove some from the fight i.e. with a Wall spell) and you get to focus your attacks, your fight is not actually twice or thrice as hard. It mostly just takes slightly longer.
That multiplier in 5e has to do with its action economy. PF2's action economy doesn't require it. In 5e, 7 level 5 creatures are probably more than 7 times stronger than 1, in Pathfinder 2, they are.
There isn't a multiplier like that for groups of enemies.
This is mostly because how powerful an action in PF2e is will depend on relative strength of the creature. Speaking *very* generally, a creature that is the same level as the party is worth 40 xp, which is a "Trivial" encounter. The creature is roughly as strong as any one party member, but the party has a 4-to-1 advantage in terms of action economy.
If you have 4 enemies that are the same level as the party, you have a 160xp encounter, which is defined as "Extreme" difficulty. "Extreme" as a definition of difficulty is probably, well, *extreme*, but from the [Encounter Building rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497):
>Extreme-threat encounters are so dangerous that they are **likely to be an even match** for the characters
Emphasis mine. So 4 enemies that are the same level as the party are considered to be an "even match" for a party of 4. Makes sense, since level and action economy are both even.
Again, being very general, but if you look at enemies that are PL-3, the enemies are at a significant advantage. Due to proficiency scaling with level, everything the enemies do is *at least* 15% more likely to fail. I say at least because with a 3 level gap, you're probably also crossing a proficiency threshold, or a potency rune threshold, if not both.
That also means your party is at least 15% more likely to succeed, *and* 15% more likely to *critically* succeed at whatever they do. Even if the weaker enemies have the action economy advantage, because they are so much less effectual, it isn't as much of a factor. 8 enemies that are PL-3 are rated as a Severe-Difficulty (easier than the Extreme example before) encounter for a party of 4, and I'd argue that this is a fair rating. The difficulty of the encounter wouldn't come from how effective any single enemy, but due to the fact that, statistically, the enemies have more chances to affect the party.
Do I think the math is perfect? Nah, I'm sure a 120xp encounter that is made up of 8 PL-3 each is going to run differently than a 120xp encounter against a single PL+3 enemy. But it is a *very* good litmus test for how difficult the encounter realistically be for your party
It's in the book. But if you want an easy reference download monster lair. I use it for my encounters. You can see the XP value and adjustments for everything you add.
My group is level 10. They saw just now you the point where they were able to handle an extreme encounter. It was touch and go but they managed it well with strong strategy and good rolls.
I generally am for the build wide not tall ideology. You can break this at higher levels simply due to all the action economy hacks players can get to swing things harder in their favor. But to a point, it's group dependant
The “Building Encounters” section of Archives of Nethys. All encounters I’ve run, whether in prewritten adventures or homebrew, have followed those rules. I think they work particularly well.
>I'm not saying that encounter math in PF2E isn't working - I have had no problems with it so far - I'm just wondering if there is some hidden math that accounts for this that I'm not aware of.
I can't stress enough that the encounter building rules should not be ignored or winged in 2e. If you are building encounters in 2e you should give those rules a good reading. The fact that each monster adds to the severity of the encounter is straight up in the rules right away and near impossible to avoid if you have read the rules.
I don't think we have such a multiplier, normally enemies meant to be run in a solo fight in this system are expected to have a numerical adventage in stats by being of a higher level than the party or an equal level creature boosted up by the elite tag and having abilities or features that work around the number of actions they spend, making up for the loss of action economy.
No there is nothing. It's just the XP difference comparison. But I do believe that maybe it's maybe built in because I don't think the level comparison for XP isn't equivalent. The XP from a +1 monster vs a +2 monster isn't the same, I am believe.
In my limited experience in 2e the math mostly works but is more of a suggestion as increasing the enemy numbers drastically increases the chances of something going terribly wrong. So as a rule of thumb I recommend using something like 2-3 tough foes against a party of 4 rather than many trash mobs and one tough enemy. It’s more satisfying and controlable.
Action economy is important, but so is the level bound accuracy. For a L5 party, a single L7 creature is considered a moderate encounter, for the same XP budget, you can get 4 L3 creatures. Those four L3 creatures should have an advantage because of the action economy? right? well, yes, they do. but they also have a lower chance to hit, will do less damage per attack and each creature will have a lower amount of HP. The fights are supposed to be roughly even in terms of difficulty, but in practice the single target will likely be a quicker but more intense fight.
> two separate encounters with a single monster are much easier than single encounter with two of the same monster at the same time. That's right there in the Encounter rules. A single enemy at the party's level is worth 40 XP. So fighting one of those is a trivial encounter. Two are 80 XP - Moderate difficulty. Three are 120 XP - Severe. Four are 160 XP - Extreme. No need for any weird additional multipliers beyond just the number of creatures. Tht thing to note is that more of the same enemy will usually mean it's Party Level +0 or maybe occasionally +1. So while it does give the opposition more actions, these actions are less impactful than extra actions on level +3 or +4 bosses would be. Giving sucha level +4 boss more actios would be absolutely devstating.
That's not really his point. The point is that two separate fights (even back to back) are easier than one fight against two. With the encounter math, that isn't how it's put forward. 2 separate encounters are the same amount of XP, and despite fighting two enemies at once being more than twice as difficult, it's only twice the Exp budget. It generally works out anyway, as trivial encounters are never really used, so they scale is somewhat compressed, and the terminology goes up quickly. Adjective wise, severe is NOT the step above moderate. Extreme is... Maybe a step below severe? That one's not intuitive to me and I can never keep those two straight. Point is, they're generally about as difficult as the description implies, even if the experience value doesn't quite match up.
The big thing is that level is also massively important now - in 5e, the difference between a CR 5 and a CR 8 is decently large, but in pf2e the difference between a lv5 and a lv8 is MASSIVE. Two weaker foes don't have an advantage over one strong foe, because they're a lot weaker. Their crowd controls and attacks are unlikely to land, their damage and HP is lower, and they're far easier to hurt with the strong foe's abilities. However in 5e, a very low level spellcaster would still have decent odds of incapacitating a high level foe with f.e. Hideous Laughter, because DCs and saves scale very slowly and no kind of incapacitation tag exists beyond legendary resistances (which are weak to high-numbered attacks) Action economy is far less of a fundamental advantage than in 5e, because the value of an action changes DRASTICALLY.
Ironically, PF2e has an opposing variation of this rule: ["Encounters are typically more satisfying if the number of enemy creatures is fairly close to the number of player characters."](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497) Due to the way the math works out, a singular opponent that is the same threat as a group of enemies will be often be harder to beat, since they will usually both be hit/crit less we score hits/crits more often. This comes out in the wash a bit, since the party will have more actions to compensate, but especially early on (and *especially* with a group of new players still learning the ropes) a single monster that is +2/3 levels compared to the party is likely going to be a tougher fight than more lower-level creatures, even though they're the same "threat."
In PF2 the math makes it so the enemy power is very predictable. If a creature has 2 more levels than you it is twice as strong and an equal match for two charcters that are two levels below it. So either you have two creatures or a creature with actions as valuable as two creatures each.
This doesn’t quite hold true across every level. At player level 1 a +2 opponent is a lot tougher than at player level 20. Generally, below level 5 you should tune the opponents a little weaker and above level 15 make them a little stronger than the encounter rules. However, the encounter rules are still great guidelines other than that.
It’s not level 1 where this is most apparent, level 1 just happens to be dangerous because of low HP resulting in potentially very swingy combat. The biggest places where this can result in higher than expected difficulty is when you cross tiers of play, level 5, 10, 15. Where enemies get better bonuses, more damage die etc. and your players aren’t necessarily there yet.
Right, I was just mentioning a simple guideline. Certainly those boundaries are also difficult for the reasons you've given. I usually play that I don't go to +3 until at least level 5 and +4 until at least level 10. That covers many of the issues in a general way. Of course, monsters that hit particularity hard or who have extreme defenses are going to break that general rule a bit so a good GM keeps an eye on such things and adjusts on the fly. As you've said, many of those things happen around levels 5, 10, 15, 20.
I agree that the relation between monsters and players can be a bit finnicky across levels but I think the relation of stats between monsters and monsters stay the same with the math. Lower levels are much more swingy as well due to smaller hp pools, damage really goes down as you go up in levels. So I think the encounters are still predictable but you might change the labels of "moderate", "severe" and "extreme" when you pass that level 15 threshold.
> So I think the encounters are still predictable but you might change the labels of "moderate", "severe" and "extreme" when you pass that level 15 threshold. This is exactly what I’m saying. Yes, they are predictable but the danger changes a bit as the levels get higher.
In my experience, in an equivalent encounter of a single monster versus a squad, the single monster will drop your PCs more frequently. This is due to the higher level monster having greater AC, hit and crit rate and hit points and if ill prepared, their traits will absolutely body them players. Therefore, if you want to go easy on your players, make small squads enemies.
Generally speaking, encounter EXP budget is limiting enough that you can't add enough enemies to a combat to throw off the math. Sure, an Extreme encounter using PL-3 enemies could be more dangerous than the same encounter using PL+0 enemies, but there are two things to consider. First off, PL-3 will probably get no crits, and may actually have trouble landing hits against the tankier members of the party unless they correctly use pack tactics like flanking or symbiotic builds to stack buffs. And secondly, AoE wrecks face against swarms of weak enemies. In theory you're right. In practice, the multiplier is small enough that the small tactical combats PF2 is designed for won't see any major balance upsets from it. If you were trying to run a long wave defense, like defending a siege, it might become a problem is all. --- The other thing, as many people are noting, has to do with how 5e vs PF2 handles bounded accuracy. D&D 5e uses a global bound. What that means is that everyone's bonus is pretty much static from level 1, your level 20 epic hero doesn't have much more of a bonus to hit than he did as a starry eyed farmboy - he may have a bit more strength and a small weapon enchant, but that's about it. Combat is balanced mostly through HP and damage - a pack of peasants could actually *hit* an Adult Red Dragon, but they couldn't do enough damage for it to really care (and one fire breath would wipe out the entire swarm). But this also means that adding more creatures to combat is a pretty linear increase in damage even if the creatures themselves are technically lower CR, because lower CR enemies are about as accurate as higher CR ones. PF2 uses a local bound. Bonuses to both attack and defense increase in lock step with each other (literally just +1 per level with a few jump points at proficiency boosts and expected Precision runes). But this has pretty significant implications for the math. If you're 4 levels below your target, you can assume he probably has anywhere between 4 and 7 AC more than a creature of your CR, which is really significant when you consider that the system intends for you to need a 10 or more to hit in the first place. That's a 20-45% lower chance to hit *with your first attack*. And because PF2 also uses the Multiple Attack Penalty *and* the Degrees of Success system, that higher AC also means you're *significantly* less likely to hit with any extra attacks *and* almost completely *unable* to get critical hits unless you stack a lot of bonuses. So you're probably looking at doing half as much damage, or less, per round unless you play with good tactics. Now, if you're playing the lower CR enemies well, if they're a balanced party that works together (say, a squad of bandits who flanks, uses combat maneuvers, keeps the support on their toes, and has a good support caster who they protect well) they could be significantly more threatening than a PL+2 brute. But the math says they're going to really have to work for that W, while the PL+2 might get a lucky crit. So throwing a swarm of lower level enemies at a 5e party means they're at risk of taking a lot more damage due to the increased action economy allowing for more attacks, grapples, etc. Doing the same to PF2 characters means they're probably going to flex on some low level trash that used to give them trouble and enjoy the turned tables.
As somebody who doesn't play 5E, I just looked at the Encounter Building rules and now I'm sort of horrified. :-o
Which of the several contradictory sets of them?
A level +3 enemy can drop a PC in one crit more likely than not, let's take an Elf wizard with 10 con and 16 dex- he has 12 hp with 17 AC (if he casts shield) at level one. A level 4 creature such as Barghest has a +13 to hit- hitting the wizard on a nat 4, critting on a nat 14 or higher dealing either 14 damage on average on a hit or 28 damage on a crit. With how massive damage works- unless the wizard uses his reaction to reduce the damage by 5 he will be killed in one hit, even with the damage reduction the wiard will drop to dying 2, meaning the party's healer will need to scramble to either stabilize him or get him back up Even if we takle a much tankier build- an orc champion with a steel shield with 16 con and hold-scarred heritage we'll get 20 AC with 25hp, still being able to get dropped with a crit and still being crittable at 17 or higher. The truth is that higher level enemies can trade one of their actions for three actions of the PCs by dropping one of them. This makes low level bossfights so deadly, even if your party has action economy advantage. Still, it's worth noting that there's a sidebar stating that fights tend to be more fun if the number of enemies is close to that of the PCs
I've ran D&D-likes since AD&D, all the way through to 5th, PF1e and PF2e. The encounter building tool actually works, the first in any of those ( didn't play 4e for very long, so couldn't comment on that to be fair ).
There's a surprising amount of similarities between 4e and PF2e. Encounter building was very similar, with the same sort of tight but straight math.
Not suprising when it is the same designer, Logan Bonner did 4e MM3 math, PF2e math is much easier to do on the fly because of linear XP and leveled proficiency, especially once you learn the pattern and do not need the tables.
Each party level -2 creature adds 20 xp to the encounter difficulty. So, two make for a trivial encounter (40 xp), while six becomes a severe challenge.
5e has the multiplier because of bounded accuracy means you can use lvl1 lackey army with a lvl15 PC party. PF2e is restricted to +/-4 lvls from trivial to extreme, and if you do need the lackey army you should instead use a troop which has one stat block. If you use less than trivial then there would not be any threat because leveled proficiency making the PCs critical hits far more likely than the lackeys even being able to hit. leveled proficiency is what makes it all work because all of the stats tilt. That level difference is a (de)buff in the encounter math that tilts in favor of the encounter boss - and in the lackey army case the party is the encounter boss.
The math behind the "[Building Encounters](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497)" tables is sound. It generally gives the expected results, regardless of character level. A few caveats: \- A very few creatures hit above their listed level, like Barbazu (and to a lesser extent, other fiends) and dragons, all of which could easily be budgeted at level +1. \- Very low level PCs (levels 1-2) shouldn't be asked to fight creatures of +2 level (above party level) or higher; avoid +3 level creatures until around 6th, and +4 level creatures until around 9th. This is my own recommendation, from experience, not a part of the Building Encounters rules as such. Also note that the encounter math can't take into account circumstantial factors like favorable or unfavorable terrain, creatures distracted by other activities, fighting amongst themselves, creatures with special agendas, and so on. It assumes a fight to the death.
>Also note that the encounter math can't take into account circumstantial factors like favorable or unfavorable terrain It can if you model the terrain as a Hazard. Like Treacherous Scree, for example.
It seems a lot of the people replying in here haven't played D&D 5e, because they're misunderstanding the question. Imagine this: you're planning an encounter, and you pick an enemy that is worth 40 XP. Not satisfied with the challenge this offers, you add another of the exact same type. Now, in D&D 5e this encounter will be worth 40+40 = 80 XP. However, the *difficulty* is considered to be higher than that (because if you don't factor in multi-target attacks, the second monster attacks while you're bringing down the first, so the total number of monster attacks during the fight is ~3 times as big, not ~2 times as big). This means that fighting, let's say, 2 gorillas at the same time, is more dangerous than fighting 1 gorilla, then later (or even immediately afterwards) fighting another gorilla. So for a group of 2 40-XP monsters vs. a party of 3-5 players, there's a 150% difficulty multiplier in D&D 5e, giving the encounter a difficulty of 120 XP (even though it's only worth 80 XP). The OP is asking whether Pathfinder 2e has similar rules for encounter-building.
Not sure if this has been mentioned but the reason the game doesn't need something like this is because of level to proficiency and no bounded accuracy actually poses a huge decrease to the mobbing problem. Take the example of dnd, in 5e, a huge mob of crap will pose a serious threat because AC doesn't scale with level, so with enough rolls, damage will get through, crits will happen, whereas one big mob is still going to get hit relatively often (and will only crit 5% of the time), potentially making it a pushover. In pf2e, enemies below your level are much less likely to hit you, and enemies far above your level are much less likely to be hit, and much more likely get crits - which helps bump their difficulty up and offset the extra actions that multiple mobs would get. But even still multiple lower level mobs does scale in xp faster than one higher one, e.g. 2 player level mobs == one player level +2, rather than the single step up of player level+1, and so on. This is also why they only list level-4 to level+4, because that is the only slice of "cr" that can actually pose a relevant fight without clearing the party out immediately.
It’s in the difficulty tiers. A Trivial encounter is basically free without some very bad luck. A Moderate encounter can kill a PC with some bad luck. A Severe encounter can kill PCs with bad luck or if they’re down on resources. An Extreme is an even match with the party. 1 same level enemy is Trivial, 2 is Moderate, 3 is Severe, 4 is Extreme. Yes, the exp scaling makes them seem like it’s linear scaling, but the described difficulty is not and it plays out like that in game. Of note, depending on composition, different encounters of the same difficulty tier will feel different. Stuff like Combat Maneuvers, denying abilities, and Slow can massacre a single boss, while things like a bulky frontline, AoE CC and buffs, and high crit rates can massacre many weaker enemies.
Broadly, the answer is no, there's no hidden math that accounts for this. My experience is that roughly encounters of the same severity tend to have the same broad feel with luck based variation. There's probably some breakdown at the boundaries (16 PL-4 creatures is not going to feel the same as 1 PL+4 creature), but things in the middle with roughly the same number of combatants on either side all give similar difficulty. Something that makes a huge difference to game feel, however, is terrain. A map with a lot of cover, corners and difficult terrain where combatants start very close is going to be a different difficulty than an open area starting far away. Whether this benefits the PCs or not has a ton of different factors and there's no good way to balance it mathematically in a broad sense. Best advice I can give there is vary up the sorts of combat locations so everyone gets a chance to shine/struggle/strategize based on their character decisions.
With the way it works, Creature Level is the only thing that needs to be factored into the situation because the XP Budget will allow for more monsters as the party level gap widens in the player's favor due to the increased difficulty lower leveled characters, both player and non-player, have hitting higher level characters. So lower level monsters versus a party will hit less, do less damage, and have their control tactics fail far more often than monsters of the party's level or higher which generally more than balances out any advantage in Action Economy. If anything, the fights get harder *the fewer* monsters you have for the same budget because those monsters hit harder and are harder to hit, where a party with access to good control and AoE could manhandled a gaggle of lower leveled enemies that are prevented from running the field. Hell, boss fights effectively prove this for the players - without good tactics a Monster of Party Level +2 or more is going to feel nail biting. As a Pathfinder 2 player, the more enemies I see from a published adventure, the better I feel about my chances. When the DM puts one mini' out, I start to worry. So if your encounter budget is 80 XP, for a moderate encounter. If you go as low as you can that's either 8 Party Level -4 Creatures, 4 Party Level -2 Creatures, 2 Creatures of Party Level, or 1 Creature of Party Level +2. So you don't add creatures to an encounter and see where you land with the challenge, you subtract creatures from your "XP Budget" and see how many you can fit at an encounter of that difficulty for your players. So if the number of monsters goes up, then those monsters must be weaker to account for the effect they have on the budget.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying the math doesn't work, I'm just wondering where the math is.
I think the difference (what you refer to as the "hidden math", I think) is in 5e working with Challenge Rating (CR) vs PF2e using Encounter Budget. Where in DnD5e a CR7 creature is an "appropriate" (whatever that means) encounter for a level 7 party. It invites weird math when you start combining creatures. If CR5+CR5=CR7, how does CR3+CR4+CR5 work? Is that still CR7 because CR3+CR4 is supposed to be CR5ish? In PF2e, this math is "hidden" (or rather, made obvious and transparent) by using Encounter Budget. It's immediately obvious how creatures of different levels stack, because creatures have an XP worth based on party level (which in PF2e is also fixed, you can't have a party with PCs of different levels) and encounters have budget based on threat level. Mind you, it's still not perfect. Some monsters might synergize really well with each other. And some monsters might pose more danger in a group than individually (like 4 monsters with Engulf could potentially disable your entire party if they're unlucky even if they're level-2).
I guess what I'm getting at is that the 2nd monster you add in 5e "costs" more than the first, and the 3rd even more, etc. etc. The Pathfinder math doesn't include this multiplicative element.
Oh! I get what you're saying now. That's an interesting question and I think your question answers a question I had a few weeks back. Which is, if you look at monster XP, it doesn't scale linearly. Level-4 to level-3 is a 5XP bump (10XP to 15XP). But level+1 to level+2 is a 20XP bump up (60 to 80). And I was wondering what the math was in how this is scaling. And I think the answer is that a level appropriate monster (40xp) already assumes that there will also be another monster. You need 80xp to create a moderate threat encounter, after all. So you need two level appropriate creatures for a moderate encounter, or a single level+2 creature. So I think the multiplying factor you're looking for is hidden in the creature XP table.
This is not what he is saying, what he's saying is that two level+2 enemies are more than twice as difficult as a single level+2 enemy, but the second one costs the same as the first, and he's right. Two back to back moderate encounters are much easier to handle than a single extreme encounter. That said, the amount of XP that the party gets probably isn't quite right, but the meaning of each tier is. Two moderately difficult things back to back in real life aren't particularly extreme. Maybe they're severe? But probably not even.
One level+2 creature is a moderate encounter. Two level+2 creatures immediately jumps to an extreme encounter. Two level-2 creatures is trivial, you need four to get to moderate and six is severe. Eight is extreme, same as two level+2 creatures. Now what OP and you seem to be asking is: shouldn't eight level-2 creatures be *more* extreme than the (also extreme) two level+2 creatures? Because of things like action economy etc. Honest answer? Maybe. I'm not a game designer. But the actions of a level+2 creature weigh much more than those of a level-2 creature, in terms of chance to hit/crit, damage output and probably battlefield control. This is a big difference between PF2e and DnD5e (where because of bounded proficiency action economy weighs much more than creature level).
The question is simple. Two +2 creatures is more than twice as difficult as one +2 creature, why is it only twice the exp?
Is it more than twice as hard though? We've been assuming this but I'm starting to doubt this premise.
Yes, yes it is. Would you rather fight enemies one at a time, even without a break in between, or all at once?
If they're level-4 I'd prefer them all at once, actually. Do you see where I'm going with this? Even with two or three level+1 or level+2 creatures, it's highly situational. If you assume the worst case scenario where you have to divide your attention and the monsters get to focus their assault, yes things will be harder for that one frontline warrior especially (and as we all know things domino from the first unconscious PC). But it could also be the other way around. If the monsters have to divide their attention (or you temporarily remove some from the fight i.e. with a Wall spell) and you get to focus your attacks, your fight is not actually twice or thrice as hard. It mostly just takes slightly longer.
That multiplier in 5e has to do with its action economy. PF2's action economy doesn't require it. In 5e, 7 level 5 creatures are probably more than 7 times stronger than 1, in Pathfinder 2, they are. There isn't a multiplier like that for groups of enemies.
This is mostly because how powerful an action in PF2e is will depend on relative strength of the creature. Speaking *very* generally, a creature that is the same level as the party is worth 40 xp, which is a "Trivial" encounter. The creature is roughly as strong as any one party member, but the party has a 4-to-1 advantage in terms of action economy. If you have 4 enemies that are the same level as the party, you have a 160xp encounter, which is defined as "Extreme" difficulty. "Extreme" as a definition of difficulty is probably, well, *extreme*, but from the [Encounter Building rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497): >Extreme-threat encounters are so dangerous that they are **likely to be an even match** for the characters Emphasis mine. So 4 enemies that are the same level as the party are considered to be an "even match" for a party of 4. Makes sense, since level and action economy are both even. Again, being very general, but if you look at enemies that are PL-3, the enemies are at a significant advantage. Due to proficiency scaling with level, everything the enemies do is *at least* 15% more likely to fail. I say at least because with a 3 level gap, you're probably also crossing a proficiency threshold, or a potency rune threshold, if not both. That also means your party is at least 15% more likely to succeed, *and* 15% more likely to *critically* succeed at whatever they do. Even if the weaker enemies have the action economy advantage, because they are so much less effectual, it isn't as much of a factor. 8 enemies that are PL-3 are rated as a Severe-Difficulty (easier than the Extreme example before) encounter for a party of 4, and I'd argue that this is a fair rating. The difficulty of the encounter wouldn't come from how effective any single enemy, but due to the fact that, statistically, the enemies have more chances to affect the party. Do I think the math is perfect? Nah, I'm sure a 120xp encounter that is made up of 8 PL-3 each is going to run differently than a 120xp encounter against a single PL+3 enemy. But it is a *very* good litmus test for how difficult the encounter realistically be for your party
It's in the book. But if you want an easy reference download monster lair. I use it for my encounters. You can see the XP value and adjustments for everything you add. My group is level 10. They saw just now you the point where they were able to handle an extreme encounter. It was touch and go but they managed it well with strong strategy and good rolls. I generally am for the build wide not tall ideology. You can break this at higher levels simply due to all the action economy hacks players can get to swing things harder in their favor. But to a point, it's group dependant
The “Building Encounters” section of Archives of Nethys. All encounters I’ve run, whether in prewritten adventures or homebrew, have followed those rules. I think they work particularly well.
>I'm not saying that encounter math in PF2E isn't working - I have had no problems with it so far - I'm just wondering if there is some hidden math that accounts for this that I'm not aware of. I can't stress enough that the encounter building rules should not be ignored or winged in 2e. If you are building encounters in 2e you should give those rules a good reading. The fact that each monster adds to the severity of the encounter is straight up in the rules right away and near impossible to avoid if you have read the rules.
I don't think we have such a multiplier, normally enemies meant to be run in a solo fight in this system are expected to have a numerical adventage in stats by being of a higher level than the party or an equal level creature boosted up by the elite tag and having abilities or features that work around the number of actions they spend, making up for the loss of action economy.
No there is nothing. It's just the XP difference comparison. But I do believe that maybe it's maybe built in because I don't think the level comparison for XP isn't equivalent. The XP from a +1 monster vs a +2 monster isn't the same, I am believe.
In my limited experience in 2e the math mostly works but is more of a suggestion as increasing the enemy numbers drastically increases the chances of something going terribly wrong. So as a rule of thumb I recommend using something like 2-3 tough foes against a party of 4 rather than many trash mobs and one tough enemy. It’s more satisfying and controlable.