Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder: Encounter Design Simplified

Angellis_ater · May 17, 2008

This is seriously one of the smartest moves (mathematically) I've seen in a long time and including it in Pathfinder SHOULD be an epic win. Paizo gets an easy to design encounter "generator" that is easily the equal of 4E. Just goes to show that a little innovative thinking allows us to retain 3.5 and still minimize time for character generation and DM prep time.

Wulf Ratbane · May 17, 2008

Angellis_ater said:
This is seriously one of the smartest moves (mathematically) I've seen in a long time and including it in Pathfinder SHOULD be an epic win. Paizo gets an easy to design encounter "generator" that is easily the equal of 4E. Just goes to show that a little innovative thinking allows us to retain 3.5 and still minimize time for character generation and DM prep time.

"This is seriously one of the smartest moves I've seen in a long time. Just goes to show that a little innovative thinking allows us to retain 3.5 and still minimize time for character generation and DM prep time."

"An epic win."

-- early feedback for Trailblazer

James Jacobs · May 17, 2008

Yeah! Great stuff, Wulf!!!

Jason HAS been looking this over, but he's scrambling to get Alpha 3 ready for release so if he hasn't gotten back to you yet... that is indeed the reason why.

It's a great example of why an open playtest of rules is a good thing. I really like how simple the system is to understand on the first read through, in particular.

Wulf Ratbane · May 17, 2008

James Jacobs said:
Yeah! Great stuff, Wulf!!!

Jason HAS been looking this over, but he's scrambling to get Alpha 3 ready for release so if he hasn't gotten back to you yet... that is indeed the reason why.

It's a great example of why an open playtest of rules is a good thing. I really like how simple the system is to understand on the first read through, in particular.

Excellent! Very happy (relieved, actually) to hear it.

Maybe next we can talk about why an open compatibility logo is also a good thing!

(P.S. Go with 240.)

DaveMage · May 18, 2008

Very cool.

Erik Mona · May 18, 2008

Jason and I had a meeting about this system on Friday. It is very impressive on about three different levels, and I commend you for it.

Darrin Drader · May 18, 2008

Erik Mona said:
Jason and I had a meeting about this system on Friday. It is very impressive on about three different levels, and I commend you for it.

So does that mean you're going to use it?

Achan hiArusa · May 18, 2008

I took your numbers and put them into Excel, made a chart and used an exponential fit, then equated the XP to Level and the XP to CR fits to see what CR would be a good solo challenge for a player (and since I'm not wanting to do any vb fu, I will just write it out the old fashioned way):

1 = 1/3
2 = 1/2
3 = 1
4 = 2
5 = 3
6 = 4
7 = 4
8 = 5
9 = 6
10 = 7
11 = 8
12 = 9
13 = 10
14 = 11
15 = 12
16 = 13
17 = 13
18 = 14
19 = 15
20 = 16

I'm hiding a lot of math, but it seems that by your method that a party of 4 13th level characters would be challenged by 4 10 HD creatures. Does that seem to work out?

ruemere · May 18, 2008

Wulf Ratbane said:
Step One: Determine the Encounter Budget
[...]
Step Two: Determine Desired Difficulty
[...]
Step Three: Purchase Creatures from the Budget
[...]

(warning: very imho)

It's nifty, but is that really simple?
With CRs you had to simply use one (or two) digit numbers to find out appropriate (I know, I know - CRs don't work...) encounter mobs. And now you have to spent points going into 3-4 digits to perform operation similar to building a war band or army in a strategic game.

Is it really better than CR?
CRs caused problem because there was no real way to calculate them reliably apart from playtesting. They were also subject to unforeseen interactions (apropriately matched monsters were more effective than their CRs would indicate, and vice versa). However, the same goes true for xp method... xp cost of a monster does not really indicate monster weakness and strengths.

What about support for monsters from other third party publications?
If you don't know monster's associated xp, how are you to fit the monster into encounter design process?

Summarizing:
- nice, but complicated,
- does not seem to improve over CR method,
- does not support monsters from other OGL products.

Suggestions:
- tie the system to CRs instead of abstract xp numbers.
- introduce properties reflecting monsters weaknesses and strengths (Girallon entry could look similar to this: CR 6, strengths: melee, weakness: ranged, will save).
- introduce standard encounter packages by EL/CR (EL8/CR6,CR6/strong melee, weak ranged, weak will save - example: 2 Girallons)
- introduce improved CR calculation method (based rather on canonical class similarities than actual stats, for example: Girallon CR6 should prove to be an equal match of Canonical Melee Fighter 6).

Advantages:
- improved support of other 3rd party publishers,
- ease of adjudicating monsters needed for encounter,
- faster encounter assembly (any CR6 strong melee, weak ranged, weak will mob would do fine in place of missing Girallon),
- CR6 monsters would finally be comparable to classed characters.

Regards,
Ruemere

PS. Edit: errors, loads of them.

Wulf Ratbane · May 18, 2008

Achan hiArusa said:
I took your numbers and put them into Excel, made a chart and used an exponential fit, then equated the XP to Level and the XP to CR fits to see what CR would be a good solo challenge for a player (and since I'm not wanting to do any vb fu, I will just write it out the old fashioned way):

I'm hiding a lot of math, but it seems that by your method that a party of 4 13th level characters would be challenged by 4 10 HD creatures. That that seem to work out?

Let me be up front about something first: The system replicates Jason's arcane and fuzzy multi-chart method.

Only easier. I have my own doubts about the CR/EL system in general but have not touched on that at all.

To answer your question:

Two CR 10s = EL12
Four CR 10s = EL14

My method isn't doing anything you couldn't already do in your head with homogenous groups, it just lets you do it much easier with mixed groups, with non-standard party sizes (3, 5, 6, etc.) and with parties comprised of PCs of varying levels.

(In fact it's safe to say most folks could do a homogenous group for a typical 4-man party in their head much faster than they could do it with the Encounter Budget. You don't need this system for that.)