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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 8006605" data-attributes="member: 12731">I think so. You use the same numbers both to calculate the difficulty of the encounter and the xp awards. (The exception is when you have more or less heroes in your party than the default 4).The xp amount/award of a monster is relative, not absolute. Everything starts with the party's level (and the game pretty much recommends every hero to be that same level).So a level 4 monster is worth 60 XP to a level 3 party, 30 XP to a level 5 party and 15 XP to a level 7 party. The exact same monster in all three examples. See page 489 of the rulebook.You would use this number (say "30 XP") both to sum up the encounter's worth of xp, and as an individual xp reward (to each of the four PCs)Now, an encounter where all the monsters total 80 XP is "moderate". If the total is 60 XP it's "low" and if 120 XP it's "severe". Don't mistake these epithets for 5th Edition lingo - any encounter worth more than 60 XP or so would definitely qualify for "deadly" in 5th Edition. What Pathfinder calls "severe" would require an entirely new "insane" category in 5th Edition, and "extreme" would be "off the scale"  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> Everything is much more dangerous here!Anyway, if our level 5 party meets three of these level 4 critters, that's a 30+30+30=90 XP encounter. Assuming they win, each of the four heroes get 90 XP for their trouble, and you always need 1000 XP to reach the next level.---Now then, to your sandbox: "what is the best method?"I don't understand your reasoning with your "Standard" rating, so I'll simply explain from my own starting point:As you will realize from the above, PF2 concerns itself with a fairly narrow level range of monsters. That is, it doesn't do "bounded accuracy". You can't just plop down a level 10 monster in your sandbox and expect the fledgling heroes to survive long enough to run away until they're maybe fifth level.So if you run PF2 on default settings I would definitely recommend you create the illusion of a sandbox, instead of a true "old school" sandbox. That is, the game is intended for challenging fights where every monster is just about your own level. Adventure Paths are certainly constructed this way. At level 4, they just happen to mostly encounter level 2-6 forest monsters. At level 8, they mostly encounter level 6-10 forest monsters. With experience a GM can even level up or down monsters on the fly.If you want the real deal, you might want to run the "proficiency without level" variant. It's detailed in the GMG but it essentially boils down to simply "subtract level from every roll or DC". The reason is that this transforms the game to be much more like 5E's bounded accuracy; heroes can now face monsters 8 levels above them and maybe not die, just like they could face monsters 4 levels above them in the default game.---The other question revolves around attrition. PF2 is built around the assumption heroes are fully healed at the start of every encounter.As you probably realize, this means that low-difficulty encounters lose pretty much their reason to exist (except for the occasional story reason, and when you want the players to feel suitably awesome), that is, they don't have the power to slow down the heroes. (The party simply relies on their martials, with casters "running on idle" i.e. using cantrips and focus spells only - this way the party can take on almost an unlimited number of "low" encounters, one at a time for hours and hours on end if only spaced out sufficiently. And since we're talking sandbox play, the heroes can nearly always stop marching forward to get the downtime they need)It also skews the balance between martials and casters. If the only resource a martial cares about is easily replenished, that favors them. And casters are not powerhouses in PF2. Anything that slows down martials is probably a good thing. (At least for a classic sandbox that takes place during levels 1-10 the power move would probably be to ONLY play martials with a sole combat medic, and skip wizards etc entirely. This lets you mow through the sandbox at record speed, unimpeded by the need for casters to regain spell slots. Just restrict the Cleric to cantrips and reserve her spell slots for emergencies, and you're all set to be the Energizer Bunny of parties!)I suspect that even if martials too need to rest for the night for their resources (=hp), that will still not make casters overpowered. In my experience, the average Fireball is only slightly better than a martial having a good round, so playing in a campaign style that is generous with spell slots (relative to hit points) is probably very workable.If you want PCs to rely on and conserve their hit point totals you need to tweak the game in various ways:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">you obviously need to restrict Medicine and its assorted feats, as well as certain features of any class you think the players will select. Case in point: the focus point based healing of Champions. Paizo will be of zero help here, and I haven't seen a comprehensive list of sources of "free healing".</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">unless you want one character played in the combat healing mode (a Cleric, for instance) to be near-obligatory you will probably want to introduce other complementary healing. That is, while you will want to remove Medicine's ability to heal you every 10 minutes all day long, you might not want to remove it completely. In plain terms: you might want something like charges, that provides a certain number of healing doses a day. Not zero doses, but not unlimited doses either.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">any chain of encounters where the first encounters are meant to <a href="https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/attrit" target="_blank">attrit</a> the heroes for the final fight likely needs to go easy on the characters, meaning that I would avoid monsters above the party level until you know how much punishment the party can take.</li> </ul>This is because PF2 is simply not designed for your character's maximum hit points to last all day. A Fighter with 100 hp is expected to potentially have to use all of those in a single encounter. (Not every encounter of course) All balance is squarely designed for the single encounter. This is why you need some sort of replenishment during the day - unless you're fine with the adventuring day to end after the first challenging fight each day.Whether you do this by liberally sprinkling loot caches with healing potions or introduce some kind of "healing surges" or simply simplify Medicine to "a successful check restores all lost hit points, but the character is then immune for four hours" or whatever is up to you. Good luck!Either that or you double the hp totals of every character (but not monster) so that heroes can be expected to keep trucking even after losing a sizeable chunk of their hp.[SPOILER="You could even experiment like this:"]A character's hit points are renamed "Wounds". A character also gets a number of Vitality Points equal to his maximum Wound Point total.Damage is taken from Vitality before Wounds. Healing is applied to Wounds before Vitality.At zero Vitality you're <a href="https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=15" target="_blank">Fatigued</a>. (When you have 1 or more points of Vitality, you're no longer Fatigued unless some other source made you Fatigued. Then you still need to rest for a night).You automatically regain all lost Vitality (but not Wounds) after a short rest (10 minutes or 1 hour, your choice).You might consider some healing spells to heal Vitality before Wounds (or not Wounds at all). <a href="https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=108" target="_blank">Here's a good example.</a>[/SPOILER]As you hopefully realize, this suggestion is meant as a half-way point between default PF2 and maximum-grimness AD&D. Attrition is focused on "can we defeat these monsters without going into the red - that is without anyone losing more than their maximum hit point total". If you do, all's well. If you don't, you will still have full Vitality for the next fight so no need to worry about its balance, but since you suffer "Wounds attrition" you will eventually be forced to either stop for the day or start using limited resources (spells, potions etc) that also will eventually force you to stop for the day.</blockquote>

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