Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder: Encounter Design Simplified

[Jack99]

I'd love to give everyone a sneak peek at the cover, but, purdy as it is, it still feels like it's missing something.

An enterprising and curious sort of fellow could find it, nevertheless.

Here perhaps?

edit: Nevermind, that must be the logo

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Only change I'd make to your suggestion is to use 480 as the replacement for 400 instead of 240. Doesn't do anything substantive; just leaves the numbers looking more like the 400-base numbers while keeping all the useful mathematical properties of 240.

If you use the 240 base, the XP advancement chart looks more like the 3e chart (at least in the early levels). I consider that a plus, YMMV.

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4226922&postcount=5

I also like to keep the XP totals lower and more manageable, if possible. (If I could lower the baseline even further to avoid XP totals in the millions, I would.)

There's nothing special about the 400 numbers (that I know of) that warrants protecting them for any reason. I'm not saying it was chosen at random-- I just don't know. It doesn't have any particular significance or utility that jumped out at me.

 

[Jason Bulmahn]

Hey there everybody,

Wulf, I did indeed read your email last week and have been thinking heavily on it ever since. It is indeed an easier way of calculating an encounter, one that will probably be adopted for the Beta. Its funny, I think I was so focused on the trees I had created, that I did not notice for the forest they made.. if you get my drift. Thanks for pointing it out. This is exactly why the open playtest has been paying off in spades.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

PS: Still thinking about the 240 bit.. the one thing I dislike is the some of the numbers you end up with for level totals. It was a number I was playing around with early on... perhaps I should reconsider. Hmmm.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Very nice, Wulf! Makes it easier for mixed CR encounters rather than having to resort to some electronic EL calculator. Unfortunately won't solve, nor was intended to, the fact that many CRs are just wrong to begin with.

Pinotage

Well, if Wulf is really mad, that might be his next step?!

The new magic item rules for Pathfinder might actually make it easy to create "baseline stats" to compare a monster to. But I suppose that the asymmetric abilities like Save or Die effects will still be a challenge...

But I can see it done. Maybe CR will not be a single number now, though. It could contain subcomponents (Melee/Ranged/Spells). Maybe it would be enough to give a baseline and state the general strength and weakness of the monster. Maybe: Giant: CR 10 (Strength: Melee; Weakness: Mind Effects)

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Its funny, I think I was so focused on the trees I had created, that I did not notice for the forest they made.. if you get my drift.

Hey, that's an excellent way to phrase it. If you could see the amount of notes I had, and feel the amount of frustration I had been going through... I was very grateful to open up the alpha have the forest come into focus myself.

PS: Still thinking about the 240 bit.. the one thing I dislike is the some of the numbers you end up with for level totals. It was a number I was playing around with early on... perhaps I should reconsider. Hmmm.

I can see from your work (and extrapolating the "actual" numbers from the formula) that you just rounded off the XP values to what looked good.

There are undoubtedly other/better ways to round off the numbers that 240 results in, depending on how many 0's you want in the final result. IIRC (not looking at my notes) if you round off to the nearest 500 xp, across 20 levels, the PCs end up 100 XP ahead (on a total of millions of XP, that's ok...). But for the most part they'll level a little sooner sometimes and pay a little extra sometimes.

Table here.

If the "actual" result at 20th level is 2,147,500 and you round off to 2,150,000 that looks pretty good, and nobody is going to moan about having to earn an extra .1% XP.

Using 240, I really like the looks of the XP totals on the low levels, but could certainly see rounding off to the nearest 1000, then 5000, then 10000, etc. as the totals increase.

Just pick the number of significant digits you want to round to.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Well, if Wulf is really mad, that might be his next step?!

Not that crazy, and no.

It's too much work for too little payoff. CR just isn't that broken. Such a project would be of value only to a subset of obsessive gamers. (Of which I am one, admittedly, but it is just not a productive use of my time.)

For the most part, CR does its job reasonably well. I think it does it about as well as any "precise" mechanic can hope to do in a game with nearly infinite combat configurations and random outcomes.

 

[see]

If you use the 240 base, the XP advancement chart looks more like the 3e chart (at least in the early levels). I consider that a plus, YMMV.

Yeah, MMDV. 400/480 looks more like 1e/2e tables.

I also like to keep the XP totals lower and more manageable, if possible. (If I could lower the baseline even further to avoid XP totals in the millions, I would.)

Er, then why 240 instead of 120, which is just as divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10? (I know; looks more like 3e at low levels. Aesthetics.) 60 is almost as good, only causing troble with SRD rats and tiny monstrous centipedes.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Yeah, MMDV. 400/480 looks more like 1e/2e tables.

That's fair; I hadn't considered that.

But I admit, I wasn't aware that making Pathfinder more familiar to 1e/2e was a design criteria. It never entered my mind.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

The Encounter Budget has nothing to do with treasure or magic items. I don't know what you're doing, but stop.

But, But, pretty shiny numbers... <.<

Really, I'm stingy with magic items. I just don't like giving them out. I love making players pay xp for magic items. I even allow them to upgrade for xp. I just let wizards take it from anyone they choose, not just themselves without using a feat (maybe a spell, but if I did that I make it commonly available). And I want to know how to balance without magic items or with the monsters actually using the magic items against the players.

 

[Angellis_ater]

Achan - one thing we do in my campaigns and I'm stingy with treasure as well is this - every even level is +1 to an Ability Score and every uneven level is a new feat. First of all it makes sure each character gains something every level and it does boost the CHARACTERS capabilities (versus their stuff).