Too Much Effort to Make New Characters?

[Thomas Shey]

Likely a combo. Also, sometimes published adventures have what appears to be a balanced and/or challenging encounter and its not. At least that was my experience in the PF1 AP era. Of course, that system is notorious for CR being all over the place so it was likely more off balance then. Which likely put me in the habit of looking closely at encounters as part of my GM prep.

As noted, it was absolutely a problem with the first couple PF2e adventure paths, too.

 

[Retreater]

I think one answer is to write my own adventures - which is something I'm passionate about doing anyway. I can better tailor encounters for the players (and myself) that way.
To use this example, if it were a module I was writing, I wouldn't put a Severe encounter in that place - it wasn't telegraphed well, it wasn't important to the story, etc.
I think I'm playing all the creatures correctly in my systems, though I usually follow pretty simple tactics instead of trying things like Intimidation or trip attacks. Meaning I do damage, not bestow conditions. And it's easier to take an action to stand up than to have someone heal damage - especially if your party is running low on healing resources.

 

[payn]

I think one answer is to write my own adventures - which is something I'm passionate about doing anyway. I can better tailor encounters for the players (and myself) that way.

That is good, but Id also recommend tailoring published adventures too. Its good exercise for your own writing, IMO.

To use this example, if it were a module I was writing, I wouldn't put a Severe encounter in that place - it wasn't telegraphed well, it wasn't important to the story, etc.

Publishers like to do this. They toss in a "cool" monster from the billions of entries they have to use. It's often barely relevant and just tossed in to give more XP because its needed to achieve a certain leveling requirement. At times, these can be fun, but also a PITA.

I think I'm playing all the creatures correctly in my systems, though I usually follow pretty simple tactics instead of trying things like Intimidation or trip attacks. Meaning I do damage, not bestow conditions. And it's easier to take an action to stand up than to have someone heal damage - especially if your party is running low on healing resources.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Well, I am using pre-published adventures, so I'm not necessarily designing the encounters. So maybe it's bad tactics on the players' part? (Or brutal tactics on my part?)

That would be my guess. The NPCs are fighting for their lives, so as a GM it behooves you to run them to the best of their abilities.