Making Encounters in Pathfinder 2e is Easy

One of Pathfinder 2e's biggest strengths is the monster and encounter rules just work. When you make a moderately difficult encounter, you know its going to perform as expected.
In this video, I walk through the process for making encounters in PF2.
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Welcome to the info paragraph, this is a place to feed the great algorithm, and if you've made it here you have probably scrolled too far! Icarus Games is dedicated to helping TTRPG players and game masters improve their experience in roleplaying games. For RPG players, there are videos on learning games rules, as well as on character building, roleplaying, and optimization. For Game Masters, there are videos on making maps, improving your worldbuilding for your RPGs, and for creating homebrew TTRPG content.

[@ironchestnutter]

Yep. Encounter building in Pathfinder 2e is so easy, and because it's so easy, that time you'd normally spend balancing an encounter in 5e can instead be spent doing other things.

[@IcarusGames]

100%, I spend way less time thinking about encounter balance and much more time thinking about other elements of the adventure.

[@jamesdominguez7685]

Our 9th level 5E party, who had been unable to rest and were massively resource-starved after a long, hard dungeon crawl, walked right over a CR14 encounter that was meant to be an extreme challenge, just because we used some tactics and avoided obvious traps. The DM was worried about a potential TPK and we barely took a hit. 5E is so wonky...

[@evocaeden2932]

It's honestly amazing just how superior Pathfinder's system (1E and 2E) is to D&D 5E. I fell in love nearly instantly.

[@cheezeofages]

PF2e Encounter Building Rules are actually quite similar to the ones in 5e. The difference maker is that 2e's "CR" system actually works. 5e's CR is like someone just threw a bunch of monsters in a bucket, shook them up, and poured them over the level ranges. In 2e, the monster's stats are intrinsically linked to their level with a clear set of deviation so you can have highs and lows, so other than special abilities they literally can't be overpowered for their level when built to the rules and the players are provided the same rules the devs use. It's 5e's rules, but with CR clearer and actually remotely functional.

[@voidpen]

Got half of my level 8 party down with two Banshees. They then proceeded to absolutely stomp a Storm Giant

[@WealthBeyondMeasure]

The *only* caveat with the balancing that's worth mentioning is that single, high level enemies tend to be a bit tougher than expected at the lowest levels. It's often very hard for a level 1 party to beat a +3 or higher foe, so treat single large enemy encounters as being maybe 1 step more severe in difficulty than the guidelines suggest. Try aiming for a slightly lower level boss and a couple of lackeys or hazards. Once you hit around level 3 or 4 you can start expanding the upper range a little.

[@IcarusGames]

Yeah, at level 1, a level 3 enemy is hitting like a brick which can really throw off the players.

[@lorenzovaletti4951]

And not only the enemy will hit very very hard, but also your players won't hit it, and most spells will do almost nothing against them due to their high saving throws making the encounter overly frustrating and dull. So, yeah, indeed be extra careful at low levels :)

[@simmonslucas]

The main reason for me too. At least the baseline of the encounter is understood - anything can happen when you are actually playing.

[@timjohnson2533]

I've been running games for probably around 35 years, and my most unbalanced encounter was: A level 8 party of six managed to ambush a CR21 Lich as they exited a dimensional space (Long story). Despite it getting legendary actions, the players made saves, and it rolled incredibly low on a follow-up. It wasn't able to teleport due to the space they were in (ancient magics and wards, blah-blah-blah). The hasted, buffed two-weapon fighter utterly CHUNKED the hit-points off of this thing. Three crits, with weapons that were magic, and did an extra dice of damage, meant that he absolutely nearly abolished the Lich in one round. It was finished off by the rogue, after it tried to kill another party member with Finger of Death and did damage, but didn't kill anyone (I believe they saved or rolled a crit save). It was a really, really miserable experience all around. I felt like I did something wrong, and the player just felt like this shouldn't have happened. It was going to be a defensive tactic to try and get out of the area, but when they basically killed the thing.. There was no need to bother with the rest of the plan :P That's basically when I was ready to be done with 5e. I'm not a novice at this. I knew how to run this enemy, but bounded accuracy (while great for many things) and the absurdity of building official monsters in their books that don't take magical items into account meant that a CR21, if ambushed by a party with moderate magic items, and with lucky rolls turned this into an absolute cake walk. It's a little sad, because I like many of the parts of D&D 5e, but I just can't run it anymore. I switched to Pathfinder 2e as well, and so far I'm loving the system for the exact reasons you give. It's easy to create encounters that can be tense, and dynamic, from low to high-level. I find I don't have to pull punches at all with this system, and even creating custom monsters is easy enough. I won't be going back to 5e for a lot of reasons, but I do hope that 6e fixes the CR System for those folks who still play. I don't know if it can be done without scrapping bounded accuracy, but I do hope it can at least be made functional.

[@Coffeewings334]

The CR system in 6e could certainly be more functional than 5e’s, since when you are at rock bottom you can only go up. There are a lot of factors absolutely demolishing 5e encounter design, bounded accuracy is a big one but they could do miles better while still keeping it.

[@dylanhyatt5705]

In my D&D5e campaign: Intellect devourers would have led to a TPK - I had to come up with a get-out solution and abandon the encounter, Not against TPKS, but this was built to be a moderate encounter.

[@IcarusGames]

Ability drain monsters are nasty! I love sticking shadows on strength based characters and watching them wither away!

[@BasementMinions]

Yoooooo, I can get to their entire back catalog for $5?! That's crazy! Also yes encounter building in PF2E is so much less stressful than 5E! I used to have to di so much balancing on the fly in 5E.

[@markphilips4568]

I started to play RPGs about 20 years ago with 3.5 and switched to PF1 in 2012 and then continued with PF2 as soon as it came out! I also know the 5e well and I am in complete agreement with everything you said! By the way, can i ask you where are you from? i'm not a native english speaker but i totally understand your pronunciation in every single word.. very clear indeed!

[@IcarusGames]

I'm from Wales in the UK :D I'm glad that you're able to understand me nice and clearly.

[@somecallmetimelderberries432]

Very helpful, thanks!

[@fernandozavaletabustos205]

Thank you for another great video!

[@marshallharck]

In higher levels running 5e, I usually have to make Deadly rated encounters and it's still usually a toss-up. As a recent example, I ran a CR 19 encounter (a CR 14 beholder-thing and a CR 5 knight-thing) for a level 12 somewhat-resource-drained party and no one lost more than 15 HP after they finished (due to their combination of very-high AC stacking, high paladin save aura, and spells like Conjure Animals). I've been running P2e for a few months now and it's night and day. There's constantly a threat and risk of downing if not dying outright and they player's choices in combat really feel like they matter. I still love 5e but I hope OD&D can achieve a similar result with their overhaul.

[@einkar4219]

one note in PF2e there shouldn't be game imbalance form items, unless you are giving players items with much higher lv or they have unreasonable amount of gold for items

[@PhD20]

1st or 2nd level party. Pack of wolves. V deadly with any amount of tactics on the wolves' part.

[@nkozi]

For my money the best encounter builder/balancer had to be 4e. Pre-MM3 there was some "eh" math but that book and a one community analysis made it rock-solid. You just had to bring your creativity to the table

[@rpgvanwinkle]

This is so true. But... I also really like to consider the story and any non monster obstacles in the encounter.

[@IcarusGames]

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[@MxEuphemia]

I had my party of 5 level 9 players fight a slightly nerfed Leviathan (normally CR 20, I just reduced its to hit modifier) It was supposed to be a really hard fight, but it ended up being a cakewalk Between the barb getting off 4 attacks (haste and GWM), and the sorc critting and doing max damage due to a previous wild magic surge, they almost killed it in a single round

[@FuzzyLiger]

I ran P2 last weekend and used a level 4 vs a party of 2nd level party. I will say they where 6 on 1 so I know that swing things a lot in their favor.

[@Dracobyte]

It just works! Like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure!

[@zswordcat]

5e - Monk succeeded on stunning fist on a Giant Purple Worm. Twice.

[@ivores]

In 5e the dragons are just bags of HP, so disappointing. As a DM i have to boost each encounter to make it a challenge, it takes time and it gets annoying to prepare a session.

[@TheFictionMan]

Party of 6, 8th level: killed an adult white dragon. Not one went down, nothing. Same party, two levels earlier, got wrecked by a crowd (40) of 1/4 CR peasants.

[@IcarusGames]

Assuming your talking about 5e here because of the 1/4 CR reference. An adult white dragon is an "easy" encounter for 6 level 8s in 5e (5000xp) 40 enemies is just straight up too many to have in combat regardless, but for a party of 6 level 6s, that would be 6,000xp which would be a "hard" encounter, plus the enemy has an incredible action economy advantage in that situation. But otherwise seems the encounter system is working exactly as it should there, you've just not built encounters that are fit for purpose.

[@burritoornot856]

Argh, i got my level 14 character murdered by shadows

[@nimrod6048]

1st comment

[@jefR6875]

This video makes no sense: 5e uses the SAME kind of process. Do people not actually read the DMG or something? Page 80 (I think) in the DMG has the creating encounters section, and it uses an xp purchase system as well. The reason the stat blocks of monsters in later books don’t line up exactly with the PHB is because those supplemental materials also add character options that up their power level a little. And PF2 does that as well.

[@IcarusGames]

Difference is the CR system in 5e is a mess and the numbers are all over the place and not at all consistent. Using the guide given in the 5e books to make a monster printed in 5e books often gives you a different CR, which makes actually attempting to balance encounters properly a nightmare.

[@jefR6875]

@@IcarusGames okay, but then that is a complaint about the monster builder section-not the encounter builder section (used with official stat blocks). I’ve used the encounter builder rules many, many times for monsters from all the official books and it works great. Maybe the person that wrote the monster builder section is different from the person that wrote the encounter builder section…

[@Coffeewings334]

@@jefR6875 Even if you ignore the monster building rules (which is already pretty freaking generous and concedes that at least one or the other is broken), the internal logic of CR versus creature power is all over the goddamn place in 5e. If I want to make an encounter that I know will be very challenging for my players in 2E I can just… use the rules for making a severe or extreme encounter. I don’t need to second guess myself because an encounter the book says will be extremely hard will actually go “oops lol your boss monster just died in one turn”.

[@jefR6875]

@@Coffeewings334 I call BS. For one, I use the 5e system all the time and I have never had an issue with it. And two, there are so many unquantifiable variables that CANNOT be included in any system, that it is near impossible to predict the outcome for any single event in BOTH systems. Group size, group makeup, player skill, roll outcome on D20 Tests, DM skill, all of these things contribute to the final outcome and NONE of them are quantifiable from a game design standpoint. Monster stats relative to CR in 5e follows a formula in the same way it does in PF2.

[@Coffeewings334]

@@jefR6875 have you actually ran for both systems or are you just assuming this has to be the same? To be clear, I’m not disputing the fact that you make 5e work for your table - I’m almost certain you are speaking truthfully in this regard and it is great that you found a system that works for you.