Doesn't look like it.

This was the largest encounter I've ever run, and what an experience it was! I learned as much from this one fight as I have from months of adventure prep and minor encounters. We're a very casual table, just me, my partner, my step-son and a friend, running short (~90 minutes) sessions every week or two. We're progressing slowly, and levelling up even more slowly. I decided early on, due to the material I've, uh, stolen my ideas from, that level progression would be locked to McGuffin acquisition, but speed with which the party is actually getting their hands on these objects is much slower than I had initially expected. We've settled into a tick-tock adventure cadence, then, with mid-level power-ups being added via gold and item injections into keep everyone happy. Which is all to say, when the players level up, it's a big deal, and I've taken to giving them something worthy of their new powers to cut their teeth on. This time, we'd been running the Forge of Fury, which I converted as we went. Consider this a spoiler warning for this 25 year old module! Hiding in the third section of the dungeon -- known as the Foundry -- was the party's second McGuffin, and after some unexpectedly friendly interactions with a group of Hryngars (nee Duergars), a frightening from an Allip, and a really awkward discussion with a crypto-succubus, they managed to find their level-up trinket. The original adventure hook for the module was to go searching for some ancient +1 weapons, or some such, but that seemed like some pretty weak sauce. The intent was also for players to delve too deep and encounter Nightwing, the black dragon and its hoard of gold, but I'd sent the players in there looking for an NPC and a McGuffin, and have a setting where dragons are very rare, and where at least some of the enemies are (unbeknowst to the players) trying to resurrect a dragon, so just throwing one at the players early in the campaign would be kind of undermining. So I threw zombies at them, instead. A lot of zombies. Forge of Fury has a Xulgath (nee Troglodyte) den on the second level, and that is where I stuffed the NPC they were trying to find/rescue. Unfortunately, the party bypassed the den, and took the outer route around the outskirts of the dungeon. This meant that the amped up Drow Sorceress/Necromancer I had following them had some bodies she could unalive and then un-unalive. Not exactly RAW, of course, since it takes a full day to use the Create Undead ritual for a single target, but the players don't know this, and what they don't know can't hurt them. Besides, Summon Undead is a Rank 1 spell. *shrug* The players return to the main hall, new power-up in hand, to discover the troop of friendly Duergars fighting a large wave of shambling Troglodytes (a Level 4 Shambling Troop). It's at this point that I hand them the stat blocks for the Duergars and a list of names that they will be playing. Each of them got 2 Duergars Sharpshooters and a Duergar specialist of some type to play, which I expected them to use as cannon fodder. Each round, I unleashed new creatures onto the battle field. First, it was spiders (four Hunting Spiders and a Huge Spider Swarm), then it was the missing NPC's party (2 human Zombie Shamblers), then it was the Xulgath leader and an Orc captive (2 Zombie Brutes). Some skeletal warriors and a Ragewight followed this, before themselves being followed by the boss: A custom built undead anti-paladin, representing the NPC they failed to save. The battle was chaos, in the best way. Even with this giant roster of enemies, the players got a turn every couple of enemies, and my partner seemed really into the idea of running multiple creatures, and letting the dice determine their personalities. This was also the encounter where I decided to say "ok, fuck it" more often. As we've played, I've been increasingly convinced that PF2 not just works as a fiction-first game, but plays better that way. I've lacked the confidence to truly give in to this idea at the table though. But with three other characters at her fingertips, all of them martials, my partner started mulling over her character sheet less, and just... dropped her knees into the boss's back. The NPC was tied up at this point, and prone, thanks to a critically successful bola attack, so there wasn't a whole lot he could do about this. I thought about it for a second and decided that it sounded like an unarmed strike to me. But it also sounded like she was now on top of the guy. Like, that's what happens when you drive your knees into a prone person's back, right? So, I threw caution to the wind, let the fiction take over, and told her "you're now sitting on top of him". The light in her eyes at hearing that was magical. On his turn the NPC shook her off, broke his bonds, and got to his feet. The battle resumed, but something had changed. The players now understood that they had permission to try things, and I had confidence that I could decide whether what they were trying made sense, and, importantly, what potential outcomes made sense. The fight ended a couple of rounds later, the boss disarmed (they thought to kick his sword away) and once more knocked to the ground. The party's Guardian did a Smash Bros. style leaping downward strike with his sword, pinning him in place, while two enlarged Duergars stomped a mudhole in him. After four sessions, and nine rounds of combat, the battle was won, and the module was complete. And my table finally started seeing the game through their characters' eyes, as a world where they can try to get away with anything.

Hmm. Something seems a little out of wack, as XP doubles every 2 levels, but you're scaling things linearly here. One Level 1 creature is worth 40 XP to a combat vs a group of 4 Level 1 PCs, so things work out here. But a Level 2 creature is worth 60 XP, not 80, and 60 * 4 = 240, not 320. If you're indexing the creature XP to Level 1, the XP curve looks like this (where Approx XP uses a 240 baseline for Level 2 as they do in the books, and XP is using exact scaling): Level XP Approx XP Linear Scaling 1 160.0 160 160 2 226.3 240 320 3 320.0 320 480 4 452.5 480 640 5 640.0 640 800 6 905.1 960 960 7 1280.0 1280 1120 8 1810.2 1920 1280 9 2560.0 2560 1440 10 3620.4 3840 1600 11 5120.0 5120 1760 12 7240.8 7680 1920 13 10240.0 10240 2080 14 14481.5 15360 2240 15 20480.0 20480 2400 16 28963.1 30720 2560 17 40960.0 40960 2720 18 57926.2 61440 2880 19 81920.0 81920 3040 20 115852.4 122880 3200 21 163840.0 163840 3360 22 231704.8 245760 3520 23 327680.0 327680 3680 24 463409.5 491520 3840 25 655360.0 655360 4000 26 926819.0 983040 4160 27 1310720.0 1310720 4320 28 1853638.0 1966080 4480 29 2621440.0 2621440 4640 30 3707276.0 3932160 4800 Using Level 1 indexed XP (let's call it XP_1, for the sake of brevity), your example above becomes 560 XP shared between either 4 equally levelled characters (140 XP) or 3 unequally levelled ones, with it being unclear how exactly to divvy up the reward. I'm not convinced your use of level as weight works, due to the fact that level power does not scale linearly. Instead, I would look to the players' contribution to the party's XP pool. PCs have an encounter XP budget that's the same as monsters', by level, which means the mixed party has 160+240+240 = 640 XP between them. The Level 1 character contributes 160/640 = 0.25, or 1/4 of the party's XP, so they should probably receive 1/4 of the XP reward. 560 * 0.25 = 140 XP, which is what they would get if it was a party of 4 Level 1 PCs. The other two characters each contribute 37.5% of the party's XP, so they would each receive 560 * 0.375 = 210 XP, which would scale to 150 XP in the standard rolling XP window. I've been kicking this math around for a while now on scrap paper. There's been a small spike in questions around XP and balance over on r/Pathfinder2e, though, so maybe I'll work through his a little and make it a little more accessible/searchable.

I'll necro this a bit! Extra Ability Skill Bonus Choose one ability. All trained skills based on that ability receive a minimum ability bonus of +4 regardless of your actual ability score. Note that in order for skills to qualify for this bonus, they must be a core part of your character concept and background. I think making this into a You can use a different ability score for this skill [maybe only specific actions/situations] Would work a bit better for the flow. Increased ranged weapon damage All ranged attacks add half of the attacker’s Dexterity to damage as long as all targets are within half of the weapon’s range increment. This does not stack with the Propulsive trait. I don't think this is a good idea. Going strength on a ranged char is costly already and a pc with 18 in str on level 1 then just has a +1 on their damage on ranged weapons. Also as it is written thrown weapons gain the strength bonus and dex bonus to damage. Increased spell damage All damaging spells add the caster’s key ability to damage for one of the targets (chosen by the caster). This effect occurs only when all targets of the spell are within half of the spell’s range. That's probably fine, early game damage is a bit low. Maybe excluding Electric Arc specifally would be a good idea. Daze You push into the target's mind and daze it with a mental jolt. The jolt deals 1 mental damage, with a basic Will save. If the target fails the save, it is also stunned 1. It is stunned 2 if it critically fails. Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 1. No to the crit fail, that's too much. Having a boss roll a one against a cantrip should not basically invalidate a whole round Assurance Fortune, General, Skill Prerequisites: trained in at least one skill Even in the worst circumstances, you can perform basic tasks. Choose a skill you’re trained in. Once per ten minutes you can roll two dice and use the higher roll (do not apply any other bonuses, penalties, or modifiers). Probably a good idea, but the base effect of assurance is fine to keep without a cooldown.

Best of luck to you. I think my code is quite messy but if you can use any of it, feel free!

FWIW, I have never managed to achieve that fluently. To elegantly switch from "sitting around, planning" to interacting with the world. Retrospections are the only way that works for me

Pinkertons are being sent to your address for leaking the entire contents of the 5e 2024 DMG.

@kichae@tenforward.social Two-way with masto! Nice! And the topic's been moved into the right forum! Amazing!

The Eclectics (Narrative Declaration) has to be my favourite actual play going right now https://youtube.com/shorts/CzlMyI7Yfy4?si=3Cv-WOIpwFgUm2pl Original Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgPnNx5lTys

RPG tip: Draw mini-maps to show the characters' progression through a dungeon.#dnd #ttrpg