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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide
GM Core / Chapter 2: Building Games / Variant Rules / Proficiency without Level

Adjusting Encounters

Source GM Core pg. 85 2.0
Telling stories where a large group of low-level monsters can still be a significant threat to a high-level PC (and conversely, where a single higher-level monster is not much of a threat to a group of PCs) requires some significant shifts in encounter building, including shifts in the PCs' rewards.

Under the default math, two monsters of a certain level are roughly as challenging as a single monster 2 levels higher. However, with level removed from proficiency, this assumption is no longer true. The XP budget for creatures uses a different scale, as shown in the Creature XP (No Level) table. You'll still use the same XP budget for a given threat level as shown on the Encounter Budget table on page 75 (80 XP for a moderate-threat encounter, 120 for a severe-threat encounter, and so on).

Table 4-18: Creature XP (No Level)

Creature’s LevelXP
Party level – 79
Party level – 612
Party level – 514
Party level – 418
Party level – 321
Party level – 226
Party level – 132
Party level40
Party level + 148
Party level + 260
Party level + 372
Party level + 490
Party level + 5108
Party level + 6135
Party level + 7160

While the XP values in the Creature XP (No Level) table work well in most cases, sometimes they might not account for the effects of creatures' special abilities when facing a party of a drastically different level. For instance, a ghost mage could prove too much for 5th-level PCs with its incorporeality, flight, and high-rank spells, even though it's outnumbered.