Encounters and party size.

I generally play with a bigger party, 7 or 8, but after reading some of comments in the forum, I decided to try a smaller group. I noticed in the encounters there are fewer enemies. One troll instead of 2 or 3. Two lizardmen and a giant lizard , not 3 or 4. Does the game scale encounters according to party size? I'm talking about the random/survival encounters. I haven't noticed any change in the preset, temple encounters.

 

That's a damn good question...I always have played with the 5 party set and a few NPCs....

 

Yes, some stuff changes depending on the level of your party and the party size, but for the most part this is only with random encounters.

The fixed stuff is fixed no matter how you go...

- Livonya

 

I got the feeling encounters are really random. Yesterday a level 1-2-3 party (with Otis though) got attacked by three owlbear who crushed Otis and destroyed the rest of the party. I tried the battle 10 times and all i could do was kill one of them.
On the contrary I've been wandering around on the world map with a full power group (who killed luz without any of them dying), and most of the times I get sekeletons, pirates, wolves and in the best cases trolls...

 

What I would like to know is this: if the number of wandering monsters encountered changes according to how many party members there are does this include non-party members who are tagging along with the party, such as undead (e.g. due to an Animate Dead spell or a cleric dominating them), controlled monsters, animals called to help the party by a ranger or druid, and so on ? So in other words if I have a party with only three characters will I be treated as a party of only three characters if this party also has extras tagging along with it in the form of controlled monsters, undead, or summoned animals ?

So is a party with 3 characters and five undead for example a party of three or a party of eight when determining the number of wandering monsters encountered ?

 

If the circuits for survival/random encounters is a true random generator, then most anything can happen. I've seen a party of 8 get 2 skeletons, and a party of 5 get 3 trolls. There maybe some variables built in for level and party size, but sometimes it makes you wonder. What you see is what you get, I guess.