The Golarion Gazette

For decades, the so-called “encounter scaling effect” has been one of the most mysterious unexplained phenomena in all of adventuring science. The effect is that regardless of the size or composition of an adventuring party or where they are adventuring, they almost always run into monster groups in a very narrow range of power – typically between one-half and three-fourths of the combat power of the adventurers themselves. While this effect is a major boon for adventurers, as it causes adventurers to face well-calibrated fights that are tough enough for them to gain experience but easy enough to consistently win, scientists do not understand why monsters behave the way they do. “We also suspect that the scaling effect might operate even within each battle,” explains Andrew Jalamari, a professor of adventuring science at the University of Korvosa. “We’ve observed cases where when adventurers start faltering during battle, the monsters suddenly start making more mistakes, allowing the adventurers to come back.” Several hypotheses have been postulated to explain the effect, but as of yet none have gained widespread acceptance.

A recent discovery in the form of ancient texts recovered from a long-abandoned temple of the monster god Lamashtu may shed light on the mystery. While the texts were written in an ancient language whose translation is still uncertain, archeologists have identified passages that they believe describe ways in which so-called “monster lords” – angel-like beings said to direct monster behavior from above – can assess the power of adventurer and monster groups. “We suspect that the purpose was for the monsters to more efficiently kill adventurers by attacking with a group that was just above the minimum strength needed to kill the group,” said Mitflit Robernath, a halfling archeologist involved in deciphering the texts. “But we think they did the math incorrectly, so what they think is just enough for the monsters to kill the adventurers, is actually just little enough for the adventurers to kill the monsters.” Others believe that in fact the monsters might be deliberately trying to get killed, although this hypothesis has failed to gain acceptance due to lack of a plausible explanation as to why the monsters would want this.

Some scientists have argued that further publication of speculation about the encounter scaling hypothesis should be halted, saying that if the monsters get wind of what they are doing wrong, they might update their tactics, which could prove disastrous for adventurers. Others believe the encounter scaling effect as a whole is an illusion, simply an artifact of flawed data. “Clearly, what’s going on is that when an adventuring group encounters monsters that are way below their level, they don’t bother writing it down,” said human investigator Isaac Dorman. “And when they encounter monsters above their level, they get killed, so they can’t go back to report the encounter. So the only encounters that make it into the dataset are the ones where the monsters are at or slightly below the adventurers’ level.” Regardless of the truth, speculation and discussion will likely continue for years to come, and scientists are looking to recruit adventurers to study monster behavior and solve the mystery.