My family loves Dresden and RPG.  Our Background is D&D.  I have the DF books and the two prefab adventures.  They are all great, but I must admit it is hard for me to fully understand the system by merely reading the books.  I am listening to podcasts and reading posts on this site to help that deficiency.  I have learned a lot from this site.  Still, I need some assistance.  I hope you can help me with my campaign planning.  

We have made a city - and had a great time doing it.  We made characters - and had a great time doing it.  I have been working to fill out the city and various scene hooks - and I am having a great time doing it.  But . . .

I am having trouble determining the strength of the forces whom I should pit against the PC's.  I want to have some "encounter groups" ready for the PC's as they move around the city.  I know this game involves potential encounters with creatures or groups too strong for the PC's to fight - great role playing opportunities - I get that and I am fine with it.  But for the encounters that I want to be balanced so as to challenge the Party without overwhelming it in a physical fight, I need some guidance.  Is there a formula using refresh and party number or what?

I see one concept is to create a set of encounters against which the PC's are pitted in rapid succession, none of which alone is challenging but after the damage picked up in the first several scrapes, it adds up to difficulty by scene three.  This seems to be the plan in Neutral Ground - and extra mobs are available if the group is still hail and hardy by the encounter with the "final boss" of the story.  This flexibility to adjust the final fight is cool - but it give me the idea even the designers are really not sure how much to throw against a group to make a challenging encounter.  [I know, I know, they have to make it flexible because they do not know the level of play or even the number of PC's who will be playing.  I get it.]  (I love the flexibility to change the final outcome and change the final boss depending on the story - very clever.)  

But I do not want every adventure to require a forced multi-scene winnowing of the group's stress and consequences with a predictable final fight with a "boss" - with minions I adjust depending on the group's surviving power level.  To use that system each time would be too formulaic.  

I have five players at the "up to our ankles" game difficulty - six refresh each.  

I want to be able to pull a group together that will challenge but not overpower the Party in a single scene fight.  The only guess I have right now is to construct a group of opponent creatures/NPCs in about the same number as the PC's and with the same approximate power level.  But that is a pretty vague concept and I suspect a few power points either way may make a big difference.  Sigh . . .

Help me Obi Wan Post Kobe - you are my only hope.  


Edit - OK I spent more time on the forum and found a reference to a portion of the book I had managed to skip when I gleefully read through various sections of both - skipping around rather than reading both through.  The answer was on Your Story "Scaling the Opposition,  p. 331.  I messed up by flailing about looking through the index for words like "encounter" - too much D&D in my past.  Sorry for wasted post.