Thomas Shey
Legend
Id somewhat expect them to be easier, as the reward for playing well and not letting them combine.
"Somewhat easier" and "don't even work up a sweat" seem to have a gap there though. The level-2s we dealt with recently weren't even worth using spell slots.
Not sure on the potions and elixirs, the treasure tables have the levels of consumables so the ones you got most recently, or could most recently buy/craft should be pretty potent, at least enough to shore you up for that second punch of a shortly incoming encounter. Straight up spell slots and wands or what have you are nice in that range too.
That does require staying on top of that with consumeables as a player, however, and I really wonder how good most people are about that (I'm certainly not, and I don't think my wife is any better). Its easy to look up when you actually need them and realize what you have is, by that point, junk, and it doesn't take many levels for that to happen.
Which ties back into base encounter difficulty and what kind of encounters are being used as the composite pieces, how they combine (directly or in waves, over how many rounds and from where, a fireball shaped group and streaming in less convenient firmation are different) and what the resulting total budget is.
Full health isnt vital to all encounters in pf2e, just the ones with the most threatening creatures. Especially if your party can swing some in combat healing for you.
I'm just questioning whether in traditional dungeons the GM always knows exactly how that combining-and-waves thing will end up happening, since some of it usually involves player actions. Mind you, I've argued this could go badly in older games too (maybe not D&D3 or PF1 after a certain level since there was so much ability to just overcook everything at the PC end, but certainly back in the early days of the game it was a good recipe for a TPK).