peanut gallerying here but pathfinder is very good with encounter math. Still I could see doing an adventure path before diving into homebrew on a new system. I mentioned strength of thousands but a few have a lot of non combat or unique mechanic things. Like I played part of the assasination one and much of that is about investigation and planning and stealth. Its almost like oceans eleven kind of thing but with assasins. Downside is like the nicest a character can be is an honorable assasin. paizo has a bunch of free one shots. they put one out every year on rpg day. if you want to save a few bucks and just get a feel for encounter building you could play a few of those with your group before making a final group configuration type thing. people can try various classes and such while you get a feel for the rules.