Level 8 is when a sorcerer gets access to 4th level spells, so her single 4th level spell is fine.
** spoiler omitted **
Her feats are fine. She has five from leveling, Eschew Materials from sorcerer, and Deceitful from her Infernal bloodline.
** spoiler omitted **
She's also a pushover. I WISH she was a straight sorcerer.
While she is a ridiculous pushover in terms of offense, if I hadn't made a mistake and forgot that her shield should have negated their magic missile spells, she would have wiped one party I ran through this. They had 0 ways to summon something flying larger than size small, 0 physical ranged attacks other than arrows, and 0 magical attacks other than magic missile (the babaus killed the guy with the other ones). They did have a fly at one point during the scenario, but they weren't able to bring it to bear--the melee could have defeated her and her little dog too if he could get to her. As it was, the group eventually ran out healing before I ran out of magic missile spam.
What impact might that have, and what would still need to be addressed?
(Could be a terrible idea; I'm just brainstorming here.)
Conversely, would you then also pull aside players with poorly performing PCs? Because my rogue had to be carried through The Blakros Matrimony due to poor rolls and enemies that perfectly foiled his abilities.
I suppose that would be something else to be addressed.
On the other hand, is that even an issue? Granted I've only GM'd ~25 games, but I've had people make the comments I talked about more than once, but never the opposite (i.e. "Man, that really shouldn't have been that hard; why is that guy's character so bad?"). I never seem to hear about other people's issues with underpowered tablemates, either (except once, and even then the situation eventually started to seem like it might have had more to do with GM error).
I've seen it, but almost nobody is rude enough to say that right away to the player's face, so you only get to here it if it's players you know well enough that you might go out somewhere afterwards or otherwise socialize with them. It's very rarely about builds, though, it's usually about tactics. I've heard a player say to me after I GMed that player through a scenario--"I know you've run this one before with all iconics and they did OK, and I hope it wasn't my character that was letting the team down. I think it wasn't, based on my sense of things. It's just, this guy always plays wizards and other complicated spellcasters, builds up a huge spellbook, and has no idea what to prepare. I get aggravated having to handhold him, but you saw what happened this time--he left over half his slots open and then ran out of spells and then the 7th level wizard was just using 1st level wands for the rest of the scenario."
Kinda the GM's fault. 4 man party with 2 brand new players using pre gens. GM failed to "guide" the brand new players IMHO. i.e. GM: "Well new player, being that you are looking at the BBEG on the roof in front of you you should consider using potion of fly, rather then sit there with a dumbfounded look on your face." Just seems like if the GM was alot more involved with helping the BRAND NEW players, they invited to the table, to use pregens that made the party have a fighter(noob), rouge(noob), barbarian 9 (me), and caster 9ish (other guy that knew what he was doing. At the very least the pregens should have rounded out the party with a cleric or something. I'm just very disappointed with the way the scenario was judged is all. I'll get over it soon enough. I realize everyone makes mistakes. Just sucks the scenario had a decent boon.
The first mistake was that two pregen level 7s were being played in a 5-9 or 7-11 by completely first-time RPG players at all.
There's a guy who watches the party in gaseous form, so if gaseous guy saw the party using invis, or the inquisitor casting invis to start sneaking, it would have been a reasonable and allowed adjustment of tactics to drink it. If gaseous guy saw nothing of the sort, then not.
Did you survive the grueling Bonekeep initiation that the Decimvirate ran your poor Lore Warden through? If you have any details of the Decimvirate's abuse, better tell the Shadow Lodge quick while you still can!
In general, don't go heavy on the sundering. It will not make you friends at the table.
While I pretty much don't have enemies use their own actions to sunder extracts and the like (how would they know which is which anyway? they might just hit an alchemist's fire), I've had several situations where intelligent enemies with Combat Reflexes have an alchemist in their reach throwing 5 bombs who proves more than a match for their AoOs to hit for damage, so they switch over to AoOs to disarm or sunder the bomb.
THEREFORE, the longer a thread about difficulty goes on, the more inevitable it becomes that someone demonstrates a misunderstanding of darkness effects.
Sounds like there needs to be a Godwin's Law of Darkness.
+1 to this!
But violating that law. My archer's solution to darkness: potion of alter self. Turn into something small with darkvision: see in the dark and boost my AC and attacks!
Can't have a potion of a self-only spell, you need a scroll.
I have a PFS character that I will never purchase armor for. Invulnerable Rager barbarian with a very high CON. I played up last night as a level 2 in a 4-5 scenario -- as the tank! No problems. Well, I did drop below half a couple of times, but with over 40 health while raging at level 2... AC isn't what's keeping me alive ;)
Walter: At some point you are going to be crit and think twice about lack of armor. My lvl 12 Inv Rager has +1 armor just as a scaffold for moderate fortification. 50% crit/sneak attack negation has saved my bacon more than once. You will have that moment like I did when a GM flanked me with a rogue Ettin, scored 3 sneak attacks and a crit, and my armor negated them all. At that moment I could not have been happier with the choice.
edit: perhaps we should take the Alchemist discussion to a different thread and stop derailing this one.
Don't worry, I GMed that game as I said, didn't play it. None of my characters got singed. I think you've readily explained the incongruity I saw by pointing out that you often significantly lower the damage output in exchange to nearly negate the chance of harming allies, so I think I'm set now other than my curiosity over the source of those last 2 Int if they aren't from one of the two chronicles I've said. It'd be silly to make a new thread for just that, so I'd say just post once more here anyway or PM me to answer that if you feel like it, and otherwise, back to our regularly scheduled complaining about Season 4 difficulty :D
So at first level, other than when using the 1 minute duration extract for reduce, he was looking at a +2 to hit an enemy in melee (no Precise Shot) and a miss will splash for 6 damage. Yeah, We had exactly that guy with exactly those stats in a First Steps 1 game I ran--after nearly killing multiple other characters multiple times, the party told the guy that he'd better rebuild next game or they were never sitting with that character again.
Since touch AC on enemies doesn't rise at higher levels, it becomes easier and easier to hit as you level up, but at first it's not always so easy. Touch ACs of around 12 are common even at low levels, and that means a nearly 50/50 chance of missing if the enemy is in melee. Granted, you can just go extract-heavy like my alch did at low levels and just tank at level 1, then grab infusion at 2 and buff the heck out of everyone else.
Anyways, is it Feast of Sigils or Eyes of the Ten that gives you the extra +2 for the 30 Int at level 10? Or am I missing something less esoteric that allows such a high score?
I vote against this. I can tune my PCs down to the hardness level easier than I can beef up already Maxed out combat machines. And if everything hinges on surviving the combat, pretty soon all we have is Combat Machines.
If you think what we have now requires maxed out combat machines, either you have no idea what maxed out combat machines actually are...or your exposure to play skill level must be awfully low. A combat machine, played well can solo even season 4 stuff...even the hard ones. My not so speced fighters at level 8 could 3 round the final fight of fortress of nails...by himself. Two if I roll well on the damage dice...and this is assuming I miss my secondary attack and don't have haste up (or other buffs). Otherwise...yeah it's a one round fight. Or I could just use the archer and force the issue and make it a one round fight.
I beleave I have been quoted out of context. I was casting my vote against the following (which appears to have been trimmed from the my comment above):
"I don't know about that. A fair number of us would much rather fall victim to TPKs than have to constantly deal with undertuned fights. "
I was voting against TPKs to replace undertoned fights. I was being sure that I am not lumped into the group "A fair number of us..." because I do not want to "...fall victim to TPKs...", I would rather "...constantly deal with undertuned fights."
And I stated I can "tune my PCs down to the hardness level easier than I can beef up"... I was not trying to compare damage output ("who has the bigger stick?" ** spoiler omitted **...
Alchemist:
How did you get 30 Int? Obviously started with 20 and then two raises and a +6 item, but then Feast of Sigils or Eyes of the Ten? Considering the cost of point-buying up to 20, I'm guessing not as much Dex then, so early levels must have been less fun, particularly for teammates, since Precise Bomb is negated on a missed attack roll and that's a lot of damage for them to take on a splash.
The augmentations are (mostly) terrible. they are either ineffective or the break the tactics for the encounter.
I understand that most conventions are 6 persona tables, and designing for that is fine, but something is getting lost on the scale downs.
** spoiler omitted **
some of them are done well, but I think it's far MORE important then the writers/editors/whoever seem to give it credit for. I believe John is in charge of those now, and I have faith they will get better :), but I would recommend staying away from season 4 without 6 PCs
it just seems like a lot of complaints come from improper scaling or way out of a "appropriate" abilities
Scenarios:
Agreed for In Wrath's Shadow, but for MEE the sickened condition is much much more than -2 to hit. Considering that the Advanced simple template is +1 CR, sickened isn't that much less extreme than an inverse of the Advanced simple template. It lowers the alch's initiative, to-hit, damage, and ability to prevent a death by save-or-lose, to name a few things. The only difference between sickened and the hypothetical "un-advanced" template is that sickened doesn't apply -4 to AC or a loss of hit points or DCs (and in this case, DC at least isn't huge). Certainly sickened is a bigger nerf here than using the Young template to make him an underaged alchemist (which raises accuracy and AC by 3 without hurting much relevant other than CMD and hit points), and Young is the typical -1 CR template for monsters.
In any normal home game, characters can load up on scrolls at whichever caster level they can find or scribe themselves. For instance, communal resist energy, which is his thread starter, you can just get at CL7 for 525 gp (probably half that if you scribe it yourself). This gives 20 resistance to all, whereas the basic scroll of communal resist energy gives only 10 resistance for 375 gp. Now, in PFS, you can't buy a CL7 scroll of communal resist energy, but you can use the riffle scroll as sort of a little loophole--since the minimum CL is 7 for a riffle scroll of communal resist, you can now buy one that gives 20 resist (albeit for 700 instead of 525, but that's still 2 prestige), so you might buy this in PFS without even caring that it's silent: just to double the resistance. He wanted to know what other spells had similar advantage for being exactly 2 CL above minimum, which only matters in PFS, as this little trick is unnecessary in home games.
Keep in mind the source of your knowledge; as you point out it is because your GMs have been big on foreshadowing (repeatedly in campaigns you have experienced multiple times) and because you read fantasy and know all the tropes (from the many fantasy books you have read over time).
What are the odds that your character has participated in any sort of world building exercises involving broad story arcs culminating in plot point Z? Or that your world is populated with numerous fantasy stories with which your character is familiar?
For what it's worth, I leave that entirely up as a possibility. While in the worlds I create, only in the largest cities or nations with the highest amount of culture and education would it be likely that stories about fantasy and the like would be widespread enough that someone would be familiar with very many, much less enough to be able to claim "Oh, I think I know how this ends." In the campaigns your GM runs it could be that such stories are widespread and very well known, to the point that your character would be very familiar with them.
I generally do this a lot with bard and detective characters. Then the other characters roll their eyes at the bard and say "Do you have any proof?" and he says "Nope, that's just what would make the best story!" Of course, many times he turns out to be right...
Is there meant to be a non-combat way through the Leshy if no one in the group can speak Sylvan or Druidic? My players seemed very earnestly to not want to engage the thing, and so I applied a -5 penalty on their miming that they only wanted to pass through. Good or bad?
Hmm, I dunno, I could see it either way--the scenario seems to make it clear that those languages are important. When I ran it, due to extremely unfortunate double 20s with a quarterstaff, I had killed their Sylvan-spoeaker. I was really proud of the paladin, though--he always has lots of great expendables, and he managed to have Kyra use his scroll of tongues on him so he could talk to it.
This question pulls at me from opposite directions on two of my favorite things to see--On the one hand, I absolutely love non-combat solutions. On the other, I also love rewarding people who take obscure languages or carry around tongues to be sure they can communicate.
I would also like to point out that I played fortress of the nail and I wish that "Boon" didn't exist. It was basically useless because of how inflexible it is, especially for my level 6 gunslinger. I would rather just have had gold, or maybe something actually cool?
Prepped it for a con and am playing it soon--You had a ranged character go through it. Do you have any idea at all what a ranged character would want from that boon in 8-9? I'm completely stumped. I've paged through UE looking at everything. If we actually survive and earn it, I may get a scroll of 8 copies of a 3rd level spell. Casters are absolutely no problem to shop for, but I can't think of a single item for an archer.
(the only reason he joined the party and stays currently its to get treasure)
The player's guide actually tells you that you have to take a campaign trait, thus tying your character to the NPCs by bonds of friendship (and anyway the campaign traits are stronger than normal anyway). This is pretty crucial because a mercenary like him is a terrible fit for this Adventure Path--realistically, the party can't risk someone like him having access to them in a vulnerable position, as the oni are way richer than the party is and could offer him vastly more than what he's currently making in exchange for betraying the party.
Anyway, I think this AP definitely works best with PCs who are strongly tied to the NPCs, if not also heroic PCs (though I wish some of them had been Good, my group are all Neutral, but they are fiercely loyal to the NPCs, so it works out).
Meh. I almost TPKed players with two humanoids only. They droped their jaws open when I told them that after 30 dmg taken, enemies still stand. Harsh for Tier 1-2. I couldn't watch when I rolled dices, but in the end, they won without deaths.
What season was that in? I'm tempted to guess season 4, but that could easily be mistaken. Depends on if it was the scenario's toughest encounter or not. If yes, I could see it being from earlier seasons. Having over 30 HP really isn't that bad in that bracket considering average table size. ... Unless you get up to like 50 HP. Then it might be a problem.
It was good old season 1 scenario ** spoiler omitted **
Good grief. I have NEVER heard of people having so much trouble with that scenario.
I remember being pretty surprised at the 4-5 BBEG's resilience (in terms of number of hp) when we were playing up to 4-5 with 4 level 2s and 2 level 1s. We definitely would have won in the end for sure (because if I recall correctly, I hadn't used any spells at all up to that point since we'd been cakewalking through everything else), but if it wasn't for someone else dazing or stunning him or maybe laughing touching or something for a round (can't remember exactly it's been over a year), the paladin would have probably died, and as is the level 1 went from full to within 1 or 2 of dead by an AoO.
Staves are actually insanely good value in PFS, where they fully recharge every scenario. In our local lodge, one wizard saved up and got a Staff of Fire relatively early, and he benefited greatly from having those extra fireballs he could throw every scenario at his own DC and at the CL of the staff or his own, whichever was better (5 extra fireballs would cost 45,000 with Pearls of Power, but only 18,950 with the staff). They're also great in Kingmaker or other APs where there's a lot of downtime in between each fight, and they can be even better if you have a familiar who can use them. Also, it's horrifically expensive, but the Staff of Life is worth it if you don't have a party cleric (in our Kingmaker game, the party all chipped in for it, and my familiar has saved the day with heal multiple times). They're pretty bad in APs with a big rush where you're going into the dungeon every day.
As the arcana points are few and very useful and the magus arcana even less, for me it is in the list of "non useful" arcana.
Casting haste work better. It last longer (you get hasted assault at 9th level, you need intelligence 28 to get a duration of 9 rounds for hasted assault) and it help your friends. The only advantages of hasted assault are that it can't be dispelled and activating it don't provoke.
Well it's also a swift, I guess, so you can combine it with other actions. But it's nearly useless compared to worst-case scenario just using Spell Combat with arcane mark for the same number of attacks.
Magus: Does spell combat count as making a full attack action for the purpose of haste and other effects?
No. Spell combat is its own kind of full-round action, and is not a full attack action.
PRD wrote:
Spell combat:
...
As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty).
...
From this text it an attack but not any form of attack action. The FAQ reiterate that.
PRD wrote:
Combat Expertise
...
You can only choose to use this feat when you declare that you are making an [b]attack or a full-attack action[b] with a melee weapon.
...
AFAIK you can't even fight defensively as:
PRD wrote:
Fighting Defensively as a Standard Action: You can choose to fight defensively when attacking. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC until the start of your next turn.
require you to use a standard action to fight and you are using a full round action and
PRD wrote:
Fighting Defensively as a Full-Round Action: You can choose to fight defensively when taking a full-attack action. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC for until the start your next turn.
require you to use a full attack action.
I am missing something?
Wowzers--with the new FAQ, what is the Hasted Assault Magus Arcana for then?
Just to give a good example of when I had some intelligent NPCs call for a killing blow--
The party quickly proved themselves to have a cleric with Fast Channel and a Phylactery who could heal ~50 damage per round to the whole party in an 8-9 (This was a large percentage of everyone's maximum health) and another cleric who didn't have such good channels but had the healing domain (so not only were single target heals empowered, but he also had Rebuke Death specifically to wake up unconscious allies) and was just before the channel cleric in init.
The enemies (mostly archers) started by targeting damager types, and KOed two of them, but the channel cleric intervened and got them all to nearly full. Then they targeted the channel cleric, knocking him out (they didn't know the other cleric was a cleric yet). Of course, the other cleric woke the channel cleric who double channeled, bringing himself (and everyone else) to maximum health. At this point, the lead enemy called out to his men "Men, I don't like it, but we can't win unless we kill that one--" pointing to the channel cleric, "He heals them faster than we can attack."
Despite giving that order, there was only one chance to actually attack the downed channel cleric during the fight--it was on a late iterative and I managed to miss. No one actually died, but the players and characters knew that they had pushed the NPCs to those extremes.
Shurg...core has plenty of powerful stuff already, The Hezrou is a CR lower then what you see in the fortress of nails and that has a CL 13 blasphemy and a DC 24 nausea effect.
Herzou blasphemy is a problem in organized play that needs to be handled with kit gloves. The essential problem is that at the levels where they appear, many of the characters playing are susceptible to long term paralysis. While that paralysis can be removed, unplanned party compositions can throw that out the window. Very swingy encounters.
Core has plenty of powerful stuff, but Herzou are a bit of an outlier.
Half-fiends are even worse. Inspired by James Jacobs's old Fiendish T-Rex avatar, I decided to use as an example a "CR 12" half-fiend T-Rex. As a boss encounter (probably for a level 8-9 party in Season 0-3 or a 7-8 party of 6 in Season 4), not only does it have a CL 18 blasphemy that will certainly be high enough to paralyze (if not kill, for a Season 4 solo against 6 PCs) everyone, it also has an 18d6 horrid wilting and a summon monster IX to summon something higher CR than itself.
Thug is widely considered one of the best Rogue archetypes due to it's debuff ability and paired with the Enforcer feat it can be outright broken as any hit that deals at least 3 points on nonlethal damage will send your opponent running if you wish to do so. You give it a red rating. Maybe you should reconsider...
Frightening on its own isn't great unless you jack up your intimidate to insane heights such that you confidently succeed by 10 or more, but Brutal Beating is quite strong (Sickened is a better condition than Shaken, and having both is just about as devastating as a -4 to all rolls Bestow Curse), and it's certainly true that Thug with Enforcer is ridiculously powerful against things that aren't immune to nonlethal or fear. And given that there's already overpoweredly good options for nonlethal sneak attacks in UC, it can all synergize nicely. It's also a great setup for a friendly caster to save-or-suck (particularly if stacked with an Evil Eye hex and a Quickened Ill Omen).
More and more of these sorts of theme builds have become possible with all the new material, and that's one of the main reasons I've never updated my guides to include everything. There's just so much.
They'd have to stress test it for Dalsine Affair, of course.
I see DA referred to a lot, I played his and our group cake walked this. What am I missing?
** spoiler omitted **
Dalsine Affair:
By the time you could have gotten any more information beyond "presence of magic in a 60 foot cone", which really tells you nothing, Chalfon should have already struck someone with a powerful blow that's nearly guaranteed to flat-out kill a 1st level character on a ~37 damage crit (18-20) and will kill backline 1st levels if he rolls above average.
I think people say it's a deadly scenario rather than a hard one. He has a relatively good chance for an instant kill, but then the PCs win.
For the record, it's pretty dishonest to use a damage per round number as the basis for saying something's too tough when said number requires three consecutive crits (each needing a natural 20 to threaten and a natural 13 or higher to confirm) with each getting nearly max damage in order to attain that number.
I think he assumed she won initiative and then hit three times, but all were sneak attacks.
Dhjika, you can always mention that fact to your GM. Most will allow it.
I am always willing to allow it, and I greatly appreciate it if players will also follow the flip-side of this as well when it doesn't help their character (by which I mean, if it's a creature they've encountered since the last time they put a rank in that Knowledge and failed to identify it last time, they refrain from rolling again this time).
My players had a hell of a time on the last fight in first steps part 1.
** spoiler omitted **
For the record:
** spoiler omitted **
Beat me to it. I keep seeing comments about how hard that fight is, and every single time, it's because of that. The GM didn't stick to the tactics specified in the scenario, which made the fight tougher. Those bad guys are intentionally written as NOT being team players, so they shouldn't coordinate that well or fight that intelligently.
Well...
FS1:
I've had round 1 or 2 color sprays from Halli because sometimes PCs actually do corner her right away--"Get the casters!". We don't know for sure that it didn't happen.
The Varki, a race that's a blend of Varisian/Erutaki stock (with a little dash of Tien). They live mainly in the northwestern region of the Land of the Linnorm Kings, in a nomadic culture that moves from village to village (the villages were built by their ancestors and are abandoned when they move until the next tribe comes).
So, if a party wanted a "battle-tongue", a language that they all spoke but which very few of their opponents could understand, what language would you suggest?
Dtang, Erutaki, Hon-La, Hwan, and Varki are allowed for starting languages and are basically never on NPCs.
So, if I had prebuff time, more so than normal, the first round of combat agaisnt Sin would have his blinking, shadow projected, hasted false life'd familiar on a barb or someone else with a high strength, followed up by a Fort DC28 Den of Vipers (creeping doom that does 4d6 con damage)
After that I just sit back and watch people die horrible deaths.
The swarm's 1d4 poison does Con damage rather than Dex, not the 4d6 regular damage.
Rise of the Goblin Guild--Above Average. RP, skill uses, and fights.
In Wrath's Shadow--Hard. Basically all fights.
Golemworks Incident--Somewhat Hard. RP and fights.
King of the Storval Stairs--Hard. Basically all fights.
The Sanos Abduction--Slightly Below Average. RP and fights.
The Green Market--Average. RP, story, and fights.
Severing Ties--Very Hard (with a potential horrible fate). Great RP and some gimmicky fights.
Cultist's Kiss--Hard. Plenty of RP, mystery, and some tough fights.
Blakros Matrimony--Difficulty Unclear (about to run it). Tons of RP. Few fights.
Feast of Sigils--Hard (very hard without the right spell, like the time I ran it). Plenty of RP and some tough fights.
The Disappeared--Slightly Below Average (the fights anyway). Mostly skills/mystery, then RP, then fights. One distasteful part where player speed at doing a puzzle determines victory, so you better put the puzzle guy OOC on it even if he brings the 7 Int barbarian
The Refuge of Time--Somewhat Hard (could be worse if you fight a diplomacy-able enemy with some nasty abilities). Mostly fights, but some RP in there too.
Fortress of the Nail--Difficulty Unclear (Read it once to run at a con but then lsot the slot). Seems like plenty of RP followed by extreme challenge.
My Enemy's Enemy--Above Average. RP, mini-puzzle, mini-mystery, fights.
Everything Released After That--???
Race for the Runecarved Key--Hard. Tons of everything. Way too long for a slot.
Day of the Demon--Average. RP and skills, minor mystery. Also a few fights.
How about a community-based, informal difficulty rating system that would provide difficulty levels for each tier?
That would be kinda cool. I dont know how well it would work on these forums since it couldnt be constantly updated, unless a Paizo employee did it for us.
If this did work, this would be a way to do those spoiler type tags (heavy RP, heavy combat, puzzles, etc) that someone suggested be added to scenarios awhile back.
I'll start
Season 0:
I'll list difficulty and then say what sorts of stuff it has.
Silent Tide--Horrendously Easy, even the 4-5 is super-easy for level 1s. Interesting combats, mini-puzzle encounter
Murder on the Silken Caravan--Somewhat Hard, surprisingly for Season 0. Opportunities for lots of RP, but the scripted encounters are combat.
Frozen Fingers--Easy. Interesting RP possibilities. Mostly combat.
Mists of Mwangi--Average. All combat.
Black Waters--Below Average. Plenty of RP potential and atmosphere depending on the GM. Lots of combat.
Among the Living--Below Average. Lots of source material for great RP, but the GM has to bring it. Otherwise pretty much all combat.
Slave Pits of Absalom--Easy. Plenty of RP potential in the encounters. Also possible to be all combat.
Prince of Augustana--Easy. Several RP opportunities. Mostly combat.
Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch--Difficulty Varies, but generally Below Average (one encounter can be deadly at certain tiers and the rest are an utter joke that a single character can solo). This scenario is horrible--you can't RP past anything, no matter what, you have to fight innocents.
To Scale the Dragon--Below Average. All combat, but one of them is quite interesting.
Perils of the Pirate Pact--Quite Easy. Potential for RP if the GM is very familiar with the River Kingdoms, but you have to add it in yourself. Otherwise all combat.
King Xeros--Average (with a possibility for a truly horrible fate). All combats.
Fingerprints of the Fiend--??? Playing it next month.
Tide of Morning--Very Easy. Potential for some RP. Plenty of combats.
Decline of Glory--Extremely Easy. RP potential if the GM reads up on Taldor and adds stuff in. Otherwise lots of fights.
Lots at Bitter End--Above Average. All fights, but some very interesting settings.
Our Lady of Silver--Slightly Below Average (all trivial except for one encounter that's much harder than the rest due to the Bestiary version of the monster being much harder than the 3.5 version). Plenty of RP, especially if you read the thread and add in wedding and trial stuff.
You're right. However, it might take a bite out of its new meal. It might just start eating the downed opponent there, with the same result.
Actually I think it would be more likely they would not start eating the meal until it is safe to do so.
Maybe attempt to drag the body away if possible or defend the body (Downed PC) against the rest of the party.
And if the rest of the party has already run away as in the example given where the poster thought the monster shouldn't eat him? (also, there's a good chance the creature was unable to leave the room if it's the encounter of which I'm thinking).
Also, if this is the shadow mastiff I bet it is, then the before combat tactics say it was waiting to be fed. So eating is even more reasonable, based on the listed tactics.
If it's not an animal, it's something else - I can't give a list of every possible situation. The point is, as a GM, I try to think of something, anything to avoid attacking downed characters.
The example I used was completely helpless, but it's an extreme example (walk in the room, roll initative, the bad guy gets a higher dice roll on initiative, fear, attack, dying - to argue that the will saves or the hp or the initiative should have been higher is pushing it, these aren't min-max con-dumped characters or anything like that).
The bad guy, including an animal, can have any motive for waiting 6 or 30 seconds. It's not that long a time, especially while under no duress from that target.
If we're talking shadow mastiff, and it sounds like we are, then they specifically do hunt out of hunger, in their description, even if as outsiders they won't die of starvation it doesn't mean it doesn't feel hunger.
Shadow Mastiff wrote:
On the Material Plane, they prefer to travel in shadow, moving soundlessly and unseen to find prey, hunting in vicious sport just as often as in hunger.
I'm checking in again with a question and a comment.
First, campaign leadership is continuing to study and discuss this issue, and I'm still following this thread's developments. There are certainly some good ideas out there for a problem--or as 1970Zombie observed, a composite problem--and I am not interested in issuing a campaign change just to issue a campaign change. If the best answer proves to be no change at all, then that may be the answer. If a change does occur, it is because it aims to improve the overall play experience for the campaign as a whole.
Here's a question for the HOD crowd:
From a player's perspective, does the HOD proposal introduce increased pressure at the table to play up or play down? A player shows up at a convention with a 2nd level character with 4 XP to play in a Tier 1-5 scenario, and in looking at the list he discovers that many of the tables are already full for the following slot. It looks like the only available table that he could realistically play with is going to play in Tier 3-7. To play at that table in the next slot, he has to play up in the Tier 1-5 to make 2 XP.
Alternatively, we might have someone in a Tier 1-5 who just needs 1 XP to reach level 5, and she signed up for a Tier 5-9 game at this convention three months ago with the understanding that she would be 5th level exactly for that second game. When a bunch of low level characters force her to play down, her entire convention schedule may be ruined.
Pervasive yet anecdotal, the pressure that comes from a split-level table's deciding to play up or play down is a real force and a relevant factor. In trading out the wealth-based pressure to play up for the XP-based pressure, would we introduce a new problem? No scenarios require that one have a certain amount of gold in hand to participate, but many scenarios require that one have a certain number of XP; in this way the pressure--spoken or unspoken--may be higher.
I recognize that these will be uncommon occurrences, but as a...
Hey John--those are some very good examples. The solution to the not-getting-enough-XP-due-to-playing-down-for-half issue in one version of the HOD proposal (and the best solution in any version) is to allow the player to be able to choose to take the low tier gold with 1 XP (whether they played up or down) if they wish to do so. This will be unfavorable unless they are in an XP crunch like you describe, and it will probably rarely be chosen except in those circumstances. This also fixes another example you didn't give, where you're signed up for a 7-11 followed immediately by a 3-7 in a con with your only 3-7 character, who's 7 1/3 going into the first of the two, and you have to play up to 10-11.
HOD doesn't have a solution for the person who wants to play up to get 2 XP in one session in order to play the tier they need next session, but with any other proposal, including status quo, they were stuck with a pregen no matter what in this case--HOD is the only one that even offers them a glimmer of hope. Fortunately, this should hopefully be rare enough that we wouldn't see a systematic pressure to play up.
Ones which require some very specific countermeasures if you intend to participate in combat...
Why can't you participate when you can't see?
Perhaps when Jiggy said participate, he meant participate with even a modicum of effectiveness.
Nothing is more boring than a bunch of level 1 characters fumbling around in the dark for an hour and a half trying to fight a quick and nimble creature that can see that is slowly nickle and diming you to death.
Just this exact thing nearly ended in a TPK with a table of 3 and a Merisiel pregen (would have been Kyra, but a level 1 cleric was already at the table).
Due to grappling, the darkmantle gets little benefit from the darkness (as Jiggy mentioned, his wife slaughtered it), so let's talk about Mifra. After the centipede disappears (3 rounds after casting) and she runs out of her at most 5 magic missile spells, the party essentially wins. She can at best throw darts for 1d2-4 (+1d6 sneak attack if the party is willing to oblige her by staying within 30 feet of the darkness, but that's still 1 damage on average per turn even with sneak). Then after 10 rounds, the darkness is gone and she dies even more readily. Now granted, the stealth is strong with this one, so they're unlikely to be able to pinpoint her square until darkness is gone, but she just doesn't have sustainable firepower, making her the perfect choice, in my mind, for this encounter--eventually the PCs win because she runs out of steam, and they learn a valuable lesson too, whether they beat the darkness or not.
(I understand totally why the REDACTED finalized the REDACTED character - however there is no point to play a healer if everyone you heal or try to heal is especially targeted - I alsost stopped playing the 8th Merciful Healer after that experience)
Intelligent NPCs are trying to win. If you're going to yo-yo all the unconscious characters back to consciousness and they're going to rejoin the fight, those intelligent NPCs can clearly see that they can't possibly win. You might say "well, it's not like I'm not expending my channels and spells on this, so it's not coming for free". And in terms of the next fight, that might be true. But for the NPCs, whose lives are on the line right now and who don't care if your healer has fewer channels next fight, that's what they see--they can't ever win without dropping the whole team, and if each dropped character comes back through healing and keeps on fighting them, then that can't possibly be achieved.
There's two solutions for the intelligent NPC:
Solution 1: Kill the healer(s) dead. Now you don't have to worry about that whole "back into the fight" thing and can instead continue to knock out active opponents and ignore unconscious ones.
Solution 2: Finish off the unconscious PCs so they can't be healed, hopefully using as few resources as possible to do so (perhaps final iterative attacks that aren't likely to hit an active PC but are very likely to hit a 0 Dex unconscious PC).
There's really no way around this conclusion for an enemy with even remotely approaching human intelligence.
As an aside, I dislike this conclusion, so in home games I've instituted a rule that causes the trauma of being knocked out by damage to prevent you from awakening instantly upon being healed. My players love this rule, as it means that there is no longer an NPC incentive to kill unconscious characters.
Of course, this can't be used in PFS. At the least, you're using up enemy resources in most cases to obtain those kills. And if Solution 2 is getting you down, then worry not! Just make sure your healer has breath of life, and you'll probably be able to get them to switch over from Solution 2 to Solution 1.
Or they do something to cut off line of effect from the center of the darkness like throw a sheet over it.
If memory serves, the GM had the darkness produced stealthily, so we didn't know what object was radiating the effect. So much for that idea. :/
The room is large enough that there's somewhere to stand outside the darkened area (even if the enemies remain within). So that should allow you to use geometry to find the center. Even if you don't know which object in the square is radiating, you could try tossing a tent or bedroll over the whole square.
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Or more likely, they can just beat the enemy even despite the light/darkness disadvantage. Remember you don't get concealment against someone if you're grappling them. When I ran it, the archer, to show how badass he was, just flat-out beat the darkmantle in a grapple fight, doing 1d3+2 nonlethal damage until he had knocked the thing out. The damage and CMB are pretty low, after all. It's a CR 1.
We tried the grapple route as well, for exactly that reason. Then we got rather brutally reminded that the grapplee doesn't have to make a CMB check to escape; they can use Escape Artist instead.
Wait--the GM wasn't having the darkmantle use its grab and constrict ability? It only does 1d4 without that and is no threat at all. When I ran it, I was the one initiating the grabs.
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So while I agree that you shouldn't expect level 1s to be able to cancel the darkness, you don't need to be able to cancel it to win this encounter--you can win it blindfolded.
I will grant you that this specific encounter is not as bad as a 1-2 darkness encounter could have been. Thus, it got 3 stars in my review instead of the 2 stars it would have gotten with a more restrictive environment/circumstance. But replace darkness with some other obstacle and it would've been 4 stars from me.
Some monsters in Pathfinder, like darkmantles, are very low CR (clearly Tier 1-5 monsters) and have darkness. Given that, if they will ever see use, it's very likely to be in 1-5 scenarios. Further given that, I think this was an extremely well designed encounter to showcase darkness and teach new players about it while still being pretty darn winnable even if you can't counter it. So in that sense, I'm happy about it. It's also fair of you to lower your rating because the darkness tempered your enjoyment. I just thought some of your previous posts about not being able to handle the encounter without countermeasures were a bit strongly worded, given that I assume the author and editorial staff put good work into this scenario to make it, in my opinion, extremely winnable even if you never beat the darkness (and probably pretty easy if you do, but then you get to feel like a hero for having the right ace up your sleeve for whatever reason you had it, so I'm cool with that).
But to be honest, from a roleplaying perspective even from a gaming perspective, it's not an individual endeavor. It's a team effort so you have to also be responsible for ensuring the team performs well.
Agreed. But, we have to recognize that many new players aren't going to be good yet at that teamwork function, some players just aren't ever going to really get it, and some players actively eschew doing anything in a cooperative manner.
If the game has transitioned to a difficulty level in which strong teamwork is not only prized, but fundamentally necessary for success, that's an important thing to note, as I think it makes it a lot less newbie-friendly.
I think there's a difference between requiring strong teamwork to survive and being hard enough that some of the extremely poor teamwork you mentioned leads to failure. There's a middle ground--I would call it "competent teamwork". Season 4 requires either competent (or better) teamwork or tricked out characters or high dice rolls. The gunslinger and bard examples you gave, for instance are not at the level of competent teamwork. I've actually rarely met even a completely new player (let alone a player who is playing a 3-7 scenario) who doesn't use their bard's inspire--performance is so salient for bards, that most newbies who choose to make their first character a bard are all about it (in fact, I sometimes see the opposite problem, though it's much less of a problem, where all the bard does is perform and nothing else).
The only way a table of 1st-level PCs survives that fight is if most of them just happen to have darkvision naturally, or if one of them (1) is only 1XP short of 2nd level, (2) has gotten the max possible 4PP, and (3) spend 2PP on an oil of daylight.
Or they do something to cut off line of effect from the center of the darkness like throw a sheet over it.
Or more likely, they can just beat the enemy even despite the light/darkness disadvantage. Remember you don't get concealment against someone if you're grappling them. When I ran it, the archer, to show how badass he was, just flat-out beat the darkmantle in a grapple fight, doing 1d3+2 nonlethal damage until he had knocked the thing out. The damage and CMB are pretty low, after all. It's a CR 1.
So while I agree that you shouldn't expect level 1s to be able to cancel the darkness, you don't need to be able to cancel it to win this encounter--you can win it blindfolded.
I'm just saying that sending Pathfinders into harm's way and asking them to do morally questionable things is hardly something that Sheila Heidmarch came up with. The complaints about her seem, well, odd, since similar complaints aren't so vociferously voiced (her death has been called for in just the last few posts) against the other venture-captains who act pretty much identically, or against the faction heads, who frequently ask for robbery, torture, murder, and even corpse mutilation.
I think you're missing the death-calls for Dreng then. I've definitely seen them.
