"Run as written" to me is not the same as "run as if you are a robot."
I always adjust things on the fly when I run if they're not appropriate to the party at hand. I view that as entirely different than writing materials from scratch.
Oh sure - I think running a professionally written adventure requires much less creative effort and I also think the two are very different. However, being able to adjust PF on the fly is something I just can't do (so I'm probably talking about DM skill as well as Player skill).
If one were very confident with PF rules and stat blocks then I guess it would probably require less prep-time to run an AP than a homebrew (or perhaps more accurately, you have already done that preparatory work by learning the rules well).
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
I don't get these comments about tons of extra effort on APs. My wife GMs our adventure path and she is just learning to be a GM, we're on book 3 of Carrion Crown. Our group is as you suggest, loaded with under-optimized characters (mine is the most optimized and it's a summoning sorcerer I've sort of deliberately kept tame). There have been a few encounters which were tough, but the only major deviation comes between books. I add an extra session or two so we are generally a level up on the recommended progression. We would have to add some encounters in regardless because it's a five player group and the book is designed for four.
|
|
OK... so I just finished book 2 of the Crimson Throne adventure path.
I am not going to spoil anything because its a great adventure. But the final scenario battle of the adventure is essentially a string of battles which can reasonably be considered 2 minor battles, and 4 to 5 back to back CR8 or CR9 encounters (one of which includes a demon which are generally under CRed)
On top of that, the situation is not exactly one that allows for sleeping and resting between battle so the encounter is plotted out to happen essentially in one continual run.
The thing is... the characters are supposed to be no more than level 7 when they battle this scenario... in our case we entered the sequence of events at level 5 and the GM allowed us a mid-scenario 'find a place to level up, rest and recuperate' and still 3 out of 7 characters were killed .
I dont think its reasonable that any but the most meta gamed, min/maxed characters could have reasonably taken out this scenario.
Are we just that bad or is the scenario just way over powered?
3 out of 7 killed? that could be the problem. with a 7 player party, if your DM did not make allowances for splitting the XP so much (the APs are written for a 4-person party, 15 point build). Typically he'd need to add in more monsters for every encounter to keep the PCs progressing at the expected pace. Not doing that, lowers the individual PC skills, and some some things that might otherwise be assumed aren't there, like better saves, higher BABs, higher level spel;s, etc...
I don't get these comments about tons of extra effort on APs. My wife GMs our adventure path and she is just learning to be a GM, we're on book 3 of Carrion Crown. Our group is as you suggest, loaded with under-optimized characters (mine is the most optimized and it's a summoning sorcerer I've sort of deliberately kept tame). There have been a few encounters which were tough, but the only major deviation comes between books. I add an extra session or two so we are generally a level up on the recommended progression. We would have to add some encounters in regardless because it's a five player group and the book is designed for four.
Is that to me? It seems to be, but your last post was making exactly my point, so I'm not sure.
.I don't mean to imply tons of extra effort is required, I just dont think it's that much quicker than prepping for a homebrew adventure. I can run (and have) a PF module as is, with very little work. The trouble is that I won't do it very well and (if the party is seventh or eighth level or so) the PCs are very likely to just die (because they won't play it very well).
The difference between a homebrew and an AP (when I run them, anyhow) is predominantly production values and creative quality. I dont think they save me much time - that was my only point.
|
But then again, there's always Xanesha :)Very soon now the older fans can tell the newer fans, "back in my day Xanesha was a TPK machine, you kids have it soooo easy ...."In my party, my character was the only one that survived fighting her. Managed to kill her with the best rolling I have ever pulled off. The party was a mess. Get this, one got frozen to stone, later was turned back by city cleric, then while taking the mayor back on horse with haste, he natural 1'd the ride check, then a second natural one. So my character is a near gibbering 4/5ths killed wreck, the other formerly stone to flesh guy tries to ride off and return the mayor, he crashes horse, is killed in the fall (didn't exactly have a huge lot of hp left) and the mayor is critted, he almost dies. This is after everyone else has already died.
Insanity. Train wreck.
I’m fairly sure that Xanesha’s medusa mask only turns you to stone for 1 minute, not permanently (unless our GM changed it).
Also, why did your GM require a ride check, unless the character was trying to do some trick riding or something?
Our party forced Xanesha to flee in round 2 or 3, unfortunately she got away and we had to fight her and her sister together in the next book (that was a tough fight).
|
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
I don't mean to imply tons of extra effort is required, I just dont think it's that much quicker than prepping for a homebrew adventure. I can run (and have) a PF module as is, with very little work. The trouble is that I won't do it very well and (if the party is seventh or eighth level or so) the PCs are very likely to just die (because they won't play it very well).
The difference between a homebrew and an AP (when I run them, anyhow) is predominantly production values and creative quality. I dont think they save me much time - that was my only point.
I am looking at it from two perspectives. My perspective is that I can roll something as fast as I can prep an AP... however it will not have the awesome stuff that makes an AP an AP.
On the other side of things, my wife has a lot less experience and yet she is able to run a full blown campaign (with a little assistance) when she wouldn't otherwise have the time/ knowledge to put one together.
I guess I didn't make things very clear.
That's a fair point, actually. A total novice is probably going to take longer to prep for their own campaign than to prep for a professionally written campaign.
I guess I sit somewhere between you two - I've run stacks of campaigns over the years, but don't have much mastery of PF rules, so it takes me a while.
But then again, there's always Xanesha :)Very soon now the older fans can tell the newer fans, "back in my day Xanesha was a TPK machine, you kids have it soooo easy ...."In my party, my character was the only one that survived fighting her. Managed to kill her with the best rolling I have ever pulled off. The party was a mess. Get this, one got frozen to stone, later was turned back by city cleric, then while taking the mayor back on horse with haste, he natural 1'd the ride check, then a second natural one. So my character is a near gibbering 4/5ths killed wreck, the other formerly stone to flesh guy tries to ride off and return the mayor, he crashes horse, is killed in the fall (didn't exactly have a huge lot of hp left) and the mayor is critted, he almost dies. This is after everyone else has already died.
Insanity. Train wreck.
I’m fairly sure that Xanesha’s medusa mask only turns you to stone for 1 minute, not permanently (unless our GM changed it).
Also, why did your GM require a ride check, unless the character was trying to do some trick riding or something?
Our party forced Xanesha to flee in round 2 or 3, unfortunately she got away and we had to fight her and her sister together in the next book (that was a tough fight).
Trying to do it quickly, combat was over, but he made him make the check. Ah well.
But then again, there's always Xanesha :)Very soon now the older fans can tell the newer fans, "back in my day Xanesha was a TPK machine, you kids have it soooo easy ...."
The real old-timers would probably say "Aushanna." ;)
|
Nope. In my run of SC, with a group of less-than-optimized characters, the real threat has been the random encounters table during the trek into that certain Abyss layer, spamming an endless horde of babau demons which slowly but steadily eroded any player's resource.
Aushanna, while a dangerous opponent, never made into the "legendary enemy/TPK machine" level.
|
|
The only reasons that Aushanna didn’t cause a TPK when I ran my group against her was that there were 6 PCs for that session (and I didn’t adjust the difficulty to compensate for the extra characters), and they managed to get really lucky with her failing the reflex save against the grease spell cast on her bow (and I think she could only fail on a 1 or 2).
Are we talking Aushanna from Zenith Trajectory? That was a fun AP. She didnt TPK us either and we kept the party of 4. Great module. :)
As for the OP...
I know Paizo designers played some of the old APs. I remember reading about some of the designers characters (like James Jacobs, Wesley, etc.).
Like Liz Courts stated, the APs are designed for 4 players and I'm pretty sure its with a 15 point buy standard. Alot of people complain about many encounters beong easy and unbalanced. I see lots of folks on these boards complain about this and more than a few start a pbp using 20 or 25 point buys with more than 4 PCs. Many posters have more than 4 PCs in their home group, then they post here complaining about how easy these APs are.
Is there a very hard encounter every so often (Xanesha, Aushanna, etc)... Yep. For the most part, experienced DMs will spot a possible TPK just by reading the encounter. Others might not spot it in time to stop their own TPK. For the most part, things seem balanced way better than other companies (which is why I'm strict with splat and 3rd party stuff).
I havent heard much about anything happening in the designers home games as far as the Golarion APs go. I assume it's because they are much busier now designing Golarion, the APs, and keeping the company afloat.
For the most part, the Golarion APs are balanced. The new sub-rules (trust points, kingdom rules, caravan rules, etc) are the only things untested. Even Paizo stated that they are often created with not much testing and thrown into the AP. This bothers me the most. Paizo quality APs with forced beta testing by us as some of these systems are almost at the core of their debut AP, like the Caravan rules in Jade Regent, or the Mass Combat in Kingmaker #5. Yes you can opt out of using it ..... but you will have to heavily modify the book to keep up the XP track for those of us that like using experience points and don't like randomly saying "ok, you guys/gals are now level ____". YMMV.
|
|
The thing is, for just about every encounter or sequence that someone says their group found too hard, someone else will post saying how they breezed through it ... which just proves what Paizo says about being unable to design for every disparate group out there (and it may well prove that the APs are in fact for the most part pretty well balanced).
I enjoyed reading most of these posts.
It turnes out the biggest problem was that we were too low as we were playing at medium progression rather than fast as suggested in this forum. And the GM used the PF converted wizard found at (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/fan-conversions/paizo-adventure-paths/pf- 08-seven-days-to-the-grave) which i think overbalanced it simply with the inclution of Suffocation, Hungry maw and feeble mind. Because of that battle the GM allowed us to retreat and rest (not to mention resurrect) to compensate for that he had the Grey Maidens break open the Daemon and that's why we had to fight him.
all in all I think its still a tough battle. But not as bad as I had initially suspected.
I do however believe that evil outsiders (demonds, daemonds, devils, raksasha etc) are all under CRed throughout Pathfinder (and 3.5) as any GM properly using their collection of abilities can easily TPK a party unless he pulls some major punches.
|
|
Glad that you got some resolution on this one blue_the_wolf.
I’m not sure that most of the evil outsiders are under-CR’d as such, but it would probably be fair to say that they are at the high end of that CR band (if you compare them with the CR guidelines you find in many cases that they are somewhat better than a ‘typical’ monster of that CR, but not quite good enough to be the next CR). In the two mid to high level campaigns I am playing in that have featured a lot of evil of evil outsider enemies we have a paladin and a cleric in the party, and those two classes tend to make pretty short work of them.
Creative Director
|
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've said so before, but I guess it bears repeating:
We generally do not playtest every adventure we publish, because, frankly, there's no time for us to playtest every adventure we publish. As a result, we expect the authors of the adventures to playtest them.
What serves as an official "playtest" during an adventure's lifecycle once the author hands it over to us is known as a development cycle; that's when someone goes through an adventure and addresses rules problems, story problems, world problems, writing problems, and all that in order to prepare the adventure for layout and then for final editing.
In either case, though... neither playtesting nor development can work out all the kinks for all parties. Especially when groups deviate from the average expectations (four average skilled players with an average skilled GM).
Are we just that bad or is the scenario just way over powered?
That'd be the temple under the hospice, right? Yeah, that was kinda hard, but the party pulled through.
But to answer the question in your title... I honestly don't think so. Some AP modules are really hard, others are total push-overs and then there are the additional new rules ( Kingdom building in Kingmaker, caravan rules in Jade Regent ) which have components which don't work all that well. Or not at all, like the caravan combat rules in Jade Regent.
I think the AP's could need a bit more playtesting. If the authors are lately failing to do that, Paizo staff needs to remind them that this is in their contracts.
See the thing with the APs is this, in my experience running most of them so far (I said run not finish) they end in a TPK by book 3 for my group. It's almost universally a well organized villian and poorly thought out and reckless actions from the pcs. Also sometimes they will defy sanity and do something that makes no sense and succeed, the dice can do wonders and horrors it seems.
Same party minus a few for various reasons went to finish the the clocktower. One died fighting the golem (he acted rashly) and that left 3. They fought the shapechangers and went upstairs where they fought Xenesha in her silence radius. Round one the sorcerer got dropped. The ranger and rogue "2 manned" her and killed her. Again, statistically crazy they pulled it off.
Same group TPK'd when they lost initiative to Karzoug and he 1 rounded them. Meteor Storm, Quickened Time stop, Prismatic Wall=Game...
The thing that I learned from this, is even had it been playtested to the moon and back, my party would never have worked as is anyway. They win fights they have no business being in, but lose what seem to be easy encounters. Giants thrashed them regularly, but cool specialized bosses were cakewalks. Balance becomes a non issue at that point and I have to guage it myself. The thing I realized about the APs are that while the Stories are amazing, If I want to use them I almost need to drop the stats out and rework the encounters myself with the originals as inspiration or guidelines because my group will not play in a way that makes the aps encounter balanced on either side....
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
What Jacobs said. And also, it should be noted that unless you playtest with several different groups, playtesting doesn't always help. For instance, most of the people I game with are professional game designers, which means they're probably going to need more challenging than the average party. (And I know Jacobs plays with some folks who make my powergamer friends look like newbies...)
That's why we rely on developers to do the math and try to catch potential issues before they make it into print. But as with everything in life--be it editing, medical procedures, contraception, or walking down the street--nothing is guaranteed, and your mileage may vary.
I have GM'd very good groups, and not so good groups through the same modules. The amount of hand holding I had to do for the lesser groups is amazing.
What Jacobs said. And also, it should be noted that unless you playtest with several different groups, playtesting doesn't always help. For instance, most of the people I game with are professional game designers, which means they're probably going to need more challenging than the average party. (And I know Jacobs plays with some folks who make my powergamer friends look like newbies...)
That's why we rely on developers to do the math and try to catch potential issues before they make it into print. But as with everything in life--be it editing, medical procedures, contraception, or walking down the street--nothing is guaranteed, and your mileage may vary.
.
.Video games tend to suffer the same problem, games aimed at kids/newbies are tested by professionals with 20-30 years of experience.
I would suggest that the easiness or difficulty of any given encounter has a lot to do with DMs and their playing style. Some brutally adhere to the rules and die rolls. Some DMs are tactically wizards who have maximized every detail of an encounter.
While others focus their expertise on other other elements of the game. Are willing to fudge things from time to time to let the game play out as they might have envisioned.
So while the module may have the same title, it might play out very dissimilar. Maybe it is a case of the DM and PCs anticipating very different play styles from each other?
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
|
What Jacobs said. And also, it should be noted that unless you playtest with several different groups, playtesting doesn't always help. For instance, most of the people I game with are professional game designers, which means they're probably going to need more challenging than the average party. (And I know Jacobs plays with some folks who make my powergamer friends look like newbies...)
Hey, hey, hey... you say that like it's a bad thing... :)
That's why we rely on developers to do the math and try to catch potential issues before they make it into print. But as with everything in life--be it editing, medical procedures, contraception, or walking down the street--nothing is guaranteed, and your mileage may vary.
Tru dat.
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I would suggest that the easiness or difficulty of any given encounter has a lot to do with DMs and their playing style. Some brutally adhere to the rules and die rolls. Some DMs are tactically wizards who have maximized every detail of an encounter.
While others focus their expertise on other other elements of the game. Are willing to fudge things from time to time to let the game play out as they might have envisioned.
So while the module may have the same title, it might play out very dissimilar. Maybe it is a case of the DM and PCs anticipating very different play styles from each other?
To discount the vast impact a GM can have on an adventure is foolish. You GMs are just as much in the responsibility seat as we are!
My favorite example: Saw a REALLY negative review over on EN World of an adventure I wrote: Red Hand of Doom. I read it, curious, and the guy who was writing the review was obviously a player who was posting his thoughts on the adventure after having finished it. He praised his GM an awful lot while he simultaneously tore the adventure apart. He'd obviously not read the adventure, since pretty much every single thing he cited as "terrible" in the adventure were significant changes, omissions, or additions his GM made to the adventure. Twas a very eye-opening experience about how folks perceive published adventures... in that they don't—they perceive their GM.
The GM is the window through which the players get to experience the adventure, and while there are certainly works of art like stained glass window GMs... there's also the GMs who are caked with dead flies and dust and mud. And I bet players who've only ever "looked out windows caked with flies and dust and mud" have never looked through a stained glass window... or even just a nice clean window.
I am pretty sure this has been touched on above, but one of the reasons experienced companies like Paizo hire the people they do is because those people have a sense and experience for what works and what doesn't. Professionals gain an intuitive sense over time, and as such, I would expect that they would not need to playtest everything. Moreover, as has been mentioned, the value of playtesting is quite variable.
That is what I have learnt. Never add side treks or extra stuff to an AP.
.
.Two useful thing about them:
1) Might give a larger party the XP they need.
2) have an excuse to give them something they will need sooner or later that they would be lacking otherwise for some reasons, like party composition and stuff.
Are we talking Aushanna from Zenith Trajectory? That was a fun AP. She didnt TPK us either and we kept the party of 4. Great module. :)
Bit of thread necromancy here!
My party's weakness was dealing with someone that could fly and attack with ranged weapons.
She would pound the party with her bow or Unholy Blight. Then, when they closed in to melee range with her, she would teleport to the other side of the room to rinse and repeat.
The only reason that she didn't cause a TPK was that I got creative and got her to make a deal with the PC's. They destroyed the statue that she was bound to and she would let them live. To make sure they came back after recovering (they were in no position to fight at this point and would have been killed by Kuo-toans) one of the PC's had to stay behind as insurance. The Cleric volunteered.
The PC's returned the following day and took out the statue, but were badly hurt by the fight. It took a little while, but they found Aushunna and the Cleric (who had been charmed) just after they had finished consumating "the deal" so to speak.
At that point, with several PC's being one Unholy Blight away from death, she forced them into another deal. The PC's had to be her servants for the next week. If they chose not to accept, she would teleport to Cauldron and kill all the people that they cared about (which she had found out about thanks to the poor charmed Cleric!).
So they got stuck with 2 bad deals! Aushunna then used the next few days forcing the PC's to get the Kuo-toans to worship her. If any of the Kuo-toans stepped out of line in the slightest then Aushunna would order the PC's to punish them (using with a beating). Of course several of the Kuo-toans were women and children, which just made it all the more evil.
In the end the PC's finally had enough of what she was making her do and attacked her. The party wizard tried to dimensional anchor her, to stop her from escaping but it failed. When they returned to Cauldron they discovered that she had attacked several people in town. There bodies were so badly mutilated that they couldn't be identified.
She then stayed of the radar until the end of the campaign, when I had her make a reappearance (how could I not!). She didn't come back alone though. She returned with the son she had "made" with the Cleric (now an evil Cleric, who had advanced in age by living on a plane that time went faster than the prime material plane) and Keygan Ghelve (the Gnome from the very first adventure that the PC's had befriended).
Just placing them on the map and telling them who they were got gasps from some of the players, with several of them firing up! It was great.
Now I just have to find some reoccuring villains from AoW (starting that campaign soon).
Olaf the Stout
Sorry Chris. My bad.
Olaf the Stout
First I'll address a few CoTCT spoilers:
When my group got to that point they decided to rest the night because if you remember, the Doctor has the missing button and there is no way to recall the elevator, which they blocked off anyway for good measure so by resting they were refreshed went down and just mowed everything down under them.
As Dudemiester said, Rolth will run if he has clearly losing, the Nosferatu bargins with the party to sell him the subject and be allowed to leave and the Daemon is trapped in a glass tube and unable to escape so again, that one is optional.
If you think that's bad, you havn't seen how big and endless Scarwall is in part 5 which takes up most of the entire AP part.
I think they do playtest them a little. As I have addressed the problem in spoilers and I do not wish to spoil it for others, but this AP was tested out in the 3.5 system so that's why there could be problems, but personally all the players in my group have been enjoying the advanture and I have been growing as a DM. I unfortunatly did the stupid idea of adding stuff into the first part, but I've learnt not too. I have been brain storming for stuff after part 6, but my group is only at part 3 now so a while off.
I believe something that TSR did and probably still do as WotC and what Paizo possibly do is play the adventure themselves to test it out and give it a run. Actually, saying that I'd be interested in hearing story ideas from them like if someone in their group actually died at the first part of the adventure or someone went "Don't worry, this isn't trapped" then boom, dead. Though that's just me going off on a tangent.