First game. Loving it, but issues with combat.


Beginner Box


Dear community,

Yesterday our group played our first RPG ever. We are currently with 4 (DM(me), Fighter, Rogue and Cleric) and we loved it! While me and the Fighter had a bit of experience with computer RPG's, the other two were total game-virgins.

We (I) had a great deal of fun with the fountain:

Fountain fun:
Our rogue drank from it, and got damaged. They tried everything afterward, from throwing the lizard from the goblin guards in it, to peeing in it out of frustration..

After they came back into the room later the cleric remembered to read the runes on the fountain, and they discovered that they had to throw money in it. They were scared of the water because of what happened to the rogue, but after a huge debate the fighter took a sip anyway. Too bad for them, he rolled so bad that nothing happened, even with the +5 modifier. The rogue and cleric both got angry that he 'wasted' the 'blessing' he got from throwing money in the fountain, which sparked huge debate for the rest of the dungeon.

I was particularly happy with the goblin encounter,

Goblins!:
as they didn't use the brute-force method (aka, slay everything!) but really tried to role-play the whole encounter. They even collected the body of the kings sister, so they could give her to her brother.

What I didn't like however, were the combat encounters. Is it just me, or are monsters really weak? Most encounters in the dungeons have a CR1, which should be appropriate for a lvl 1 party, right? However, the fighter killed nearly everything on his own.

Combat:
The spider died in one hit (1d8+7? Ouch!) and even though he rolled horribly at the Reefclaw, they still managed to kill him without anyone taking more that a few points of damage. The fighter even killed the skeleton warriors without taking any damage at all, even though he just slashed them with his sword, getting -5 damage on his damage rolls. The +7 is just too much for monsters to overcome..

Is this working as intended? Or get combat encounters harder after a few levels (As the +7 is a flat bonus, as I understand it)? Or do I just have to throw more monsters (higher CR) at them? Or is this just the way combat is, more like a bump in the road than a real challenge.

Because of this, I would like to give the rogue and cleric more time to shine in out next session. The cleric excels in combat against undead, but this would be a weak point for the rogue. Maybe a dungeons with a lot of locks and undead monsters? Some sneaky parts? I'm not quite sure, and any help would be welcome.

Annoy the fighter:
Also, the Dragonbane sword you get in the adventure seems quite strong. 2d6 damage for a lvl 1 (or 1-3 for that matter) seems overpowered. I was thinking about making him lose the sword somehow, or is this not unnecessary?

Anyway, we are all looking forward to our next game. I hope we'll have as much fun as in this first adventure!

Kind regards,

Darash


The sword is very strong vs that one thing yes. That is the point of it or the last encounter is well a pain at best and death at worst. The thing is that sword is going to be just a +1 sword for 99% of the game. Dragons are not at all a common enemy until high lvls and even then.

There is no need to take it away as the fighter should not be using it on any dragons anytime soon. In fact the party would be better served to sell it and split the coin.

-Edit- as for the CR1 encounters. "appropriate for a lvl 1 part" honestly means pretty easy. As a part is expected to fight at least 4 equal CR encounters a adventuring day. Though at lvl a good melee does tend to one shot things. That is just the way if it. The reason is at lvl 1 the difference between rolling a 1 or a eight on a damage die is huge. At lvl 5 not so much. It is just a side effect of low lvl play.

The Exchange

The dragonbane sword only does the extra damage to dragon-type creatures, so no worries there. They'll need it when they fight a dragon.
At early levels the fighter is going to shine, it's the way they are built. The rogue will have time to shine with traps, locks and when flanking and getting in a sneak attack. Suggestion here is to help set up a few situations where he can, also make sure the rogue's player knows that sneak attacks happen when he is flanking or whenever the foe is "flatfooted" like in the first round of combat before the creature gets a turn.
Clerics are mostly healers with a bit of minor combat ability. They will usually shine against the undead and when helping the party with "buff" spells, spells that give bonuses to hit/damage/abilities or protection spells.
If you wish to tailor encounters to their abilities that is good, you are already looking to be a good GM, just be careful not to amp up the creatures too much or it suddenly goes from too easy to a slaughterfest. accidently killing off all the PCs can put a serious crimp in the night's gaming. I would say that it could be better to put smarter usage into the monsters instead of adding a bunch....maybe a couple of the monsters come from a different angle at the party, bypassing the fighter and getting into it with the others in the party, or maybe the monsters use tactics like flanking, hiding, ambushing, etc...
Just remember to look at the monsters and try to figure out what they can know and what they would want to do....monsters don't want to die...they want to defeat the goodly adventurers and keep doing their evil thing.

Sovereign Court

Personally I like having a couple of easy combat encounters to warm up, then a more challenging one.

Easy fights are important because variety in difficulty makes the game more fun. After a few easier fights a hard fight is a nice challenge, adrenaline rushing because this time it's serious. And after a few harder fights an easier fight is nice to show off how the pros make it look easy :)

So don't worry too much if a few of the fights are easy; they won't all be. CR === APL is a bit of a misunderstanding; an enjoyable adventure tends to have some encounters with CR < APL, a few at CR = APL, and some climax encounter(s) at CR > APL.


Just some other thoughts. Beginner box isn't exactly challenging. Its fun but not tough. As that was sort of the point of it. A teaching tool. Case in point in compared to other monsters in their same CR category goblins are pretty bad.

Still this is alright because at lvl 1 both players and monsters have very low hp. So a lucky max damage roll or a crit can end a PC in a blink. (seriously don't use anything fir a great axe at low lvls.) The longer a combat goes on the more likely a crit is to happen. Hench low lvl encounters seem to be aimed at fast combats.

Making the rogue shine sadly has a lot to do with the other party members. If the fighter does not pay any mind to helping set up flanks then the rogue will have a much harder time.


On monsters being really weak at level 1. Well, yes many of them can be. Keep in mind that a monsters could also possibly kill one of your 1st level PCs with a single attack. The "balance" of the game can also be tilted to one side or the other depending on how the DM/GM uses the monsters and terrain. If you and your friends are completely new to the game, it is better to make it easy. With experience, the players will become more savvy in a fight, and you will become better able to determine what is too much and what is too little, and to then adjust as you go.


Thanks for all the tips! I'll try to vary the CR for encounters a tiny bit for the next game (let's say, 1-2 CR) and maybe pick some smarter enemies than goblins. Maybe an evil necromancer with some skeletons? I'm not quite sure yet. Oh well, I guess we'll get the hang of it in a few more games.

That being said, I've still got issues with two things:

One, it seems to me that you just can go to sleep after each (combat) encounter and regains all your spells (and health, because the cleric can just cast heal over and over again). This certainly doesn't make sense in RPG terms (a party sleeping in a dungeons full of undead, or going back to town after every enemy they face). How should I prevent them from doing this? Should I just say:'don't do it, it doesn't make sense IC', or let them be ambushed if they sleep to much? It feels like a cheap way to keep them going..

Second, how to handle character death? While the odds of killing someone off is quite small if I keep the CR in check, it still could happen. It seems boring to me to say: You can't play with us until we are lvl ?? and can cast Resurrection spells. But a Deus ex machina like, 'it seemed you were dying, but a knight in shining armor ran in and saved you all' seems quite unsatisfying too.. Any tips on handling this?

Again, thanks for the quick responses! :)

Grand Lodge

You really do have to be careful with the encounter balance. The Valros included (and well built fighters in general) are going to be tough to deal with. AC 17 isn't easy for many sub CR 2 critters to even think about hitting with any regularity. Going up against something with an AC of 14 or less even while using Power Attack +3 to attack and d8+7 damage is going to bring the pain pretty quickly. But remember - that's his thing. He's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing.

You will generally find that encounters of APL = CR are probably a bit dull. Look at making APL +1 your goal. Try to add interesting environmental features or traps to spice things up. Generally you have to think in terms of your fighter dropping 1 creature every round on his own and then plan accordingly.

Look at Orcs. 3 Orcs in an encounter would be CR 2 and with a +5 to hit they have an OK chance of hitting AC 17. Looking at the pregens though, these same Orcs have a really good chance of hitting everyone else, and their damage (d8+4) means on an average damage (8) they are going to knock Ezren into dying and need two hits on everyone else. While they have a low AC (13) and only 6 hp most everyone is going to be able to hit them easily and need 1 hit from Valros and 2 hits from everyone else. Except Ferocity keeps them up for an extra round to make another attack themselves.

For your remaining two issues:

1) There are ways to work around this. Don't let them sleep, the environment is not conducive to restful sleep even with a bedroll. Think about what nearby monsters might be doing while the PCs are trying to sleep. Surely they would love to come and murder a bunch of sleeping adventurers. Put them on a story driven time limit if possible. Nothing helps you make the hard choices like a clock ticking down. If the players are going to resort to cheesy/lame tactics (sleeping or going back to town after every encounter) then feel free to respond in kind.

2) This is a sticky-wicket. If you are overly worried about it and you aren't already, roll behind the screen. You can always fudge a roll that the player didn't see. Don't feel like having a confirmed crit on the wizard? Make it a miss, or a hit for minimum damage instead. Especially if the death feels random or happenstance. Promote the use of healing potions. Keeping the cleric alive is a good way to keep the rest of the party alive as well. If you are playing your game based out of Sandpoint as outlined in the GMG then Father Abstalar Zantus may be able/willing to raise a dead PC in exchange for a special favor for the church (aka new adventure plot!). Also a character death could allow a player to start a new/different character that they might be interested in, so it's important to understand where the player is coming from in this transaction as well.

Silver Crusade

At the beginning of your next session, introduce "making camp for the night." Have the party set watches, ask everyone if they'll be sleeping in their armor, ask the spellcasters when they'll be recharging their spells, etc.

Then hit them with a random encounter. Simply...25% of nothing, 25% for a pack of wolves, 25% for wandering undead, 25% whatever. You get the point.


The beginner box encounters, with the exception of the dragon, are meant to be easy. It's designed for people without prior game experience who are getting used the idea of rolling, dice, modifiers and everything else.

Don't worry about it. Once you're through with Black-fang, you can build your own adventures that present more of a challenge.


Darash wrote:

Thanks for all the tips! I'll try to vary the CR for encounters a tiny bit for the next game (let's say, 1-2 CR) and maybe pick some smarter enemies than goblins. Maybe an evil necromancer with some skeletons? I'm not quite sure yet. Oh well, I guess we'll get the hang of it in a few more games.

That being said, I've still got issues with two things:

One, it seems to me that you just can go to sleep after each (combat) encounter and regains all your spells (and health, because the cleric can just cast heal over and over again). This certainly doesn't make sense in RPG terms (a party sleeping in a dungeons full of undead, or going back to town after every enemy they face). How should I prevent them from doing this? Should I just say:'don't do it, it doesn't make sense IC', or let them be ambushed if they sleep to much? It feels like a cheap way to keep them going..

Second, how to handle character death? While the odds of killing someone off is quite small if I keep the CR in check, it still could happen. It seems boring to me to say: You can't play with us until we are lvl ?? and can cast Resurrection spells. But a Deus ex machina like, 'it seemed you were dying, but a knight in shining armor ran in and saved you all' seems quite unsatisfying too.. Any tips on handling this?

Again, thanks for the quick responses! :)

Hi there, and welcome to Pathfinder!!

So, you'll have to forgive me if I'm getting this all wrong, as I have no familiarity with the Beginner Box, or how much the rules have been streamlined for ease of play. That said, let me address these two points from a general rules standpoint, in the first case, and from experience, in the second.

1) Not sure how the BB handles it, like I said, but normally a spell caster can't regain spells more than once in a 24 hour period. No matter how much, or how often they "sleep", they only get new spells once a day. While a cleric doesn't technically need a full 8 hours of uninterrupted rest, they do have a specific time of day that they "pray". As far as resting to heal, common sense would imply that you can't gain HP back from resting 8 hours more than once a day. It doesn't specifically call it out in the rules, but it does refer to a "night's" rest.

Of course, that's not even taking into account how dangerous it is to camp down in the middle of a dungeon. A midnight ambush or two is good to get the point across, but there's no need to over-do it. All the above advice about "making camp" is good stuff.

2) Let 'em die. Really. Let them die, and then have them roll up a new character. It could even be the same character for all intents and purposes. Just change the name and description. No need to wait until the other characters gain more XP, just come up with a good reason the replacement PC is in the dungeon, or where ever, and go from there.

Letting them die, you're reinforcing that death is a real consequence. It will put some fear into your players and make them smarter fighters. Dying is never fun, but neither is always winning. Honestly, it's harder to kill off a character than you'd think. Drop them into negs, sure, but unless it's massive amounts of damage, or they were near death already, there's plenty of time for an unconscious PC to stabilize, or for his friends to stabilize him.

Hope that helps. If not, just ignore me. My players often do. One last thing, out of curiosity... How doe's your fighter have a +7 to damage? I know it's doable, even at 1st level, but I'd like to know how it worked out for you. 18 STR, Power Attack and Two Handing a longsword? That's about the extreme end of the power spectrum at 1st level, barring using an actual 2handed weapon. If it is the case, then just know that the fighter is at the top end of what's possible for 1st level, and won't be getting much stronger for a few levels. It also means he's hurting somewhere else, stat-wise, assuming you guys used a point buy. Hit him there. Will saves, Cha based social encounters, Int based puzzle encounters, etc. Hitting things really hard is about the only thing he's gonna be good at. That's his job. The other characters will shine in other places.

Grand Lodge

The Eel wrote:
One last thing, out of curiosity... How doe's your fighter have a +7 to damage? I know it's doable, even at 1st level, but I'd like to know how it worked out for you. 18 STR, Power Attack and Two Handing a longsword?

This. Yes. The pre-gen Valros does 1d8+7 on a power attack.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Actually only 17 STR. He 2-hands it by defaul, they include damage adjustment for when he pulls out his shield.

+3 STR x 1.5 = +4 to dmg, PA adds 3 dmg when 2-handing, so +7 when 2-handing a longsword

Grand Lodge

AmosTrask32 wrote:

Actually only 17 STR. He 2-hands it by defaul, they include damage adjustment for when he pulls out his shield.

+3 STR x 1.5 = +4 to dmg, PA adds 3 dmg when 2-handing, so +7 when 2-handing a longsword

My bad, I didn't look closely because his normal attack bonus is +4 as is his damage.

But the pregen does have a 16 STR, and you are on your math. And it's still a lot of damage! :)

Sovereign Court

Resting on the dungeon may seem tricky, but isn't actually that hard to handle. Introduce semi-realism;

Instead of thinking about the monsters in each room of the module as stationary, imagine that they're "on rails"; they move around a certain set of rooms. They move from room to room every few hours, completing a circuit every [day]. The way they're described in the module is just the state of the dungeon at the moment the PCs first enter; after that everything will start moving around slowly. Monsters go to the bathroom, kitchen, back to the dining room, to the bedroom, back to the bathroom etc.

If you stay camped out in the hallway, various monsters will come by to disturb you.

More than that: once certain monsters go missing, other monsters, used to [daily, hourly] meeting of other monsters, notice that something's going on. Failure of the guard shift to report within an hour of the normal time makes the captain of the guard send out some patrols to find out what happened.

So once you enter the dungeon and kill a few monsters, the daily routine is disturbed, and the more monsters you kill, the more the other monsters will notice that there's something going on.

---
If the party kills some monsters, then camps in the room, after a few hours other monsters will come in to see what happened to the original monsters, who didn't show up for [dinner, guard shift etc].

Obviously, this makes resting in the dungeon pretty hard.

It's still possible to do so, but you have to go looking for out of the way rooms; possible if the dungeon is something big, like an ancient dwarven city overrun with goblins. You can try to find an obscure room to hide in.

If the PCs persistently kill a few monsters everyday, the rest of the monsters will start to notice and organize larger search parties to find the killers. The PCs' hit and run tactics now turn into a cat and mouse game.

And at this point, your problem has been solved: PCs don't break immersion/believability by resting, finding a place to rest has become an interesting strategic problem for them. It's a positive part of the game now.

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