Scenario difficulty problem areas and suggestions


Pathfinder Society

51 to 100 of 147 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>
4/5 *

If optimized PCs are preparing for those rare tough encounters, then why do they unload that alpha strike on every goblin they see as well?

This clip exemplifies my philosophy for optimizing - great sword fight, but the key message comes in at about 1:15.

Silver Crusade 2/5

Part of it is to just speed through a foregone conclusion. Part of it is "just doing what my character does". Who wants to stand around while the GM tries to roll "20"'s?

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne

GM Lamplighter wrote:

If optimized PCs are preparing for those rare tough encounters, then why do they unload that alpha strike on every goblin they see as well?

I never claimed that all power gamers in PFS where power gamers solely as preparation for rare tough encounters. Are you claiming that all power gamers always unload their alpha strike on every goblin they see? Or are you just remembering it that way because power gamers that annoy you by doing this are far more likely to get your attention than power gamers that actually go unnoticed because they pulled their punches?

3/5

I would imagine that risk aversion plays a role. Whether a given encounter actually crosses the line between "I'll just keep my hand tied behind my back" and "bring out the big guns" can be difficult to sense in the moment. Then risk aversion kicks in, and unnecessary stomping occurs.

When an optimized PC feels threatened in any way, even if the threat is superficial, the alpha strike often comes out.

-Matt

Shadow Lodge

Three things can combine to make a "boring scenario":

1. Too many PCs (6-7 instead of ~4) = too many actions.
2. Some rules in the system that are truly imbalanced
3. Poor scenario/encounter design

When you get all three at once, it can significantly erode the fun of individuals at a table.

When these combine, it leads to 4 encounters that each last 1-2 rounds, which means the players don't need to worry about resource management. If you have a sense that you're only going to have 6 rounds in combat today, why not cast your big spells so you can at least "play" with them while you're in that level range?

I've seen new players come out to a 1-2 subtier PFS game a few times this year, and literally get to act once or twice during initiative for the entirety of a scenario (low init rolls combined with 5-6 party members acting ahead of them and wiping up the encounter). Sadly, the conversion/retention rate of these gamers is low, because they see that game as exemplary of future games should they decide to venture back out again. Surely this dents Paizo revenue as perhaps these customers seek out a better balanced game (perhaps this will be worse with the dawn of 5E).

I'd think tackling all 3 fronts simultaneously is the right approach.

1. If we kept tables to 5 people (allow the 4-player adjust to apply to 3+pregen and 4, and give 5+ players the 6-7 player version of more recent scenarios), that's one big step.

2. Have PFS adopt some "house rules" to plug the obvious broken mechanics in the game. These rules that need a little TLC in organized play should be obvious. Magic lineage+Wayang spell hunter comes to mind (particularly on a magus). Perhaps sleep hex needs saves on following rounds due to the sounds of combat or recent awareness of proximity to hostile enemies. Perhaps misfortune should be limited to 1/2 level uses per day. These rules aren't as big of problems in a home game where a GM can adjust, but can definitely impact organized play.

3. Better encounter design. It's not hard to look at a printed encounter and ask - "Would this be fun for 6 people? Is there enough for them to do over a few rounds?" .. and to actually playtest/consider a game which involves a magus, witch, alchemist and gunslinger all working together for that encounter.

In some ways, this can be handled with some GM text to allow flexibility in the tactics. There's a couple scenarios where the end boss has advanced warning of the party and their capabilities. This is actually realistic (what evil wizard doesn't scope out the adventures coming to topple his reign?).

Scenarios that ensure BBEGs/end fight enemies have a good way to prep for the more powerful classes are better ones. Bosses shouldn't hesitate to use their consumables and be prepared. A pair of scrolls of resist energy and entropic shield do little to protect against a low level core rulebook party (fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric), but can be a serious asset to the APG/UM party (alchemist, magus, witch, gunslinger). If I were a BBEG in a dungeon, I'd rather have these in my back pocket than an assortment of gold bars. They don't make the core party's life any harder, and they make the advanced class party's lives more interesting.

Possible Idea:

Perhaps a 6.0 guide rule that gives a GM some options...?

If your table is more than half composed of classes beyond the Core Rulebook, you are given the flexibility to randomly roll and apply from a table of "boosts" to two fights chosen by the GM's discretion.

An example table could be:

1. Each enemy in the battle gains Toughness
2. One enemy in the battle gains a potion of resist energy.
3. One enemy in the battle gains a potion of entropic shield.
4. One enemy in the battle gains a potion of bear's endurance.
5. The enemy with the highest HD in the battle gains a single villain point, useable for +4 to any roll or useable as a re-roll against a failed saving throw.
.
.
etc
.
.

3/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

The problem with the "better encounter design" solution is that it does not help with problems in past scenarios. Given that 3.5E Season 0 scenarios are still sanctioned, we can assume that Paizo does not wish to update or retire past scenarios.

Better encounter design won't fix previous and current seasons. Removing problematic options from Additional Resources? That affects all seasons.

So would GM options. What if there were a general "hard mode" option out there? A package of on-the-fly adjustments in which enemy hit points are increased, attack bonuses are added to, ACs are increased, save DCs are boosted, etc?

-Matt

Grand Lodge 4/5 Global Organized Play Coordinator

wakedown wrote:

In some ways, this can be handled with some GM text to allow flexibility in the tactics. There's a couple scenarios where the end boss has advanced warning of the party and their capabilities. This is actually realistic (what evil wizard doesn't scope out the adventures coming to topple his reign?).

Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play 5.0, page 32 wrote:

However, if the actions of the PCs before or during an encounter invalidate the provided tactics or starting locations, the GM should consider whether changing these would provide a more enjoyable play experience.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Another problem is that there's no standard way for scaling the monsters Defense without scaling the monsters offense. They haven't gotten down to just adding 30 hit points and +4 to all saves onto the monster without also increasing its attack and damage capabilities to the point that it will eat the entire unoptimized party in one round.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne

Mattastrophic wrote:

I would imagine that risk aversion plays a role. Whether a given encounter actually crosses the line between "I'll just keep my hand tied behind my back" and "bring out the big guns" can be difficult to sense in the moment. Then risk aversion kicks in, and unnecessary stomping occurs.

When an optimized PC feels threatened in any way, even if the threat is superficial, the alpha strike often comes out.

-Matt

Good point. I have also seen encounters so trivial that it doesn't matter whether you use a nuke or a firecracker, the results are exactly the same. And some people just like watching the nuke go off.

Silver Crusade 2/5

I think Season 4 and season 5 (to a lesser degree) have largely addressed this. As more seasons are published scaled like 4 and 5, this problem will hopefully be reduced more and more.

Shadow Lodge

Michael Brock wrote:
Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play 5.0, page 32 wrote:
However, if the actions of the PCs before or during an encounter invalidate the provided tactics or starting locations, the GM should consider whether changing these would provide a more enjoyable play experience.

Oh, I'm totally aware of that. I should've been more clearer with my point.

Specifically, there's some scenarios where enemies you encounter actually have an idea of the party's capabilities before they see them.

Two Example Scenarios:

My Enemy's Enemy and Refuge of Time come to mind.

When an enemy knows, "oh the group has a magus who likes to use cold spells", he could quaff a potion of cold resistance (if he has one), once he hears the party closing.

Magi aren't as crazy-broken (especially the alpha-striking spell storing magi who stack metamagic on a single trick spell) when they are faced with someone who is prepared for their element choice. This forces them into a more balanced choice of spells (in this case, perhaps shocking grasp without crazy metamagic stacking).

There are a lot of scenarios where the BBEG/end monster has no idea what's coming down the hall. No minions got away to warn them. They weren't scrying or watching from a tower above the garden. My point was that if I'm a bad guy, I try to have a vantage point on whoever comes to stop me. Scenarios/adventures should consider that villains actually think like this and not simply set them in a sealed vacuum from the rest of the dungeon environment. In many of the AP installments for end bosses, this is handled well as the mooks/minions in earlier fights are really nothing more than an early warning system to educate the villain on how to prepare.

As an example, I think it'd be great that any scenario with a seasoned Aspis agent perhaps gets a dossier on the Pathfinder team that's been dispatched to deal with them. Said Aspis could spend the couple hours while the Pathfinders hoof it about the town with a discretionary budget for potion purchases to help them better prepare. It only takes 100gp to be fairly well prepared on a pair of consumables, which a level 6+ villain would certainly have on hand.

This is really my point about adventure/scenario design. Sometimes there's scenarios that have this designed in (and are a sort of hallmark adventure because they prove challenging to a more powerful party because they can employ counters, yet while not really changing in difficulty for a "core" party because there's not as much that is one-dimensional/counterable).

Silver Crusade 2/5

Any kind of elemental resistance really bones magi who take the quick and easy elemental maximization route. Not to mention SR. Many NPCs have access to communal resist energy, but never have the info to know to throw it.

Shadow Lodge

That's really my point. In a home game campaign, if there was a party of min/max'd characters (which is different than optimized, since I believe in tabletop gaming, optimizing means achieving flexibility and not maximizing a single dimensional attack) - and they were getting closer and closer to foiling a villain, said villain would know what he's about to face.

I've seen many scenarios where alchemists, gunslingers, magi and archers have all destroyed encounter after encounter by simply winning initiative. In a multi-session home game, the "Brocknian Cult" (or whatever villainous organization is plotting to destroy the world as we know it), would realize their chief rival is this specific gang of heroes. Then, if this gang was all basically just using ranged attacks, touch attacks and fire, they'd certainly start to stock up on obvious, accessible counters to that. Suddenly, the alchemist is worried about getting acid and force bombs discoveries to round themselves out instead of being a one-trick pony a bit earlier than expected for their level, with rapid shot, fast bombs, boots of speed, etc.

It just takes a handful of sessions where a player learns being min/max'd towards one dimension is a liability before they begin to consider plating a different game where they round their character capabilities out. Reactive enemies are one method that cause the game (in tabletop/home game mode) to get back into a better balanced state.

I believe this is achievable in PFS with some extra thought on scenario design that could basically prep the writer pool and let them know "here's a few hundred GP of items that a 3-7 scenario should have for an enemy in climatic finale", with a plausible method to explain how that enemy/villain could have known how to prioritize preparing before his door is thrown open.

Silver Crusade 2/5

Yeah, that might work. Take like 5 min to assign a few hundred gold of goodies.

The Exchange 3/5

Under the perception skill, its only a DC 0 to hear the "details of a conversation", many times before player characters will open a door or are walking up to the big baddie they will be discussing strategy or casting spells, I always allow the BBEG perception checks to hear them coming. Unless the scenario calls out that he is distracted or whatever. I mean, even if they are 30 feet away through a closed door, thats only a Perception DC of 8[+1 per 10 feet, +5 for a closed door].

Maybe that's a bit harsh but there is usually no reason why a BBEG is going to knowingly not prepare them self for what could be their final 30 seconds of life.

5/5

Adding hard mode takes very little design work from my point of view.

Also, I try to have NPC defenses up whenever it makes sense to do so. Of course I also try to give alternative options to fighting whenever that makes sense too. Now if only I could get GMs to read and prep scenarios first...

3/5

Kyle Baird wrote:

Adding hard mode takes very little design work from my point of view.

Also, I try to have NPC defenses up whenever it makes sense to do so. Of course I also try to give alternative options to fighting whenever that makes sense too. Now if only I could get GMs to read and prep scenarios first...

That it, now there is no excuse for mor ehard modes!

3/5

Now that the Mythic rules are available, would these be a good way to help increase difficulty in scenarios? Adding a mythic template or some mythic abilities wouldn't be too difficult for a GM to do.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Tarma wrote:
Now that the Mythic rules are available, would these be a good way to help increase difficulty in scenarios? Adding a mythic template or some mythic abilities wouldn't be too difficult for a GM to do.

I actually found this VERY hard to do, not being familiar with the mythic rules at all. Everything you do to a monster is spread out a bit from a couple of different places in the mythic book. It was the most annoying prepwork i've done by far.

Shadow Lodge

Having run a couple mythic scenarios for PFS (well, the two I'm aware of, one being a special), I don't think it's that bad when the extent of the mythic rules is the Savage or Agile templates.

I'm pretty bleh about mythic rules (like players need more crazy game breaking things to cram into a full round), but on monsters I say 'yes please'.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

Mekkis wrote:


I find that the existence of a 'hard mode' is counterproductive: it gives powergamers a 'justification' for powergaming. In organised play, a character who intends to play on 'hard mode' will not always be in a 'hard mode' scenario, playing with other players of similar disposition.

Strangely, I've found the opposite to be true.

In my experience, the people who are least willing to play Hard Mode are the consummate power gamers.


David Bowles wrote:
trollbill wrote:
Dhjika wrote:
CathalFM wrote:

Give a "hard mode" that the option should be present (at higher levels at least) for the GM to completely use their own tactics.

I don't think the PFS staff should waste much time on hard modes - I would rather they spend their time on games and chronicles for AP and modules. You have to have an entire table in agreement about hard mode - and that isn't always the case - so the couple people or even one that doesn't want to play such either gets pressured to do so, has to leave the table and doesn't get to game, or the table doesn't play hard mode.

If I understand what CathalFM is saying here, he is suggesting that 'hard mode' would simply be letting the GM use whatever tactics they think will be most effective rather than those given in the adventure. This form of 'hard mode' would not require any extra work from the PFS staff and would be automatically backwards compatible with all adventures.
Insufficient in most or at least many cases. PFS has a great deal of mathematically inept encounters with NPCs sporting very poor to-hit numbers. It's too easy to push them into "only hit on a NAT 20"-land.

@Trollbill yes you completely understand where I was coming from and that was really the single biggest intent of my suggestion, it gives the most increase in difficulty for the least amount of PFS staff effort required and least loss of comparative experiences.

@David I understand where you are coming from, and agree it may seem insufficient, but DHjika is just one example of someone who thinks PFS shouldn't waste time on Hard Mode (a fair stance). My suggestion was to try and find a middle ground that could increase your difficulty (I admit not as much as you like) while also not draining time resources from PFS staff.

@Mike Brock, I am aware of the guide 5.0 increased flexibility of tactics and sorry if that wasn't clear in my suggestion. I greatly appreciate that step I was merely suggesting one step further in changing the guide to include a proviso that at higher levels the GM is free to alter the tactics of the BBE REGARDLESS of if they are invalidated by players.

Again to all though this was merely a suggestion :)

Grand Lodge 3/5

I agree that scenarios seem to be a bit easy, but I recognize my experience isn't representative. I always hear people talk about Bonekeep as if it was a player killer, a tough-as-nails scenario where people die. My characters have done all stages of Bonekeep, and never did the party wipe or come close to TPK, and Bonekeep 3 was all pregens except for my buddy and I! This year at GenCon, they made an announcement that if your player died, you had to go to the HQ/front area and tell them you were dead and they would announce it. About 5 minutes in one person had already died, but then we literally didn’t hear another death announced for hours.

None of the regular scenarios I’ve played in as a character have been too challenging. Never* have my PCs even came close to death except my rogue in Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment and that was due in part to playing up. As a GM, though, I have killed about 5 PCs over the past two years, but these were inexperienced players. In the 4 years I’ve played at GenCon alone, only 3 characters in my party have ever died…ever. Is this representative? Who knows?

What about more reward for GMs, in order to attract more GMs? Perhaps allowing them the entire GM chronicle sheet and additional benefits. I play with a group of about 7 or 8 (not all at once) and nobody is interested in being a GM in part because it’s a lot of work for little reward, in their minds. I would like to see GM credit given for all scenarios GMed, even if it’s something like a “slow track” count. I don’t plan on re-GMing any scenario because I won’t get anything for it.

Table size can be a problem. I’d argue that most of the time (50%+1) it is an “issue” but not a problem. Almost always at PFS events when I’m an active player, there is newbie who (rightfully so) can slow the game down and that long-term, active player who also slows things down in various sorts of ways. 6-7 people are a lot of time in combat, especially when GMs are not prepared. This year at GenCon was the worst year ever for me as a player. Most of my GMs were lackluster; one was wholly unprepared and didn’t even know basic rules. The Sunday morning games are par for the course laid back and fraught with bad possibilities due to burnout, which I can understand. I’m burnt out by that point as well.

I will say being a GM for a Con, which I have never done and will not do (as this is the only time I get to actually play a character), must be very hard work, especially if you’re running several different scenarios. I’d pull my hair out by Friday afternoon. I don’t know what it was this year, maybe overworked GMs?

Player material could be an issue. There are so many options for players to min/max while the monsters usually aren’t made to take advantage of the new options (in my low opinion). I believe many GMs aren’t even aware of some of the options and usually ask to check it out. There is also no audit system whatsoever. I know we are supposed to keep track of gold spent and items bought, but honestly, I don’t use the tracking sheet and I’ve never seen anyone else, either. I use herolab, so fortunately it shows my value, total spent, etc. I know for certain on many occasions people had the wrong numbers on their sheet; as a GM myself, if something seems off I’ll ask to check it out- I’ve only seen this once at GenCon since I’ve been going (2010).

I hate more paperwork, though, so I’m not sure how to audit or make players honest; although I’d say the majority of the time they are honest mistakes. I saw one guy who was getting huge AC bonuses incorrectly, wielding a two-handed polearm while carrying a tower shield and a heavy crossbow…the GM was not very perceptive.

Trying to tweak balance, though, is extremely hard. I hate killing player characters (contrary to my players’ beliefs), especially in PFS. Adding a monster here and there can affect groups differently. Adding a high hit point monster to a group with majority melee will have a different result than one with majority magic….perhaps the devs are erring on the side of allowing players to live over player death. On the face of it having BBEG know the party’s strengths and buff ahead of time may be a strategy that could work, as the PFS Guide does say the GM can do this. I always like it, though, when high level players in home games are aghast and shocked that an enemy is buffed, had used divination, or gotten themselves ready just like the PCs did, as if the enemy lived in a vacuum! Sometimes players simply don’t realize that the powerful evil guy has the same access to magic, resources, etc. as they do? If the PC is min-maxing, then the evil guy would, too!

I agree on “vital info.” I just finished RotRL in my home campaign, and “vital info” was all over the place. I noticed this was Season 5, too. This slows down GMs, unless they repeatedly GM a scenario and commit it to heart (which some won’t do because they only run it once or twice as GM). I do like Season 5 brought in more roleplaying other than strictly combat events. The most memorable scenarios I’ve had were ones where roleplaying stood out (usually by the GM).

One thing is for certain- I don’t want to turn away new players by making the game difficult to play, to learn, or having fun by being bored.

I would love to see numbers on class, race, player death, scenario success breakdown from year to year.

I suppose as well that “easy” and “hard” refer to the combats in a scenario, too. Sometimes the “hard” is the roleplaying challenges but the party is so good at that they fail to realize it and since the combat went easy they may say as a whole it was easy. The entire idea is very complex because you have so many different variables in the GM, each player, each scenario, each character. It’s nearly impossible to balance to all those, on top of making everyone happy (which is not feasible, as I know, I’m in politics). I love the strategy of the combat in the game, but my most fun moments are from roleplaying; beauty is in the eye of the beholder (whatever that is) ;)

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Mekkis wrote:

I am not in favour of increasing the difficulty of encounters in PFS scenarios.

I have found Season Six combats to be quite challenging enough, thank you all very much. And I wasn't running with a group that rolled up basket cases for characters.

Silver Crusade 2/5

Since my local my group has moved from early season material to season 4+, the kill count has gone way up when I GM. The tools just weren't there in seasons 0-3 generally speaking. I don't like killing PCs, but some deaths are necessary for the material to command respect.

2/5

Holy necro, Batman!

Silver Crusade 2/5

It's not that old.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

KestlerGunner wrote:

The typical PFS player:

-Min-maxes their stats
-Plays a Paladin, Summoner, Witch or a Touch-Attacker
-Cherry picks the very best feats out of 10+ Player Companions
-Plays in a party of 6

Then goes onto the boards and complains about how the scenarios are too easy.

You set difficulty when you make your character. The problem is so many of our player base are unconsciously clicking 'Can I Play Daddy?' when they make their characters.

Typical?? That's a bit of a way overgeneralization.

Silver Crusade 2/5

I have eight characters and the only one of that group I have is a summoner. And his eidolon has one (1) singular attack.

And also, paladins can suck it in the season 6's I've seen so far.

2/5

I think one of the best arguments for keeping the difficulty level low is not wanting to kill PCs. It's just bad for business to be killing new people and other potential customers since if it happens, it's not that fun.

So, if the difficultly levels gets raised, I propose making character death not as painful at lower levels. Have a sliding scale for how much a resurrection costs. So, maybe at level 1, it only costs 1 prestige. And as long as the player made it through enough of the scenario, they can use the prestige they gain from that chronicle to bring themselves back to life. It could also scale up with how many times a player has died, and not just level.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

@David: Eh. My paladin is doing fine in season 6 so far. There's nothing there an adamantine no-dachi can't cure. Also, some of those Technic League boys have been naughty...

Seriously: I'm pretty happy with season 4-6 difficulty. It's challenging but not too much. I really like that you don't have to be optimized to the gills to succeed. But you do need to put in an effort. Good.

My idea of an ideal adventure is that there's a good story of what's going in this scenario, combined with some fights where stuff happens that I haven't seen before, and we save the day, even though at some point it looked dicey.

5/5

FWIW, I died in Bonekeep 3 about 10 minutes after that first guy. I also died the night before during Stonelords.

Paizo Employee 4/5 Developer

Kyle Baird wrote:
I also died the night before during Stonelords.

That was an amazing death.

Sovereign Court 5/5 *

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Kyle Baird wrote:
FWIW, I died in Bonekeep 3 about 10 minutes after that first guy. I also died the night before during Stonelords.

Yeah I think only the first death was officially announced, I know several other people that died as well during Bonekeep 3.

Luckly Carlos had that scroll so I got to patch Garble up. We had a death in a very well prepared party (I spent 11k on stuff prepping for Bonekeep 3, and Carlos I know spent even more)

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Consider that easy scenarios are by design.

Raise dead costs 20 pp (including neg levels. This means that on average, if PC's are dying more than once every ten scenarios, you are cutting into their wealth by level.

So if we assume that most scenarios have at most two serious combats, each combat should have something like a 6% chance of killing any given player.

But then you have to also adjust for meat grinders like waking rune, the sealed gate, bone keep, etc. So a non-meat grinder should probably have more like a 3-4% of killing a PC.

Which means out side of meat grinders, most PC's will only die to bad luck. And given that these adventures are scaled for the average path finder, if you are above average, you should never die outside a meat grinder.

Now if people want more difficult scenarios there is hard mode. But then, I have run several hard mode scenarios, and no one seems interested. And if you want to see how average players really feel about scenarios being harder, check out the reviews on sealed gate.

Silver Crusade 2/5

I don't think Sealed Gate is as hard as some of the 4th season stuff. It's HOW it was written to be hard. A lot of obnoxious mechanics.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Also, season 4-6 seems to be moving toward "It is not hard to win this fight, but it is very hard to win this fight in a way that gets you full success for this mission."

Fights where your opponent has to survive
Fights where you lose if your opponent escapes.
Fights where you lose if you take to long.
Fights that are easily winable if you go all out, but if you burn to many resources, you are stuck with a choice of resting (and losing part of the mission) or pushing on and having to tackle the final fight weakened.

Right now an aweful lot of people out my way are not getting a full 2 prestige per mission that they usually got pre-season 5, so I think they don't want it to get any harder.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

David Bowles wrote:
I don't think Sealed Gate is as hard as some of the 4th season stuff. It's HOW it was written to be hard. A lot of obnoxious mechanics.

I don't remember any special mechanics. There are some hard to deal with creature types at one spot, but no unusual mechanics. Are you maybe thinking of a different scenario?

Silver Crusade 2/5

No, I'm not. Lots of swarms, fort saves, wills saves, tramples, etc. Obnoxious.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

So, you want scenarios to be harder, but they should not use any special abilites, shouldn't have difficult saves, shouldn't have high area effect damage, shouldn't have the ability to bypass AC, should not have abilities that prevent them from taking damage...

They should just hit harder, have higher AC, and higher init.

That is a very good way to write a scenario where whoever wins initiative wins the fight and everything is over on the first die roll.

Silver Crusade 2/5

I didn't say that. I've reports of that first battle taking HOURS. The particular combination of encounters chosen for that scenario are really obnoxious, as is the mission itself. It's not the difficulty, it's just not fun.

I still think enemy gunslingers should show up a lot more (ever?) to hit that touch AC. It would be a nice break from swarms and harpies. More competent NPCs with classes would be nice, in general, as a break from relying on monsters for difficult scenarios. Particularly monsters with inappropriately low CR ratings.

Liberty's Edge 1/5

I've noticed the adventures with 'Hard Mode' generally are already more difficult on 'Regular Mode' then average. I will not play Hard Mode for this reason.

There has always been something wrong about the assumption that 4 5th level PCs being 'as powerful' as 6 4th level PCs. Back in the Living City days it felt more accurate when we just added all the levels together to figure out tiers instead of using averages.

A dirty trick would be to start making NPCs tricked out like PCs. Imagine running into a pack of Zen Archers - at range... Or a pack of druids/summoners each with his own companions/eidelons and all summoning allies in addition. Or a few multiclassed casters, with a level dip in multi-blooded sorcerer w/ orc and dragon bloodlines.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Actually, encounters with classed npcs explains why pfs encounters are so easy. 4 classed NPC with PC wealth by level is an encounter with CR equal to NPC level +4. Meaning to make it an appropriate encounter, they would need to be one to two levels lower than the PCs, who will slaughter them. If you want to out number the PCs, it gets even worse, Eight NPCs are 3-4 levels behind the pcs. Meaning they are irrelevant and just die.

You cannot beat a PC specialist on his turf. He will always be higher level or have more friends than you. The only way you challenge PCs is you force them to have well rounded defense. That means throwing AoE, save based attacks, swarms, puzzles, enemies who are trying to run away, alchemists, gunslingers (who are frankly going to get slaughtered as NPCs unless they get arrow slits) maguses, even harpies.

(by the way, how many harpies have you been running into. I haven't seen any.)

5/5 *****

Quote:

The typical PFS player:

-Min-maxes their stats
-Plays a Paladin, Summoner, Witch or a Touch-Attacker
-Cherry picks the very best feats out of 10+ Player Companions
-Plays in a party of 6

Then goes onto the boards and complains about how the scenarios are too easy.

You set difficulty when you make your character. The problem is so many of our player base are unconsciously clicking 'Can I Play Daddy?' when they make their characters.

Stat minmaxing seems to vary wildly between individuals but point buy does tend towards a fairly small number of relatively common arrays.

I have barely seen a Witch or Summoner ever. Paladins are decent but hardly the most effective of classes.

As far as feats go the best feats are in Core and/or the Ultimate Line, I am struggling to think of one worth taking from a Player Companion.

Your point about 6 player groups is certainly valid, especially when combined with earlier scenarios designed for 4. Even with season 4 onwards you often see single opponent enemies facing impossible action economy disadvantages and written with terrible tactics.

Silver Crusade 2/5

FLite wrote:

Actually, encounters with classed npcs explains why pfs encounters are so easy. 4 classed NPC with PC wealth by level is an encounter with CR equal to NPC level +4. Meaning to make it an appropriate encounter, they would need to be one to two levels lower than the PCs, who will slaughter them. If you want to out number the PCs, it gets even worse, Eight NPCs are 3-4 levels behind the pcs. Meaning they are irrelevant and just die.

You cannot beat a PC specialist on his turf. He will always be higher level or have more friends than you. The only way you challenge PCs is you force them to have well rounded defense. That means throwing AoE, save based attacks, swarms, puzzles, enemies who are trying to run away, alchemists, gunslingers (who are frankly going to get slaughtered as NPCs unless they get arrow slits) maguses, even harpies.

(by the way, how many harpies have you been running into. I haven't seen any.)

NPC pet classes. And their NPC CR rules are exactly why I ignore them in my homebrews. NPCs sometimes have MORE gear than the PCs. To have the PCs the most wealthy humanoids they ever run into is ridiculous. In Wrath's Shadow is next.

All this being said, I killed 3/5 PCs in Assault on the Wound, wiped a group in Fabric of Reality (killed 3/5, captured one, one got away), had all PCs down in Trial by Machine (except the invisible wizard) and an NPC had to kill the final boss, and killed 2/6 PCs in Rise of the Goblin Guild. So the more recent material has gotten players' attention I think in my local group.

4/5

I think of PFS scenarios like a college football schedule, some weeks are harder than others. Sometimes I like it when we win in a blowout against an inferior opponent to display our greatness. Sometimes I like when we lose a nail biter against the best to keep us striving. It's the gambit of emotions and situations that keeps it from getting stale. I don't want everything to be super hard nor do I want everything to be a cake walk. I like the variety.

I'm a guy that loves to crunch the numbers and I average about 1 death in the career of a PC. Overwhelmingly those deaths come from me making mistakes and getting cocky. I got killed the other night in a season 0 that I could have probably soloed when the dice turned on me. That's the game. It's hard to stay dominant forever.

With that said I have seen many a guy talk about how easy scenarios are and then when the hurt comes, they have a hissy fit like a toddler. If things are easy on you now, be patient, your time in the fire will come.

Regarding season 5&6, I can tell there has been some effort to make things a little harder, but I haven't found things harder, just more annoying. I don't know what the answer is but longer combats don't necessarily mean harder or more fun. They are just longer.

Contributor

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Kyle Baird wrote:
I also died the night before during Stonelords.

I am happy.

Liberty's Edge 3/5 *

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Michael Brock wrote:
Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play 5.0, page 32 wrote:

However, if the actions of the PCs before or during an encounter invalidate the provided tactics or starting locations, the GM should consider whether changing these would provide a more enjoyable play experience.

This becomes a problem of invalid vs suboptimal. As a hypothetical example, let's say that there is a low level adventure where the tactics say that the BBEG casts sleep first. A party of all elves and half-elves walks in. Clearly the tactic is invalid as all the targets would be immune to the spell.

Now, same BBEG but there is one human in the party, so the spell would not be completely ineffective, and thus not invalid. But the BBEG has other spells that could possibly affect multiple PCs. Should he be stuck with casting sleep because that's what the tactics say he does or should the GM have him cast a spell that might be more effective?

Probably an over simplified example, but I've experienced adventures where the GM felt compelled to run the tactics as written knowing that it wouldn't be as effective as other actions the monsters could take.

Silver Crusade 2/5

I would say that comes down to the a priori knowledge of the BBEG and his/her prep time. I don't think a 6 sec round is a reasonable time to to an "elf check" and cast a spell.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/55/5 **

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Kyle Baird wrote:
FWIW, I died in Bonekeep 3 about 10 minutes after that first guy. I also died the night before during Stonelords.

For a dead peson you post too much. Can I have your room on the island?

51 to 100 of 147 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Organized Play / Pathfinder Society / Scenario difficulty problem areas and suggestions All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.