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Hi everyone, I'm just curious. What sort of perks or limitations do you place on your players when creating 1st level characters. I just ran Crypt of the Everflame, which is basically a 1st level introduction for people new to pathfinder. My party consisted of 4 characters, each with a starting fund of 150 gold, max hps at 1st level, and good stat scores.
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Low level deaths can be caused in any of a number of ways, such as players rolling poorly, monsters rolling well, tactical errors, lack of resources, and HP low enough that one critical hit can outright kill.
If the adventure is too difficult, it falls to the GM to dial back the deadlier challenges.
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I'm kind of surprised only two are dead. A 3d6 shot can potentially kill just about every 1st level character. A shadow can barely be touched by a 1st level party due to being incorporeal (martials are hosed, arcane caster can hit it (maybe) with 0-level spells and maybe one of their 1st level spells, and a divine character may or may not have channel energy or other spell options. The party will have virtually no defense against it as well. Swarms aren't exactly nice either, but it also depends on what kind of swarm we're talking about.
Also, you said "good stats". That's a relative term...good compared to what? Also, how were they generated? This gives people a much better idea of what "good stats" are for this situation.
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Shadows at first level are lethal unless the party is prepared with holy water.
Other things can work - sorcerer with Magic Missile, cleric channelling energy, Magic Weapon spell, Bard touching them with Cure Light Wounds, running away...
Running away...against a fly speed of 40 with good maneuverability. Not saying it can't be done. Just that it's very challenging. Particularly for a 1st level party.
I generally like high money rolls for starting characters. For stats, I'm slowly leaning towards a system where everyone can assign stats as they please, with two caveats:
*18 is the max you can have in a stat pre-racial modifier, with only a single 18 allowed, and
*the sum of your ability modifiers, post racial adjustment, cannot exceed +14.
This produces high-powered first-level characters, which is fine for my purposes because I exclusively use my own content. I'll be using this in an upcoming game, so I'll be able to report on the results within the next couple of months.
That sounds cool, so, just to check I did it right, a character with racial modifiers of DEX +2, CHA +2 and CON -2 could have scores of 15, 20, 10, 15, 15, 17?
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Running away...against a fly speed of 40 with good maneuverability. Not saying it can't be done. Just that it's very challenging. Particularly for a 1st level party.
Especially since the shadow can pop though walls or floors. And Create Spawn means there will be two shadows a few rounds after the first party member is killed.
It's not impossible. But VERY difficult. Also note, a shadow is a CR 3 encounter. This means it's a challenging encounter for four 3rd level characters. Facing it at first level without preparation will result in a TPK most of the time.
I like, I think I'll suggest it to my DM. :)
Thanks for the reply!
Pathfinder 1st level characters are squishy, this is just something I've learned to accept. If you're running these games with the hope of keeping some continuity in the party composition, then as the DM, you're going to have to exercise some powers that not all people are comfortable with: pulling one creature from an encounter, doling out circumstantial bonuses, even fudging the dice if you hide your rolls (this is really the last resort).
Also, as others have pointed out, point buy will make sure your PCs aren't starting the game crippled by bad rolls.
Running away...against a fly speed of 40 with good maneuverability. Not saying it can't be done. Just that it's very challenging. Particularly for a 1st level party.Assuming standard movement speed of 30 feet, party will run 120 feet every round.
How would the Shadow be able to do anything, he could run ahead (at which point they'd change their direction), never could attack.
You can only run for your Con score in rounds before you start getting tired and need to make Con checks to keep running. The shadow won't get tired.
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Swarms are... kind of traditional low-level party killers. I make a point of making sure people bring lamp oil (or anything flammable, really). But I feel like they're an honest problem.
I can't speak to that particular adventure, but we've run a fair number of low-level Pathfinder adventures without problems. Just, you know, a lot of goblins. Lots and lots of goblins.
Cheers!
Landon
Shadows at first level are lethal unless the party is prepared with holy water.Other things can work - sorcerer with Magic Missile, cleric channelling energy, Magic Weapon spell, Bard touching them with Cure Light Wounds, running away...
Don't forget Disrupt Undead. Add in Arcane strike or Point Blank Shot and now you've got 1d6+1; add 'em both and you're up to +2. Targeting touch is hard I know (Touch AC is 15 on a shadow) but between holy water, a channel, Disrupt Undead 1d6 +2 and a magic weapon in the hands of a decent fighter 1 and you've got a shot at finishing the thing in one round. Miss (or he saves against the channel) and you're all dead, but you had a pretty good shot...
"Assuming standard movement speed of 30 feet, party will run 120 feet every round."
You can only run in a straight line. In most environments, the Shadow has a big advantage.
Of course, Shadows aren't very practical creatures. If they were, a single Shadow could wander into a town and create thousands of Shadows overnight.
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So how powerful should a bunch of 1st level characters be? Well I don't run any APs and haven't played any. I have however played some PFS and I think a 20 pt buy with 150 GP per PC is just fine.
In my homebrew I let PCs use skills and feats when outfitting themselves at first level. In other words, if you've got Craft: Alchemy, alchemical items = half price (you made them); if you have Craft: Armorer your armor/shield is half price, and so on. I've had a wizard start the game with a staff, their components and spellbook gifted to them (I'm a pushover GM) and some misc gear, then 100 GP worth of pre-made scrolls. Since he made them himself they were half cost, so he was walking into the first adventure with 8 scrolls adding that much more to what he could do in the adventure.
I suppose my yardstick has always been with first level that they be able to last 6 encounters of CR 1. Now of course rolls could break either way but that's my expectation. If they encounter something of a higher CR my expectation is that this will chew up resources faster and limit their survival rate, but 6 CR 1 fights in a day isn't unreasonable.
A lot of folks in my games forget small things, like Guidance, Resistance, or Knowledge checks. "Why can't the rogue do any damage to this small elemental?" oh right: elemental traits.
A well-equipped party should have at least one of their attack cantrips sporting +1 damage from a power component. There's no reason the entire party can't have an extra temporary HP every encounter of the day. Everyone who needs concealment should rightly have it once in the adventure (smokestick).
Finally... research. This is the other thing my players never do. I'm not talking necessarily spending weeks in old libraries looking up the dungeon lore, though they don't do that either. But I'm saying they are randomly exploring, find a cave, and there's a symbol over the entry - they don't bother with the Knowledge check over the door, scouting with the wizard's familiar or even sending the rogue in to poke around. Suddenly they're swarmed with skeletons and the wizard is whining "but I didn't TAKE Disrupt Undead today!" Had they known it was an ancient tomb they could've avoided it, headed back to town, gotten better equipped but whatevs.
As I said: sometimes the rolls turn against you. A roll for a random encounter for example. Many players however don't even TRY to prep, and that's what I think gets a lot of them killed. Yes, you can't be ready for everything but to not even make the roll is ridiculous.
Scouting: a rogue/bard/ranger who intends to be sneaky at all has a rank in stealth which is a class skill and hopefully at least a +1 from Dex. If they're scouting then presumably they have a moment to prep ahead of time. Giving them a Guidance spell adds a +1 to that check. If the average roll is either a 10 or 11 then they are looking at between a 16 or 17. They move half speed, see what they can out ahead of the party and return to report.
They might encounter a trap; this sucks but hopefully rolls are with them to detect the thing ahead of time. Aforementioned - sometimes rolls are against them. However if they spot some foes most villains at CR 1 have between -1 to +6 Perception; some might have a bit more. Still that gives a chance that the scout is not detected.
The point I've tried to stress through this thread is there's a chance. It might only be a 50/50, maybe even slightly less, but there's a chance even at 1st level. My players however feel that since they don't have access to Invisibility, there's no point to scouting ahead; without Dimension Door they can't run away, so they might as well blunder through the encounter. They want 100% certainty or they want to fight - those are the only 2 options. At level 1, that's silly.
A 50% chance (or even a 25% chance) of a level 1 scout being detected and attacked while separated from the group seems like a pretty bad risk to me.