DaCerZ |
Hey.
I just started running a PF game for some friends, and I am not sure if perhaps the challenges I have been throwing at them so far are not difficult enough. I am fairly certain I remember reading somewhere (possibly on here?) that all the monsters in the Bestiary were made on the presumption of a 15 point buy character creation. Is this true?
And if so, or even if its not, would it be advisable to change the stats of monsters, or boost them in some way, because the method of character creation I use (4d6, reroll 1's) has made a fairly powerful group who have little trouble killing enemies. Obviously I don't want to over do it, so I'm posting this in the hopes of getting some feedback.
Don't know if its relevant or not but the party is a 4 man squad: cat-folk cavalier (order of the flame), elf fighter (archer archtype), goblin shaman (visionary archtype) and a human wizard (conjuration)
Thanks in advance.
supervillan |
You have a strong-looking party. None of the characters you describe is a weak choice on the face of it, and your stat generation method will tend to turn out quite high numbers.
The basic assumption of adventure path design is 4 characters in a party, and 15 point buy character generation method. Creature Challenge Ratings are based on similar assumptions.
However, the CR system should only really be used as a guide (in my opinion at least). You, as GM, will best know the limitations of your party. Tweak your encounter design as you see fit. If the party are steamrollering everything in their path, by all means crank it up.
I'd advise caution. At very low levels any decent melee fighter will one-shot a lot of enemies and casters will be able to shut down certain encounters with spells like colour spray or entangle. That doesn't mean the characters are overpowered, necessarily.
I've noticed that the Advanced simple template makes low level encounters a lot more challenging. I've seen Advanced goblins (around 10 of them admittedly) cause problems for a level 3-4 party. Maybe try that.
Duiker |
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Yes, all difficulty levels are based on the assumption of 4 player, 15 point buy. It's pretty normal though to need to adjust difficulty level up or down once the game gets going. It's not just a function of party strength but of party composition. Certain things are easier for certain types of characters independently of strength.
There are a ton of threads around here (someone more search-fu than I can probably post a dozen for you) on this very topic, so there's plenty of reading for you. Google search for "the angry DM" (it's the name of a site) and you'll find a ton of really good articles for how to go about balancing encounters.
Gist of it is going to be in terms of options:
1. Add templates to creatures (such as the advanced template, which is simple enough to pretty much do on the fly in your head).
2. Maximize hitpoints (the line with hitpoints will write it in terms of dice rolled and the result is the average, make it the max instead)
3. Add more creatures. Especially adding lower level creatures to boss fights.
4. Start thinking tactically. Ambushes, surprise rounds, special abilities. Use the terrain. While a game shouldn't be DM vs. players, it's helpful to think in terms of "how would these creatures really go about trying to attack and defeat these characters"
5. Don't be scared about making it too hard, so long as you are willing to adjust on the fly. If you accidentally made the boss so hard that he is going to wipe out the party despite them doing everything right and rolling high, then make something happen: he takes them prisoner, his second in command stabs him in the back seeing a chance to take over, etc.
Snow_Tiger |
designed around 15 point buy. I'm not used to playing with rolls, but it seems like 4d6 will generally end up with higher than 15 point buys. What level are the players and what CR are the monsters? how many monsters are you throwing at them? etc.
For example, a 4 man group of 3rd level characters might have a "hard" encounter against a wyvern (CR 6),
Meanwhile the same party might face 2 owl bears, (CR 4+2=6)as well, but often times, people would consider this encounter to be harder than the wyvern one, because you are dealing with 2 monsters, each having their own actions
3 dire wolves (CR 3+3=6) might be even harder than the owl bear encounter.
In conclusion, it may be because your sending one really tough monster instead of several okay monsters at your PC's. There have been multiple threads about this, including this one (with a special guide) http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pxiv?GMs-Guide-to-Creating-Challenging-Encount ers#1
edit : lol kind of late, but still check out the URL
lemeres |
Don't know if its relevant or not but the party is a 4 man squad: cat-folk cavalier (order of the flame), elf fighter (archer archtype), goblin shaman (visionary archtype) and a human wizard (conjuration)
Thanks in advance.
.....god, you just made me realize how broken an catfolk cavalier (order of the flame) cavalier can be....
Pounce after pounce racking up damage. If you use claw blade TWF, you can just eat through opponents.
My advice to you- rack up DR, and do not allow the archer to take cluster shot. Because your party's DPR is based on a ton of hits that add up to a ton of damage, it would appear.
As for your stat generation- do you mean 4d6, drop the lowest one, or do you honestly use all 4 dice? Because with the full dice... yeah, you end up with something rather strong. 16-18 in your main stat (after racials) is the usual expectation with point buys. This looks like it can make a 24 BEFORE racials.... And your average stat would have a 14 (which kind of works out to a 30 pt build)
You may want to throw in some extra mooks, and give a generic boost to important ones as far as their saves and DR are concerned.
DaCerZ |
DaCerZ wrote:Don't know if its relevant or not but the party is a 4 man squad: cat-folk cavalier (order of the flame), elf fighter (archer archtype), goblin shaman (visionary archtype) and a human wizard (conjuration)
Thanks in advance.
.....god, you just made me realize how broken an catfolk cavalier (order of the flame) cavalier can be....
Pounce after pounce racking up damage. If you use claw blade TWF, you can just eat through opponents.
My advice to you- rack up DR, and do not allow the archer to take cluster shot. Because your party's DPR is based on a ton of hits that add up to a ton of damage, it would appear.
As for your stat generation- do you mean 4d6, drop the lowest one, or do you honestly use all 4 dice? Because with the full dice... yeah, you end up with something rather strong. 16-18 in your main stat (after racials) is the usual expectation with point buys. This looks like it can make a 24 BEFORE racials.... And your average stat would have a 14 (which kind of works out to a 30 pt build)
You may want to throw in some extra mooks, and give a generic boost to important ones as far as their saves and DR are concerned.
Haha, whoops! Yeah. 4d6, drop lowest, reroll 1's.. So they do average out a little higher, haha. Knew I forgot something xD
The party just recently hit level 4 (started at 3 because I've started too many games at lvl 1 and they just aren't fun enough imo. Especially with experienced players) and generally I throw groups of enemies at them, usually in the same numbers if not more than the group.
lemeres |
Ah, that is more reasonable. Hmmm... really, your characters are going to put their same 16's and 18's in the same stats, regardless of whether they are using dice or point buy. That usually just means a +1 to hit, maybe 2 damage, and maybe +1-2 more on DCs for spells.
The difference with dice is that their secondary and tertiary stats may come out a lot better. More wisdom for will saves, a bit more AC from dex. Nice, but it is not likely going to be ground breaking. Most classes only really use 1 or 2 stats heavily, and then gain a bit more defense and utility from the rest.
So the stat generation is usually not that huge a deal compared to, say, getting a 5th player (which changes up the action economy and ability to cover roles greatly).
It kind of makes me realize how much a nightmare the eldritch guardian archetype for fighters can be. That one lets your familiar get all the combat feats you do (and it can get a decent CMB if you make it take the mauler archetype so it goes medium and get a str boost). That archetype basically sticks another fleshed out character onto the field. And my favored build for that would definitely make it a nightmare (2 dirty trick fighters, going about, double teaming, possibly crippling an enemy each round with the nauseated condition)
SiuoL |
I had a group like that before. I put the to fight a level 3 rogue. He was known to the group as just a lumber jack that builds houses. Then the group hear from the King's man that the King's gold has been stolen. After tracking down the gold, they found that the lumber jack did that. So they fought him in his house without even care to talk to him... They charge right in to the top floor because they found no doors around the bottom floor. The house was normal until they found the basement. Then they heard the lumber jack voice. If my group build down the house before they enter, it would have been easy for them, as the rogue will just run away into the woods. But they got themselves trapped in the trap house full of papers hanging for concealment and traps that stop anyone from moving. The rogue eventually killed the caster and the got killed by the fighter. At the end the group found out that the lumber jack was the good guy, the king was bad guy. So yea...
DaCerZ |
Okay. Been away for a few days and I guess this just fell off the front page, haha.
I'm reviewing for my game tomorrow. The group are all 4th level. They are just now entering their first proper dungeon and I have been trying to fill it with a decent amount of challenges. Mostly sticking to ones that shouldn't overly tax them as it's quite a long slog of a dungeon (actually an underground tower with 5 levels, but I digress)
One idea I had for an encounter is based off of what I've been reading here.. and generally speaking I've been throwing groups of enemies at them, but most low level monster HP doesn't survive against the power attacking fighter-archer and cavalier. So. I had this idea..
4 kobold fighters with AC20 set up to be guards for the two 1st level rogues (scouts for the group, with shortbows hiding to ambush from the wings) and two 1st level sorcerers as the sort of leaders of the group. The rogues have alchemist fire and tanglefoot bags.. The room has a decent amount of cover and things to block charges that the melee kobolds can stand in while the others do damage from relative safety.
As an 8 on 4 fight, I suspect this to be at least a somewhat good drain on party resources... The sorcerers have mostly spells to try take people out of the fight (as they expect to face equal-sized groups of trogs..) such as Daze, Grease and Colour Spray. Apart from the kobold warriors, who are just the basic bestiary kobolds with a slight gear overhaul.. The others have heroic NPC stats.
What do you guys think? Is this the kind of encounters (maybe not always to this extreme) that I should be throwing their way?
EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to say, thanks for all the advice thus far! I've not DM'ed in a long time (Last time was 3.5 sometime in uh.. 2008? lol) so I'm a bit rusty and just trying to make sure everyone has a good time and it isn't too easy on them!