Help with New Group (and New GM)

[Aetolius]

Quick background: I currently have a level 6 alchemist of my own (I pretty much only play at conventions) as well as a level 2 dummy from GMing for a group of friends. This group has not really played together very much, but all of them are RPG veterans and have played multiple systems. I wouldn't say they are power gaming monkeys, but they do make effective characters. They are all new to Pathfinder though they have experience with D&D. I am running a CORE campaign, and this is a list of the sessions we have done so far:

1) Master of the Fallen Fortress
2) First Steps Part I: In Service to Lore
3) The Confirmation
4) The Devil We Know Part I: Shipyard Rats

Tomorrow's game:
5) The Devil We Know Part II: Cassomir's Locker

Keep in mind that there are only four PCs: a ranger; a rogue; a cleric and a wizard. They use solid tactics and built good, effective characters. That being said, they have utterly facerolled through every adventure. Only in 2-3 fights has one character fell unconscious, and I think one of those times two characters were down. I understand that the adventure content should not be altered at all, so I feel pretty powerless as far as posing a credible challenge to the group. I don't want every single encounter to be death-defying obviously, but I also don't think they should be ROFLstomping every one either.

Any suggestions? Is there anything I can actually do to increase the suspense or thrill of the game in terms of danger, or are all PFS scenarios this easy? Again, I've only really played 15 scenarios so far on my Alchemist, and the only difficult ones were when we played up a tier (save one--Silver Mount Collection but that was largely due to party dysfunction).

I'd appreciate any feedback.

[Andrew Christian]

Season 4 and beyond are more difficult. Especially season 4.

[Rei]

You've been playing softball scenarios until now, to be frank. If you facerolled the finale of TDWK 1, you're probably going to manage parts 3 and 4 as well (both of those have one encounter each that can prove to be painful).

Do yourself a favor, though, and don't drop the characters straight into Season 4 stuff after you finish the series (which I presume you're doing). Some of the scenarios in that season are so ridiculously deadly you are almost guaranteed to lose a character or even TPK. Play stuff from Seasons 2-3 first: those are a bit more challenging than Seasons 0-1, but not overly so. Then skip 4 and go straight to 5-6.

Alternatively, give Season 4 a try with one of the easier Season 4 scenarios. Rise of the Goblin Guild, The Cyphermage Dilemma, The Veteran's Vault, and The Night March of Kalkamedes (aside from a few... irregularities) are recommendable. The Disappeared is fun, but easy to fail and not everyone's cup of tea. Severing Ties is for when you want to be a sadist.

[Jayson MF Kip]

You could do Quest for Perfection to 'bridge the gap'? It's a three-part season 3 arc that has a couple pretty awesome fights that can get pretty hairy depending on dice rolls.

[Aetolius]

Thanks all for the feedback--just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong.

Another question I'm not sure about: can my group play up-tier for more gold and stuff if they get bored to death with single dire rat or 2 x skeleton encounters? I have no doubt they could handle the T3-4 stuff, but I'm not sure what the protocol is.

Thanks again.

[Rei]

Not unless the party APL is high enough (in this case, with 4 players and pre-Season 4 scenarios, the APL would have to round out to 2.5) that they can actually play the middle tier. Sorry, but playing up skews wealth by level if you could play up whenever you wanted.

Parts 3 and 4 should be more interesting encounter-wise than Part 2, which is one of my least favorite scenarios in PFS ever. In general, I find that series to be one of the weakest things ever printed in PFS. You picked a bit of a rough one to prove the campaign isn't boring.

[kinevon]

I dunno, Shipyard Rats, at low tier, can easily be deadly, if the party gets only a few bad rolls against that first Cleric.

Spoiler:

6 negative channels for 2d6 each can pretty much kill off any party of 2nd level PCs, if they fail many of the Will saves, and/or don't have someone with a few positive channels to reduce the pain.

The OP's party does have a cleric, and a wizard, so that can skew even that encounter a bit, with the cleric countering the channels, and the wizard zapping the enemy cleric...

[Rei]

Somewhat off topic, so let's hide it.:

It's not so much about the difficulty for me, even, although I'm the first to admit it zigzags wildly depending on party composition and specific encounter.

It's about the story arc and its general irrelevancy to... well, anything. All it really establishes is that there's a generic evil faction, which has no relation to the canon of PFS or Golarion (probably due to how early on in PF history this series was published) and is never mentioned again, working together with a piece of canon that does exist (the derros of Cassomir) but is not particularly interesting. Oh, and that Cassomir (and to some extent, Taldor) is an awful place and you shouldn't go there. :P The story arc itself is weak and feels like it's about a scenario and a half too long for the amount of plot it presents. The mainly lackluster enemies just make the story even less remarkable, especially now that we've had seasons of scenarios that occasionally manage brilliant stories and well-balanced encounters and for the most part do better than this series.

However, this is obviously just my opinion, and everyone is entitled to their own. On the factual side of things, yes, this series has its deadly encounters, but since the party has already cleared the first part of the series and therefore one of the more notorious encounters, I didn't feel the need to comment on its difficulty.

[Blackbot]

Also be aware that "A character dropped into negatives" is already fairly risky with only 4 players. A character death early on is far more of a problem in PFS than in a home game because the player cannot just come back at the same level. If everybody only has one character and at level 4 a character dies and has to start a new level 1 character that can raise some problems.

[Jack Amy]

Blackbot wrote:

Also be aware that "A character dropped into negatives" is already fairly risky with only 4 players. A character death early on is far more of a problem in PFS than in a home game because the player cannot just come back at the same level. If everybody only has one character and at level 4 a character dies and has to start a new level 1 character that can raise some problems.

This is certainly a concern for small groups, so playing through some of the easier scenarios so that people can save up those 'just in case' prestige points may be worthwhile.

If yours players are bored, ask them if they'd like the challenge increased by moving to Season 4+. If they're having fun smashing the combats, I'd just keep at it for now. Quick combats can lead to more time spent on the narrative, which certainly isn't the worst thing.