how much is powergaming frowned upon?


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Silver Crusade 3/5

BretI wrote:
Nimrandir wrote:
Given that we as PFS GM's are supposed to be following predetermined tactics unless something invalidates them, I'm not sure how often GM skill should be a factor in combat difficulty. Of course, I don't have much high-tier experience, where invalidating printed tactics may not be much of a challenge.

The tactics lines are usually only two to three lines of text.

Without invalidating the tactics, there is a large range of options in how deadly that can be. If for every creature, regardless of attributes, you are moving them with optimal tactics that is much more deadly than if you attack whatever last attacked them.

In Service to Lore Part 1 has a reputation for being deadly because some GMs have trouble using poor tactics.

This is a very good point. I know that I'm pretty good with tactics as a player, so when I GM I make a point to not be as good. I rarely will focus fire with the bad guys, and I make sure to have them sometimes take 5-ft. steps into a position where they are flanked. Stuff like that.

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

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Now and then - and sometimes quite often - bad guys have poor tactics so that the scenario can use an above-average nasty monster while giving the PCs a sporting chance.

Before deviating from "invalidated" tactics, it's very important to look at the scenario to see if this is one of those scenarios; then if you still need to deviate, you know you should be softballing your deviation.

Grand Lodge

If I get to kill things faster with my party, I get to roleplay and have in-character banter more, without the game lasting until midnight.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

The divide between easy and difficult fights has only grown larger with the recent seasons of pfs. Many new scenarios come out filled with npcs from the advanced class guide and now the occult adventures. I played a recent scenario with an investigator npc (not that I knew it at the time, they seemed like a pathetic fighter). Then I prepped the scenario to run, read the characters stat block and went wow. The character is actually pretty beefy, but that GM had no clue what to do with them.
With all the new classes around, this happens a lot. Stat blocks just give a list of abilities without definition of what they do. Many GMs don't spend all the extra time it takes to look up each one, so the fights become super easy. It used to be I could run a scenario without having to look at the npc stat blocks at all. During the game, I could see at a glance what role each character had and I knew all the abilities by heart. Now it adds an extra half an hour prep time or more to read through every stat block and look up the numerous abilities that I've never heard of to be able to run the npcs effectively in combat.

Grand Lodge 2/5

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The conversation has turned to a much brighter one since the first page, but cheating kept getting equated to powergaming (I don't agree with that at all). A really awesome post just turned up on the reddit PFS page and I think it's definitely worth a read. THIS post specifically. Not that I'm saying those people are powergaming their characters (if they were they probably wouldn't have to cheat), but they definitely have their own reasons for cheating. In no way am I condoning cheating, but that linked post is totally worth reading (and so is the original post--I'm going to have to more closely watch the people I sit with at PFS games).

LINK <-- (just in case the link in that text wasn't simple enough to see)

Liberty's Edge 5/5

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gnoams wrote:
Much of the rules of pathfinder is how to play the tactical combat game. Some people are good at these types of games, some are not. Some are interested in this part of the game, some are not. If your GM is good at tabletop strategy games then you better have a well built character or you will get slaughtered.

I take umbrage with this comment. A skilled GM should be able to scale the effectiveness of her tactical accumen based on how the table sits. Harder to do at a convention, but you don't necessarily need to start on 11. Start at 5 and scale your tactics up or down as you see the combats unfold. Give your table a good time.

I'm not a fan of GMs who are tactical geniuses who have no care to turn down the wattage as necessary.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

gnoams wrote:
Some are interested in this part of the game, some are not. If your GM is good at tabletop strategy games then you better have a well built character or you will get slaughtered.

This is key, you need to scale the level of effectiveness to match the effectiveness of the party.

The strategies I'd use against a group of veterans at 10-11 tier, is vastly different from the ones I'd use against people playing the Confirmation for the first time.

Silver Crusade

Disk Elemental wrote:
gnoams wrote:
Some are interested in this part of the game, some are not. If your GM is good at tabletop strategy games then you better have a well built character or you will get slaughtered.

This is key, you need to scale the level of effectiveness to match the effectiveness of the party.

The strategies I'd use against a group of veterans at 10-11 tier, is vastly different from the ones I'd use against people playing the Confirmation for the first time.

That's true enough, but there are limits.

Some groups of "veterans" at high tiers managed to get there through some combination letting more effective groups carry their useless selves or playing with softball or tactically inept DMs (every community has some of these and it doesn't take too long to figure out who they are as well as who the DMs who are willing and able to bring it are). For those groups, I would not purposely softball a scenario just because they can't fight their way out of a paper bag, but I would shoot for a "learning experience" where they think, "wow, that was close! I need to up my game at these levels" or "good thing we managed to escape! I need to up my game" rather than a TPK, but continued and persistent stupidity leads to character creation.

Likewise, I would be more inclined to demonstrate good tactics and offer suggestions to the group playing the confirmation for the first time than to make the scenario even softer by playing it so that poor tactics lead to success. The confirmation is supposed to teach characters to be pathfinders. We don't do anyone any favors if we teach them that foolishness and ineffectiveness are pathways to success. Long term, they are not.

1/5 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Elder Basilisk wrote:


That's true enough, but there are limits.

Some groups of "veterans" at high tiers managed to get there through some combination letting more effective groups carry their useless selves or playing with softball or tactically inept DMs (every community has some of these and it doesn't take too long to figure out who they are as well as who the DMs who are willing and able to bring it are). For those groups, I would not purposely softball a scenario just because they can't fight their way out of a paper bag, but I would shoot for a "learning experience" where they think, "wow, that was close! I need to up my game at these levels" or "good thing we managed to escape! I need to up my game" rather than a TPK, but continued and persistent stupidity leads to character creation.

Likewise, I would be more inclined to demonstrate good tactics and offer suggestions to the group playing the confirmation for the first time than to make the scenario even softer by playing it so that poor tactics lead to success. The confirmation is supposed to teach characters to be pathfinders. We don't do anyone any favors if we teach them that foolishness and ineffectiveness are pathways to success. Long term, they are not.

It's also entirely possible that some of these 'veterans' HAVEN'T had the same adventure experience that a grizzled 'pushed to their limits' may have had. If one has to consistently 'play down' due to the rest of a given area they will be hampered in coin for equipment and in experience at handling 'the higher levels'.

What may be sound and solid tactics for say, a L5 support character shepherding a bunch of L1-2 characters through a module is almost decidedly NOT the same as the same L5 support character in a 6-7 scenario.

My experience has been a combination of PbP, VTT, RL tables, and I had the above circumstance heavily highlighted yesterday, so it is very fresh in my mind.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Elder Basilisk wrote:
Disk Elemental wrote:
gnoams wrote:
Some are interested in this part of the game, some are not. If your GM is good at tabletop strategy games then you better have a well built character or you will get slaughtered.

This is key, you need to scale the level of effectiveness to match the effectiveness of the party.

The strategies I'd use against a group of veterans at 10-11 tier, is vastly different from the ones I'd use against people playing the Confirmation for the first time.

That's true enough, but there are limits.

Certainly. But I don't find the job of an organized play GM to be 'teach optimal play strategies'.

This past weekend we had two tables of the same scenario. One ended with four PCs dead and two retreating to continue the mission. The other ended with no deaths. I had a brief moment where I actually thought about playing to the hilt and TPKing the party, as it was the end of a convention and we were all tired. Thankfully, my better instincts kicked in and I offered some helpful pointers about positioning that gave the party time to rally and finish the fight. But I don't feel like it taught them to up their game, like you suggest.

Silver Crusade

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I've seen (and heard of) the "I'm going to teach the players a lesson" attitude turning into "I'm going to punish the players for not playing the way I play" more than once. I would be very careful walking that road.

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

Hrothdane wrote:
I've seen (and heard of) the "I'm going to teach the players a lesson" attitude turning into "I'm going to punish the players for not playing the way I play" more than once. I would be very careful walking that road.

on the otherish side of the spectrum, I have also heard of "I'm going to make this less of a boring walkover for the party" turn into "Oops, sorry guys, everyone got enough for a body recovery and raise dead?"

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

A tactically skilled GM can make combat difficult. But he might not be as good as making it just challenging enough; that requires a few more skills;

- Insight in how the PCs are doing, mechanically speaking; how much more can they take?

- Insight into how the players are doing. Are they breezing through, holding back, trying as hard as they can?

- Evaluating your own tactics on the fly, spinning better and worse tactics that both look believable. If possible, don't let people notice you're softballing.

- The multi-tasking and multi-awareness to keep an eye on all these things, while running the game. And not everyone might be doing equally well, so you have to track individual players/characters.

Those are advanced skills. Not everyone is good at all that. But it's something to strive for.

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