Pathfinder Society Scenario difficulty


Pathfinder Society

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3/5

Jason S wrote:
trollbill wrote:
Casual GMs have a tendency to skim over details like this and this is why this encounter has such a high TPK rate. Now imagine what happens with casual GMs and complex adventures. The more complex you make an adventure, the more table variation you are going to get from GMs and the more deadly they become when the GM misses something.

The problem isn't casual GMs. I find that 3+ star GMs run so many scenarios, they are often LESS prepared than more casual GMs because the casual GMs actually take (or have?) the time to prepare properly.

One thing I've learned is that you can't count on GMs to take a killer encounter and then nerf it by giving it the listed tactics or other advantages the PCs should get. These advantages aren't even explained a lot of the time.

And then the experienced GMs who softball and take AE spells (Fear, Confusion) and apply them to only 1 target. Maybe a better play experience but the true difficulty of the scenario won't be indicated in reviews.

Or the experienced GMs (3+ star) who cheat to make encounters more challenging (robbing you of gold/PA) or do coupe de grace when it's inappropriate.

"Run as written" is a foreign concept for those of us who play in a variety of conventions and also GM. It's rare that anything is run as written in my experience.

Now that I am three stars I take offense(just kidding).

I do not find GMs with more stars study the encounters less. It is that they misunderstand experience as omniscience. Even if I know I am right on something I will pull out the books for players to prevent that.

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

Jason S wrote:
trollbill wrote:
Casual GMs have a tendency to skim over details like this and this is why this encounter has such a high TPK rate. Now imagine what happens with casual GMs and complex adventures. The more complex you make an adventure, the more table variation you are going to get from GMs and the more deadly they become when the GM misses something.

The problem isn't casual GMs. I find that 3+ star GMs run so many scenarios, they are often LESS prepared than more casual GMs because the casual GMs actually take (or have?) the time to prepare properly.

One thing I've learned is that you can't count on GMs to take a killer encounter and then nerf it by giving it the listed tactics or other advantages the PCs should get. These advantages aren't even explained a lot of the time.

And then the experienced GMs who softball and take AE spells (Fear, Confusion) and apply them to only 1 target. Maybe a better play experience but the true difficulty of the scenario won't be indicated in reviews.

Or the experienced GMs (3+ star) who cheat to make encounters more challenging (robbing you of gold/PA) or do coupe de grace when it's inappropriate.

"Run as written" is a foreign concept for those of us who play in a variety of conventions and also GM. It's rare that anything is run as written in my experience.

Other than the fact that I think the problem includes casual GMs (but is not exclusive to them) I agree with what you said. In addition, I have seen some GMs that looked at complicated encounters and simply said, "No, it's too complicated. I am not running it that way." Add all that together and you get a lot of good reasons why complicated adventures in organized play are not necessarily a good idea, even if your customer base is asking for more complexity in adventures. Especially if that request is coming strictly from the players who don't necessarily understand the down side of what they are asking.

The Exchange 5/5

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This is a quote from a post I made a couple years ago:

What I like to see in a scenario? I like a story line that I can understand (even if it is a simple one - simple ones are great!).

Games with only one or two big fights are great. Much better than the long drawn-out slug fests some scenarios turn into. They don't even have to be the end fight! And everything doesn't have to be solved with a fight!

A story that goes somewhere is often lost in the "little" fights - with the judge trying to ensure that every Iron Cobra fights to the last HP... but who trims the NPC telling us WHY we are even here.

If I was Judging and we are in the boss fight and one of the players asks "who is this guy and why are we trying to kill him again?" then I know I as the judge have failed (perhaps the scenario is at fault, but I should have tried to come up with some sort of a reason to fit the story). It may be a little failure, but it's still a fail.

But you know what? If we are in the boss fight and the Pistol Cheese Whiz drops the BBE and all the mooks in 3.2 seconds before anyone else in the party can do anything... and the Sorcerer goes over to kick the body, because the "evil dude" deserves it, that's a win. Even if the fight was a "Cake Walk"...

5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht

trollbill wrote:
Jason S wrote:

Just played several scenarios in season 7 this weekend and they were all deadly. Noobs will certainly die in them unless their GM softballs like mad (or doesn't understand the NPCs powers at all).

Season 7 so far is complex and I'm finding there is intense table variation because GMs are not running scenarios as intended.

I agree Season 7 scenarios are more complex. This may be what people have been asking for but I have a 2-fold problem with complexity in an organized play environment.

First, if you have a dedicated GM, increased complexity makes more work for the GM. When I was involved in LFR, near its end adventures got ridiculously complex. It was extremely painful and unfun to prep and run many of these adventures and was one of the reasons I left. So complex modules can discourage good GMs or worse, encourage them to not be good GMs.

There's this weird feeling I have about complex encounters, as a GM. I like that they offer more than just "got hit it with a stick," but it's also very frustrating that they don't really show you how they're supposed to operate. I know people have to watch their word counts, but I had one situation where I had to look up pretty much half of the feats of the character, and didn't fully understand how they interacted. Just a short explanation of which feat does what and how to operate the NPC would help greatly.

Test of Tar Kuata spoiler:
I loved the spear-user on top of the mountain. So well built, it might as well have been a PC, but it really took me a while before it "clicked." One or two lines in her statblock that explain how her feats work would make it much easier to run it. Now, I don't need an explanation on how Power Attack works, but things like Pushing Assault that aren't that widely used could be clarified, IMHO.

1/5 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

True story, a recent scenario had something big and truly nasty towards the end of it.

BBE was taking everything we could throw at it... for one round. And then Pistol Cheese Whiz popped a crit into it's posterior and thank goodness, because it would have been ugly the *next* round.

3/5

nosig wrote:


If I was Judging and we are in the boss fight and one of the players asks "who is this guy and why are we trying to kill him again?" then I know I as the judge have failed (perhaps the scenario is at fault, but I should have tried to come up with some sort of a reason to fit the story). It may be a little failure, but it's still a fail.

No, there are plenty of reasons why the PCs may not understand why they are fighting the boss. I have been in a group of high level idiots without a single knowledge skill we could apply bumbling through an adventure and things pop out and we murder hobo it.

Also sometimes you do not find out about the boss until after.

Plus I DMed for people that played video games the entire game and would aks those questions and the other players would need to tell them since they are there to roll dice.

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