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LeoKermit,

Still looking for a group? I would like to begin playing in another regular game soon.

AbyssLord

Minor spoilers ahead, but this is the ROTRL thread.

I just finished Chapter 2 with my group. The initial runs in Burnt Offerings were a challenge, but the PCs seem to have found their niches, and this AP is having a hard time challenging them now. The Xanesha fight was very one-sided. The party just can't seem to fail saving throws at all.

What I have:

Aasimar Bard (Thundercaller) 7
Halfling Paladin/Oracle with damage soaking ability via link 2/5 or 3/4
Tiefling Magus (Bladebound/Kensai) 7
Human Barbarian/Rogue (demoralize optimized build with dog flanker) 7

Fights normally go like this:

Bard thundercalls forcing most enemies to take sonic damage and save to avoid being stunned.

Magus and Barb/Rogue use spell combat and sometimes massive sneak attack damage to mow down the mooks that aren't stunned.

Pally/Oracle provides support, and in the event that anyone does take damage, slowly soaks it up over the next few rounds to keep anyone from falling down.

Some fungi and undead have advantages versus the thundercall approach due to immunities to sonic damage and inability to be stunned, but the next chapter really worries me. Ogres are going to be falling all over the place. It's going to be a bloodbath.

Without doing a major overhaul of the chapter and without doing something that specifically singles out the Thundercall ability to nerf the one PC, what are my options for making this a challenge for them again? Do I need to resort to giving a whole bunch of the ogres the zombie template along with one or two doses of advanced template?

AbyssLord

Has anyone suggested that instead of tracking to the scenario level that you might instead gain a flat gp total based on the level of the player's character? That levels the playing field and neither incentivizes nor disincentivizes playing up or down. People get bored with things that are too easy, so I really don't see where folks would consistently play down just to survive if it isn't fun. Each xp gained could get you 1/3 of the way between one level and the next on the wbl table in gp totals. Then they could provide incentive to play up by offering access to better purchase lists instead of an unbalanced gp reward. It's not like you would expect more Xp from playing up so why should wealth be any different?

I would like to see a Darklands AP that actually spends most of its time in the Darklands. Something reminiscent of Descent Into the Depths of the Earth/Shrine of the Kuo-Toa/Vault of the Drow/Queen of the Demon Web Pits, but done well Pathfinder-style with a good story arc. That would be quite awesome. It doesn't even need to have dark elves in it. It's more about the underground world and the lack of access to familiar settlement resources for extended periods.

I also know that it's not likely, but it would be nice to have an introduction to Psionics at some point. Even teaming with Dreamscarred Press to pull it off would be cool (even if it's not one of the main-line Pathfinder APs set in Golarion).

I think that it's unlikely that they would do something in Hold of Belkzen right after Wrath of the Righteous, but putting orcs back to the forefront for a little while would be a nice change.

Osirion sounds cool. I had a lot of fun running LoF, and I wouldn't mind doing something similar again.

I'm also intrigued by some of the lesser-traveled areas of the map like Thuvia and Druma.

I'm ready for something not quite so experimental, though, so I'm not ready for a Numeria campaign just yet. World-hopping and then Mythic should not really be followed by something with the possibility of alien technologies and robots in it. The same goes for the Mana Wastes. Of course, I'm not a big fan of guns at all, so I don't mind if they never go to these places. Was also not a big fan of Spelljammer, so the other planets do not interest me much either.

And if you remove all of the flaws in the system, from an optimizers point of view, then what you get is something like 4th edition where the initial precepts are that everyone has equal capability in all situations (or as close as possible).

I think optimizers as a whole are the types of players that play a system to conquer it, and once it's conquered they move on to the next big thing (probably a video game or in some situations, the next splat book that promises the next incremental step in power creep). They have no interest in exploring the entire rich tapestry of the game system because non-optimal options are discarded. Those options don't allow you to "win" like your optimized build does. It gets boring playing the same uber-optimized combinations campaign after campaign, so I don't blame them for moving on.

If you're a gaming company, you cater to the optimizers by releasing splat books with more and more powerful options. Sure, it makes lots of money for the short-term, but eventually you "Jump the Shark."

If you're a wise gaming company, you explore options without "Jumping the Shark" to keep your long-term loyal fans inspired. Mythic will appeal to the optimizer crowds, but there are plenty that will leave it on the shelf unbought. Paizo was wise to keep it completely optional. Making it nearly necessary for one of their APs, though, IMHO, is a mistake. It's a poisoning of their core product line with something that will not appeal to a majority of their customers. I can't get excited about it no matter how much I hear about it.

The purpose of optimization is to see how much you can push the GM. If the GM is thowing CR APL+5 monsters at you just to give you a challenge, that is the measure of how awesome you are.

The purpose of optimization is to make the rest of your group look bad. For example, if you have a character with incredible AC and DR, and the GM creates an overpowered monster to hurt him, hang back and let the one of the less optimized PCs get killed.

REAL optimization is when you make a powerful character, but find a way to conceal her true power from your GM through strategic incompetence. That way, the GM will not increase the threat level to neutralise you, but if a difficult challenge ever comes along, you can use all the abilities you normally keep in reserve to suddenly become an incredible machine of death.

The problem is the GMs. Instead of making more powerful enemies, they should just have enemies turn up, realise they can't hurt my character, and run away, or let me kill them. That is what makes a fun game.

Pick the answer you like most.

Actually, many GMs see optimization as a selfish player's attempt to "win" the game.

The fundamental flaw in these player's minds is that this is a game about "winning."

It's not a video game!

Games may vary, but in general, most GMs see the game as a means of cooperative storytelling where the goal is for everyone to have fun. If a min-maxer is ruining everyone else's idea of what fun is, then I see no problem with nerfing the optimized PC through GM fiat.

Thinking of running a one-shot old-school randomly-generated dungeon crawl for father's day tomorrow with the children.

Anyone know of a place where I can download .pcg files for PCGen for the iconics to make this get off the ground a bit more quickly for me tomorrow?

Leon