Confused Pathfinder's page

So last night was my first time, other people had told me about it. Some people said it was a big thing, others a small thing, some got angry at their first time and others get sad after their first time.

Of course I mean character death!

I was playing an Undead lord Cleric (NE with a slight sway towards LE).

Our ship is composed of:
-Monk
-Swashbuckler
-Druid
-Ranger

The rest of the ship sits on the neutral line with some chaos to boot.

Starting at 6th level, just before chapter three, my GM is open to pretty much anything 21 RP and under, first party only.

I'm stuck for what to play as I was really into this character, enjoyed being powerful and social.

Any suggestions would be really welcomed!
Thanks.

If anyone is able to help, but needs any information please just let me know.

Hello, I am currently stuck for ending this game!

It is a one shot FULL day game for roughly 12-13 hours.
Intense Christmas themed, all character are as jolly as possible.

I have the naughty and nice list being stolen, along side the head toy maker being kidnapped. (He is behind this).

I have them using a magical snow globe to get back to the workshop, and it going wrong. But unsure on what to do.

So far I think I have around 6-8 hours of play done, and then another 30 minutes to 1 hour so far totaling 8-9 hours.

I can't think of any twists or ways to end this with them getting the whole list and saving Christmas.

Any help would be great! Thanks.

With newer folks, I'd actually start at level 3 or

4 if you aren't starting at 1 - the higher you go in level, the more class abilities accumulate, and it can lead to a lot of options paralysis for someone learning the system from scratch. Level 3 or 4 is high enough that you have some survivability and can start bringing in slightly more interesting foes, but low enough that you aren't going to overwhelm someone unfamiliar with the system or the premise of tabletop gaming.

Fair point, but most of the day will be with people who have played for years. Plus I have some fun different monsters for them. SO wanted to make sure they can have some abilities to mess around with.

As for the newbies I have introduced them to this before but this will be a full day as one level.

Hi, looking for some advice.
I am doing a full day mini adventure for Christmas.
Not sure what level to start everyone at, I was thinking between level 5 - 9 but thinking level 7.

As we may have a couple new people for this that won't be great at leveling up.

Thanks.

I'm a LOT earlier in running Jade Regent, but I can truly sympathize. I've got a bladebound magus played by a very experienced, well-optimizing player. The character runs rings around the other PCs. The advice I got was to adjust the AP encounters to add minions. What I was told is that the APs in general give APL+0 or APL+1 encounters, which work if strung together three to four in a PC's day -- but there's room to add a bit if you've got a capable party. Plus, you may need to reassess the APL you have with your party, and therefore the CR that you need. It sounds like those two characters are in essence +1 APL between them.

The idea of adding minions is to make sure that there are a variety of CR's present, so that everyone can participate & have fun. Plus, just adding bodies ups the length of time that a combat takes. In conclusion, I pass on the following link I received w/ great pleasure:
GM’s Guide to Creating Challenging Encounters

Bitter lily, thanks I have gotten through near 5 chapters and just want to make this last one really stand out, while giving ever player a suited level of challenge. Which a good amount of magic will help with and adding minions. But I have built some monsters and such to help and to get everyone involved.

You need to use a little magic.

Wind Wall was a good suggestion. How about (Quickened, possibly with a rod) Mirror Image? The archer could waste all of his shots, or all but one of his shots, on images.

How close is the archer to the action? If he's near, a melee guy can charge him and get in his face. If he's far, he's vulnerable to strategic (not rules-based) flanks. (I did something like that in a 4e game I was running last weekend. Some zombies attacked the front door, and while the PC frontliners were dealing wit them, the necromancer sent more zombies through the back door. All of a sudden the wizard and non-frontline cleric were in trouble. Channel Energy wasn't quite enough to deal with the zombies.)

Since he's higher level, use an invisible stalker for the strategic flank. They're fast, they're invisible, and even if he can spot it he has a 50% miss chance. (Or he has to spend a round casting a spell that lets him see it.) Even nastier is a fast-moving burrowing creature (perhaps with Haste or other speed-boosting magic), other than using a Phasing Arrow, the archer can't even hit their attacker until they emerge in the archer's face.

Use the occasional creature with DR that is not x/magic, but x/bludgeoning or x/slashing. Arrows only deal one type of damage. Preferably something fast, or something mounted on something fast (that is also resistant to damage). I think nightmares create clouds of smoke around them that mess up targeting anyway.

Use summons. A summon won't have a CR nearly as high as the archer's level, but that's not the point. The archer isn't going to be good in melee, and if you summon a high CMB creature literally right next to the archer, things are going to suck... especially if the archer is far from the rest of the party.

Copy his build. Maybe build a magus with the feat to deflect arrows. I think you can only deflect an arrow once per round, but with the magus's other magical defenses that's more than sufficient. (Displacement's a good one. Half the arrows...

Thanks! I have been using some magic but these are great to try, the double flank idea with zombies for yours sounds great and it would add some real tension in that combat.

The game is tonight, I am collecting in the sheets tonight and will go over them. If I can't find anything I will upload states and all.

Currently the party is 6 players but with 1 permanent NPC they have.
Pally, rogue, mes, cleric, arcane archer & wiz.

if he doesn't have clustershot then DR can help reduce his damage, but like Fruian said, archery is THE DAMAGE OPTION once you have all the feats. Be glad that it's not an actually good archer build, Arcane archer is less damage than many other archery styles.

Archery is also quite self guiding, it's pretty clear to see which feats you need. Other combat styles usually take some work to work out, so if your other players aren't built for damage then of course the damage archer is winning.
Now, 3-4 hits is 1 rounds worth of attacks, double check his math to make sure his damage is correct. Double check is ability to add spells onto arrows if he's doing that. Very often problematic characters are from a misunderstanding how a rule or ability works.

I'm not sure how a mesmerist is destroying combats. again, double check the abilities and what he's doing.

The boards love examining builds, so if you can and want to get their info and tactics and display it here we can tell you if they SHOULD be doing what they are doing. Then if you can share some of what the other players are we might get insight onto why they are falling behind.

I will re-call all sheets and go through them all, to make sure. Thanks again!

Confused Pathfinder wrote:

Fruian Thistlefoot wrote:

Confused Pathfinder wrote:

So Doing well needs fixed or punished for doing well at combat?

What are your Expectations for Combat? Everything challenges them and brings everyone close to death by the end of all combats? Because any typical group with even moderate optimization for combat will tear through most APs.

You saving grace is the final boss fight will be an extremely hard encounter for any group.

It's not that at all, the archer does 5x the damage as every other character in the group and some of the fun away from others 90% of the time. I have added in different enemies and changed some difficulties to resolve this. But with not much luck.

Archery is the highest DPR in Pathfinder. He will always out damage everyone else in the group.

What kind of weapon does he have?

If he does not have a Cyclonic Bow you can always have the Caster types cast Fickle Winds or Wind wall to slow down his DPR and give other characters the chance to "Deal" with that enemy. Tho on an arcane Archer I would assume a Dispel Magic will go out the following round so he can land his arrows.

Weapon: last time I checked +2 or 3 composite long bow, with element dmg.

Thanks, never thought of "Wing wall" I will try out this. Any enemies which may keep the character busy for a couple rounds? that you could suggest.

An Enemy that can cast Fickle Winds on his party can put a shut down on Archers without Access to a cyclonic bow or a Dispel Magic.

Book 5-6 has lots of casters in it and you as the DM can easily change the spell list to have fickle winds on there prepared list. If they are alerted to the group they have it up pre-buffed.

Without Seeking on his bow leaves me to question if they have Improved Precise Shot? If not Mirror Image/Displacement would be great buffs to have on enemies making the archer miss 1/2 his shots will really slow him down.

I believe he has Seeking and improved precise shot, plus they use Snipe a lot. anything against that? or to stop A-O-O?

Confused Pathfinder wrote:

So Doing well needs fixed or punished for doing well at combat?

What are your Expectations for Combat? Everything challenges them and brings everyone close to death by the end of all combats? Because any typical group with even moderate optimization for combat will tear through most APs.

You saving grace is the final boss fight will be an extremely hard encounter for any group.

It's not that at all, the archer does 5x the damage as every other character in the group and some of the fun away from others 90% of the time. I have added in different enemies and changed some difficulties to resolve this. But with not much luck.

Archery is the highest DPR in Pathfinder. He will always out damage everyone else in the group.

What kind of weapon does he have?

If he does not have a Cyclonic Bow you can always have the Caster types cast Fickle Winds or Wind wall to slow down his DPR and give other characters the chance to "Deal" with that enemy. Tho on an arcane Archer I would assume a Dispel Magic will go out the following round so he can land his arrows.

Weapon: last time I checked +2 or 3 composite long bow, with element dmg.

I am not looking to punish my players, but I am looking for ways to distract and slow down the archer and mes.

Progressively add higher CR opponents until the gameplay balances.

I have tried that but there is a large difference between archer and everyone else when it comes to DMG. So what was good to challenge him near wiped the party.

So Doing well needs fixed or punished for doing well at combat?

What are your Expectations for Combat? Everything challenges them and brings everyone close to death by the end of all combats? Because any typical group with even moderate optimization for combat will tear through most APs.

You saving grace is the final boss fight will be an extremely hard encounter for any group.

It's not that at all, the archer does 5x the damage as every other character in the group and some of the fun away from others 90% of the time. I have added in different enemies and changed some difficulties to resolve this. But with not much luck.

What level are the characters and what part of the AP are you at?

If low and still early into the AP, a lot of those issues get taken care of by the high CR critters.

Currently they are on level 14, but soon to be 15th level. We are currently near the end of Chapter 5, so it makes it a bit tricky for me.

I am running ROTRL and two of my players are becoming a spot of bother.
First is a mesmerist, second is an arcane archer:

The mesmerist I just really need some tricks to throw their way and to stop them destroying combat.
The archer however is the most difficult player, I am looking for ways to challenge the archer so he doesn't kill bosses in 3-4 hits. Maybe something to keep his attention for a bit and maybe some help with dealing with know-it-alls.

Thanks everyone.

Look at other features about the current character, and make sure you are doing some of them differently. Race, preferred fighting style and weapon and secondary skills come to my mind immediately. What is the other player doing for these? What are you thinking of?

Well I want to play a one handed wielding ninja who wants to become an assassin. There is differences in race and backstory is vastly different but mechanically not much would be different.

Guys I really need some advice with an issues here,

In my current game we have a player who is playing a LE ninja/assassin and the campaign is coming to a close. The GM now wants to run a homebrew that I really want to play a LE ninja/assassin but I don't want to just come across as playing the same thing.

Does anyone have some words of advice for me?