John Robey's page

Can you elaborate a bit on that combat encounter with the ghoul where someone died? 7 people against what sounds like three enemies (a ghoul, a skeleton, and a zombie?) all of which are APL or lower feels like it should be extremely free, like the kind of encounter where not everyone even gets to take their turn because the enemies go down so fast.

Four enemies, actually, there were two skeletons, and those were the real problem. But specifically:

Level 1 Team:
* Hobgoblin Magus, 16 Str and Int; can't seem to land a meaningful spellstrike but is working on it
* Halfling Rogue, Dex 18, tends to use archery when possible but neglects to hide (which I have nudged her to do)
* Tiefling Inventor, Int 18, with a subterfuge suit; the one who died after a crit fail on her armor explode and then getting swarmed
* Kitsune Fire Oracle, Cha 16, insisted on using fire even after learning skeletons resisted it, and actually told the rogue to come over and take the mace out of her sheath and use it, rather than stop using fire herself -.-
* Human Swashbuckler, Dex 18, most tactical one of the night, scooped up a bone from the ground to use as a club because nothing else was working
* Human Summoner with a lightning dragon eidolon

Opposition:
* Level 1 ghoul
* Two level 0 wolf skeletons (from Book of the Dead); resistance 5 to cold, electricity, fire, piercing, and slashing
* Level -1 zombie hound (from PF #181), has knockdown and does extra damage to prone creatures
* "Second wave" of two level -1 skeleton warriors who were visibly lurking in the background but were not going to join in the fight until the swashbuckler taunted them; also resistance 5 to cold, electricity, fire, piercing, slashing

The Setup:
The party is escorting a young woman who is being targeted by an ancestral curse (think Mina Harker being tormented by Dracula); BBEG hypnotizes the NPC into wandering out into the woods, party tracks her down, BBEG summons undead interference, pretty straightforward. The "second wave" skeleton warriors were mostly set dressing, menacing the NPC, but the swashbuckler deliberately aggro'd them away from her in a move which was heroic but tactically very unsound >.>

Things the Party Did Right:
* The zombie hound was taken down with something like two hits
* The ghoul was nearly one-punched by the magus and easily finished off by the oracle

Things the Party Did Right That Failed:
* The swashbuckler attempted to Recall Knowledge to try to identify the ghoul; unfortunately, they rolled an 8, and that was the last RK check anyone made
* The swashbuckler did also come up with the idea of using bones on the ground as a club
* When prompted by the oracle, the rogue did in fact come forward and take their mace to do bludgeoning damage; of course the rogue was not proficient and couldn't sneak attack with it, but at least it wasn't resisted
* When the summoner realized his eidolon was getting pounded by the wolf skeletons, he withdrew and attempted to kite; unfortunately, his lightning breath was completely ineffective against their DR
* The magus engaged the ghoul and hurt it quite badly, but then got a critical chomp and a nasty claw that skipped right past paralysis and just knocked 'im out
* The inventor started with a critical success on Overdrive, adding +4 to their damage, but that damage was a shortbow >.>

Things the Party Just Plain Did Wrong:
* The oracle wanted to use fire, and so they used fire. And kept using fire. And kept using fire. It was only after two people were down and the inventor was "dead" that she finally said "FINE, I'll use disrupt undead."
* As mentioned, rogue won't hide and won't flank, I don't get it
* Magus and summoner basically cycled through electricity and cold next, after fire was established not to work... which of course were also resisted
* Swashbuckler wasted time pulling and engaging "background" monsters that would have ignored the party (which, admittedly, they had no way of knowing)

Evil Dice:
* Failure on DC 15 Recall Knowledge check made them decide not to "waste any more time" on Recall Knowledge
* Critical hits by the ghoul and the skeletal wolves did lots of damage and knocked people prone multiple times
* Inventor used a hero point to reroll their initial failed Overdrive check, leading to critical success—which was great until they got taken down by a critical hit and had no hero points to prevent going straight to dying 2
* Once at dying 2, inventor immediately critically failed their first recovery check and died instantly

So to some extent, it was kind of a perfect storm of bad luck combined with bad decisions; honestly if I was going to point "blame" I'd put it at the feet of the oracle who wants to just Set Fire To All the Things All the Time; once she "got over" that and started doing stuff effective against undead (including a three-action heal that only did 2 points, but brought up two unconscious party members and hurt three monsters), the encounter ended pretty quickly.

And with the benefit of 50/50 hindsight, if I'd realized the skellies were effectively immune to most of the party's primary damage sources, I probably would have done something like four zombie hounds instead, but I am leery of doing too much 'massaging' encounters either for or against them.

To start with the basics:

What is the party's character level and what is the level of the enemies that they are facing? That is the big dial. That is what is going to make fights seem like nothing hits - because the level difference is too high. (either that or Negativity Bias)

The players do need to spend some of their actions on defense. That will help them keep their own HP. Anyone with Shield block should consider using it.

Similarly, they should be spending some of their actions on debuffing. Lowered AC is easier to hit. Similar for other stats like will saves.

Attacking the enemy's stats or actions is at least as valuable as attacking their HP.

So, like you mentioned: a synergized and cooperative party is much more powerful than a loose collection of individual gloryhounds. Trying to solo-fight an entire party-balanced encounter on your own really will be that punishing.

They're 1st level, fighting mostly 0-level but anywhere from -1 to 2. I did overtune my first couple of encounters because I was unlearning bad habits from 5E, but this past weekend it was a level 1 ghoul backed up by a level 0 skeletons and level -1 zombie. By the math it should have been a "moderate" encounter (it's a 7-player group), but they still had a character death. It wasn't the ghoul that did it, tho: the skeletons resist 5 against every damage type in the party. XD

So I've run about 10 sessions of 2E across two groups at this point (we were just starting to transition when the OGL nonsense went down), and the whole "PF2E encounters are brutal" thing is definitely showing up here. But besides just being brutal, the encounters have been uniquely frustrating in that the players just can not seem to get their specials to land.

The swashbuckler either blows their attempt to Tumble Through and just throws away an action instead, OR has panache but can't manage to land another hit ever.

The champion only ever gets critically hit. The first one breaks their shield, the second one breaks them.

The magus either can't successfully hit with a spellstrike, OR the monster insta-dies from the weapon attack and the spellstrike is wasted.

(The rogue not getting sneak attack is on them for never hiding or flanking.)

Is this... normal? I feel like my players are being trained "Never Attempt Specials, They Do Not Work." One group is going through Abomination Vaults, the other is homebrew stuff using the established guidelines, and both groups end up every fight Wounded 2 and with 7 hp spread across the party. Even handing out hero points like candy doesn't help because they just get hoarded to ward off Dying 2 From Critical Hit.

They do tend towards being gloryhounds, and I've been trying to nudge them towards more tactical, team-oriented play; so I know that some of this is their own choices biting them. But even not-always-optimal play shouldn't be THIS punishing, should it?

-The Gneech

James Jacobs on the Into the Darklands stream just now: “We’re not gonna be doing much with the Drow going forward.”

...

EDIT: Cavern Elves, now “Ayindilar,” will get some love. Duergar have been renamed to Hryngar and reworked some; new ancestral magic, have a society driven by paranoia and resentment. Svirfneblins are just Umbral Gnomes, now named Drathnelar in-setting. Sekmin are thriving in a number of Sekamina fortress-cities, plotting a surface invasion.

As somebody in the middle of running Abomination Vaults, I gotta say I love the "morally vague" presentation of drow there, and I really feel like just dropping them completely will leave a pretty significant hole. Serpentfolk are alien and hostile; caligni are creepy and kinda gross. Drow have a Bond-villain suave ambiguity that opens up lots of roleplaying opportunities.

I get the whole OGL business; I also get that I can keep on using drow in my own campaign until the cows come home. But I would really like to see a feasible take on an OGL-friendly and "oof"-less equivalent.

-The Gneech

As a general rule, if I don't GM, there is no game.

I do -love- to play tho, and eagerly grab any chance I get!

-The Gneech

John Robey wrote:

3) I don't particularly like adventure paths or megadungeons, and that's all the Big Names do these days. -.-

Uhm, what do you like?

I like single-adventure modules ("Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth" sized, for ex), smaller adventures, and sidetreks that I can easily string together myself. (Hence item #4, that Dungeon magazine doesn't exist. Before the emergence of adventure paths, it was far and away the best value in gaming.)

-TG

A thread for venting about your roleplaying experiences. Your GM won't let you play that kitsune kineticist you're dying to try out? You killed an ancient black dragon and all you got was a lousy +2 sword? The other players make fun of you when you try to roleplay an accent? Your game has been canceled for three weeks running? Whine about it here. Please keep the tone light and friendly.

1) I am sick of being the GM all the time because

2) If I don't GM, there is no game!

3) I don't particularly like adventure paths or megadungeons, and that's all the Big Names do these days. -.-

4) Dungeon magazine doesn't exist. 'nuff said.

Thanks for letting me vent!

-The Gneech

Well there's me, for starters. Depending on the game there's usually at least one or two more in the group. Holmes Basic Set (with chits because they ran out of d20s to include) was my gateway drug.

Ironically enough, I am JUST NOW finally running "The Keep On the Borderlands," converted to 5E, for a mixed group including some first-game-ever players who are half my age. "Back in the day" I mostly rolled my own dungeons. :)

-The Gneech

Age of Worms!

-TG

This was a nice thread once. Now it feels like it's been burned down for failing to pay protection money.

-The Gneech

Heh. I wouldn't go Storyteller for worlds, and I used to write for those guys.

Really it's a matter of what you like! For me, 5E is right in the sweet spot of "rules are robust enough to create what you want, without requiring a calculator to use." It's not as arbitrary (and occasionally flat-out nonsensical) as 1E/2E, and it's not the giant mathematical exercise of something like HERO.

It doesn't have the baked-in multigenre utility of Savage Worlds, which I would like to see. Give me a "build your own class" module, and I'd be using it for everything. (SW has a lot of good things going for it, but it also suffers from feeling like there's basically only one or two effective character builds for everything.)

-The Gneech

I have a question about CR. If a CR4 monster will be a challenge for a level 4 party, would two challenge a level 8 group and three challenge a level 12 group, etc? Is this how bounded accuracy works or have I misunderstood the concept?

It's not so linear. Here, play with this a bit to see how different CRs interact with the party level.

http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

-The Gneech

My DM is having us make perception checks throughout combat, not just during surprise. Three rounds in the people in the back still need to make perception checks to see if they can see the bad guy thats been fighting their buddies....

Yeah, that's just the DM being annoying for reasons that make sense to them alone, I suspect. :-`

-The Gneech

I certainly don't hate Pathfinder, but I am seriously burned out on it.

-TG

There are several things I think 5E does better. (Note that I'm only speaking in terms of it as a rule system here, there are plenty of things I think "Pathfinder" as a company/community construct/franchise does way better than the current D&D equivalent.)

Bounded accuracy is a big one: by effectively turning D&D into E6, you increase the range of levels at which any given critter or encounter is "useful," and really broaden the scope of the setting. This in turn makes the famous "Gygaxian naturalism" something that is feasible in campaign/setting design again– which is an important component in "sandbox" play style.

Obviously, not everyone is a devotee of sandbox style, but that's the thing is that 3.x/PF really only supported storyline-based play, while 5E supports both.

Throwing out the pages of modifiers is another huge one. I cannot begin to adequately express how much simpler life is (and how much FASTER combat resolution is) with advantage/disadvantage instead of "+1 from this buff, +2 from that buff, +2 from flanking, -1 from this debuff, -1 from that debuff, -2 from this unfavorable circumstance... for a total of +1. What were you rolling on, again?"

This same streamlining has been applied to character creation: instead of nerfing everything to heck and then requiring you to spend feats to regain capacity, 5E just gives everyone (including NPCs/monsters) capacity and then makes class features and feats extra-strong.

Finesse weapons are a great example of this: they allow you to use your Dex modifier for both the attack roll and damage modifier, and anybody who uses the weapon can do it. Two-weapon fighting, same deal... anyone who wants to can wield a light-weapon in their off-hand and attack with it as a bonus action, no penalties. The Dual-Wielder feat allows you to use larger weapons, gives a +1 AC when dual-wielding, and effectively gives you the ability to quick-draw multiple weapons. Thus, if you really want to play a double-broadsword-wielding Whirling Cuisinart of Death, you can, but if you just want your rogue to scoop up an extra dagger in the middle of a fight, it's still worth doing.

What it really boils down to, at least for me, is a game that's fast-playing and simple enough that I don't need something like Hero Labs, but is still robust enough to create a wide variety of distinctive characters and allows meaningful choices during the creation process.

-The Gneech

I clearly didn't explain myself very well. You "don't overthink it" guys are missing the point of this thread. I just grabbed a rule as an example - I don't really care what anyone thinks about that specific feat, it works for thrown weapons at my table and that's that.

I'm curious about how people are approaching reading 5E - as you might read an OSRIC-all-rules-are-guidelines rule book or as you would read a PF/4E-all-terms-are-defined/codified game.

The question is specifically about different play styles, so there can't be a right answer.

Well, my answer still stands. 5E is written with the assumption of a general sensibility, which is referenced again and again in the way different types of armor buffs don't stack, you just pick the best one, or advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out, or you can play with or without a tactical map. When in doubt about a decision, choose the simpler, less granular answer.

Hence, the "don't overthink it" answers. That is how you approach it. :)

-The Gneech

It applies as long as the weapon is being used as a ranged weapon at the time. Too much "overthink" going on.

This precisely. 5E is not designed for hair-splitting, and the distinction between "ranged weapon" and "ranged attack" is reading too much into it.

-The Gneech

There's a very good article on Alexandrian.net on the "uberness" of casters in 3E, and that it a side effect of the 15-minute workday, which is in turn (or so asserts the article) largely due to the death of the wandering monster table.

What it boils down to is that the wizards' super-blasty ability is intended to be spike damage, rather than reliable output, while the fighter's damage is steady and dependable. The idea then is that the fighter does most of the actual work, and you hold the wizard's big booms back for the most crucial of moments because you don't know when you might need it later.

Unfortunately, when the group can simply blow all of their resources on the first encounter and then rest, that effectively changes the wizard's big boom from a "daily" to an "encounter" ability (to use 4E parlance), thus making it regular damage instead of spike damage.

When the wizard's big boom becomes the norm, then of course the fighter is screwed.

The way to fix that, assuming you don't like the 4E model of "give fighters their own big boom," is to get rid of the 15-minute workday, re-emphasizing the resource management aspect of the game; and I think he's definitely on to something there. But "more, smaller encounters" and things like wandering monsters are somewhat incompatible with the storytelling mode of most contemporary gaming. It works in a dungeon crawl context, but not so much in a "move from set piece to set piece" context.

5E seems to approach this, as it does so many other things, by aiming for somewhere in the middle. Short rests allow for a certain amount of "patching up" without resetting you all the way back to full strength, so you still have to conserve resources. On the other hand, they aren't actually that short (i.e., they last an hour), require a safe place to hunker down, and you don't get the benefits until the end, so there's always a risk that something might come along and interrupt you, leaving you worse off than you were before.

-The Gneech

As I've looked into the game in more depth (by virtue of finally having a PHB in my hands for an extended amount of time), I see that the 4E mechanics of "daily power" and "encounter power" are effectively still around; the key difference is in their presentation ("requires a long rest"/"requires a short rest"). Although mechanically very similar, the 5E version sounds like a natural consequence of activity (i.e., you're weary and need a rest) while the 4E version sounded like an artificial construct (you have a category X power that resets).

Similarly, by not couching everything in the same "daily power"/"encounter power"/"at-will power" terms, you mitigate a lot of the "every class feels the same" problem of 4E. Even if a lot of class features CAN effectively be described in terms of when they reset, focusing on how the feature works thematically for your class, rather than forcing it into a mechanical slot, feels a lot more organic and less (to use the common complaint) "video-gamey." And, I would think, leads to less staring at your character sheet thinking "What power should I use for this?" Or worse, "Sigh, I'm all out of powers, guess I'll use my at-will ability, even though it's pretty weak."

-The Gneech

The original turnover had some additional encounters that had to be cut for space. My favorites were...

Too bad there wasn't space, they sound like cool encounters.

...Web enhancement time? ;)

-TG

Just finished reading this last night, and I think the OP has a valid point. I like story awards, and I like there being a bunch of side quests to be picked up, but I do think "Dragon's Demand" goes kinda overboard. The "400 XP for a climb check" example is probably the most egregious one, but there are plenty of random things that give double XP, XP for things that entailed no risk, etc.

This last part is the biggest problem: unless you're going "full storytelling mode" XP should absolutely and always be tied to risk.

"Dragon's Demand" already explicitly states "this adventure hands out lots of treasure so you can fight the dragon." Handing out lots of meaningless XP as well will destroy a campaign. That's not a problem if DD is going to BE the whole campaign, but as an "insert into your own game" module, it will create problems.

It would have been better to modify the dragon to make him beatable at 7th level, than to super-inflate the PCs.

-The Gneech

PS: For the record, I really dig the story, the individual encounters, and the new format of DD. But the Monty Haul nature does make it more work for me to wrangle it into usability.

It just hit me today, kinda out of the blue, but I really miss Dungeon magazine. The adventure paths have their moments and all, but what made Dungeon so great was its variety.

The Pathfinder stuff, being all made for Golarion, starts feeling very "samey" to me after a while: Lovecraftian this, demon-touched that, PG-13 the other. That stuff is all fine, but as I say... after a while it's all the same. And worse, because it comes in five-piece chunks, it's only useful "off the shelf" if you intend to use the whole thing. If you pick up #4 of 5 and only want to use that part, you have to strip out the assumed "your players have done this" bits and make sure there's a satisfying ending to THIS part.

By contrast: in any given issue of Dungeon, you might have a Shire-like halfling town dealing with uppity ankhegs, bumped up against a bizarre side-trek involving a medusa sorceress who sells "very realistic statues" at a carnival, rounding it off with a high-level trip to the elemental plane of fire that is the capstone of a long arc.

Each issue had a lot to chew on. Until it became "all adventure paths, all the time" it was real easy to just grab something roughly the right level and insert it into your campaign-- bring your own subplots, if any! And if you didn't need that Shire-like town and their uppity ankhegs today, you might discover next year that it fits your new campaign like a glove. I still pull adventures out of old issues of Dungeon that I've been wanting to use for half a decade... although I'm kinda running out, now.

Anyway... not sure where I'm going with this whole rant. Just remembering good times I guess, and wishing there was something like it today. You did great things with Dungeon, Paizo. :)

-The Gneech

(Edit to fix typo.)

Insert "shut up and take my money" meme here.

-The Gneech

That's a lot of hags! O.o

-TG

So I'm kludging along in 3.5 because it has E-Tools.

I don't like what 4E did with classes, but I must admit their Adventure Tools utility makes me drool.

I'm barraged with recommendations to switch to Pathfinder ... but other than plug-ins for 3rd party tools that I've never gotten much use for, there's no computer support that I can see.

I know this question must have been asked, but a search of the forums didn't turn up anything ... so here goes.

Is there/will there ever be a suite of gamemaster software for Pathfinder? Something that can build PCs, NPCs, and monsters without requiring a whole lot of tweaking ... but preferably -allowing- a whole lot of tweaking if the GM so desires? (Like custom races, custom classes, that kind of thing.)

I'd really, REALLY like the answer to be "yes" on this one. Pleeeease?

Thanks. :)

-The Gneech