Over the weekend I ran an adventure I wrote for playtest characters and I want to post my thoughts and results.
First to set the scene the adventure was a parody of StarWars and set in Jibbo da' House's palace. This scenario was more designed around testing combat mechanics at high level and not skill progression.
Party:
Vanguard 15
Biohacker 14/Soldier 1
Witchwarper 15
Witchwarper 15
All characters were made with 500,001 credits except one Witchwarper whom only had 500,000 because they whined about the extra credit. Needless to say said Witchwarper was the only one to die...see what 1 credit does for you?
All encounters were built for encounter level based on rules presented in the Starfinder Core Rulebook, based on monster building rules from Alien Archive 1 & Alien Archive 2.
There were 3 encounters in the adventure EL 15, EL 17, and EL 18. Individual creatures also progressed through the encounters.
Encounter 1 (EL 15):
6 EL10 Orc Soldiers. So this was the entryway guards to Gibbo's palace. They were all slightly better at melee, but still respectable at range too. The special defense these had were spell resistance. Since they were underpowered the spell resistance was supposed to help them from being destroyed outright.
Encounter results:
One Witchwarper got into hitpoints mainly because I was able to get the jump on the PCs in initiative and get to the Witchwarper before the Vanguard could step up and defend. Once the Vanguard got control this combat was trivial.
The triviality of this combat, probably came from encounter design more than anything overpowering on the PCs side. The problem with D&D 3rd edition, no edition wars just a problem that has never been rectified in all the later derivations of 3rd edition, is that monsters of a lower EL than the PCs are not usually dangerous. This was the case here, I needed a 19 - 20 to hit the Vanguard and even then if the Vanguard leveled its shield towards the monster a crit was only a normal hit. I was needing 15 and above for the other PCs. This fight was designed as a bellwether for the other two encounters to tell me if I needed to make adjustments to the other ones.
Thoughts:
Two things stood out for me.
First, shield really need to be looked at for their effects to AC. To me it seems that AC has been balanced for armor without shields, but with shields it seems it makes it really difficult to hit people. While it may be balanced for a Vanguard...what happens when a soldier gets a hold of one?
Second, Unwilling Guardian. Ok, it is a 5th level spell, but no saves after the initial one? It is not really a Witchwarper problem since the spell is from the core rulebook. Since the creature has to be lower EL it is probably balanced.
Encounter 2 (EL 17):
Jibbo Da'House Yoski Envoy EL14
Buba McFett Human Operative EL14
4 EL 10 Orc Soldiers EL14
Non combatant:
Slave Boy EL17 Blue Dragon (human form)
This encounter was originally written with the throne pit trap to the Rancor whom at EL 14 added would have made this EL18. The Rancor would not have changed much in this room, so I decided to remove the trap and add it to the final encounter. The Slave Boy/Dragon is the person in charge, but everyone thinks (including Jibbo) that Jibbo is in charge.
Encounter Results:
No one suspected the slave boy or had a true seeing type of ability to see the dragon as it was, so in general the dragon was ignored. I also had the PCs roll sense motive checks against the dragon's bluff, which they all failed miserably. Who am I to tell them differently when they thought they were sense motiving against Jibbo?
Bubba got locked down by a Witchwarper's Consuming Narrative power. Without Jibbo's heavy hitter most of Jibbo's powers were moot. The dragon made a mysticism check to figure out what was going on and tried to get the orcs to hit Buba, but the other Witchwarper kept locking down the orc the dragon told to do it, lucky guesses. So by the time Buba was unlocked Jibbo was down, 2 of the 4 orcs were down. Stupid Orc crit Buba when he hit him. The rest was cleanup, since the small room size allowed the Vanguard to pretty much lock up Buba who had only about a 30% chance to hit him without Jibbo's help.
Thoughts:
Consuming Narrative with can break a combat quickly. Especially with the encounter level problems that come from above. Yes it locks up one of the PCs with concentration to maintain it, but with no saves the Witchwarper can freely hold say the boss, while the other PCs clean up the trash. With basically unlimited uses (I know only effected 1 time per 24 hours), this ability can trivialize whole adventures. I think a save needs to be introduced or a limit on uses per day.
Encounter 3 (EL 18):
Slave Boy/Blue Dragon EL 17
Rancor EL 14
Non Combatant:
Hands Duo the person they were in to rescue.
Combat Results:
The nature of the enemies caused the PCs to think the Rancor was the bigger of the two threats, even though the dragon got a good breath weapon in the surprise round. They had taken the slave boy with them and he shifted forms while the PCs were distracted by the Rancor. This let the dragon to get next to a Witchwarper and multiattack multiple times and tear them apart. Since the dragon did start in melee range of the party. After the PCs killed the Rancor, the dragon was the only enemy in the adventure that was giving them trouble. They won, losing a Witchwarper and Hands. The dragon could have left, if it were an ongoing campaign it would have and been a menace for the future.
Thoughts:
It took an EL + 2 creature to give them trouble. If the dragon didn't have immunity to mind affecting (not standard given to prevent charm/suggestion to fit the Jabba the Hutt's immunity) this combat would have gone very different, as the dead Witchwarper tried to Consuming Narrative it too. A more balanced party, one with some healing, would have been fine in the final combat. Spells that require a on the other hand may need a save boost the dragon saved against the Witchwarpers spells on its weakest save 50% of the time, which the dice gods did not let me miss for the entire combat.
Overall Thoughts:
A couple of things stood out to me:
1. As mentioned earlier I think shields need to be looked since it raises ACs to the point that EL level creatures will have a high miss percentage. The EL17 dragon needed a 12 to hit the Vanguard on a single attack, 16 on a multi attack. If the Vanguard raised shield it went to 15 and 19.
2. Spells and powers that are no saves or save or long effect need to be looked at in general. At level 15 if I were running a home game, I would be left with encounters that took powers away from PCs since things like Consuming Narrative are either you are immune to it or you are not. It feels like I am a benevolent GM and I am allowing you to use your power this time. It is no fun if an NPC does it to a PC and it can trivialize an encounter the opposite direction. I am harping on Consuming Narrative but that is not the only one that does that sort of thing.
3. Spells need higher save DCs at higher levels. When the monsters get saves they are looking at upwards of 80%-85% on the strong save and 50% on the low one. I'd like to see those percentages knocked down 10%-15%.
Congratulations on getting to the end of this wall of text.
--Chris
