What am I doing wrong?
Describe to me your usual combat encounter, both the build up and how the monsters were played.
Then describe to me the circumstances of both the gelatinous cube's death and the shadow's death.
Finally, the owlbears. Owlbears or owlbear?
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I'll have to repeat the question above, and also ask specifically how they got that high of AC.
It also sounds like they're pretty melee heavy. Have you tried challenging them with things other than big numbers?
What I mean is, is they are really effective at not getting hit by attacks versus AC, and good at destroying things with melee attacks...ambush them with something that can fly, or a caster who has scryed to learn all their weaknesses, or something along those lines.
How does an owlbear with +8 to hit on three attacks only hit 21-23 on a 20? It should hit on a 13-15. Owlbears are CR 4, and remember that CR appropriate encounters aren't supposed to be super deadly, as your meant to be able for 5-10 of them in a run. At low levels full-plate does make 3rd~ level characters pretty immune to little creatures like goblins, so using aid another is your friend.
Are you only using Pathfinder stuff, or 3.5? What ability generation method did you use? And what classes are they playing (An all melee squad is going to be lethal in melee for example, especially at low levels)?
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The Stats of at least one Character, complete with equipment might help us to analyze your problems.
I'd guess the problems are not inherent in the System, otherwise the pathfinder boards would be pretty deserted by now, so I'm confident the community here can help you to regain enjoyment in your campaign.
Have those 10 years of 3.5 been with this same group? The CR system is, at absolute best, a rough guideline, but I've not noticed any additional problems after switching to Pathfinder. I suspect tactics are more to blame for the imbalance than character builds.
And an AC of 21 is not remotely a problem. I can do that at first level without even min-maxing a little bit. It's just breastplate and tower shield.
Yes, more info needed.
However, high AC sounds like a party with too many resources for their level.
Also, CR is more flexible than you imply. A group of 4 3rd level PCs should be able to take out a single CR5 monster. It should consume a few more resources. A hard fight for a competent party should be APL +4 or 5 at least.
Plus with real experienced players, it is hard to surprise them anymore, since they have read up on all the classes, and monsters. Therefore, you can up the CR, and start to look outside the direct encounter for terrain, environment, etc. to mix it up, versus just throwing something at them in a room or outdoors, without any other types of barriers. This will improve both the DMs and players enjoyment, unless they have a difficult time accepting changes or suprises.
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First off, welcome to Pathfinder and to the boards!
No drastic changes to be found compared to 3e my friend. You'll have to forgive the skepticism as it seems the numbers don't coincide the brief examples you provided. I'm sure we'd all like to lend a helping hand to a fellow GM if you could give up some specifics.
An owlbear will have a beefy to-hit, as mentioned above. A shadow on the other hand is immune to non-magical weaponry and at 3rd level each party member should be approx. at 3,ooogp worth of gear. They might be a tad overly equipped if all 6 party members possessed magical weapons already. Even magic weapons and spells still only deal half damage. On top of this consider 6 PCs is a lot of actions and should be going up against a suitable number of foes to reach the same level of chllenge for a group of 4.
So I'll echo the "more details" comments.
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21-23 AC at 3rd level doesn't seem too high for me. We have a player that is creating a monk/cleric/sorcerer with a 28 AC at 3rd level. My guess without further information is that they have items they shouldn't yet have, and you probably allowed high stats. Which is okay, you just need to "adjust" the monsters to fit the characters. Keep the gold and items at a minimum until they realign to "normal" and continue from there.
There is nothing so broke it can't be fixed. And if there is, the restart button is always an option. ;)
A 11 Neolandus Kalepopolis avatar
21-23 AC at 3rd level doesn't seem too high for me. We have a player that is creating a monk/cleric/sorcerer with a 28 AC at 3rd level.
Lol, so that character needs Str, Dex, Con, Wis and Cha. What are his stats? He's gonna suck big time. At lvl 3 he has very few first lvl spells, BAB of +0 and can't do anything else. Why would creatures even attack him is beyond me. :D
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Human Cleric using longsword in full plate with a heavy shield; I think his AC is 22.
I'm sure I'll be the first of many to ask this, but did the cleric take armor proficiency? PFRPG clerics no longer start with heavy armor prof. However, the fact that you have a second cleric in a chain shirt leads me to believe you're aware of this rule and that this particular character has the appropriate proficiency.
The characters were created with I think 25 point buy for slightly better powered characters than the base 20. I wanted the characters to be powerful enough to handle threats at low-levels; apparently they are too effective.
Note that PRPG Standard Fantasy is 15 points--25 points is Epic Fantasy! It's no surprise to me that such characters are rolling over standard CR creatures...
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Couple more questions after your responses, since I think the problem might be being too lenient with rules while DMing.
1. Does the wizard have precise shot? If not he should be hitting significantly less often when you account for shooting into melee (-4 to attack roll) and possible soft cover of allies (+2 AC for enemy).
2. Does the dwarf fighter have 14 dex? Also there is no miss chance with magical weapons on incorporeal enemies anymore. It's a flat half damage. Your fighter would've done (1d12+9)/2. Max of 10 damage, minimum 5.
3. 6 PCs is a kicker. You need to increase the CRs against your party. Effectively your party is ~1 higher APL than the norm. The best way to do this is to use more on level monsters/NPCs rather than flat out higher level monsters/NPCs. I.E. there probably should've been 2 owlbears.
It seems like you might also have too much gold/party treasure for the group. I'd suggest doing an audit and see just how close they are to the "norm" given in the Core Rulebook.
Sounds to me like the encounters need to change to make it more challenging for them.
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"The characters were created with I think 25 point buy for slightly better powered characters than the base 20. I wanted the characters to be powerful enough to handle threats at low-levels; apparently they are too effective."
The base is 15, and everything they go up against has effectively been made with a 15 point elite array. Not only are your PC's stats incredibly powerful, theres 6 of them!
The CR system assumes a party of FOUR fifteen point buy characters. No wonder its not working out for you. I run a 24 point buy game and it works out just fine; but i've been tweaking CR's and guesstimating how hard a challenge will be for years.
Using the CR system as standard but having a group 50% larger than what the CR assumes, with characters that are almost twice as good stats-wise... This is your problem.
If the party is 3rd level how has the dwarf got weapon specialisation?
A couple of things.
The dwarf fighter should not have weapon specialization yet. And the rules for incorporeal undead no longer have a miss chance they just take half damage from magic items and no damage from non-magic items. So the great axe would do at best [(1d12+7) + Magic]/2 and that assumes a STR of 20.
As stated above ranged touch attacks into combat have to worry about the same things as firing a bow into combat so that either eats up more feats or increases the to hit chance.
Finally, as stated above the CR system assumes many fights of an equal CR vs a party of four in a day. So that means that after a few fights the party is a little hurt and ALL of the bad guys are defeated. The CR system will never work when viewed as a single fight... you need many fights without rest to see if it is working properly.
Overall, I would suggest a little confirmation of what feats your party has as well as bumping up the number of the bad guys based upon party size and overall power.
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Forgot to mention about:
The gelatinous cube was in a previous session with everybody. They spotted it and got off a surprise round. The wizard zapped it with 2 scorching rays and the alchemist got it with 2 bombs before it got a chance to move. Dead in a round.
Remember to account for the -2 to perception checks for every 10 feet that they are away from the enemy / opposed check. Meaning that for 60 feet away that would be a DC 27 Perception Check. Also the cube spots them pretty much automatically at 60 feet away. It has blindsight 60 which makes it nigh-impossible to sneak past using core rules only.
The fight with the owlbear was with just a single owlbear. It charged the dwarven fighter and missed (bad roll I guess). Then the fighter and battle cleric moved into flank positions and the wizard zapped it with scorching ray. Dead in a round. Got off one attack (which missed).
Owlbears have alot of HP... did they really do 47 damage between three hits? I can see it if someone crit, or if the wizard / fighter did max damage, but the cleric shouldn't be contributing more than 1d8+2 damage or so at most.
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If we assume 4 Ogre's would make a good CR for their level normally, 6 still isn't even matching that initial CR to the group of 6, due to their higher stats. 6 Ogre's led by a Hill Giant Barbarian is more my style...
Sounds fair. I was basing my judgement off of action of economy. 1 to 1 coverage and all. If they focus fire, that will bring down one or two while the other four can gang up on someone.
Creative Director
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Yeah; sounds like the problem is the tripple-whammy of really high ability scores, a large party, and experienced players. The game's baseline assumes a 15 point buy and a party of 4 characters, as folks above have pointed out.
Consider giving every monster and NPC the Advanced simple template, perhaps? Or using more monsters? Or giving all the NPCs and monsters a 25 point buy, even? (Remember that monsters have base stats of 10, 10, 10, 11, 11, 11 before their racial modifiers adjust those scores up to what you see in the Bestiary, so giving them a 25 point buy, or even a 20 or 15 point buy will REALLY bulk them up—the Advanced simple template is a relatively good stand in for a 20 point buy).
With a party so far off the expected baseline, you're going to have to do a little bit of experimentation to rebalance the game is all.
I'm starting up a fresh campaign myself so this is good to take to heart. The PCs are being built with 25-point buys and I have 5 players for sure and a good possibility of a 6th. I know the book says to add +1 to the APL when designing encounters for a party of 6, but I wasn't sure if there should be allowances made for a higher point stat buy or not. Sounds like I should.
So for a party of 6 1st-level characters, each built with a 25 point buy, should an "average" encounter be EL 1, 2, or 3? Could they realistically take on an "challenging" EL 6 encounter? That seems pretty harsh for a bunch of 1st level characters. Thanks!
I certainly wouldn't worry about a gelatinous cube going down before it can do anything. Oozes in 3.5/PF are slow. That will make the gelatinous cube a pretty easy opponent against 6 PCs.
As far as other encounters, with 6 PCs, I would stat up the encounter as if the PC party were really two groups of PCs. I wouldn't truly double the number of opponents (unless that would leave 2 to begin with) but I'd come close. That should give you a better number of opponents and a more challenging encounter than throwing the monsters meant for 4 PCs at a party with 50% more actions to bring to bear.
From the second post, it sounds like they aren't particularly outlandish and they are burning through some resources (just not always hp) so that's not unreasonable. Get enough monster on the board to divide up theier attention and I think you'll feel a bit more satisfied with the level of challenge.
I'm starting up a fresh campaign myself so this is good to take to heart. The PCs are being built with 25-point buys and I have 5 players for sure and a good possibility of a 6th. I know the book says to add +1 to the APL when designing encounters for a party of 6, but I wasn't sure if there should be allowances made for a higher point stat buy or not. Sounds like I should.
So for a party of 6 1st-level characters, each built with a 25 point buy, should an "average" encounter be EL 1, 2, or 3? Could they realistically take on an "challenging" EL 6 encounter? That seems pretty harsh for a bunch of 1st level characters. Thanks!
My current group consists of 6 characters made up with 20 pt buy, and bumping things up +1 CR for an encounter seems to work pretty well and still be challenging.
I had a group in 3.5 which was the equivalent of a 25 pt buy and six characters, and I most certainly needed to bump things by the equivalent of +2 CR per encounter.
Also, the advanced template has been a wonderful tool for bumping up encounters . . . thanks Paizo!
I had a group in 3.5 which was the equivalent of a 25 pt buy and six characters, and I most certainly needed to bump things by the equivalent of +2 CR per encounter.
Also, the advanced template has been a wonderful tool for bumping up encounters . . . thanks Paizo!
Thanks, I will definitely be making use of the Advanced Simple template it appears, and throwing in 50% more bad guys too where applicable. This will turn out to be a bit of an experiment!
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I'm starting up a fresh campaign myself so this is good to take to heart. The PCs are being built with 25-point buys and I have 5 players for sure and a good possibility of a 6th. I know the book says to add +1 to the APL when designing encounters for a party of 6, but I wasn't sure if there should be allowances made for a higher point stat buy or not. Sounds like I should.
So for a party of 6 1st-level characters, each built with a 25 point buy, should an "average" encounter be EL 1, 2, or 3? Could they realistically take on an "challenging" EL 6 encounter? That seems pretty harsh for a bunch of 1st level characters. Thanks!
You're on the right track. The CR system takes alot of finesse to do right though. I'd suggest more lower CR creatures rather than one large CR creature. A level 4 fighter might be a brutal encounter for those 6 PCs, but 4 1st level fighters would be tough, but doable, despite both being the same EL.
I'd aim for ELs between 2 and 3 for a group of that makeup.
I'm starting up a fresh campaign myself so this is good to take to heart. The PCs are being built with 25-point buys and I have 5 players for sure and a good possibility of a 6th. I know the book says to add +1 to the APL when designing encounters for a party of 6, but I wasn't sure if there should be allowances made for a higher point stat buy or not. Sounds like I should.
So for a party of 6 1st-level characters, each built with a 25 point buy, should an "average" encounter be EL 1, 2, or 3? Could they realistically take on an "challenging" EL 6 encounter? That seems pretty harsh for a bunch of 1st level characters. Thanks!
It really depends on the group build and the CR 6. The Fey-Bloodline Sorcerer is absolutely insane against single opponents. While participating in the Advanced Player's Guide playtest, I ran a playtest where four level 1 PCs with 4d6 rolled stats (significantly below 25 PB on average) defeated single opponents of CR 3 through 7 or 8 or so thanks to the fact that there is no real defense against Laughing Touch, so you get an extra round to thwack it (kind of like how the ooze went down in the OP's example). I think after adding a 5th PC, they killed a Frost Giant at level 1 and got a Fire Giant down to about 8 before TPKing. I'll have to find the thread.
Without the Fey Sorcerer, this would have been impossible, so as others have said, balance is an art, not a science. I highly recommend (if you have time) playtesting the prospective party yourself or with one of the PCs against some encounters of differing CRs and numbers and seeing what you find out.
Just to emphasize, particularly against large parties, but even with a normal group of 4, a SINGLE monster is NEVER going to be a real threat unless it is way too powerful for the party. When it comes to single monster encounters, JUST SAY NO. Either the action economy has the party wiping the floor with the bugger, or the thing is so powerful the party cant touch it and you have way more of a threat then is reasonable. We have an easy to add up multiple monsters CR system now people, USE IT! Use lots of enemies, the bad guys should almost always at least be even in numbers with the party and they should usually outnumber them. Even 'bosses' should have minions, and cohorts to even out the action economy or you are absolutely begging for a disappointing encounter.
I'll try to answer all the questions - in no particular order.
1. I might be wrong that we did 25 point buy. I allowed the "high fantasy build." Is that 20 points? It was 5 points higher than the "standard" point buy is all I remember. (I'm having some PF/3.5 confusion.)
2. I think they did 54 hp worth of damage to the owlbear to kill it. This was actually over 1 1/2 rounds. The owlbear charged and then was killed before it got its second round (and full attack).
3. I will need to check to see if the cleric has the heavy armor proficiency just to be sure. (If not, the best thing I can do is just have him swap out a feat.)
4. The wealth was made in direct accordance with the rules. We had a player come into the group recently and make up a 3rd level character. I did an audit then and made sure everyone had the correct wealth levels.
5. The party is now 4th level, hence the fighter's weapon specialization (they leveled up last session.)
6. For combat purposes, I count the group as 5 characters considering one of the clerics does not attack anything AND has low AC and hp.
Considering that if I did drop the characters' ability scores down, cut their wealth in half, and had just the party of the battle cleric, dwarven fighter, wizard, and paladin - we would still have 3 out of 4 characters with 22 AC and dealing some pretty good damage.
To have a 50% chance of hitting, an opponent needs a +12 to hit. Would that be something like a CR 6 Girallon to challenge one of these party members? If so, and if I need at least 2 Girallons, the group is functioning like an 8th level party - twice what their APL is.
If this is the case, what is the use of the Bestiary and its ranking system of monster challenges? What's the point of adventure modules that can be trounced by a group of such a low level? If I have to make up all of my own challenges, what's even the purpose of using the Pathfinder Rules Set?
What about 4 CR 3 Ogres armed with Greataxes? If the ogres can flank one of your PCs, they hit on a 13, so you will almost certainly get one or two hits a turn on one of the PCs if you focus fire on a single target. Each hit will deal 3d6+7, for an average of 17.5 (and 35 if you get in two hits, which is very reasonably possible). Now granted, with two clerics and a paladin, you have insane healing potential, but that's a different story. Clearly this encounter would use up some resources for them, and it's CR 7.
EDIT: One other thought--if three PCs are in tin cans, maybe the monsters will focus on the lightly armoured wizard if they can.
Your post above makes me think you may not realise this (it took me a while in 3E before I grasped it): Even with only four PCs and low stats, a level X party should not really be challenged by a level X encounter--those exist to drain resources and to fight a lot in a row (a level X party can take on a small dungeon full of level X encounters without resting). For a true challenge, you need to have stronger encounters anyway.
Hope that helps. Cheers and good gaming!
Something else to remember is that 3.X really increased the loot pinata effect. A group of 4 level 3 players can easily take out a solo level 6 wizard because they get 4 actions to his one. He is going to get 1 maybe 2 spells off before he goes splat.
Having 6 player only increases this effect.
A 6 level 3 PC classes is a CR 7 encounter. An elite stat array adds 1 to the CR. Since the players have better than a 15 point buy bump then up another level. Your players could probably take on a level CR8-9 monster with a 50% chance of coming out on top.
The problem with putting a group of 6 players up against solo monsters is that you really have to crank up the CR of the monsters to make it a challenge. This results in a situation where the players are up against monsters that can kill a player if they get a full attack action on them, but the monsters dies pretty easily if it never get a full attack.
Against a larger group, you are much better off using groups of monsters or bad guys with henchmen over solo monsters.
First of all, I'd like to thank the Paizo Message Board for giving me the opportunity to do this post all over from the beginning, as my first one disappeared.
One thing I found in adding monsters of a higher CR is that you might suddenly put them in over their heads. While a monster of one type that is CR4 might be an easy fight for them, they might be overwhelmed by the damage-dealing of a totally different sort of monster of CR5. If the PCs have such high stats that they can put down any otherwise reasonable challenge in just a round or two, you can bump up the HP of the monster so that it sticks around for a while. Add 50% or even 100% of its stated hit points to give them a decent challenge.
If you want to go with a higher CR monster, check its damage and see what would happen on a critical hit. Compare its maximum damage to the lowest HP in the party. Odds are if you go up one or two CR rankings, you'll find something that will one-shot a character. If you want to use this monster, you can lower its damage and raise its HP. If you trade damage output for extra attack bonus, they'll feel their mortality a little closer, but they're not in danger of watching their fellows drop like flies around them. At the end of the fight, they'll be feeling like they earned that kill.
A lot of people might look at this idea and say "But that's cheating!" or "Why use the monster stats at all if you're going to change them around so much?" OK, so make it a rule.
In the game right now there's a feat to lower your attack bonus in exchange for damage. There's no feat that goes the other way, probably because there's too many abilities in the game that give a kicker to the weapon so that the weapon damage itself is secondary to the kicker. But as the DM, you control that aspect of the monsters. Make a monster-only feat to trade down damage for increased hit.
Just some ideas. These are issues I noticed when using monsters in 3.5, so these might not be issues as much anymore. But just about every melee-based monster of CR6 or so has a Strength in the high 20s, and uses a two-handed weapon, so the monster's damage cuts through the characters' HP in a round or two. To me, higher CR monsters shouldn't make you feel like you're first level again. They should make you feel like you're in a more heroic battle.
If this is the case, what is the use of the Bestiary and its ranking system of monster challenges? What's the point of adventure modules that can be trounced by a group of such a low level? If I have to make up all of my own challenges, what's even the purpose of using the Pathfinder Rules Set?
It seems like you are mixing apples and oranges here. The CR system is set up to assume you have four characters made with the 15 point buy.
This is not what you have, so you have to make some adjustments, which are still quantified in the rules.
In a written adventure, if you have six characters made with the 15 point buy, you can bump the encounter up by 1 CR, which is pretty easy to do in pathfinder if you look at the encounter building rules.
If the creature is one big monster, this is usually as easy as adding the advanced or giant template. If there are multiple smaller creatures, its pretty easy to see what the encounter budget difference would be between the current CR and one level higher, and add more creatures.
If you have really powerful individuals, and more of them, they you should probably bump the encounters up by +2 CR, which can still be handled by looking at the CR of the given encounter and pushing it up by two CR, again, covered by the encounter budget section of the rules.
Also, even if you have a low hp character with low armor class that doesn't do much in combat, if he does anything, he's contributing, and you have to account for that. He may not be a tank in combat, but if he's healing people afterwards, or buffing them, or anything, even if its not directly damaging the creature, he counts.
Its kind of like indirect labor in accounting. You still have to figure it into the "cost" of the encounter.
Finally, a 4th level party isn't suppose to be severely injured by a CR 4 creature or encounter. Its suppose to spend about a fourth of its resources on it, whether that be hit points, spells, or charges from items. Unless the group doesn't take any damage, use any charges, or use any spells, then they really haven't broken how the system is suppose to work in regards to how hard the encounter is.
The shadow was killed by a combination of Spiritual Weapon (force damage - like a magic missile - so no miss chance) and a big greataxe strike. The axe was coated with a Magic Weapon oil, and the fighter succeeded on his miss chance roll for attacking incorporeal.
In truth, more than one shadow would have probably been more appropriate, even though the CR wouldn't indicate that.
There is no "miss chance" for incorporeal creatures anymore.
Also, one CR3 shadow is not an appropriate challenge for a group of 6 3rd level PCs.
Step 1—Determine APL
Determine the average level of your player characters—this is their Average Party Level (APL for short). You should round this value to the nearest whole number (this is one of the few exceptions to the round down rule). Note that these encounter creation guidelines assume a group of four or five PCs. If your group contains six or more players, add one to their average level.
Challenge Rating (or CR) is a convenient number used to indicate the relative danger presented by a monster, trap, hazard, or other encounter—the higher the CR, the more dangerous the encounter. Refer to Table: Encounter Design to determine the Challenge Rating your group should face, depending on the difficulty of the challenge you want and the group's APL.
Table: Encounter Design
Difficulty: Challenge Rating Equals…
Easy: APL –1
Average: APL
Challenging: APL +1
Hard: APL +2
Epic: APL +3
Now, remember, the idea is that adventurers will face many encounters per day. The 3.5e target was four average encounters per day. Each of those encounters should probably use up some resources, but at the end of the day, the adventurers should have handled four average encounters and called it an average day (not even a particularly difficult day).
So your APL is 4 which means in a single day, your group can handle four encounters, each CR-4 (average), without breaking too much of a sweat. They could very likely handle four CR-5 (challenging) encounters, though by the end of that day, they should be quite sweaty indeed. And it's possible that you could even mix in one or two CR-6 (hard) encounters.
So, yes, two shadows would have been "challenging" but the PCs would still win. Two shadows rising suddenly out of the ground, flanking the lead fighter, would only need to roll a 4 or higher to hit him in the surprise round, so chances are that fighter would have lost 2d6 points of STR before he could even roll initiative.
Heck, with just average rolls, his STR could be so low that he wouldn't even meet the STR 13 requirement to use his Power Attack feat.
After the fight is over, all those lost STR points will make the remaining THREE fights today that much harder (the whole idea being that each encounter depletes valuable resources and that there are multiple encounters per day).
The characters were created with I think 25 point buy for slightly better powered characters than the base 20. I wanted the characters to be powerful enough to handle threats at low-levels; apparently they are too effective.
Remember, a party tht big can rely on group heroics rather than individual heroics. Big groups generally means each member can be more ordinary, while small groups means each member must be more extraordinary.
The party formation is as follows:
Dwarven Fighter (High Strength, High Constitution) using a great axe (weapon focus, weapon specialization); with power attack, I think he deals 1d12+9 damage. He is in full plate armor and has an AC of 21, I think (from Dex adjustment).
Nothing unusual. Fighters should be dishing out lots of damage, and the compensation you get is that with a 2H weapon, his AC is kinda low at 3rd level. He could easily have a 24 AC if he wanted one.
Human Cleric using longsword in full plate with a heavy shield; I think his AC is 22.
Human Paladin using longsword in full plate with a heavy shield; I think her AC is 22.
Very ordinary.
Wizard (evoker) has a Wand of Scorching Ray (not fully charged) and is eating up the charges in every encounter. Until he is out, he is going to be a canon.
That's a powerful wand at 3rd level. Something like that can tip the balance a little. On the plus side, evocation spells in Pathfinder are weaker than such spells have ever been in any edition since D&D was first released back in the 70s.
Still, this is a 4,500 gp item (fully charged). Ideally, a character that level should probably not have any single item worth more than 1,500 gp. And even if it only had, say, 15 charges when he found it (which would have been just a bit less than 1,500 gp), it's still fairly overpowered putting 4d6 of damage in the hands of a 3rd level character.
Human Cleric using a net in chain shirt. His AC is 18. He doesn't deal lethal damage, so he isn't overpowering. (If anything, he's a little underpowered compared to the others - but that's the way the player likes it.)
Two clerics in one group. Clerics are probably the single most encounter-breaking class. Their ability to turn the battle from bad to good is unmatched by any other class, and this group has two of them.
Dwarven Alchemist (from the Advanced Playtest). His AC is around 16. He uses splash weapon attacks and does around 5 points of damage to every opponent within 10 feet of his attack even if he misses. (I don't have a problem challenging this guy either, like the human cleric with the chain shirt.)
Yeah, I'm DMing one of these guys in my Council of Thieves game. That AE damage can be quite a lot if you let your bad guys cluster up for it. Keep the enemy spread out as much as you can.
The most recent session we were down 2 players (the paladin and alchemist). Therefore we had the dwarven fighter, human wizard, human cleric (battle cleric), and human cleric (not combat centric).
The fight with the owlbear was with just a single owlbear. It charged the dwarven fighter and missed (bad roll I guess). Then the fighter and battle cleric moved into flank positions and the wizard zapped it with scorching ray. Dead in a round. Got off one attack (which missed).
You're leaving something out. Did someone get a critical hit? The fighter's average damage is 15, the cleric is probably around 8, and the scorching ray is 14, that's only 39 HP. The Owlbear has 47 HP. So what you're saying is the Owlbear rolled badly, but all three PCs rolled above average (nobody missed and they all did more than average damage).
Well, for just four PCs this fight should have been a little more challenging. CR-4 against their APL-3. However, you do have a one PC with a wand that is too powerful for his level, and sometimes the rolls go against you.
Imagine this fight if the owlbear had hit for above average damage in round 1, then at least one of the 3 PCs might have missed, or rolled low damage, then the owlbear could have Full-Attacked on round 2, possibly dishing out 15-20 points of damage. Yes, the PCs would have still won the fight, but they would also have used some healing resources which would mean fewer resources for the next three fights that day.
The gelatinous cube was in a previous session with everybody. They spotted it and got off a surprise round. The wizard zapped it with 2 scorching rays and the alchemist got it with 2 bombs before it got a chance to move. Dead in a round.
Your entire party of 6 PCs (APL-4) foght one gelatinous cube (CR-3). This was supposed to be an easy fight.
So, just how did they spot this cube? Me, I put stuff like this around a corner in a dungeon corridor so there is no way to spot it from any real distance. Even so, in a perfectly straight dungeon hallway, your two dwarves needed to roll a DC 20 Perception check to see this at 60', the limit of their darkvision. That's a tough roll, but makeable. If you put it there, 60' away, where it would take two full rounds to reach them, then you probably made this fight too easy.
And how did they win a surprise round? The cube has Blindsight and it never sleeps - it can detect them at 60 feet automatically - it doesn't even need to roll. It's a slow mindless predatory ooze operating on pure evolutionary instinct. It doesn't eat by chasing its prey like a wolf or a lion would. Instead, it lurks in the dark, in secret places, sensing with blindsight and ambushing unsuspecting prey. It cannot be surprised, and it won't be caught out in the open where it can be blasted so easily - its primal instincts would drive it to prefer twisty, bendy, mazy passages.
And even without the surprise round (that they never should have gotten) and even if the cube had begun the fight (probably surprising the group the first PC walks around a corner) in favorable conditions, the CR was still lower than the APL, so this would have been an easy encounter no matter what you did.
You should have spiced it up. Have the cube get a surprise round at an intersection somewhere, then have a second cube hit the group from behind (or above), engulfing the mage, alchemist, or cleric in the back while the melee guys were dealing with the first cube. That makes it a CR-5 encounter and it definiitely would have been more challenging.
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Yep the system's just fine... you just need to twig to the rules a little better. Step 1 sit down one afternoon and re-read the PFRPG, especially the Combat & Gamemastering chapters. Hell I re-read those two about once a month. Then read up on the Universal Monster Rules in the Bestiary again.
With 6 powerfully built PC's you need to crank up the degree of difficulty in your encounter design. Encounters really are the bread and butter of the game. I know a lot of GM's that get too caught up in the plot arcs or story of the campaign instead of the actual nuts and bolts combat, RP, or skill based encounters.
--Vrock, Paper, Scissors
1. I might be wrong that we did 25 point buy. I allowed the "high fantasy build." Is that 20 points? It was 5 points higher than the "standard" point buy is all I remember. (I'm having some PF/3.5 confusion.)
The point is your PCs still have higher stats than what is accounted for in the CR system, and therefore you need to account for that in your encounter design.
2. I think they did 54 hp worth of damage to the owlbear to kill it. This was actually over 1 1/2 rounds. The owlbear charged and then was killed before it got its second round (and full attack).
Sounds like a mix of luck and the fact that you have several melee strong characters plus TWO healers. Single-monster encounters are not going to be effective against a party like that.
6. For combat purposes, I count the group as 5 characters considering one of the clerics does not attack anything AND has low AC and hp.
That is probably also why you are miscalculating APL and associated appropriate CR. As DM_Blake noted, clerics are powerful. Even if they don't enter combat, they have extremely useful spells in a variety of situations. And you have TWO CLERICS. TWO CLERICS IN YOUR PARTY.
YOU HAVE TWO CLERICS IN YOUR PARTY.
This is a big deal. Just because only one is playing ClericZilla-Melee-Caster-God and the other is "merely" sitting back presumably healing and buffing doesn't mean only one counts.
YOU HAVE TWO CLERICS IN YOUR PARTY.
This means one can buff and one can heal. Normally there's only one person in the party handling both roles. These are important roles. When you have TWO CLERICS IN THE PARTY dealing with both of those roles--heck, just when you have THAT MUCH HEALING (plus a Paladin's lay on hands)--you have to take that into consideration when you design your encounters. A ruleset by itself isn't going to be able to account for an unusual situation like having TWO CLERICS IN YOUR PARTY. AND A PALADIN.
I think it's really important that you realize that YOU HAVE TWO CLERICS IN YOUR PARTY. When designing your party encounters, I think you might, possibly, want to take into consideration just slightly the fact that YOU HAVE TWO CLERICS IN YOUR PARTY.
Considering that if I did drop the characters' ability scores down, cut their wealth in half, and had just the party of the battle cleric, dwarven fighter, wizard, and paladin - we would still have 3 out of 4 characters with 22 AC and dealing some pretty good damage.To have a 50% chance of hitting, an opponent needs a +12 to hit. Would that be something like a CR 6 Girallon to challenge one of these party members? If so, and if I need at least 2 Girallons, the group is functioning like an 8th level party - twice what their APL is.
If this is the case, what is the use of the Bestiary and its ranking system of monster challenges? What's the point of adventure modules that can be trounced by a group of such a low level? If I have to make up all of my own challenges, what's even the purpose of using the Pathfinder Rules Set?
You're frustrated, I understand. Believe me, I've done the "how the heck did the party get through this encounter so easily" thing many times before. Sometimes, it was because they rolled really lucky. You win some, you lose some. Sometimes, it was because they used extremely good tactics--and hey, good for them. I'd reward them and bear their tactics in mind for your party.
But usually, it was because I failed to take my party's specific abilities into account, and/or because I used poor tactics. It was usually never, with very rare exception, the game system's fault.
Friend CincodeMayonnaise: you are in an uncomfortable position where a lot of people are telling you "you did something wrong." "You set the stats too high," "you calculated the APL/CR wrong," "you didn't read the rules," "you let TWO CLERICS INTO THE PARTY." A situation like this, it's really easy to get defensive, maybe ignore the advice you asked for, blame the system instead of look at the situation at hand. I assume since you came here asking for help, you are a smart person who knows when they're having a little trouble and can accept a little advice. Stop and think about the situation. Think about what people are saying. Sure, some advice is meant to be discarded. And it's not that "you're doing it wrong." It's that you've overlooked a few things, and all folks are trying to do is help you get back on track. It's really hard being a GM and we know that, that's why people are posting what they are. Think about that, rather than get angry at the game itself.
Based on what's been said here, I am personally of the opinion--to take or leave--that the CR system is not the main issue here. It is your tactics.
You have a melee strong party, and a party with an extremely, unusually large amount of healing resources because there are TWO CLERICS (and a paladin) IN THE PARTY. You're trying to answer that problem by engaging the party in melee. That isn't going to help. You need to stop worrying about their strengths (their AC) and start looking at their weaknesses. The entire party probably has low reflex saves. The dwarf probably has low reflex saves. The wizard poor fortitude. All the characters in heavy armor and the dwarf have a 20' move when many, many creatures are faster than that. These are things you need to use to your advantage.
I would say your party's APL is 4-5. So let's look at some APL appropriate encounters:
A single level 4 or 5 spellcaster can become invisible, probably fly or at least start off away from the party at considerable range, and lob fireballs at them from afar, damaging them considerably. He can also summon minions to keep them busy.
A horde of goblins or kobolds hitting you from a far range with spells and ranged weapons. With a large enough of them and good Dexterity, some should hit. Slow down the party with traps.
A large group of low CR swarms. If you want to be downright mean, an army ant swarm. Leech swarm would also be fun and slightly less nasty than the army ant swarm. Swarms don't have to hit, they just need to be able to crawl right over the characters, and they're immune to normal weapon damage. Target the wizard first, since the wand is the biggest threat to them.
If you really want to stick to melee, something like two or three boggards with a level of fighter and masterwork morning stars, and better armor. Use their sticky tongue to reduce the party's AC and then they should be easier to hit, plus their other debilitating abilities will come in handy.
Or an advanced Medium Air elemental. +11 to hit, I believe, and the whirlwind attack is nasty.
And so on. Think outside the box. Think of other ways besides combat to challenge the party too--traps, puzzles, bureaucrats, unexpected forks in the road.
IF ALL ELSE FAILS:
Start over. You seem new to the system, and I've discovered the hard way that trying to tweak the system when you're just starting off as a GM can make things harder for you than you expect. It may be annoying, but ask the players to start over at level 1, with Standard 15 Point Buy, and a more "standard" party makeup like Fighter, Mage, Rogue, Cleric. Maybe with a paladin and a bard to support. If you have your 6 rather than 4 party members, remember even that is still an APL 2.
See how the system is meant to work before you start changing things to suit your style.
Maybe use a module for inspiration. (You want something to challenge a low level party? Pull out Crypt of the Everflame...)
YES, you do have to do a lot of work as GM to prep. There is NO RPG system where that isn't the case. Some rules light systems may make less stat work, but you always have to be able to adjust to your party's make up and tactics, and that's nothing a rules system is going to be able to fix.
ALSO: TWO CLERICS IN THE PARTY.
Thank you.
To the OP: One thing that the hive mind may have left out, remember when handing out XP to divide it by 6 and not 4 since you have two extra players. They may be advancing too quickly. With six players, it's a lot more fun (IMHO) to draw out the lower levels just a bit as well. Once they get past 5th the power curve will really make your job a lot harder.
Alot of good stuff.
What he said, how often do you have sessions?
Oh and I wouldn't worry about class compostion, sure they have a lot of healing, just give monsters a little extra hp or throw them at the PCs a little quicker or more often than otherwise.
Just a quick break down on APL.
4 character means APL = average level (they should all be the same level).
6 characters means APL = 1 + average level
8 characters means APL = 2 + average level
It works just like CR.
However more monsters of CR is generally better than one big monster against large groups. This is due to economy of actions. AKA the players have more chances to get lucky or win through sheer repetition of action than the monster does (8 actions to 1 is a losers bet).
One thing all of your players have in common: poor reflex saves. ;)
They all likely have terrible touch ac's too.