I don't think any of my players read these boards, but I'd ask you not to read this thread if you do as I don't want to be worried about spoilers for you.
I'm starting to GM a Pathfinder game this Friday. The players are mostly very experienced 3.5 players with little-to-no Pathfinder experience (we have a couple who are newer to tabletop altogether).
Homebrew setting, five [soon six] characters at level 1, 32 point buy. Party consists of:
Half-elf wizard (universalist)
Human cleric (Strength/Luck domains)
Dwarf druid (probably melee/companion focused)
Halfling paladin (mounted)
Human fighter
[gnome rogue or bard: will join after a couple of sessions]
Their first "adventure" should be heading cross-country (random bandit encounters) into a mage's crypt with close quarters and lots of traps/puzzles.
I'm an experienced 3.5 GM with zero PF experience. I've been studying the rules, hanging out on these boards, and talking with my players, but I'll admit I'm a little nervous about things I don't expect breaking the game and making my setting unfun. I know I have to beef up the encounter CR to deal with very high point-buy and more than four characters (as well as a set of players that are, quite frankly, brilliant). What should I expect? What advice can you give either to me, or that I can pass along to my players, to help us make sure that we have a good time and that the game stays challenging but winnable?
Thanks in advance for the input. I'm happy to explain more about the setting and the hook if it would help the discussion.
Just to nitpick: Point buys in pathfinder are 15, 20, and 25. It works out about the same though.
With first level characters I would not worry about it too much. If they are having an easy time with things just increase the number of encounters. I find 1st level characters squishy even with the boost that Pathfinder provides.
Don't stress about things too much. If you throw an encounter out or the PCs have bad luck and a character dies it's not the end of the world. Just adjust and move on.
Just to nitpick: Point buys in pathfinder are 15, 20, and 25. It works out about the same though.
I know. I'm giving my players 32 points to work with under Pathfinder point buy rules. The extra seven points is really helping my MAD melee characters while allowing my casters to have an 18 without needing to min-max.
Thanks for the advice. More encounters per day, good call.
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My group played our first PF game a week ago. We've been playing together since before 3e hit the shelves, so we're pretty experienced in 3/3.5. I've DM'd the group on and off for about 8 years.
Our first PF experience was the Pathfinder Society Scenario #29 "The Devil We Know, Part 1 - Shipyard Rats" and it went quite well. I'd say about half my group had read up on the PF rules and we jumped right in without issues (I did provide some pre-generated characters for them).
The only thing you need to do is when you use a feat, skill, class ability, special attack, etc., take a moment to look it up and make sure it works the way you think it did in 3.5. It'll slow you down some, but there's a finite amount of stuff on a single character sheet and once everyone's familiar with their characters, things will go faster with less look-ups.
Good luck & enjoy!
-Skeld
Your group has the bases covered pretty well. Plenty of healing, plenty of melee ability, a wizard for arcane stuff, and depending on the gnome you may have trapfinding or not. That could be a weakness, it's going to depend on how you run things. I second the notion of not being afraid to throw more encounters at them; they can also handle things that are at +1 level with that many characters.
Expect certain characters to excel. A wizard can function with a high Intelligence and little else, though at low levels he'll want Con and Dex. The paladin needs Cha, Str, and Con at least. The gnome will be a toss-up depending on if he's a rogue or bard. Don't sweat it; different classes need different things to excel. Just make sure everyone has some time in the limelight.
Don't worry if the party overpowers encounters, especially in melee with this group. High point-buy plus large party generally equals lots of mayhem.
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I don't think any of my players read these boards, but I'd ask you not to read this thread if you do as I don't want to be worried about spoilers for you.
I'm starting to GM a Pathfinder game this Friday. The players are mostly very experienced 3.5 players with little-to-no Pathfinder experience (we have a couple who are newer to tabletop altogether).
Homebrew setting, five [soon six] characters at level 1, 32 point buy. Party consists of:
Half-elf wizard (universalist)
Human cleric (Strength/Luck domains)
Dwarf druid (probably melee/companion focused)
Halfling paladin (mounted)
Human fighter
[gnome rogue or bard: will join after a couple of sessions]Their first "adventure" should be heading cross-country (random bandit encounters) into a mage's crypt with close quarters and lots of traps/puzzles.
I'm an experienced 3.5 GM with zero PF experience. I've been studying the rules, hanging out on these boards, and talking with my players, but I'll admit I'm a little nervous about things I don't expect breaking the game and making my setting unfun. I know I have to beef up the encounter CR to deal with very high point-buy and more than four characters (as well as a set of players that are, quite frankly, brilliant). What should I expect? What advice can you give either to me, or that I can pass along to my players, to help us make sure that we have a good time and that the game stays challenging but winnable?
Thanks in advance for the input. I'm happy to explain more about the setting and the hook if it would help the discussion.
I am a fairly new GM too. I'm playing with a group of friends and they are all rather new to Pathfinder too. We don't have experience with 3.5 like you do. I have started taking 10 - 15 minutes at the start of each session and covering a small section of the rules. We covered skills last session. I gave them an overview of what skills are used for, when you can take 10, when you can take 20, etc. We don't go into too much detail, but it helps the players understand the rules better. After the last session, skills didn't seem like just numbers on a paper...they were something that could be used in various situations.
Your party seems very balanced, so it might be hard to challenge them. The most memorable and fun parts of our campaign so far have been traps. They have ran into a couple in which one or more failed their save. It resulted in a couple of hairy situations for them. I think it was the most fun for them because it was challenging. They were thinking..."Hey, I might die!" It provides a rush for them when they can work through it and overcome the challenge.
I've increased the CR of the encounters with my group too. That has increased the fun they are having because they aren't just mowing through monsters. It gives it more of an epic feel.
My players don't mind either if we have to take 5 minutes to look up a rule. They want to get it right just like I do.
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I'd suggest cutting back the point buy to 25 max, but thats your call.
The most important thing is to not just assume that something works the same way 100% as 3.5 or previous editions.
A good example...a group I was in were fighting some frosty chiselers (dark fey). They weren't particularly tough, but we got pwned pretty hard when they cast Mirror Image and the DM rolled really well for extra images. Due to some poor luck on our part, there were several rounds of combat where we missed the little jerks by less than 3 on our "to hit". Close, but no cigar, or so we thought.
Lo and behold, when looking at how tough that adventure was later on, I discovered that Mirror Image isn't quite so good...if you are within 5 of your "to hit", you still dispell one of the images! That would have taken combat about 3, maybe 4 rounds shorter and would have allowed for fewer HP loss and less of a butt whupping.
Just saying...don't assume. Question everything, until you have it down pat.
Good luck, and ENJOY!
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My biggest piece of advice is to look at how feats and skills have changed. Certain feats don't work the same way they did in 3.5 (Power Attack, Cleave, Combat Expertise, just to name a few!) and skills are no longer multiplied by 4 at first level (and are consolidated much like 4e.) It is easy to take things for granted, but things might seem broken if you assume that things work the same way that they did in 3.5.
I love the system, but I made very many mistakes when I started running PF. Thankfully we were able to just make the necessary adjustments, and move on.
Welcome to Pathfinder!
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I will echo the sentiment of cut back to 25 point buy. 32 points is going to break your game. If you want to help the MAD players, get your random on with the heroic rolling system of 2d6+6. MAD characters are fully functional on the elite array. You do NOT need an 18 in every relevant ability score as a MAD class, and they are in fact balanced around you not having those scores. If you feed MAD classes full scores they're going to get brutal and you're going to have a bored party very quickly.
In addition, giving them 15/20/25 point buy forces them to look at prerequisites for feats and in turn make critical decisions about which feats they want rather than ALL the feats. This means your players will read feats and make decisions on which ones they feel are right for their character: In the process they'll see the differences between 3.5 feats and pathfinder feats with the same name.
Again, 32 point buy is going to break your game. Literally. You're going to have to do a LOT more work as a GM to make them even blink when you throw encounters at them. You'll have to run a ton of high mob count encounters to even scratch them. Those take a lot of time to play through and can slow down play if you enjoy the roleplaying side as well.
The one I missed the first time was exactly how much harder it is to cast on the defensive. That's the thing that rebalances wizards and clerics, in my opinion.
A wizard NEEDS a plan for when an enemy is in his/her face. Casting defensively is hard for all but your simplest spells, and foes with the step-up feat won't let you 5ft back.
I'd suggest 'withdraw' or 'tumble away' or Still spell + something defensive.
Ditto on the 32 point buy, our group recently cut down from 30 pt buy to a 20 pt buy, it cut down on the amount of work required for write ups considerably.
the party sounds reasonably set up (I am a little saddened by the universal wizard, but I am sure with this size party that character will be alright)
Remember with large parties it is alright to use things a little bigger on CR than you normally would. As always try to use strategy and terrain to your advantage.
I would also advise dropping to 25 (about equal to giving 37 in the old style) still me I like to roll my stats.
I have been a GM for about 7yrs now, most of that dungeons and dragons of one type or another. Pathfinder has many similarities but some changes that caught me off guard, I think it was a month of play before my group noticed cleave had changed.
Also remember rule number one and the prerequisite to being a good GM, have fun.
Hey, throwing a CR 5 encounter against a group of lvl 1 characters sounds like fun!
I think the 32 point buy will actually make MAD characters overpowered in comparison, I advise to go 25 at most. Unless maybe you want to have minimum scores like at least 10, that might balance out..
With what you have assume the party is 1 higher then normal because of the higher point buy, and assume the party is 1 higher for each extra player. This comes with a condition. Spread out the CR. Dont throw a SINGLE CR 5 monster against a level 5 party. First of all it's NEVER a good idea to have lone monsters/enemies against a party of any size, but its even worse with large parties and particularly high cr enemies. So yea, make sure there are LOTS of enemies. With a party of this size, probably a minimum of 4 enemies is a good idea.
Thanks for all the good advice. Our opening session is tonight, and further advice is still welcome.
I'll let everyone know how it's going. :-)
I'm not trying to start another argument about point buys but I don't see a big problem with a 32 point buy if you up the CRs for encounters (which isn't that hard to do). The party I'm about to start playing with is going to be able to roll 2 sets of six, 4d6 rerolling 1s and they can pick the better of the 2 sets, if they don't like either set they're allowed to do a 25 point buy. So anyway, as no one in the group wanted to play a healer I made up an NPC Cleric that's main purpose is to heal and buff the party, I rolled these stats: 16, 13, 15, 10, 16, 17 (these are in the order I arranged them not the order I rolled them). That's the equivalent of a 43 point buy and that's 1 of the suggested methods of assigning ability scores (well minus the reroll 1s part).
Hey, throwing a CR 5 encounter against a group of lvl 1 characters sounds like fun!
My group is quite the same, but I strongly support more monsters over one uber strong one. When you allow a larger party to focus all their firepower one one target it will often get slaughtered. And, as a second point to think about, something near that CR can quickly murder a single PC if it wins its Init roll.
Oh, and also, other things to consider
Increasing hit points on all baddies
Adding the advanced simple template to simple creatures(lions and tigers and bears oh my!)
Doubling the number of mooks(anything with a cr 2 or more lower than the party in a published work)
The above work well on the fly or making easy changes to existing adventures.
Use the heck out of terrain! Use anything to slow down the pary and give you baddies a couple of extra rounds to soften them up with spells and missle fire.
Your party may be your best place to look for good tactics, watch them like a hawk!
And do not forget to adjust the treasure and exp for a larger party, its a small item but worth rembering.
My 2 cents.