I recently run our long-time group through the "Price of Immortality" trilogy, with an elven rogue, human sorcerer (red dragon bloodline), human cleric of Abadar, and two female human fighters. The women playing the two fighters are very close friends and decided to make them twins, bur for the sake of difference, one wielded a greataxe and the other bastard sword and shield. (We christened them the "Sisters Hack and Slay")
Now, it seemed to me that two front-line fighters make a huge difference in the game, almost doubling the offensive potential. This was especially true against single enemies - once they closed to Iramine in the end, she was down in no time. I know that the game is meant to be balanced for four characters, but I wasn´t aware that changing that could almost wreak havoc to game balance. Do you have similar experiences?
As a side note, I left out several encounters in the city of golden death due to time constraints and the fact that the group was only level 5 throughout the whole module, not going up to 6th level as recommended. The levels set for the modules do not correlate very well with the experience handed out if you calculate it by the RAW - my PCs would have been one level short almost all the time. I just winged it, but I guess that it would have been closer to the fast advancement track than medium.
Stefan
(my first post for about three months - been quite busy with other stuff.)
If they are wrecking encounters, massage the moduleasy way is to.1.
add more bad dudes or 2 throw will saves at them...
This. If the party THEN manage to go through it.. good for them.
I ran a game for two Dwarven Fighters (well one was Duergar), a War Priest Cleric, and a Wizard in a 3.5 Forgotten Realms setting. We had other players come in and out but that was the core group. Talk about a ball of destruction. These guys were not only powerhouse stand alone characters but they had outstanding group tactics (probably from years of playing online games grouped together, knowing how to communicate to each other and take direction) It was an amazing party to DM for. It was challenging to build encounters they wouldn't mow through but I was always able to make the encounters dangerous and entertaining. But I knew their characters well, their tactics, and I designed all of my own encounters from the ground up.
I had a group with 2 rogues, 2 fighters, a druid, and Draconic Sorcerer. They were insanely tough against single bad guys. Groups of bad guys provided more challenge.
Actually, I believe that any group (even those with 4 members) with two (or more) fighters (or any full BAB class) is very powerful in comparision with any "base group", simply because rogue is the weakest of all classes (due to circumstances that are required to be used, what make rarely used), because the sneak attack is one of the most important abilities of the rogue, just because D&D/PFRPG is almost totally directed to combat, what make the other abilities less powerful.
So, any group that substitue the rogue (that practically only serves to disarm traps in a group) for a full BAB class (or even a bard) will be much more powerful, especially if select a Paladin or a Ranger with hunter bond.
Try this, compare a group with a rogue and a group without a rogue, then tell what was your conclusion and if is similar to mine.
Single enemy encounters are almost always a bad idea. The dont work in pathfinder. Especially if you have multiple heavy hitters but even if you have a typical warrior, thief, cleric, wizard party. If they are all built for combat they will rip through an encounter with a single enemy. Particularly if the cleric gets in on the fighting as well (which they can quite effectively).
Long story short, no encounter you want to be meaningful should be outnumbered party to monsters by more then 2 to 1 (rounded up). So a party of 5 should always have 3 or more monsters (in my humble but I hope well informed opinion). You really have to customize encounters and tactics to make single monster encounters memorable so most of the time it just makes more sense to add more enemies/monsters to an encounter to make it a real challenge.
I recently run our long-time group through the "Price of Immortality" trilogy, with an elven rogue, human sorcerer (red dragon bloodline), human cleric of Abadar, and two female human fighters. The women playing the two fighters are very close friends and decided to make them twins, bur for the sake of difference, one wielded a greataxe and the other bastard sword and shield. (We christened them the "Sisters Hack and Slay")
Now, it seemed to me that two front-line fighters make a huge difference in the game, almost doubling the offensive potential. This was especially true against single enemies - once they closed to Iramine in the end, she was down in no time. I know that the game is meant to be balanced for four characters, but I wasn´t aware that changing that could almost wreak havoc to game balance. Do you have similar experiences?
As a side note, I left out several encounters in the city of golden death due to time constraints and the fact that the group was only level 5 throughout the whole module, not going up to 6th level as recommended. The levels set for the modules do not correlate very well with the experience handed out if you calculate it by the RAW - my PCs would have been one level short almost all the time. I just winged it, but I guess that it would have been closer to the fast advancement track than medium.
Stefan
(my first post for about three months - been quite busy with other stuff.)
One of the most hilarious party ideas I've seen, that was insanely effective.
Was a party of frenzied berserkers. And a very exasperrated Apostle of peace.
Course the barbarians took Righteous wrath, but still. The apostle was very... very stressed out.
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I have a 6 person group.
Bard 5
Fighter 2/Rogue 3
Rogue 5
Barbarian 4/Fighter 1
Rogue 3/Wizard 2
Paladin 5
Talk about offensive action. This group mows through encounters. I have found will saves are a bane to them for the most part, and several times they've encountered confusion effects which wreak havoc in the group. Healing has been a problem, but with a wand for the bard and now having the paladin in the party, it makes for more healing available. I feel your pain OP, believe me...
What I've taken to doing most of the time is giving the opponents max HP's. this helps the combat to last longer, and is giving them a challenge to overcome. If I didn't, things would quickly get out of hand and I think they would start to get bored with the carnage.
I DM for a party of 6 (APL +1) with 25-point buys. They are all 3rd level soon to be 4th. The campaign is expected to go all the way to level 20.
Fighter
Barbarian
Monk
Rogue
Bard
Cleric
I throw will saves at the fighter and barbarian and they roll great and make them. Once they close to melee range fights generally don't last more than a round or two. But having them get into melee range is the challenge for them. I have learned not to run single-enemy encounters. More enemies = more fun fight for all concerned.
Having two or more solid melee types in a party isn't a deal breaker. It just means they are missing resources from some other class is all. Let them enjoy doing what they do well in some encounters, and be opportunistic with their weaknesses in others. It's all about balance. Good luck!
Can't agree more with the multiple bad guys. Best solution is to throw lots and lots of lil small mobs at them with ranged picking away at them: casters, bowman, bombadiers. Anything to slow them down and then chew them to pieces. Once you envelope/surround the monsters that flanking and grappling (Use a net or trip them!) is a heck of a deterrent for charging into combat.
Once you start lobbing fireballs into combat with magic users who don't care about their minions you will watch them develop new tactics with which you will have to counter and develop new strategies and the cycle goes on :)
Multiple enemies are always more dangerous than one strong enemy. I once had a party of only three characters take out a Solar (CR 23) when they were level 15. And I wasn't pulling my punches. And they were straight Core/APG, no 3.5 stuff or weird 3rd party stuff. They were hurting by the end of the battle, but they pulled it off.
Tough bosses are best served with fairly tough companions. A party level +4 Wizard is scary, but a level +2 Wizard is scarier when he has a few level +1 constructs (or undead, or whatever) as protectors.
And, as pointed out on another thread, sometimes the best thing to do is create something one CR lower than the party level and throw a whole hoard at the party.
Oh, and to join in the thread gossip, the current game I'm playing in has the following PC spread:
Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger, Oracle, Cleric
Let's just say, a game where no one played an arcane caster is really weird. This wasn't a requirement either - the party is friendly with several NPC mages. We just don't have one in our group. Most encounters are handled by the three full Bab classes dashing into a room while the two healers follow behind, trying to keep the front line alive.
But I digress. If the adventure path doesn't have enough minions, then add some, or perhaps combine some encounters. If the party is blowing through them as is, then they'll probably enjoy something a little tougher. I know I would in that situation.
I recently learned my lesson with single large creatures as well. My group is all level 8, Alchemist/Chymist, Paladin, Druid with Animal, Fighter, Summoner and a rogue.
Since I had never had a single enemy (I'm a newbie gm) I decided to do a Sea Serpent, CR12 and as a practice I always way over up the hit points in general because they end to tear into any mobs so easily if I don't. They did 440 damage in 2 rounds of combat, sure there was three lucky crits but still.
It is possible to use Solo monsters, but only a few monsters can fit this role. You need creatures with many resistances and/or inmunities.
Elementals do ok, i.e.
We have 6 in our group DM + 5 PC's. Everyone has played together for about 3 years some of us 6+ years.
We are currently playing ou 4'th Path finder Adventure path. We played Rise of the Run Lords, Crimson Thrown, The Desert Campaign and now King maker. Before that we played a lot of scared lands.
Anyway our DM always keeps us a level or two behind the module recomended levels. And he being a very experianced player alters most Boss fights and has them fight smarter and not the usgested round by round game plan outlined in the book.
P.S. We also as players avoid min maxing our characters. Its more fun to have characters with personalities and not pure min maxed melee or pure heal bots etc..
Yup.
Coming from the wild/wooly world of Warhammer 40K where things are bought on a budget... one of the lessons was "If one of a thing is good, then two of that item is three times as valuable, and three of a kind is triple that!"
That is to say, when a party finds a strength and runs with it, it's gunna be glorious! However... every aspect of bad-assery is balanced by an aspect of *yipes!* For melee heavy parties, Will Saves and Restrictive Terrain work as trumps.
However, as a DM you should always be willing to say, "Twenty Hobgoblins just isn't enough...*tweek* ah, thirty! Much gooder!" :D
The past three games I have been a player in the parties looked like this:
1) Cleric; Fighter/Cleric; Fighter/Barb; Barb/Rogue; Rogue
2) Rogue; Rogue; Druid; Wizard
3) Fighter/Wizard/EK; Fighter/Sorc/Red Dragon Disciple; Druid
As you can see, 'perfect' balance was never acheived, nor pursued :) Most party setups can work well.
GNOME
I once enjoyed the company of a pair of Half-orc twins, named Humpa and Holda Grossgurl...
On topic - attack their Will and you will cause some grief. :)
I agree with all the comments here. My current group is 7 strong so we have overlapping abilities everywhere and it is murderous. Our murderer's row consists of a Ranger (TWF), Mobility Fighter (TWF),a paladin and a monk. It is just sick sick sick and so far out of balance I am not sure it's even possible to even out as I see the problem as "death loop".
The trade off of having more than the standard number of PC's is level advace is retarded as XP's are divided into smaller awards for each PC. However, in order to have challanging encounters, the DM is forced to increase the CR of the encounters, which by RAW allows for an increase in XP award. With larger parties, fixed level advancement is probably the best way to go.
As much as I love PFRPG it, like it's 3.x predecessor, breaks down mechanicly once the party size increases above 5. We see this in several mechanical facets of the game. More PC's give more flank opportunities to rogues, multiple arcane casters can layer spells, feats and even skills increase in power, etc etc.
This is a huge problem for my group at the moment and one which I think will lead to the eventual breaking up of the group. Overlapping abilities make it hard for one PC to get his/her time in the spotlight, as it is likely another member of the party has the same skill set.
Overall, PFRPG is superior to every previous version and competitor. However, in my humble opinion if it has one fault it is its inablity to maintain a balanced game as the number of PC's increase.