I feel like 2020 won the brawl. I'm not leaving this year feeling like I won for sure. Also it appears to have taken your cloths with it.
... Wait do I have that template?No, you have the advanced Simple template.
And to think my teachers said I would never advance at anything.
My dentist asks the stupidest questions. Like "When was the last time you flossed?" I'm thinking "You should know, you were there."
And that is the honest Tooth.
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*sigh* My PCs continue to cakewalk through book 5 of Strange Aeons. I find myself wishing that Paizo APs had suggestions along the lines of “to make this encounter tougher, add X.” Fiddling with encounters to make proper challenges for a group of experienced players is more than I signed up for.
You did kill me once. So that was nice for you.
Sounds like you could have used a template.*sigh* My PCs continue to cakewalk through book 5 of Strange Aeons. I find myself wishing that Paizo APs had suggestions along the lines of “to make this encounter tougher, add X.” Fiddling with encounters to make proper challenges for a group of experienced players is more than I signed up for.You did kill me once. So that was nice for you.
Why not a templar?
In there are templar template?Why not a templar?Sounds like you could have used a template.*sigh* My PCs continue to cakewalk through book 5 of Strange Aeons. I find myself wishing that Paizo APs had suggestions along the lines of “to make this encounter tougher, add X.” Fiddling with encounters to make proper challenges for a group of experienced players is more than I signed up for.You did kill me once. So that was nice for you.
It would be tempting to make a Templar template.
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A tempting Templar template to temper the temperamental temptresses.
Hey John.
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Tembe, the templated Tempting Templar tries to temper the temperamental temptresses through temporary temporizing temporal tempura and tempestuously temperatured tempeh.
... alright you win.
Wiiiinnnndddd!
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Seriously, though. I do like adding templates to bad guys, especially unexpected ones. Like I'm prepping another one-shot in case the GM can't make it, and the final encounter is a half-fiend unicorn. That should surprise the players.
Too many of them are already templated to hell and back.
Sometimes I add like 50% more hp. Sometimes I add enemies.
At the end of book 4, I combined three encounters and had them fight all the enemies at once. That one gave a few paper cuts.
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Seriously, though. I do like adding templates to bad guys, especially unexpected ones. Like I'm prepping another one-shot in case the GM can't make it, and the final encounter is a half-fiend unicorn. That should surprise the players.Too many of them are already templated to hell and back.
Sometimes I add like 50% more hp. Sometimes I add enemies.
At the end of book 4, I combined three encounters and had them fight all the enemies at once. That one gave a few paper cuts.
You should play 2nd edition, they fixed that.
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*sigh* My PCs continue to cakewalk through book 5 of Strange Aeons. I find myself wishing that Paizo APs had suggestions along the lines of “to make this encounter tougher, add X.” Fiddling with encounters to make proper challenges for a group of experienced players is more than I signed up for.You did kill me once. So that was nice for you.
Oops. Kinda forgot one of my players might read this.
You died to a failed save (two, actually - phantasmal killer). Dubs died (very temporarily) to another failed save (assassin’s death attack). That seems to be the only thing that scares anyone these days. Save-or-die isn’t a very satisfying way to go.
And, of course, I’m not trying to kill PCs. I make a point to avoid that as much as possible. But encounters that last less than two rounds, during which the enemies never land a hit, are not exactly exciting.
Also, ignore my post above where I revealed you fought 3 encounters at once *nervous laugh*
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You should play 2nd edition, they fixed that.Seriously, though. I do like adding templates to bad guys, especially unexpected ones. Like I'm prepping another one-shot in case the GM can't make it, and the final encounter is a half-fiend unicorn. That should surprise the players.Too many of them are already templated to hell and back.
Sometimes I add like 50% more hp. Sometimes I add enemies.
At the end of book 4, I combined three encounters and had them fight all the enemies at once. That one gave a few paper cuts.
I will admit - running a high level P1 game is making me never want to run P1 again.
The enemy stat blocks are atrocious. They are full of spells the enemies will never use, and laundry lists of feats that can interact with combat in all sorts of ways, but only if the GM remembers all of them and knows what they all do.
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Discovered on today's job search within a DoD contracting firm: Mission Manager of Zombie Program
I could lead the apocalypse!
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Yes. Those index cards would be helpful. But to me, that sounds like a lot of prep - especially if you are using published adventures to cut down on prep time to begin with.
When a stat block says an enemy has something like power attack or vital strike, the only way to use them is to reverse engineer the stat block and figure those attacks out. Why not just tell us the attack and damage stats for those attacks in the published stat block? (I know the answer is “word count”, but it doesn’t sit well with me.)
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Oops. Kinda forgot one of my players might read this. Also, ignore my post above where I revealed you fought 3 encounters at once *nervous laugh*
Sorry! Didn't mean to intrude. And we knew about the 3 encounters :P And save-or-dies are never much fun. They always feel like a cheap kill rather than a deep thrill.
Solo BBEGs are almost doomed from the get-go, though you did have 3 miserable rolls with one guy that could have hurt us. We have a party of 6, so you can certainly use mooks or summoned creatures to harass the ranged folks. Make them waste actions on defending themselves rather than pounding the BBEG. We also have a rhythm going that you might be able to disrupt. Dominate and confuse have been very effective if it's possible to work that in.
Swarms and environmental hazards are always nice - bridges and ledges are nasty. I found that templating rarely did much in these solo encounters. It was always better to add lower-level guys who could harass and actually do damage, especially if they can work together to aid another. Puffin used to run SW games with storm troopers always aiding another to get one good blaster hit through AC. They weren't a huge threat, but working together they couldn't be ignored. It gave us lots of targets to address before the threat was gone.
Negative channeling clerics are a PITA but rarely used. Channeling doesn't provoke. :)
Calculating the attacks and swapping out spells in advance are very helpful. I wish I'd thought of index cards while I was running instead of one gigantic modified stat block. Check the magic items and use them, too. I often didn't bother with their inventory, and was always like -- why didn't I use that metamagic rod??
I also calculated my bad guys at 1/2, 3/4, and full HP and used the appropriate number for the fight (typically ramping up to full HP.) I had that on the modified stat block for the monsters. Always redid their likely action based on magic items and how my party played.
Yeah, it's a ton of prep work at high level. Slow play, lotsa prep. Not as fun as it should be - there's just so much to remember and add into rolls, saves, etc.
It's not you; it's the system.
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I had a crew of four other people last night, we did 70 houses in 7 hours. 44 of those houses were adjacent to each other but they all had two or three car garages so I'm counting them.
At any rate, we kicked ass and I made sure they knew what a good job they did.
Of course we still have another two snow storms to get through this week, so we'll see how many of them make it to next week.
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All good ideas, Treppa!
Wuh-oh.
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GothBard and I got COVID tested this morning and we'll get the results in a day or two. I find it entertaining that I'll be happy either way:
Positive: I'm enjoying an extremely mild version of the virus and just have to self-isolate for 14 days. Vacation!
Negative: I've managed to behave myself and avoid it.
GothBard wouldn't be nearly as happy with a positive result because she's actually getting tested because she wants to visit a couple of vulnerable people (test, then self-isolate for several days, then go), but the only reason I got tested because GothBard wanted company in line.
We'll see how things go...
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How?You should play 2nd edition, they fixed that.Seriously, though. I do like adding templates to bad guys, especially unexpected ones. Like I'm prepping another one-shot in case the GM can't make it, and the final encounter is a half-fiend unicorn. That should surprise the players.Too many of them are already templated to hell and back.
Sometimes I add like 50% more hp. Sometimes I add enemies.
At the end of book 4, I combined three encounters and had them fight all the enemies at once. That one gave a few paper cuts.
It's one of his running jokes. Pick anything deemed "deficient" or "broken" in PF1, however absurd.
"PF1 gave me herpes!"
"2nd Edition fixed that!"
So one thing I've become disillusioned with in PF1 at high level, ismooks or summoned creatures to harass the ranged folks. There are SO many things I've got to get right for this to work. ... * a bunch of correct stuff *...
You're right; it has to be planned and they have to be a threat. Things popping out of walls are always scary and nasty. Mooks can also be cover/terrain.
My "solo boss" fights typically end up being either one villain, one "lieutenant" type, they feature Environmental hazards the villain can ignore, or the "boss" is tucked safely away behind Cover and Concealment while wave after wave of minions soften the PCs up.
Yessssssss, a lieutenant is so helpful to summon, buff, heal, draw fire, whatever. The party works together to optimize; why shouldn't the bad guys? If you rely on one BBEG buffing themself, they're eating up all their actions to do so, and it's simply not fun.
I had to learn to throw the big stuff first; otherwise, the BBEG is gone before they can seriously unleash. I had dramatic scenes in my head of working up to the Big Power Reveal, evil speeches, etc. Nope. Nuke the party FIRST.
One thing I DID do in a mid-level dragon encounter: hidden kobold minions supporting the dragon boss.
Are you Tucker?
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How?You should play 2nd edition, they fixed that.Seriously, though. I do like adding templates to bad guys, especially unexpected ones. Like I'm prepping another one-shot in case the GM can't make it, and the final encounter is a half-fiend unicorn. That should surprise the players.Too many of them are already templated to hell and back.
Sometimes I add like 50% more hp. Sometimes I add enemies.
At the end of book 4, I combined three encounters and had them fight all the enemies at once. That one gave a few paper cuts.
It's one of his running jokes. Pick anything deemed "deficient" or "broken" in PF1, however absurd.
"PF1 gave me herpes!"
"2nd Edition fixed that!"
It's true! Rub a Bestiary on them and watch them disappear.
It helps that they did in fact fix a lot of problems with Pathfinder Classic in 2nd edition.
It's a different game (and to be honest I like both editions about the same, which is less than Starfinder) and it takes some getting used to, but it's a lot of fun.