Is it just me, or is encounter design simply not challenging enough in Kingmaker?
Unless there is a serious level spell caster NPC, the pcs are muntering all my critters.... the Iron Golem did not last more than 4 rounds with my lot in Armag's tomb (4 x10th level at the time+ 2 cohorts + 2 animal companions + 1 familiar)...... but the cleric encounter was more challenging.... although the druid turned into an earth elemental and got beyond their blade barrier....
as for Drelev. The party simply scried the baron, using a seal they found on his flunk at the battle of Tatzleford (which the party themselves took to the enemy, with their uplifted Roc as an aircraft carrier, and despite having changed the trolls into hill giants, they made mince meat of the army without any aide.....).... so they scried the baron and teleported into his bedroom whilst he was having a merry time.....thus bypassing the swamp....
scry and teleport are but two problems facing such a sandbox game.
I also think that D&D is designed around the exhaustion of resources in a dungeon, and the one-shot encounters of a wilderness don't burn so many resources.....
But I also think the CR of encounters needs to be upped a bit.... and lessons from 4e ported into PF: more interesting environments, which are used in combat, greater variety of combatants, and no solo monsters, have many.
I am alone in having to redesign all the encounters for this AP so they are challenging enough? This problem has gotten worse as the levels have risen. Levels 1-3 were more challenging but even then I had to push tuskgutter into a dire boar - not that it mattered, the 3rd level barbarian on his steed critted his charge with a lance, killing it in one hit!!!! ARGH! But now, at 11th level, pcs are very powerful, and without magical support, critters are in heaps of trouble. The monk has a high AC, esp with buffing and using Ki points (AC 37 max with buffing etc - but normally 33, with sandals of displacement).....who dished out 137hps in one round to a souped up 12 headed hydra (I double every creatures HPs so they can last more than 2 rounds - but in this case, I trebled its hit points, and it lasted 4 rounds I believe!!) (He is enlarged, with strong jaw, and has some electrical bracelet thing)...... he makes the Iron Golem look like a wuss!!!!
Yes and no. I think it's unfair to say that the encounters throughout the "entire AP" are poorly balanced.
I do, however, think that individual encounters in certain books are a little easy. And remember, due to the sandbox nature of the campaign, challenge difficulty won't scale appropriately - that is, your PCs can be level 1s when they go fight Tuskgutter, and the little bastard will probably kill them all. But if they go kill Tuskgutter right before they go fight the Stag Lord, that's a different story altogether.
What to do about this is up to you. Rivers Run Red recommends upping the ante on each encounter if you don't think they're challenging enough. (Which sort of makes me laugh, since I found every encounter but the three main dungeon areas to be vastly underwhelming.) Personally, I think it's okay for your players to feel like bad asses every now and again - so if they run into a group of level 2 mooks at level 7, hey: too bad for those level 2s.
Although it does sound like you have a bit of the "overpowered PCs" problem too - which has already necessitated an arms-race response. 137 hp of damage on an 11th level monk seems a bit high (though the 37 AC seems properly optimized.) Have you done an audit on the PCs to make sure their equipment is on par?
Although it does sound like you have a bit of the "overpowered PCs" problem too - which has already necessitated an arms-race response. 137 hp of damage on an 11th level monk seems a bit high (though the 37 AC seems properly optimized.) Have you done an audit on the PCs to make sure their equipment is on par?
Yes. Everthing is above board, although the rules on enlarge and how this affects natural attacks is not resolved STILL!! (we need to house rule this since to my knowledge no one at Paizo has had the **** to errata/ decide what to do on this: the monk has their own increase size and damage table, there is a table in the bestiary on natural weapon progression on size, and there is a feat 'improved natural attack' which has its own progression dice for size as well!! SO I think his damage output is correct - BUT!!!!
as for the gear.... well, the mage creates stuff at half price for them all, and the cleric makes armour..... so they have kitted themselves out well. Plus they are a bright bunch, and in their 30s-40yoa, and thus are organised and resourceful.... and haven't made amateur mistakes that a 12 year old could make.
The main thing is that most encounters are WAAAAY too underpowered! Not good!
They certainly are getting confident - that scrying of the Baron and then teleporting into his bedroom whilst he was having some extra-marital fun ... took me by surprise!! I turned all the trolls in the keep to hill giants - but to no avail!
I need to create some new encounters for them - most in Book 4 are so weak, it would be dull to run them. Fast forward to book 5 I think (and even here, with massive alterations!!)
as for the gear.... well, the mage creates stuff at half price for them all, and the cleric makes armour..... so they have kitted themselves out well.
That's your problem right there. Other AP's put a limit on magic item creation by their pacing. This one needs simply a complete prohibition on that aspect of the game ( consumables are fine, though ).
I need to create some new encounters for them - most in Book 4 are so weak, it would be dull to run them. Fast forward to book 5 I think (and even here, with massive alterations!!)
Try to get the "Director's Cut" version from Jason Nelson.
My suggestion is to check out the 4 iconic characters listed in the back of each book, and then imagine them run by casual gamers more interested in just having fun than being extremely tactical. That is what the encounters are designed for. If your group doesn't match that description in any of several different ways, you will have to bump up the difficulty. For example:
-- If you use more than 15 point buy (or a generous rolling method) you have to bump up the difficulty.
-- If your group are good optimizers, you have to bump up the difficulty.
-- If your group crafts a lot, or by any other means is able to exceed the power of the gear listed with the iconics, you have to bump up the difficulty.
-- If you have more than four players, you have to bump up the difficulty.
-- If your group is tactically very smart, you have to bump up the difficulty.
It's not a fault of encounter design, it's just that the encounter design assumptions don't fit your group. I'm in the same boat, and am having to modify every encounter significantly to challenge my group (7 characters created with a generous rolling method snd run by experienced and tactically savvy players). I have had to do the same with virtually every published adventure I've ever run. Fortunately, it's not too hard to upgrade encounters. For me, I slap the advanced template on most single monster encounters or add a level or 2 to opponents with character levels, double the amount of mooks in encounters with multiple opponents, and I'm most of the way there.
One final point on scry and fry. This tactic can really wreck Kingmaker, if unchecked. The AP seems to make the assumption that the PCs aren't going to do this. If yours make this a part of their regular repertoir, I recommend a few things. 1) Any leader of any consequence with resources, will have magical or mundane protections against both scrying and teleportation - it's too obvious a tactic not to. 2) What they can do to NPCS, NPCs can do to them. Teleport some assassins into their own bedrooms a few times and they may suddenly decide they don't like playing that game. 3) There is a reason assassination of an enemy's leaders has been frowned on as a tactic throughout history - once it starts, it becomes tit for tat, and is hard to bring to an end. The logical conclusion is that no leader can ever sleep safely again. Consequently, nations that engage in that type of behavior will be viewed with great alarm by their neighbors and find themselves either diplomatically isolated or subject to preemptive attacks by nervous rulers fearing they might be next on the hit list.
My suggestion is to check out the 4 iconic characters listed in the back of each book, and then imagine them run by casual gamers more interested in just having fun than being extremely tactical. That is what the encounters are designed for. If your group doesn't match that description in any of several different ways, you will have to bump up the difficulty. For example:
-- If you use more than 15 point buy (or a generous rolling method) you have to bump up the difficulty.
-- If your group are good optimizers, you have to bump up the difficulty.
-- If your group crafts a lot, or by any other means is able to exceed the power of the gear listed with the iconics, you have to bump up the difficulty.
-- If you have more than four players, you have to bump up the difficulty.
-- If your group is tactically very smart, you have to bump up the difficulty.
cheers for these views. It is curious that there is a lack of blocking of scry spells, since this seems rather important!!
As for the boosting the critters, I have been - but by so much it has become silly!
Gotcha on the magic item creation, I will watch this more closely. PLUS I may have let the monk strong jaw his flurry of blows illegally as well - am seeking some advice on this on a seperate post!
& yes - only 15 point buy from now on!! lol!!!!
Few points:
- yes, Kingmaker is "easier" than your average AP, especially book 5, so be warned
- your group is much more powerful than the average assumed Paizo consumer, so even with an appropriately difficult AP, they would still cakewalk it
- the assumption in 15PB: save yourself a rebuilding headache and just insist on it; or insist on 10PB to counteract their skill (think of PB as a "difficulty setting" - your PCs seem like they can handle "hard mode")
- item crafting is broken; it shouldn't be in this campaign, I'm sorry
If I were you, I would admit to the PCs that I made a mistake, let them spend their feats on something else, and turn off that feature (though not actually raid any items)
- scry&fry is an evil tactic; Paladins that consent to it should fall, Clerics should need atonement, and if the populace finds out about it, there should be a huge Unrest spike back home; assassination is always evil, even against an evil ruler, and Drelev is hardly a demon (he's actually just cowardly and weak)
- luckily scry&fry won't work against the big boss in book 5: his castle is explicitly described as being inside an old wizard's house, and the whole place is lined in lead and otherwise warded against magical interferance
(however, as per point1 above, the actual critters inside said wizard-house-turned-castle are pretty weak, and die quite quickly to an axe)
- luckily book 6 is somewhat difficult; you'll still probably have to scale it up a bit, but the gap will be much less than you've been used to
Few points:
- yes, Kingmaker is "easier" than your average AP, especially book 5, so be warned
- your group is much more powerful than the average assumed Paizo consumer, so even with an appropriately difficult AP, they would still cakewalk it
- the assumption in 15PB: save yourself a rebuilding headache and just insist on it; or insist on 10PB to counteract their skill (think of PB as a "difficulty setting" - your PCs seem like they can handle "hard mode")
- item crafting is broken; it shouldn't be in this campaign, I'm sorry
If I were you, I would admit to the PCs that I made a mistake, let them spend their feats on something else, and turn off that feature (though not actually raid any items)- scry&fry is an evil tactic; Paladins that consent to it should fall, Clerics should need atonement, and if the populace finds out about it, there should be a huge Unrest spike back home; assassination is always evil, even against an evil ruler, and Drelev is hardly a demon (he's actually just cowardly and weak)
- luckily scry&fry won't work against the big boss in book 5: his castle is explicitly described as being inside an old wizard's house, and the whole place is lined in lead and otherwise warded against magical interferance
(however, as per point1 above, the actual critters inside said wizard-house-turned-castle are pretty weak, and die quite quickly to an axe)- luckily book 6 is somewhat difficult; you'll still probably have to scale it up a bit, but the gap will be much less than you've been used to
Erik, could you share your replacement resource system which you alluded to in that other thread? I'm really interested in adopting it for my campaign. :)
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Ben, you may want to look at the stickied thread about 6 player conversions by myself and others. Almost every encounter has been scaled up for a greater challenge so this might be what your looking for- it sounds like your group is kerbstomping so efficiently that you might still need to up the ante though.
In my experience, its very common for designers to simply forget the myriad of options characters have at mid-high level and write higher level adventures with lower level assumptions. Someone like Drelev should really be using magical precautions against scry and die tactics, but I find it often falls to the DM to have these precautions taken on behalf of his villains. Its hard to believe some of them ever lived to be high level sometimes...
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I have to agree w/ all of the follow-up commentary on this thread.
I too have a more powerful group of players in my game than many would have - first because I have 7 PCs w/ 20 point buy.
So I too have to scale-up encounters regularly.
Luckily I'm a fan of working on encounters to beef them ups, and have gotten quite efficient at it over the years.
As for crafting - it's definitely a potential game-unbalancer. I've solved the problem in my campaign by making the ruling that crafting magic items has no savings cost.
So in short a +2 sword costs 8000 gp to make.
Now I know in truth this would create some sort of issue on theoretical economy, but it balances the game. Now crafting magic items is just a way for Players to create the item they really want for their character as opposed to relying on waiting to find it, or it to be avaiable in one of their random magic item slots. But it's not a way to circumvent wealth by level etc since time is not really an issue in this campaign as opposed to most others.
These along w/ my previously posted measures I took to decreasing the amount of BP the kingdom makes off of magical item sales has helped keep the PCs greatly in check despite their point buy builds and being 7 players (although truth be told usually only 6 ever show up - we've had at least one absentee about 90% of the games).
Robert
Yes. Everthing is above board, although the rules on enlarge and how this affects natural attacks is not resolved STILL!! (we need to house rule this since to my knowledge no one at Paizo has had the **** to errata/ decide what to do on this: the monk has their own increase size and damage table, there is a table in the bestiary on natural weapon progression on size, and there is a feat 'improved natural attack' which has its own progression dice for size as well!!
I am not sure what you mean on the "rules on enlarged and how this affects natural attacks" thing. The Monk table already has the increased damage from a Large monk. What else is there to talk about?
as for the gear.... well, the mage creates stuff at half price for them all, and the cleric makes armour..... so they have kitted themselves out well.
So this would mean that they have about twice as much gear as they should have. Which is a massive boost to their output capability.
You've got two options: either add +1 or +2 CR to every critter they face via advancement, or award them XP as if the critters were 1 or 2 points CR lower.
I disagree with some of the posters that magic item building is broken - it's closer to say that your players are exploiting the magic item building rules. I'd also cut down on the amount of treasure they find, so as to bring them more in line with WBL, and to curb their exploitation. (That is, if the AP assumes they find 10,000 gp worth of stuff, award them only 5,000 gp worth of stuff, since they'll likely just convert that 5,000 gp into 10,000 gp.)
And the best part is that the players will never know you're compensating for their savvy.
The players should have a benefit, just not double-strength cherrypicked treasure.
Just remember that somebody's spending feats to gain these benefits. For half-price weapons and armor, that's a feat. Half-price wondrous items, that's a feat. Kingmaker is the first and only place I've really seen crafting be plausible in D&D, and it would be a real shame if it were artificially removed.