I am trying to figure out how the apl and cr work together. I was under the impression that apl was for 4 characters, is this correct? How do I determine what cr to use? Where is this information? Perhaps I am just missing it when I look (I have the crb, apb, beastary 1, & gmg).
We have a group of 7 or 8 people. I want to make the encounters for 7 as the 8 person is unreliable & does useless stuff when he does show up (I will activate my ring of invisibility & hold my action, 10 rounds later still holding action). So how do I do this? Can you provide a link/page number of book/anything to help?
Thanks
+J
A useful trick is to make it like 2 encounters so for 7-8 players make an encounter of apl and an encounter of apl-1, because of the useless guy, and then send them all at the party at the same time it sould work out well for you. running a lot of players is hard, they have a lot of actions so they can put down a lot of damage in a round but throwing them at a much higher CR monster wont work because the ac will be unhittable the saves will always be made and the party's defenses will be to low to protect them.
With big groups always make sure you have a lot of targets big monsters like dragons are cool but they will either get swarmed and die or be too strong and stomp the party.
hope this helped.
A useful trick is to make it like 2 encounters so for 7-8 players make an encounter of apl and an encounter of apl-1, because of the useless guy, and then send them all at the party at the same time it sould work out well for you. running a lot of players is hard, they have a lot of actions so they can put down a lot of damage in a round but throwing them at a much higher CR monster wont work because the ac will be unhittable the saves will always be made and the party's defenses will be to low to protect them.
With big groups always make sure you have a lot of targets big monsters like dragons are cool but they will either get swarmed and die or be too strong and stomp the party.
hope this helped.
Thanks for the advise however, I want to know how to determine the apl of more than 4 characters. Is it the same as 4 characters? I don't think it can be. I am not trying to be a jerk I just would like to have the question I asked answered. I understand it sucks because the monster may be to over powered, or the players will stomp it, but I really want to know the written way to determine party lvl no matter how many player characters.
Thanks,
+J
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Hmm... I'm not quite sure... Closest I can think of is that in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, a table adds +1 to their APL if they have 6 or 7 players (and 8-player tables are strictly forbidden).
I'm not aware of such a mechanic in ordinary game rules, but I'm not very well-versed in the topic either.
My best guess would be to follow the precedent of Organized Play. Add a +1 modifier to their APL to figure the CR you want.
Just remember to be careful about the individual monsters you pick. For instance, assume you have party of 8 first-level PCs, for an adjusted APL of 2. So you want a moderately challenging encounter and throw a CR3 Dire Wolf at them (solo). It's got a nasty bite, so a PC or two might go down temporarily, but with even the slightest bit of teamwork you'll overpower it through sheer volume of actions. It'd probably be a reasonably fun fight.
Meanwhile, an Adamantine Cobra is also CR3, but has 25 AC and DR 10/-. That's virtually invincible at level 1, no matter how many PCs you have. Its bite isn't terribly threatening (only +3 to hit for 1d6+2 and a limited supply of poison), but when you can't hurt it, it WILL win the fight of attrition - and it'll take 3 hours to do it. Not fun.
So yeah. Try a +1 APL, but cherry-pick your baddies carefully.
Hmm... I'm not quite sure... Closest I can think of is that in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, a table adds +1 to their APL if they have 6 or 7 players (and 8-player tables are strictly forbidden).
I'm not aware of such a mechanic in ordinary game rules, but I'm not very well-versed in the topic either.
My best guess would be to follow the precedent of Organized Play. Add a +1 modifier to their APL to figure the CR you want.
Just remember to be careful about the individual monsters you pick. For instance, assume you have party of 8 first-level PCs, for an adjusted APL of 2. So you want a moderately challenging encounter and throw a CR3 Dire Wolf at them (solo). It's got a nasty bite, so a PC or two might go down temporarily, but with even the slightest bit of teamwork you'll overpower it through sheer volume of actions. It'd probably be a reasonably fun fight.
Meanwhile, an Adamantine Cobra is also CR3, but has 25 AC and DR 10/-. That's virtually invincible at level 1, no matter how many PCs you have. Its bite isn't terribly threatening (only +3 to hit for 1d6+2 and a limited supply of poison), but when you can't hurt it, it WILL win the fight of attrition - and it'll take 3 hours to do it. Not fun.
So yeah. Try a +1 APL, but cherry-pick your baddies carefully.
I can't stress this last bit enough. In particular, play-test your encounters beforehand. During the test, take away some of your party's abilities, particularly limited use ones.
Recently I tossed three fights at a pretty well rounded, five person, 3rd level party. The first fight went off without a hitch, but the party wizard used up their small allotment of attack spells. The second was a scarecrow (CR4, "challenging"); it barely got to miss its attack before the two melee characters and the oracle whacked on it until it exploded in a shower of straw and splinters.
The next battle, a mosquito swarm (CR3, "average") didn't fare well. Without any nontrivial attack magic left, they were nearly helpless to the swarm's attacks (which automatically hit for decent damage, bleed, distraction, and possible malaria). Their weapons were completely useless. The party resorted to whacking them with lit torches (1 damage per hit), shooting them with ray cantrips, and chucking a single vial of alchemist's fire (splash damage only, though I counted the initial hit as well even though it didn't make a lot of sense). They ended up retreating before the ranger could keel over from blood loss. Even if they'd had one attack spell remaining (magic missile?), it'd have been a tough fight if that first spell didn't do a lot of damage, as the swarm has 31 hp by default.
True, some preparation would have made that fight as ridiculous as the scarecrow battle, and I have no regrets about how it turned out (there were options other than direct combat in that scenario), but if I had blindly followed CR, I might have constructed a fight with two such swarms as a CR 5 ("hard") fight and watched them all get exsanguinated. Worse, I could have put them up against just one swarm at level 1 ("hard" again) and easily ended up with one PC killed per round with no way of fighting back. That would have been . . . well, memorable, but not terribly fun.
Long story short: playtest, and for situations like "mosquito swarm versus low-energy-attack party" or "adamantine cobra versus first-level party", adjust the CR accordingly or consider providing some other means of defeating or bypassing such a threat.
A useful trick is to make it like 2 encounters so for 7-8 players make an encounter of apl and an encounter of apl-1, because of the useless guy, and then send them all at the party at the same time it sould work out well for you. running a lot of players is hard, they have a lot of actions so they can put down a lot of damage in a round but throwing them at a much higher CR monster wont work because the ac will be unhittable the saves will always be made and the party's defenses will be to low to protect them.
With big groups always make sure you have a lot of targets big monsters like dragons are cool but they will either get swarmed and die or be too strong and stomp the party.
hope this helped.
Thanks for the advise however, I want to know how to determine the apl of more than 4 characters. Is it the same as 4 characters? I don't think it can be. I am not trying to be a jerk I just would like to have the question I asked answered. I understand it sucks because the monster may be to over powered, or the players will stomp it, but I really want to know the written way to determine party lvl no matter how many player characters.
Thanks,
+J
On page 397 of the Core Rulebook, under the Designing Encounters section, the rules suggest:
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. If your group contains three or fewer players, subtract one from their average level. For example, if your group consists of six players, two of which are 4th level and four of which are 5th level, their APL is 6th (28 total levels, divided by six players, rounding up, and adding one to the final result).
So to answer your question and reiterate what Jiggy suggested, add one to the effective APL for groups with six or more PCs. If encounters designed this way prove too easy or too difficult for your group, adjust as necessary.
Sorry I misunderstood the question. See above as I cannot think of any other rules on the matter but I think my advice is good as using the apl will breakdown as mentioned above.
If 2 or 3 PC's then APL-1
If 4 or 5 PC's then APL+0
If 6 or 7 PC's then APL+1
If 8 or more PC's then use your best guess but probably APL+2
And so on. Good luck!
If 2 or 3 PC's then APL-1
If 4 or 5 PC's then APL+0
If 6 or 7 PC's then APL+1
If 8 or more PC's then use your best guess but probably APL+2
And so on. Good luck!
Thank you everyone that is what I was looking for.
Now the swarm thing has brought confusion to me. I used a rat swarm to attack a party of 4 and they killed it in like 3 rounds. I must have been doing it wrong? the party was all lvl 1. monk, ranger (bow), sorc (blasty), & barbarian. If I remember correctly the archer was doing like 10 damage each arrow, the sorc was using wand of magic missle, the monk flurry of blows (which to be honest I don't understand at all, does he add his wisdom? can he attack 2 different mobs?) and of course the barbarian was just using his earth breaker to attack the area the rat swarm were in.
Maybe I just am not cut out to gm, so many rules to know and understand and the players don't even know how their characters work. When I ask the monk about how flurry works his response is "I can do this" but he can't tell me why so pretty sure he does not know if what he is doing is right (although he is the best role player of the group).
Thanks,
+J
It's hard at first but you learn, anything that happens in a game that you don't understand just go with your gut, it helps if you have players you trust not to cheat. But after the game read up on the things you questioned and you will understand most of the system in no time. Hey I played a grapple monkey for 2 years and still have to look up the rules now and then when some situations come up, it's not always easy but as long as you are having fun rules mistakes don't matter.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Now the swarm thing has brought confusion to me.
The particular swarm makes a lot of difference. See, if the individual creatures in a swarm are small enough, then the swarm becomes immune to anything that targets a single creature - including ordinary weapon attacks, targeted spells, etc.
Be sure to read up on the swarm rules at the back of the Bestiary. Rat swarms are perfectly good opponents for a level 1 party. Good choice!
Remember that swarms do automatic damage to anyone in their occupied squares, and not only that but anyone that takes damage is subject to the distraction effect. You will have to reference that in the back of the Bestiary as well. Also, swarms of tiny creatures (like rat swarms) only take half damage from piercing (arrows) or slashing attacks. So the arrow most likely only did 5 damage rather than 10. So on and so forth.
Lots of reading to do when creating your own encounters, which is why it cane take a fair bit of prep time in order to run things smoothly. Good luck!