We were running the Kingmaker AP and yesterday the game crashed and burned. It was partly for several reasons.
1. The PCs in the end did not care about the kingdom building aspects of thegame.
2. Encounters were to easy- PCs were powergamers but most of the time it was 1 encounter per day.
3. Overpowered crap. PCs got to level 10. They used the crafting feats to give themselves magic items such as the various stat buff items. Arcane Trickster had 26 int, the others had strength and dex scores of 24 or so.
Party makeup included.
1 level 10 Cleric of Gorum (human)
1 level 10 Ranger (human)
1 level 10 Paladin (human)
1 3 Wiz/Rogue3/ArcaneTrickster4 (human)
All humans big surprise although we are looking at buying the Advanced Races Guide. The Paladin was a critical hit type paladin with a falcion, cleric used a 2 handed sword, ranger used a bow and they all used power attack and the ranged version of PA whose name eludes me. Each character could deal around 80 damage on a full attack and the paladins ability to smite evil made the evil aligned BBEGs such as Vordakais DR pointless. Since the start of the 3rd AP I had been buffing the hit points of encounters by 50%.
The first encounter on the new AP had 6 huge trolls with 75 hp each IIRC. I went over the top and doubled their hit points, and gave them +2 to hit and +5 damage. This was kinda a long fight (4 rounnds or so) where the PCs promptly ripped them apart and dealt over 900 hit points of damage in a few rounds. They then found some dragonflies which was a tough fight because I buffed their hit points and gave them flyby attack and +2 hit/+5 damage.
It seems Paizo's own AP can't keep up with non spell caster more or less using just the core book although we do own ultimate combat and the like. Power attack is even more nuts than it was in 3.5 where it was a no brainer feat for most melee classes, and two handed weapons just seem better than the other options espically when one can get animated shields anyway although they do get good competition from archery from level 6 or so.
We were using a pre published AP because none of use really have the time to design stuff. It took me several hours to make up some NPCs for an encounter which the PCs promptly ran through (literally) in a few minutes. Alot of the problems in 3.5 are rearing up again although PF powered up te non spellcasters to compete with the spellcasters I suppose.
Anyway advice would be good. THe PCs are a reasonably good bunch and even by their standards they have realised they went a bit far in the power gaming so they are fine with powering down their characters or starting over at level 1 as they do ot really like the Kingmaker AP much anyway (they did at 1st). We're also looking at buying some more books or an adventure path such as Skull and Shackles or the new AP out. We need a dead tree format beastiary to join the other books as I bought that on PDF around 3 years ago. Any thoughts on what to do from the following options.
1.Depower the PCs, continue Kingmaker. PCs are a bit bored of this AP anyway.
2. Start again level 1, in a new AP.
3. Start again level 1 run own stuff (easier to adapt encounters to PCs, lack a bit of time though)
4. Take a break and play another RPG for a bit and return to PF in a few months. Basically switch to Star Wars Saga and come back in a bit.
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Zardnaar, this is really something that only you and your group can answer. It's a game that has to be fun for your group, not for the people on the boards.
If they're not having fun with Kingmaker, then you only have two options:
1) Figure out what's not fun about it and modify the way you're running it so that it's fun for all of you, or
2) Play something else.
You can downplay the importance of the kingdom-building aspect, if that's the problem, but it sounds like there's more to it than that.
This needs to be a group decision for you and your players. It doesn't have to be contentious. Just have a get-together and talk about what kind of game they would like to play. Once you know that, then you can look for an AP or some other option that more closely fits the description of what you're looking for.
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What point buy are they using?
Have you considered grabbing the 6-Player conversions?
If your players aren't interested in Kingdom Building move it to the background and build some special events for them to take care of. Ask you players to rebuild to 15 point buy, and consider throwing multiple encounters together.
Well ,the problem with this sytem (D20 as a whole) is that encouters either feel easy or seem way to hard. Thats just a fact and has always been that way if you increase the powerlevel of encounters to make them harder you might not feel much improvement until they get so hard that you run into stuff like TPK´s.
Having said that,an encounter that last for 4 rounds or more ,like your example with the Trolls, is not bad at all.... so maybe you did have some succes with it.
I don´t think this Campaign was ruined by powergaming, actually from what you have said about your group they don´t seem OP at all.But one encounter per day is just to little to challenge a party.It doesn´t stretch out their resources enough.I´m not too big on AP´s our GM handles that, but you should absolutely insert some random encounters into them if you want to give your party a run for their money.
A party that knows it has only one or two encounters per day can steamroll everything thats even remotely APL.Thats especially true for Spellcasting heavy parties.Try to make them think before they pull out the big guns, and keep them on their toes.
Thats the best advice that I as a non-GM can give you.
PS: I thoroughly enjoyed Kingmaker, and I´m a Powergamer if you ever saw one:)
They rolled their scores and we're looking at going down to 15 point buy although one is suggest 18;) 20 is a bit much. The Arcane Trickster got really awesome stats but he is actually the least offensive party member. The Paladin and Rnager are the worst offenders as they deal to much damae.
They actually enjoyed the troll encounter and I didn't buff the CR or exp handed out. THe players actually suggested I could have made them +5 to hit and damage although I may use two varientes here. low to hit but high damage/multiple attacks. +5 hit, +2 damage.
Also thinking of going up to X5 hit points for boss fights and double hit points and +5 hit/damage for the daily encouters if we run kingmaker and we can switch to kingdom in the back ground. They like RP as well though. As I said even they have realised that they have caused themselves some problems and they're bored.
Ironically they have mentioned 4th ed in positive terms in some aspects but they were bored as the only way the DM could really challenge them was grind through the hitpoints due to healing surges.
Yeah seems to be a d20 problem although any RPG can suffer from min/maxing. Its just really easy in d20 due to it being familiar- archery for example was very easy to break in 3.0 using the same feats PF is using.
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I would go with 3.
Make it a wilderness exploration game, where they might run into anything. Then you can throw seriously high level CRs at them to challenge them. It will feed their desire for death or glory and allow you to make some seriously challenging fights. Meanwhile you can control the treasure flow by using wild beasts and monsters with little treasure but massive combat power. The players won't have to worry about political intrigue beyond 'who wants to kill us now?'
I think this will meet the expectations of both sides of the table.
Paizo's APs are designed with 15 point-buy in mind, and the expectation that the average player is not going to be an expert at optimizing.
That being said, James Jacobs has often noted that experienced players can blow through anything somewhat easily even with 15 point buy characters.
As advised by others, you need to talk with yout group. If there's NO interest in ruling a kingdom, then don't run Kingmaker.. that's what it is about. Just like if there is no interest being Pirates, don't run Skull & Shackles. The same goes for any of the APs.. if the theme doesn't really grab you, don't run it. At the same time, pretty much *all* of Paizo's adventures are scaled for 4 PCs of 15 point-buy and low-to-moderate optimization. If that's NOT what your group is like, there will be adjustments required.
Yeah as I've explained to them even at 15 point buy they are really only putting band aid on the problems. THe ranger will have -2 to hit over what he has now but still be insane.
The PF APs are extremely easy. If you're running them out of the box there's no way you're going to challenge a group of experienced players with the campaign as is, and increasing HP and hitting stats is very rarely effective compared to an encounter intentionally designed to be difficult.
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Looking at this an not having run (or read) the kingmaker AP as yet I do have a piece of advice for what I do in my games.
Let the players have their fun. If they kill an important NPC, plow through a book in a night, bypass a huge chunk of story, let them.
Over time the lack of XP for their actions will balance out by the end of the storyline.
I'm running Rise of the Runelords, have them advancing faster than expected, then they walked through book 5 without touching much of it and have heading into book 6 at just the right level.
If they kill an important NPC in the community, and did not provide proof of the crimes of that person, they become outlaws, and start having to fight off the "good" characters of the world who want to bring them in for justice.
Just change the flavour of the adventure to suit their actions. Be it heroes of the land to villians who are feared and shunned.
I also let a little power creep in with items, I awarded double starting treasure at every level as total GP Item worth. This was done to speed up play and stop the need to write down everything they take from every monster in the game. As they no longer needed gear from monsters they stopped exploring as much and started avoiding encounters, and story. I had to revise that to items found while adventuring and only items they could have bought from the local cities, or have built themselves. Now they engage in the story more.
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We were running the Kingmaker AP and yesterday the game crashed and burned. It was partly for several reasons.
1. The PCs in the end did not care about the kingdom building aspects of thegame.
Party makeup included.
1 level 10 Cleric of Gorum (human)
1 level 10 Ranger (human)
1 level 10 Paladin (human)
1 3 Wiz/Rogue3/ArcaneTrickster4 (human)All humans big surprise although we are looking at buying the Advanced Races Guide. The Paladin was a critical hit type paladin with a falcion, cleric used a 2 handed sword, ranger used a bow and they all used power attack and the ranged version of PA whose name eludes me. Each character could deal around 80 damage on a full attack and the paladins ability to smite evil made the evil aligned BBEGs such as Vordakais DR pointless. Since the start of the 3rd AP I had been buffing the hit points of encounters by 50%.
Ugg.. ok second try my last one got deleted.
Ok before this let me preface this with the statement that everything I'm about to say only applies if you are planning on continuing your current game within the kingmaker ap. Now that being said lets continue.
First off if your running a powergame Kingmaker is a bad ap choice as it revolves around heavy rp, kingdom building, and rts style kingdom wars none of this will interest the usual powergame group who will most likely just ignore it so they can go back to leveling, item grinding, and fighting encounters. That being said you can make this into a wilderness exploration game with a bit of effort, maybe change the intro to they have been hired by somebody else to clear the stolen lands of bandits so that they may build the kingdom and use the PC's as their top enforcers of law and order.
Second, this...
2. Encounters were to easy- PCs were powergamers but most of the time it was 1 encounter per day.
You don't ever ever ever ever want to do this especially if you've got powergamers. The reason being that you are basically allowing the party to pad out their xp totals and loot without ever being challenged, remember that most average encounters are CR'd with the idea that the party is using up about 1/4 th of their resources for THAT DAY. What that means is that if you are only flinging one encounter per day you are just basically handing them easy power something power gamers shouldn't be just getting. That being said throw more at them and at different times, those guys just run through your trolls? Throw another group of 5 at them while they are resting, giving them surprise round, flat-footed, and potential coup's if they get that close remember if these guys want to play like a power game you have no need to hold back.
Luckily you don't have a lot of casters so this is a little less egregious but point still remains wreck em and go nuts if their good players they'll enjoy the challenge that comes with power gaming and...It will solve this...
3. Overpowered crap. PCs got to level 10. They used the crafting feats to give themselves magic items such as the various stat buff items. Arcane Trickster had 26 int, the others had strength and dex scores of 24 or so.
This issue is a byproduct of the former. Remember kingmaker at it's core is about roughing it in the wilderness if your players are managing to find "a quiet place with all the materials they need" to build a belt of giants strength or whatever magical magguffin they are working on in a troll infested forest then something is going wrong. If you continue with this set of PC's start calling them on this and not letting them work on their stuff unless they are back in civilization, like say that city they were building? Next up remember that that city they are building has a built in cap on the maximum price of any item or supplies they can purchase within city limits based on it's size. If you like you can use this to your advantage and take it as a jump off point to get your players interested in expanding their empire and rp'ing with other nations to secure better gear and supplies to build their super solider PC's.
Now with that being said the other thing you should do is look over their gear, total up it's value, and compare it to what the average total value of gear a PC is supposed to have at their level from the PFC. If they are over you should start enacting ways to bring their loot back in line. To accomplish this you should either sit down and have a talk with them and point out this flaw if it's there and ask them if they would rather try and bring themselves back in line with these numbers or if you don't want to be meta just start aiming to break their stuff. Now before you get worried about them getting mad remember that they are adventurers in the wilderness far from civilization, things break, get stolen, and digested by angry trolls and your party should accept that as it is not only a part of this ap but a part of the game in general. Have bandits start stealing from their camp after hearing of their exploits, crafting ability, and amount of money they are literally wearing on their waist. Remember that part of the challenge inherent in the game is managing your resources so that you can get through the wilderness without being naked and starving on the other side.
Lastly if you plan on enacting this make sure to give your players a bit of warning, let them know that you think you've found the problem and that you are going to be coming at this from a different angle so that this is more challenging and in line with the game they are trying to play. Hope that helps man ^-^.
We were running the Kingmaker AP and yesterday the game crashed and burned. It was partly for several reasons.
1. The PCs in the end did not care about the kingdom building aspects of thegame.
Echoing the other posters, it sounds like that is not the right AP for them. Bearing in mind I can only come to conclusions based on what's been said, it sounds like they prefer something combat-driven as to something as sandboxy as Kingmaker. I don't know it in detail, but I imagine Kingmaker works best for those who like to forge their own trail and get into certain "mundane" details of the fantasy world. Those who'd prefer a good dungeon crawl might get bored.
Ask them a lot on what kind of adventure they'd like to see and either pick an AP/module from there, or if you want to use the Kingmaker AP, use the locations and such within but rework the plot in a way that they are focusing on what interests them.
2. Encounters were to easy- PCs were powergamers but most of the time it was 1 encounter per day.
Adding to what's already been said about increasing challenges because APs assume lower point buy and non-optimized characters...
A good way to boost challenges is to add more monsters. Boosting HP and such can help, but generally adding more monsters is a better way to increase challenge because you simply get more actions to work with. A single or small group of bad guys can only hit the party so often no matter how powerful they are.
Also, pay attention to ways you can increase challenges with things like weather and terrain--especially if you stick with Kingmaker or a similar wilderness exploration game. In the mountains? Have a blizzard restrict visibility and limit ranged attacks, etc.
3. Overpowered crap. PCs got to level 10. They used the crafting feats to give themselves magic items such as the various stat buff items. Arcane Trickster had 26 int, the others had strength and dex scores of 24 or so.
Remember that crafting takes time. While an adventure should not be utterly devoid of downtime, it should not be rife with it either--that would suggest there's nothing worth spending the time to go adventuring on. Crafting an item that grants a substantial bonus to a stat should take a few weeks, IIRC, at least. The adventure should have time limits and constraints that make the time available to craft a commodity. They should have the opportunity occasionally, but if all they're doing is sitting down and crafting items all day, something's wrong.
Another thing is they need money and/or materials to craft. Where are they getting those? IIRC Kingmaker takes place largely in a wilderness. Who has the wealth to be able to pay in full for the treasure they find in exchange for GP? While it's uncool to deny a party entirely treasure or the ability to buy and sell, it's also bizarre and unlikely if the random fur trapper out on the plains happens to have 20,000 GP cash to trade for the magic sword they found. I guess if it's later in the AP and they are running the kingdom they have more resources, but then--not actually having looked at the AP (I'm playing in a PBP)--I would assume the PCs are also expected to invest some of their wealth into the world's infrastructure. And maybe that's part of why they don't dig the kingdom building--
--But at the same time, what I'm getting at is there should be reasonable, realistic, in-game limitations on the time and materials available to craft.
Another thing you could do, IF your players would consider this interesting rather than an unfair limitation, is require quests for specific materials for item creation rather than just a bland, catch-all GP requirement. So for example, rather than say the amulet costs 4,000 GP to create, they need a ruby worth 4,000 gp. "Rubies of such size are known to exist in the Mines of Awesomesauce, but those mines are rumored to have been over taken by a greedy dragon..."
If they like treasure and combat and crafting, that kind of quest COULD be right up their alley, in fact. If you consider it, run it by them before implementing, though.
Each character could deal around 80 damage on a full attack...
Keep your characters moving. Use mobile enemies and devise tactics to force characters to move so they cannot always rely on a full attack. (And when they do get one off it will be more satisfying)
When buffing encounters, I'd suggest buffing AC over HP (beyond the above advice of adding more monsters). If they are ALWAYS guaranteed to hit even on secondary attacks, then the enemies' AC is too low.
Power attack is even more nuts than it was in 3.5 where it was a no brainer feat for most melee classes
If the penalty to hit is always inconsequential, again the enemies' AC is too low. Power attack should be awesome on tough but not quick monsters, but if a creature should be good at dodging attacks, power attack shouldn't be a good option because the penalty to hit should actually make it questionable as to whether they can really hit or not.
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Ive had similar problems with my Kingmaker campaign, and some of the problems i have seen with the encounter design is that solo creature fights have the hit points for a single creature, and group monsters have Statistics far lower the the APL, like the CR 5 Pitax Wardens and heralds in adventure 5.
For the single creatures, i just give them more hitpoints, i expect giving a creature double hp is worth a +1 CR, so if he's going to count for four encounters for that day, quadrupling it's hit points isn't such a bad idea. Feel free to reign this in if it seems like too much it's pretty easy to utilize on the fly.
For the groups i utilize a little template called mob tactics which grants all the opponents a morale bonus on strength and dexterity equal to twice the CR differance for example, 2 creatures +4, 3 creatures +6, 4 creatures +8, 6 creatures +10, 8 creatures +12.
This allows all the little minions to still be a threat but still feel weak in comparison to the players, if you were to just double their hitpoints, it would drag out the otherwise dull encounter.
Keep in mind that the players are also a group, and if you were to design their party as an encounter they would actually have an encounter level of 14-15, so having bosses and sub bosses match or exceed that encounter level may provide them a good challenge.
Be sure not to modify the experience with these adjustments, instead if the encounter actually end up being challenging reward them the experience in the book, give them half xp, if the fight is harder then expected give the encounter 50% more xp.
As for the magic items, i reigned that in during my last campaign by rolling it back to 3.5 rules, all requirements must be met, and be sure to apply the gp limit to crafting as well, settlements shouldn't have endless supplies of components. For their current items i would have a particular nymph come and confiscate certain powerful items for her own personal use or for her shelves.
Now with that being said the other thing you should do is look over their gear, total up it's value, and compare it to what the average total value of gear a PC is supposed to have at their level from the PFC. If they are over you should start enacting ways to bring their loot back in line. To accomplish this you should either sit down and have a talk with them and point out this flaw if it's there and ask them if they would rather try and bring themselves back in line with these numbers or if you don't want to be meta just start aiming to break their stuff.
I would advise against the part I bolded. Instead of breaking or stealing the gear the party has already accumulated, I would rather aim for reducing the amount of treasure they find in future encounters.
If you want more of a beat down game, try Slumbering Tsar or Dungeon Crawl Classics.
That said, you are better off enforcing the rules that you have. Pay careful attention to actions, and remember that changing weapons, grabbing potions, etc counts.
Enforce surprise rounds, and perception distances.
Introduce weather, and the effects thereof.
But most importantly, read the 15 minute adventuring day post at the Alexandrian. He explains why one encounter a day doesn't work.
Given your players, they will probably enjoy the resource management part of the game.
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Now with that being said the other thing you should do is look over their gear, total up it's value, and compare it to what the average total value of gear a PC is supposed to have at their level from the PFC. If they are over you should start enacting ways to bring their loot back in line. To accomplish this you should either sit down and have a talk with them and point out this flaw if it's there and ask them if they would rather try and bring themselves back in line with these numbers or if you don't want to be meta just start aiming to break their stuff.I would advise against the part I bolded. Instead of breaking or stealing the gear the party has already accumulated, I would rather aim for reducing the amount of treasure they find in future encounters.
I don't know I feel that broken equipment is something that's just a part of adventuring with things that futz with equipment dating back to the rust monster in 1st ed. On top of that a lot of monsters have power attack which is supposed to be used to wreck equipment and is a very viable tactic that a lot of brutes would use, think of it like cracking a lobster shell open to get at the tasty paladin within. The other thing is it helps reinforce the survival mechanisms inherent in kingmaker and can force the pc's to decide whether it is more important to work on that new macguffin they want so much or patch the pally's armor. I remember having a blast with this ap because we had to be aware of the fragility of our gear and the fact that should anything break down we were the only things capable of patching our wagon's wheels or keeping our fighters armor intact. Use this to your advantage and it makes your players feel rewarded for taking all those ranks in craft skills or field repair feats and feel good for playing smart.
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If you want more of a beat down game, try Slumbering Tsar or Dungeon Crawl Classics.
That said, you are better off enforcing the rules that you have. Pay careful attention to actions, and remember that changing weapons, grabbing potions, etc counts.
Enforce surprise rounds, and perception distances.
Introduce weather, and the effects thereof.
But most importantly, read the 15 minute adventuring day post at the Alexandrian. He explains why one encounter a day doesn't work.
Given your players, they will probably enjoy the resource management part of the game.
Care to throw a link to the 15 minute adventuring day post I would love to read it and I haven't heard of that site.
Different creatures or even spells for NPCs is always fun. Just see where the strengths are for your party, and then target the weaknesses. If they come up against a caster, have him target the cleric with a grease spell, or separate the party with a stone wall, or summon somthing usefull with a quickened summon monster. It doesn't really matter if the NPC doesn't have those spells in his statblock if it makes it more challenging for the PC's. Target the trickster with a fort saving poison so he's useless untill he saves twice, or get a pack of rust monsters to attack them. One thing I do is i never say, "Ok guys, im gunna need a DC blah fort save", I just say, make a fortitude save....the DM screen is there so you can fudge for the sake of the story.
honestly, they sound like they simply aren't interested in the AP, and as a result I would simply move on to something else. Personally, I would suggest avoiding APs all together if you are worried about the power gamers getting off easy. If you want something more in their league and their style start running some of Paizo's Pathfinder Modules as I hear they tend to be built so that one has to be power gaming if they want to survive, and tend to be more Dungeon Crawl in format.
a lot of builds do more than 80 damage at level 10. So in the end I don't think they were power gaming that much. However keep in mind that the AP's are quite easy and nearly everyone in your group built damage it's not surprising they crushed it. Deadly aim is the ranged version of power attack. It's pretty damn common for a character to have power attack or deadly aim to be quite honest. For the most part you could just make choices based solely on roleplay and end up doing fine. However most people don't because they don't want to be overshadowed by other players that take good feats and spells when making their character. Just do your own stuff and build the encounters in mind of them optimizing.
We were running the Kingmaker AP and yesterday the game crashed and burned. It was partly for several reasons.
1. The PCs in the end did not care about the kingdom building aspects of thegame.
2. Encounters were to easy- PCs were powergamers but most of the time it was 1 encounter per day.
3. Overpowered crap. PCs got to level 10. They used the crafting feats to give themselves magic items such as the various stat buff items. Arcane Trickster had 26 int, the others had strength and dex scores of 24 or so.
Party makeup included.
1 level 10 Cleric of Gorum (human)
1 level 10 Ranger (human)
1 level 10 Paladin (human)
1 3 Wiz/Rogue3/ArcaneTrickster4 (human)
1. If not interested in the Campaign then yes I would move to another AP. Ask the players what they would like to play. Direct them to the short intro of each ap on the Paizo store.
2. If they are Powergamers (experienced at making good characters) then limit them to a 15 point buy. Also limit what books are available for them to use based on what you are comfortable. I would avoid letting them use Summoner, Gunslinger, Alchemist, or Magus. Several DMs tend to have issues with highly optimized versions of this class.
3. Remove the creation feats. Say that it takes years of dedicated study to master the item creation feats and therefor they are limited to NPCs who dont adventure but instead make items. Then make sure you highly regulate what the PCs can and cannot get their hands on.
And a few suggestions of my own.
1. There are several 3rd party APs that are "Hard Core" and several of those are very old school dungeon crawls (I have a feeling that's what your group will want instead of a sandbox type campaign).
2. Talk to your players. Explain the issues you had in the last game and work out a set of "Gentleman agreements" with the party on what they will and wont try. Make sure there isn't a PCs vs the DM mindset. That never works.
3. Tweak encounters if you need, as long as everyone (including yourself) is having fun. After all that's why you play the game.
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Im having exactly the same problem.
GMing a kingmaker campaign at the moment.
PCs currently at 13th level. I have to seriously buff the enemy to make it even a remote challenge. There is a certain General that they come up against in book 5.
I had to throw the that NPC out and do another more powerful enemy for them to go up against. Ended up being a 17th level anti paladin riding a blue dragon......He lasted 1 round, he knew he would survive a 2nd so he dimension doored out of there. Live to fight another day.
My party has a Cleric of Gorum who when buffed was dealin 200+HP of damage per turn. One thing I have noticed is power creep. This cleric is a new addition toour group. The player originally only had access to the core book and he was finding it very difficult keeping up with the other players in terms of combat effectiveness. Now he has purchased a few more books to utilize and he is starting to scare everyone. A spell from here, another from there a nd a 3rd from over here. They all stack and suddenly he's doing +42 damage per hit
I dont feel that my players are not suited to the campaign. I feel my players are simply getting bored and dont feel challenged. I am becoming increasingly frustrated as a GM trying to come up with suitable challenges. I rely heavily on APs because I work a full time job and have two young children. I dont have the time to sit down and custom design campaigns, modules or encounters that I used to. I would love to be able to just pick up a module and run it with a few minor tweaks along the way to customise it for my particular group.
Lets not even get started on how flawed the kingom bulding rules are and my players are aware of this, god bless them for going out of their way to purposefully not abuse the system.
If I were to run this campaign again I would do things very differently.
Kingdom in background and no item creation feats for a start.Possibly limiting the sourcebooks that can be used. We are getting that jacked off with power creep we are considering limiting it to core book only.
My players and I are in the same boat as you and are thinking about shelving pathfinder for a while and maybe going back to shadowrun. Its just too much hassle otherwise.
These problems are classic d20/Pathfinder issues that really have no resolution other than the GM basically preventing it from occurring with "story" justifications. Preventing powergaming, crafting etc issues relies on GM fiat solely because in its current form Pathfinder is a small squad combat game where encounters are "balanced" to "challenge" parties, however the rules and smart players can throw that balance out the window.
I have encountered these very issues and I am afraid nothing other than straight GM fiat will help. Combat is too much "rocket tag" and you can easily end up with a TPK.
Some solid advice from other posters.
Yeah its not like your Ranger was hard core powergamed, you took decent archer feats for the most part. Feats like point blank shot and rapid shot have been good since 3.0 through to Pathfinder and Star Wars Saga.
How hard is Skull and Shackles with 15 point buy?
Yeah its not like your Ranger was hard core powergamed, you took decent archer feats for the most part. Feats like point blank shot and rapid shot have been good since 3.0 through to Pathfinder and Star Wars Saga.
How hard is Skull and Shackles with 15 point buy?
Skull and Shackles is the one AP I own, but I haven't run it. I would say at a glance it is moderately challenging, and easy to increase the challenge by doing weather stuff (you're at sea after all) or adding enemies (lots of excuses to add a school of sea monsters where there's just one, or make enemy pirate crews bigger).
HOWEVER, while it's less sandboxy than Kingmaker, part of the premise of Skull and Shackles is that the PCs agree their aim is to become pirates and climb up the pirate hierarchy (like the council you see in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies). While there's a lot of good combat and treasure hunting (a big goal is to fight stuff and get treasure), there's also a lot of day to day stuff like sailing and maintaining your ship, and a lot of political stuff dealing with other pirates. If the PCs were bored by the kingdom building in Kingmaker, they may also be bored with the "maintenance" and political aspects of Skull and Shackles as well.
I'd suggest maybe instead going the route of finding linked together modules... I think Crypt of the Everflame leads to Masks of the Living God to something else... those are fun adventures with good story hooks (although I didn't enjoy Masks very much personally) but also strong combat oriented crawls that would appeal to the old school vets you've got in your group.
Similar advice.
1) Wrong AP for the group, but that happens.
2) Anything where the group can mostly count on just one encounter a day is very tough to make challenging with out just killing them. When everyone can go nova with all their resources they can easily handle APL+3 or more. But then suddenly you get to things like SoS spells that they can't save, high monsters where a lucky critical hit kills, things they have saves/AC so high they can't hardly hurt it. Then you have TPK's which are no fun for anyone.
3) Use 15 point buy, lower the treasure a bit to say 2/3 WBL, give the bad guys more mooks (ex 6 huge trolls and 10 regular trolls).
4) Even if once a day, have the attacks be in waves. Mastermind attacks with say a band of stone giants throwing rocks from a distance(concentrating on the ranger since he is the only one that can engage very well at first). Right after the cleric heals everyone up from the fight (probably used up some of his channels and heals), he sends in a bunch of wraiths that come out of the ground in the middle of their camp. After they are dead some harpies with bows start shooting arrows from the sky from several range increments. While they are dealing with the harpies, the invisible mastermind (say a master summoner) starts summoning monsters from max range. Then he runs away to come back tomorrow.
5) Old enemy spreads rummors to all the bandits and briginds in the area. "A bunch of inexperienced newbie adventurers just got luck and found a whole trove of magic weapons that they don't even know how to use. They are ripe for plucking. You better get their before everyone else does."
6) Start adding some intelligent enemies. A smart guy is likely to watch them a get a good idea of their strengths and weaknesses.
Keep track of what the group has visibly done in the last couple of fights.
EX: Group has mostly used buffed up melee attacks backed up by the archer. So bad guy hires several mid level casters and two really good ones. Casters are on top of the hill several cast attack spells at the melee guys. A couple are to cast windwall and other distractions/intereference for the archer. The high level ones are dispelling all the buffs and counterspelling any attacks. When the meleers try to close with the casters, the hill side is covered with traps. When they get to the top of the hill the casters all port/fly away. While that has been happening. The main bad guys have been sneaking in behind the AT and archer.
Usually when I see players walking though a campaign it is not that the PC's are so over powered. It is the AP/campaign are written/played poorly. Or at least poorly for that particular group. Use the same kind of intelligent tactics the players are using against them. I have not read through the Kingmaker AP, but I have heard it is very prone to the 10 min day and full of stupid enemies. If true, add some more attack in some days and make some of them intelligent.
It is silly to assume that intelligent evil guys will keep making stupid frontal asaults then fight to the death. Yes, the trolls will do that, but not the demon summoner Zortha and his cabal of assassins.
Yeah I added my own encounters and the like. But I have limited time and it takes me longer to throw them togather than it takes for the PCs to kill it.
Probably gonna start over with an exploration themed game which may use elements of Kingmaker.
Item crafting is a major problem in the campaign, if left with rules as written. The people above who suggested denying the group time to craft items apparently have no idea how the campaign works, since the kingdom building aspect of the AP has one "turn" of kingdom building lasting one month. And you need many, many turns to build up your kingdom, players will have almost unlimited time to build up their resources through item crafting.
A solution would be to reduce the ridiculous monetary advantage item crafting gives players. In my new Jade Regent campaign ( which deals with a lot of the same "players have tons of time" problem which Kingmaker has ), I upped the creation price of magic items to 95% of market price, which took out the ridiculous profit aspect of those feats and made them almost entirely into pure customization tools.
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The other problems of the AP you were experiencing are all things I also got, so I feel your pain. Later parts of the AP give you some small to bigger dungeons to play with, so the "nova down everything" aspect of the two first modules becomes more controllable, if you keep the pressure on the group. If you let them do their thing, retreat and not challenge them on their rest periods, they can just keep up their 15 minute workday routine forever. But that is basic GM 101 and you probably know that already. :p
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In my campaign, I learned real quick to use monsters and enemies with guerilla tactics, hit & runs, ect. I make sure the PCs earn their 15 min workday. Usually by the end of the encounter (currently 8th level PCs), they have expendended nearly all of their resources on just one fight. Most enemies in the wilderness are natural predators and have learned how to fight more powerful prey. Every once in a while I throw in a really easy encounter just to let their guard down.
One thing a lot of GMs will overlook is how crafting affects WBL. As a GM it is your job to ensure that even though they can craft magical items, they still stay within WBL. A party who is given time and money can easily reach between 1.5-2x their intended wealth, which could also cause huge issues.
Yeah its not like your Ranger was hard core powergamed, you took decent archer feats for the most part. Feats like point blank shot and rapid shot have been good since 3.0 through to Pathfinder and Star Wars Saga.
How hard is Skull and Shackles with 15 point buy?
Just a heads up regarding Skull and Shackles. The talk on the forums for many is that it can be pretty tough at times. On the other hand, there is also chatter from some groups saying the campaign is too easy.
In my experience from perusing these forums over the years is that experienced players who know how to optimize can walk over most APs. They are not designed for tactically talented veterans of gaming. Not unless the players are willing to make concessions. Nothing serious, just try to avoid going gonzo with the player options (i.e. a feat tree from Ultimate Combat here, an Archetype from the APG there, a swap-out of racial abilities from the ARG, etc.).
I'm also a D&D vet of over 20 years and I find now that I rather enjoy placing limitations on myself (the GM doesn't even need to force me). The less I have to work with the more creative I have to be, sometimes. Granted, it's a soft limit but here's what I like to do - I limit myself to one book outside of the CRB. For example, if I'm going to play a Fighter then I can either take options from the APG or UC or ARG but only one book. My one exception to this rule is if I am playing an Archetype for a Base Class. In that case, after my class and archetype are selected, I choose one book beyond Core that I can take additional stuff from - either the book with the Class or the book with the Archetype.
I also GM (in fact, that's mostly what I do) and my group is comprised of fellow vets. I place the same limit on them and they're fine with it. I find it helps with the APs. I don't run into nearly as many problems because of it. The only other exception I make is that players can take any options they want from Golarion-specific books (Companion or Setting line) provided it's worked out through the story as it ties them more closely to the setting.
My advice would be to pick a copy of Greg Vaughn's The Slumbering Tsar Saga, edited by Frog God Games. If your players are powergaming, that's one AP where they will meet some challenge. Seriously.
The PF APs are extremely easy. If you're running them out of the box there's no way you're going to challenge a group of experienced players with the campaign as is, and increasing HP and hitting stats is very rarely effective compared to an encounter intentionally designed to be difficult.
Just want to say this is not 100 percent True (at least for us)..
We have almost 100 years experience cumulative playing DnD and the Kingmaker AP was very difficult and the random encounters very deadly. We had a level 2 character killed outright by a Will-O-Wisps rolled up.
Also the Kingdom building was fun at first... especially since everyone in the group loves the Civilization PC games... but ultimately even with a computer program to help facilitate the process the kingdom building just got in the way of our normal game time (which is precious). We are all in our mid 30s now so not so much time for gaming like in the old days.
We eventually had to end the campaign because of too many party deaths... Also the DM has these Science Dice that just kill us all the time.
We are on the 3rd book of the Jade REgent AP, and while we do not get to explore like how we did in Kingmaker, the Caravan is sort of like Kingmaker light.. instead of making a grand Kingdom... you make a Caravan in which you travel with.
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My two cents: sounds like the campaign is getting to be a drag for everyone, especially since the core (kingdom building) is boring to your players. I'd hang it up, start something new, and consider ensuring players use a 15-pt build, which is what APs are designed for, and you make decisions on how to handle crafting in advance to avoid abuse.
As an aside, we're in Book 3 of Kingmaker with 4-5 players in any given session, and there's been 4 permanent party deaths already with several others avoided by judicious use of hero points. From time to time I toss a random encounter at night, and players don't exhaust all their powers in one battle just for the risk.
You're the DM right? Bodge the shit out of those dice..
If they like being UBER, make sure they are UBER - 5 levels.. They can still crit/magic/.. but it will not always be as effective :)
I had one player in a group once who could not be touched except by natural 20..always.
So I told him that WHEN i hit him, it would be auto-crit.. He didn't mind xD
I'm playing carrion crown AP at the moment and that one is quite good, definatly a challenge with the right point buy system(15PB)