|
So, my group and I have been having trouble recently getting together in person to finish our Kingmaker campaign. Add to that the Kingmaker GM getting his wife pregnant for the first time and the associated crazies, and we had to come up with a new plan. Enter me with my shiny new d20Pro license and 3 guest slots and HeroLab with all the PF supplements available...
I decided it would be a good idea to just run my friends through some of the Gamemastery and Pathfinder Modules just to keep us interested. I put together a "campaign" outline of the following modules:
Hollow's Last Hope
Crown of the Kobold King
Feast of Ravenmoor
Revenge of the Kobold King
Carnival of Tears
Hungry are the Dead
Seven Swords of Sin
Seven Swords of Sin
Realm of the Fellknight Queen
Cult of the Ebon Destroyers
The Pact Stone Pyramid
The Harrowing
Beyond the Vault of Souls
Clash of the Kingslayers
Curse of the Riven Sky
The Demon Within
Guardians of Dragonfall
Acadamy of Secrets
Tomb of the Iron Medusa
Blood of Dragonscar
The Witchwar Legacy
I'm using abstract/soft XP, so they gain a level every module or so, regardless of encounters. Also, PCs were constructed with a 15 point buy, racial HP (from the Beta rules...we LOVE that rule in our group and nearly always house-rule it into our games. Of course we give them to monsters/NPCs, too...), starting at level 1 or CR 1/2 (allowing players to try less powerful races or more powerful races with their first level in Commoner...such as the player who started the level 1 module with a kobold rogue 2...which equals CR 1/2), 1 Flaw from Unearthed Arcana, and two traits.
Anyway, my point is, I've been going through the 3.5 modules and updating them to PFRPG rules, converting NPCs to PF characters using HeroLab, and generally working to make the game fit with PFRPG rules. Incidentally, that's nearly as much work as designing a homebrew campaign...
Regardless, the whole point of this post, which I probably should have gotten to sooner, is, has anyone else converted Crown of the Kobold King to PFRPG rules and noticed how awful that whole thing is? We were playing for a couple hours this evening, and my crew ran into the bugbears random encounter. Three bugbear warriors, vanilla from the Bestiary, and my party nearly died. It's true they had some pretty awful attack rolls for a while, but regardless, 3 PF bugbears are pretty rough on 4 CR 1 characters. Then, after killing the kobold warriors in area 1 of Droskar's Crucible, they proceeded to the Stirge room. Am I the only one who thinks PF Stirges are nearly overpowered for CR 1/2 creatures?!?!?!? I had 4 of 5 stirges attached at multiple points with 2 draining 4 points of Con/ea, 2 draining 3 points/ea, and the last one draining 2 points... How are 2nd level PCs supposed to handle that?!?!?!?!? The party now has a cleric with a Con that dropped from 12 to 4 (2 stirges attached for the full 4 rounds/each), a fighter with Con that dropped from 12 to 9, wizard from 10 to 7, and rogue from 10 to 9. Holy crap.
My question is, I suppose, have I just not noticed how powerful PF beasties have become, or was this unusual? Also, anyone else have examples how PF monsters have done considerably more damage than their 3.5 counterparts?
I think my group of 6 PCs was 2nd level when they encountered the stirges. They suffered some Con damage but it was nothing like what your group experienced. Granted, my group has 25-point buy so that's a big difference between our groups. Stirges only have 5 hps so they are pretty much 1-hit wonders, and they can only do 1 CON damage per round. The thing about fighting stirges is not to try and pull them off when they attach but to use their lower (grappled) AC to smash them to bloody pulp. YMMV.
Also, it's ability damage so it returns at the rate of 1 per day with rest.
Just wait til they meet the king and Manfeller (assuming you have humans in your group). The king went toe-to-toe with a raging, power attacking barbarian in my group and it was ugly.
IMO, Pathfinder has raised the level of power of PCs much higher than it has raised the level of power of monsters. Just my opinion, of course. Good luck with the campaign you have planned. It looks neat!
Stirges aren't a big deal, IMO unless things just got totally wrong for you with rolls. They only have 5 HP and you get an AoO against them when they go to attach (tiny creatures entering your square), if they survive that when they attach their AC drops from 16 to 12 (and you take a -2 to your attack) and you can swat them pretty easily with a one handed/light weapon or even use your unarmed strike to knock them out with nonlethal damage.
Also, remember that PF ability damage is not actually subtracted from the ability score, you take a -1 penalty to the mod for every 2 points of damage, so your Fighter and Rogue would only be getting a -1 to their Con Mod.
I ran it for players who were brand new to table top RPGs/PF for the most part, so I gave them a forgiving 25 point buy and their full hit die at levels 1 and 2, after the first half of the first floor I boosted the enemies up to compensate as they were having a pretty easy go of it in combat once they learned the ropes.