Hi All
Well last night I GM'd my first Pathfinder game and I hit a bit of a problem (not that the players noticed).
The party consists of 6 characters.
1) Witch lvl 2
2) Barbarian
3) Ranger
4) Druid lvl 2
5) Wizard
6) Rogue
All 1st level except the 2 mentioned and the setting is a huge swamp/bayou.
They are exploring a ruin thats half submerged in the foul stinking rotting vegetation and they have encountered 2 lizardmen with their riding beast giant frogs. Effectively each of these is a 400xp CR1 monster.
I have calculated that the APL of the party as follows:
Average Party Level: 1.33
Size of Party = +1
So APL = 2
I wanted to create a hard challenge for their first encounter so that adds another 2 which if im reading the rules correctly means I should get a challenge rating of 4 for the encounter giving me 1200xp to spend.
The above 4 monsters were effectively 1600xp. The party mopped the floor with them and only took a total of 4 hps damage.
Am I doing this right as it felt waaaaayyy to easy ?
Maybe it was the action economy that did it. The party outnumbered the monsters, that's a big advantage.
I think a lot of people find a big party can be worth more then a +1 bump to APL. Maybe the rules say +1 but it's a tough one to judge and depends a lot on level, type of encounter, party tactics, party synergy.
Do they have good equipment? Good stats?
Anyway it does sound like an easy fight even if the math says it should be hard.
PS it's better they had an easy fight then all got killed. Like you said they didn't even notice anything was wrong.
Level 1 characters are fragile. I would keep boss fights at APL+3 since there are six of them. Once they get to level 2 or 3 it is easier to push the challenge rating and get away with it. Once unlucky swing at level 1, and they get to make new characters. Of course level 2 could do the same thing, but the chances of surviving at better.
A APL of about 2 sounds right. I would use a CR 4 encounter to challenge them, but with multiple creatures. The highest I would go up to is a CR 5.
There is kind of a sliding scale to these things. The campaign I am now doing is level 11, but we started at 1. At lower levels (we also had 6 players and now have 5) the 6th party member made a HUGE difference.
I was treating the party as APL+2 until around 5th level. So at 5th level they were APL7, and then at 6th level they were APL 7. It seemed to work out pretty well to do it that way.
I also think that in general 1 tough guy with around 5 week little guys is a nice way to go.
So Have a 3rd level warrior lizard man, and then 3 1st level warrior lizard men, and then throw in 1 or 2 giant frogs and now you have a pretty threatening encounter.
Also if you want a real challenging encounter go APL+3. That should be a major challenge to your party (especially if you use my APL+2 to get their CR). And if you train them to fight those kinds of battles regularly then you can have some real fun encounters.
Thanks for the advice folks it is much appreciated. I shall experiment a little as per the ideas above ready for the next session. Just as a note they are all using basic equipment with no special gear yet. Admittedly there was 1 crit in the fight but there was also two spectacular misses as well :-)
Out of interest where do I find the rules to increase or decrease the levels of monsters ?
look here
Thankyou
np.
Is it making sense? Let us know how it goes. Making custom monsters is super fun.
I have to point out that frogs seem like they'd be the worst mount in the world. You better have a seat belt on that saddle.
I have to point out that frogs seem like they'd be the worst mount in the world. You better have a seat belt on that saddle.
Frog trainers do extra Handle Animal DC 15 for teach frog Trick "ignore greenhorn vomit".
Not so bad riding once you past greenhorn.
In hindsight yep frogs make shocking mounts....in the game though a lizard man riding on the back of a frog leaping 30' over a wall was pretty cool ;-)
I agree with the advice above that one leader and about 5 mooks. Just be aware of the GM's turn slowing the game down because you have 6 baddies to run.
They way I've handled this in the past is to keep the mooks stats identical and group the mooks together, 2 attacking one pc, 3 attacking another. I'd roll the the two or three d20's all at once to save a little time. Three baddies attacking one PC at one time is more dramatic than three separate attacks. Concentrate fire, just as the PCs do, and use the Aid Another action a lot - it means they are more likely to hit but tend to dish out less damage which is also more dramatic.
I like to run 6 mooks so that you can have two groups of three or three groups of two, depending on what you want/need for the encounter. And when there is only one left of a group have him Withdraw and join his remaining comrades or stand by his leader.
Two groups of three can also allow you to have one from each group Withdraw in round two, so that they move to the other fight to set up flanking - assuming your baddies have enough intelligence to employ tactics. Have them start as two lines of three about 20' apart for this move.
This may seem to contradict but I would run these guys at three different initiative slots. I like to run small groups at different times in the order rather than all the baddies have their turn, then all the goodies have theirs. It makes initiative feel a little more important, and players may start to tactically delay their actions.
So are mooks like minions in 4ed e.g. 1 hp bad guys doing 4 dmg that I can just throw at the party OR do i simply use the base level monster from the bestiary etc and make the leader a tougher version ?
It takes a little effort on your part to really get it right.
I don't have a problem with doing the minion thing, at lower levels it is all good, but it gets hard to determine the CR at higher levels is all.
A lizard man has levels that you can apply to him. Warrior levels are nice to add to monsters. you can give them like 3 levels of warrior (3 d10 HD, +3 BAB) and that will make him tougher. If you want to make it ever tougher make those fighter levels (then you get extra feats, armor traning, etc).
So are mooks like minions in 4ed e.g. 1 hp bad guys doing 4 dmg that I can just throw at the party OR do i simply use the base level monster from the bestiary etc and make the leader a tougher version ?
It wasn't what I was thinking off, but that is fun to do as we'll, though I'd add even more of them. Mooks, for me, have the same role as 4E Minions, but with more hit points, hopefully to last 2 or 3 rounds. That is what I aim for.