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Are they too long (time slot wise)? - still up in the air, I think yes.
*To the point that I cannot run them on my weeknight sessions, as the ability to finish in 3.5-4 hours is just very slim.*Does the difficult excite players or push them away? - Some of both.
Here's my belief on the whole issue, atm. I have played a lot of games, ultimately the top 5% always feel like it's "too easy" there is no avoiding that. You have to design for the masses. If you design for the top 5% the other 95% don't have fun or can't complete content. I'm going to point to how completely WoW dominated the MMO market with the "easy MMO"You will never make a challenge for the true "uber" players. If there is a group of 6 folks who are all "ubers" and know each other well no scenario is going to touch them, while still being even remotely beatable for normal players.
There is nothing theoretically impossible about designing a mod to please both average and top players. Marathons segregate by age; bridge players segregate by skill level. So its certainly not impossible.
But I think the mindset is for solving "uber" players is wrong. Uber players don't really care about the mod, and are probably more individualistic than average. They care about dancing on the edge of disaster - and the recognition that they have skills.
So for example - like chess - they'd like to get ranking points. Just because pathfinder has no system in place to accurate rate challenges or character strength - doesn't mean it couldn't be done. With that done - you improve your ranking by winning the scenarios - the lower your power rating when you win - the more rating you gain. Death, of course, reverses that.
Go that route - and you take pressure off the mod writers to be in an arms race with splat books and optimizers...
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Do you need an achievement system? or an Elo system? I don't think so.
Powergamers that are in it to crush combats are getting what they want out of easier mods, usually more gold :-p which just snowballs into even easier encounters.
If people want to show off achievements, they can show all their chronicle sheets of "playing up"
I think a lot of people that "mods are too easy" are doing it partially to gloat :-p.
THAT SAID. The season 0-3 mods are too easy for 6 players, by definition, as they were designed for 4.
this is why, my favorite solution is to make mooks actually matter. encounters with 3 strong monsters can become 2 strong monsters with reduced table size :D
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In GolemWorks, my Sorcerer sat on one end of the final encounter and just threw Dazing Magic Missiles at the caster on the other side to give his party time to deal with the golem in the tank. (That was a lovely lovely encounter. Finally a spellcaster who knows they want to stay AT RANGE)
Hmm, your GM forgot about the
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To further emphasize Benrislove's point, I love using templating to make mooks matter. There is nothing better than levels in PC classes to make mooks hang in there better! Adding in templates would be a quick way shift the difficulty in scenarios as well. Have a couple generic templates at the beginning that get applied to mooks as the game tiers up. Power attack and cleave are always good take mooks scarier :)
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I'm wondering.
PFS has more and more experienced GMs. There's a learning curve for running monsters in combat: first you're really bad at it, and then you start learning some tricks and you become pretty dangerous, and then you gain the discernment to know (a) how effective to play the NPCs, given their intelligence and tactical acumen, and (b) how effective to play the NPCs, given the party's strength and current condition.
Could it be that we're seeing more dangerous combats because we've gotten more GMs at that middle-level of experience, when they know how to play with ruthless efficiency, but not yet whether to do so?
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I'm wondering.
PFS has more and more experienced GMs. There's a learning curve for running monsters in combat: first you're really bad at it, and then you start learning some tricks and you become pretty dangerous, and then you gain the discernment to know (a) how effective to play the NPCs, given their intelligence and tactical acumen, and (b) how effective to play the NPCs, given the party's strength and current condition.
Could it be that we're seeing more dangerous combats because we've gotten more GMs at that middle-level of experience, when they know how to play with ruthless efficiency, but not yet whether to do so?
Finger on Nose my friend.
Finger on Nose.
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I've played virtually every mod up. I get no joy out of showing character sheets playing up.
The only way to do this reliably is to either A) time everything perfect to give you the option of doing so or B) choosing to play up even when it's not supposed to be an option.
This also leads me to believe that your GMs are doing you and everyone else in the community a disservice.
If you want a challenge, you don't need to play up, you need a better GM AND you need to stop being a min/maxing optimization cheese monkey.
This all goes back to what Doug and I discovered a long time ago. Those who are most vocal about wanting a challenge are the first to cry when they do actually get challenged.
/rant
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The GMs have relatively few resources in PFS scenarios with which to be ruthelessly efficient. I suspect that even in the complained about scenarios, there is a trick or ambush or other environmental consideration that is causing the problem.
Not really. Until you've read, played, or GM'd the scenarios, those types of comments aren't really helpful.
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The only way to do this reliably is to either A) time everything perfect to give you the option of doing so or B) choosing to play up even when it's not supposed to be an option.
This also leads me to believe that your GMs are doing you and everyone else in the community a disservice.
If you want a challenge, you don't need to play up, you need a better GM AND you need to stop being a min/maxing optimization cheese monkey.
This all goes back to what Doug and I discovered a long time ago. Those who are most vocal about wanting a challenge are the first to cry when they do actually get challenged.
I could not disagree with this more. You roleplay to play something you are not. You play this because you want to be a mighty warrior or awesome wizard. Not to be a mediocre wizard a soso fighter. No one wants to pretened to be something sad. You want to be best the greatest, or on your to become that. Any strategy to do so is your keys to getting there.
You told me yourself you plan and plot against this so step up when plays cheese it up.
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The only way to do this reliably is to either A) time everything perfect to give you the option of doing so or B) choosing to play up even when it's not supposed to be an option.
This also leads me to believe that your GMs are doing you and everyone else in the community a disservice.
If you want a challenge, you don't need to play up, you need a better GM AND you need to stop being a min/maxing optimization cheese monkey.
This all goes back to what Doug and I discovered a long time ago. Those who are most vocal about wanting a challenge are the first to cry when they do actually get challenged.
I could not disagree with this more. You roleplay to play something you are not. You play this because you want to be a mighty warrior or awesome wizard. Not to be a mediocre wizard a soso fighter. No one wants to pretened to be something sad. You want to be best the greatest, or on your to become that. Any strategy to do so is your keys to getting there.
You told me yourself you plan and plot against this so step up when plays cheese it up.
Actually, please don't overgeneralize or stereotype things. There are many, many people who actually want to roleplay that mediocre or sub-optimized build.
Developer
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Removed a bunch of posts that amounted to little more than everyone criticizing one another for badwrongfun. One of them also suggested the thread be locked, but I don't think that's necessary. If you wish to discuss the difficulty of scenarios and where we as the authors and developers of the campaign should be setting the difficulty target, please do so. Other discussions will result in the thread's locking, however.
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I don't know, AdAstra. By, oh, noon on Saturday at GenCon, if somebody at my table ended two or three encounters in the surprise round, I'd be all "Woo hoo. We might get this puppy done and finished early. I could get somethin' to eat today!"
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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I believe the Touch AC of 20 could be referring to my earlier posting.
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Look. In season 0 and 1, it is going to be true quite frequently that the NPCs presented in the scenario can not mathematically threaten the PC party. How is that the fault of the GM?
That is why I made the comment about tricks or environment. I don't need to play all the 0's and 1's to know that *most* of them are weak sauce compared to a PC group of average skill. My friend plays characters that can *solo* them. It's all about teh maths.
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Like Benrislove stated: make the mooks better. You don't need AC27 bosses (although at tier 6-7 this is not that beyond the pale) necessarily, just make every encounter a credible threat. The more I read on here, the more I think people are just spoiled by the earlier seasons and are used to not having combats the threatening.
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Look. In season 0 and 1, it is going to be true quite frequently that the NPCs presented in the scenario can not mathematically threaten the PC party. How is that the fault of the GM?
That is why I made the comment about tricks or environment. I don't need to play all the 0's and 1's to know that *most* of them are weak sauce compared to a PC group of average skill. My friend plays characters that can *solo* them. It's all about teh maths.
But we aren't talking season 0 or 1. We are talking late season 3 and season 4.
Until you've read, played, and/or GM'd these, you can't really make a comment that the NPCs can't stand on their own merit. They very much can, do, have, and will.
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I played Shadow's Wrath tiered up. We succeeded despite having a level 3 in the group. We had no level 7. Admittedly, this involved a lot of charges from a magic missile wand. But victory is victory.
I'm telling you a full group of level 6's and 7's of even average PCs would obliterate the boss room. A single black tentacles spell makes it very trivial.
I played and ran Rise of the Goblin guild. It is still filled with helpless mooks until you get to the last guy. And we all know what happens to lone badasses in PFS. Yup; permaflanked and eviscerated.