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I'm going to be running a 1-shot dungeon crawl in the near future, and have allowed players to pick any race/level combination up to CR 19. Anyone else have any experience with this? Are all CR 19 things the same? I.E. is a Fire Giant Barbarian 10 REALLY a the same as a Nymph Druid 13? Can you just take any mostly-humanoid creature and add levels to it to get a proper CR? Is there a Paizo-printed guide for dealing with this?
Thanks in advance.
Not a great idea. The monsters power levels vary wildly, especially if you don't have a group that are all equally capable of optimizing (or incapable, just need them to be even). I'd suggest you rethink that decision, if you have a single optimizer and the rest noobs, you'll see one character stomp your dungeon crawl with ease and the rest do little to nothing. The rules for such an endeavor aren't covered by paizo for this reason, though 3.5 attempted it with Savage Species. If you're set on this idea, get that book as a reference material, but I do recommend you go with something else, especially if you're not a top tier GM.
Good luck.
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There is relatively little official guidance on this. The bestiary says to add levels to CR and use that final number as their effective level, but grant that PC an extra level every 2-3 until they've gained a number of extra equal to half the racial CR (rounded down).
My advice: If they're playing a martial type then don't let them buy off any CR as they almost certainly gain more benefit from the race then they lose out by not having the class levels (unless they pick a notably non-optimal race, of course, then maybe let them buy down). For casters you should let them buy down IF the race does not cast "as a ___ level ___", because in those cases the racial casting stacks with class stacking. If it doesn't, you should let them buy down to minimize how far behind they end up with respect to casting.
Now the tricky part is wealth. The monsters are usually designed with effectively 0 wealth, so you need add +1 to the CR of such creatures before you add class levels to represent the additional power of the wealth they receive. If they are designed with roughly PC-level wealth than this may not be necessary.
In other words, use your judgement. The guidance available is barebones and the creatures are not written with PC playability in mind at all, so no attempt at balance has been made for you.
Using your examples with my advice: A Nymph Druid? Just add levels to CR + 1 to get effective level, the nymph already casts as a druid, so no buy-back there. The missing class features should be fairly well replaced by the non-casting racial features. The Fire Giant Barbarian? Same deal. Just add levels to CR+1 (for wealth). Fire giants are beatsticks to start with, so adding more levels just enhances that. The +1 to CR gained by accounting for wealth should keep their BAB from being higher than their effective level. This makes a Fire Giant Barbarian 1 approximately equal to a Nymph Druid 4.
If the above two flipped classes, then I would allow an extra level for every 3 (to a limit of 3 free levels for nymph and 5 for fire giant) due to the fact that the racial abilities for nymph do not focus on martial prowess and those for fire giants do not focus on spellcasting.
Now, all of that said, using monsters for PCs is almost always a bad idea. You may need to force your players to agree ahead of time that they may be forced down in power level or be denied wealth or other such countermeasures if their build comes out too powerful compared to the other PCs. Even then, it's likely to end badly.
To make it easier, if you're really determined to try this, try forcing everyone to play either small/medium races. Larger and smaller races get even trickier.
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Not a great idea. The monsters power levels vary wildly, especially if you don't have a group that are all equally capable of optimizing (or incapable, just need them to be even). I'd suggest you rethink that decision, if you have a single optimizer and the rest noobs, you'll see one character stomp your dungeon crawl with ease and the rest do little to nothing. The rules for such an endeavor aren't covered by paizo for this reason, though 3.5 attempted it with Savage Species. If you're set on this idea, get that book as a reference material, but I do recommend you go with something else, especially if you're not a top tier GM.
Good luck.
Did you even need to put "good luck"? The previous paragraph might as well just have said, "give it up, loser"
The whole point of the game is to have fun, if someone overpowers stuff drastically on the first fight, then the second fight will be re-tooled on the fly to contain something that shoots the over-compensating power-gamer for massive ability drain or staggers with a DC 50+. It's a one-shot adventure off the beaten path, not a whole campaign. I was merely hoping to see other's experiences and if Paizo had rules on this. If I fail miserably I'll have had a learning experience with 5-6 witnesses.
I still have Savage Species, I'll dust it off - thank you for that bit of advice.
I think its worth making the effort for something unique. I don't have any experience in this arena, so I can't help, other than to say good luck.
Good luck!
...if someone overpowers stuff drastically on the first fight, then the second fight will be re-tooled on the fly to contain something that shoots the over-compensating power-gamer for massive ability drain or staggers with a DC 50+.
Some people dislike or even hate this style of play. I am one of them. You might want to check with your players if this kind of re-balancing would be fun for them.
Balance issues should be nipped in the bud preemptively as well as is possible (IMHO).
Edit: To expand on this, you might have to do your in-game re-balancing constantly. Due to how diverse an array of abilities your players might bring to the table, it will be very hard to either balance or plan for their abilities. If you are doing a dungeon, what do you do when one member just burrows through everything without expending any resources (just an example)?
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I agree with Whale_Cancer; punishing your players for making strong characters during the game is almost always a bad idea.
Since it's a one-shot I would say to just let what happens happen and use it to adjust for the next time you try something similar. In other words: Try to make sure it doesn't happen, but if it does then use it to learn how to prevent it from happening rather than using as an excuse to punish someone.
Apologies that you took offense to that, but I'm just being realistic. For a level 19-equivalent one-shot, you're gonna be putting in inordinate amounts of work to get everyone at a reasonably equal playing ground, and pulling punches isn't likely to win you any friends at your table, of course your table may vary but that's been my experience. I attempted a very similar concept to this once in the past at only level 4 and it still was damn near impossible to cope with my players versatility and abilities without blatantly targeting their weak points (which completely kills verisimilitude). I honestly wish you luck in this turning out well, that much wasn't sarcasm, my experiences with it have been lackluster at best and unless your players love to either steamroll or be steamrolled I doubt it'll be much fun combat-wise. Roleplay-wise, it'll be no different than usual, and perhaps more fun as beasts and various outsiders, but if you can achieve the wanted role-play without the imbalanced mechanics I'm sure it'd be a better experience all around.
The problem with it is how varied the monsters are, as noted above, but steps can be taken to even things out a bit.
You can try to balance the classes, but it will be hard. A CR 11 Juvenile Red Dragon with 8 levels of Sorc casting as an 11th level sorcerer is very different than a CR 10 Young Red Dragon with 9 levels of Sorcerer casting as a 10th level sorc.
The Dragon is stronger at Juvenile, and casts better with the sorc levels. Now if you took a different Dragon, like a White, where the CR 13 Old Dragon with 6 levels of sorc casts as an 11th level sorc.
WHat i'm pointing out is that monsterous races have a huge variety within their structure, and that every player will need to be balanced against the others. Smarter folks than I would need to look at the exact builds.
The Nymph casts as a 19th level Druid, has all kinds of racial abilities, and still gets Wildshape and a pet, stuff, just as a 12th level druid. take Boon companion and that's a 16th level pet with a 19th level caster with all a nymph's abilities.
The fire giant will have a BAB of +20, insane strength, and Rage plus Items on top of that? That's huge for a martial character.
BOth of these characters are going to be really strong, way tougher than a PC most likely, so you'll have to scale up the challenges. BUt those classes are pretty synergistic wiht the race. If your players are decent optimizers and work together they should be able to make some decent characters. You'll jsut need CR 25 stuff to challenge them, i'd guess. Or severl CR 20 or so creatures with minions they can trounce too.
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Hmmm ... sorry if I took offense earlier. It was a bit of a knee-jerk on my part reaction to me asking for advice and instead getting a thread full of "don't bother," "high levels suck," and "that's a bad idea unless you're a god of a GM."
I'm doing this because players expressed an interest in playing characters they'd never get to play otherwise - the point of this is to go completely over-the-top to emphasize the fantastic in "fantasy." If a player wants to absolutely min/max to overpower an entire dungeon, they're welcome to try, but I'm asking very specifically what the characters are playing beforehand - I'm not going to be surprised with someone showing up as an adult dragon with 5 levels of barbarian. In addition each encounter I'll probably have a variant of each creature I can switch to as initiative is being rolled. I'm also letting it be known that the purpose of this is not to steamroll the dungeon.
I appreciate that as a player you don't like "gotchas" in the form of the GM giving creatures shut-down abilities, I meant I would only do that in the face of an absolute munchkin who was spoiling the fun for everyone - I just didn't express that well.
If you are doing a dungeon, what do you do when one member just burrows through everything without expending any resources (just an example)?
I have a lava vein. Or a pair of mating Bulettes who don't appreciate the disturbance. Or did you not mean "burrow" literally? >.>
Right now I'm leaning toward making things too hard rather than too easy, and having the party's patron give each adventurer a trinket to hold onto that has a "Word of Recall"-like effect if the character dies That way if there's a TPK, they'll just wake up with a negative level back at the inn and can try a different approach.
TL:DR - I appreciate the advice that's been given, I just got mad at the shotgun of discouragement I received right off.
If you are doing a dungeon, what do you do when one member just burrows through everything without expending any resources (just an example)?I have a lava vein. Or a pair of mating Bulettes who don't appreciate the disturbance. Or did you not mean "burrow" literally? >.>
Are you just going to add those in the middle of the dungeon (Edit: as in, an ad-hoc addition made during play)? If so, I would repeat my earlier concerns about how some players don't enjoy this as a playstyle.
Otherwise you have to plan for 100s of possible abilities that can circumvent or steamroll large parts of your dungeon (without players even optimizing for that sort of thing). Burrow was just one example.
Did you even need to put "good luck"? The previous paragraph might as well just have said, "give it up, loser"
You're going to need to approach the boards with a bit more good-faith, or you're not going to take anything positive out of the experience.
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Are you just going to add those in the middle of the dungeon? If so, I would repeat my earlier concerns about how some players don't enjoy this as a playstyle.
Heck yes I'm just going to "add it in". If a player wants to burrow past the dungeon walls and then get mad when they run into lava or other burrowing creatures or unstable ground, they can leave my table mad. If someone builds a character designed to circumvent encounters they have no business getting upset when a GM thinks of creative ways of circumventing them right back. I wrote 5 RPGA mods and co-wrote 3 RPGA battle interactives, I'm very used to designing encounters that take creative players in mind.
Otherwise you have to plan for 100s of possible abilities that can circumvent or steamroll large parts of your dungeon (without players even optimizing for that sort of thing). Burrow was just one example.
Sometimes players steamroll everything. Sometimes they're pushed to their limits. I have a venture captain and a former LG mod writer to bounce ideas off of, I'll be ready for a lot. I have zero doubts the players will surprise me somehow, just as I have zero doubts that things I thought ancillary will challenge them more than the focus of the encounter.
I appreciate your concerns - I'd appreciate them more if you could offer solutions rather than just saying "players don't enjoy that."
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Did you even need to put "good luck"? The previous paragraph might as well just have said, "give it up, loser"You're going to need to approach the boards with a bit more good-faith, or you're not going to take anything positive out of the experience.
Hmmm, I came here looking for advice. Some offered excellent advice while saying I needed to be exceptionally cautious about this endeavor. Some merely pointed out why they wouldn't do what I'm trying. I suppose there's a fine line between criticism and constructive criticism and I missed the "constructive" part.
I appreciate your concerns - I'd appreciate them more if you could offer solutions rather than just saying "players don't enjoy that."
Have fun and congratulations on your RPGA background!
:-)
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I appreciate your concerns - I'd appreciate them more if you could offer solutions rather than just saying "players don't enjoy that."Have fun and congratulations on your RPGA background!
:-)
Why thank you so much, I'm very proud to have written more than a few adventures that were enjoyed by so many! I hope to be doing the same here, albeit on a much smaller scale.
Sounds like fun. I'd love to play a scenario like this. I recently proposed something similar but much lower CR as an idea for episodic break from of their normal campaign.
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Hmmm ... sorry if I took offense earlier. It was a bit of a knee-jerk on my part reaction to me asking for advice and instead getting a thread full of "don't bother," "high levels suck," and "that's a bad idea unless you're a god of a GM."
You pretty much ignored what I said in my post then. What you got as your first response is that you're on your own and pretty much a "go experiment". You wanted a "Way to do this" answer and you seem to be bothered by the fact that there isn't one. The ruleset isn't designed for handling high CR monsters as base races. I didn't say don't do it, just accept the fact that you're on your own.
If you've mastered normal baseline play, that statement should encourage you, not get you in a tizzy.
Yet quite a few others were able to offer some excellent advice rather than saying, more or less, "you're on your own."
I wasn't fully aware if Pathfinder had or had not put out something along the lines of Savage Species. Now that I know there's no official rules for what I'm attempting, I'll take what advice has been offered and do my best. Again, a fine line between skepticism and encouragement tempered with caution - and it's a fine line I misread at first and got frustrated at.
Why thank you so much, I'm very proud to have written more than a few adventures that were enjoyed by so many! I hope to be doing the same here, albeit on a much smaller scale.I appreciate your concerns - I'd appreciate them more if you could offer solutions rather than just saying "players don't enjoy that."Have fun and congratulations on your RPGA background!
:-)
I guess I failed my Disguise (Roberta Yang) roll or have failed my Perception roll to notice the same.
If you think it is appropriate to spontaneously add lava veins into an adventure because your players are using burrow than we are playing different games. I was asking questions to understand how you were intending to run your game and, now that I know, I don't really see the point of giving advice; you are just going to counter anything abusive (whether intentional or not) by changing the circumstances of the adventure on the spot. There is no point in giving advice about limiting your players (as you can do that ad-hoc) and there is no point in giving advice on dungeon design (as you can modify that to fit the players ad-hoc).
[Aside: What if that guy burrowing through the walls has fire immunity? "Uh, I meant... ICE MAGMA... yeah. Ice from the elemental plane of ice is like, uh, seeping in here for some reason."]
I don't mean to be too dismissive of this style of play as I am a big proponent of everyone enjoying the game as they wish. The concern I brought (as did some others) was that some players really don't enjoy this style of play. It would not fly with most players I know. If your players enjoy it, then go for it. I just don't see what advice can be given beyond what has already been said (aside from going into the specifics of encounter design).
I wasn't fully aware if Pathfinder had or had not put out something along the lines of Savage Species. Now that I know there's no official rules for what I'm attempting, I'll take what advice has been offered and do my best. Again, a fine line between skepticism and encouragement tempered with caution - and it's a fine line I misread at first and got frustrated at.
LA can be inferred from how CR is calculated. It's under "Monster Advancement."
A PC with a PC race is CR (PC level) -1. When it comes to monsters, the monster's role influences its CR. If you want to run a game that is APL 19, you need everyone to have a CR of 20.
Played a 3.0 game at level 12, any published race from a dragon master list. The most powerful characters were the Aasimar Druid and the mere mortal Human Cleric (Yes, I know the Cleric was broken). The only other player that approached our lethality was the half-Dragon Barbarian. Of course, his save bonus from Con was +7!
Remember that most 'monsters' are 3/4 BAB.
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I guess I failed my Disguise (Roberta Yang) roll or have failed my Perception roll to notice the same.
No, I was well aware you were being sarcastic. I was replying with the same. I'm a snarky jerk, probably one of the reasons why I've never been considered for management.
If you think it is appropriate to spontaneously add lava veins into an adventure because your players are using burrow than we are playing different games. I was asking questions to understand how you were intending to run your game and, now that I know, I don't really see the point of giving advice; you are just going to counter anything abusive (whether intentional or not) by changing the circumstances of the adventure on the spot. There is no point in giving advice about limiting your players (as you can do that ad-hoc) and there is no point in giving advice on dungeon design (as you can modify that to fit the players ad-hoc).
If an encounter is designed that something as simple as burrow can completely defeat it, it's not a well designed encounter. If players do something to completely set the outcome of the encounter as not in doubt, I'll often as the GM state that and ask the players if they want to hand-wave it. I will say that "adding a lava vein" was a somewhat flippant answer, although tossing in a couple of mating bulettes is much more my style of humorous response. I'd be more likely to design the encounter so that the players are completely able to burrow, but anywhere important is lined with iron walls. If they then break out the adamantine pick, the bad guys then get to prepare for X rounds while the PCs hack into said important room.
[Aside: What if that guy burrowing through the walls has fire immunity? "Uh, I meant... ICE MAGMA... yeah. Ice from the elemental plane of ice is like, uh, seeping in here for some reason."]
There's a difference between thinking on the fly to keep an encounter challenging and being a jerk just to spite your characters. I came off as the latter and for that I apologize. I run Pathfinder to be fun for the players. In my ideal game, the players are tested, have a scary moment or two, but no characters die and they feel like they they had a tough but fun time. It doesn't work out that way every time, but that's my ideal.
I don't mean to be too dismissive of this style of play as I am a big proponent of everyone enjoying the game as they wish. The concern I brought (as did some others) was that some players really don't enjoy this style of play. It would not fly with most players I know. If your players enjoy it, then go for it. I just don't see what advice can be given beyond what has already been said (aside from going into the specifics of encounter design).
Again, I've advertised this as a high-level/high-fantasy one-shot fling that may crash and burn or be fun as heck. I'm going to get copies of everyone's character with at least a few days to tweak beforehand and hopefully throw together a fun time.
Sorry for coming across as a monolithic jerk who enjoys screwing over his characters - I had a GM like that at Winter Fantasy a quite a few years ago, and I need to take a breath and remember if people are telling me no they're probably doing it for a reason. (Said GM introduced himself by putting up a GM screen and pointing to the three-dozen or so stickers on the player-facing side and proudly claiming those were all the players he's killed as a GM, and warning us not to be a statistic.)