Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Ugh. The "arms race" begins to heat up, I see. [sarcasm] And, gee, I'm so looking forward to a Season 5 filled with half-orc paladins.[/sarcasm]It was a joke among our group when we saw what the focus of Season 5 would be that we should make the All-Paladin Avengers. It became a little less of a joke after last night!
I think the Worldwound is an interesting location but there's a reason my bomb-tossing alchemist hasn't gone to visit. Knowing that the region features demons is going to convince players to make some important character choices, and I think that all of us GM's are going to have to get ready for it. I'm not one to pick up Favored Enemy: Human because of scenario statistics or anything, but who wants to be penalized for not paying attention to the season venue?
If there's any sort of "arms race," I see it starting at the choice of the Worldwound. Being upset at players responding to that choice seems a little unfair.
(Sorry for the S5 tangent.)
I realize I'm continuing the derail, but at this point about 50% or better of this thread's posting is derailment, so...
Metagaming by taking darkvision-natural PCs into Season 5 is just metagaming. It's not playing a Role Playing Game. The Pathfinder Society is interested in finding things from Golarion's past. They are not generals sending their best troops into a carefully chosen combat situation.
And GMs perpetuating the ramp up of PC power level by trying to "win" at Pathfinder simply makes the metagaming attitude of players justified.
Anthony, Matthew and Rogue Eidolon have the right of it. Choosing to run this in a way that is combative, instead, leads to negative situations and posts like Mattastrophic's.
Sunrods anyone? 2gp.
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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I already informed some of the PTBs of my opinions on the optional fight, but I'll share them here as well.
While I don't have a problem with there being some really hard fights in a scenario, I don't think the optional fight should EVER be able to have a really good chance to cause a TPK. Optional fights should be about using up a few resources, not be the hardest fight in the scenario. They should add a bit of flavor to the scenario be used to tell part of the story. Unless the players dice are really cold and the GM's dice are really hot, I don't think an optional encounter should ever result in a death, let alone the entire party.
That's one reason why I won't have these demons chase down pcs that flee from them. I have them wait, follow the PCs to see how they deal with Vega then teleport away to inform Tancred.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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[I realize I'm continuing the derail, but at this point about 50% or better of this thread's posting is derailment, so...
Metagaming by taking darkvision-natural PCs into Season 5 is just metagaming. It's not playing a Role Playing Game. The Pathfinder Society is interested in finding things from Golarion's past. They are not generals sending their best troops into a carefully chosen combat situation.
And GMs perpetuating the ramp up of PC power level by trying to "win" at Pathfinder simply makes the metagaming attitude of players justified.
Incoming rant.
I don't like "And the huge monster rises from the ground-" "And I grapple it to death/trip it/hit it with 5 million points of damage in the first round. What's next?" I don't like scenarios that are built to challenge those kind of optimized builds because they lead to "And the party of 6 is wiped out by the optimized tricked out monster with tactics designed to kill Sir-Grabs-A-Lot." Or they lead to "Optimized character X has a tough fight on his hands, but the rest of you are ineffective. Would one of you like to try ot hit while the rest aid another?"
Demons spamming darkness? Yeah, that happens. Same demons shouldn't be targeting everburning torches instead of regular torches, or hitting daylight with deeper darkness if they can't determine which spell is which.
A trick I pulled with a bard in 3.x was to send dancing lights over mooks heads, and tell them the lights would explode on command if they didn't put their weapons down. When a mook has no ranks in spellcraft, and I make a decent bluff check, they shouldn't know that the lights are harmless because the GM does. Likewise, when the party is rocking magic darkvision, the the demons shouldn't know who has darkvision and who doesn't w/o spellcraft.
Are there always going to be optimizers who play the min-maxed, every last iota of worth squeezed out of their characters? Of course. Should we make scenarios that encourage that kind of mentality? No more than making scenarios that encourage the survival of the first level sorcerer who takes prestidigitation, spark, and ghost sound as his cantrips, identify, detect undead as his first level spells, and charges into melee combat.
Anthony, Matthew and Rogue Eidolon have the right of it.
If we had sigfiles I'd add this. Coming from you I consider it a compliment. :-)
Sunrods anyone? 2gp.Nonmagical sources of light, such as torches and lanterns, do not increase the light level in an area of darkness.
YMMV. Read the description of a sunrod. Also note its not a mundane source or light. Its an alchemical source of light. BOOM!
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Sunrods anyone? 2gp.Nonmagical sources of light, such as torches and lanterns, do not increase the light level in an area of darkness.
But they can be useful when the spells are shutting each other off, and you need normal light.
Example: Darkness and continual flame negate each other and you're in a cave (normal darkness). So if you have an ioun torch, and strike a sunrod, then you're back to the sunrod's light.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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YMMV. Read the description of a sunrod. Also note its not a mundane source or light. Its an alchemical source of light. BOOM!Sunrods anyone? 2gp.Nonmagical sources of light, such as torches and lanterns, do not increase the light level in an area of darkness.
I did read it, right before posting. Something you clearly didn't do, as it says nothing about being an "alchemical" source of light.
Also, whether you call it "mundane" or not is irrelevant; the darkness spell does not use that term. It says "nonmagical". A sunrod is nonmagical.
Please don't tell other people to read things that you didn't read yourself; it just wastes people's time and confuses other readers who don't have time to cross-reference things.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Example: Darkness and continual flame negate each other
Only if you're casting to dispel or counterspell, which is going to be hard given that they both have a range of touch.
Or perhaps you're thinking of daylight's clause about it and deeper darkness negating each other in the overlapping area, which is specific to the daylight spell and is not a general rule about how light and darkness effects interact.
You've got homework to do.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Example: Darkness and continual flame negate each otherOnly if you're casting to dispel or counterspell, which is going to be hard given that they both have a range of touch.
Or perhaps you're thinking of daylight's clause about it and deeper darkness negating each other in the overlapping area, which is specific to the daylight spell and is not a general rule about how light and darkness effects interact.
You've got homework to do.
Well to be precise, the GM who let it work for me does. :P
Seriously, good to know.
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I already informed some of the PTBs of my opinions on the optional fight, but I'll share them here as well.
While I don't have a problem with there being some really hard fights in a scenario, I don't think the optional fight should EVER be able to have a really good chance to cause a TPK. Optional fights should be about using up a few resources, not be the hardest fight in the scenario. They should add a bit of flavor to the scenario be used to tell part of the story. Unless the players dice are really cold and the GM's dice are really hot, I don't think an optional encounter should ever result in a death, let alone the entire party.
That's one reason why I won't have these demons chase down pcs that flee from them. I have them wait, follow the PCs to see how they deal with Vega then teleport away to inform Tancred.
Yeah, this is about my theory on the similar bearded devil "random thugging" encounter in Song of the Sea Witch.
Which has caused more near-TPKs than the boss fight, by far.
That barbazu (and erinyes in the higher tier) is far and away harder than the boss. There's actually quite a few scenarios with rough optional encounters out there. This is one of them, particularly for groups that bypass the gargoyle and are thus shocked by the difference in difficulty between the babau and the other two fights.
YMMV. Read the description of a sunrod. Also note its not a mundane source or light. Its an alchemical source of light. BOOM!Sunrods anyone? 2gp.Nonmagical sources of light, such as torches and lanterns, do not increase the light level in an area of darkness.I did read it, right before posting. Something you clearly didn't do, as it says nothing about being an "alchemical" source of light.
Also, whether you call it "mundane" or not is irrelevant; the darkness spell does not use that term. It says "nonmagical". A sunrod is nonmagical.
Please don't tell other people to read things that you didn't read yourself; it just wastes people's time and confuses other readers who don't have time to cross-reference things.
Disagree.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Additional reading for what I believe to be the most common mistake/confusion on the interactions of light and darkness: LINK
Tangentially-related topic that could use more FAQ clicks: LINK
Any further discussion, if desired, should probably be taken to another thread (or one of the many already in existence across multiple sections of the forums).
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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@Chalk Microbe: If you believe the Core Rulebook's statement that nonmagical light sources fail to increase the light level within the area of darkness to be in error (alternatively, if you believe the sunrod to be a magical light source despite the lack of any related and necessary information, such as spell level and caster level), consider starting a thread in the Rules Questions forum.
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I've made a new thread here to discuss light and darkness. Everyone other than Jiggy--Jiggy is correct. See my post on the 2nd page of this thread or in the link.
Developer
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If any poster ever has the desire to post "lulz", that should be considered a signal that you're no longer contributing productively to whatever discussion is at hand. I've removed a post and will continue to remove derailed posts that stray too far into trolling territory.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Metagaming by taking darkvision-natural PCs into Season 5 is just metagaming. It's not playing a Role Playing Game. The Pathfinder Society is interested in finding things from Golarion's past. They are not generals sending their best troops into a carefully chosen combat situation.
Are we mad that people chose to play their Hellknights in Fortress of the Nail? When clearly that's a choice they made based on the scenario title?
Pathfinder fits a middle ground between strategic games and role playing games. And if I KNOW that season 5 is centered on the Worldwound and I'm being asked to ignore that in favor of "role-playing," then I'm knowingly accepting a higher possibility of a TPK.
Again, this is a total derail. But I will stand by the statement that if the choice is between a TPK and "metagaming," then I'm going to choose metagaming. And if the scenario as written demands native darkvision to avoid a TPK, then I guess I'll have to live with the title of Metagamer, but at least I'll finish the scenario.
I would prefer to play my Flagbearer or my Mad Bomber or even my Rogue, because I like to play fun characters. This scenario told me that my choice to have more fun was unjustified.
Any further discussion, if desired, should probably be taken to another thread (or one of the many already in existence across multiple sections of the forums).
@Chalk Microbe: If you believe the Core Rulebook's statement that nonmagical light sources fail to increase the light level within the area of darkness to be in error (alternatively, if you believe the sunrod to be a magical light source despite the lack of any related and necessary information, such as spell level and caster level), consider starting a thread in the Rules Questions forum.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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** under the spoiler tag ** I would prefer to play my Flagbearer or my Mad Bomber or even my Rogue, because I like to play fun characters. This scenario told me that my choice to have more fun was unjustified.
Yup. And that's the problem I'm trying to highlight.
I won't make this worse by debating whether a Venture Captain would or would not send certain PCs into certain situations. The scope of an organized play campaign simply does not allow for that kind of question to be answered.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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** under the spoiler tag ** I would prefer to play my Flagbearer or my Mad Bomber or even my Rogue, because I like to play fun characters. This scenario told me that my choice to have more fun was unjustified.Yup. And that's the problem I'm trying to highlight.
I won't make this worse by debating whether a Venture Captain would or would not send certain PCs into certain situations. The scope of an organized play campaign simply does not allow for that kind of question to be answered.
This amused me, because I ran Sniper in the Deep three weeks ago.
Finally, after a long moment, he heaves a weary sigh, allowing his shoulders to slump as if defeated, and says, “All right, fine. I don’t have time to be picky. I need you to go to the Lusty Mermaid in the Docks..."
Pretty clear, here at least, he expects the best and the brightest, but gets the PCs instead :-)
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Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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Well, the problem with giving them too many tactics, is unless you have a lot of if/then statements in the tactics, the PCs will always throw a wrench in things and the tactics as written will most likely become useless. Now, if you have broad tactics and list their intentions/goals that they want to get out of the encounter, that should give the GMs the flexibility to see what they have to work with and perform better when the PCs do throw the inevitable wrench.
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Ok, I'm trying to stay on topic here, but I'm curious.
Would people like to see more stringent tactics for demons, or would they prefer less tactics and more GM control? Specifically for creatures like demons where they have a myriad of abilities.
I agree with Eric. Sometimes less is more, and giving the goals and mindset can help us choose the tactics for our party. An opening move can usually be okay. Take this example, written by some guy named Mark:
Cssting power word stun as an opener is a solid move. And then it says he tries to focus all his fury on the stunned character until dead, hoping to harvest a soul. OK, that's pretty mean, and it is likely to hurt the demon in terms of the encounter while killing off the one character, but it gives us his motivation. We know what he's looking forward--one soul and then get out of there. Then it says using reverse gravity and such to get people out of your face, which is also a solid choice. It says what health he'll teleport away, leaving Cheliax in the lurch if they didn't bring dimensional anchor. It's really got what you need to run it without forcing you on a turn-by-turn basis. These tactics were actually good enough that when I played it and GMed it, the GM was able to follow them as a general guideline and both fights had very similar tenors, even though the exact moves in each were different.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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I thought that these demons and their actions were handled well for the scenario. Drop an effect that allows them to utilize their sneak attack -- then proceed to use that sneak attack. Seems pretty straightforward, and has worked well for me.
Even in the situation where the fight migrated to the upper level, I followed the same tactics, as well as adding the use of their teleport to cut the PCs off at the door. It was a listed ability, and it seemed to fit within their tactics of essentially boxing in the PCs and trying to abuse their sneak attack ability. It also followed the overall theme of this being a sort of "hit squad" that is out specifically for the PCs, something not many fights have in PFS.
So, to answer your question Thurston, I think the amount of description provided for the babaus, and RE's example is a good amount. Another complicated fight with strong and flexible tactics is the final one of Below the Silver Tarn. The formula of "it uses this, then this if it can, then attacks these kinds of folks, and is trying to do this overall" works great for me.
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I would like some guidance, rather than specific tactics.
Examples:
Demon X enjoys the suffering of death and will aggressively go after the weakest available target.
Demon Y is a sniveling coward and will try to isolate targets before attacking them, staying out of melee and dispelling buffs if possible.
Demon Z tries to string the party out with hit and run tactics, blasting with his spelllike abilities when possible.
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4th and last for a while run-through yesterday. This one had 4 6th level PCs, not pregens, so it should have been the strongest group yet, facing a weaker challenge than the two groups of massively playing up 5s. However, due to some extreme bad luck, they wound up having a lot of trouble:
In the howler fight, they were winning pretty easily, but the high DPS samurai, who was being focused with his 20 AC and 12 Con, was getting lower and lower, with no one willing to throw any healing. You can guess what happened--an unlucky crit killed him (dropped him one above dead and he bled out before the cleric's turn). Breath of life #1 of 2 brought him back.
This time they failed the knowledge check and fought the gargoyle. It dropped the samurai, killed his axebeak, and killed one of the wizards (who went up to it to use burning hands) by exact count because he forgot to activate his free action false life despite going into melee. BoL #2 brought back the wizard. The gargoyle fled, but I let them reroll knowledge using the books in the library and they made it this time, so they didn't fail the main mission.
Against the two babaus, the PCs won handily and were in little danger, other than the demons killing the other wizard in round 1 (no BoLs left) barely (-13 with 12 Con). It's a pity because they could have used his spells against Vaga. The cleric and samurai both brought daylight, so it was an easy fight.
So Vaga. They could have ended it in maybe two or three rounds, but the cleric missed the samurai with the ranged touch attack on metamagic reach fly by rolling a natural 1 (I brought two sources of rerolls, but the cleric had used his already), which was the party's only way to get into the air. Then the cleric used a dispel magic on her--everyone at the whole table tried to convince him to target her levitation specifically, but he was adamant to do a general dispel, and it dropped her nearly-spent false life instead. These two things made it nearly impossible for the team to do anything to her because her AC was pretty high and arrows were deflected by the wind wall. With all but the wizard down from slow slow attrition, he dropped her with a magic missile wand, which I later realized shouldn't have worked due to her shield spell (oops! The last two runs both did significant damage to her with a magic missile wand without a way to get in the air and with arrows failing). With my memory lapse, the long (12+ round) fight ended epically with only the wizard standing. The 8 Con cleric had somehow been the only one not to die that day. His player was extremely frustrated by Vaga, though I think he was also really annoyed by the Natural 1, since he was the best-prepared for troubleshooting in the group, and he did have the right tool for the job if it hadn't have missed. The wizard standing had a familiar so couldn't arcane bond fly, didn't prepare fly, and didn't have a scroll of fly and the samurai didn't have a potion or scroll of fly either (though he did have the oil for the darkness fight). Also the dead wizard had several disable spells that could have ended Vaga on one failed Will save, with competitive DCs, so his death hurt them too.
All in all, the dice gods were very unkind that day with all of the just-barely kills, and the players were a bit sad overall. I guess it shows that randomness is a big factor, since the playing-up groups did just fine.
but the cleric missed the samurai with the ranged touch attack on metamagic reach fly by rolling a natural 1
Interesting interpretation of reach metamagic.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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but the cleric missed the samurai with the ranged touch attack on metamagic reach fly by rolling a natural 1
Spells modified by this feat that require melee touch attacks instead require ranged touch attacks.
Requiring a ranged touch attack is contingent upon the spell normally requiring a melee touch attack. Good thing that wasn't one of the fights with a PC death. :P
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but the cleric missed the samurai with the ranged touch attack on metamagic reach fly by rolling a natural 1Spells modified by this feat that require melee touch attacks instead require ranged touch attacks.Requiring a ranged touch attack is contingent upon the spell normally requiring a melee touch attack. Good thing that wasn't one of the fights with a PC death. :P
Fly has a target of creature touched. All spells that have a target of creature touched change to range touch attacks instead. With reach, these spells don't suddenly become targeted spells like magic missile that auto-hit but can't be used on invisible targets or in the dark. Or are you suggesting that a ray of frost automatically hits against an ally that is healed by cold?
Fly is a spell that requires a melee touch attack. Just because under melee touch spells it says you can automatically succeed on this touch against a friend or yourself does not write in such a clause for ranged touch attack reach versions of the same spell, as there exists no clause in the rules under "ranged touch spells" to suggest that you can ever automatically succeed at them against allies like you can with melee touch attacks.
Tell me this, RE, do you require clerics to roll d20, add their BAB, Strength Modifier and other applicable modifiers when she attempts to use Cure Light Wounds on an ally?
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Tell me this, RE, do you require clerics to roll d20, add their BAB, Strength Modifier and other applicable modifiers when she attempts to use Cure Light Wounds on an ally?
Of course not. For melee touch spells, you have this clause:
You can automatically touch one friend or use the spell on yourself, but to touch an opponent, you must succeed on an attack roll.
So you can skip rolling the attack roll on a melee touch spell. Nowhere does it say you can ever skip the attack roll on a ranged touch spell, even a beneficial one against an ally. Thus, you can't skip rolling the attack roll on reach touch spells.
Hahaha. OK buddy, OK. You win.
At your table.
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Looks good to me.
I would allow the target to NOT count his DEX - or even count his dex as '0' (which would be a -5 to AC), but other things would still effect his touch AC.Size, Defelection, cover and maybe the miss chance for concealment, all should effect the chance to 'hit' your target. Heck, I might even count the -4 for firing into melee (you don't want to give that spell to an enemy).
With a nat. "1" being a miss.
it looks to me like it's a good call.
Yep. And an entropic shield still has the same chance to deflect it. Nosig, I do the same as you and allow the target to count Dex as 0, so we ascertained that the cleric would only miss on a 1. Unfortunately, that's what happened.
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Yep. And an entropic shield still has the same chance to deflect it. Nosig, I do the same as you and allow the target to count Dex as 0, so we ascertained that the cleric would only miss on a 1. Unfortunately, that's what happened.Looks good to me.
I would allow the target to NOT count his DEX - or even count his dex as '0' (which would be a -5 to AC), but other things would still effect his touch AC.Size, Defelection, cover and maybe the miss chance for concealment, all should effect the chance to 'hit' your target. Heck, I might even count the -4 for firing into melee (you don't want to give that spell to an enemy).
With a nat. "1" being a miss.
it looks to me like it's a good call.
That was generous of you.
The reason I say that, is in combat, I don't think he'd really have the option to drop his Dex to 1 (0 isn't possible if they are conscious) if he's in the middle of combat, unless he wanted to take that penalty until his next turn.
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Yep. And an entropic shield still has the same chance to deflect it. Nosig, I do the same as you and allow the target to count Dex as 0, so we ascertained that the cleric would only miss on a 1. Unfortunately, that's what happened.Looks good to me.
I would allow the target to NOT count his DEX - or even count his dex as '0' (which would be a -5 to AC), but other things would still effect his touch AC.Size, Defelection, cover and maybe the miss chance for concealment, all should effect the chance to 'hit' your target. Heck, I might even count the -4 for firing into melee (you don't want to give that spell to an enemy).
With a nat. "1" being a miss.
it looks to me like it's a good call.
That was generous of you.
The reason I say that, is in combat, I don't think he'd really have the option to drop his Dex to 1 (0 isn't possible if they are conscious) if he's in the middle of combat, unless he wanted to take that penalty until his next turn.
I wasn't comfortable with the fact that a clumsy character would be easier to hit than a dextrous one when the character in question was doing their best to leap into the ray. The cleric was an archer of Erastil with good Dex and Point Blank Shot and the target had poor Dex anyway, so I think it was an auto-hit except on a 1 regardless.
I'm going to start requiring all my buffers to roll touch attacks to buff willing allies every time now. It'll slow down the game some but at least I can never be accused of not running RAW.
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I'm going to start requiring all my buffers to roll touch attacks to buff willing allies every time now. It'll slow down the game some but at least I can never be accused of not running RAW.
I'm not sure to whom you are responding? You're clearly in violation of the RAW if you don't allow melee touch attacks to automatically succeed on a friend without an attack roll.