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Re: the NPC being killed by the "Combat Machine"... reminds me of an old saying, "When all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I'd say he "nailed" him alright. If the only thing Pathfinder characters are expected to do in PFS is DPS, I'd say he would have a very successful career.
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@nosig - Is that what he said, "I built this guy only for combat because that is all that matters in Season 4"?
EDIT- I should add that part of my point is that people build very powerful combat characters because, um, they like doing boatloads of damage in combat. It may just be that he wanted to play that kind of character, not compensate for something else.
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And a damage machine which can't intimidate...or even think of assisting someone else's intimidate check...
As GM I might even give a circumstance bonus if such a combat machine assists in intimidation. Assuming he looks the way he fights.
Reminds me of my last game - when my wizard did the intimidation. He isn't completely useless - but that isn't his best skill by far. And it is just against his concept ...
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To be fair, combat ability SHOULD be required. Being the face of a party doesn't mean you should leave yourself completely incapable of functioning in a combat situation. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of that flying around. You've got people that min-max for combat, yeah? There are also those that min-max for social encounters. Then you get into combat and they are so completely useless that your group is losing to something it oughta be able to take.
As for that -2 on intimidate? That guy done goofed. You can make a combat oriented killing machine without completely destroying your ability to work a social encounter. My dwarven barbarian's CHA score is so low it's not even on the radar. It still has a reasonable intimidate score because of this wonderful thing called skill points. That and there's this wonderful feat called Intimidating Prowess. Allows you to use add your strength score to your charisma score for intimidate. Still, you can do fine without that feat if you don't have enough slots to spare.
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@nosig - Ok, fair enough- he didn't have any skill points to sink into skills that didn't fit his character concept. I had asked if he said, directly, that he made his character into a "Combat Machine" because of his perception of Season 4? Obviously, many people try to build powerful characters because they want to do well in combat situations... as stated by others, "combat ability SHOULD be required". Unless he had conveyed to you directly something to the effect of "I feel I have to get a killer combat character built just to survive Season 4", I don't know if it is fair to use his character (and his misadventure) to promote that viewpoint.
Now, if he did say that, it is another story. I would hate to see people stopping to build "balanced*" characters to focus only on strong combat builds because they feel there is no other option. It is a possibility that some folks out there feel that way... or this thread wouldn't exist.
Sorry for ripping on him above (hammer/nail comment), I just know a fair number of players who don't care about anything other than DPS... and they have been playing way before Season 4.
* YMMV, you can't be great at everything.
EDIT- Sorry, looks like you answered the question I was re-addressing while I was composing. Thanks nosig for clarification.
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where did your dwarven barbarian put his skill points at 1st level? realizing you get at least 2 times as many as the fighter? Three times as many if you have at least an 8 Int, and 4 times if you have a 10. This guy has 1 point. I don't know where he put it, but it plainly isn't Intimidate - esp. when he is teamed up with 3 bards...
Yeah, a barbarian gets more skill points than a fighter. ... Wait, he was only getting one skill point? So that's the problem. Now dumping int just strikes me as a bad idea overall. Especially considering that some DMs (and rightly so) will expect you to play out how dumb your character is or is not. Anywho, that seems like over specializing. I ain't ripping the guy. I'm just surprised someone would drain both their int and their charisma instead of just picking one.
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Nosig that player took an option he should have known could have been fatal. From what you describe it was a poor DM with a player that is not creative. If he knows he is capable of doing 18 points of damage easily he should have avoided using that type of attack. He could of use the pommel of the sword as an improvised weapon, held the weapon one handed, heck punched the guy(he could take a pathetic villager unarmed). From what you are reading to me the player was chastised for his actions. You wrote as if he was not trying to wreck anyones game, just made a dumb mistake. The character should have been chastised not the player. This exact thing happened at my table with a non-lethal crit. I laughed. Then I had the NPC give the PC repercussions. The DM should be prepared for things to go wrong. People make tactical mistakes and they get punished. No difference if that damage machine in full plate male jumps 200 feet to land on a bad guy.
You do not need damage machines to beat the maps. My sorcerer soloed the boss fight in my enemies enemy with two spells used together. Incdiently I caused 2d6 non-lethal. A creative mind is what you need. If someone specializes their character so much they are worthless in social situations they should realize that and not try to answer them unless absolutely there is no other option.
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:/
If I was the GM in that situation I would have said that the struck villager was in a coma.
The rules are there to provide a base for story-telling - where the real fun happens.
The fighter specifically hit for nonlethal. He didn't actually make a mistake.
The real mistake seems to be that the GM followed the rules too closely and forgot that they're there to tell a story - not hinder it with commoner stat blocks.
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The DM wrecked his fun it seemed to me. The player seemed like his fun was ruined when he was admonished by the GM.
If you wanna cheat and bend the stat blocks and break the rules for organized play, that is your perogative. A good GM could still tell the story. The player did not do anything evil he made a not smart choice to try and knock this guy out with a homerun swing defending his teammate. If there were not rulings about killing the guy I would have the other villagers take that as an auto intimidate and continue with the story that their friend died attacking someone.
That player will could be marred by that DM for a long time. The DM knowing that the blow could kill the guy(using your cheating method) just said "wow your blow put that guy to critical he is going to die soon." And saved that guys fun.
A GM job is to make sure people have fun. If the GM does the opposite of that. Then they are a bad GM.
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IF you all think season 4 is all about combat you have not played Fortress of the Nail Yet.
our party made it through the first 3 Hellknight encounters without drawining a blade just by using our wits and Diplomacy. We doubbled all the diplomacy DC's in the first 3 encounters.
Re: the NPC being killed by the "Combat Machine"... reminds me of an old saying, "When all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I'd say he "nailed" him alright. If the only thing Pathfinder characters are expected to do in PFS is DPS, I'd say he would have a very successful career.
Boom!
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I think it would be wiser to take it back to the smaller table assumption and instead have side notes on how to bump it up for more players.
Why?
What's the reasoning process that leads to the conclusion that "assume 4, have adjustments for 6" is better than "assume 6, have adjustments for 4"?
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The augmentations are (mostly) terrible. they are either ineffective or the break the tactics for the encounter.
I understand that most conventions are 6 persona tables, and designing for that is fine, but something is getting lost on the scale downs.
My enemy's Enemy - an alchemist who gets +9 to hit on ranged touch attacks the scale down is "sickened" really? -2 to hit/damage isn't worth 2 PCs not even remotely.
In Wrath's Shadow - remove a couple of worthless mooks from the last fight (seems like it should work, but those guys just get mopped up so quickly, I played it at gencon (with 6 people) and I honestly forgot those guys were even in the room until I went back and read it.
some of them are done well, but I think it's far MORE important then the writers/editors/whoever seem to give it credit for. I believe John is in charge of those now, and I have faith they will get better :), but I would recommend staying away from season 4 without 6 PCs
it just seems like a lot of complaints come from improper scaling or way out of a "appropriate" abilities
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The augmentations are (mostly) terrible. they are either ineffective or the break the tactics for the encounter.
I understand that most conventions are 6 persona tables, and designing for that is fine, but something is getting lost on the scale downs.
** spoiler omitted **
some of them are done well, but I think it's far MORE important then the writers/editors/whoever seem to give it credit for. I believe John is in charge of those now, and I have faith they will get better :), but I would recommend staying away from season 4 without 6 PCs
it just seems like a lot of complaints come from improper scaling or way out of a "appropriate" abilities
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** spoiler omitted **The augmentations are (mostly) terrible. they are either ineffective or the break the tactics for the encounter.
I understand that most conventions are 6 persona tables, and designing for that is fine, but something is getting lost on the scale downs.
** spoiler omitted **
some of them are done well, but I think it's far MORE important then the writers/editors/whoever seem to give it credit for. I believe John is in charge of those now, and I have faith they will get better :), but I would recommend staying away from season 4 without 6 PCs
it just seems like a lot of complaints come from improper scaling or way out of a "appropriate" abilities
golemworks scaling annoyed me, as I was literally unable to defeat the party, Black took no damage, used everyone of his spells and was left without a way to harm the PCs, so he teleported away (everyone had heals, and the scaling removes his only consistent Damage source)
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I am championing one thing only here: Total CR in encounters per level should be in line with the core rules for medium advancement.
I'm just checking this.
CR for 4-01 tier 1-2 = 2,4,3,3,3,4
Assuming a group of 5 players - 3 level 1, 2 level 2 = APL1 we have according to the rules
Challenging, Epic, Hard, Hard, Hard, Epic
Groups of 5 which are below average in the tier do struggle according to the CRB - unless 2 epic encounters and 3 hard ones in a scenario is seen as normal.
The first con I visited in season 4 tried to seat 5 players per table to allow more game time. It became a kill fest.
A group of 5 was better served in the older seasons.
There always is the difficulty to balance it. A group of 6 level 2 is APL+2 vs a group of 5 level 1. The same applies to all other tiers if you take the lower and the upper level in that tier.
According to CRB this means
Group A = Easy = Group B = Challenging
Group A = Average = Group B = Hard
Group A = Challenging = Group B = Epic
So to me what I get out of it is - you can't balance it according to CRB for both groups at the same time. Earlier seasons where appropriate for group B - now it is appropriate for group A.
(and there is group C inbetween)
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unfortunately you have to balance around something.
I personally think it should be a group size of 5 (no adjustments needed either way then) and should be based on the pregens that would be played in that tier.
Optimizers that complain about "too easy" well that's our fault for abolishing what the game thinks we can do, and if we're bored cause it's "too easy" again, our fault.
Does that mean that tier 1-2s are too easy for a party of all level 2's? yup, sure does.
I personally think 1-5 should be tier 1, tier 2-3 (probably 900ish gp), and tier 4-5. This is more design work, but accommodates first level characters.
the difference between a first and 2nd level character is immense, even MORE so in PFS (wands, PP buys, ect)
TLDR; my Solution to the "CR Problem"
1 - Make 1-5s 3 sub tiers, 1, 2-3, and 4-5.
2 - design for 5 PCs, so no "adjustments" for player count are needed
3 - Let the optimizers be bored, to avoid exclusion of "weaker" or new players.
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Tetsujin Oni
I didn't forgot that Group A could be 6x Level 3.0 - but using the same reasoning means group B could as well be 5x level 3.0 and decides to tier 4-5.
Now the Epic encounters are off the scale = epic+. Well - this on it's own shows how stupid this would be. APL3 with a CR7 - good luck ...
In the end it is a question of balance - and this is why the discussion is so heated. You get more challenge for 6 member groups - you get more dead characters in 5 member groups.
Good players before might have been bored as they steamrolled encounters in groups of 6. Weak player now have a death toll that can discourage them from taking part in PFS.
There is no right or wrong. PFS needs to be one size fits all.
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Not all the CR are fights and I think the optional encounter is included as well.
I was assuming a non-combat encounter in there when I said 'five.' That's still a lot of combats for a single scenario.
Has anyone considered that not only have CRs gone up due to the new six-PC assumption, but that perhaps having so many fights in a scenario increases the difficulty level as well?
Maybe there is a problem here, where the number of combats is putting PFS "too far into hard mode?"
-Matt
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I think it would be wiser to take it back to the smaller table assumption and instead have side notes on how to bump it up for more players.Why?
What's the reasoning process that leads to the conclusion that "assume 4, have adjustments for 6" is better than "assume 6, have adjustments for 4"?
Possibly that walkovers are better than TPKs?
Assuming that the adjustments don't work properly.
I don't know about that. A fair number of us would much rather fall victim to TPKs than have to constantly deal with undertuned fights.
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I personally feel that it is much easier to add to an encounter to make it more balanced for more players, and even power levels than it is to tone it down, or remove threats. A lot of the issue comes down to action economy and number of targets spreading out damage and effects. Having a base number, and then adding more if needed would work a lot better than reducing them for smaller groups (which in al likelihood is much more the norm than a 6+ man party), which can make an encounter trivial.
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I personally feel that it is much easier to add to an encounter to make it more balanced for more players, and even power levels than it is to tone it down, or remove threats. A lot of the issue comes down to action economy and number of targets spreading out damage and effects. Having a base number, and then adding more if needed would work a lot better than reducing them for smaller groups (which in al likelihood is much more the norm than a 6+ man party), which can make an encounter trivial.
Not that I disagree with you, but it's become clear to the developers that 6-man groups are much more common across the world than 4-man groups. Given the fact that they have all the information available to them to come to this conclusion, I'm inclined to believe them.
I agree that we'd be better off with a 4-person standard with 6-person adjustment, if only because it helps to prevent the writer from making a APL+4 single monster put up against 6 level APL-1 characters, which make for super swingy encounters.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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smaller groups (which in all likelihood is much more the norm than a 6+ man party)
Funnily enough, the powers that be have access to all the reporting data, plus the input of all the Venture Officers around the world. But, hey, that doesn't mean they have any better idea of the average table size among the tens of thousands of PFS players around the world than you do, right? I'm sure campaign management's belief of a 6-player norm is probably just a random guess.
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And I said that at some point? It has been suggested that the PFS powers that be do heavily focus on the early reporting, though, and to my knowledge have not confirmed one way or the other. They do tend to think about things more through the lens of Cons, I think, which isn't wrong, but could give a different picture than the whole.
The base game itself is built around the 5 person party, not 6+, though it can handle it. By having a longer term DM adjust it at needed, which doesn't apply to PFS. A DM doesn't have the authority to, for example, say no to something that is legal for play, regardless of how they feel about it or if it completely bypasses the story.
By assuming that the average party is higher, but otherwise still using the base of how the game works has caused issues. You could argue that the issues are fine, or that that is not a leading cause of the issues the thread is all about, but in my opinion, that is the most direct cause of why there has been a lot of negative comments about late Season 3 and most of Season 4.