Has PFS gone too far into "hard mode"?


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Bob Jonquet wrote:
james maissen wrote:
If you reasonably self-select, then everything is great for everyone. If you don't, then you're not a victim of the system, but instead someone who made a bad choice
Except that choice affects more than you. Everytime a character dies it increases the likelihood of another PC death or even a tpk. The players are suppose to win, largely due to the disparity in action economy. As you dwindle that disparity, it becomes increasingly harder to "win." So, when someone arrogantly takes their level 2 PC to a level 6/7 game, they risk more than their own PC. In a local environment where everyone knows each other, you can more easily accommodate character/class mix, player experience, etc. to account for "extremes" of playing up/down. In convention play, I see it being very problematic.

No more so than the level character that comes along, automatically pushes the table to a higher tier, but can't contribute as much as anyone else at the table that should be playing the lower tier.

Perhaps they all know this even, but the player of the higher level character doesn't play enough to have multiple characters, etc.

Now, for no reason other than they want to play with their characters, the table is playing at a tier that they know is inappropriate for all of them.

Sure you can have a problem when players come to the table with characters that can't pull their weight. That is going to happen more with the current system tho, then one where people can make choices for themselves.

Likewise under the current system you have many people that are mandated to play at an inappropriate tier for all of them. It doesn't make sense for the campaign to be making these calls blindly rather than those at the table that can see what's really there.

-James


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I will say there have been some terrible scenarios I would never ever run for new players.

"Severing Ties" and "Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment" is another. There are some terrible things that low tier players honestly can't deal with

2/5 *

Mike Mistele wrote:
I'm very curious to hear others' takes on all of this. Am I the only one who feels that things have swung too far to the other extreme?

I also think season 4 is overtuned, but it seems we're the minority, at least on these boards (which hardcore players and GMs frequent).

Talking to casual players last Gencon, I heard lots of b*@!&ing about the difficulty. Not sure that feedback gets back to table GMs.

The Exchange

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Scenarios can be very challenging, just not in combat. I stopped playing D&D with 4th because it was so obviously killit grabit. I'd hate to see Pathfinder go the same way. I'd hate to see the puzzle challenge of the game seeing how you could use the rules in a weird, perverse way to minimax.If players were presented with games they could not win by destruction, no matter how much, we might see more balanced builds. Yes,there would be howls from the combat puppies but every darn game can't be just for them.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, West Virginia—Charleston

I will agree that Season 4 is too difficult in general, but only by a hair. A really good table can do just fine - a poor one will die a gruesome death. The problem is that PFS is often a player's first introduction to the world of RPGs, so veteran players shouldn't expect home game levels of difficulty. I think Season 3 struck a good balance - Seasons 0-2 were far too easy.

P. S. - Ran a party of 4, half newbies, half experienced, through Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment. They were fine. :P

3/5

Mark Moreland wrote:
Referring only to the OP, we hear your concerns and are watching the difficulty of the campaign closely to try to reach that ever-elisive balance that will both serve the overall needs of the campaign and players of all levels of experience. In terms of what your VL and 4-star GM friends told you, I don't know how they have insight into the difficulty of Season 5, as the only folks who know how the "hard mode dial" is going to be set are John, Mike, me, and the freelancers with whom we've already shared our Season 5 design guide.

Something else very important for the three of you to consider...

Going forward, could you guys consider reducing the number of combats per scenario in order to make up for their increased difficulty? Our local group has gotten sick of six-hour sessions. We would like to be able to play weeknight sessions again with some assurance that we will get out of there before 3AM.

If our problem is unique, it is because we have been backing off of overpowered builds and tactics lately. Unfortunately, our self-restraint and courtesy to our tablemates has only led to super-long sessions.

-Matt

The Exchange 3/5

Something I've never understood is that everyone complains about the monstrous PC that can do an absurd amount of damage in a single hit. The over-optimized, overly geared 2h fighter or barbarian. My best friend and I joined PFS to be able to flex our muscles and show off our ability to make broken characters.

The first time I played with other people in PFS with my overly optimized 2h barbarian and realized that, "doing tons of damage = cool kid" was as far from the truth as possible. I retired that level 1 character.

I spent hours building him, he had a fairly good background story but mostly I spent hours pouring over my pdf's and books building a character from level 1 to 11 that would never shy from damage and would have a high chance of survival at every level.

Now I sit back and still spend hours building the most broken bards, clerics and oracles I can. My overly optimized life oracle, the one that I have ever feat, every favored class bonus, every item I'll ever buy already written out in a spread sheet doesn't get many complaints when I can insure that 100% of my party members make it out of a scenario alive. I've always wondered how this is any different than if I'd kept my barbarian. He could still reasonably insure party survival by killing every thing before it killed his friends. Yet that's wrong.

People talk about season 4 being difficult, I've played in and GM'd 20-40 sessions and I have never let a companion die and as a GM I've killed one level 2 rogue with a crit from the BBEG.

I've yet to have a session challenge me, season 4, 3 or 2.

1/5

Codanous wrote:

Something I've never understood is that everyone complains about the monstrous PC that can do an absurd amount of damage in a single hit. The over-optimized, overly geared 2h fighter or barbarian. My best friend and I joined PFS to be able to flex our muscles and show off our ability to make broken characters.

The first time I played with other people in PFS with my overly optimized 2h barbarian and realized that, "doing tons of damage = cool kid" was as far from the truth as possible. I retired that level 1 character.

I spent hours building him, he had a fairly good background story but mostly I spent hours pouring over my pdf's and books building a character from level 1 to 11 that would never shy from damage and would have a high chance of survival at every level.

Now I sit back and still spend hours building the most broken bards, clerics and oracles I can. My overly optimized life oracle, the one that I have ever feat, every favored class bonus, every item I'll ever buy already written out in a spread sheet doesn't get many complaints when I can insure that 100% of my party members make it out of a scenario alive. I've always wondered how this is any different than if I'd kept my barbarian. He could still reasonably insure party survival by killing every thing before it killed his friends. Yet that's wrong.

People talk about season 4 being difficult, I've played in and GM'd 20-40 sessions and I have never let a companion die and as a GM I've killed one level 2 rogue with a crit from the BBEG.

I've yet to have a session challenge me, season 4, 3 or 2.

Codanous, while you clearly have a play style that's different from my own, and get enjoyment from different aspects of playing than I do (I try to make sure my characters are well-built, but I'm simply not going to be spending hours building characters), I'm never going to say that you're "wrong".

Where I'm feeling like I'm running into a problem now is that PFS has been adjusted in an attempt to provide you and players like you with something closer to the challenge you desire. It's great that you're striving to now make characters who are great at supporting their fellow PCs...but your "overly optimized life oracle" isn't at my table. If my character (which, according to earlier posts in this thread, is probably reasonably effective, but not tremendously optimized) is the strongest character at the table, and I'm playing with a number of other players who love role-playing, but don't have strong tactical skills or rules knowledge, my recent experience suggests that the newer scenarios are pretty likely to chew us up and spit us out.

Even the coolest stories (and, frankly, the stories in PFS scenarios are often pretty cool) aren't likely to bring me back if the scenarios frequently feel like a constant struggle just to survive the experience.

5/5

Difficulty is hard to calculate. There are plenty of hard scenarios out there that aren't season 4. I played a season 4 that ended with 3 deaths. When I ran it 0 deaths and party make up made the scenario extremely easy.

The both tables each had very experienced players and GMS.

What is surprising is when people think an adventure should be easy. AP's and modules are pretty hard. Allot of times they are allot harder than scenarios for PFS players.

Players say that a monster is to hard for a certain encounter etc. When the CR for the monster is pretty much perfect.

So looking at the table I ran, it wasn't a single thing they did, rather the party worked as a group.

Most of my player kills about 90% have been when parties didn't work as a group. One member can really cause pain for the group. The Lee Roy Jenkins player will cause death to himself and others.

I play a Barbarian that has died due to Leroy Jenkins a dragon. Raging charge followed by a nat 1. A couple crits later dropped in molten lava crit and 2 breath blasts later was the temporary end of poor Trugg. The party survived but it was a good death. If I scored a crit and took the dragons head off it would of only been remembered by me.

Season 4 I think is pretty on par for difficulty.


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Mike Mistele wrote:
Even the coolest stories (and, frankly, the stories in PFS scenarios are often pretty cool) aren't likely to bring me back if the scenarios frequently feel like a constant struggle just to survive the experience.

That's how I felt after my very first season 4 scenario. It happened to be one of the last times I ran that character and it really turned me away from those sorts of games. I was barely talked into doing Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment much later on and again I felt like I was really turned away.

1/5

Chris Bonnet wrote:
Most of my player kills about 90% have been when parties didn't work as a group. One member can really cause pain for the group. The Lee Roy Jenkins player will cause death to himself and others.

In the combat which went pear-shaped in "Blakros Matrimony" today, our gunslinger PC (played by a young man who clearly enjoyed combat, and might well have been a little bored and frustrated with all of the roleplaying and skill use up until that point) went Leeroy. We were talking with the "bad guys", and it still wasn't clear if things were going to come to blows or not, when he said, "Eh, I'm done. I shoot the guy", which, of course, started the combat.

Karma was served, however, as the GM focused a lot of fire on him, and his PC wound up very dead (he was at ~5 HP when the lead bad guy critted him for ~60 points of damage). Even then, the player just cheerily and repeatedly chirped, "no problem, I got enough Prestige to get rezzed."

Given how badass the opponents were, any trigger for combat would have led to the same result, and I'm not convinced that even my Diplo-monkey paladin would have been able to achieve a peaceful resolution to the encounter.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, West Virginia—Charleston

...what? Somebody died to The Blakros Matrimony??

The Exchange 3/5

Mike Mistele wrote:
Codanous wrote:
. . .

Codanous, while you clearly have a play style that's different from my own, and get enjoyment from different aspects of playing than I do (I try to make sure my characters are well-built, but I'm simply not going to be spending hours building characters), I'm never going to say that you're "wrong".

Where I'm feeling like I'm running into a problem now is that PFS has been adjusted in an attempt to provide...

I admit, I am bit a power hungry when it comes to scenarios. Even though I've yet to face a challenge, I've had a heck of a lot of fun and I enjoy seeing other people triumph.

Mike Mistele wrote:
We were talking with the "bad guys", and it still wasn't clear if things were going to come to blows or not, when he said, "Eh, I'm done. I shoot the guy", which, of course, started the combat.

When people act like this at my table, I make it pretty obvious that's not the person I'd like to play with it. I think that kind of behavior is worse than an optimizer.

But at least I can count on an optimizer to either play a character that knows when to fight and when not to, or in the case of the 2h barbarian maniac doesn't start combat till they hear "Lets roll initiative". I agree Season 4 is hard, most likely considerably harder without at least one person optimized. I'll agree with you there.

I share your concerns, if Season 5 is truly harder than Season 4, things will get pretty interesting and I think more and more people will be forced to optimize just to live and actually see play in the 5-9's or the 7-11's. Which doesn't really seem fair.

1/5

Codanous wrote:
When people act like this at my table, I make it pretty obvious that's not the person I'd like to play with it. I think that kind of behavior is worse than an optimizer.

I'm certainly unlikely to choose to play with that guy again, given a choice, but (a) that doesn't save the session in question, and (b) at a con or game day, you often don't have the perfect opportunity to choose your table-mates.

Codanous wrote:
But at least I can count on an optimizer to either play a character that knows when to fight and when not to, or in the case of the 2h barbarian maniac doesn't start combat till they hear "Lets roll initiative".

Here I'm going to disagree with you. I've seen a lot of optimizers over the years. Yes, some are wise enough to show that restraint. A lot aren't. Frankly, a lot of the ones with whom I've played seem to only enjoy the combats in the adventures, and everything else is boring window dressing they have to endure to get to next combat. This has absolutely not been the first time in my OP career where I've seen an optimizer (usually a younger player) trigger a fight that didn't necessarily need to be triggered.

4/5 *

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

Full disclosure (and FWIW): I know the OP personally and was at the same local con he attended this weekend. :-)

Mike Mistele wrote:
Chris Bonnet wrote:
Most of my player kills about 90% have been when parties didn't work as a group. One member can really cause pain for the group. The Lee Roy Jenkins player will cause death to himself and others.
Given how badass the opponents were, any trigger for combat would have led to the same result, and I'm not convinced that even my Diplo-monkey paladin would have been able to achieve a peaceful resolution to the encounter.

If this particular combat is the one I think it is, I assure you that you can maneuver your way around it — though it is not easy to do so.

I don't think I uber-optimize my PCs either. My very first (and highest-level) PFS PC, for instance, was wholly and completely outclassed in Feast of Sigils at another convention earlier this year. That table was made up of 10s and 11s; my reach fighter was 8 at the time. (I know, playing up in S4. But it was the only game I had not played in that particular slot, I wanted to play it, and didn't want to sit a slot out.) I had a very good time at the table — in no small part to a table of fun, terrific players and a great GM — but left it with absolutely no illusions as to how non-optimal my build actually was.

At the local game store, that's not usually an issue, because I know most of the other players' PCs and how they play and they know mine and how I play, so the synergy almost always works well. It's sometimes much different at a convention table where the tables can be pieced together by who can play what and where. The fact that it was a four-player table, and not exactly a well-balanced one at that, only exacerbated the problem. And this is the situation in which Mike found himself much of this weekend.

In some ways that's a communication issue (ensuring the rest of the players know what your PC does and how he/she does it); in other ways it's a playstyle issue (being able to adapt and perhaps contribute in other ways when there's someone else who does "your thing" at a table); and in still other ways, it's a player issue (the gunslinger at the Blakros table would've upset me a fair amount, cos while he might be cavalier about his PC, he ain't the only person at the table).

It's my opinion that Season 4 has indeed ratcheted up the difficulty level when compared to previous seasons. There should be risk involved, since being a Pathfinder can sometimes be a life-or-death vocation. On the other hand, we had a quartet of new-to-PFS players walk through the door to this weekend's convention. They each had freshly-minted 1st level PCs and were signed up to play Severing Ties. Um, no. I pulled out Mists of Mwangi and ran them through that instead.

While I thoroughly enjoyed Ties as an adventure, running four 1s through it is just a TPK waiting to happen. I wasn't going to subject four brand new players to that and risk them becoming jaded in their very first session. Ties should probably be a 3-7, not a 1-5. If that's perceived as whining, I'll live with that.

Lastly, at the risk of sounding like a grognard, this part, remembering the days of Living Greyhawk...

Mike Mistele wrote:
james maissen wrote:
It just seems wrong. It seems that the scenarios should advertise what level of challenge that they offer, and then they should let you choose to play the ones that are appropriate for you.
Agreed. It's something that I've seen in some campaigns (Living Arcanis, in particular). The adventure blurbs for their "tough ones" would say something along the lines of "An extremely challenging adventure..." or "A combat-intensive adventure...", which was code for "make sure you're wearing your big-boy pants".

...speaks well to me. It would be nice to have some sort of information about the mission before choosing who goes on said mission. And I would think the Society wold want that too, considering their vested interest in the members' success.

Silver Crusade 2/5

No, it's not hard mode. At least not in my circles. One or two power builds can still break season 4 stuff. The authors don't use casters effectively enough, nor templated builds enough for it to the scenarios to be truly "hard mode". There's not enough opponents with things like power attack or deadly aim that really shell out the dpr. Most of the "deadly" scenarios revolve around tricks and "gotcha!" situations, not truly epic battles with mighty foes.

Scarab Sages 5/5

TriOmegaZero wrote:
Zauron13 wrote:
I think if you have only 4 players, then season 4 is tougher.
Good lord yes, since it's usually mooks that get removed and not the heavy hitters. :)

Actually most of the mangled year-4 parties I have participated have been 5 person tables. There is some sort of scaling for 4 person tables, mooks or fewer hit points or something; but the 5 person table gets reamed.

They should allow a pregen character to make a table up to 6 like a table of 3 can get one to get to 4.

I think year 4 sort of requires you are comfortable with your fellow party members, and in a pickup game like you find in cons and stores, that is something you can't have. They also assume perfect balance, again, the store or pickup not a chance.

Most campaigns claim the number one rule is that the players have fun. Year 4 games does not seem that way to me. If PAthfinder wants games that challenge the hard core, then a way to come back besides making characters weaker (significant gold expenditure is making them weaker because one must buy all treasure) is needed (negative fame? real-time delays in playing character again, something). I know 16 PP gets a raise dead, but 16 PP is by normal figuring 4-5th level and then again at 8th-9th level. Not counting if one spend 2PP for a cure wand early. And of course that does not count the 2K gold to get back the 2 negative levels.

Silver Crusade 2/5

The "heavy hitters" can still be trivially shut down by power builds. Look up Tetori monk. They can grapple and then pin any BBEG and the BBEG literally can't roll high enough to get out. And then the mooks with the BBEG can't get him out either, because even mediocre groups can mop up the mooks. Hard mode? That's hard mode?

1/5

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David Bowles wrote:
The "heavy hitters" can still be trivially shut down by power builds.

OK, but that doesn't get to my point: for players who either (a) choose to not pursue power builds, or (b) don't know how to make a power build, Season 4, even if you don't yet consider it to have reached "hard mode", certainly feels to be "hard mode" for them.

If your solution is "learn how to power build", then my answer would have to be, "if it takes that to enjoy playing PFS, then it doesn't feel like PFS is the campaign for me."


Mike, I used to live in your region, back in the Living Greyhawk days, and I have to tell you, it's the judges.

I don't play as much PFS as I did LG, but I've gotten to know most of the judges in my area, and they just have a different take on how the game is supposed to be played.

Simplest way to explain, all but one of our local judges are trying to be nice. I really miss judges that try harder to be fair.

Silver Crusade 2/5

Well looks look at it another way. If each PC has merely an *effective* build, and can meaningfully contribute to a combat, I haven't had too mnay problems in season 4. All my problems have come with people trying to play up and bringing builds that don't work, ie are *ineffective*.

1/5

David Bowles wrote:
Well looks look at it another way. If each PC has merely an *effective* build, and can meaningfully contribute to a combat, I haven't had too mnay problems in season 4. All my problems have come with people trying to play up and bringing builds that don't work, ie are *ineffective*.

OK. My characters are probably "effective", then. I'd suggest that most of the people I play with are using something approaching "effective" builds; I've seen fairly few who really have ineffective PCs (though their tactical choices may be an issue). We're certainly not playing up in Season 4, but even then, I keep having experiences where I see what the stats are for the monsters we're facing, and I have to say, "seriously??"

1/5

rkraus2 wrote:

Mike, I used to live in your region, back in the Living Greyhawk days, and I have to tell you, it's the judges.

I don't play as much PFS as I did LG, but I've gotten to know most of the judges in my area, and they just have a different take on how the game is supposed to be played.

Simplest way to explain, all but one of our local judges are trying to be nice. I really miss judges that try harder to be fair.

Hey, Rudy! :-D

Help me grok what you're saying...by "trying to be nice", are you saying that the GMs in your new area are softballing more than you experienced back here?

Silver Crusade 2/5

Season 4 still seems follow the BBEG with crappy mooks formula. That makes the formula for each battle similar: AE/wipe up mooks and then grind the BBEG under with action efficiency. As long as every one is contributing, the lack of action efficiency will doom the BBEG.

1/5

David Bowles wrote:
Season 4 still seems follow the BBEG with crappy mooks formula. That makes the formula for each battle similar: AE/wipe up mooks and then grind the BBEG under with action efficiency. As long as every one is contributing, the lack of action efficiency will doom the BBEG.

All I can say is this: in my recent experiences, that's easier said than done. I'm glad it's working for you; it's not working for me.

Even with "everyone contributing", even those "crappy mooks" are hitting hard enough to drop PCs. Or, you have fights with solo monsters, who are good enough to be able to crush a PC or two before "action efficiency" comes into play.

Silver Crusade 2/5

Okay here's another question: do the people you play with not have developed combat schticks for their PCs? Sometimes having someone with improved trip and a decent CMB is enough to complete derail a BBEG. Does your typical group have access to force multipliers like haste? Maybe because I'm used to brutal homebrews, all this stuff seems like second nature to me.

1/5

David Bowles wrote:
Okay here's another question: do the people you play with not have developed combat schticks for their PCs? Sometimes having someone with improved trip and a decent CMB is enough to complete derail a BBEG. Does your typical group have access to force multipliers like haste? Maybe because I'm used to brutal homebrews, all this stuff seems like second nature to me.

I haven't played much PFS above tier 1-5 (my highest level PC just hit 7), and I've seen very, very few arcane casters (or other classes which have any sort of focus on buffs) above level 2 or 3.

I'm playing in an online run of the Kingmaker AP, and playing an archaeologist bard there -- I spend the first three rounds of most combats passing out buffs, and making my compatriots into killing machines...but that didn't really start to become effective around 7th or 8th level.

No, most of the players I'd consider "normal" (i.e., non-optimized, but not hopeless) don't have combat schticks, as you describe them. If I'm able to get players who grasp the ideas of focused fire, not getting in each other's way, and setting up flanking opportunities, it's a good day. :-D

I do suspect that, compared to the environment in which I play, what you think of as "not optimized, just normal play" *is* optimized, in my view.

Silver Crusade 2/5

To me, optimized play is where one or two PCs can do the whole thing themselves. We're talking fighter archers that do triple digit dpr and have ACs upwards of 28. Stuff like that.

I consider effective play is a character that is capable in combat, and won't go down in one or two hits to mooks. They have plenty of character resources left over for skills points and other fluffy stuff, but they also have their job that they do well in combat. Buff, swing a sword, heal, etc.

Ineffective play usually occurs with green players and people who go overboard into roleplaying. "But my guy is sickly and SHOULD have an 8 CON!" My response is "here's your coupon for a discount coffin."

People need to be a bit careful what they spend money on. Martial characters need answers to DR. Blasters need to be able to get through SR. Support characters need to be able to enhance the party enough and help deal with conditions like darkness and z-axis challenges.

For example, my cleric is an immobile brick. He can't make a climb check. So the first thing I bought him was boots of spider climb. This has helped me immeasurably in many situations. I've even gotten up on the ceiling and channeled where stuff couldn't stop me easily. He's far from optimized. In fact, his stats are a bit all over the place. But he's still never allowed a TPK even as a suboptimized cleric. Because I know what action to take when. (And I keep spell slots empty in case we need a remove curse or something.)


I have not played (or read) any of the season 4 scenarios.

Would a player with access to only the core PF rule book be non-effective / a drag on the party / totally dominated?


Mazym wrote:

I have not played (or read) any of the season 4 scenarios.

Would a player with access to only the core PF rule book be non-effective / a drag on the party / totally dominated?

Depends on what your playing. Having more options is great, but some classes don't need a lot of investment or sourcebooks to be powerful. Core barbarian still has access to superstitious for instance, and wizards start strong and only get more powerful with more books.

The Exchange 2/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor

As the author of more than a couple scenarios with a reputation and a fairly avid player and GM...

There are a lot of players out there who just don't grasp the basics of effective character design and likely never will. The disparity between players who focus on optimizing and the players who can't figure out how Power Attack works is *massive*.

I don't feel season 4 requires super-builds, but if you wind up at a table with 2-3 PCs who aren't pulling their weight in any encounters, you are going to have lots of trouble.

I'm not sure if this is the reason you are struggling, but I've seen it quite a bit. I'm not sure there is an easy answer to this.

Anyhow... I wanted to post my own observations and let everyone know that Mark isn't the only one watching this thread.

Dark Archive 5/5 5/5 *

As a player and as a DM I don't think the season 4 scenario are too hard but simply harder... if you play in your tier.

My local group are mostly experienced players and have no *ineffective* characters so my experience could be fairly different from the OP.

With s4, my local group is quite happy of the difficulty offered (and stop complaining to the non challenging scenario ^^)

Liberty's Edge 3/5 *

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I too am interested in to see how effective characters are with limited options. I built a cleric using only the core rule book because that is all I have. I plan on spending the $10 to get the APG pdf at some point, but didn't feel like I needed it right away. But other than that second book, I don't plan on picking up any more. I simply don't have the money to buy a ton of books so I can cherry pick the one or two "best" options from each.

I'm hoping I get a sufficient number of options from those two books in order to make an effective character.

4/5

Mike Mistele wrote:
If I'm able to get players who grasp the ideas of focused fire, not getting in each other's way, and setting up flanking opportunities, it's a good day. :-D

This is the problem then, I think. Teamwork has always been more important than having optimized characters, and this quote, combined with the gunslinger story, indicate that your teams (completely beyond your control) have been cursed with extremely poor teamwork. Teamwork is why the pregens beat Day of the Demon with absolutely no trouble, which your two friends think is even harder than Season 4 (for the record, I do think that there are a few Season 4s that pregens couldn't beat even with moderate teamwork like in that DotD I ran--DotD just isn't as hard). Teamwork can turn even the worst situation into a win.

For instance, we had a situation in a scenario once where we thought we were setting up an ambush via dimension door, but the enemy was a diviner and we wound up in a very bad spot. Now, I brought an archer with high damage, but all of that wouldn't have mattered if the witch hadn't put his main focus on getting his teammates out of the deathtrap in which we found ourselves. Earlier in that scenario, the witch saved me at least a full round of actions by picking me up with his high strength hair and carrying me to a better vantage point. This was the difference between the enemy blasting our two level 7 pregens (in a 10-11) to death who were low and had become vulnerable to his energy type the previous round and me finishing him off. It wasn't because of character optimization (the witch had nice hexes for other purposes, like save or suck, but he was going for teamwork first instead of trying to grab glory with his hexes and taking the risk of failure). Groups are way more powerful when individual members are willing to take actions like the ones our witch took, actions that net you less glory than disabling the BBEG out of the fight or shooting for 100 damage, but actions that are actually more important, and that earn even more respect from me than selfish spotlight hogging ones.


Mike Mistele wrote:

In the combat which went pear-shaped in "Blakros Matrimony" today, our gunslinger PC (played by a young man who clearly enjoyed combat, and might well have been a little bored and frustrated with all of the roleplaying and skill use up until that point) went Leeroy. We were talking with the "bad guys", and it still wasn't clear if things were going to come to blows or not, when he said, "Eh, I'm done. I shoot the guy", which, of course, started the combat.

Karma was served, however, as the GM focused a lot of fire on him, and his PC wound up very dead (he was at ~5 HP when the lead bad guy critted him for ~60 points of damage). Even then, the player just cheerily and repeatedly chirped, "no problem, I got enough Prestige to get rezzed."

Given how badass the opponents were, any trigger for combat would have led to the same result, and I'm not convinced that even my Diplo-monkey paladin would have been able to achieve a peaceful resolution to the encounter.

Sheesh, stories like this make me never want to play a Gunslinger in PFS play. Every other tale I hear with a Gunslinger in it makes them sound like the jerk class >.>

Although we have the same problem with AM barbarians. "Lets talk to the guy for informa-"
"NO I SMASH!"
Combat begins.

Liberty's Edge 4/5

In_digo wrote:
Mike Mistele wrote:

In the combat which went pear-shaped in "Blakros Matrimony" today, our gunslinger PC (played by a young man who clearly enjoyed combat, and might well have been a little bored and frustrated with all of the roleplaying and skill use up until that point) went Leeroy. We were talking with the "bad guys", and it still wasn't clear if things were going to come to blows or not, when he said, "Eh, I'm done. I shoot the guy", which, of course, started the combat.

Karma was served, however, as the GM focused a lot of fire on him, and his PC wound up very dead (he was at ~5 HP when the lead bad guy critted him for ~60 points of damage). Even then, the player just cheerily and repeatedly chirped, "no problem, I got enough Prestige to get rezzed."

Given how badass the opponents were, any trigger for combat would have led to the same result, and I'm not convinced that even my Diplo-monkey paladin would have been able to achieve a peaceful resolution to the encounter.

Sheesh, stories like this make me never want to play a Gunslinger in PFS play. Every other tale I hear with a Gunslinger in it makes them sound like the jerk class >.>

Although we have the same problem with AM barbarians. "Lets talk to the guy for informa-"
"NO I SMASH!"
Combat begins.

I am sorry you feel that way about barbarians, but I can see why you do. Few who share my propensity for righteous wrath are of the same opinion as myself, that all sentient creatures deserve to live their own story, and that every life is precious. I, for one, hope that any means other than fighting can prevail, if possible.


Memory of Dreams wrote:
In_digo wrote:


Sheesh, stories like this make me never want to play a Gunslinger in PFS play. Every other tale I hear with a Gunslinger in it makes them sound like the jerk class >.>
Although we have the same problem with AM barbarians. "Lets talk to the guy for informa-"
"NO I SMASH!"
Combat begins.

I am sorry you feel that way about barbarians, but I can see why you do. Few who share my propensity for righteous wrath are of the same opinion as myself, that all sentient creatures deserve to live their own story, and that every life is precious. I, for one, hope that any means other than fighting can prevail, if possible.

It's not just a feeling, unfortunately. It's my entire experience as a player :(

Every straight barbarian we've played with has done this during the scenario we were playing. If only more of them were like you!

Liberty's Edge 4/5

In_digo wrote:
Memory of Dreams wrote:
In_digo wrote:


Sheesh, stories like this make me never want to play a Gunslinger in PFS play. Every other tale I hear with a Gunslinger in it makes them sound like the jerk class >.>
Although we have the same problem with AM barbarians. "Lets talk to the guy for informa-"
"NO I SMASH!"
Combat begins.

I am sorry you feel that way about barbarians, but I can see why you do. Few who share my propensity for righteous wrath are of the same opinion as myself, that all sentient creatures deserve to live their own story, and that every life is precious. I, for one, hope that any means other than fighting can prevail, if possible.

It's not just a feeling, unfortunately. It's my entire experience as a player :(

Every straight barbarian we've played with has done this in the scenario. If only more of them were like you!

Not all understand the teaching of the Sun Spirit, who your people call Sara-Anne Ray. If they cannot see any other path, perhaps you can convince them to strike for nonlethal force so you can preserve the lives of your foes and at least question them afterwards? If I can avoid it, I never strike with lethal force except against the walking dead or unliving constructs.

4/5 ****

Mazym wrote:

I have not played (or read) any of the season 4 scenarios.

Would a player with access to only the core PF rule book be non-effective / a drag on the party / totally dominated?

There are plenty of cool and effective options that come out of the CRB.

You will still be able to make a cupcake, it can even have frosting, you just might have to "settle" for blue sprinkles while some other players have yellow sprinkles.

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

Mike Mistele wrote:
rkraus2 wrote:

Mike, I used to live in your region, back in the Living Greyhawk days, and I have to tell you, it's the judges.

I don't play as much PFS as I did LG, but I've gotten to know most of the judges in my area, and they just have a different take on how the game is supposed to be played.

Simplest way to explain, all but one of our local judges are trying to be nice. I really miss judges that try harder to be fair.

Hey, Rudy! :-D

Help me grok what you're saying...by "trying to be nice", are you saying that the GMs in your new area are softballing more than you experienced back here?

I'm pretty sure he's saying that your judges are "fair" and simply adjudicate the rules, thus providing a more challenging experience because they don't pull punches the way the ones in his area do.

However, I want to highlight this for a different reason:

Remember the conversation we were having about Fortress of the Nail? I believe your GM enhanced the difficulty. Whether it was an error or not is a different debate. But, how often is your difficulty not merely due to party makeup but due to enhancements/mistakes by the GMs in your area?

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****

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Now, granted, I still only have about 25 PFS games under my belt, but I have played a mix of seasons... and all within the last few months. I have seen early season scenarios that were wickedly tough, and ones that were easy. I'd rather look at it on an encounter by encounter basis.

Probably the toughest fight I have had was in a season 3 scenario, though that was probably actually tied with a season 2 (Temple of Empyrical Enlightenment vs Darkest Vengeance). Day of the Demon was tough, for sure, but the worst there was the "optional" encounter, which would have taken out at least three of us were it not for out cleric blowing almost all of his daily channels in this fight.

Ok, maybe I lied... My Enemies Enemy's final fight was also a total b****, but this one was probably made harder by the fact that there were only 4 of us, and our summoner thought it would be a good idea to muck up the entire room with a summon pit spell. I was also guilty of poor tactics... mostly because I chose not to risk falling in the pit instead of laying down the hurt on the <redacted> which was attacking us at the door.

I think that the scaling for 4 characters still needs to be looked at better, because I've seen some odd ones (really? Giving an alchemist "sickened" hurts him that much?) Sometimes the earlier fights are not scaled, and are tougher than the BBEG.

I know that all of that is really hard to do (scaling, etc). It is often hard to quantify what the extra actions of +2 characters can do...

I'd say that many of the scenarios from season 4 have been more interesting than some of the older ones (The Disappeared comes forefront in my mind). I like the idea of having different challenges, more than just hack and slash. It is this sort of thing that promotes more balanced characters, promotes people to build characters that are something other than combat monsters!

I also like how most of the scenarios are designed in such a way that no single encounter should deplete a well stocked and balanced party... but that during the course of an adventure, they'll be well tested. In The Veteran's Vault, my gunslinger was in serious threat of running out of powder (he did have 15-20 alchemical charges, but preferred to save those, if possible).

Oh, and why is it that most of the rogue players I have seen are the ones most likely not to have bothered to learn the rules? ;)

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Silbeg wrote:
I think that the scaling for 4 characters still needs to be looked at better, because I've seen some odd ones (really? Giving an alchemist "sickened" hurts him that much?) Sometimes the earlier fights are not scaled, and are tougher than the BBEG.

I very much agree with this. Some of the scaling takes the threat level down to non-existent, while other scaling seems to be a non-issue.

Silbeg wrote:

I'd say that many of the scenarios from season 4 have been more interesting than some of the older ones (The Disappeared comes forefront in my mind). I like the idea of having different challenges, more than just hack and slash. It is this sort of thing that promotes more balanced characters, promotes people to build characters that are something other than combat monsters!

I'm plucking this out because I REALLY want to highlight this. We've touched on it a couple times in this thread, that more balanced characters are more enjoyable to play and to play with (and to GM for). Promoting it via this method is an absolute must. And, having seen this scenario (along with Blakros Matrimony and Fortress of the Nail) come up largely in positive ways in a lot of threads, I don't think this is an isolated comment.

Authors and developers reading this thread, please take note.

1/5

Rogue Eidolon wrote:
This is the problem then, I think. Teamwork has always been more important than having optimized characters, and this quote, combined with the gunslinger story, indicate that your teams (completely beyond your control) have been cursed with extremely poor teamwork.

It's a mixed bag. I should probably comment on what I see in play in my area.

I play PFS in three different environments:
1) conventions / retail events
2) home games / one-offs with some of the more experienced players from the con / retail circuit
3) A different, ongoing "home group"

Group #2 generally isn't an issue as far as good / competent players; those games tend to be self-selecting for players who enjoy playing together, and who are fairly good at the game. While the PCs may not have played together before, we're good enough that we get the teamwork thing.

Group #1 (con / retail play) is wildly variable. We have a core of 35 or 40 players who have been con regulars in the area for many years (going back to Living Greyhawk, if not before). Most of those players are pretty good, a few are uber-optimizers, and some, despite playing regularly for many years, still tend to fall into the "effective on a good day / in the right situation" camp.

To that, you're always adding the new players who have just picked up the game, and the occasional players, who, again, tend to be "effective at best". Those players tend to have poor tactics (likely due to lack of experience, or just not having a mind for such things), and while I don't think they're trying to be glory hogs, they don't seem to think much beyond, "my character can do X, so I do X", and they don't seem to look at what the other characters are doing, or the battlefield situation. For example, in "Blakros Matrimony" yesterday, one of the other PCs was a bard. In that now-infamous combat, she didn't use Inspire Courage until round 3, choosing to swing her sword for 1d8+1 damage instead for the first two rounds (and, even then, it was the GM who prompted her: "you might want to consider Inspire Courage...").

Group #3 is a long-standing home-game group (over 20 years together); I've been the group's GM for our home campaign for the past 15 years. About a year ago, one of the other players started running PFS adventures as a "side game" for the group. The players (including my lovely bride) love playing, love creating characters...but, honestly, a number of them aren't terribly "skillful" players. For them, character design centers on the "fluff" end of what their characters are -- I can guarantee you that none of them approach developing their characters with a focus on "combat schticks" or optimization. There's one other player in that group (besides myself) who has any sort of rules mastery, and he's the GM for our PFS games. Even teamwork tactics can be a little iffy with some of these players. They love playing together, and have very much enjoyed playing PFS so far...but my fear is that, as they start to experience these tougher adventures, that enjoyment is going to evaporate.

1/5

In_digo wrote:
Sheesh, stories like this make me never want to play a Gunslinger in PFS play. Every other tale I hear with a Gunslinger in it makes them sound like the jerk class >.>

My wife's primary PFS character is a gunslinger. Honestly, she picked the class because she liked the flavor of the Mana Wastes, and came up with an extensive backstory. I suspect she plays the least-twinked gunslinger on Golarion. ;-)

Dark Archive 5/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps Subscriber

And if they enjoy playing sub-iconics.... then PFS isn't designed with them in mind.

And that's truly OK.

1/5

TetsujinOni wrote:
And if they enjoy playing sub-iconics.... then PFS isn't designed with them in mind.

I'm not sure that I'd describe most of them (at least, most of the players whom I know personally, such as "group 3" in my above post) as playing characters who are "sub-iconic"...but I'm also not sure that their characters are substantially above the iconics in build strength.

And, again, with Season 3 adventures, these players weren't having issues. If "PFS isn't designed with them in mind", then I'd say it's more of "recent changes to PFS has made it so that it is no longer designed with them in mind".

1/5 **

In my opinion, season 4 difficulty is just about right, assuming a full table of six. I wouldn't want things to get much harder.

That is, of course, just my opinion. For someone who wants to play Core only, Season 4 is probably too difficult. For someone on the bleeding edge of optimization, it's probably too easy. I definitely think the rapid proliferation of supplementary material* has resulted in an "arms race," which I find disappointing (but unsurprising).

*Note: I don't believe that campaign leadership has any control over this aspect of PFS.

1/5

Drogon wrote:
Remember the conversation we were having about Fortress of the Nail? I believe your GM enhanced the difficulty. Whether it was an error or not is a different debate. But, how often is your difficulty not merely due to party makeup but due to enhancements/mistakes by the GMs in your area?

I'm still not convinced of that. Honestly, the vibe I get from the GMs is more of an apologetic, "sorry, guys, but yeah, this BBEG / combat really is overclocked".

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

Mike Mistele wrote:
Drogon wrote:
Remember the conversation we were having about Fortress of the Nail? I believe your GM enhanced the difficulty. Whether it was an error or not is a different debate. But, how often is your difficulty not merely due to party makeup but due to enhancements/mistakes by the GMs in your area?
I'm still not convinced of that. Honestly, the vibe I get from the GMs is more of an apologetic, "sorry, guys, but yeah, this BBEG / combat really is overclocked".

Okay. But when you say that you rolled "really well" on a +20 acrobatics check and your GM says "Not even close," when the CMD is 32, at best, my warning flag goes up.

I think you should keep an eye on this.

1/5

Drogon wrote:

Okay. But when you say that you rolled "really well" on a +20 acrobatics check and your GM says "Not even close," when the CMD is 32, at best, my warning flag goes up.

I think you should keep an eye on this.

Fair enough. :-)

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