PFS does use 20 point buy, which is above the standard assumption (15) of APs.
But I get the assumption that many people use 20 point buy as the minimum, so they take that for granted.
Or they are used to the 'Roll Stats' method... where you re-roll if anything below a 16 comes up. ;-)
I personally like a tougher game that forces you to play more defensively, and even do things like RETREAT every once in a while.
Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau
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I'll chime in here, My table count is currently 90. In those 90 tables I have had 2 TPKS, That's 1/45. Character deaths at my tables total about 12-15, I'm not really sure. that's on average about 1/6 tables I run(but that's including 2 TPK's so it's really nowhere near that often) I have gained, I say gained not earned, the mantle of "Killer GM" at my venue. And before you sit at a table I run I'll warn you of some of the danger. If you're on tier 1-2 you can expect I am probably pulling some punches and making some sub optimal choices. If you're on tier 3-5 you can expect bad guys to flank, and do some tactics along that level. On tier 5-7 expect the unexpected, I will disarm you if I think I can get away with it, I will trip you and push you off of a cliff. You will be bull-rushed out of a second story window if you give me an opportunity. I do not tolerate the idea that a BBEG has gotten the title and survived to his level without some measure of competence. I'm not trying to "win" pathfinder, but I would do my players a disservice to not play the bad guys in a tactically sound manner that increases the DRAMA of the final encounter. The (very real) threat of character death increases the anticipation and desperation at the table. It's the moments we play this game for, and it makes victory sweeter. I'll take a character death now and again, if only to remind me and the players around me that it's possible.
Just to clarify, is this the tactics listed for the BBEG? Or are these tactics you use after the stated tactics fail, due to the PCs actions? Cause if you are ignoring the scenarios tactics for the encounter completely, you are doing the players AND the writers of the scenario a disservice. Understand, I know sometimes that the tactics used by the players invalidate the prescribed tactics of the PCs; at THAT time, it is completely understandable to use tactics on the level you are talking about. But if they were still valid, then your actions as a GM were unwarranted.
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On your bard, the GM should have resolved the first attack, and if you went down the ghoul should have 5' stepped and attacked the next PC. Taking all 3 attacks and resolving them together is mean and uncalled for imo. Don't play with that GM again if possible if that's what happened.
Your other PC deaths are just part of the game unfortunately. Sounds like you got a little unlucky, although rogues/ninjas tend to die easily in my experience.
I'd invest in a Buffering Cap (2000 gold) and then a Jingasa of Fortunate Soldier (5000 gold). Both are head slot items that allow you to ignore 1 critical strike per day. Yes, they're worth it and are an excellent purchase for any PC.
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On your bard, the GM should have resolved the first attack, and if you went down the ghoul should have 5' stepped and attacked the next PC. Taking all 3 attacks and resolving them together is mean and uncalled for imo. Don't play with that GM again if possible if that's what happened.
This, though it could have been an honest mistake. Most people seem to be in the habit of just rolling all of the attacks at once. It's just part of the rolling lots of dice is fun aspect of the game. I always roll one attack at a time as a GM (and usually as a player), and unless it's explicit in the tactics of the creature (which I've never seen) won't continue to hit a downed character, especially if there's another character standing within a 5' step.
Also, I had a character survive today because I took a 13 con instead of a 12. Just saying. If you have to throw an odd numbered stat in, con isn't a bad one to pick. If I'd min maxed more and left it at 12, I'd have been spending all my prestige on a raise dead.
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Just to continue the thoughts... More and more I feel like the crit system is the most unbalancing thing in Pathfinder. It's gone from double damage 5% of the time in old school AD&D, to threatening 30% of the time with the right build, confirming probably half of those or more, and in the case of things like the Magus, dealing 20d6 with a second level spell. Or dealing 3x or 4x damage with lots of weapons. I get that it provides a lot more options than the old system, but it is going to lead to many one shot encounters on both sides. As was pointed out toward the beginning of this thread, many a PFS scenario BBEG has been downed in the first round before even getting to act by a timely crit. It's the reason First Steps 1 is so deadly, or certain tier 1-2 scenarios where the enemies fight with Picks. I've seen a crit by an undead ogre one shot a 2nd level character in a tier 1-2 well past negative con. Crits are part of the game, but man, I really wonder sometimes if they should be such a big part.
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I was in the same situation as the OP a couple of years ago when I started this thread.
Accept that the 1-shot is rare. Stick with it. I'm happy I did.
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Almost did that today with a bow vs human pally. Rolled a 20, and an 8 for damage before got to confirm, was asked to RE-ROLL it by that twice cursed oracle. Glad he was there cause this was a new player whom first time playing was the slot I played with in the one before. Dont like critting new players but i roll dice in front of people so not like can change it. An interesting conversation though this weekend was having GM rerolls. What if everyone at the table with rerolls collectively called them in to force a GM to reroll? Sounds like a good idea to me. Course Im not the boss so if you read this Boss, what say you?
oneshotting happens... im actually about to start my second pathfinder society character, my first having just completed the retirement arc, and im terrified that my lovely musetouched Aasimar Bard is going to get oneshot before she can afford to pay for a raise dead... but thats just something you have to work to avoid, and hey, if they die you just have to take your lumps and reroll the character.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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An interesting conversation though this weekend was having GM rerolls. What if everyone at the table with rerolls collectively called them in to force a GM to reroll? Sounds like a good idea to me. Course Im not the boss so if you read this Boss, what say you?
If anybody's going to start doing this, would you please let your players know that you're making a house rule? I can see it becoming commonplace enough for people expect all the GMs to allow it. And I can see players deciding against their own best interests not to use their shirt / folio re-roll so that the entire table can still "force an NPC re-roll" later on in the game.
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On your bard, the GM should have resolved the first attack, and if you went down the ghoul should have 5' stepped and attacked the next PC. Taking all 3 attacks and resolving them together is mean and uncalled for imo. Don't play with that GM again if possible if that's what happened
Jason,
This just may be my own perspective but if a hungry for flesh ghoul has the chance to kill someone, why wouldn't it? That's like saying that marinate your steak, but never cook it - and people's is tasty!I'd have had the ghoul spending a round to eat some of the newly dead adventurer if I could have!
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On your bard, the GM should have resolved the first attack, and if you went down the ghoul should have 5' stepped and attacked the next PC. Taking all 3 attacks and resolving them together is mean and uncalled for imo. Don't play with that GM again if possible if that's what happenedJason,
This just may be my own perspective but if a hungry for flesh ghoul has the chance to kill someone, why wouldn't it? That's like saying that marinate your steak, but never cook it - and people's is tasty!I'd have had the ghoul spending a round to eat some of the newly dead adventurer if I could have!
If I was another PC in this party, I would be delighted to coup-de-grace the ghoul who takes the time to chew on my poor fellow's corpse while a fight to the death is going on :-))
A clever ghoul (and with INT 13, most are) will incapacitate as many enemies as possible before killing (and eating) them. It is after all a far more efficient tactic. Granted, if the ghoul could do nothing more useful that take its last attacks against a downed opponent, then it should do so. But I think this is likely a rare happenstance.
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Have people here seen a lot of PCs one-shotting a BBEG (ie, not a mook) ?
I have seen some BBEGs be killed by several PCs' attacks before their turn in Initiative, but I do not remember seeing a BBEG killed by a single round of attacks from a single PC.
In other words, though the consensus is that one-shotting should happen, I feel it has only the appearance of fairness if it is in fact a one way PC-only street.
That said, the lesson I get from this thread is to play a Barbarian with Toughness for my first level in PFS before playing the character I really want to play, just so I maximize my chances of not being victime of the one-shot death.
If GM can't alter tactics to kill a player, what can a GM do to help players survive in PFS?
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Jason,
This just may be my own perspective but if a hungry for flesh ghoul has the chance to kill someone, why wouldn't it? That's like saying that marinate your steak, but never cook it - and people's is tasty!I'd have had the ghoul spending a round to eat some of the newly dead adventurer if I could have!
It comes down to GMing style and it doesn’t make sense rehashing the “Hitting a PC when he’s down” thread. It’s safe to say I’m on the side of not killing a PC if it makes sense for the NPC to do something else.
You can rationalize almost anything. You could make an argument that the ghoul would want to take down as many threats/PCs as possible instead of killing a downed and paralyzed PC.
It’s not like the ghoul has the opportunity to eat atm. More importantly, ghouls don’t like fresh meat, they like it rotting over several days at least. So it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have the ghoul munching right away.
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Should GM's [sic] allow Monsters to one shot players in society play?Yes.
The answer to the original question is definitely yes. The rules of the game are the rules of the game, and the GM has very little control (barring fudging dice) over when a crit happens. It's just unfortunate that it's most likely to be a one shot at 1st or 2nd level (sometimes 3rd), and in some cases at those levels, a crit is a guaranteed death for just about anyone but a Barbarian or a high con D10 hit die class.
But, as Walter said, accepting it and moving on is probably the best course of action, since it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
I'm fine with being one-shotted with crits from monsters. I was playing in a scenario yesterday where I was critted. I didn't drop in one hit, but I did on the next one. Fortunately (blind luck with a somewhat forgiving GM) I made it out alive.
But I was fully ready to roll up another character as the real chance to die is part of the fun of the game. If there is no risk in dying, what fun is that?
However, I have also roleplayed in various systems for a long time (over 20 years). I realize wanting to take it more easy on new players as you don't want to scare them off. Even as someone who has played for awhile, I will admit the recent scenarios I've played in have noticeably been more difficult.
But that's a discussion for another thread.
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Crits happen to the bad guys, and there are even possible builds that make some of those crits much worse than the system was originally designed for.
Consider:
High crit weapon (18-20 range)
Improved Critical or Keen (now 15-20)
Butterfly's Sting feat from Faiths of Purity (give auto crit on next melee hit to ally on same target instead of taking your confirmed crit)
Give high Strength ally a x4 2H weapon to use for attacks after you in order, or make sure the next one up is the Spellstrike Magus...
Lots of ugly crits for a weapon designed to crit only rarely.
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The first part of your post is fine. You're an adventurer, risk is a part of life, you might die.
I have a few issues with the followups.
I'm SO f'n sick of what I call the 'WoW generation'. People who want everything handled to them on a silver platter, but don't want to put the effort forth to actually EARN what they want. I'm not saying that's the case with the OP, necessarily, but it IS terribly prevalent.
Yes yes yes, and back in your day you walked to the dungeon up hill both ways through the snow, and every trap could kill an entire species, and searching the statue was pointless because the dm would just say you had searched its mouth instead of its epiglottis..
Its a game, what exactly is being worked towards?
Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”
If you want to kick ass and take names, you start as a chump. You progress, improve, and learn. That's as a player AND as a character.
Next time? Get more HP's, or don't get hit. Stand behind the fighter. If you are the fighter? Well... bad luck just happens. Sorry.
Hit points are largely a function of level, which isn't under your control (especially your first time through). Not getting hit is sort of a build centric thing, and becomes almost an all or nothing proposition at the higher levels. Positioning can be irrelevant with a large number of foes, and in an organized setting groups consist of whatever drudges walked in and sat at the tab.. erm.. were in the pathfinder lounge at the time. There's no guarantee that there's a fighter to stand behind. In a stop motion game like this there's not much you can do against someone moving into position and then nuking you.
On top of that, some scenarios go out of their way to make it sound like the bad guys are getting a surprise round no matter what. Given the parties effective need to move forward and the tumultuous sounds of battle that really can't be stopped walking into a room with multiple readied actions or a surprise round can be almost inevitable. Surprise round + a lost initiative= toast.
But seriously? Man up. If you DO get a character to level 11 or 12? You'll be PROUD of that fact, for having known that your character COULD have died along the way, but didn't. If you get to 11 because everyone gets to 11, then... what's the value?
Its the journey, not the destination.
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For example? I like hiking. I love a good, long, sometimes steep trail. Especially to the top of waterfalls. It can be grueling, sometimes. Slippery, muddy, difficult, and unpleasant. At the same time, it can be scenic, refreshing and rewarding.
Well, in this analogy, what are you actually doing that's more hard work than what the lazy bums are doing? Avoiding crits isn't hard work its luck. Hiding behind the fighter relies on the luck of having a fighter to hide behind. Without more specifics it sounds like two hikers climbing, one getting struck by a meteorite and the other saying "Ha! sucks to be you! Shoulda dodged it"
I'm 34 years old. The things I say aren't really a 'back in my day' type, because I'm still 'in my day' as far as I'm concerned.
You keep telling yourself that.... :)
Yes. PEOPLE (not youth.. the WoW generation aren't just 'kids'... a lot of them are in their 20s and even 30s) have s&%$ty attitudes (IE no manners). Our youth now love luxury that they don't have to put effort to earn. THAT is my problem.
As demonstrated above, every generation has thought the exact same thing about the generation after it since at least the time of marble pillars and togas. I'd imagine it would go back to spears and and bearskins if any of those 35 year old grandfathers had left any writing...
Not getting hit SHOULDN'T be a build-centric thing. It should be an INTEGRAL part of the f'n game. That doesn't mean, necessarily, having high armor. It means invisibility spells. It means, again, hiding behind the fighter.
If there is a fighter. If you have time to cast. If you're high enough level to cast invisibility. If you're not playing at the levels where armor really doesn't matter (mind you those are also the levels where you can pop back into town for a res)
Sorry, if you make a fighter that doesn't have ways to not get hit? That's your mistake, and your problem. Don't QQ when you get hit.
And in organized play if i made a Wizard... and so did everyone else in the party except the sorcerer?
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I accept death as part of the game. I also disagree with what you are saying. At low levels, you stand a 1/400 chance of dying any time most enemies attack (20 to hit and 20 confirms). If the enemy wins init, charges, and rolls two 20s backs to back (I've done this as a GM), then a first level character will die most of the time.
Is it unfortunate? Yes. Is it really frustrating to get killed by a bad run of dice instead of a choice you made? Also yes. Do we lambast an entire generation for it? No.
I am not an older gamer. I started with 4th Edition, swapped to Pathfinder. I recently retired my main character, who died once to my own stupidity. The person who carried the team during Eyes of the Ten? The youngest player, in their early teens. Lets try to set aside generalizations, alright?
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I was the GM in the case of the OP's first ninja death. A crit on a 10 CON ninja is an understandable death. However, I killed the oracle with a single, normal hit. The amazon woman in question did 2d6+10 damage with *both* hands each round. I had to pause and make sure I wasn't reading it wrong. That's a lot of damage for a tier 3-4 scenario. I concede that the party composition wasn't optimal. The two surviving members ran, but came back and made easy work of the rest of the scenario, thanks to the alchemist's See Invisibility and Create Pit.
This was actually the first time I killed PCs, and still feel a little guilty about it! D=
I was playing when the bard was sneak attacked by the ghoul. I didn't realize the error until I was back home that evening. It was an honest mistake. The GM was and is great. We avenged Jerry, though! And my character learned a valuable lesson about leaving anyone alive >=D
Sorry to hear your ninja died again.
I'd have had the ghoul spending a round to eat some of the newly dead adventurer if I could have!
A clarification: There was a discussion on the boards at one point, and Mike Brock made clear that using coup-de-grace or attacking a downed player is a big no-no, unless the tactics specifically call for it. I learned this the hard way, after a paralysis -> coup-de-grace by a ghoul with no action on my part (my lvl 3 Inquisitor).
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Have people here seen a lot of PCs one-shotting a BBEG (ie, not a mook) ?
I've knocked around a bit with a) a Hellkniwght who weilded a keen scythe and b) numerous magii (maguses?)
So yeah, crits happen to the bad guys too.
Thank you, FB.
I was wondering about the apparent fairness (crits happen to bad guys too) which could mask a real unfairness (ie, one-shots happen more often to PCs than to BBEGs).
Because when I write my module, I can make sure the BBEG has enough HPs/AC/DR to take a single round of attacks (even crits) from almost any single PC and keep on fighting.
I guess the discrepancy between the probability of a PC being one-shotted vs a BBEG being one-shotted is bigger at 1st level.
Actually AFAIK, BBEGs are usually not squishy 1st-level characters in PFS modules. Thus saying Crits happen does not reflect real fairness when the PCs are 1st-level.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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There is nothing wrong with people expecting that their characters will have a reasonable likelihood of survival, nor is there anything wrong with getting attached to a character. Character development is increasingly important in PFS, where we are seeing more and more story-based scenarios. Losing a really clever and interesting PC due to a predatory GM or a crit beyond your control is pointless and frustrating. It's not anything new to be frustrated at an arbitrary decision that has far-reaching repercussions for your gaming career. Such frustration is not limited to the "WOW Generation", as you put it. I also don't get the connection to receiving something for no work. Nobody is suggesting that the scenarios should be made easier, we're discussing the possibility of crits against low level characters. A lack of crits would not make for easy scenarios, just more consistent ones.
Also, as an aside, coming to a message board and then lambasting the average member of that message board is hardly a tour de force of social aptitude.