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I have come to sincerely dislike the new sub tier system introduced this season as well as the faction mission guide lines.
More often than not I find my tables fall between tiers and at 6 - 7 players. So they have to play the higher tier with the 4 player adjustments. This has resulted in uncontrollable player deaths. Most of you know, I have no sympathy for players doing dumb stuff and getting killed. But this environment doesn't leave room to make the deaths enjoyable. There is a very small window to make the deaths either glorious or comical. I feel it's important to make sure may players have fun regardless of the outcome of their adventuring, and I feel the ability to manipulate poor situations has been stripped from me when a couple level 1, 3 and 5 characters are facing a CR6 or CR7 encounter. This was fine when the players chose to do so as most groups opting to play up where either optimized builds or strong niche builds.
I have also found it more difficult to keep the games within a 4-5 hour window. Last night was a prime example of this. I was running Veteran's Vault which has a reputation of being a "quick" scenario. Last night it took my table of 6, 5.5 hours to complete. The group did not play poorly, but being that most of the players were "out of tier" they simply lacked the damage output to handle the encounters in a timely manner. They even diplo'd through one of the encounters and it still took over 5 hours. Thank the gods, I didn't have to handle faction missions in conjunction with this.
I have also come to dislike how the factions are being handled. I thought it was a great idea initially; giving more freedom to both the players and GM's to see each Pathfinder push for their factions. Since we play and run so many more of the old seasons vs. season 5, most of my players have become unattached to their factions. I even had one of my newer players (New to PFS, not RPG) come to me and ask what the point of the factions was. This was disappointing to hear as much fun as I know I had in the past with the faction hand outs.
I wasn't running into these issues until the Season 5 changes. Is anyone else running into these issues? I'm sure I can't be the only one seeing this and I would love to hear how others are managing the faction separation as well as managing their tables to keep them on time.
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The Season 5 scenarios do seem to take longer. I'm sure that's a side affect of replacing the Faction Missions with more creative material. Can't say I'm against it, but my area rarely has the time constraints I hear that others do.
I haven't noticed an increase in the mortality rate (except #5-05; that's a rough one). Are you sure you're reading the sub-tier rules correctly? I've yet to play or run a scenario in the higher tier with a four player adjustment.
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I have to agree with disliking the "locked" tier system. Its like they solved the problem of playing up twice: once by not letting people do it and once by halving the reward if they did. It doesn't let the player/dm adjust for circumstances (unless the player can tag in other characters to move the tiers around)
Has he gotten to play with any of the new faction missions ? I knew they were greatly diminished but I didn't think they were THAT bad..
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It is good your players were feeling challenged. Would you rather they finished early by running through it without difficulty?
For the more experienced player, it will take some time to adjust to the change in difficulty for playing up vs playing down. There will be a middle ground to familiarize themselves with.
For the new player, it is important to know the importance of factions. This changes from previous seasons in the manner than they are less about what they do but who they are. One must consider who they are, what their motives are. This roleplaying integration is rewarded with season 5 boons. Yes, it seems a little pointless for pre-season 5, however it is still important to incorporate this into one's character.
If you feel you want faction missions, put them in for flavour. Even if you just want certain ones.
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I haven't noticed an increase in the mortality rate (except #5-05; that's a rough one).
Having been a low level character in a group that had to play up in that one, yeah, that first encounter...
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I have been caught a couple of times by a higher level PC forcing a group up, (i.e. a party of 6 or 7 with one character in the high tier). Niether ended well.
See that's just not right. Lower players should never be bullied into playing up. When I bring a high level to a table, yes I want to play them. But if that's going to put us to sub-tier 4-5 with a bunch of 1's, I'm going to see if the others are comfortable with playing up. If there's concern, I'll switch to a lower level. I'll happily play down with a higher level character. But I don't expect lower levels to play up just because I'm a stubborn prat.
(Though if it wouldn't matter whether I played high level or low level, I'm playing the high level! If only to protect the lowbies.)|
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I have been caught a couple of times by a higher level PC forcing a group up, (i.e. a party of 6 or 7 with one character in the high tier). Niether ended well.See that's just not right. Lower players should never be bullied into playing up. When I bring a high level to a table, yes I want to play them. But if that's going to put us to sub-tier 4-5 with a bunch of 1's, I'm going to see if the others are comfortable with playing up. If there's concern, I'll switch to a lower level. I'll happily play down with a higher level character. But I don't expect lower levels to play up just because I'm a stubborn prat.
(Though if it wouldn't matter whether I played high level or low level, I'm playing the high level! If only to protect the lowbies.)
There's no bullying involved anymore, it just drops out of the math now.
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I haven't really experienced any problems with the new sub-tier system. In fact, I'd say it's solved far more problems than it's solved for our area. But our local games usually have 5 - 6 tables spread across 1 - 3 scenarios, so we have a nice pool to draw from when mustering.
As for advice, I would suggest that you explain to players that they need to reconsider the roles for their characters when playing up or down:
A 1st-level Fighter playing a 4-5 is no longer the front-liner. He should be using his bow to take potshots from the back where it's safe (he has a bow, right?)
A 1st-level caster may find themselves relegated to buffing and condition removal. A wand of Magic Missile can also come in handy in these situations.
A high level character playing down may be able to end an encounter single-handed. They should consider letting the lower characters shine rather than carrying everyone on their backs.
If your players unwilling or unable to adjust their playstyle to the changing conditions, they also always have the option of playing a pregen. The lowbies can play level 4s, or the high-levels can seed new characters with a level 1 pregen. If you're dealing with the same regular group, they can alternate game to game and they should even out quite quickly.
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So have the level 5 play a level 1. There's no such thing as not having a level one available because you can alway start a new one.
Kind of.
One aspect of the Season 5 faction missions is that players want their, say, Taldor PCs to play the Taldor-mission scenarios. (There aren't that many chances to do something for your faction; let's not squander one, especially if your PC is in the right tier.)
This isn't new: there has always been pressure to, say, play a series of linked scenarios with the same character. But it is more manifest now.
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There's no bullying involved anymore, it just drops out of the math now.There is still bullying in the sense of "I'm going to play my higher level which makes us play up". And because there's no choice, it's just math, there's nothing anyone can do about it.
Outside of someone deliberately playing the higher level character JUST to get someone smashed in the face by the high tiers raging four armed maniac gorn I can't see that as bullying.
Most commonly someone may only HAVE one character in range.
The scenario may sound perfect for one of their characters (Huh, a slog through a deadly, monster infested swamp... I can bring my taldan pansy... or my swamp druid...)
This seasons new complication: scenario may advance the storyline/give the boon for one of their factions.
Someone may just be in the mood to trot out basher instead of their mystic theurge.
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I appreciate all the comments and suggestions.
We have all struggled with balancing our muster to provide the best play experience for as many of our players as possible. This is not a new problem. Actually a welcome one as it means we have a good sized player pool to pull from.
However, it would be great to hear how others are dealing with the hand they are dealt once the muster is complete. And stuck with a group of 6 that barely fell in between tiers for a season 4 or 5 scenario. How are you keeping pace to finish on time? Are you rolling behind a screen to softball encounters? I'm all for challenging, but challenging normally equates to time consuming. And this is the thing I have lost control of that needs correcting.
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I can comment on this because Ive now had twice lower tier characters pushed up into the 4 player higher tier because of people suddenly changing their character choices after signup to a higher level character. Its been for A season 4 and a season 5. I havnt had any issues running for this bar of course some characters acting very cautiously in encounters.
Ive had no deaths in either but it has come close. I actually do the tier calculation in front of everyone and announce it .. just so people know what is happening. I really dont want a player saying... but I didnt know we were playing at X-Y and not A-B. That would suck. If Im a player I will ask at what subtier we are playing at even If It was organised previously.
I generally roll behind a screen, but do occasionally roll in front of people.
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More often than not I find my tables fall between tiers and at 6 - 7 players. So they have to play the higher tier with the 4 player adjustments. This has resulted in uncontrollable player deaths.
You'll have to do a better analysis than that. Maybe it was a killer scenario to begin with and is overtuned? Maybe the adjustment for 4 players wasn't good (I haven't seen a good adjustment yet)?
If we were still in season 4, do you really think that an APL 3 party of 7 PCs (Ex. Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 3, 3) would want to play subtier 1-2 instead of 4-5? (Just three 3s, 4, 5 should be able to do it). Do you really think that would be fun? I think Jiggy hit the nail on the head, there's too much variation in class levels and no one is handling it correctly.
And with a party of 7 PCs, the action economy should really be on your side, no chance of failing, just a chance of a single PC dying because he wasn't tactical or smart enough to run or to delay charging. Part of the problem with playing up is that you need to play more cautiously, especially if you're the level 1.
I have also found it more difficult to keep the games within a 4-5 hour window. Last night was a prime example of this. I was running Veteran's Vault which has a reputation of being a "quick" scenario. Last night it took my table of 6, 5.5 hours to complete.
Sometimes you get a bad class mix and something makes the scenario a pain, but it's not the fault of the scenario.
Btw, Veteran's Vault is season 4, not 5, so it makes absolutely no sense that you're slamming season 5, especially when it helped speed up your game by removing the faction missions.
I find the speed of play has more to do with the speed of the players and GM than the scenario itself. I've run a scenario in 2 hours before and then the same scenario for a slow group and it took 6 hours. If reviews say a scenario is fast and your group is slow, it's not the scenario.
I have also come to dislike how the factions are being handled.
And I like the way season 5 handled factions when I played. If people can't play their faction without being spoon-fed and hand held, they need to think about what faction they play and why it exists in the first place.
If you're playing scenario 0-4 scenarios, the missions don't exist but feel free to hand them out as fluff or for fun. If your players want a taste of factions, this should encourage you to seek out more season 5 scenarios.