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I'd like to point out that a lack of GM prep seems as much an issue as any of those. When I hear that GMs are running a scenario cold and the players had a cakewalk I have to roll my eyes. GMs should be studying monster abilities and tactics for hours ahead of time. They should look up spell descriptions before the game starts. Before anyone points a finger at a scenario they should ask "Did I give myself enough time to prep this correctly?".
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I don't know, many of the Season 5 scenarios I've run have had very disappointing combats. My wide literally murdered the BBEG in the Surprise Round of The Stolen Heir yesterday and most of the party was starting to look for fights to spice things up more. It was a 5 person party, (but really more like 4). More DMs would be great, but I'm not sure it would help all that much in a lot of cases. Another encounter was 4 dogs at like 70ft away with directions to attack a random NPC first.
I'm sure it's going to catch flak, but one of the answers might be to rally start limiting a lot of the Player material allowed. Giving a lot less mandatory tactics might help. It might also be very helpful instead of having something like "if you have 4 players, there is one less _____, if you have 6 players, add 1 more ________" to have guidelines that the DM can choose to include based on the party make-u and experience, "for a more challenging encounter, add 2-4 more creatures, (max of 4)".
One final thing I can think of, and I've noticed this a lot more in Season 5, a lot of "vital info" seems to be all over the dang place, rather than where you might logically think to look for it.
As a player, I've noticed a significant lack of undead used as well, but also other common monsters. A lot of things get repeated a lot, (so damn tired of seeing Alchemists and Magus's).
Venture-Agent, Colorado—Denver
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Back in the day (season 1) when I started playing PFS in Denver, a couple GMs would look at the party make up and decide if they should add +2 to all rolls, AC, & Saves for the villians if it seemed like an overpowered group of Pathfinders. Or just keep the scenario as written. I thought this was a simple and excellent formula to keep a somewhat balance to the scenario. I still use this formula for my PFS sanctioned Reign of Winter homegame and it has kept things more balanced than not.
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What I like about Seasons 4 & 5 is the need to listen and pay attention to what's happening. Scenarios aren't all about combat, and too often people point out easy fights as being a failure. Pathfinder is a roleplaying game, first and foremost. Not everyone likes a combat heavy scenario, and not everyone builds a combat intense character.
I played my skill-focused Bard/Ranger through Destiny of the Sands and had a blast. He can handle himself in a fight, but he's primarily a skill monkey and I love roleplaying him. The Fighter in our first session was so annoyed because we talked our way out of one fight, so we told him he could go all out during the next one. He cleaned the floor in two rounds, with little satisfaction.
If you build all-around characters, that can contribute both in and out of combat, and don't focus too much in one direction, it's my belief that you'll enjoy scenarios more.
But if your mental stats are all negatives and you only have 1 skill point a level, you're really only built to do one thing.
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I have had plenty of difficult combat moments in scenarios in season 5, both when running and playing.
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Combat synergy would be a good thing to focus on. More so, then just adding more combatants.
We have seen from the earlier high level scenarios, adding more combatants isn't always the most efficient way to make combats more difficult.
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Even with later scenarios, being scaled for 6 players but being fought by 4 makes for better difficulty scaling than a lot of what season 4 pulled
surprise rounds that killed your party
everything incorporeal
swift action teleporting + incorporeal full touch attacks
More confusion than a millipede dancing contest.
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A couple things:
- Complainers are going to complain. People are more likely to complain about things they don't like than they are to complement things they do like. Just compare the "You know you're in trouble when you sit at the table..." thread to its 3 counterparts. Players have way less positive things to say about each other than negative things.
- The boards are not indicative of the general population who plays PFS. The boards are actually a small percentage of the total PFS population. I know in my region, there are not a lot of people who read the boards on a regular basis, which leads me to summarize PFS news every so often for my region on a medium they will read. The boards are a great place to discuss PFS, but we are an echo chamber of frustrated, dedicated people.
- We are playing a game with wildly varying character strengths. If we set the dial too hard, then we risk alienating the newer players who find the game too hard and never get into the game. If we set the dial too easy, we risk boring older players. Given the wide variety of power levels, it's very hard to write for that sweet spot.
- The scenarios have been moving away from "just kill things" to "use the combats as a tool to help you figure out the scenario." People keep bringing up the disappointing combats in Stolen Heir - congrats! The investigation mod is supposed to have easier combats. That's because the focus isn't on the combat, it's on the investigation. I have never seen a full party threatened by the combats in Stolen Heir, but every party I have seen struggles with the investigation and the final scene. That's where the challenge is. Complaining about the combats in the Stolen Heir is like complaining that the roleplaying in Bonekeep is terrible.
Also, there's a lot of assumptions in this thread that don't hold up. While it is definitely true that some characters can easily get init in the 10-20 range with minimal resources expended, I would argue that there's not enough characters that can get in that range with minimal resources that would require adventure design to change.
Also, I agree that there was a higher incoporeal count in season 4 (I'm counting 5 out of 27 scenarios), but what was the teleporting creature with full attacks and the surprise rounds that killed the party? (Also, by my count confusion was only in 2 scenarios. The only reason why I felt that the confusion was egregious was because it was at a lower level than you'd expect.)
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The typical PFS player:
-Min-maxes their stats
-Plays a Paladin, Summoner, Witch or a Touch-Attacker
-Cherry picks the very best feats out of 10+ Player Companions
-Plays in a party of 6
Then goes onto the boards and complains about how the scenarios are too easy.
You set difficulty when you make your character. The problem is so many of our player base are unconsciously clicking 'Can I Play Daddy?' when they make their characters.
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The typical PFS player:
-Min-maxes their stats
-Plays a Paladin, Summoner, Witch or a Touch-Attacker
-Cherry picks the very best feats out of 10+ Player Companions
-Plays in a party of 6Then goes onto the boards and complains about how the scenarios are too easy.
You set difficulty when you make your character. The problem is so many of our player base are unconsciously clicking 'Can I Play Daddy?' when they make their characters.
Strategy and tactics are really overrated, especially when you control only 1/6th of the party, and you almost can't act when its the monsters turn. The vast majority of difficulty is overcome with your build, not your play. Thats what power gamers are looking to set up to be hit with some crunch. They've (we've?) made their wrecking ball, and they want to see it hit a nice solid brick building.
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It's so important to get to know your audience.
Tactics and monster abilities can do a lot of what is needed, but I agree that when there are parties out there with a high damage/high AC tank out front and two tweaked-out blasters in the back plus a high-efficacy party buffer, it can lead to some crushing defeats for the NPCs.
At the same time, I have run for plenty of tables full of RP-heavy, non-optimized PCs. 6 players at a Season 0 mod can still take a pretty serious beating if the dice don't go their way.
The most important thing to remember is that all of these players want to have a good time. In a convention situation, where you may not know all the people, don't mess with things. If they blow through the scenario, they blow through the scenario, the most important thing is that they have an experience commensurate with other folks who have played that particular one.
There are so many ways to make a scenario memorable that have nothing at all to do with the combats. If your table murders the first couple of fights, and it looks like they are going to keep going in the same fashion, you need to ramp up the non-combat part of the game.
On the other hand, if you are playing in your home lodge, and you have a table of folks that you know, and have played with for years, I think you should feel free to fit the game to their particular style.
Here in my neck of the woods, our high-level guys are optimizing machines whose PCs have played together for 16 levels now. They are an adventuring unit, and no action is wasted. Every buff is carefully planned ahead of time, and consumables/cash are spent with an intimate knowledge of tactics. I know that these guys are there for the combats, so I don't feel at all bad about laying it on to give them a challenge. At the end of the day, I have had a great time playing with high-CR madness, and they have had a great time crushing it while knowing they are one failed save away from disaster.
That said, there are a few things that I do to help alleviate the weakness of some foes:
First and foremost, I use Combat Manager to track combat. This way you can apply (and remember!) buffs and debuffs on the fly. Reminding that fighter he is shaken or the caster that she is deafened can make a big difference.
Second, I use individual initiative for all NPCs. This prevents the whole "all-nine-bandits-attacked-at-once-and-murdered-the-poor-newbie" syndrome. Becasue I am using Combat Manager, it also allows for better coordination. If the NPCs are clever rogues and delay/ready for flank, all the better.
Third, carefully read NPC tactics and environmental effects. How many folks remember to apply concealment in fog/rain/snow/twilight? 20% miss chance is one of the absolute best defenses in the entire game. If the bad guys have low-light vision, and the party doesn't, an archery volley at dusk becomes an ALTOGETHER different animal. Smart NPCs fight smart, and sometimes they run away to tell the boss, which leads me to number four.
Fourth, are the bad guys prepared for the party? If so, those minute/level buffs might already be up. That can shift the balance of things quite a bit. Wait, you say that the party stood outside the door and cast a bunch of buff spells first? Well, did they do so with Silent Spell? because verbal components carry (hush, hush, keep it down now)....
Fifth, keep track of the party. If they cast Shield of Faith in the second fight, and you need a 25 to hit them, then a couple of hours later, they are in fight three, and you still need a 25, make sure they don't still have that buff up. It's surprising (not surprising?) how many players will run through an entire scenario using a printout from Hero Lab with ALL THEIR BUFFS APPLIED! Check your party, make sure they make sense.
Finally, and I will go back to the top for this, whenever possible, know your adventurers and know your scenario. Get a feel for your players, and give them the game they need. Know your scenario, and make it memorable as more than just a sequence of initiative rolls.
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I dont agree with that. I was just using Stolen Heir as an example, but I built my wife's character towards skills and being useful in all sorts of situations. Half Rogue Half Lore Warden Fighter. We had similar situations in The Glassriver Rescue, where the combats where borderline trivial and unsatisfying, which led to players not enjoying the other non-combat portions as much.
Whereas I just played in The Green Market, and the party was literally holding on to the combats by the skin of their teeth. It really boosted the investigation and rp aspects a lot.
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Is combat everything in a scenario? No, not at all. But if every combat you approach becomes a non concern, it could really lead to boredom with the game.
Has every fight you've approached been a "non concern"?
I don't mean to be snarky. "Every" is a strong word. If every scenario you've played had trivial combats, then you've coincidentally happened to pick the scenarios with trivial combats. It happens, but only for so long. I assure you there are plenty of scenarios out there with their share of potential TPKs.
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I assure you there are plenty of scenarios out there with their share of potential TPKs.
*If GMs are running NPCs with tactical intelligence, remembering buffs, accounting for environmental conditions, etc.
**if you're not playing 7-player tables chock full of optimized kill-bots, etc.Honestly, though. If you want a greater challenge, build a worse PC.
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Honestly, though. If you want a greater challenge, build a worse PC.
The problem with that is that then I'll likely not feel like I'm contributing. I generally don't find it enjoyable for combats to be over by the time my PCs initiative comes up. I generally want to feel like I've contributed to the success of the group.
Which means that in a real sense I'm competing with the other characters to some extent.
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Talk to your group, then. Challenge them to build more balanced PCs. Or find other players that match your play style.
PFS scenarios have a huge audience of new folks who show up to a con, and jump into a scenario with either pre-gens or no experience in RPGs. Paizo wants those people to enjoy themselves so they buy the rulebooks and keep playing. Killing them means they probably won't play again. This is the economics of the situation, and will not change significantly.
Similarly, GMs will not be given power to adjust the scenarios, because a few GMs will abuse that power. Just look at the number of "I hate my GM" threads there are. The latitude in terrain and tactics that exists will not make the difference when 6 gunslinger-ninjas all fire a pair of double-barrel pistols in the surprise round.
The ONLY significant adjustable variable in the PFS challenge equation is the PC build.
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In order to make four-player tables the norm, we'd only need a GM/play ratio of 1:4 across the player base. Is "GM once for every four times you play" really that unreasonable?
As an overall average, it's reasonable. But as an individual mandate, I don't think it is.
Some people just don't like GMing, but like playing. I wouldn't want to exclude them from PFS; it's fine if they play. I'd rather the people who enjoy GMing do the GMing, and that the people who are good at GMing do the GMing.
Other people GM more than they play. I suspect that some (many?) of the four- and five-star GMs out there have GMed a lot more than they've played. Myself, if I've added it up right, I've got something like 30 tables of player credit and 31 tables of GM credit, so I'm pretty close to a 1:1 ratio. (I know compared to a lot who post here, I don't play PFS very much given that I've only got 60ish games under my belt and a PFS number in the 30,000's.) For me, the 1:1 ratio is about right.
All that being said, I would encourage people who've only played to try GMing. They might like it. And, if they've tried it and it didn't go terribly well, they should try again; as with anything, you improve with practice, and it might have been random factors that made the first session or two not as fun.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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So, we're getting to the point where about 2-3 times a week on the forums someone is talking about scenario difficulty and how it's too easy. I think it's safe to assume that at this point in time it's not just power gamers and over optimizers that are creating these issues.
Why is it safe to assume that? The people who post on these forums are not a representative slice of the PFS community. They are a skewed representation. They are usually the most dedicated and experienced gamers and, as such, know both how to make good builds and how to use good tactics. The difficulty of Year 4 scenarios was a response to the kinds of complaints you are talking about. The results? Even more complaints, but this time about PFS being too deadly. Given that you are going to lose far more players if PFS is too hard than if it is too easy, I think it is wise to err on the side of easy.
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The last time I saw data on it, I think the forums represented a few percent of the active players in PFS. Probably the longer-term and most experienced players, at that.
When I run games at conventions, I see people all the time dying in scenarios that offer "no challenge" to the optimized PC and experienced player. It is very hard to balance that audience with the folks who want to play PFS regularly. I'd suggest playing modules, actually - they offer a bit more continuity, and they are harder because they were designed for the PCs to level up in the middle, and you don't get to in PFS. Play a module with 4 PCs and you'll be challenged.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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More GMs, leading to more four-player tables.
In order to make four-player tables the norm, we'd only need a GM/play ratio of 1:4 across the player base. Is "GM once for every four times you play" really that unreasonable?
It "seems" reasonable, but a large portion of the player base is either too insecure of their own abilities to GM, too shy to GM, too busy to GM, or too casual to invest the resources needed to GM. If you try to make these people GM, what you end up with is not more GMs, but less players.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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The last time I saw data on it, I think the forums represented a few percent of the active players in PFS. Probably the longer-term and most experienced players, at that.
When I run games at conventions, I see people all the time dying in scenarios that offer "no challenge" to the optimized PC and experienced player. It is very hard to balance that audience with the folks who want to play PFS regularly. I'd suggest playing modules, actually - they offer a bit more continuity, and they are harder because they were designed for the PCs to level up in the middle, and you don't get to in PFS. Play a module with 4 PCs and you'll be challenged.
Combine this with the fact that the average Convention attendee is more dedicated and experienced than the average game-day attendee and you really start to see the problem.
P.S. um...where did all my GM Stars go?
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Strategy and tactics are really overrated, especially when you control only 1/6th of the party, and you almost can't act when its the monsters turn. The vast majority of difficulty is overcome with your build, not your play. Thats what power gamers are looking to set up to be hit with some crunch. They've (we've?) made their wrecking ball, and they want to see it hit a nice solid brick building.The typical PFS player:
-Min-maxes their stats
-Plays a Paladin, Summoner, Witch or a Touch-Attacker
-Cherry picks the very best feats out of 10+ Player Companions
-Plays in a party of 6Then goes onto the boards and complains about how the scenarios are too easy.
You set difficulty when you make your character. The problem is so many of our player base are unconsciously clicking 'Can I Play Daddy?' when they make their characters.
I disagree. Strategy and tactics are only over-rated when one side of a conflict has either over-whelming technology (aka 'magic') or numbers as to make any superior tactics and/or strategy employed by the other side moot. I agree with the person who hinted that it may be time to consider rebalancing the campaign by restricting access to particular feats, magic items, spells, etc. The problem I see is whose going to pay for the person-hours it would take to perform an in-depth review of each of these items on game balance? I doubt that expense fits into Paizo's economic model, especially in a retro-active manner (not even going to talk about the P.R. nightmare that would result from trying to take the candy away after you've let the kids have it for a while).
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The last time I saw data on it, I think the forums represented a few percent of the active players in PFS. Probably the longer-term and most experienced players, at that.
When I run games at conventions, I see people all the time dying in scenarios that offer "no challenge" to the optimized PC and experienced player. It is very hard to balance that audience with the folks who want to play PFS regularly. I'd suggest playing modules, actually - they offer a bit more continuity, and they are harder because they were designed for the PCs to level up in the middle, and you don't get to in PFS. Play a module with 4 PCs and you'll be challenged.
Combine this with the fact that the average Convention attendee is more dedicated and experienced than the average game-day attendee and you really start to see the problem.
P.S. um...where did all my GM Stars go?
My data from personal experience attending cons in both the Seattle and Phoenix areas is that convention attendees that play PFS are generally a bi-modal distribution of extremely veteran players and very new/casual players (people trying for the first time or people that only play once or twice a year at conventions).
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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My data from personal experience attending cons in both the Seattle and Phoenix areas is that convention attendees that play PFS are generally a bi-modal distribution of extremely veteran players and very new/casual players (people trying for the first time or people that only play once or twice a year at conventions).The last time I saw data on it, I think the forums represented a few percent of the active players in PFS. Probably the longer-term and most experienced players, at that.
When I run games at conventions, I see people all the time dying in scenarios that offer "no challenge" to the optimized PC and experienced player. It is very hard to balance that audience with the folks who want to play PFS regularly. I'd suggest playing modules, actually - they offer a bit more continuity, and they are harder because they were designed for the PCs to level up in the middle, and you don't get to in PFS. Play a module with 4 PCs and you'll be challenged.
Combine this with the fact that the average Convention attendee is more dedicated and experienced than the average game-day attendee and you really start to see the problem.
P.S. um...where did all my GM Stars go?
I would say this is probably true for a large, non-PFS dedicated Con like GenCon, where they are set up for a lot of walk-ins and people just trying the game out. My experience is that it skews differently for medium or small Cons, especially those dedicated to PFS, where most people there have at least some experience already or they wouldn't have come to the Con in the first place.
Regardless, even if Cons attendees are an accurate representation of the player base, you have already demonstrated both of our points.
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The action economy disparity is precisely why tactics are important, especially for spellcasters.
Spending the first round throwing up a buff or a crappy damage spell is very different from throwing out control spells. The BBEG needs to immediately do something to limit the offensive capabilities of the players.
Tactics to divide and conquer the PCs are often the only way that a monster has to have any chance of surviving more than a couple rounds.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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So, we're getting to the point where about 2-3 times a week on the forums someone is talking about scenario difficulty and how it's too easy. I think it's safe to assume that at this point in time it's not just power gamers and over optimizers that are creating these issues.Why is it safe to assume that? The people who post on these forums are not a representative slice of the PFS community. They are usually the most dedicated and experienced gamers and, as such, know both how to make good builds and how to use good tactics.The people on these forums are likely to be the most experienced gamers, but I doubt that every table that they run is full of these players.
And while tactics can be helpful, there's only so much impact tactics can have when enemies are constantly outnumbered 2-1 or 3-1. Players at that point in time only have to keep attacking to quickly win the battle.
Tell that to the two PCs I killed last Saturday. In both cases they outnumber the enemy 4-to-1. My experience is that PFS is sufficiently challenging for the casual player. While the pros may not be as challenged by the average mod (though there are a few jewels out there), making it any tougher for the casual player is likely to cause far more harm than good.
My local player base is a mix of casual and dedicated players. The casual players are sufficiently challenged by the adventures not to complain. The dedicated ones realized that the reason that some (not all) of the mods are easy is because they used cracked out characters and/or smart tactics, so they know what to do if they don't like the current challenge level.
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So, we're getting to the point where about 2-3 times a week on the forums someone is talking about scenario difficulty and how it's too easy. I think it's safe to assume that at this point in time it's not just power gamers and over optimizers that are creating these issues. It seems like it would be productive to talk about what we think the potential issues are and what good resolutions to them would be.
For quite a few year 4s and some year 5s I have been in a lot of one bad-roll from multi-PC deaths, so I would say don't make it it tougher (many of them were 5 person tables, but a couple were 6 people)
One thing I see is that a lot of people play with the same set of people and that is a powerful dynamic when everyone knows what everyone can do, and that they might have a widget on their ITS that can save the day. Walk up parties don't have that advantage.
I'd say don't limit player choices, but perhaps those blasting through encounters should take a step back and not take advantage as much if they want a tougher game (I have a character with -6 initiative "bonus"). I hope the campaign never builds games aiming at the high end. Let the blow through gamers blow through them, and those of us who perhaps struggle more have a fun time without TPKs always around the corner.
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Even a slightly bigger group isn't slightly more powerful, its MUCH more powerful. Chances are good you've got one skill type and maybe one healing type in a group along with 2 damage dealers. Up that to a 6 person group and its still... 1 healer 1 skill person and then 4 damage dealers. You've almost doubled the groups damage.
I am not in favour of increasing the difficulty of encounters in PFS scenarios.
Pathfinder Society is now mature, with a large catalogue of scenarios to draw from - which are still (for good reason) sanctionable and reportable.
A change in difficulty level invalidates this large asset, as the encounters are trivialised in comparison to the new, harder scenarios.
It is better for a concerted effort to discourage the playerbase from creating such characters that trivialise encounters and cause threads like this to be created in the first place.
Build your characters so that they ARE challenged by the scenarios; don't insist that scenarios are created to challenge your characters.
When a GM is running a scenario and is continuously having encounters trivialised, they start thinking 'Why am I here?'. This causes burnout, and I have experienced it.
We have a thread where a GM wishes to refuse powergamed characters from their table, with several responses amounting to "suck it up or leave". I contest that a cultural change against powergaming would be more useful advice.
I would like to note that Andrei and Stephen White have (implicitly or explicitly) put a lot of effort into curbing powergaming in their local area (Melbourne, Australia), and it is one of the best places I've played PFS. Continuing a power spiral will invalidate their work in this area.
Apologies in advance for the cross post, I posted this in the "Forbidding Players thread" but felt that it dealt with a number of your concerns, so I will post it again here. My suggested solution to gamers in need of a more challenging game;
Give a "hard mode" that the option should be present (at higher levels at least) for the GM to completely use their own tactics. The benefits in my opinion would be:
1- This would allow players who felt they wanted the extra challenge to get that.
2- The GM would not feel like they were fighting with one hand tied behind their back (which is usually fine if your players are having fun, but if your players are complaining you arent challenging them then it leads to annoyed GMS!) (This addresses your burnout concern)
3- It still limits the game. ie the Tactics can be changed completely, maybe the BB won't cast mage armor when the PCs enter his fortress, maybe he will hide and wait till they enter his actual room, etc. But the details, abilities, monster count won't change so its still going to be a SIMILAR game to most people on regular mode.
4- Final point, it is easy to introduce retroactively, all you need is for guide 6.0 to state that if your players ask for a more challenging game and they are playing at level 5+ then you can ignore stated tactics for enemies and make use of your own. (The reason for the min level is to prevent newbies being dragged into hard mode by other players who are on their 12th character!)(This addresses your concern over trivialising previous scenarios)
I'm not saying this is definitely the way to go by any means, but I think it at least suggests that there could be small steps taken to allow added challenge for those that wanted it while also being reasonably simple to implement (and few lines in the guide as opposed to rewriting the entire scenario) and would affect all scenarios.
Apologies in advance for the cross post, I posted this in the "Forbidding Players thread" but felt that it dealt with a number of your concerns, so I will post it again here. My suggested solution to gamers in need of a more challenging game;Give a "hard mode" that the option should be present (at higher levels at least) for the GM to completely use their own tactics.
I find that the existence of a 'hard mode' is counterproductive: it gives powergamers a 'justification' for powergaming. In organised play, a character who intends to play on 'hard mode' will not always be in a 'hard mode' scenario, playing with other players of similar disposition.
Understandable, but as David has said above basically self-nerfing of PGamers isn't realistic, and they already exist without justification so I don't see that as much of an issue.
Regarding the playing with other players of a similar disposition argument (which is entirely valid) that is why I suggest firstly that it be limited to levels 5 and above (at which point people should be playing PFS long enough to know whether they can "take it"). Also it should be clearly pointed out to GMs in the guide that this option is only valid if everyone at the table (including the GM) agree with it.
Now this definitely still leaves you with cases were PGamers get to a table and cant play hard mode so will be a little disappointed but still, we go from that being the case 100% of the time to it being the case I dunno 50% of the time? (making up statistics is fun). Anyway it was just a suggestion :)
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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From my experience in Warhammer 40K, expecting gamers in general to self-nerf is NOT a realistic solution.
This is an irrelevant comparison. Warhammer 40K is a competitive game. Nobody fights with 1 hand tied behind their back in competitive boxing and nobody self-handicaps in golf (the game has set rules for determining handicaps). Pathfinder is a cooperative game and your opponent is not out to win against you.
Regardless, the issue is not expecting people to self-nerf but rather expecting people who chose not to self-nerf to not complain about how all the adventures are easy when it was their choice not to self-nerf. Paizo isn't going to cater to just the elite players.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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I find that the existence of a 'hard mode' is counterproductive: it gives powergamers a 'justification' for powergaming. In organised play, a character who intends to play on 'hard mode' will not always be in a 'hard mode' scenario, playing with other players of similar disposition.
I find that the existence of a 'heavy RP mode' is counterproductive: it gives role-players a 'justification' for role-playing. In organized play, a character who intends to play on 'heavy RP mode' will not always be in a 'heavy RP mode' scenario, playing with other players of similar disposition.
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It's not an irrelevant comparison. GW explicitly states that the game is NOT to be played competitively and that generals should even agree ahead of time what lists are to be used. GW is relying on self-nerfing to keep their game playable. According to GW, your opponent is not out to win in that game either. In fact, 40K used to have GMs, just like an RPG.
My PCs are mostly in the "effective" range. I can't single handedly dominate scenarios, yet teamed up with 3 or 4 other "effective" PCs, many scenarios are still quite easy for various reasons. The number reason being NPCs are chosen with poor to-hit rolls. This is the single biggest way to make a scenario a joke.
On the other extreme, we have some NPCs that are borderline unfair (harpies), and so one could argue that optimized PCs are hedging against those minority borderline unfair NPCs. I personally prefer more mathematically competitive NPCs over cheap-shot NPCs like harpies.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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It's not an irrelevant comparison. GW explicitly states that the game is NOT to be played competitively and that generals should even agree ahead of time what lists are to be used. GW is relying on self-nerfing to keep their game playable. According to GW, your opponent is not out to win in that game either. In fact, 40K used to have GMs, just like an RPG.
Obviously I am not all that well versed in Warhammer 40K but I had always thought is was a table-top miniatures game with a traditional point buy systems designed to create balanced combats. My question regarding this, however, is: "Did the people that refused to self-nerf also then complain about how easy the games were?"
My PCs are mostly in the "effective" range. I can't single handedly dominate scenarios, yet teamed up with 3 or 4 other "effective" PCs, many scenarios are still quite easy for various reasons. The number reason being NPCs are chosen with poor to-hit rolls. This is the single biggest way to make a scenario a joke.
On the other extreme, we have some NPCs that are borderline unfair (harpies), and so one could argue that optimized PCs are hedging against those minority borderline unfair NPCs. I personally prefer more mathematically competitive NPCs over cheap-shot NPCs like harpies.
As you suggest, a lot of Power Gamers, myself included, build power builds to hedge their bets. Most of the scenarios do not require a power build but once in a while you run into a real tough one, or the group you are with is so underpowered or inexperienced that an average scenario becomes really tough, or you have one of those days where the dice are out to get you. Since you have little-to-no real control over those factors, hedging your bet is a good idea. But if you are power building to hedge your bets then you are aware you don't always need the power build and thus shouldn't be complaining about the easiness of the adventures. Even if you don't self-nerf the character you can still self-nerf how you play it so that it doesn't totally dominate the table or make things ridiculously easy.
Organized play is a Juggernaut. As such, it is far easier for the individual player to adapt than it is for Organized Play to adapt. Sure, if there is a large percentage of the player base that is dissatisfied with an aspect of the campaign, then the campaign should change. But I just don't see the overwhelming demand here. As the OP has stated, he is looking at the 2-3 posts a week that complain about how easy PFS is, but I see just as many complaining about the difficulty of a particular scenario. I also hear more than enough complaints about difficult mods at local game days and conventions. And it is not like Paizo is completely ignoring the ones complaining about easy adventures as they do occasionally throw them a Bone(keep). I am just not seeing the justification for making mods more difficult, ESPECIALLY after hearing all of the complaints about how difficult Season 4 was.
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Give a "hard mode" that the option should be present (at higher levels at least) for the GM to completely use their own tactics.
I don't think the PFS staff should waste much time on hard modes - I would rather they spend their time on games and chronicles for AP and modules. You have to have an entire table in agreement about hard mode - and that isn't always the case - so the couple people or even one that doesn't want to play such either gets pressured to do so, has to leave the table and doesn't get to game, or the table doesn't play hard mode.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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Give a "hard mode" that the option should be present (at higher levels at least) for the GM to completely use their own tactics.
I don't think the PFS staff should waste much time on hard modes - I would rather they spend their time on games and chronicles for AP and modules. You have to have an entire table in agreement about hard mode - and that isn't always the case - so the couple people or even one that doesn't want to play such either gets pressured to do so, has to leave the table and doesn't get to game, or the table doesn't play hard mode.
If I understand what CathalFM is saying here, he is suggesting that 'hard mode' would simply be letting the GM use whatever tactics they think will be most effective rather than those given in the adventure. This form of 'hard mode' would not require any extra work from the PFS staff and would be automatically backwards compatible with all adventures.
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If I understand what CathalFM is saying here, he is suggesting that 'hard mode' would simply be letting the GM use whatever tactics they think will be most effective rather than those given in the adventure. This form of 'hard mode' would not require any extra work from the PFS staff and would be automatically backwards compatible with all adventures.Give a "hard mode" that the option should be present (at higher levels at least) for the GM to completely use their own tactics.
I don't think the PFS staff should waste much time on hard modes - I would rather they spend their time on games and chronicles for AP and modules. You have to have an entire table in agreement about hard mode - and that isn't always the case - so the couple people or even one that doesn't want to play such either gets pressured to do so, has to leave the table and doesn't get to game, or the table doesn't play hard mode.
Insufficient in most or at least many cases. PFS has a great deal of mathematically inept encounters with NPCs sporting very poor to-hit numbers. It's too easy to push them into "only hit on a NAT 20"-land.