Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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I've thought a little more about this, and I've got a simpler metric. Instead of calculating APL, just count the number of characters in each subtier.
- If there are more characters in the high subtier than in the low subtier, play the high subtier.
- If there are less characters in the high subtier than in the low subtier, play the low subtier.
- If the counts are equal, do what currently would be done for an APL falling between tiers.
I'm still working on how to handle Tier 1-7 scenarios.
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Frankly, pregens are dumpster fires to be avoided at all costs in most cases. (I guess not Seelah) I'd say around 50% of the PC deaths I have witnessed involved a pregen not being able to carry their share of the load in a season 3 or later scenario. This is particularly true with the level 7 pregens in tier 7-11 games.
Also, players dislike having to keep sheets around they can't use until level X, in my experience.
You know, maybe it just has to so with who's piloting the pregen or what pregen is being run, but I can't count the number of times I've seen a Kyra pregen save a table from a TPK. And I'm talking level 7 Kyra, here. Deepmar, Port Godless, and Fortress of the Nail, to name only a few scenarios that I've personally witnessed. Heck, I've seen Lem give parties the edge they've needed to carry the day. I've sat at a table where Valeros managed to survive The Elven Entanglement, with no other deaths at the table. Without a doubt, someone that's even mildly competent can run a pregen without major incident.
To be honest, I like Baird's suggestion of letting the party decide the subtier. Make the decision like opting in to play hard mode. For the most part, the people I tend to GM for seem to be responsible enough to know their limits.
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How about break out a 1-5 to have challenges based on APL 1, APL 3, and APL 5?
A 1-5 should be survivable by 4 randomly selected 1st level characters without fudging. I think this is a stretch for many mods if the DM is playing honestly. And anything truly at that level will be a cakewalk for 2nd and 3rd level characters.
There is a huge difference playing low tier vs. high tier currently. For a party of 3rd level PCs can be too easy vs. too hard. Could use a middle ground.
We are already figuring and giving out OOT gold, why not just make it a separate tier? Is it really that much extra work?
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We are already figuring and giving out OOT gold, why not just make it a separate tier? Is it really that much extra work?
Yes. It means more development work for new scenarios to add a third subtier. And, it's a huge amount of work to retrofit old scenarios.
Remember how they were going to slowly convert season 0 scenarios to Pathfinder? In a couple of years, they've had time to do one (Mists of Mwangi). It's not realistic to expect there to be that kind of editing on the five seasons of existing scenarios.
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Frankly, pregens are dumpster fires to be avoided at all costs in most cases. (I guess not Seelah) I'd say around 50% of the PC deaths I have witnessed involved a pregen not being able to carry their share of the load in a season 3 or later scenario. This is particularly true with the level 7 pregens in tier 7-11 games.
Also, players dislike having to keep sheets around they can't use until level X, in my experience.
You know, maybe it just has to so with who's piloting the pregen or what pregen is being run, but I can't count the number of times I've seen a Kyra pregen save a table from a TPK. And I'm talking level 7 Kyra, here. Deepmar, Port Godless, and Fortress of the Nail, to name only a few scenarios that I've personally witnessed. Heck, I've seen Lem give parties the edge they've needed to carry the day. I've sat at a table where Valeros managed to survive The Elven Entanglement, with no other deaths at the table. Without a doubt, someone that's even mildly competent can run a pregen without major incident.
To be honest, I like Baird's suggestion of letting the party decide the subtier. Make the decision like opting in to play hard mode. For the most part, the people I tend to GM for seem to be responsible enough to know their limits.
I'm still going with the fewer pregens, the better. I've seen lots of problems with people playing a class they are unfamiliar with in a tier higher than they are used to.
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I played a bit with APL, TPL, and the modified APL (4/6 divisors) a bit.
APL= Average Party Level
TPL= Total Party Level
A 4 person group can have a TPL of 4-44, and a 7 person group can have a TPL of 7-77; I used these totals to play with #s.
The edge cases are what matter: when is a group pushed into mid-tier? when do they enter high tier? APL (4/6) and TPL both push 7- player groups into mid/high tier sooner than the current APL approach, while the impact on 5- person groups varies by season. This makes sense: if the # of players doesn't match the planned-for table size, you are mid-/high-tier sooner than you would normally be.
Note that this can become somewhat scary for season 0-3: 7 level 7 characters using modified APL (division by 4) and the TPL approach described puts group in high tier/ I assume they could still choose to play down since there are no level 10+ characters in the group, but the opportunity would be there (go go choosing one's own destiny).
Thanks to David for a PM noting that APL (4/6 divisors) didn't handle 4 person groups in season 4+ well. Resolving this consisted of continuing to divide 4-person groups by 4 since the scenarios already contain the mods so that they can be played as such.
TPL has a problem with season 4+ and the 4 persons as well; manipulation of the TPL #s might fix this, but right now the party 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 would play down as a 4 mod in season 4.
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Some people mentioned that 7-player tables are a aberration and shouldn't be considered. That is region dependent. One of our stores recently reduced the number of tables they could give us from 4 and occasionally 5 down to 3. Even when we're lucky enough to find an off-site option for a 4th table, we have 1-2 tables with 7 players every week. I imagine we're not the only region with this kind of problem.
So while I agree that 7-player tables shouldn't be a major factor in designing a new system, I want to point out that we can't just ignore them.
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Some people mentioned that 7-player tables are a aberration and shouldn't be considered. That is region dependent. One of our stores recently reduced the number of tables they could give us from 4 and occasionally 5 down to 3. Even when we're lucky enough to find an off-site option for a 4th table, we have 1-2 tables with 7 players every week. I imagine we're not the only region with this kind of problem.
So while I agree that 7-player tables shouldn't be a major factor in designing a new system, I want to point out that we can't just ignore them.
There's a reason I included 7-player groups -- it's allowed and I see them quite regularly!
Just my two cents:
While the system isn't perfect, it is designed to get a broad spectrum pulse on what is the (probable) best fit for a given table. I do not think that there could be an all encompassing system short of a lengthy manual reference guide identical to the US tax table that list every possible variation of legal table size with a subtier next to it. There are also multiple factors to consider such as the total number of players (3 + NPC, vs minimum 4 vs standard 6 vs the should be rare 7). The actual character class dynamic - by the numbers you can prove anything but you give me a table with the highest character (or characters) be a magic slinging type, it is going to be more powerful than another variant of the identical APL or TPL. In my eyes APL is mathematically the most economical solution in determining what tier to play.
With APL - you are comparing oranges to oranges to determine the tier. By this I mean a number that looks like a number identical to the level of the participants level AND looks like a number that is identical to the subtier number.
With TPL - your comparing tangelos to oranges - they're related and they have the similar sorta flavor but not exactly alike. It is my opinion that it seems to add a level of complexity that isn't necessary. I'd also not like to rules lawyer the system to death - in such a way that you have to pay attention to every little factor and subscribe to as Kyle has already said of letting the table determine the subtier when necessary.
The game is meant to "provide an even, balanced experience to all players." This includes the GM - so lets not make determining the appropriate subtier to play an exercise in mathematics. Use APL for what it is - an AVERAGE. When in doubt, talk to your players and let them decide what they want to get into. If you are concerned about bullying then perhaps (just perhaps) you aren't really paying attention to the needs of your players and being the best GM you could be (before the game starts, or while playing the scenario).
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"When in doubt, talk to your players and let them decide what they want to get into."
This is only meaningful if the players have some way to manipulate their APL.
"but you give me a table with the highest character (or characters) be a magic slinging type, it is going to be more powerful than another variant of the identical APL or TPL"
I'll put that up against a pet table. Pets break PFS faster than anything else I can think of. There absolutely should be an adjustment for pets, but that's getting into too much complication and printing issues. So pets just win. Because maths.
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"When in doubt, talk to your players and let them decide what they want to get into."
This is only meaningful if the players have some way to manipulate their APL.
"but you give me a table with the highest character (or characters) be a magic slinging type, it is going to be more powerful than another variant of the identical APL or TPL"
I'll put that up against a pet table. Pets break PFS faster than anything else I can think of. There absolutely should be an adjustment for pets, but that's getting into too much complication and printing issues. So pets just win. Because maths.
Disagree, but that is because you are forgetting that almost every pet class is a spell casting class.
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I'm not forgetting that. But spells are a finite resource. Pets are reserviors of hps, AC, attacks, etc that have infinite duration. They muddy NPC targeting priorities and further tilt action advantage even more heavily in favor of the PCs.
A class with little/no spells and a pet, say a ranger with a booned animal companion, still has a more disruptive effect on the average PFS scenario in my estimation. This is averaged across all possible builds, etc.
I am very aware that there are spell casting builds that break PFS. I've suffered through a game where the PCs and the NPCs spent every battle in deeper darkness. Fun for the two tieflings, but the rest of us were hosed.
But I'm saying pets at least quasi break it by existing. Spell casters have to have specific builds and choices. Pets just show up, have the overpowered animal progression table, and just start winning.
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I find that the barding is really what often pushes animal companions above and beyond eidolons and even PCs in terms of defenses. It stacks on top of the huge boost they get when they get large and its game over for the NPCs. All at the low, low price of a "class feature". Sign me up for that! Meanwhile, my lorewarden cries in her beer.