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** spoiler omitted **
What Jeff said. And we're not even talking optimizing, that's just power attack which is a single feat. As to the rest, being able to do blunt damage is pretty basic, in addition to the low level energy type stuff (various flasks). Look at it as a learning opportunity.
Without having time to go into detail, the scenario was fun and definitely worth playing.
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@Jeff
I think you are missing the point that Medtec was trying to say here so I will attempt to reword it a little and hopefully you will understand as I also had a horrible experience with this scenario. My OP I started to write last night that will go into more detail as to the problem I see will probably hit the message boards Monday but I will tackle this little part now.
Using the 2d6+9 average two handed fighter that both of the Jeffs have put do an average damage of 16 damage. (I am writting this part just so we have our damage out there.) Assuming the party is not filled with just two handed power attacking fighters I will assume that most of the rest of the party is one handed weapon users as can be seen looking at the pregen characters that Pazio has. But for the sake of argument I will give you two characters built the same way so we can pass the threshold.
These two characters would do and average damage together of 32 damage a round. Both of them would have their damage taken down by the DR 10 ADM leaving only 12 damage per round. As the monsters have over 48+ HP this would mean that it would take on average for 2 level 3 fighters that you have given us as an example 8+ rounds of fighting (assuming that these fighters are not taken out by the 12-20+ damage these things are throwing out a round). I say all that because we all know that the enemies we face just stand in one spot and do everything to make it easier for the team like not attacking or moving.(/sarcasm)
But back onto the topic at hand we are talking 8+ rounds of damage for 2 of your fighters to push through this but wait there is more that was still not mentioned. Both of the enemies have a self regeneration and a resurrect other ability they can use once. So now your 8+ round on average just shot further up (Still assuming that neither of these fighters drop from the amount of damage that they can pump out)
What I think you are missing the point at is Medtec was not arguing that damage reduction should not be part of PFS but that the DR 10 (anything) makes it seem insurmountable at the 3-4 bracket but again you know what I would have even been okay with that had the monsters with the DR 10 did not have a self regeneration and resurrection ability leading to undue the little damage they would have been doing up to this point.
I mean imagine it you are these fighter that you have given me. You spend 8+ rounds beating on two monsters to have not once not twice but three time have that little damage that you have caused to be taken away like it never happened. This is the main part that makes it disheartening and makes it feel like a lost cause very quickly.
To bring this all back around I do not think he is saying that there should be no DR at the 3-4 tier but that the 10 DR was extreme given that it was a 3-4 tier. Had it been 5 DR then at least the party would have been making meaningful advancement at that point and thus the regeneration and resurrection effect would have been more then demoralizing as if it was DR 5 the entire team of 3-4s could have been doing damage on average instead of just the two handed weapon fighting fighter or in medtec's example the rogue.
So you say that the team was not tactically sound I say that given just the numbers I have given you using the example fighter that you have given me (that is tactically sound I assume you are saying you are) this is a demoralizing fight for the 3-4 bracket. But again in my example I used two of your fighters for my average rounds so had you only had one of your fighters you would have to double this number rounds making the situation even further demoralizing for the team. Ah yes your fighters that has been doing an average of 6 damage for the last 16+ rounds now will have that little damage taken away three times (that is technically sound) is not going to be demoralized and feel beaten?
But I leave that for you to answer.
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The fact remains that casters and those that rely on attacks from natural weapons are pretty much helpless against hardness 10, (especially at 3-4), meaning that unless you have a reliable source of high melee damage or an archer/gunslinger that purchases adamantine weapon blanch/adamantine ammo, you have almost no way of defeating them. Casters in this case are reduced to casting buffing spells which they should have a couple at the ready at least from scrolls to help out if needed, but if there is no one to buff then...
When you are guaranteed to have solid melee/ranged adamantine damage with a typically balanced party this is great as it gives a group their time to shine, but unfortunately that doesn't always happen in PFS.
Along these lines though, l'd like to come up with ideas of ways for casters to prepare for such things, since they should be able to at least complete the scenario. The things that most come to mind are Enlarge Person, Bull's Strength, Haste, Inspire Courage, Heroism, carrying an extra weapon blanch -though all of these require having someone who can do physical damage. Are there spells available to casters to do direct damage to things with hardness other than Shatter, which only works on crystalline creatures, or the sometime available vulnerable energy type?
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People might be misunderstanding/misrepresenting the healing.
They do have an ability to regenerate, but it's 4 HP/HOUR. They also each have a 1/day ability to heal another <creature> for 4d6 or themselves for 24 HP.
Disarming them, (totally possible, not particularly easy or hard) is totally an option, and one that significantly drops their damage threat.
They are weak against Crits, too, and with a wopping +1 Fort, there is a great chance they will be boned from a crit, even if it doesn't do a lot of actual damage. Also, they are affected regardless of if they save or not, it's just cool or amazing.
There is no tactics given, but the scenario implies that they guard the front door, so it's completely possible that they would not follow the party that tactically retreated (to grab some extra prep items like a potion of Energy Resistance, better weapons, swap out spells, wands and scrolls, etc. . .), or saw that they might not win and just started to run past them?
It's a difficult, but far from extreme encounter, (though for whatever reason seems designed to make the typical Magus shine like they don't already).
Now, that being said, it might be a good idea for the low tier to offer an option to for parties that will have too much trouble to encounter versions that only have Hardness 5.
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The fact remains that casters and those that rely on attacks from natural weapons are pretty much helpless against hardness 10, (especially at 3-4), meaning that unless you have a reliable source of high melee damage or an archer/gunslinger that purchases adamantine weapon blanch/adamantine ammo, you have almost no way of defeating them. Casters in this case are reduced to casting buffing spells which they should have a couple at the ready at least from scrolls to help out if needed, but if there is no one to buff then...
When you are guaranteed to have solid melee/ranged adamantine damage with a typically balanced party this is great as it gives a group their time to shine, but unfortunately that doesn't always happen in PFS.
Along these lines though, l'd like to come up with ideas of ways for casters to prepare for such things, since they should be able to at least complete the scenario. The things that most come to mind are Enlarge Person, Bull's Strength, Haste, Inspire Courage, Heroism, carrying an extra weapon blanch -though all of these require having someone who can do physical damage. Are there spells available to casters to do direct damage to things with hardness other than Shatter, which only works on crystalline creatures, or the sometime available vulnerable energy type?
Let's see:
for arcane casters off the top of my head -
touch of fatigue
grease
ray of sickening
touch of gracelessness
create pit
scorching ray (14 pts average)
not counting feat tricks that allow:
5d6 shocking grasp (17.5 average damage)
5d4 burning hands (12.5 average damage
5d6 rime snowballs (17.5 average damage + staggered + entangle)
and those are just some of the easier ones. There are lots of other boosts to this damage.....
and ways to get spells back, boost spells per day, etc.
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... high melee damage or an archer/gunslinger that purchases adamantine weapon blanch/adamantine ammo,...
adamantine blanch does NOT bypass hardness - it only bypasses DR/adamantine
i suggest archer players get alchemy manual and buy durable adamantine arrows at 61 GP each. (there are also other useful things in that book - like masterwork brewers kit)
I have an archer that did so, and when we ran into a large trampling animated object with reach (with 8 hardness) that filled the entire corridor [pre season 6-game - but it was for lower levels too) - I was able to do damage until my arrows ran out (i didn't buy enough at low level - thank goodness for the camel. (if you read the paragraph above the arrows section it says that bolts, darts and Shuriken can also have these effects.
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Scorching ray, shocking grasp and snowballs would be subject to hardness. So your burning hands is doing 2.5 damage if they fail their save. You will burn through spells waaay before you bring that thing down.
Real Adamantine weaponry would be required at 60 gold per arrow X 20= 1,200 gp: which is around half of a level 3's cash. And you can't buy them in smaller lots.
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I am glad that after sitting and listening to all the post here I have figured out what the sky key is...
It is a two handed Adamantine Great Sword... with power attack behind it of course.
Well my Pally is set for season 6 knowing he already carries this sky key, and it is magic too (Level 6 of course and no where near 3-4). The rest of my characters are screwed unless I am in a party with this mystical sky key in the group.
At least I know before forming any group for season six at least two adventures must be carrying this sky key for true success to be possible it would seem.
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Scorching ray, shocking grasp and snowballs would be subject to hardness. So your burning hands is doing 2.5 damage if they fail their save. You will burn through spells waaay before you bring that thing down.
Real Adamantine weaponry would be required at 60 gold per arrow X 20= 1,200 gp: which is around half of a level 3's cash. And you can't buy them in smaller lots.
Its pretty safe to assume that the Electricity spells/Shocking Grasp would not be halved, and as they deal 150% damage help out a good deal with the hardness, (if not bypassing it at DMs discretion).
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So... year of the two handed fighter?
When has this not been the case? :P
That is the point Jeff... It shouldn't be that way. A product well designed with a multitude of source books to create a fantasy world for people to dream up an imagine a character going on grand adventures should never feel pigeon holed into well I am melee let me grab my two handed weapon and get power attack or I won't be effective.
I mean look at all the stories you read or movies that you watch heros come in all shapes and sizes. So I am guessing following "The year of the two handed weapons" That small character will be out because their damage threshold will be too low.
I would think Piazo would want to inspire people to imagine characters beyond just the two handed weapon medium sized melee character. I would assume that Society would also have that same stance to help foster and inspire characters beyond this closed view.
Sadly it just seems that despite all of these new classes and races becoming available as well as well written source books to add to the pathfinder universe this bottleneck is a stranglehold from allowing people to build more then just a "two handed weapon melee fighter" if they want to build an effective melee combatant.
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Let's see:
for arcane casters off the top of my head -
touch of fatigue
grease
ray of sickening
touch of gracelessness
create pit
scorching ray (14 pts average)not counting feat tricks that allow:
5d6 shocking grasp (17.5 average damage)
5d4 burning hands (12.5 average damage
5d6 rime snowballs (17.5 average damage + staggered + entangle)and those are just some of the easier ones. There are lots of other boosts to this damage.....
and ways to get spells back, boost spells per day, etc.
touch of fatigue - Constructs are immune to Fatigue
create pit - See grease.
The other energy damage spells suffer from the same issues unless they are a vulnerable energy type as I mentioned before.
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Adding my brief 2 cents as a player, I agree mostly what medtech28 and Sigfred has said, therefore no sense in going into my experience. This season is not fun and feels broken and out of place! I'm sitting out this one. Those who like it, I wish the best and enjoy!
Kinda agree feel like season 6 will be a pass for me also didn't care for the 2 6-02 & 6-03) that I played in on Saturday. Glad i got lots of older season stuff to play & run
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... high melee damage or an archer/gunslinger that purchases adamantine weapon blanch/adamantine ammo,...adamantine blanch does NOT bypass hardness - it only bypasses DR/adamantine
i suggest archer players get alchemy manual and buy durable adamantine arrows at 61 GP each. (there are also other useful things in that book - like masterwork brewers kit)
I have an archer that did so, and when we ran into a large trampling animated object with reach (with 8 hardness) that filled the entire corridor [pre season 6-game - but it was for lower levels too) - I was able to do damage until my arrows ran out (i didn't buy enough at low level - thank goodness for the camel. (if you read the paragraph above the arrows section it says that bolts, darts and Shuriken can also have these effects.
Glad my Dm didn't know that blanched arrow's don't bypass hardness or it would have been a TPK in the first encounter. The only other thing the he allowed bypass the hardness was acid splash because he let it, we would have had no one to do damage to the constructs.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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Points noted. It is one of many things I'll be looking into once Gen Con is over.
For what it's worth, John, both of my runs of Trial by Machine this weekend were near-TPKs. I ran it at both tiers, and each was excessively brutal, in my opinion. It easily ranks up there with Dalsine Affair and Severing Ties for deadliness to a new player.
To the rest of the group: I found out this weekend that there is a difference between how you run hardness for objects vs. how you run hardness for animated objects vs. how you run it for constructs. However, I've been unable to find a succinct rules explanation for this. Can anybody point me in the right direction? If there's nothing out there, I may draw up a post explaining the different situations with examples, since this seems to be confusing a lot of GMs. (It came up in a session in which me, 2 VOs and a 5-star GM had differing opinions about how energy applies to hardness. To me, that says that the rules are a bit scattered, at best.)
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It's in the Core Book.
Hardness: Each object has hardness—a number that represents how well it resists damage. When an object is damaged, subtract its hardness from the damage. Only damage in excess of its hardness is deducted from the object's hit points (see Table: Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points, Table: Substance Hardness and Hit Points, and Table: Object Hardness and Hit Points).
Hit Points: An object's hit point total depends on what it is made of and how big it is (see Table: Common Armor, Weapon, and Shield Hardness and Hit Points, Table: Substance Hardness and Hit Points, and Table: Object Hardness and Hit Points). Objects that take damage equal to or greater than half their total hit points gain the broken condition (see Conditions). When an object's hit points reach 0, it's ruined.
Very large objects have separate hit point totals for different sections.
Energy Attacks: Energy attacks deal half damage to most objects. Divide the damage by 2 before applying the object's hardness. Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion. For example, fire might do full damage against parchment, cloth, and other objects that burn easily. Sonic might do full damage against glass and crystal objects.
Ranged Weapon Damage: Objects take half damage from ranged weapons (unless the weapon is a siege engine or something similar). Divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the object's hardness.
Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can't effectively deal damage to certain objects. For example, a bludgeoning weapon cannot be used to damage a rope. Likewise, most melee weapons have little effect on stone walls and doors, unless they are designed for breaking up stone, such as a pick or hammer.
Immunities: Objects are immune to nonlethal damage and to critical hits.
Essentially, it's DR, but nothing bypasses it, including energy damage or spells. Some things, like Adamantine ignore up to a certain amount of Hardness. Energy Attacks normally automatically deal half damage. Depending on the specific material, the DM may allow other things to ignore Hardness. For example, burning paper or a rope will not reduce the fire damage, but cold damage is probably going to be ineffective, and none of those are going to particularly help against a stone wall.
As specific creatures rather than an animated chair or variation on Animate Objects, or as walking piles of stone, clay, etc. . ., they rally should probably have DR rather than Hardness, as they are not really objects in any way, or even object-like creatures.
But truthfully, when I ran it, the big complaints where all about robots and laser pistols kind of ruining it rather than it being TPKish. That, a bit of lack of enemy variety, and some complaints about it not really feeling Blakros Museumish. Sometimes, you just can't go home again, I guess. I did start adding back some of the old flavor though, myself a bit later on.
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I played this last saturday and we did not fare well. Party APL 3,5; Wizard 4, Sorcerer 3, Inquisitor 3 and Barbarian 2/Oracle 2. The last one hits really hard with a two-hander, as barbarians tend to do.
Mission briefing was fun and meeting the curator Nigel Aldain was nice. Then we opened the doors and basically no fun was had for the rest of the evening.
First encounter in a nutshells: We ran away two times, had 80% of daily resources spent. No rage-rounds, no judgment, 2-3 spells left, burnt through over a dozen charges of clw while regrouping. One of our characters had enough money to buy an adamantine weapon. So he bought that and basically it was the only way to hack our way through the first encounter.
Hardness 10 negated our arcane casters damage, the barbarian did do damage, but he was dragged out by the inquisitor after the second try.
So, most of our resources spent we ventured in to save those idiots who keep working for the Blakroses. The lady with the laser gun did not care to listen our diplomancer (I think DC27 diplomacy was mentioned) so another fight that dragged for quite a bit. Our casters had already swapped for magic missile wands and we pressed on. The few fights we faced after that were a breeze and not really worth mentioning.
Some exploring (an ad for numeria-related products really) later we found the oozes and spent our remaining elemental damage (alchemist's fires and acid flasks) to stop them from regenerating.
Only to face a swarm later.
We managed to get the Blakros kid (whose name escapes me) out of the tech-thingy with non-lethal damage. The inquisitor ran out of hitpoints and fell unconscious. The character that was dragging our Mr McGuffin to safety decided to try and save our comrade instead only to realize that he's already dead. Then we ran away to hear that we earned 0pp, 1xp and most of the possible gold. And that our fallen comrade can not be brought back from the dead via Raise dead. Not that it really mattered, he had spent all his money earlier on the adamantine weapon.
Members of Dark Archive proceeded to beat up Nigel Aldain and earn their boons.
Before you start going on about weapon blanches: they don't work against HARDNESS. Adamantine does and it's REALLY expensive.
Before the game the GM apologised and said that he disliked the scenario. I assumed that he was making a joke.
My feelings after the scenario: Since this was the first season six scenario, my motivation is dwindling. I had all sorts of fun ideas for new characters, but I might just turn my gm-blobs to cheesy tieflings that are min-maxed to hell and back.
The premise was promising though, I hope we don't have to deal with these opponents in the future.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Central Europe
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Energy attacks dealing half damage is a property of being an object, not a property of having hardness.
Is it? Now that i read it, you might be correct, but that means that everybody around here including me, has played it wrong...
Honestly i find hardness on animated objects one of the most poorly defined concepts in pathfinder, especially in regard to the whole "Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion" and "Certain attacks are especially successful against some objects. In such cases, attacks deal double their normal damage and may ignore the object’s hardness" thing, which is exactly the wrong kind of table variation in my opinion.
Can we maybe get a general ruling at least for PFS how hardness is supposed to work? With robots coming around and many of them having hardness and vulnerability to electricity I honestly don't know how to handle it as a GM, there are so many possibilities to choose from.
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Energy attacks dealing half damage is a property of being an object, not a property of having hardness.Is it? Now that i read it, you might be correct, but that means that everybody around here including me, has played it wrong...
Quite possibly. you could reasonably (but imho incorrectly) say that a robot or animated object is an object rather than a creature so it has the half damage reduction from elemental damage but hardness itself doesn't do that. But (damage/2) -10 is pretty brutal.
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What about magic missile or other Force effects? They used to ignore hardness, but now I'm not sure...
Magic missle specifically says in the description that it doesn't affect objects. Though BNW's point about objects vs. constructs is one I'd definitely like to see a clarification for especially for something like force, where you might imagine from a physical perspective that it would work.
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Adding my brief 2 cents as a player, I agree mostly what medtech28 and Sigfred has said, therefore no sense in going into my experience. This season is not fun and feels broken and out of place! I'm sitting out this one. Those who like it, I wish the best and enjoy!Kinda agree feel like season 6 will be a pass for me also didn't care for the 2 6-02 & 6-03) that I played in on Saturday. Glad i got lots of older season stuff to play & run
Didn't like 6-03 because of technology or just didn't like it? The amount of tech in 6-03 is the least of the three by far.
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Didn't like 6-03 because of technology or just didn't like it? The amount of tech in 6-03 is the least of the three by far.Adding my brief 2 cents as a player, I agree mostly what medtech28 and Sigfred has said, therefore no sense in going into my experience. This season is not fun and feels broken and out of place! I'm sitting out this one. Those who like it, I wish the best and enjoy!Kinda agree feel like season 6 will be a pass for me also didn't care for the 2 6-02 & 6-03) that I played in on Saturday. Glad i got lots of older season stuff to play & run
How much is it? I'm trying to luddite my way through this year.
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How much is it? I'm trying to luddite my way through this year.Didn't like 6-03 because of technology or just didn't like it? The amount of tech in 6-03 is the least of the three by far.Adding my brief 2 cents as a player, I agree mostly what medtech28 and Sigfred has said, therefore no sense in going into my experience. This season is not fun and feels broken and out of place! I'm sitting out this one. Those who like it, I wish the best and enjoy!Kinda agree feel like season 6 will be a pass for me also didn't care for the 2 6-02 & 6-03) that I played in on Saturday. Glad i got lots of older season stuff to play & run
Low enough that you wouldn't even notice if you didn't know this was season 6.
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As someone who GMed this the other night, I would just add that you also have to remember that every scenario is someone's first scenario. I had one new player playing Valeros and a few inexperienced players. No one was a heavy damage dealer or an arcane caster. They were in serious trouble from the beginning. After their initial retreat, everyone bought dozens of alchemist fires, which I allowed to work. This still was a very challenging scenario for them, but they left happy, and I think we will have a new member for the Society.
Honestly, I would be very interested in knowing how Jeff, or any of the other high-star GMs, would have handled a table like that with this scenario.
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Wolf made my point for me exactly. If you are building a scenario saying "A two-handed fighter can easily muddle through this encouner.", you are assuming that every party has a two-handed fighter. One handed fighter, even stacking strength and with power attack is, at most, 1d10+7 damage. Average damage of 2.5 per attack, with 30% clanking off hardness.
If you have a one handed fighter with power attack, how are they not able to at the very least have some kind of secondary weapon that they can grip in two hands and, presto two handed fighter with a bigger weapon die and 1.5 times strength that easily goes over that damage? It is not. That. Hard. Molehill < mountain.