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This is something that bothers me. I have seen that quite a few times in official publications. There is the Big Bad, a spellcaster with terrible arcane (or divine) power, but when you read his tactics as written, he does stupid things.
Example 1:
The enemy was a wizard who had prepared 2 maximized magic missiles. It was a 3rd Level encounter, so he could have blasted one or two of the characters away with 20 damage (4 maximized 1d4+1 missiles) per spell. But what does his During Combat entry say: "He is cruel and spreads his magic missiles on as many targets as possible to prolong the suffering".
Example 2:
Necromancer with 2 (not particularly strong) undead minions. In his arsenal of prepared spells are things like circle of death. What does his entry say? "He bolsters his undead minions." yeah, right, he has one desecrate spell prepared between all this attack spells.
I am aware that these things are there to prevent a TPK by enemy caster, but it doesn't sit well with me. Why was it designed that way in the first place? If someone doesn't want them to TPK the group, make them weaker, give them different spells and add a second in command who is a fighter or something. But just coming up with some excuse to not use all the deadly spells that are written there stretches my imagination and the believe.
Have you similar observations or is it just me? Did i pick two bad examples? If you know this "problem", what are your solutions (because simply TKPing the group is nothing I want to do. It can happen, but the odds should not have benn stacked against the players)?
Well, thats good for this adventure path then. I'm glad that this is nothing that is done universally.
Are there examples where the enemy casters are supposed to hold back? If yes, do you follow this as written? Or do you change some things?
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Well, thats good for this adventure path then. I'm glad that this is nothing that is done universally.
Are there examples where the enemy casters are supposed to hold back? If yes, do you follow this as written? Or do you change some things?
There are many examples, I recall one insane dwarf wizard in an adventure module. Or a warden of prison with the main goal to capture the prisoners (PC), but changes tactic if he knows the pc have been killing guards to use his most lethal spells.
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I've observed this, but honestly it's not a bad approach as long as the rationale is solid and dramatic.
Even in my homebrew adventures, I will often overshoot CR but plan this kind of mis-step for the boss so I can cut the players a break one round before a TPK. It's just a good dramatic trick. Seasoned GM stuff. For some reason, it feels much more legitimate than fudging numbers, if the character flaw that causes it is believable.
But... not all bad tactics are equally dramatic. I'd get much better mileage out of Example 1 than Example 2.
Of course, if you're observing that the tactics block is not optimal, that is a sure sign that you already know the optimal tactic... so use it!
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Generally I tend to see this with low level encounters that played optimally would be too tough for the average party. Often the NPC is not entirely sane or "with it." Here's an example from an AP:
4th level barbarian, with minions, versus a level 1 party. Should just be murder death. But he has broken equipment, and he's crazy. He wastes time trying to get the blood of his foes. So he hits you once, then tries to touch you so he can smear your blood on himself, which provokes. If he drops someone he spends a round doing a sort of victory dance. Very suboptimal tactics make an otherwise super deadly encounter both possible and memorable.
If you study history you'll see that even experienced warriors make bad decisions in battle. Often these bad decisions are based on incomplete information, personal prejudices, and political maneuvering. Real life fights are not contests between two aloof generals making purely optimal choices, so it makes sense to me that adventuring foes have a range of tactical capability.
Some characters have personality flaws that lead them to be terminally stupid. This is especially common with villainous casters as they often have megalomaniacal tendencies and can't fathom actually losing. There's a reason This Cannot Be is such a common trope.
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The flip side here are that there are more than enough encounters where the big bad is just that. A mixed level group ranging levels 7-11 shows up, encounters the big bad and while every body is marching through the ten foot wide doorway, utters a blasphemy. Now, literally 2/3 of the group are paralyzed for the remainder of the combat while the remaining two heroes attempt to engage the boss and his minions.
Surprise round for levels 5-7, nobody made the perception check to see hidden monsters under the sand. Tank: you're closest and being attacked. A crit, awesome. Now you're grabbed. Remaining monsters process to deal large sums of damage to the group Tank, can't break free of the large or huge monsters grip? Now you're swallowed. Party member gone. Monsters have good iniative and go first, downing another party member. Wizard flees sensing a tpk as the damage numbers on other party climb and the actual numbers of conscious members dwindles. Zen archer and cleric fight on, and because archery is stupid, they kill everything (after some grueling rounds and lots of careful channels and heals and hard work to get the tank-my monk- back into the fight).
That wasn't even a boss battle but our first fight.
Then there are those scenario's where the wizard in the second or third fight casts color spray, knocking out everyone in the group but two, and incapacitating one of the remaining two for a couple of rounds. Then said wizard procures a greataxe and heads toward the nearest unconscious party member with the only guy who can stop him being like your party rogue who is built to use a bow or something and has only an average Str of 12-14 and a dagger.
Or the games where two mummies are in a room accessed by a five foot wide hallway where the tank (yours truly) stands to prevent them from reaching his allies while the casters and archers attempt to kill them through the cover he is unfortunately providing. When the first mummy full attacks, crits, dropping the tank to 0, then five foot steps away so his other mummy friend can get in, crit, and kill the tank...
Point being, there are enough normal and boss encounters that are lethal or really difficult to worry over the ones that are a bit underwhelming. If you make all of those bosses as lethal as they could be, you could just kill PC's outright with optimized builds and tactics. Cleric boss with blashephemy and caster level boosting gear and traits set at an epic level encounter for a variable level party is murderous. You're going to kill the lower level ones who fail the save. Activate an 8th level domain power that debuffs effectively or some such and begin finger of death spam or whatever. You rarely want encounters like that. Too easy to tpk unless the group is full of optimizers then they deserve it.. :D
@Dark Immortal: Sure, there are some nasty encounters out there and it is really easy to kill PC's if the GM wants to (but honestly, a GM who wants to do this is just not somebody others want to play with).
My problem is not, that the encounters I described above are not deadly enough, but that they would be deadly if the villains as written were players and not NSC. Players can be smart and tactical, but the villain as written has to summon d3 dire rats so the characters can swing at him during his full round action... If the wizard was a player, he would blast the greatest threat, then employ defensive spells and act with a lick of sense, but alas, he is an NPC and therefore has to be lobotomised, because the party would die otherwise.
My point is: Don't make the villain caster overly powerful but too dumb to use his power, but make him moderate or even lightly powerful and for this let him act as if the Intelligence Mod of +3 meant something apart from bonus spells he doesn't use. Compensate for the CR with an additional minion or two.
In the game I am running, the second example, the Necromancer is coming up. I guess I strip two levels from him, make his minions a bit better to meet the CR and play him intelligent. It is a much higher threat and more fun this way.
Because it is more important for an encounter to be fun. This sometimes means that they perform tactics to ensure people get to play through the battle. Being one shot in the first round of a battle isn't particularly fun for most groups.
If that isn't fun for you, I suggest what you plan to do and change the encounter.
For that first battle, there are other questions like, "why doesn't the wizard just sit at the bottom of the water pit? He can reside in the water easily." It is for the same reason why he divides his damage, because to maintain some level of fun.
Note for the necromancer. The PCs aren't the only threat he has to deal with. Even if he wins fighting a the party after expending his attack spells, he would still die to the other group of creatures out to hunt for him. They all have damage reduction. As well, the party likely will show off very quickly that they are very near the 9 HD limit for circle of death (which would make them immune and the spell wasted). All the other creatures currently hunting him down are nowhere near that 9 HD limit however. I suggest that he is holding onto that circle of death for the other things that plan to kill him.
One thing that many adventures do not necessarily account for is "probing". The aforementioned villain that spreads out his nasty empowered magic missiles not only spreads the joy of torso perforations - he also finds out who has a shield spell up or a brooch of shielding and who doesn't in game.
Honestly this is for "balance" reasons. Remember, the players are supposed to win together or die together. The vast majority of players want to see the characters they created, both in mechanics and story, live on to see the later days instead of being the one person the Big Bad kills randomly.
Furthermore the less focused the enemy's attacks are the more likely non-optimal characters are to survive and win. If you're against power-gamers then by all means ignore the NPC's tactics—I usually do—to make things more interesting.
To put this in perspective, sending a level 5 Wizard (CR 4) at a party of level 1 characters is an "epic" encounter for them CR wise. However, if he uses Fireball against them then 5d6 averages to 21 damage, meaning that on a failed save you have an either dead or incapacitated player character. Add onto this that he likely has 26 HP minimum and you have another big problem in that he is likely to survive long enough to follow the first fireball with a second one to kill the party.
Now ask yourself a very important question: will your players look at this as a "good, well designed encounter with an enemy they might be able to defeat on a good day or as you being a jerk and putting them in an impossible fight?"
See my previous comment about how players like to ~Win and you'll see there is only one way that is going. Add into that the ability for the Wizard to cast invisibility on himself and then for 5 minutes spam summoning spells on the players without them having any real retort aside from foul language.
In short, enemies make bad decisions because enemies are not needed to be optimal, but are required to be interesting. Clerics work best at healing when the damage is spread around, therefore you want to design in such a way that such things are inevitable. Have you noticed how many BIG enemies will have stuff like Cleave, Awesome Blow or Overrun? A PC attacks, gets knocked away, next PC is in danger, the monster cleaves through unarmored PCs to ensure damage, or the monster simply tries to run over the frontliners to get at the squishy caster in the back. These are, generally, crappy tactics that end up with monsters in terrible situations. Furthermore a CR 9 encounter can be 16 level 2 NPC Sorcerers (orc bloodline) who all spam Magic Missile dealing on average 72 damage (16d4+16+16) and then ray spells after their level 1 spells are expended.
It is easy to kill a party, any fourth-rate GM can do that, but it is extremely difficult to give them a challenge they feel is entirely exciting, fair, and fun. You want Difficult = Fun, which in party terms means they barely scrape by while being unsure that they will succeed while also confident in their abilities to achieve victory.
For the same reason the bad guy ties up the good guy above a pool of sharks and slowly lowers him in while going off to do other dastardly deeds, rather than just shoot him on the spot.
Or even Sea Bass can work! Remember to give Villains a large measure of hubris, and nothing, regardless of how impractical or unreasonable is beyond them.
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@Blazej: You have a very good point about the Necromancer, I didn't think of that. If this was spelled out as a reason for his tactics, I wouldn't have any problem.
@Turin the Mad: Probing is a good reason for this, but not with maximized magic missiles.
@Taku Ooka Nin: It seems you misunderstand me. It is not that Difficult = Fun (although curve stomping every encounter gets old soon). I don't want to kill the PCs. I want to give them a challenging and fun encounter with a belivable enemy. If everytime, they face someone stronger than them, this person has quirks so they do not kill them, it gets unbelivable soon. "So the Warlord was crazy, the wizard underestimated us and gave us the first round... are quirks a byproduct of evil?"
Again, my argument is not: The wizard has the TPK spell - so he should use it.
Instead it is: So, the wizard has the TPK spell and will not use it - why give him that spell in the first place? Make him weaker, drop the TPK spell, so the players feel good about themselves, because they defeated a dangerous and clever foe (who was actually nerfed but used his weaker abilities better).
I think it gives the party a better sense of accomplishment if the enemies are dangerous (or seem that way, I'm not out to kill the PCs), than they used the obvious quirk or the oh-no-my-one-weakness-was hubris-factor. It might be fun once in a while to play a snobby caster or something similar, but if every caster encounter is only survived because the caster was an idiot, I don't it is believable.
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This is a problem primarily for the DM, rather than the players. The players aren't privy to the NPC's stats so they won't know the difference (generally) between what the NPC could do and what the NPC actually does.
There are, in my view, legitimate reasons for NPCs not to optimise their attacks due to personality quirks - it's called roleplaying, and the DM has to do it as well as the PCs. Some NPCs won't be intelligent enough, or won't be wise enough to do what is most appropriate to swiftly obliterate the party. Also, the DM has pretty much perfect knowledge of the situation, including the abilities of the PCs, which an NPC actually wouldn't in a real situation. It is easy for a DM to determine how to kill the PCs, but for the NPC this is likely the first (and last) time he meets them. And NPCs may also not wish to nova on PCs if they have potential concerns about conserving spells and powers - after all, eve if the DM knows that there isn't anyone else coming, does the NPC?
It also depends on the extent to which one sees the game as a means to perfect one's craft in game terms, otimising offnsive potential, or to represent real living people who are capable of making bad decisions. Of course, these is nothing that says that one has to be sub-optimal in order to roleplay well. But on the other hand, it certainly can end up that way. Most players would balk at imposing something like that on themselves, but it is legitimate for NPCs (provided it isn't overused).
In the end, this is a slightly more sophisticated version of "Do you fudge to save the PCs". But NPCs doing dumb stuff in combat is, arguably, a tool in the DM's arsenal to bring to bear for both roleplaying and characterisation as well as for mechanical reasons.
Consider, for example, the ending of the film The Vikings (which I'm sure most of us have probably seen) where Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis are fighting it out on the top of a castle. Kirk has Tony on his back and raises his sword to plant the killing blow. But he has also just been told that Tony is his half-brother. He pauses, weapon raised, and stares at him for a moment. As he hesitates, Tony stabs and kills him, then turns to Janet Leigh and says something like, "Why didn't he strike?" Now, that's far from optimal behaviour from a game perspective, but it's seriously dramatic storytelling. That also has pride of place in RPGs as well as optimisation. Life isn't like chess.
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My point is: Don't make the villain caster overly powerful but too dumb to use his power, but make him moderate or even lightly powerful and for this let him act as if the Intelligence Mod of +3 meant something apart from bonus spells he doesn't use. Compensate for the CR with an additional minion or two.
In the game I am running, the second example, the Necromancer is coming up. I guess I strip two levels from him, make his minions a bit better to meet the CR and play him intelligent. It is a much higher threat and more fun this way.
It's all about having options during the actual execution.
CR is nice for ballparking and narrowing down choices out of the bestiary, but it is not very reliable for creating a dramatic challenge. For that you need detailed party knowledge and expert system mastery.
In a lot of cases, it's just easier to use something that's a little overpowered and nerf it through roleplay. Unlike your above quote, you don't have to "guess right" and hit the CR target -- if in the middle of the fight you realize that this is way too easy (and therefore lacking drama and creating boredom) you can reach for that optimal tool.
When this actually happens, it is often a better gameplay experience than a dead-on challenge planned from the beginning.
Additionally, many adventures are designed so that you don't know what strength the party will be at when they hit the boss. So if you're the kind of guy who is inclined to let them creatively skip a bunch of challenges because they had great plans, you can just ignore the character flaw and make the villain a proper challenge.
It's flexibility. You have the reasons to let the player win, and the power to defeat them, and it's very nice to be able to choose a balance between the two while the scene is actually playing out, instead of in your notes the week before the game. (Not that I don't try to get it in prep, it's just that redundant calibrations give me EVEN MORE CONTROL)
Lack of intelligence isn't the only character flaw that can lead to a slight tactical advantage for the opposition. Hubris is often found in towering intellects, and I play that card pretty durng often when I'm behind the GM screen. I would never take a high Int or Wiz and let them lose simply by being buffoonish.
As an aside, I think the hubris thing might be a bit overused. If you have a high INT, low WIS character, then fine. But I find it hard to believe an NPC with a high WIS would be doing the hubris thing, cos it ain't wise.
My feelings as well... but I tend not to shy away from cliche when running Pathfinder.
A high Wisdom NPC could easily be holding their best stuff in reserve, in case of reinforcments. But honestly, if anyone is going to play the optimal moves it will be mid-high Int and high Wis. Thankfully, such NPCs are rare as unicorns.
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Generally, when I run a legitimate dangerous encounter like something with average int but tons of raw power or a seasoned fighter, brilliant wizard or master monk, I will definitely give some form of in or out of character hints and warnings. These are usually my story bosses, campaign enders or someone who is just really worth being tpk'd over. I build them as PC's and play them as PC's so they'll single out a guy and kill him if that is optimal. My groups usually (but not always) catch the hints and come in ready for the fights of their lives (and people die maybe half the time).
Everything else I do what is needed to keep the encounters more in line with their abilities, though I run gritty games and most of my encounters are just harder than normal by default.
I have seen it a few times. Yes I also sometimes find it irritating. But if I can ignore it, it doesn't usually affect play because the players don't know what he could have done that was so much better. (Of course there have been a few that were so obvious that the players are like "Well that was stupid!" I usually try to rewrite those.)
I have seen publications where a reason for some of the bad tactics were given.
Do PC's always nova all their best and baddest on the first encounter. Especially if it doesn't look that bad? No, most don't. They might find themselves in a worse fight later in the day and need some of those best and baddest.
So maybe the NPC doesn't think the PC's are really all that tough and expects to have need of his spells later.
Maybe like others have said he is crazy.
Maybe he is just prejudiced. (No one that is not a Nagaji could possibly be a true threat to a Great One such as myself.)
Maybe he is stalling for the guards to arrive and take them captive (he doesn't realize the PC's already killed the guards).
If not present, I sometimes make up reasons like this for myself instead of re-writing the encounters.
I don't know if it is true, but I have been told, the authors put craptastic tactics in so that an inexperience group/GM doesn't have a horrible game. But an experienced GM with veteran players, has right in front of him the dangerous opponent with dangerous spells that he can use on a group that has a chance to survive it. {shrug}
As previously mentioned, if you're noticing the problem the solution is at hand.
