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Either I and my players are amazing or these scenarios are really really easy.
I admit I don't play PFS a whole lot. I started back again at a Sci Fi Convention recently were I played my 5th lvl Steel Falcon/Paladin. We were in a house defending a noble from waves of attackers. We spent a good deal of time devising defenses, talking it out and building things to help us. When the bad guys attacked we had one party member who is from what I'm told very experienced with PFS. That party member simply ignored everything we had done and engaged the waves directly, alone. And so we had to join the melee to support. We killed them all. Wave after wave. And barely lost a hit point doing it. Bosses lasted maybe three hits. Minions two at best. It was down right boring and a little annoying to see all that time prepping for the battle have no effect.
I played again last night, a pre-gen Kyla the cleric and it seemed no matter what I did every encounter devolved to combat as the more experienced players ignored the "danger" of the situations and waded in and lopped off heads in a couple of rounds. Again...boring.
Perhaps things will get more interesting past 6th lvl, which my Eagle Knight is now...
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I think it must be a challenge in writing scenarios that are of appropriate difficulty for any party. If you write a scenario that is sufficiently challenging for a bunch of well-optimized characters, who work well together as a team, then you will probably kill the four random people who showed up to play PFS at their local game store with three bards and a rogue. If you aim to make the scenario difficult for an average group, then a party with just the right combination of skills and abilities is going to roll some scenarios. I think that's just the nature of making a campaign where anyone, and any group of people, can play.
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The danger in seasons 4+ playing tier 6-7 or above is likely considerably higher than what you have experienced. I will say that most difficult scenarios heavily rely upon monster NPCs, as classed NPCs are usually quite easy to dispatch. Many of the hardest fights involve templated monsters. I do wish there were more dangerous humans and other non-monstrous classed NPCs running around.
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Do you know which season? I've found season 3 and earlier are mostly really easy, and designed for 4 players so any more is unbalancing. Season 4+ really upped the difficulty. Still, depending on system mastery of your party even those can be pretty easy.
Then there are murder houses. If most the party isn't at least well built you can expect TPK's or having to escape. I remember when I first started I optimized, then I dropped my optimization on my next few PC's, then season 4 came out and I immediately regretted not optimizing.
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Venture-Captain, North Carolina—Asheville
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Oh, most certainly. I just wanted to point out that a more accurate six-member Pathfinder party might look like this.
Healer*
Support caster*
Damage dealer
Damage dealer
Damage dealer
Damage dealer
Damage-dealing companion
*The support caster may very well be the healer as well, in which case another damage dealer can be added to the team.
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Though you could equally phrase it as "there's no way to challenge an uber-optimized party without TPKing a well-built one."
I disagree with that.
A well-built party and a min-maxed party will both have their roles covered (healing, tanking, support casting, DPR, etc.), and should be prepared for anything. Which are the two main factors in determining party success.
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Why are Characters Hyper-Optimised?
Well, that's not a question with a short, easy answer but let me throw out a couple of thoughts and see if other people agree or disagree . . .
1. People want their special snowflake to be special, not dead. If you envision your character as the next Batman, or Aragorn, or Lara Croft then it's not cool if you get ganked by goblins, or fall into a 20' pit, or die in some other ignominious fashion. If people can reduce their chance of death from 20% to 10% they will. If they can get it down to 5%, that's better. And some people will keep pushing until they get it down to 0.001%.
2. It's the nature of a game like PFS, where you may get thrown together with who knows what combination of other characters for your next game. Some people will take the approach of trying to make their character as awesome as possible so that they can survive being thrown into the most awkward, incompetent, unbalanced party that could ever be.
3. Optimizers like to talk about optimizing. You are more likely to get mechanical advice from other players (i.e. take this feat so that you can do three more damage) than you are to get flavor advice or role-playing advice.
3b. The internet. There are a plethora of threads about how to maximize class X to be good at task Y. You don't have to figure out how to make the most damaging fighter, or the most blasty wizard, you just need to go looking for what others have done before you.
I'm sure there are many more reasons that that!
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Why are Characters Hyper-Optimised?
Other Players: If someone is playing an optimized character, and everyone else isn't, that one player is going to be able to accomplish way more than anyone else. It's about being useful, and being able to contribute.
Challenge: Building a good character is hard, and putting together one which uses each and every ability to its maximum potential is really rewarding.
Arms Race: Especially at high tier, if you're not optimized, then you'll get murdered. 10-11 is the reward/punishment for dedicated players.
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We were in a house defending a noble from waves of attackers. We spent a good deal of time devising defenses, talking it out and building things to help us. When the bad guys attacked we had one party member who is from what I'm told very experienced with PFS. That party member simply ignored everything we had done and engaged the waves directly, alone. And so we had to join the melee to support. We killed them all. Wave after wave. And barely lost a hit point doing it. Bosses lasted maybe three hits. Minions two at best. It was down right boring and a little annoying to see all that time prepping for the battle have no effect.
There are several scenarios where your preparations actually change the encounter. Mechanically, the more preparations you make, the fewer bad guys get past the defenses to attack you. It's possible your GM didn't explain very clearly (it's an odd mechanic, so the players have no way of knowing what goes on behind the scenes).
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Either I and my players are amazing or these scenarios are really really easy.
I admit I don't play PFS a whole lot. I started back again at a Sci Fi Convention recently were I played my 5th lvl Steel Falcon/Paladin. We were in a house defending a noble from waves of attackers. We spent a good deal of time devising defenses, talking it out and building things to help us. When the bad guys attacked we had one party member who is from what I'm told very experienced with PFS. That party member simply ignored everything we had done and engaged the waves directly, alone. And so we had to join the melee to support. We killed them all. Wave after wave. And barely lost a hit point doing it. Bosses lasted maybe three hits. Minions two at best. It was down right boring and a little annoying to see all that time prepping for the battle have no effect.
I played again last night, a pre-gen Kyla the cleric and it seemed no matter what I did every encounter devolved to combat as the more experienced players ignored the "danger" of the situations and waded in and lopped off heads in a couple of rounds. Again...boring.
Perhaps things will get more interesting past 6th lvl, which my Eagle Knight is now...
Play Bonekeep. Play up. On Hard mode. With a Pregen.
Also, from various reports, this season has been rather lethal so far (I had to save vs 3 save-or-dies on Monday, and the party as a whole had to face 5 in total - and one of us failed it).
Season 5 had its hairy moments too.
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Either I and my players are amazing or these scenarios are really really easy.
This is a very common complaint in PFS and IMO a valid one. Newer seasons being built for 6 players with rules to account for groups of 4 has made a notable impact; however I would very much like to see the option for a "HARD MODE" option to be built into new scenarios, which would increase CR's by 2 over the standard version. Players could be rewarded with a special boon for completing hard mode so they are rewarded for their efforts while keeping them in the expected wealth curve.
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Play #6-04 Beacon Below on high tier with nothing but level 9s. Let me know how that goes.
however I would very much like to see the option for a "HARD MODE" option to be built into new scenarios, which would increase CR's by 2 over the standard version.
I am aware of three scenarios that include a Hard Mode option. However, there is no reward other than bragging rights.
Developer
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however I would very much like to see the option for a "HARD MODE" option to be built into new scenarios, which would increase CR's by 2 over the standard version.I am aware of three scenarios that include a Hard Mode option. However, there is no reward other than bragging rights.
Hard Mode came about just about the same time that the option to voluntarily "play up" for greater rewards went away. The reason that Hard Mode grants nothing but bragging rights is twofold. First, it's supposed to be a completely voluntary option for fun, giving those who tend to wreck other adventures a chance to play something more challenging without having to write entirely new adventures for them. Second, granting higher rewards to those who are already really powerful simply grants the strongest PCs even more tools to be even more powerful. The Ruins of Bonekeep is a special exception reserved primarily for larger conventions. The proposal for a Super-Hard Mode seems to further the "more powerful toys for more powerful PCs" model that I'd rather avoid, even if those toys are just boons.
What if the boon were really insignificant and thus not impact the character's power? Well, at that point players would criticize the system for giving out too paltry a reward. In my estimation, it's better to hand out a gold star and write "[your character] is an absolute PFS rock star" on the Chronicle sheet than it is to try to quantify how much of a bonus reward is appropriate for a super-charged version of an adventure.
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As always, if you really, really, actually want to challenge yourself, try playing with sub-optimal characters.
Ruining a scenario with a hyper-optimized composite longbow archer isn't really all that impressive. Try it with a hand crossbow.
Go to town with a Gnome barbarian (unmounted). Blast away with a Dwarven sorcerer (Empyreal if you have to, but more impressive without).
Often when I see people complain about how easy scenarios are, it's more of a #humblebrag about how their uber-powerful PCs have broken Pathfinder. Or it's the "nuclear option in reserve" which comes out the second they take any damage.
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I would recommend playing 3 more scenarios. Focus on 3-7 scenarios so at 6th you can play the higher tier. Then after 3 modules when you hit level 7 you guys can try the scenario "The Sealed Gate". I am confident you will find this module sufficiently challenging to the point of pure euphoria. 1-5 scenarios are meant to be more new player friendly.
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I would recommend King of Storval Stairs before Sealed Gate. Sealed Gate is difficult, yes, but also a tedium to run and play. And the mission will make little sense to new players. Hell, it didn't make that much sense to us when we played it, but maybe it was the GM.
At tier 8-9, I find Fabric of Reality to be a TPK waiting to happen as well. But maybe that's just me.
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Incident in the golemworks incident
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Hard Mode scenarios for PFS generally do stuff like up the number of monster, give casters extra spell slots, apply Mythic templates, stuff like that.
As for suggestions, all the scenarios David and I mentioned are pretty challenging, you might also want to check out The Waking Rune, Day of the Demon, Fortress of the Nail, Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment, and the Beacon Below. Those are all on the upper end of the difficulty spectrum for their tiers.
7-11s from Season 4 onwards are generally pretty brutal.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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As always, if you really, really, actually want to challenge yourself, try playing with sub-optimal characters.
Ruining a scenario with a hyper-optimized composite longbow archer isn't really all that impressive. Try it with a hand crossbow.
Go to town with a Gnome barbarian (unmounted). Blast away with a Dwarven sorcerer (Empyreal if you have to, but more impressive without).
Often when I see people complain about how easy scenarios are, it's more of a #humblebrag about how their uber-powerful PCs have broken Pathfinder. Or it's the "nuclear option in reserve" which comes out the second they take any damage.
While thinking up characters for our next AP, our home group ended up with a party that has the following:
- no divine casters of any kind
- no ranged characters
- no non-standard races
It's turned our Kingmaker campaign into one of the hardest games I've ever played. It rivals my year and a half long Dark Sun saga if you can believe that. We have yet to find an easy encounter and the GM is refusing to cut us any slack--not that we'd let him. We're having a blast with it and I can't wait to sink my teeth into book two.
While tables of random strangers might not be the best setting for sitting down with the intention of scarfing down a main course of misery, I highly recommend finding a group of like minded individuals and plotting a course for adventure on your own.
Hard mode can happen in any game you want to, just give yourself predetermined restrictions and enjoy.
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Although I do not like the technology aspect of sseason 6 (something I will have to live with), I do like the notion of encounters being written to be more of a challenge. We will still see some harder encounters turn into easy ones due to party make up.
Part of this is due to the notion that you will never fully know who your character plays with from week to week in pfs like you do in a homegame. One week your character carries the group and the next week, you get bored due to the new group wiping everything. This is even more so at conventions. The only difference to the optimal build process I have seen in experienced players is a family that plays locally. They play the same encounters together so the builds are grouped to always play/gm together.
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We're having a blast with it and I can't wait to sink my teeth into book two.
While tables of random strangers might not be the best setting for sitting down with the intention of scarfing down a main course of misery, I highly recommend finding a group of like minded individuals and plotting a course for adventure on your own.
That sounds awesome.
I totally understand not wanting to put the life of your character in the hands of strangers. But you don't even have to make a "bad" character. You can challenge yourself to make good characters using bad options.
The problem a character capable of soloing encounters is they tend to do so.
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Having just reported a module session where all but one of five characters died on tier 3 vs cr 6, I'm finding it hard to suggest people not to optimize too much. Sure, these experiences are a 1-in-20 scenarios affair(the aforementioned Golemworks comes to mind), but I've heard from players who build meat-bicycles that they've had bad experiences and tend to turn it up to eleven rather than risk having another Sealed Gate or Chasm of Screams.
I don't agree with this approach, but can't fault it either.