Unpleasant Encounters


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Hey paizo, was hoping you could help me out
I was having an argument with a fellow gm and wanted to get some general opinions

Do you think its okay to have a 4 man party of lvl 2 characters face a CR10 vampire for the sake of story and why to your answer.

Hopin this helps settle the debate thanks, and if any other informations needed feel free to ask :)


???

You're asking for just an opinion. No opinion ever settled a debate. Ever. This debate will never be settled, and certainly not by Paizo.

As for my opinion, sure, "for the sake of story" anything is fair game, as long as it makes for a good story. Encounter colossal dragons, demon lords, liches, mythic characters, gods, whatever - even CR10 vampires. As long as it's for story it should be just fine.

One of my favorite campaigns (adventure paths but they didn't call it that back when it came out) has the level 3 party encounter a beholder with a succubus companion. I've run that encounter 3 times and all three groups of players ate it up. Good fun.


As a player I would recognize that combat was not going to be successful, and try using social skills.


Yeah, I think it's fair game as long as the players have other options besides fighting it to come away from the encounter. In the Skull & Shackles AP, players start out on a boat captained by an unfriendly NPC that they couldn't hope to touch in combat and need to work around him and survive by his rules until much later. So I guess, in that respect, Paizo tacitly thinks that this scenario is totally acceptable since they use it in at least one published adventure.

On the other hand, setting up a situation where a powerful NPC comes at the PCs swinging and there is no alternative but to stand and fight and die for the story, it's obviously going to be controversial at best and considered unfair at worst by most players. If that's the debate, no I can't think of anyone supporting that position.


Some players believe that a GM has a responsibility to only introduce challenges that the party is capable of overcoming. Some players will talk to "monsters", and others see only "us" and "them" once minis are set on the map - no middle ground. I could go on, but you will need the learn the play style of your group, and changes to their attitude towards combat will more likely occur if you talk to them about what you would like to change.


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In order for it to be fair, the GM needs to find a way to communicate to the players that they aren't supposed to fight the enemy. Walking through a dungeon full of skeletons, kicking down a door, and finding a Vampire as level 2 PCs isn't fair. Getting a request from the village elders to go up to the baron's creepy manor and ask him to intercede with the duke for a temporary reprieve in their taxes because they've had a horrible harvest due to a drought, and finding out the baron is a vampire? That's fair.

If you want level 2 PCs to fight a CR 10 anything? No, that's not fair. It might be "realistic" because vampires are always running into low level schlubs, but it's not fair because the PCs are supposed to be the heroes of the story, not schlubs.


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I would suppose one GM's "For the sake of Story" is different from another's. To that end, it would help to have more information.


Tommyuzz wrote:

Hey paizo, was hoping you could help me out

I was having an argument with a fellow gm and wanted to get some general opinions

Do you think its okay to have a 4 man party of lvl 2 characters face a CR10 vampire for the sake of story and why to your answer.

Hopin this helps settle the debate thanks, and if any other informations needed feel free to ask :)

No. It makes no sense to have a CR 10 anything face 4 level 2 characters, not if the CR 10 is used at full strength. Now if the GM is pulling punches behind the screen, I can see him have the party fight it later on so they can see how strong they have become or <insert other reason>. However if he has decided in advance that the party wont die to this monster then it really has no CR so it does not matter what he uses.

TLDR: No, but there are specific exceptions.


Might the GM think CR to party level lets party level be additive rather than average? It's supposed to be average. CR is made to be comparative to average party level. So, 4 level 2s is an APL of 2. "Epic" encounters are APL+3. This is an APL+8. So, "for story" would necessitate not resolving the encounter with force to the point where the party died or else it's just murder porn for the GM. Being knocked unconscious or taken prisoner is a common theme, however. Similar to what Ciaran Barnes said, this all goes out of the window if the GM is running a more sandbox campaign, and the party came upon a much more powerful being than what they could hope to be ready for. If that were the case, I simply hope he gave clues before the TPK.


An encounter with a CR 10 vamp is fine, but a fight would be absurd. The will saves would put an end to them all. The only case where this might make sense is if you can somehow trap the vampire in sunlight somehow; and that sort of plot just feels too contrived.


Not enough information.


Be careful to not tread into deus ex machina/DMPC/PCs as only bystanders territory and you're fine. Read the Alexandrian's why random encounters are important and the article on why only CR appropriate encounters are bad.


I can imagine a low-level encounter with a vampire working out if the vampire has a suitable agenda. He's amused by the PCs; they are no threat to him. He needs some agents to enter a place that is warded against the undead, steal something, and return it to him. He says, "Do it or I will murder you and your entire families." This sets him up as a boss villain you will be able to defeat later in the campaign.

Of course there is a risk in such cases that a paladin PC will just fight to the death against him, so the GM should make allowances for that.

On a related note, in my last game, a group of mostly level 5 PCs entered a building, and got attacked by an invisible vampire. Surprise round: it hit everyone with a fireball. Round 1: It rolled 24 initiative, acted first, and hit everyone with another fireball. At this point two of the party were dead and I was 3HP from death and only conscious due to my Die Hard feat. (I cast Glitterdust on it and it failed an easy Will save and we were able to escape.)

I do not recommend using a vampire like that against level 2 PCs.


Well, as a GM I personally wouldn't do it, my group has a habit of spitting in death's face no matter what. As a player I think my martial characters wouldn't know enough about vampires to hold his blade, unless instructed by a magician. You're not going to change your friend's mind, that's my advice, just let it go.


As others have mentioned, it matters what sort of encounter it is and what options the party members have. A pure, unavoidable combat encounter to the death is obviously not much fun for any of the players, but I'm hoping that's not what you mean... More info?

Liberty's Edge

Having the players meet the vampire is one thing, if you want them to fight it they will all die. The vampire will kill at least one player each round by energy drain alone, not counting the damage it can do with a slam and a +8 STR. If the vampire is a caster of some sort then the players just cannot compete with the saving throw DC. They will have trouble hitting him the actually hurting him with the DR and fast healing.

If you want to show them "This is a big scary vampire, he kills people and hates babies" so that you set him up as a villain later that is fine but maybe suggest to the players that combat with him will not go well (out of character) go cliche and have him kill/dominate a powerful creature ally they know to "show his true power"

If he really is a violent vamp then maybe have the sun on their side, they encounter him as dawn is rising, they have to stay in the sunlight to live. This can make it a dramatic scene to survive because no matter the CR of a vampire sunlight kills them in two rounds flat.


Fair game. As the GM, you'd want to think cinematically though. Throw CR's, feats and abilities out the window and turn the scene into a dramatic one, or one of relentless menace (like in Salem's Lot), and the characters need to figure out how to push back or forestall the menace while you provide lots of clues.

Example: The vampire is slowly descending the stairs, enjoying the fact he's intimidated the PC's and is showing his fangs, intending to corner each of them and drain them of their lives. Perhaps he's monologuing the whole time, revealing how he's manipulated the PC's up to this point. The players need to
1. Get the cage open that holds the girl they came to rescue
2. Get the vampire to reveal a certain bit of information
3. Pull the curtain down off the plate glass window to burn the vamp and stop him in his tracks
4. Battle his minions
5. Find the back door out of the mansion

Meanwhile, the GM's description includes "You've heard legends about these POWERFUL monsters and the INCREDIBLE powers they wield. Did you wish to attack him with your FEEBLE weapons, or did you want to rescue the girl and RUN?"


Tommyuzz has one post. I am starting to wonder if this was a "bait" post.


wraithstrike wrote:
Tommyuzz has one post. I am starting to wonder if this was a "bait" post.

If it was, it was pretty weak bait.


I have bad memories of above CR vampires. I once, got ditched as everyone else ran, because I covered the rear. As a non melee cleric. When I asked for help I got a: We are all clear, the portal was safe, but its closing now so you might want to hurry. Bad memories.

SPOILER: due to some improvised tactics and a rarely used spell, I made it to safety.


Having a monster the PCs can't beat appear in a situation where the PCs can attack it can easily lead to a TPK vs Deus et Machina situation. If the players are especially well behaved or easily cowed the roleplaying dynamics of interacting with a creature more powerful than the party can sometimes be interesting. In a lot of cases it just leads to anguish though, especially if it happens in a homebrew where the players hold the DM directly responsible for the plot rather than in an AP where players probably understand there's a bit of an adventure "railroad" at work and are more likely to do whatever the plot seems to be demanding.


I have a simple rule when dming, either warn the players that they might face things they can't beat, or don't put things in because the players will attack anything...and sometimes win.

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