So, I've been working on my campaign lately, and in my world, most outsiders and aberrations only exist in the outer planes. Though in one event, a bunch of rifts open up and pour into the city the heroes are in.
This is in the beginning as a special event where the PCs have to decide which fights to take part in and which to avoid. Though as the first real encounter, I wanted the party to fight a few Zoog. They don't LOOK that powerful, but apparently just 2 Zoog count as a CR 3 encounter.
Are they really that hard? They seem to have fairly low AC, and only a moderate amount of health for that level.
Just curious on peoples' thoughts on these? The main thing about this event is that most of the enemies will be low-level outsiders, aberrations, and magical beasts. Not including the high-level things that are intended to keep the players away from certain areas in the city.
No, you're right, they're pretty weak for their CR. To be any kind of challenge, they'd have to be fighting you while you're trying to climb a tree, inflicting bleed damage and retreating, and using up your healing resources.
Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking... in the Prologue (which is the part I'm working on), XP isn't a thing. After the Prologue, the party levels to 2, and THEN I instigate proper XP.
So I guess it's not really an issue of XP, but just how strong these things are considering it'll be a party of 4 level 1 PCs. What would be a good amount of Zoog to be an average encounter by peoples' opinions, as opposed to RAW.
It looks like they have a natural reach of zero and will have to provoke just to get an attack in... I'd say a team of four Zoogs would be enough to be interesting. But if you can, take the specific party into account. A cleric with selective channeling can easily counter bleed damage, a strength-focused barbarian could probably kill one per attack...
As a general rule, when you take any creature of CR X and add one more of the same creature, the encounter becomes CR X+2.
That's the general rule.
It's not quite so true with CRs of 1 or lower. IMO, a better way to think of it might be to add the CRs of both creatures together OR take X+2, whichever is LOWER.
In my experience, a single orc (CR 1/3) is fine, but add two more orcs, and you get about CR 1, but definitely NOT CR 3 (as that table would have you believe).
So your two zoogs would probably be closer to CR 2 than to CR 3.
Side note: make sure the PCs have ways to heal that Bleed damage or a single bite could kill them - it only does 1 HP (at most), but then the 1/round bleed will be fatal if they can't stop it.
I MAY have an NPC cleric come into the mix (He's a solid story character later on, so he isn't an out of nowhere NPC) IF the party has no way to stop the bleeding.
Though then that might feel hamfisted.
It is true though, though they can only do 1 damage per round, the bleed could possibly lead to death if not handled right.
In terms of XP budgets, the 'two enemies are CR X+2' is intended to apply to CR 1 creatures. It doesn't apply to fractional CR creatures. What CR 1/3 means is that you need three of them to make a CR 1 encounter. Beyond that, the normal rule applies - two groups of three CR 1/3 creatures would be CR 3.
Although I'd actually make an exception for the orcs. Since they can keep on fighting at -11 hit points, and can take down a level 1 PC with a single attack, they're a lot more dangerous than a CR 1 Zoog and three of them would be a pretty deadly encounter at level 1.
You should be able to stop the bleed with an untrained heal check.
You should be able to stop the bleed with an untrained heal check.
True. One try per round. DC 15. Provokes.
If nobody has ranks in Heal and nobody has a decent WIS, it could take on average 3-4 rounds to stop each bleeding character. Bad rolls could make it worse.
Maybe won't kill anyone, because -CON is a long way to go at 1 HP per round, but could end up with many unconscious characters being tended by the lucky ones.
The GM said this is the "first real encounter". If there are more, and several PCs here bled to unconsciousness or nearly so, the next encounter might be problematic.
I probably wouldn't make many more of things that do bleed. I'll probably try and do a few weaker things. Hm. Zoog make this a VERY hard thing to calculate. Because they are easy to hit with a fairly low amount of HP.
But then there's the gamble on the occasion if the party has no potions, healers, clerics, and keep rolling low that the party might just be in terrible shape after.
Though I could also make that cleric I had intended to help out a bit just show up after the fight and then take off to fight some other things.
Wait a sec. I just noticed something. On the OGC, in their actual page, it says CR 1. In the page listing them by CR, it says 1/2. So now I don't even really know what their CR is.
I see CR as a guide more than anything. Zoog in a forest where it can climb and escape, higher CR than one in an open field with no escape from archers or melee toons.
And for some reason a pony is equal in CR to an intelligent Tengu that can use equipment and tactics... clearly CR is not a perfect system as it does not seem to factor in intelligence (a force multiplier).
A few entries seem to be listed strangely, usually when they have multiple CR entries on the same page (Dogs, CR1/2 when they are CR 1/3 or 1).
o_O Oh, okay. I didn't know it could be that vague sometimes hahaha.
Okay, so Zoog in a hallway with nothing to really climb on to just leave, probably CR 1/2 each?
Maybe. They are fairly weak; they hit well for their CR but do puny damage, particularly to a group with a healer. They have decent defenses so they might live longer than an orc, but they also give up an AoO every time they try to attack so the will get attacked more often than an orc which might offset those better defenses.
All in all, if I have a healer in the group, I would rather fight three of these than three orcs. If I don't, I might prefer the orcs.
Zoogs aren't stand-up fighters. If you make them line up and trade swings, they're CR 0. After all, they get wiped out by house cats in the source material, IIRC.
What they should really do is try to trick you into drinking moon wine, and then kill your familiar, or lure in more powerful nasties, etc. Unfortunately, Paizo neglected to give them any Bluff or Stealth skill, so you can't really use them that way, which is really a shame. The only thing left is to mob the party with like a dozen of them - at which point you're better off just using goblins.
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They have decent defenses so they might live longer than an orc
While their AC is a point higher - orcs have Ferocity - making the base warrior have an effective 18hp as opposed to their technically 6hp.
All in all, if I have a healer in the group, I would rather fight three of these than three orcs. If I don't, I might prefer the orcs.
Not sure if it's a great comparison. In anything under CR 3ish (hard to compare CR 1/3 to anything above that) - orcs are probably the meanest for their CR in the game due to the above Ferocity & a decent offense. (average of 10.35 damage per hit is pretty mean for CR 1/3)
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The AoO as they approach to attack really makes Zoog vulnerable, especially if you happen to have a PC with combat reflexes. I sent maybe 6-8 Zoog and an advanced zoog at a 3rd level party where the fighter had Combat Reflexes and it was a massacre - even with a surprise round.
Might be a little less skewed at 1st level since the PCs are less likely to one-shot the Zoog with an AoO, though I don't think there's a huge difference. A 1st level martial with a greatsword and Power Attack can do 11 damage pretty easily.
One idea for when you're unsure of how many weak enemies to throw at the PCs is to send them in waves. Attack the party with 2-3 Zoog. If it's a cakewalk, throw a few more at them. Continue until they've expended about 1/4 of their resources (spells & HP). Give them a little extra reward (treasure or XP) if they take out a lot of them.
Sounds fair.
The situation in the beginning is that for hundreds of years, there haven't been true "monsters" in the world. They only exist naturally on another planet that can be seen through a huge tear in the sky.
In the prologue, rifts start opening up in the city, unleashing a bunch of outsiders, aberrations, and whatever other monsters I might add into it. So the Zoog are just the first they run into when they enter a specific hallway on their way to exit a building.
I can throw more stuff at them outside the building too. I just wanna keep the intro dramatic and still slightly challenging without murdering them hahah
At all levels, the CR system is imprecise at best. To paraphrase a famous pirate, it's not so much rule, more like guidelines.