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Hi everyone,
There has been a thought bothering me for several months now, but not as intensively as these last several days. Maybe the ton of negative posts about ACG errata that I'v been reading have sparked these negative emotions, but they'v been there for a while also, undependant of those forum posts. So below is a minor rant, a plea, a question and most of all, an advice and suggestion requested from other GMs out there.
From the start of GMing carrier, I'v been slightly egoistic, self-opinioned person, a minor control freak who assumed that PF sessions should be challenging enough for every fight to be life or death. I'v have changed drastically since then after seeing the same perspective through both GM and player eyes, learning on the several harsh leasons along the way and most importantly that we are playing the game because it's fun to play. I'v grown into a well respected GM and person in a PFS community after so many years and I can quite proudly say that people are leaving the table always with smiles on their faces. But lately, during the last year or so, I feel that my hands as a GM are slowly but steadily getting tied to a degree where I can only watch and not do anything about it.
So what exactly is troubling me, is player options. Pathfinder offered good old D&D classes that everyone loved so much in first publishment of CRB. These classes could easily be handled as a GM and some had distinctive weaknesses built into them. As the new books became published, more and more options became available to the players and this increased to the point where I am feeling that it's narrowing my field of control as a GM. Now, don't get wrong, like I said, I'v work hard on myself and my policy is to keep everyone happy. I'v granted my players in the home game the option of taking ACG classes even though I disliked them. It's not good to have prejudices about something that you haven't exactly playtested yourself, but it merely proved to me what I suspected from the start. The new options are getting better and better, but the GM's are still tied to the old gamemastering rules. Often enough, I have to bump the CR rating in the home campaign to keep things interesting even though I can be master tactician on the battle mat. This is the part that my players don't see, but I do and it troubles me the most because gamemastering rules are suggesting otherwise. The new player options aren't helping me out here, in fact, it feels that players themselves are getting to much special attention, especially in the form of action economy such as swift, free and immediate actions. The old CRB is scarce with these action types, but the new books are spreading them with ease. In short, it's becoming chaotically hard to follow every rule and too easy to solve every problem at hand. My hands are still slowly, but steadily getting tied because it feels wrong to stop players from playing with new toys.
With all compliments to paizo and their books, this isn't exactly their fault. It feels more as a problem that opened up over the years of gaming experience, but I do feel that the books published are focusing more on player base, rather then GMs themselves. The new Beastiary's are for now keeping up with it, but what I would love most, is seeing the new NPC Codex with older APG classes in it. It would even the ground a bit more for GMs and players, because as it is, I don't feel like building up a new NPC from a scratch constantly or pulling out NPCs with old CRB classes which are not up to the task of fighting against new and better PC classes.
So hopefully, my post hasn't been too long, but I had to share this thought that has been bothering me for a while. I would like to hear from other GMs that I am not alone in this problem and how are they handling this issue. I would also appreciate suggestions for any good books or GMing materials out there besides the Core materials in attempt to further my knowledge and sharpen my GMing skills.
So that's it. I would appreciate any constructive advices and suggestions from fellow GMs out there.
Adam
I don't agree with you in specifics, but I do agree with you to an extent in general.
I actually think that with a few notable exceptions (and they weren't in a ACG) Paizo has done a great job in keeping the classes balanced. For the most part most of the newer classes are pretty equal in power to the classes in the core book.
That said, there has been a bit of power creep across the board as new options have been created. Not so much that all the new options are better, but that every option tends to be bad or good compared to the average and that means as you add more, you have more options and in addition as you add more you end up with more and more good options that synergize. This creates power creep, although less extreme than in some previous versions. We don't have a whole lot of new 'must have' feats, archetypes, classes etc.
In addition, you are probably seeing increased system mastery from your players the longer they play. Even using just the main book, system mastery can make a whole lot of difference in how powerful a character is.
Lastly, and my personal biggest issue, is that this proliferation of options makes it really hard to keep track of all the relevant rules and how everything works, which increases the chances that something that is actually balanced will be improperly played in an unbalanced way. Players with the best of intentions will make mistakes, and a GM who can't remember all of the class abilities is likely to miss that.
As for advice, If you are finding you PCs are beating the challenges you set up for them, the easiest thing I think is to try using the same encounter, but with everything having the simple advanced template. If only certain parts of the creatures aren't challenging enough (only to hit is a problem, or only DCs etc.) you can just apply the portions of the template that effect those things, but this requires more time and complex analysis.
It can be hard to follow all of the new rules and options. That happens when a game keeps expanding. That said, you only really have to keep abreast of the options your players are interested in. Keep in close contact with the choices they're making as they level-up - in fact, make it a collaborative process in which you sit down together to talk about where they see the PC going and why. It'll make it easier for you to manage the world around them. If they choose new stuff, discuss how you could incorporate that into the campaign from your end. That will give them a greater sense of ownership, good for both their own satisfaction and for curbing problem-player behavior.
As far as following the guidelines in the CRB? Keep in mind that they're fuzzy guidelines. Exceptional players were always going to blow CR estimates out of the water anyway. You were always going to have to adjust to your players.
My hands are still slowly, but steadily getting tied because it feels wrong to stop players from playing with new toys.
Howdy there.
I think digging into this statement and analyzing it might provide some useful advice. There are a plethora of new books released all the time, assuming you count 3PP. Does it feel wrong to prevent your players from using all 3PP content?
If not, then realize that you're already stopping your players from getting the new toys. It just depends on where you draw the line.
For your home games, I would recommend having an honest conversation with your players and simply stating that you're finding that there is too much content in play to keep everything straight. Then limit the players to a more manageable set of rules/books.
As far as the upping the encounters to compensate for the more powerful PCs, how important is it to you to stick strictly to the RAW? I often times give the enemies minor boosts in HP or other areas so they can last an additional round or two. Its a quick and easy on-the-fly adjustment that seems to work.
I've always had to go above CR to provide a challenge, maybe it's not the options that improved but your players. not discounting your(or anyone elses) experience just giving it another possible explanation for you to mull over.
Why are these only seen as player options?
What is stopping you, as a DM, from using these new options against your players?
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???
My biggest issue has always been the CRB above all...
The arcanist still does not match the Wizard, the most OP class in the game.
Th Cleric is REDICULOUSLY powerful.
The druid from CRB crushes mkst things.
Many of the most egregious spells are from the CRB (simulacrum, teleport, SM line, ect.)
Monks and rogues were HORRIDLY trap options (thr unchained rogue and archetypes and styles for the monk have help drastically though).
If anything I praise the newer books on averaging thing. Out by helping the guys who needed it (martials as a whole). Now tHat is not to say there are not some problem children (summoner...) bht on the all they have been good. Without the extra books, dex fighting is near impossible...
If you don't already, a program that helps generate characters is really helpful. It's expensive, but HeroLab has been super useful for me to try out all of the options. If you need to you can have a campaign where every one of your NPCs is of a new class you haven't used before. Not to make assumptions on experience, but I found that constantly making characters helped me get all of the options under my belt quicker than anything else.
Maybe roll up three versions of each class, try to break stuff, and generally just pretend you're a player trying to "win" against the DM.
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@Dave Justus
Power Creep is probably the word that I attempted to avoid because it sounded more gamer type term not suitable for social game like Pathfinder, but in a way, that's one way of explaining it. Accompanied by the high system mastery from few players, it makes a difference in play and it becomes hard to keep such players in check, especially after the fact that they aren't doing anything wrong.
The significant amount of rules also like you say, increases the odds of making mistakes. Players seem to have high tendency of "stealing" action economy as I tend to say on minor things such as pulling the potion out while using a move action or searching specific item from a backpack and preparing it as a full-round action. To me, these are balancing factors of combat, but sometimes, players don't see it in same way.
Regarding the advanced template, I use it when I must. It's probably the best template in my book of GMing resources, but I prefer for the time being to use more lower CR enemies because it provides equal amount of fun at the table for everyone.
@Bill Dunn
This is one of the things that I am keeping in check. Players often inform me of new abilities, items and class features at least in the home-campaign. It's proven to be quite helpful in the long run so far, but they have just reached lv5. The real trouble will start at higher levels.
I realize that guidelines from CRB/GM Guide, are just that, guidelines, but it simply seems that they are getting stretched out more often then before.
@tormsskull
3PP is mostly off table. That has been the general rule in our home-campaigns for years. A single player is slightly against it, but that's a special case. Having a honest conversation with players will also have to put on hold. For now, I am just trying to receive the best advice I can. The home games are currently doing fine, but I am more worried about PFS sessions.
It's not really important to stick with RAW, in fact, this is the first time in a home-campaign that I'v been slowly starting to step away from it in order to provide more fun options to both players and myself. But each time I step too far from it, feels like a slightly wrong step. I am not sure how to explain it exactly.
I had a feeling you attitude was largely due to PFS, i felt like mentioning it earlier but you seemed to put emphasis elsewhere on a rereading. Yeah, in PFS it's going to be tough, no house ruling there...
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@opuk0 & puna'chong
The most troubling part about not using these same options is time. I simply do not have hours and hours to stat new NPCs with APG or ACG classes and assign them appropriate items. NPC Codex helped me out a bunch so far, but it's lacking a bit in new things. Herolab might be interesting option to tackle though and I'll give it some thought.
@Pixie, the Leng Queen
It's not really about some classes being more powerful. It's more about having more options at their disposal and being more versatile.
@bandw2
PFS is just part of the bigger picture in this case. Our PFS community significantly dropped recently, but we still have a single active player with good system mastery. He also has a tendency not to hold himself back and plays only the most effective classes, which turns fights more into BBEG vs him, instead of BBEG vs party. It's sad to see, at least to me, but I'v kept players under illusion that it isn't so at the very least.
I understand the frustration with the increase of choices and managing those choices, but that's really all the books are there to provide. With each new choice your players will have access to new pieces to fit into whatever puzzle they're creating, but without those new pieces the players would have their creativity limited by the lack of options.
Reducing the potency of options by making them more costly to obtain allows a wider variety of options for players to work with while keeping the new choices balanced while also providing more reward variety; while removing those abilities forces the DM to make something up, or the player to give up on the character they envisioned. Neither of those solutions is an example of the game doing its job.
I'm always a bit confused about the whole "Raising CRs with every new book" thing when the strongest classes tend to be the ones closest to core.
The best classes in the ACG and OcA are the ones that can even compete with the wizard/cleric/summoner on the caster side and on the martial side you're still looking at barbarians and archer fighters or rangers and smiting paladins and so on as the scariest things.
There's definitely more to juggle which can be a challenge in and of itself, but power I think is the last concern.
The power does go up a bit. When you increase the available options to a character, power levels are only going to go up.
It's just that the increase in power level for individual builds for the most part is dwarfed by systematic imbalances that have existed since 3.0, so it's all kind of irrelevant unless all the PCs are playing Razmiran Sylvan Sorcerers, Dazing Admixture Wizards, Dino spamming Saurian Shamans and equally "high powered" options that beat what you can do in core.
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@ErichAD
It's true what you say. It's the same reason why I don't limit my players too much or at the very least, they have a lot of options to choose. The same doesn't feel like for me honestly, as GMing requires a lot of prep work.
@swoosh
That's not exactly true. Without touching the word "power", new classes are faster and effective in doing what they do. Note that I do not mean in any way overpowered, but they are very good. The action economy is however something which troubles me a lot because GM can't deal with it directly.
If PFS is your problem then there is literally nothing you can do outside of running Core-only games. If you're no longer enjoying standard PFS then you could step down (presuming there's other GMs to step up), offer Core only and if people are unwilling to play it they play at a different table or don't play at all. Or you put up with the way things are. They're your only PFS legal options (last I was aware).
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Nothing is really as campaign defining as a well played CRB druid.
@ErichAD
It's true what you say. It's the same reason why I don't limit my players too much or at the very least, they have a lot of options to choose. The same doesn't feel like for me honestly, as GMing requires a lot of prep work.
I see, so it's more the imbalance in tools improvements? I have been thinking it would be ideal if creatures were broken down into role/race/equipment templates so it was easier to tweak encounters. Is that the sort of thing you're wishing DM's would get?
As a GM, what I found helped me the most (I agree with everything you said btw, I totally feel your pain):
1)Don't be afraid to just add more monsters-if they are rolling over a planned encounter, have reinforcements show up.
2)Templates are your friend-especially advanced templates
3)New monsters can be fun-pull something totally new out of thin air, have a new breed of dragon show up, make it immune to _insert parties favorite spell here_. Don't do this one too often, it gets annoying.
4)As parties become higher level, their reputation becomes known... intelligent monsters may be ready to deal with them because they have heard of "Scorchikus the Fire Mage" or "Glimbee the Archer"...
I'm not familiar with PFS, if it is a situation where the players are aware of the numbers of monsters BEFORE the adventure, then you are screwed.
In a home game, all you gotta do is bump the numbers up till you reach the challenge level you want.
I use CR in the Bestiaries as a VERY rough guideline... Most parties these days can easily roll over CR+2 or higher, with minimal expenditure.
My group fights CR+4 regularly with only minor bloody noses.
Don't be afraid to learn and copy player tactics, intelligent monsters SHOULD be scary.
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I see, so it's more the imbalance in tools improvements? I have been thinking it would be ideal if creatures were broken down into role/race/equipment templates so it was easier to tweak encounters. Is that the sort of thing you're wishing DM's would get?
That would extremely helpful. And now that you mention it, that could be it. Imbalance in tools. I always have a lot of ideas, but not enough time to solve them out.
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As a GM, what I found helped me the most (I agree with everything you said btw, I totally feel your pain):
1)Don't be afraid to just add more monsters-if they are rolling over a planned encounter, have reinforcements show up.
2)Templates are your friend-especially advanced templates
3)New monsters can be fun-pull something totally new out of thin air, have a new breed of dragon show up, make it immune to _insert parties favorite spell here_. Don't do this one too often, it gets annoying.
4)As parties become higher level, their reputation becomes known... intelligent monsters may be ready to deal with them because they have heard of "Scorchikus the Fire Mage" or "Glimbee the Archer"...
I'm not familiar with PFS, if it is a situation where the players are aware of the numbers of monsters BEFORE the adventure, then you are screwed.
In a home game, all you gotta do is bump the numbers up till you reach the challenge level you want.
I use CR in the Bestiaries as a VERY rough guideline... Most parties these days can easily roll over CR+2 or higher, with minimal expenditure.
My group fights CR+4 regularly with only minor bloody noses.
Don't be afraid to learn and copy player tactics, intelligent monsters SHOULD be scary.
After my first campaign, I'v learned not to do the same mistakes that I did before and most of the tactics that you described above is what I have been using. Stepping out of the box and thinking realistically often helped me out, but these are only lower levels so far. I have no idea how will higher level fare but I am well acquainted with how dreadful they can be.
Like I said before, it's general problem, so it's somewhat present in PFS also, but I am not expecting really for them to be solved in that department. You could say that entire topic is more of preemptive question because I knew what to expect at higher levels from older classes, but new classes present new mysteries.
I appreciate the suggestions so far.