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So, I joined an online game on Roll20 that sounded interesting. The GM was new to Pathfinder and had no RPG experience. I volunteered to teach him and help him out, looked over what he had so far, fixed things, yada yada.
What I didn't notice until it was too late was that he had no idea how large an average party was and had set the "max player limit" to 20... By the time I caught it and had him stop looking for players, we had double the normal size.
It's too late now to tell people they can't play. What I need is help designing encounters for 12 players, 1 animal companion, and 1 familiar. The primary setting is a busy city on sea coast. Describing their main thing, the party consists of:
All level 1, everyone levels together
Tiny Homunculist Alchemist
Melee Ranger
Siege Gunner Gunslinger with a dragon pistol
Claws Kata-Monk
Not-making-undead Necroccultist
Aerokineticist
Fire Blaster Sorcerer with a touch of summoning
Paladin of Holy Light
Face + Charm Bard
Merciful Healer Cleric
Winter Witch with Evil Eye+Cacke
Druid with Leopard
No one, except for my aerokineticist, is optimized. The custom content they use doesn't really affect combat capabilities (except Tiny alchemist). We aren't trying to flat-out eliminate players either. What CR should I be making encounters for? What are some ideas for good battles? Any and all advice to making this work is welcome.
This is primarily roleplaying, maybe one or two fights a session.
Having GM'd on roll 20 for a couple years now I can confidently say not to worry about making encounters for 12 people.
With a party that large the combat is going to be so slow (lots of people take forever to use the dice roller etc...) that the party will lose people like crazy until its down to a manageable number.
I found that even with a party of 5 on roll 20 by mid levels combat was really really slow compared to playing at a table. Macros and character mastery help but with 12 players I dont think there is any way to speed combat up enough.
Split them into three parties feels like the best option. Depending on how much time he has, he could do triple the amount of sessions, probably alternating between the groups. He might save a lot of time by recycling material, but in case the players know each other, it wouldn't be wise to run exactly the same campaign - details should differ.
Alternatively he could go for two groups and hope a few people drop out.
EDIT: There are several approaches to split them: A NPC hires / invites only some of them, a desaster separates them, an opponent catches some, a quest is too nice or evil for some etc.. Or you simply do it without RP.
Run an encounter with two swarms at level 1, those who survive through ability or cleverness can stay, those who flee or die are gone.
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Erk. That sounds hard.
That said, I've GMd for an 8 player party from time to time, and been playing in it for longer.
Fair warning - you'll lose time. This is the nature of a group of that size. Not much you can do about it. People will also spend a lot of the time not paying attention.
It helps to have a GM who has some sort of recognized authority in the group and can say (without people being hurt) "that's enough of you, (points at other, less active player) what do you do?"
Once that is said and done, running a group of that size is awesome.
You can have them fight off hordes, make them their own little army squad, and drop them into complex combats with multiple objectives and have them solve everything at once. Their endurance is strong, and they can deal with a wide variety of problems and encounters in the same day.
A couple of things to keep in mind when designing combat:
-More individual enemies (action economy is king. Dragons will crumble like wet tissue paper if you send them up against 12 characters alone. 8 level 6 characters went up against an encounter of an Ogre Magi with an artifact sword, a Hezrou demon, and a Marilith and won. The players had pre-buff time, level 7 WBL, and two bonus feats. It was a hard battle, and the marilith used subpar tactics, but they killed all three in the end.)
-Less varied enemies (trust me, if you try to keep tabs on 4 different creatures and your players at the same time in a real-time game you'll go spare. 3 enemy types is max compelxity here. And only if you've read up on the creatures beforehand. Or maybe you can hand control of some of the creatures off to one of the more rules-savy players. My gm does this all the time, works great.)
-Use a grander scale than normal. 12 adventurers represent a real power factor in the world. This should be reflected in the consequences of their actions.
-Multiple combat objectives. (The object here is to make the combats less same-y. Remember the ogre magi with the artifact sword? The sword needed sundering. Was great fun.)
-Go light on the buff spells. (having to remember multiple moving parts is a great way to bog down combat. Sometimes bring out a well-buffed boss creature when you want to scare the players)
And finally, remember that combat is a hassle. Only drag your players through it when you feel it adds to the story. If your players aren't going to talk about your encounter afterwards, don't bother to have it. This leads to a 15min work day, which is perhaps regretable, but it also means you can add more enemies in and still have a good idea of how much punishment your pcs will be able to dish out and take in a given encounter.
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Erk. That sounds hard.
That said, I've GMd for an 8 player party from time to time, and been playing in it for longer.
Fair warning - you'll lose time. This is the nature of a group of that size. Not much you can do about it. People will also spend a lot of the time not paying attention.
It helps to have a GM who has some sort of recognized authority in the group and can say (without people being hurt) "that's enough of you, (points at other, less active player) what do you do?"Once that is said and done, running a group of that size is awesome.
You can have them fight off hordes, make them their own little army squad, and drop them into complex combats with multiple objectives and have them solve everything at once. Their endurance is strong, and they can deal with a wide variety of problems and encounters in the same day.
A couple of things to keep in mind when designing combat:
-More individual enemies (action economy is king. Dragons will crumble like wet tissue paper if you send them up against 12 characters alone. 8 level 6 characters went up against an encounter of an Ogre Magi with an artifact sword, a Hezrou demon, and a Marilith and won. The players had pre-buff time, level 7 WBL, and two bonus feats. It was a hard battle, and the marilith used subpar tactics, but they killed all three in the end.)
-Less varied enemies (trust me, if you try to keep tabs on 4 different creatures and your players at the same time in a real-time game you'll go spare. 3 enemy types is max compelxity here. And only if you've read up on the creatures beforehand. Or maybe you can hand control of some of the creatures off to one of the more rules-savy players. My gm does this all the time, works great.)
-Use a grander scale than normal. 12 adventurers represent a real power factor in the world. This should be reflected in the consequences of their actions.
-Multiple combat objectives. (The object here is to make the combats less same-y. Remember the ogre magi with the artifact sword? The...
I'm thinking at least one encounter for the first game. Some drunk adventurers starting a fight in the streets or something. Are there premade stat blocks for NPCs with class levels?
The NPC Codex in the Paizo PRD.
-- david
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The NPC Codex in the Paizo PRD.
-- david
How have I never seen this before? This is perfect; thank you!