In my version of Golarion a section of the Chitterwood just south of Umok in Isger has been consumed by first world influences. Three fey sisters have been in a not overtly/completely intentionally malicious manner making this section of forest more like home using a weakened veil between planes as a means to transform the area well beyond their normal power. They have been there for several years and exhort Umok gnomes for gifts and celebrations in their honor. (This story has the Chitterwood as a place where a broken section of startower lies buried underground (very ancient with a layer of jiksa ruins on top, and ruins of an old Taldan outpost on top of that long since abandon), the divide between planes is weaker in the area and all sorts of other planar beings have the ability to do more in the material plane near it. I don't yet even understand how this works yet but its the plan is that recent events stirred up ancient things in the star tower buried in the ground weakening the.. well you get it where i am going)
The fey sisters that have been warping the area south of Umok had a run in with a medusa that turned them to stone (being unused to how things work in the material plane they were caught off guard by the permanence of the effect). The forest in this area is eerie with subtle changes to the landscape happening on a whim and less subtle changes the closer you go toward where the stone statues of the fey sisters reside. The medusa has taken this spot as her lair and coerced remnants of a local goblin tribe into her service to raid Umok.
Though the fey sisters had been a burden on Umok's resources in the past, the goblin raids and occasional gnome becoming a statue has been far worse. Twin NPC fey touched gnomes the party has already become familiar with are from Umok. One of them will have gone into the forest to scout the medusa's lair while the other has come to the party for their aid.
I have a big group of players. 6 players and the 1 gnome twin that got them here (I want to keep the NPC out of the fighting but story-wise they would want to be part of saving their twin that has not returned from the forest.)
The party will be level 5 when they get to this point. (not much to negotiate as the aims of the medusa and the party should be at complete odds, maybe at a certain point she can be convinced to release her stone affect and leave in exchange for her life as an option. After releasing the fey sisters there will be plenty of negotiating possible depending on the outcome the party is going for)
Main encounter this should be a sever encounter - 180xp for a 6 member party. But does the NPC add more xp to the budget? I could just story cancel the NPC by having them turned to stone through exposition to start the encounter? But that might not work depending on how the party chooses to engage the situation. maybe the twin runs ahead or gets separated by the shifting forest ending up at the medusa lair sooner then the party?
I wanted the core of the main encounter to have the medusa and a basilisk. 120XP
I also wanted goblin adds but wasnt sure if they should be elite versions for 15 xp each or the level 1 versions for 10 each.
Goblins are pretty low level for a level 5 party but could add some interesting complications. Goblin Pyros for example can be as likely to set the forest on fire as attack the players. Saving nature is going to be a priority for several of the party members based on edicts.
Goblin warchanters have bless and soothe which could be useful if they are left alone to use it on the medusa and basilisk.
I did want at least a Pyro goblin + basilisk encounter to come before this main fight to introduce the fire and petrify threat.
i am hoping for this to be a fun encounter and allow the landscape to shift every round or so but i am not sure how that will affect the challenge of the fight. It could be a random table of effects including raising a section of terrain, or trees or bushes growing in an area. The affects could be beneficial or harmful depending on positioning and the roll outcome. Or I can have predetermined shifts of the landscape by round planned out which will at least give me a better idea of what will happen. It will still feel random to the players i think.
is this all too much?
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My main feedback is from the last paragraph of Different Party Sizes. A bit of text that I feel gets overlooked way too often.
It's best to use the XP increase from more characters to add more enemies or hazards, and the XP decrease from fewer characters to subtract enemies and hazards, rather than making one enemy tougher or weaker. Encounters are typically more satisfying if the number of enemy creatures is fairly close to the number of player characters.
Taking that extra XP from the two additional PCs and choosing two higher level creatures as the main combatants feels like a mistake.
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The way I look at it, there are two axis of measurement of encounter balance. One is the party vs enemy team balance. The other is the individual character vs character balance.
A six character level 5 party against a level 5 creature and a level 7 creature, the party will probably win. The party vs enemy team balance is reasonable. It will be a hard fight (indicated by the Severe difficulty rating).
The problem is in the character vs character balance. A level +2 creature is difficult. Not to the point of being a problem though. But it is going to be very challenging. A lot of misses from the party. And a lot of crits from the enemy.
Having a ton of extra distractions in play as well is going to make things more challenging than expected.
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From a metagaming perspective, the optimal way to approach this encounter is to ignore the low level threats and randomness of the terrain as best as possible. Every action spent dealing with those problems is a wasted action that should have been spent dealing with the major threats. The entire party should also initially ignore the higher level enemy as much as possible. If there is someone who has defensive measures and can distract the medusa for a round or three successfully (even at the cost of being dropped to Dying) then that is probably a good choice. The rest of the team should focus fire on the same-level enemy. Anything not dealing damage or directly adding to combat against that enemy is also a wasted action. Dropping that Basilisk will remove a big chunk of the incoming damage and status effects, and can be done a lot faster than taking out the Medusa. Once that enemy is down, switch focus to the higher level enemy. Hopefully the party can drop that Medusa also before the last member of the party falls.
At that point, stabilize any of the party that are Dying but still alive and mop up the mooks.
But that isn't really fun IMO. These hard fights feel more like a slog battle of attrition rather than a cinematic and epic battle that the players walk away from with good memories of.
It may be what the players at your table want though. Not everyone plays the game the same way that I do.
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If you are looking for more of a fun and chaotic fight, maybe drop the difficulty rating down a bit and compensate with mechanical effects from the terrain. Hit the Medusa and Basilisk with the Weak template, add in some of the goblins to round out the XP budget for the 6 characters, and have the terrain and effects compensate for the combat effectiveness of the NPC ally.
That will have similar party vs enemy team balance, but will have better character vs character balance. There is a lot more wiggle room there for interesting and chaos to the battle.
Thank you Finoan!
i think I'll take that suggestion and make the medusa and basilisk weak versions. i don't want the fight to get boring because they miss the medusa most of the time.
that gets me:
Total budget possible - 180xp
budget used 150xp
medusa(weak) - 60 xp
basilisk(weak) - 30xp
goblin pyro(elite) x3 - 45xp
goblin warchanter(elite) - 15xp
This probably gets the feel i was going for, but to keep the challenge would i need to fill in that 30 xp with something? A second weak basilisk? more goblins? or just leave it like that?
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I thought more about your point about what the table will want.
They are going to have more fun with a cinematic encounter that has the feeling if being difficult without delving into a gritty tactical slog.
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I typically run games for seven players. PF2's Encounter Budget system works reasonably well for that, with the caveat that you should avoid enemies who would focus all their damage on a single PC. With the hit points spread among six or seven lower-level player characters, each individual has fewer hit points and a lower AC than the system expected.
But you need worry about that only with a level+3 opponent or with a highly discipline enemy team with brutal tactics. The level+2 medusa against a 5th-level party won't be overwhelming. Rather, a PC slowed by partial petrification or enfeebled by serpent venom can retreat from the medusa and attack the goblins instead. Of course, this does assume that your players use common-sense tactics.
As written, the medusa's and the basilsk's petrification abilities do not work together. The medusa's Focus Gaze ability says, "If the creature was already slowed by petrifying gaze, ...," and the basilisk's ability says, "If the creature was already slowed by this ability or Petrifying Glance," so both creatures are specific that petrification requires two failed saves against the same creature. The GM can alter the monsters so that the abilities do work together, which would be more exciting, but this would make the encounter more difficult than the encounter budget predicts.
The medusa's Petrifying Gaze is an aura that affects every creature within 30 feet. How do the goblins avoid being petrified by the medusa? I would give all the goblins Smoked Googles and handwave that they trained with the goggles so much that they give immunity to the Petrifying Gaze rather than the +2 circumstance bonus from Avert Gaze. For some suspenseful tension and forewarning, the party could encounter a lone goblin with Smoked Goggles, hinting that a creature with petrifying gaze is ahead.
The basilisk's Petrifying Glance aura requires a reaction from the basilisk to slow someone in the aura, so we can simply assume that it is trained to not use Petrifying Glance on its allies.
One final warning is that I myself find playing four different kinds of enemies slows down the combat. I can memorize the bonuses and defenses of two different creatures, but with three or four I keep pausing to check their stat blocks for the numbers.
I will be using Foundry to run it.
Although its not completely automated with the modules I'm using, it will at least check the players roll against the monsters AC using the in game targeting function and vice versa.
I think i like the goggles for goblins. I might even make so they dont have enough of them for all the goblins and some might fight over them or steer clear of the medusa. I kind of like the idea of enemies groups that dont perfectly work together. It does soften the fight a bit though but the goblins are not the main threat anyway.
I am introducing a lot of variables to me to keep track of though.
Goblins that want to burn the forest,the spread of resulting fire if left extinguished, some that want the few goggles available, the changing terrain, the medusas combat goals, the basilisks combat goals, and a possible npc if i dont petrify it at the start of the fight.
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I had an idea lol. The goblin pyros keep burning up forest but due to the first world influences it just keeps popping back up leaving trails of ashen logs and new growth. Maybe the forest grows thorny bushes right under them to get back at them?
I can always have extra goblins in the encounter that are hindered or killed with the environmental changes.