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A few of us 'fairly experienced' players were talking about starting up a separate PFS group. We'd rotate GM and play some of the toughest scenarios on Hard Mode for the challenge.
A few points to consider came out of the discussion.
Hard Mode:
No hints/helping and basically if the listed tactics are stupid without a good reason, the GM is free to use effective tactics.
The reasoning being, the PC's are not being stupid so that 'invalidates' the listed tactics. At least one of the players liked the idea but said for PFS we're not allowed to do that. If tactics are written into the scenario you have to follow them if at all possible.
What do you guys think? Do you see any issues with a dedicated group of us with the GM pulling out all the stops in running things?
Also, do you generally think just 4 PC's with the 4 player adjust is tougher or the full opposition with 6 PC's?
Choices:
What do you guys think are some of the most difficult scenarios? I don't just mean the combats, but everything. They could have a difficult mystery, mutually exclusive goals, time crunch, tough skill checks, or whatever. Ideally we would like some at all levels so we can be challenged all the way from 1-12.
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A few of us 'fairly experienced' players were talking about starting up a separate PFS group. We'd rotate GM and play some of the toughest scenarios on Hard Mode for the challenge.
A few points to consider came out of the discussion.
Hard Mode:
No hints/helping and basically if the listed tactics are stupid without a good reason, the GM is free to use effective tactics.
The reasoning being, the PC's are not being stupid so that 'invalidates' the listed tactics. At least one of the players liked the idea but said for PFS we're not allowed to do that. If tactics are written into the scenario you have to follow them if at all possible.
What do you guys think? Do you see any issues with a dedicated group of us with the GM pulling out all the stops in running things?
This is very much not a PFS approach to the situation, based on my limited understanding of the PFSRPGG.
It sounds more like Adventure Paths played to house rules, and then credit given to PFS characters? What's preventing your cadre from taking that approach?
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1. As a player I say that if you have a group that would enjoy this, do it.
2. As a PFS VL I say that this is quite close to "home game" territory. If you were to do this you ARE basically leaving the boundaries of Organized Play. So should a crisis occur you would be without the PFS network of VOs as a support mechanism.
Remember that you can always run a PFS scenario with any house rules you want AS LONG AS it isn't reported as part of the Organized Play campaign. (Using PFS scenarios as your home campaign setting.) Such characters would not be eligible for play in sanctioned games.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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A party where all players promise not to take any "denial" abilities could be an interesting (but still plausible) challenge. I.e. stay away from abilities like:
- Blinding enemies
- Dropping them in pits
- Stunning/Dazing
- Dominating
- Slumbering
- Paralysis
- Nauseating
- Fearing them away
- Grapples that even big dragons have trouble getting out of
- Disarming/Sundering the NPC's only weapon/spell component pouch/divine focus. (Perhaps due to word limits, NPCs often have no backup plan.)
- Maybe not even tripping
Most often when I see the opposition getting obliterated it's because the party uses methods like these to just keep them from doing anything really effective. If you stay away from all of these, enemies really get to show off what they can do.
I suspect it takes a much much tougher party to cope with this; you have to be ready to survive all the stuff NPCs throw at you, especially those NPCs written under the assumption that they're only gonna get one chance to do something nasty before the PCs drastically reduce the amount of actions they're able to attempt.
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I agree, GM system mastery plays an important part; I have seen GMs (who are excellent roleplayers, and wonderful GMs, but are a little light on system mastery) turn difficult scenarios into near-cake-walks, and other GMs (with excellent system mastery) turn average-challenge scenarios into difficult ones.
Striking the right balance can be difficult some times...
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Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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There is one thing you can do that is very much within the rules.
Enforce the fluff environmental conditions.
Additionally, the GM may consider utilizing terrain and environmental conditions when those effects have been written into the flavor of a scenario but the mechanics that are normally associated with them by the Core Rulebook have not been added to the encounters.
It would take a certain amount of sifting in order to find those scenarios.
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A party where all players promise not to take any "denial" abilities could be an interesting (but still plausible) challenge. I.e. stay away from abilities like:
- Blinding enemies
- Dropping them in pits
- Stunning/Dazing
- Dominating
- Slumbering
- Paralysis
- Nauseating
- Fearing them away
- Grapples that even big dragons have trouble getting out of
- Disarming/Sundering the NPC's only weapon/spell component pouch/divine focus. (Perhaps due to word limits, NPCs often have no backup plan.)
- Maybe not even tripping
Most often when I see the opposition getting obliterated it's because the party uses methods like these to just keep them from doing anything really effective. If you stay away from all of these, enemies really get to show off what they can do.
I suspect it takes a much much tougher party to cope with this; you have to be ready to survive all the stuff NPCs throw at you, especially those NPCs written under the assumption that they're only gonna get one chance to do something nasty before the PCs drastically reduce the amount of actions they're able to attempt.
If you are restricting "One-Shot Kills" you'll need to add a DPR limit. And maybe a limit on how many attacks a PC can make in one round. So the "list" would be something like...
[list]
Doing more than (APL*3.5) in one hit.
Getting more than (APL/5 + 1) attacking in one round.
Blinding enemies
Dropping them in pits
Stunning/Dazing
Dominating
Slumbering
Paralysis
Nauseating
Fearing them away
Grapples that even big dragons have trouble getting out of
Disarming/Sundering the NPC's only weapon/spell component pouch/divine focus. (Perhaps due to word limits, NPCs often have no backup plan.)
Maybe not even tripping
So everyone should play Harsk?
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A party where all players promise not to take any "denial" abilities could be an interesting (but still plausible) challenge. I.e. stay away from abilities like:
- Blinding enemies
- Dropping them in pits
- Stunning/Dazing
- Dominating
- Slumbering
- Paralysis
- Nauseating
- Fearing them away
- Grapples that even big dragons have trouble getting out of
- Disarming/Sundering the NPC's only weapon/spell component pouch/divine focus. (Perhaps due to word limits, NPCs often have no backup plan.)
- Maybe not even tripping
Most often when I see the opposition getting obliterated it's because the party uses methods like these to just keep them from doing anything really effective. If you stay away from all of these, enemies really get to show off what they can do.
I suspect it takes a much much tougher party to cope with this; you have to be ready to survive all the stuff NPCs throw at you, especially those NPCs written under the assumption that they're only gonna get one chance to do something nasty before the PCs drastically reduce the amount of actions they're able to attempt.
Basically have no fun. I get it. May as well play PCs such as...
- Casters with 9 (or less) in their casting stat
- Physical combatants with 7 (or even better be a race that drops it to 5) in their combat stat(s)
- 7 (or 5) con
- Everyone take a single level of dual cursed oracle so they can be deaf and have clouded vision
- Be sure not to spend any of your money on anything because you're RP'ing a "poor" person
- Anything else as ridiculous as "never using good tactics".
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A party where all players promise not to take any "denial" abilities could be an interesting (but still plausible) challenge. I.e. stay away from abilities like:
- Blinding enemies
- Dropping them in pits
- Stunning/Dazing
- Dominating
- Slumbering
- Paralysis
- Nauseating
- Fearing them away
- Grapples that even big dragons have trouble getting out of
- Disarming/Sundering the NPC's only weapon/spell component pouch/divine focus. (Perhaps due to word limits, NPCs often have no backup plan.)
- Maybe not even tripping
Most often when I see the opposition getting obliterated it's because the party uses methods like these to just keep them from doing anything really effective. If you stay away from all of these, enemies really get to show off what they can do.
I suspect it takes a much much tougher party to cope with this; you have to be ready to survive all the stuff NPCs throw at you, especially those NPCs written under the assumption that they're only gonna get one chance to do something nasty before the PCs drastically reduce the amount of actions they're able to attempt.
Basically have no fun. I get it. May as well play PCs such as...
- Casters with 9 (or less) in their casting stat
- Physical combatants with 7 (or even better be a race that drops it to 5) in their combat stat(s)
- 7 (or 5) con
- Everyone take a single level of dual cursed oracle so they can be deaf and have clouded vision
- Be sure not to spend any of your money on anything because you're RP'ing a "poor" person
- Anything else as ridiculous as "never using good tactics".
Remember Claude, your definition of fun is not the same as their definition of fun.
Now, I have nothing at all to do with campaign leadership or anything at all like that, but this seems pretty into home-game territory. You might be able to play the scenarios "in campaign mode" but I wouldn't hold your breath for that. That being said, there is nothing at all stopping you from running it however you want and not taking any chronicle sheets for it. If you want to run The Confirmation, but have there be an ancient dragon in front of the cave instead of what's actually there, more power to you. Just don't report it as having run the Confirmation.
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Ok, you guys seem to taking things way out of context. I never said anything about putting a dragon in confirmation. Some of the scenarios specify pretty lousy tactics or that at least are lousy for what the PCs actually tend to do. Sometimes the PCs go way off the rail of expected tactics and do something like set the building on fire. Most GMs will usually still try to stick as close as possible to what is written. We are just saying have intelligent enemies behave intelligently.
I never said anything about denying people the opportunity to build good characters or use good tactics. This is actually the opposite. Many of us actually build deliberately suboptimal characters so things are not too easy.
Still wanted it to be PFS so people can drop and step in as schedules permit.
I think most of us as GM are quite capable of using the opposition to its fullist.
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I'm sorry, I meant the putting the dragon in Confirmation as a hyperbolic example of stuff to do, not something you'd talked about doing.
My only concern with keeping this PFS, if player from outside your normal group comes in to game, either because they're a new player or they're visiting from a different region, and all you have scheduled is your Hard Mode, would you be willing to change it on the spot to accommodate the new arrival, ie, someone who is not familiar with your hard mode method of play? Would you direct them to another table being played in the same general vicinity? How would you handle that situation?
And again, I would like to apologize if any of this comes across as hostile. That is not my intent at all.
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One perfectly legal way to go into hard mode would be to take advantage of what I consider a bug in the mechanics that determine what level you play at.
You're obviously only going to be playing Season 4 and higher adventures. With maybe a couple of exceptions (Dalsine Affair at level 1, for example)
ALWAYS have 5 players with the average partly level just at the threshold where you round up twice.
So, for a 1-5 you average to level 2.6 (with 1's, 2's and 3's, NO 4s). That rounds up to high tier. Even with the 4 player adjustment for most scenarios that is by far the deadliest place to play.
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He intends to create a "separate group" so I'm guessing its not something he'd advertise or play in a public space.
As long as the players all agree to it, I don't see why it'd be a problem to do this. They aren't getting anything extra from the rewards, so the PCs will still be perfectly playable outside of this.
Of course, you could just not sanction it at all. I did that with a home group that I ran through Thornkeep. I didn't want to waste a bunch of time after each scenario with treasure, so I handed out chronicles at the end of each adventure with "Not valid for PFS play" written in sharpie at the top.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Basically have no fun. I get it. May as well play PCs such as...
OP complained that scenarios are too easy. So there are a couple of things you can do to ramp up challenge:
- GM the scenario to the best of its written boundaries (allowed, depends a lot on the scenario)
- Alter the scenario beyond the written boundaries (not allowed within PFS)
- Limit yourself, for example by everyone adopting a thematic element or everyone avoiding a certain kinds of abilities. (Allowed, lots of ways to do it.)
You don't have to like the particular set of restrictions I proposed, but please try to understand the idea behind having such restrictions. If the game was too easy for your taste, you can make it harder by not using the things that were making it too easy.
I picked those particular things because "shutting down" enemies is both very effective, and at the same time one of the big sources of GM annoyance. If NPCs consistently get shut down, then it doesn't really matter what you're fighting, because it doesn't get to use any special powers anyway.
We could do it at my house, but the local shop is pretty central for most of the group. So we would probably justnot put in on the schedule or put it on as already full up.
If we only had 5 players and some random person shows up, I cant imagine that any of us would consider kicking him out or the GM curb stomping him. We aren't like that. If a few of the 33 scenarios aren't the Mondo Olympics, it isn't that big a deal.
We did want to keep it PFS. If Jimmy decides he doesn't like hard mode after level 7, he can just take it to a regular session without losing all that progress. If Timmy moves, same thing. Of Jenny can't always make our schedule, she can still drop in if she has an appropriate leveled PC. Etc... Keeping it PFS allows some more group and schedule flexibility that most home groups don't have.
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Basically have no fun. I get it. May as well play PCs such as...OP complained that scenarios are too easy. So there are a couple of things you can do to ramp up challenge:
- GM the scenario to the best of its written boundaries (allowed, depends a lot on the scenario)
- Alter the scenario beyond the written boundaries (not allowed within PFS)
- Limit yourself, for example by everyone adopting a thematic element or everyone avoiding a certain kinds of abilities. (Allowed, lots of ways to do it.)You don't have to like the particular set of restrictions I proposed, but please try to understand the idea behind having such restrictions. If the game was too easy for your taste, you can make it harder by not using the things that were making it too easy.
I picked those particular things because "shutting down" enemies is both very effective, and at the same time one of the big sources of GM annoyance. If NPCs consistently get shut down, then it doesn't really matter what you're fighting, because it doesn't get to use any special powers anyway.
I ran a scenario the other night and the last battle took ~1 hour (as is normal, but not expected in an evergreen). My fun, as the GM, doesn't come from being able to use NPCs in combat. In that whole hour, I dealt damage to a PC once, and that's only because he flubbed his acrobatics check with a -1 trying to jump down to an area 10' below. While the NPCs weren't unconscious, commanded, or otherwise incapacitated, I got to narrate exactly how the PCs were eviscerating (or missing, as is why it took an hour) all of their enemy combatants.
GMs (especially in PFS) aren't there to be tactical geniuses to counter the PCs--especially when the PCs use effective tactics and can shut down an encounter. A GM's job is to facilitate the players' adventure and ensure everyone has a good time doing so. Too many GMs are "me vs player" and that's simply not their job.
p.s. this is a response specifically to the line containing "GM annoyance"
We did want to keep it PFS. If Jimmy decides he doesn't like hard mode after level 7, he can just take it to a regular session without losing all that progress. If Timmy moves, same thing. Of Jenny can't always make our schedule, she can still drop in if she has an appropriate leveled PC. Etc... Keeping it PFS allows some more group and schedule flexibility that most home groups don't have.
If you want to keep it PFS then you've got to run it as written. (also if you want to keep posting in the same topic as yourself, then it's easier for others to follow your posts if you do it all under one alias and not switch between them).
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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(...)
I picked those particular things because "shutting down" enemies is both very effective, and at the same time one of the big sources of GM annoyance. If NPCs consistently get shut down, then it doesn't really matter what you're fighting, because it doesn't get to use any special powers anyway.
I ran a scenario the other night and the last battle took ~1 hour (as is normal, but not expected in an evergreen). My fun, as the GM, doesn't come from being able to use NPCs in combat. In that whole hour, I dealt damage to a PC once, and that's only because he flubbed his acrobatics check with a -1 trying to jump down to an area 10' below. While the NPCs weren't unconscious, commanded, or otherwise incapacitated, I got to narrate exactly how the PCs were eviscerating (or missing, as is why it took an hour) all of their enemy combatants.
GMs (especially in PFS) aren't there to be tactical geniuses to counter the PCs--especially when the PCs use effective tactics and can shut down an encounter. A GM's job is to facilitate the players' adventure and ensure everyone has a good time doing so. Too many GMs are "me vs player" and that's simply not their job.
p.s. this is a response specifically to the line containing "GM annoyance"
When I GM I'm not out to beat the players or anything like that. I like it more when there's a couple of nervous moments, instead of everything being a cakewalk. And I want some cool elements to show off; it's fine if players can see "oooh, it's good we nipped that in the bud, that could've been very nasty". In the end, I like it best when they feel they won a victory against a serious opponent, rather than against a schmuck that never ever stood a chance.
But consider the following: the scenario has a cool BBEG. He has a backstory, and some abilities that'll let him do stuff in combat the players may have never seen before. Could be an interesting fight. But then he just gets blinded, dazed and tripped and the players never even get to see that. From what they got to see, he was the same as the bosses in the previous scenarios. In that case I'd be quite disappointed.
Now consider an alternate situation. Same scenario, but this party has focused on surviving and recovering from bad guy stuff, rather than preventing it by shutting down the BBEG immediately. Away goes the slumber witch, in comes the life oracle. This party gets to see each boss do something different. And when the next BBEG does something else, they need to come up with answers to something else; all in all the challenges the group faces are much more varied.
I think that this reactive playstyle is actually harder than the preemptive playstyle. You can argue that it's tactically worse - it probably is. If you have three or four good shutdown tactics you can just win every encounter the same way. If every BBEG gets to do his own shtick, you need to be ready for many more different things.
So if you felt you needed more challenge, that could be a way to get it.
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Currently playing in a home game using scenarios for the adventures without following organized play rules.
2 Unchained Rogues
1 Warpriest of Abadar
1 Archer Fighter
1 Sorcerer
Halfway through Silent Tide and pretty banged up, thanks to the GM mix and matching enemies from both subtiers as she sees fit.
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... (also if you want to keep posting in the same topic as yourself, then it's easier for others to follow your posts if you do it all under one alias and not switch between them).
OOPS! You are correct. I have an alias I try to use for all my PFS questions, which is separate form my character build alias, and my general use alias. I don't do as well keeping it straight when posting from my phone. Sorry about that.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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There are a couple of good suggestions here, like planning the APL and not touching certain options... intentionally invalidating tactics (players can often do this if they really want to) can quickly run into a grey area.
Make sure that everyone, who is involved knows what choices most of the players and GMs have made.
Not using certain "attractively priced" options really seems like the easiest way to get a challenge without entering into a grey area. Of course, nothings is stopping the players from spending their actions in a suboptimal way either (while the BBEG is busy buffing for 4 rounds... that is pretty much how most Dragonball Z fights worked out).
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There are a couple of good suggestions here, like planning the APL and not touching certain options... intentionally invalidating tactics (players can often do this if they really want to) can quickly run into a grey area.
Make sure that everyone, who is involved knows what choices most of the players and GMs have made.
Not using certain "attractively priced" options really seems like the easiest way to get a challenge without entering into a grey area. Of course, nothings is stopping the players from spending their actions in a suboptimal way either (while the BBEG is busy buffing for 4 rounds... that is pretty much how most Dragonball Z fights worked out).
If pathfinder were DBZ I never would have started playing..
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Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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What about the second part of the initial post.
Which scenarios seemed most challenging?
I wasn't exactly asking about how challenging they were, but you may find this thread useful. I was asking which scenarios were most likely to result in a PC death.