Looking for advice, this is a long post, but I wanted to give as much information as I can about the situation.
When I play games, especially ones like Pathfinder, there are things that GM's do that I don't like. Being stingy with wealth, banning player options, using overpowered enemies, and being quick to rule against the players when they encounter something they think is "too strong", or, my personal favorite "doesn't make sense".
In a game with huge flying dragons, no less.
So when I GM, I try to give the players every possible break I can. After all, I'm not their enemy, I'm there to create stories and scenarios they can interact with. I roll openly, and I don't (often) fudge. I spend a lot of time creating what I feel are appropriate encounters.
And I try not to sweat the fights they blow through- there's always more enemies, after all.
But lately, I've been slipping, and it's bothering me. I fudged a few die rolls last session, and I used some dirty tactics. The whole time, I was convincing myself that it was their own fault, for charging straight on into a bad situation, but in retrospect, I wonder if maybe I'm to blame, since I usually don't play hardball without warning.
One of the characters died, and I felt so guilty about it, I allowed them to be revived almost hassle-free.
Somehow, in my quest to be the GM whose game I'd love to play in, I've started losing control of the game. I currently have a level 6 Swashbuckler with a +17 to hit (+21 due to gang up and outflank), and even the CR 9 "boss" I plan on having them fight at the end of the current arc seems...inadequate.
So here's what I've done so far:
*allowed players to roll stats. This makes them stronger than the 15-20 point buy the game is built around, but not as much as you'd think. Generally, I could build characters of similar combat effectiveness with a 20 point buy, but they'd be far less well rounded. I mostly allowed this because a few players had some MAD character concepts, like our Warpriest and Enlightened Paladin.
*maximum hit points per level. In the past, we've always had crazy house rules to prevent people from getting low hit points, and it occurred to me to just cut out the middleman. Especially in light of the party composition- you might think a Paladin and a Warpriest could mitigate damage as well as a Cleric or Oracle, but that is not the case.
NOTE: by "mitigate", I don't mean combat healing, since that's usually an emergency tactic. There's a lack of other kinds of spells, such as "buffs" and "debuffs" as well. The Warpriest is designed to self-buff to overcome a lower BAB, and the majority of the Paladin's Lay on Hands are self-targeted.
*automatic bonus progression. I adopted a bonus progression I found on the forums, before I saw the Unchained rules, but it's close. I didn't reduce party wealth, however, because once the "big six" are off the table, most magic items tend to fall into "cool trick" or extra utility- a good deal of cash has been spent on bags of holding and heavyload belts, for example. There are a few outliers, like ioun stones for +1 insight to attack rolls that I didn't foresee.
*in light of the lack of a full caster (the party's actual makeup is Lore Warden Fighter, vanilla Swashbuckler, vanilla Warpriest, and Enlightened Paladin), but the higher base numbers the party has, I consider the party's ECL to be 7 instead of 6. I use level appropriate enemies, for the most part, to avoid having them face casters with 4th-level spells, or enemy specials they have no way to handle, and pad their numbers with things like the Advanced template.
Bruiser type enemies will get a level or 2 of Fighter, that sort of thing. I'm careful not to put enemy AC's out of the Warpriest's attack bonus- at worst an enemy might require him to roll a 12 to hit, and I feel bad about that, since a lot of his spell slots tend to go towards other characters, instead of giving him the self buffs his class is reliant on.
This has, however, ramped up enemy damage a bit. Granted, yes, I gave them maximum hit points, but a few sessions ago, they were fighting undead miners with picks, and a lucky crit took the Fighter from almost full to "oh man, I'm glad we had that Breath of Life scroll!", due to the high static damage the enemies had.
Which has become a trend, really. The Swashbuckler dances through fights, rarely taking any damage, and doing almost as much damage as the Fighter. The Paladin can absorb lots of damage, but is lacking offensive punch. The Warpriest struggles to keep them alive (or hit enemies). And the Fighter...dies a lot.
Last session, they took on some cultists, and while the individual enemies were weaker than they were, they got overconfident, and started a second encounter right on the heels of the first, which got them overwhelmed by enemies.
Including a summoned Bone Devil, who used his spell like abilities to wreak havoc with them. Halfway during the fight, the cultists decided to retreat into narrow tunnels, and the Swashbuckler complained about me being soft "they were going to win, why would they retreat?".
This during a fight where the only damage he took was from moving through the frigid air left from a broken Wall of Ice.
Anyways, that's enough for one post, I can answer specific questions about party makeup, what abilities they have that have proven hard to deal with fairly, and enemy abilities and tactics later. I really could use some help here, and I appreciate any advice that can be given.
You mentioned not using high-level casters as enemies (which is reasonable). Are you differentiating enemy attack types much? As in, some standard roll-vs-AC-for-damage attacks, some ability damage, some status conditions, some save-targeting, some combat maneuvers? Changing it up will likely have some effect on which characters survive best
As far as the near-death issues, this is why I generally build or choose enemies to be high HP compared to lower AC and damage. Going with DR or special abilities if I want extra sturdiness or offense. Not getting to hit an enemy isn't fun. Not being able to take a hit isn't fun. Tanky HP makes sure the whole party gets to participate in even a small encounter, though, and unexpected abilities gives the party a chance to pull out some tricks they don't normally get to use.
I'd like to know a little more about the Fighter's build, and the Swashbuckler's. For instance, you said your players rolled stats. Does there seem to be much discrepancy in their base ability scores? Has loot been well-distributed so everyone's found or bought similar amounts of useful stuff for themselves?
That would be one of my first resorts to handle consistent imbalances - have enemies happen to drop stuff that's most useful to a weaker character. If the party divides things up differently than you expected, it's still having less influence, and if they let the right character have it, that should pad things out a little.
(I say put this stuff in normally distributed loot because it'll feel less forced and probably be less resented than if you just have an NPC find an excuse to give the +3 vorpal sword to the Fighter in particular because he's such a cool guy.)
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It sounds like your players are too used to you coddling them and don't bother trying to play smart, so the more vulnerable ones are getting mangled by new things that get introduced as levels increase. I'm not saying you should be playing hardball, but you should pushing them to think tactically with the encounters.
The "always max HP" was a mistake. If you want to make sure nobody gets crippled health, have them reroll any 1s or 2s they get on their HD roll.
Kaladin-
The Fighter is a Lore Warden who primarily uses a bastard sword and a buckler. He has Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, and Improved Disarm (that he rarely uses). He generally attacks with his sword in both hands using Power Attack while enlarged for heavy damage, the buckler is there so he has another option to raise his AC when he gets low on hp. I've pitched Shield of Swings to him, as well as switching to a greatsword (or a proper reach weapon), since Combat Expertise is far more damaging to him than lowering his attack bonus- he's "thinking about it". He has a tendency to get right out in front of the party, and swing for heavy damage, which has the result of him being targeted by most of the enemy attacks, which has the result of knocking him to under 0 hit points in at least half the encounters.
There's a Ring of Force Shield with his name on it in an upcoming encounter.
The Swashbuckler is a Halfling who is all in on Dexterity thanks to Fencing Grace. She has the best AC and attack bonus, and has a Swashbuckler's Flair that lets her increase her reach. She's the one I have the most problems with, since she does something like 1d4+15 damage per hit (+21 if she spends a panache), and most fights is barely touched due to her 26 AC- even if she does get hit, she has two different Deeds that can negate a hit.
There's not really a noticeable gap with anyone's attributes, the Fighter has 20 Strength, Dex and Con of about 16 each. The Swashbuckler has slightly worse stats overall, but has a 22 Dex. The imbalance comes from her not needing anything else particularly high, while the other characters are more MAD, I think.
I mostly don't drop loot aimed at a particular character, a lot of the stuff they get is taken from their enemies. I account for this though, and assume that most things will be sold for 50%. Every so often they find a use for something not really intended for them, which does raise their WBL, like when the Warpriest decided to switch from using her favored weapon to a captured greatsword. OTOH, since I decided to treat them as being ECL +1, it's only fair that they get a little extra gold since they are facing tougher enemies.
I would say stop boosting the ECL and boost their SPL. Your version of ABP makes them more powerful due to wealth. It shouldn't destroy them (as most fights shouldn't) but it should definitely challenge them.
For the fighter: you could let him layer defenses. provide potions of displacement, cloak of displacement lesser, or similar ways to avoid hits that arent AC based. Is he using the options from the armor and weapons masters handbook? thats some fairly powerful stuff. Cut from the air is one i like in particular.
For your swashbuckler: Even picking a dex +4 race, going all in on dex, etc, a +21 is a really really high attack bonus. 7 from dex at most is what you should be seeing (belt of dex), 6 from bab...that's another +8 to go to get to a +21. I'd audit the sheet, and do whats described above. target saves, touch ac, combat maneuvers, etc. No ones defenses are perfect, and there shouldnt just be attacks against AC.
But to be fair, you gave max hp, increased stats (from point buy), gave them automatic bonus progression in addition to loot, then complain when the power levels got wonky. Shouldn't this be a subtle hint to you that making changes has unforeseen circumstances, and perhaps be more cautious about it next time
Bloodrealm-
You said maximum hit points was a mistake- I'm curious as to why. Tougher characters who are less likely to die from a random critical hit struck me as a positive. Is your stance that it induces a false sense of invincibility?
Honestly, since I've already crit the poor Fighter for 68 damage from a heavy pick, I haven't seen the high hp as being anything but a positive. While the point is valid that the player might look at a big number of hit points and be reckless, I can't remember a single game I've ever been in where the DM wouldn't allow some sort of rerolling of low hit point rolls. One, in particular, who cited his belief that Con was a "terrible stat" and made less useful due to things like Toughness and FCB, had a house rule where you re-rolled any hit point roll that was lower than your Con modifier. That got hilarious with my 18 Con Wizard, but I was no less cowardly than any other Wizard I've ever played.
Lynceus - more hp isnt helping you, because your party has very few ways of repleneshing it. They have less spells to use/items than normal, so it doesnt provide any real protection, as refilling their hp is a much more difficult task, and they probably don't top up as much as any normal party.
Also - yes, it can lead to a false sense of security, but what it actually does is make the gap between d10 and d6 classes higher. Maybe not a huge concern in your game, but in later levels, hits that challenge your melee will outright destroy your squishier members, creating more balance problems that way.
The attack bonus of the Swashbuckler is +17, the +21 is due to the fact 3 of the players have Gang Up, and she has Outflank. They're very good about focusing on one enemy at a time. I don't mind that, obviously, and I'm pleased that they took teamwork feats, but they have a serious effect.*
About the WBL, I understand this is GM advice 101, but honestly, looking at what they do with their money, I don't think this is the issue. Once you remove the majority of +attack/damage, +AC, and +saves from the equation, what are you really spending coin on that can break the game? Sure, like I said, there were a few items like the cracked Ioun stone, but if you can't buy a Belt to get a +4 to a stat, and have to wait for your bonus progression to say, yes, now you get +4 to a stat, or no, you can't have a +2 magic weapon, you have to wait to reach the level where you get a +2 to hit and damage, what I'm seeing is money spent on consumables, utility items, ways to carry more stuff, boots of striding and springing, etc.
Well, there is mithril, but since 3/4 of the party wears light armor anyways, it's not like they couldn't have found a way to have mage armor on most of the time (the Warpriest, of all people, has a high Use Magic Device check).
*Escape Route, for example, is starting to make me twitch, lol, but it's something I would use as a player, if I could get my party to take teamwork feats, so...I just sigh a lot.
Also, just to point this out, an AC of 26 at that level is not unhittable, or anywhere close.
Yeah it might be difficult, but if you're throwing more melee against them, I'm surprised that you're having difficulty hitting that AC. We've already mathed out an easy +17, same route your swashbuckler went. why wouldnt enemies go the same way?
Replenishing hit points out of combat is pretty easy, 2 of them have Fey Foundling, and there's a dedicated "Wand of CLW" fund. The issues mostly crop up in combat, when someone does end up fuming on hit points, because some characters end up taking more hits than others. Now a Cleric or Oracle isn't kicking out amazing in combat healing most times as it is, given that Cure spells are terrible (unless they're all in on healing, like a Life Oracle), but it's worse than that when all you have is a 6/9 caster and a Paladin who thinks he's a monk.
I apologize if it feels like I'm discounting anyone's advice, you may be right, and I have to think about it. On paper, it doesn't seem (to me) that these are major issues, but it very well could be a combination of factors that have me frustrated.
I mean, I want the party to win. I want them to succeed. I want them to have fun. But it feels like unless I use dirty tricks or enemies that are resistant or immune to their abilities, they can't be challenged in normal fights- and harder fights seem to end up with at least one player sitting there with nothing to do because his character is bleeding out on the ground.
Finding the right balance is proving to be very hard.
for what its worth, yes, the stuff I pointed out isnt huge, but yes, its likely a combination of factors.
In combat healing isnt an optimal use of anyones time, but there are times when its important, necessary, etc because if you can keep your fighter alive for one more round, he can land the finishing blow, etc.
While i do prescribe to a 'healer' being not a highly useful character, you're missing important cleric stuff like say, shield other on your fighter. Would be incredible useful. Or displacement from the mage.
While neither of these roles is really 'needed', the stuff you're starting to miss is stacking up, both defensively and offensively. No haste, no fly, no displacement, no channel energy after shielding other for 2x healing, etc.
So stuff is gonna be difficult for them, and that's fine. They'll eventually learn their lesson, took the war oracle in the last campaign I GMed (i'm finishing kingmaker next week, a two year project) 5 levels to figure out he wasnt tough enough for melee anymore.
Its a combination of you making them too powerful with the houserules, not varying the challenge, a lack of support spells, and probably several other things.
If I can be of more help, you're welcome to PM me. like i said, just finished a 2 year campaign for kingmaker, so perhaps i can provide some perspective.
Also: stop feeling like dirty tricks are a bad thing. The enemy is evil. The enemy is usually more powerful than the party, overall. That's what makes being a hero fun, triumphing over tough odds. not every encounter has to be fair, some should be easy, and some should be tooth and nail, dirty tricks included.
Oh I could easily use enemies with very high attack rolls, and I have in the past- there was a fight with Earth Elementals last month that got out of hand quick.* The problem is, not everyone in the party has 26 AC and immediate action defenses.
My rule of thumb is to not make enemies unhittable to any player character who has any business being in combat. So if I know the Warpriest only has a +12 to hit, I think AC 24 is pushing it.
Conversely, if I have a melee character with an AC of 22, +13, maybe 14 to hit is about as far as I like to go, because otherwise, the player starts to wonder why they even wear armor!
I want to challenge the party, not use enemies tailored to defeat one player. I mean, it's going to happen from time to time, but I don't like to make a habit of it.
*the fight was not only bad because the elementals pretty much hit all the time, but the Swashbuckler lost her precision damage, and the Paladin was held back by their DR 5/-, since he insists on punching things to death.
See, thats a great rule of thumb, but the idea is varying levels of difficulty. So some enemies might make them question why they use armor. And thats FINE. Its up to the warpriest to bring himself up to combat readiness, and you can offer to help bring him and the swashbuckler closer together.
The problem seems more clear now, its that your baselines are too far apart. You can't challenge a party like that very easily, and it accounts for the difficulty you're having. I recommend offering the warpriest a rebuild, or look at it, because his to-hit seems way too low for a non support character at that level. Assuming he's using divine favour to fix his BAB, he should be within 2 points of the swashbuckler in to-hit, he has all the same options.
But at the same time, perhaps using AC the warpriest struggles with will help him realize he has to put more resources into combat if he wants to be effective.
Honestly, your game sounds like child's play compared to mine. I give max hit points every level. My players are mythic. All Paizo material is allowed as well as a wide swathe of third party materials. Everyone has a scaling item weapon. All the players have companions. The party recovered the Seven Swords of Sin and reforged the runes to virtue. I give them tons of great stuff to play with - but their enemies get maxed HP, awesome weapons and a full range of mythic abilities to assault them with as well.
If the dice kill the player, then KILL them! It's part of the game. Take that danger away and they might as well play Pokemon Go while you're GMing for them. Your role as GM is to challenge the players. Part of the challenge is to have them risk death day in and day out. Are you running homebrew adventures?
I'd recommend running a few well reviewed Paizo modules or adventure paths. Take that feeling of guilt of building threats for the characters away by using what Paizo has written as your foundation.
That does sound like an epic game, and I imagine in that environment, no trick is too dirty to use, Brother Fen. I guess one of the things I'm struggling with is not only do the characters have different levels of optimization, the players have different levels of experience.
The Fighter, for example, is a smart guy, but he has no head for math, and scouring lists of Feats and magic items makes his eyes cross. He doesn't want to ultra specialize either, as he's seen how relying on one tactic can really screw you over when that tactic doesn't work. He agonizes every time he realizes he can't use some of his Feats, because to him, if it's not useful at least half the time, it's a waste. It's hard mindset to break.
I try to encourage someone wanting to make a character that has multiple facets, but it's a hard road, because the game does reward finding a strong tactic and beating it to death with a rock.
The Paladin has more experience than the Fighter, but the common sense of a day-old tuna fish sandwich. He also wanted a "do-everything" character, but one that was really optimized. His archetype allows him to add Dex and Charisma together for AC, and he built himself to be Dex-based for attack and damage, so the only stats he needed were Dex and Charisma. But his archetype trades out some really useful Paladin abilities, like Smite Evil, Aura of Courage, and Channel Energy for...higher AC in light armor and half the unarmed damage of a monk. Without Flurry of Blows (though he's talking about a one-level dip of Unchained Monk with the Scaled Fist archetype to remedy the problem).
The Warpriest is the most experienced player, but he wanted to balance out being an effective Warpriest with being useful to the party as a whole. He doesn't throw out self buffs as often because he feels he needs to reserve spell slots for emergencies. If there was a full divine caster to back him up, he could run into every fight with Divine Favor + Bull's Strength and wreck faces, but he's decided his role is "team Mom".
I've talked to him about changing his class for Cleric, but...he's stubborn.
And lastly, the Swashbuckler, who has no problem min-maxing all the way. Honestly, I find it weird when my group has issues with someone playing a lackluster class (which I really feel Swashbuckler is), but without specifically gunning for the character's weak points...they're a menace!
The best attack, the best AC, probably second best damage and the ability to dance around the battlefield with impunity- the only thing that usually works is precision-immune enemies or stuff that targets Fort and Will- stuff I don't like using because it generally leaves the victim helpless.
As for death, it really comes down to this. I've got a story to tell, and an adventure planned. If someone dies in the first encounter, it basically means we're done for the evening. The party isn't going to be able to take on the challenges ahead with one man down, unless I mysteriously lower the amount of enemies.
Even if I say "well you can't retreat", and it doesn't make it 25% more likely that someone dies in the next encounter, I'm stuck with a player who may as well go home.
So my problem isn't that I don't think death should be part of the game. My problem is I don't want to shoot myself in the foot by making it impossible to continue to play, or risk a TPK.
It's not the death, it's the timing, really.
so, this seems...silly, but why is a player dying so bad? If the characters feel theyre unprepared for what's ahead, it can turn into a side quest to get a res from a friendly temple.
You CAN adjust amounts of monsters. In fact, i strongly suggest you do. If they're down resources, or a party member, making it less challenging is not cheating.
You dont seem to be happy until you've pushed your players as close to death as possible, but dont want death to happen. These two things cannot coexist, and one of them has to change. its up to you which one it is. Either stop trying for the razor edge of balance, and mix it up. Some stuff will be challenging, some won't. but that's normal.
I also strongly echo the previous suggestion of running some paizo adventures for feeling out how 'normal' adventures do things. It'll give you tons of insight into your own game.
At this point, you may very well be best off talking to your players, explaining the problem, and asking them to make characters that are not 'overpowered or underpowered', but on the same level of power, so you can balance encounters properly.
I don't need to batter them down to single digits, I guess I'm just too self-conscious about doing a good job as a GM. If they waltz through a fight or two, that's fine, I mean, they're the heroes, that's what heroes do.
It's just when I sit back and realize most of the session was smooth sailing, I start to doubt myself. So the next session I try to make it a little harder, and then...the Fighter dies (or some other calamity).
That's frustrating, to be sure.
As for why he dies, it just comes down to the fact that he makes himself an obvious and logical target. And he can't really take all the punishment that gets him.
I've asked the other players to consider their tactics, and to see if they can protect him, since he is the biggest damage dealer. Because at the rate things are going, he's going to end up an anemic sword and boarder hiding behind a tower shield, and that's probably not a good thing.
I will take a closer look at published adventures, though I admit, I've been reluctant to look at them, since I've been told by people who play PFS that they've had the experience that while they work great for the "default party" of Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Wizard, they fall apart when less orthodox builds tackle them.
I use level appropriate enemies, for the most part, to avoid having them face casters with 4th-level spells, or enemy specials they have no way to handle, and pad their numbers with things like the Advanced template.
Bruiser type enemies will get a level or 2 of Fighter, that sort of thing. I'm careful not to put enemy AC's out of the Warpriest's attack bonus- at worst an enemy might require him to roll a 12 to hit, and I feel bad about that, since a lot of his spell slots tend to go towards other characters, instead of giving him the self buffs his class is reliant on.
The only thing that usually works is precision-immune enemies or stuff that targets Fort and Will- stuff I don't like using because it generally leaves the victim helpless.
I'm reading this thread with interest. I've played Pathfinder for years now, and GMed other games, but now I'm GMing PF for the first time. Balancing encounters is tricky! So I'm too novice to play doctor with confidence. I'll just say that I heard an awful lot of "I feel bad about that" here, more than I personally would expect from a GM. Maybe you need to change your standards for yourself.
One PC having to roll a 12 to hit makes you feel bad? How about setting yourself a new standard of no worse than 16? I've actually had (typically weak combatant) characters become aware at times that if they hit, they'd make a crit threat by definition. Making a PC hit only 25% of the time isn't anything for the GM to feel bad about in a tough fight. Setting things up so your swashbuckler can hit anything he encounters on a 7 or sometimes 3 or maybe 2 should make you feel bad.
You avoid having them face casters with a higher caster level than their character level? Why? I've seen advice to avoid blindness or curses before the party can deal with their removal. OK, fine. That leaves a lot of fun 4th-level spells out there that could be challenging your 6th-level party. Confusion, D-Door, or Greater Invisibility... Maybe a lot of these higher-level spells would not be trivial for your PCs to circumvent. You don't have to feel bad as you watch your players sweat. Honest!
You don't like stuff that targets Fort and Will because it generally leaves the victim helpless? Sure, but beating those will make the paladin & warpriest feel great! The fact that you're hitting the swashbuckler sometimes with those too is part of taking a class -- sometimes those built-in weaknesses hit you in the chops. So the swashbuckler feels helpless, sometimes -- the fighter sure feels helpless when he's bleeding out. You get better from being helpless quickly, and getting better from dead is apparently not necessarily quick at all. Just don't feel bad about the occasional "helpless," okay? You're doing your job!
"I'm good at solving non-trivial problems" is the PC's credo. Don't feel bad about making them make good on the boast. It's fun!
I had one other suggestion, which I thought warranted a separate post.
Look at Hero Points, an optional rule in the Advanced Player's Guide (under New Rules). It could help your warpriest feel a lot more effective against high-AC foes -- and your fighter feel a lot less dead! It also could help the swashbuckler stave off helplessness. As for the paladin, it will help him help others.
The hero pt rules already provide for an opportunity to help others make *some* saves at a reduced effectiveness rate, and specifically ban their altruistic use for other saves or for preventing death. I'm not sure I like it in general, but for your group banning helpful expenditures looks needlessly painful. I would allow spending hero pts on others' behalf for saves or death prevention either freely or as an immediate action.
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I'm going to be harsh, here. But please realize that this is a harshness born of trying to help you save your game -- because I see it on a death spiral as it is right now.
Why are you coddling your players?
a) You admit that the warpriest needs to use self-buffs to be as effective in combat as the other characters, and that the player chooses not to use them in the interest of being more generally useful. That's fine, and a perfectly valid role-playing decision. But it has consequences! When you make foes easy for that character to hit (and 12+ really is easy), it makes it trivial for the other characters to hit.
b) When you avoid using effects that make the swashbuckler 'helpless', you are negating a major strength of two or three of the other characters (two for Will, all three for Fort).
c) You feel bad when you utilize foes that certain characters cannot use their preferred tactics against. The paladin can't punch past DR? He needs to be more flexible in his tactics, or get a set of enchanted spiked knuckles. The swashbuckler can't use precision damage against certain enemies? Nowhere in the rules does it state that precision is universally applicable.
You sound like you want the characters to be able to succeed without leaving their comfort zone. That's a valid GM style, but you need to realize what you're doing if that's what you want, and come to terms with it yourself. Otherwise, your players need to step up their game and realize that the world is not going to be handed to them on a mithral platter.
One possible way to do this, and realize that you can only do it once, is the dream scenario. Get them into what you would consider a challenging combat, and if the fight goes badly, show them a TPK. Then let them know that their characters wake up in a cold, cold sweat as they see what could happen to them.
Good luck to you, and I truly wish you and your group the best!
When I play games, especially ones like Pathfinder, there are things that GM's do that I don't like. Being stingy with wealth, banning player options, using overpowered enemies, and being quick to rule against the players when they encounter something they think is "too strong", or, my personal favorite "doesn't make sense".
In a game with huge flying dragons, no less.
So when I GM, I try to give the players every possible break I can.
Somehow, in my quest to be the GM whose game I'd love to play in, I've started losing control of the game.
Well, a so b.
Banning player options is done by the PFS. Otherwise players may have the choice between a small no of overpowered options or being weak. It is a perfectly good GM option.
So is being "stingy" with wealth. Sufficient money and the players will be walking around with an arsenal of magic items allowing them to solve nearly any problem.
Getting what you want as a PC is not the same as what makes a campaign good in the long term.
And challenging encounters. If you say have 10 encounters a session, and 3 are challenging, meaning there is a 50% chance of one PC dying, then you will average around 2 PCs dying a session. And a TPK every 2 or 3 sessions, when the monsters get lucky. Nobody wants that.
The illusion of really tough fights is what is wanted. Really dangerous encounters should be the climax of something.
My pet peeves as a player are GMs who frequently set you against overpowered monsters then fix it so you don't die. That and making things up as they go along, so you can never figure out what you are up against, because it does not really exist. Or set very difficult problems, you behave sensibly and cautiously, while others are suicidally moronic, and survive and prosper due to GM fixing things.
But to be fair, you gave max hp, increased stats (from point buy), gave them automatic bonus progression in addition to loot, then complain when the power levels got wonky. Shouldn't this be a subtle hint to you that making changes has unforeseen circumstances, and perhaps be more cautious about it next time
I must say I agree with this. Thee a number of things that give your PCs a plus, and those add up.
And I have always preferred point buys to rolling stats. The uneven nature of the characters generated leads players to want to scheme to play the better ones. This can range from changing character to explore a different roleplaying opportunity or extreme bravery. When the character involved just has inferior stats. And when one player does that to advantage, others follow suit.
Thank you for your honesty, Debnor. Really, in the case of the Warpriest, the problem is, sure, I could force him to face the consequences of not being selfish. But then he may very well decide to BE selfish about his spells, and the repercussions of that could be very dire. Which is why I've tried to be as fair as I could possibly be.
The "what if" battle to show them that they need to step up their game without actually murdering them is something I'll have to think about.
Which is really the thing- I can always make enemies tougher to more than make up for any bonus I give the players. I just want to do it without ending my game.
I've been thinking about this thread, so I thought I'd weigh in. I'm not super experienced in DMing, but I did run a good chunk of a homebrew pathfinder quest that ran for a year and a half or so.
First, it seems like the problem is really that the game has gotten less fun. This happens. It waxes and wanes. Maybe take a week off, and your appetites will come back whetted and ready.
Or run a one-off where everyone is a different character: I did one game where they played through their past lives on the day they were all killed--everyone had to build a fighter, and everyone knew at the start that everyone was going to die. They learned a lot about their current struggles by seeing their own deaths, and everyone got a break from their current builds and got to do a lot of combat (endless zombie rampage).
Part of it is that you want to play nice and stay positive and not kill anyone, but it seems like the party is demanding some death. If dead end builds are holding players back, they might have less fun in the long term than if those characters met timely ends. The game has procedures for replacing them with characters that are more fun--survival of the funnest.
Here's an example of how I might try to solve this one: build a character or two who are incredibly fun to play, powerful enough to be viable, and who would complement the party. Your fighter guy seems to be the perfect candidate for a fighter archer, for instance: the feats are pretty easy to take, the playstyle is fun and potent while being simple and aggressive, and the only downside is that you'll have to watch him painstakingly add up all the d8s and bonuses (our Ranger was also bad at math). Or a witch with Flight and Slumber, or a cool sorcerer, or a reach weapon user, or whatever. Something anyone could pick up on the fly.
Then, build a tough encounter or two, and build a good story reason to have this NPC archer (or whatever) come along to help. Wait for the fighter to kill himself. Then say, "It's ok, they can recover your body, but for now, you can play Funzilla the Sharpshooter." At the end of the session, offer them three choices: new character, old character revived at party expense, or let them keep Funzilla. IF they realize that their former character had gone beyond the pale of fun, they might be more willing to reconfigure it. My first ever character switched tracks from Fighter (weapon focus: shortspear! What was I thinking?!?) to Wizard partway through, and ended up incredibly fun.
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I have had similar happen, and every time it is because I let players do things I don't want them to do, instead of just telling them. We are all mature enough where I could say 'only these races' without too much pushback, but I don't, i let them do what they want, then I am annoyed when they pick Hobgoblin, for instance. Instead I should have just been forceful with rules and my desires to begin with.
I've been getting better at it.
People seem to think your WBL has gone wonky. In that case, you might give the PCs fewer things, but things they'll keep -- specifically, access to the divine spells they need but don't have. A wand of restoration would go a long way, I should think, toward easing your discomfort with effects that cause stat damage on a failed save, as one example.
And a staff w/ Breath of Life & Raise Dead (along with the assurance that most temples & whatnot have clerics of a high enough level to "top it off," for a suitable donation) might well keep the fighter in action while you recalibrate.
Okay, with the new information, it sounds like your Swash is dominating because the Fighter and Paladin are terrible. The party is also insanely redundant with ALL of them filling the melee role and little else.
I'm no expert on Lore Wardens, but I'm certain they're meant for a lot of combat maneuvers. They're not tanks. Your Fighter is playing a Big Dumb Fighter beatstick with neither a Big Dumb Fighter class nor a Big Dumb Fighter build. Fighters are also the class that needs to look over those big swaths of feats the most. They're largely dependent on their hordes of feats that they get and they need to make sure they synergize with each other. He should be using things like Trip and Dirty Trick along with attacks, not blindly wailing on things with a one-handed weapon and an unused buckler giving a -1 to his two-handed attacks and +nothing to his AC when he does them. Unless he's picked up proficiency with his feats, he's a Strength character in light armour, so he won't have the AC to be a beatstick.
The Paladin sounds... absolutely useless. The enemies are bound to get through his AC at some point and he's given up everything useful. Hell, he'd probably be getting the same or better AC if he kept Smite Evil, but he'd be hitting a lot more often and for a lot more damage. Is he using a Style? There's pretty much no reason to not use Style feats for unarmed strikes. And does he have an Amulet of Mighty Fists?
The Swashbuckler... is doing her job. She's a Swashbuckler.
The Fighter and Paladin are forcing the Warpriest to do something he's not built for (support them to keep the party going), which is where the redundancy of all the classes comes in. Everyone is built for the same role, so someone has to not do that even though it's what they're meant for.
Just out of curiosity... you said most enemies/npcs/monsters gang up on the fighter because he rushes in first.
Could you change the terrain/situation to make sure your enemies are actually targeting other team members from time to time?
How many enemies do they fight on average? Do they fight small groups as well as larger groups of foes? (Single enemies are always a bad thing, imho)
Bitter Lily: I make sure the players get a lot of scrolls and potions, and the Warpriest has gathered quite the collection of wands from enemies, this is something I've tried to do, but staves are rough. They are grossly overpriced for what they do, and I need to be prepared for what happens when they sell one (which already happened once).
Currently, they do have a staff of courage, which makes me happy because there's a fight coming up with some fear guards and a mummy.
The problem with lesser restoration is it's casting time. There's simply no way to use it in combat. Last session the Paladin got tagged by a Touch of Idiocy, and the resulting -5 penalty to his Charisma lowered his Divine Protection bonus to saves enough that he actually failed multiple poison saves from an imp, reducing his Dexterity by 11 (!) points before the fight ended. Which just underlines why I don't like using those kinds of effects as a GM, because that wasn't much fun for anyone.
Bloodrealm: the Fighter isn't quite as bad as it sounds, but yeah, he rushes into things more often than he should, and his allies are usually someplace else at any given moment. The Paladin would be better if he put himself in positions where enemies had little choice but to attack him, unfortunately, he tends to park himself next to the first enemy he sees so he can full attack. He's currently using an Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists so he can have Dex to damage. The fact that everyone is melee is...actually kind of normal with my group, I'm the only one who generally plays full casters.
That has more to do with the other GM's style, we run very different games.
Kyoni: wouldn't narrow ground actually make it easier for the enemy to team up on one enemy? I'm always trying to mix up the terrain, and not always to the enemy's benefit, as the Swashbuckler is an amazing climber and she's usually the first one to try and take the high ground (being a halfling, who can blame her?).
Right now they're going into narrow tunnels, and that's not going to be fun at all. But for future sessions, what would you suggest? Large, open areas?
An average encounter usually has 3-5 enemies. I usually try to use 1 or 2 different enemy types at most, as it's easier for me to run enemies with similar tactics. The last large fight had 5 different enemy types, and it was a mess, especially when I got to the Sorcerer's turn, where I had to stop and check the ranges of 4 different spells to see who could be targeted by what.
Bloodrealm: the Fighter isn't quite as bad as it sounds, but yeah, he rushes into things more often than he should, and his allies are usually someplace else at any given moment. The Paladin would be better if he put himself in positions where enemies had little choice but to attack him, unfortunately, he tends to park himself next to the first enemy he sees so he can full attack. He's currently using an Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists so he can have Dex to damage. The fact that everyone is melee is...actually kind of normal with my group, I'm the only one who generally plays full casters.
They're all the pure melee role! No full casters is one thing, but nothing decently mixed or even a ranged martial character? No Bard, no Spiritualist, no Inquisitor, no Summoner, no Hunter, no Mesmerist, no Occultist, no Skald, not even a Magus or Alchemist. The Paladin and Warpriest they DO have aren't built to lend support, either. No battlefield control or debuffing, and minimal healing and buffs.
And how the hell did the Paladin fail a DC 13 Fort save at least 6 times?
Hi I've only scanned most of this thread but seems to me that from what's been said your player expect to be able to over come every combat as you've never really challenged them and have become overconfident in there abilities.
Have the odd encounter that they are ment to run from is a good thing , remind them that they are powerful but there's plenty of things out there that will happily tear them a new a@%~ h&&# .
They may even thank you for it as they won't be able to just power through every combat and will have to think up new and clever ways to do things
Pretty sure the Swash isn't the problem here.
Bitter Lily: I make sure the players get a lot of scrolls and potions, and the Warpriest has gathered quite the collection of wands from enemies, this is something I've tried to do, but staves are rough. They are grossly overpriced for what they do, and I need to be prepared for what happens when they sell one (which already happened once).
Currently, they do have a staff of courage, which makes me happy because there's a fight coming up with some fear guards and a mummy.
I'm sorry, I hadn't priced a staff out before I opened my big mouth. As it turns out, a Staff of Life that can cast (10 Heals) OR (5 Heals & 1 Raise Dead) OR (2 Raise Deads) costs... 109,400 gp! When you could drop the 10 Heal AND two Raise Dead scrolls on them for a total of 23,350 gp. {Edit: No, 5,250 more: 28,900 gp. Still, a bargain.} I don't get it. But you've clearly picked the best course you can in this regard.
Still and all, have you looked at the hero points option? It's a system outside of the cash economy.
The problem with lesser restoration is its casting time. There's simply no way to use it in combat. Last session the Paladin got tagged by a Touch of Idiocy, and the resulting -5 penalty to his Charisma lowered his Divine Protection bonus to saves enough that he actually failed multiple poison saves from an imp, reducing his Dexterity by 11 (!) points before the fight ended. Which just underlines why I don't like using those kinds of effects as a GM, because that wasn't much fun for anyone.
I hope the paladin actually used Prayer in this dire situation? (Natively, or from his Staff of Courage...)
But the main thing I noticed was your conclusion. Your group may have a different definition of "fun" from mine. I'm thinking of how I'd feel playing a DEX-based fighter down -11 DEX, and the answer is terrible. Frustrated as all get-out. But how would I feel after we WON? Great! I suppose I now have to bow to kyrt-ryder's advice: ask the pally player whether winning that fight, despite all the personal frustration, was "fun" -- or if he'd prefer never to face such a fight again. It may turn out that you need not fear "no fun" as much as you think.
Our cleric failed a save the first round, got confused, and ran miles away. (Not quite, but he was taken out of the fight, all the same.) Our warblade (a fighter w/ extraordinary & supernatural talents) charged into melee. We all watched with horror as he got turned into goo in response. This creature could do that to us as a long-reach melee touch attack! I was playing a badly designed character who was supposed to do ranged combat, but could only hit this monster on a 20 -- don't ask. Our wizard did what he could, which was quite considerable, but then dived after his familiar about to get gooed. End result: double-goo. However, he first tossed me the unknown-tech object we'd found earlier. Pressing a button recklessly, I discovered that I had a ranged-touch attack! (And a foe with armor from the Abyss but no DEX to speak of.) I turned a dial from "I" to "IIIII" and fired 5d4 blast after blast. Given all the HP our demonic foe had, it wasn't much -- but I was contributing, finally. Meanwhile, the warblade un-gooed to find his gear lying scattered on the floor around him. He grabbed his sword and advanced stark naked on the monster. He now knew to focus his abilities on defense & resistance, rather than offense. By the time he fell unconscious, he had wounded the horror to the point that I could finish it off with one more gimpy shot.
None of us could go home and celebrate our great performance from start to finish. But oh, how we celebrated the death of that Thing. And oh, how heroic we felt. For us, that campaign was far richer for including that fight, not poorer.
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The reason why Staves are so expensive is because they use the user's casting mod and caster level to determine the spell's effects -- which is amazingly powerful in the hands of a primary caster. Since you don't have any of those, they aren't worth the price to this party. But for the right kind of character, the price is appropriate.
Bloodrealm: it was an advanced imp, the DC for it's poison was 15. The Paladin's normal save is +11 Fort, but the penalty to his Charisma brought it down to +8 and for several rounds he couldn't manage to roll a 7, it was pretty bizarre.
As for staves...Even if you have a full caster, staves are terrible. They have 10 charges, and recharging them in the field requires you to expend a spell slot when you prepare spells. And the spell must be of the same level as the highest level spell the staff can cast.
So for the Staff of Courage, which costs 20,800 gp (well above normal WBL for my party), the best spells it can cast cost 2 charges, and to recharge it, and the Warpriest can't even recharge it until she hits level 7, and then it would take 2 3rd-level spell slots from her (which would take 2 days) to restore those 2 charges.
I just want to echo bitter lillys comment about overcoming adversity.
That's definitely what makes fights fun. The fights i throw at my players that they breeze through are so-so, but the ones that provoke stories for years are the 'time this horrible guy did this horrific thing to us (dex damage, save or die, etc) and we overcame it! we are true badasses!' stories
First of all, I appreciate everyone's opinions and advice given in this thread. I apologized earlier for this, but I'll do it again- I'm pretty stubborn. I've put a lot of thought into this game and it's problems, and I'm passionate about gaming, it's one of my dearest joys to tell stories and interact with them.
I've taken a lot of what's been said into consideration, even if I sounded like I was arguing with it. Again, stubborn.
Second apology- super long post. I'm going to put this into s-blocks.
Phntm88-
There's no problem with his character, but in how he plays him. In theory, the Fighter can switch between offense, defense, and debuffing via combat maneuvers fairly easily. The reach and damage potential of enlarge person would let him stand just behind the front line and still reach enemies, and seriously punish anyone who provokes to get close to him. Looking at the Cleave line of Feats, I've ruled (the RAW seems to allow it, and it doesn't bother me even if it doesn't) that he can substitute Cleave (and Great Cleave) attacks for trips or disarms, allowing him to use these maneuvers against multiple foes.
The problem is, he gets into a fight, and he turns into a Big Stupid Fighter who thinks he's invincible and just wants to murder enemies with a giant sword, and that's not his character. I'll need to talk with him about what he really wants to do.
The Warpriest
The Paladin
The Swashbuckler
And despite all of that, the Swashbuckler is still pretty much an all-star! But then again, any class can be built and played beyond expectations. I once played a Rogue with a primary stat of Strength and a longspear that had a GM start griping mid session about "the Rogue class needs to be nerfed or something, you do way too much damage!". I almost choked I laughed so hard!
And in another game (same GM), my roommate and I show up to the table with a Rogue and Fighter tag-team armed with teamwork Feats so my Fighter would be the perfect flanking partner for his Tengu natural attack Rogue, which was even worse.
I know I can easily take the Swashbuckler apart by targeting her weak points. But those weak points are massive, and if I'm not very careful, I can pretty much tell the player to go for a snack run while I finish the combat. That's part of the game, but it's the least fun part of the game. Sure, overcoming adversity is a great thing, I agree with that. But the key is YOU have to overcome the adversity. Not sit around and watch your friends overcome it while you're stunned/paralyzed/dazed/bleeding out/nauseated/dominated/dead/petrified or reduced to single-digit Dexterity.
Phntm88-
I would avoid it as much as possible, however, for two reasons. It's hard enough to make sure your character can contribute in the best of situations. Even harder if you're trying a less than optimal build, especially one that's very GM-friendly like blasting (I'll explain my reasoning in a moment). Adding additional wrinkles to the problem can turn "hard" to "nighmare" difficulty, and the game is built in a way that you can never cover all bases. My roommate is a savvy player, and he turned up his nose at Orc and Dragon bloodlines, despite the obvious damage boost, and once played a Crossblooded Fire/Earth Sorcerer. With this approach, he felt elemental resistance/immunity would rarely be a problem.
He was right, and he was very careful about his spell selection, using feats and traits and magic items to maintain credible, if not awe-inspiring damage.
And then we ran into the one thing he hadn't taken into account- spell resistance, and finally he said "I'm going outside to smoke" and didn't come back for half an hour. Because it just wasn't possible for him to A) cover for resistances, B) maintain decent damage, C) have decent defenses, D) be able to cast defensively under pressure, and E) be prepared for spell resistance.
Sure, he had the option to take SR: No spells, but he's a Sorcerer. Every spell known is a critical resource, and a lot of those spells available to him were fairly lackluster. So he solved 4 out of 5 problems, and it just wasn't enough.
Blasting is GM friendly:
The Barbarian smashes a dragon with a full attack for well over 100 damage. It's still alive, when...it fails a saving throw and becomes a weasel.
This makes the Barbarian's contribution to the fight exactly zilch. He took damage that burns resources. Oh sure, he took the dragon's attention of the wizard, there's that. But it's a hollow victory, because his lucky crit, the one that made everyone howl with glee?
Meaningless.
Now replace the wizard with a burning sorcerer. The Barbarian greatly weakens the dragon, and then the sorcerer lights it up, finishing the beast. Comrades in arms, working together, everyone did their part! Glorious.
Plus, you know, massive damage is easier to manage, I think, from the GM side, than "empowered enervation. Oh hey, a crit! Ok, he takes...mmm...10 negative levels."
Just my opinion.
I'd actually argue that the Magus is at least slightly better off than the Magus, as the only limit on Spell Combat is the number of spells you have to use, you don't also need to spend points from your Arcane Pool to use it, which is exactly the situation the Warpriest is in.
The Warpriest really could benefit from having it's own spell list, cutting out Cleric options they aren't really meant to have, and lowering the level for some of the self-buff spells they're supposed to use. But once again, I'm derailing my own thread, lol.
There's a lot going on here. My initial thought on reading the first post, however, was "And now you're starting to understand why GMs limit things like wealth, and use dirty tricks".
As long as you don't target weak points, for example, players can minmax without problem, which is what the Swash is doing. Making a character with a massive weak point like you describe is a calculated risk. Constantly targeting the Swashbuckler's weak point is bad, but avoiding it is equally bad.
You've got some quirks with party composition that are aggravating it too. The party is all martial, which is the most numbers-based style. It's easy to compare martials to other martials, a lot harder to compare characters with spellcasting. The Warpriest is the one example, but you seem to be balancing encounters as if it was a normal martial. It's not. Don't even consider whether the Warpriest can hit things unbuffed. Balance around the other three, if you balance around the party at all. I wouldn't.
Here's my piece of advice. Stop worrying so much about the stats. You're dealing with a bunch of martials, at least one of which has above average stats, with a whole lot of wealth by level to use to their advantage if they really want to. Don't balance that way. Instead, focus on the enemies. Specifically, the enemy intelligence.
Including a summoned Bone Devil, who used his spell like abilities to wreak havoc with them. Halfway during the fight, the cultists decided to retreat into narrow tunnels, and the Swashbuckler complained about me being soft "they were going to win, why would they retreat?".
See, in one of my games, that would be a really, really bad sign. Swashbuckler would be eating his words, because it would mean the enemy was regrouping, sharing what they know of enemy tactics, finding allies if possible, and preparing to ambush the party. The next battle the players encounter would be naturally worse for them, because the enemies would know the player's weaknesses and be prepared. Even though statistically they are the same, there are likely more of them, and they're fighting in a situation where they have the advantage. Don't play your enemies like idiots, unless they've dumped both INT and WIS. Have them use terrain. Have them use traps.
This makes the game harder, but also turns the game away from being a contest of raw stats. Instead, it's a battle of wits between the players and their foes, which is much harder to turn into a number game. Cautious players can respond to the increased enemy intelligence with tricks of their own (allowing them the opportunity to do so is what keeps this from being strictly punishing the players for success, because they can in fact compound their success, but they need to work a bit for it). This isn't viable for every encounter (it's particularly a thing when assaulting organized enemies on their home terrain), but not every battle needs to be tough.
On the other hand, if the players are having trouble against the enemies, the enemies get cocky. They don't NEED to run and get help. They just want to finish the players off. Which gives the opportunity to the players to finish the encounter decently, without making future encounters worse. Natural scaling difficulty, from natural scaling AI.
I don't know how well this will work for your party. It's something I'm not used to. I do know that this can help the Lore Warden potentially contribute more because knowledge is power in this kind of set up, and I know your characters should have enough wealth to have some extra tricks up their sleeve they can use to counter what the enemies throw at them.
I hope that helps. Don't get me wrong, I know this isn't the style for everyone, but I feel it might help you get out of your rut by moving the emphasis away from raw stats and more into the realm of grand strategy.