Morning nerds!
I'm a PF GM novice and need some advice on running RotRL. "Problem" is the AP, so far, seems too easy combat-wise. We are six encounters into the thing and so far the players have strolled right through everything, with no resistance. I don't mind the players getting to shine and being awesome, but in the long run this will become boring for everyone.
The party consists of five players: Occultist, Wizard (diviner), Ranger (twohanded, FE goblin), Mesmerist and a Ninja. Characters are well optimized and the players have 20 years of gaming experience, coming from Rolemaster (yup!), MERP and the last two years we've been playing Pathfinder. We use 25 point buy for ability scores.
I have GM'ed before, but never PF. I'm pretty sure I am not underplaying the NPCs / critters, as I've learned the system fairly well and I am well prepared for the sessions.
Last session ended just after the surprise round opening the encounter in the glassworks. Wizard took out 3 goblins with a sleep spell and occultist downed one with his sword. The remaining 5 goblins will be hacked to death in a matter of rounds, Im sure. A sleep spell, from the mesmerist, also took the air out of the third group of goblins in the attack on Sandpoint.
Save for the quasit, I don't see much resistance in wait in the coming dungeon, either.
So my question is; Are the APs usually underpowered (for lack of a better word - Im form Norway) for a group like this one? Is the 25 point buy a big deal? Will it pick up later? Should I start adding enemies to the ones listed in the AP? Is the CR-system broken?
We've just recently played through the first 4 chapters of Council of thieves (bah...) and my impression was the encounters we're either waaaay too easy, or just nigh impossible. Im not sure how well our GM prepared or understood the monsters, though.
Im not the kind of GM to nerf the players by making spells like sleep irrelevant or punishing them for being well prepared and all, but in the end there has to be the threat of dying a horrible death in our game. If not the excitement is gone, in my opinion.
Sorry if this thread is placed wrong or something. Im new to the forums.
Any input is appreciated. Have a good one folks!
Magz
In my experience, there's a gentle slope for the first chapter of the AP, and then things start to get tough. It is true that you were supposed to use 15 point buy, so your PCs are much tougher than normal.
I ran 5 players with 25 point buy (equivalent) too. For that the encounters are underpowered, based on our experience.
For the early encounters thats probably ok, but certainly some should be made tougher. I have done a mix of:
- Doing the +1CR advanced template change, as per the normal rules.
- Adding a few extra creatures. Action economy is king!
- Having the enemy fight smarter (ie ambushing, targeting the weakest party members en masse etc rather than just engaging the toughest melee ones at the front). Thistletop has good opportunities for this.
- Giving the party less opportunities to rest / recover, so they have to handle more encounters in a row before the next downtime. Thistletop has good opportunities for this too.
The other thing that's important is to prepare the fights by going through the statblocks carefully - there's often a feat in there or ability that's pretty powerful that's easy to miss. This becomes increasingly the case as the AP progresses.
One last thing - I was careful not to let my PCs become OP via magic items over the whole AP. Which in a few cases has made availability of certain magic items a challenge for them.
Good luck!
The early encounters are fairly easy , the difficulty except for the Quasit does not really ramp up until Thistletop.
However your group is larger and more powerful than the assumption (4 15 pt buys) so you will need to boost some encounters, adding a few extra goblins, or the advanced template , or using more Goblins with class levels rather than basic goblins , adding a level to the boss's that sort of thing. Also running encounters together , so as my players managed to storm thistlepoint from below by the time they hit the top all the Goblins were on alert and they took them in one long fight which stressed them to their limits even with 2 of Nualia's gang (Lyrie and Orik) on their side.
Thanks for the advice!
The +1CR template thing looks like a good way to go, at least for goblins and such.
I totally missed the 15 point buy. For some reason I assumed it was 20, but cant find the entry in the book. Im using the anniversary ed.
The 15 point buy item isn't in the AP, it's in the Core Rulebook (p. 15) where it states "the standard value for a character is 15 points." (I had to search for it too.)
The advice from others above is all good. I would particularly call out a change in tactics. A common tactic for NPC's as-written is to be passive - they might pre-cast spells if they hear the pc's coming but otherwise stay put (because waiting in my room for the pc's to come kill me is the right thing to do!) You can increase the challenge by simply having them be more aggressive in responding to any invasion of their home. I call this "convergence" - I can scale up the challenges without doing the work of creating/adding additional creatures (I'm lazy!) The other charm is, you can stop at any time if it seems your pc's are getting overwhelmed. And this encourages the pc's to use stealth, scouting, and divination powers that might otherwise get neglected.
How are you handling experience points? If you're handing them out by encounter, your group of 5 will trail the "expected" level. This might be another way to increase the challenge, but it can have some wicked gotcha's - if the AP expects the pc's to be 9th level, it's also "sort of" assuming the spell casters (at least some) have access to 5th level spells. You can add monsters to make up the XP difference, ignore it and take your chances or (my recommendation) use the milestone method - each chapter indicates what level the pc's should be at for various events in the book. Simply advance them to that level when they get to those events. If you're already using the milestone method, ignore this paragraph :)
This is also a great resource for ready-made stat blocks of creatures with class levels. Handy for adding a few slightly more interesting tougher goblins, or anything else on the list.
@Latrecis; Thanks for the advice! Im lazy as well, but have a different angle on it. One of the many things I love about the pathfinder modules is that it has notes on combat strategies for the NPCs/monsters. Less thinking on my part :-)
I asked the players if we could do the milestone thing, but they asked for XP by encounter, simply because being awarded XP is fun. I agreed, but I plan to simply level them up according to the milestones anyhow, if they lag behind. Im sure they wont complain. lol.