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First up, there may be some minor spoilors, specifically related to combats, in the new-ish Ire of the Storm module.
So my group was getting ready to run this three part mod and when we went to start we had 9 players, thus we split into a table of 4 and 5. Now I'd argue the tables were fairly well split, and here is what my table of 4 had
Table of 4
Hurler-my pc and was due to pregen credit at the highest lv in tier.
Barbarian- New player, but we helped build his character and was mostly just a big bad beatstick.
Kira pre gen and then a gnome wizard-we will talk about this later
Swashbuckler(then into warpriest I think) Never really got to do much
Now I really just want to preface this, especially since some people that I play with are on the forums, these are great people. I come and play because I enjoy playing with them, but that doesn't mean I don't ever get frustrated.
So now I'll start venting.
So here is my issue, we lost, we died, we tpk'ed. We did it a lot, almost every fight to be exact. Our Gm was kind and when we wiped, going unconscious, in the middle of town the villagers helped us out, or when we lost the bad guys escaped. But then finally we got in a fight where i got crit and died.
But death happens it's part of the game. But what drives me nuts is that talking about the last fight, it lasted 7 rounds. In those 7 rounds i did 47 points to the big bad, and went down on round 5.
This is how the rounds went:
1: the wizard scouted ahead, found the enemy, and got attacked, the rest of us double moved to get into combat so he didnt get murdered.
2:I drop two of the mooks, the swashbuckler misses a mook, the beatstick pulls and loads his crossbow, the wizard uses his arcane ability to fire jet for 1( max of 5) point of fire that doesnt go through. The big bad smacks the swashbuckler who goes down because he had some prior damage that we couldn't heal because the kira decided she was going to play her wizard instead of the pregen and now no one could use a wand.
3.I drop the last mook and roll a 1 against the BBG, the beatstick changes his mind, drops the crossbow, draws his greataxe and runs up and misses because he refuses to rage. The wizard color sprays catching the mook that i then proceed to knock out, the beatstick, and the bbg. The BBG makes it on if i remember correctly a 4 on the die, the beatstick fails. The BBG now beats the shit out of the blind and stunned beatstick.
4. I hurl and do 27 points to the BBG, the wizard tries to use a scroll of cause fear dc 11, and have his bird familiar throw a tangle foot bag. Surprise the Gm needed above a 5 on either of those dc's to avoid it. The BBG smacks me for 40 and I'm hurt real bad.
5.I do another 20, the BBG does 20 which brings me to 2hp while raging, then crits for 46. The wizard tries to use vanish, but the bbg has scent.
6.The BBG releases shocker lizards, which proceed to drop the wizard and kill the unconscious party member, doing a decent amount even to the BBG.
So in the entire fight i did about 150 damage, took around 100(like 85 killed me but the rest was > my max) dropped all the mooks. the other pc's contributed 0 points of damage and the BBG's own minions did 12 to him.
Now I had some boons that helped a lot with keeping their pc's alive, as well as being a higher level I had much more gold. That is fine, I like to help where I can, but what frustrates me is that this wasn't a one time thing every loss has this same story and our victories ended with me on my last leg barely soloing the boss. It is just so frustrating because my option is either not play at that table or lose the pc or at least set him a chunk of gold behind where he should be.
If anyone has any advice as to how to handle this, hell even if it is that I need to just get over it, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Or if anyone has any similar experiences that'd be fun to.
Finally I'd like to reiterate, I don't want this to be a personal attack on anyone, at best it is just my strong desire to back seat game and micromanage that i just needed to let out.
I'd be frustrated too xD if that helps xD
^-^ Like, Bummer Dude, some days it isn't worth rolling out of the waterbed.
I do have to point out some things.
The person who has the most to grieve is your newbie.
Little things, like did someone remind him to have his crossbow readied and loaded so he can shoot, drop it and then engage?
Were any basic strategies discussed? You know, like "I am best at at burning through the mooks, so you should engage the BBEG and keep his attention off of the Wizard, and we suck in the healing department so we should be careful."
Against common wisdom, Barbarian is often a very poor choice for a beginner, especially a potential actual roleplayer or even just a literate person. Rage is going to be perceived as murderously out of control, and something to be avoided. They aren't going to understand that PF Rage is highly sanitized. Also, a newbie is likely to be a lot more cautious than you might think, because it is all unfamiliar, and no one wants to make a fool out of themselves their first time out.
Also, since you are, as you said, notably the most powerful character there, a fair threat to you is a TPK for your less powerful, less experienced allies. I can't speak to the Swashbuckler, but half your party are effective beginners, a pregen and barbarian first-timer. Both the GM, and you as titular party leader failed those two.
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I think what it comes down to is that at some point certain actions fall into atrophy.
Colour spray on mooks? Great. On the guy with the least risk to save? No.
Fear? Same deal. These spells have hard caps. When you pass these caps, they either have no effect or they are just too easy to ignore.
Same with tanglefoot bags etc.
Look what I'm saying is it's not bad to use these at higher level just use them on the right guys. That wizard could have stopped apt of lower level guys and left the worst for you by doing the same actions just on different people.
Imagine using the same actions but him taking the lower guys away and you working in the guy with high saves alone and not taking the lower level guys out first.
That class excels in crowd control. So control the crowd.
It's a mind set of everyone wants to kill the BBG. But you don't have to be that guy or have that role.
If you do, use your best spells, not ones that are easy to ignore as you level.
On to the beat stick. His power comes from rage. And strength . Don't use a cross bow. Use a bow that adds str. And rage. It's your biggest weapon. Use it.
I've no statement on the swashbuckler. He dropped because of wounds.
You had no heals. No way to heal. And not even a heal kit or skilled in heal.skill?
Look many people will say in battle heals don't help. NO ONE would say out of combat heals don't help.
Your party is 3 damage dealers and a crowd control. You aren't controlling because you're not focused on the crowd and you cant damage because you're not raging to increase damage and are unable to take damage on to yourselves. Even that rage would have given needed hp to stay up... but it wouldn't have helped because there was no way to heal lost hp before rage stopped.
Lastly, describe the thoughts on sending the wizards to scout please. If it's just a stealth role, next time send the swashbuckler.
Well so it really falls into a lot of that "what can you do, shit happens." I'm also aware that I'm more or less saying, my day sucked knowing there really isn't anything that can be said to make it un-suck.
So the healing, we started out with a kira pre gen so we had it handled out of combat but when he decided he wanted to switch to a wizard none of us had healing. Then the prior damage was something that had just happened, didn't really have time to wand even if we could have.
Second, the new kid with the crossbow. Now this kid is I'm sure a great kid. But he has, some kind of mental illness? condition? I'm not sure what is the most kind way to phrase that he doesn't seem to be the mental maturity of his actual age, which is still only in his early teens. He spends most of the adventures yelling how he wants to kill the bartender, attack old man mountain, or pee in torch's pool. You'd think when it came to combat he'd be gung-ho for it, but when combat starts he inexplicably wants to do everything but fight, such as "I go outside and dig a grave" or "I run into the jungle screaming" at some point we kind of just said sure ok you do that your pc spends the next 1d4 rounds doing whatever that thing is. But yah we have tried to explain that he should rage and use his +1 greataxe, but instead he chooses to go off script. Now I am mostly in charge of his gear, given that left to his own he shows up with a +5 ghost touch vorpal intelligent weapon because he thinks it'd be cool and then me and the GM have had to keep an eye on his rolls/AC/HP due to him rolling four or five times when we ask him to hit. He isn't intentionally disruptive and honestly I think I'm the only one who is really bothered by it, nor do I think he needs to not play or anything, but it certainly takes a toll on my patience. After discovering that he had 10k gold he hadn't spent, he now has a +6 str comp longbow, as well as a few small things, ie ring of prot and a cloak.
So lastly the extra spoilery bits:
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There's (sometimes) 2 options:
1. Bring a character so strong you can afford to hold back and when needed just win. You can and will make people bitter playing something like this. People love you when you are actively saving their character's lives and dislike you when they don't appear to be the hero.
2. Be prepared to abandon the fight. Sometimes you can't win. Do what you can to save other people if you want to but every moment you stay you could be risking yourself. That's your call.
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He isn't intentionally disruptive and honestly I think I'm the only one who is really bothered by it, nor do I think he needs to not play or anything, but it certainly takes a toll on my patience.
In my experience, if you are annoyed by a player, probably others are as well, especially if that player's behavior is causing TPKs or general poor performance. People are just reluctant to act as though they don't like someone who everyone else seems to like.
Of course, this is a kid, and people can be pretty divided in the "Let kids be kids" camp.
It's stories like this, that I feel is kinda common for my area too, that causes me to build DPR monstrosities. Like when someone is advertising as a front line fighter guy at lv8 and on a full attack does like 14-18 damage to one of the 4 enemies in the fight. I decided to build guys that can one shot basically anything to be sure that the party would have enough damage to finish the fight.
Yeah, the additional info on the kid would have changed my response too.
Condolences to you and the gnome.
Side rant, are the pregens designed to be garbage in order to be a relative boon to those who built up their own characters? I think they go too far in this.
I believe all of the newer pregens are actually quite well made. The ACG, the Occult, And all the APG pregens and magus. Those are all I feel solid in their role and not a hinderment to the party. Crowe, Quinn, and lv7 shardra are my personal favorites.