So, one session into book one. My current party is a three man party consisting of a Hidden Priest halfling cleric of Calistria who focuses on healing, a Dragon Heir Scion tengu fighter who is a dex-based build (he's looking at a possible dip into rogue later,) and a Empiricist investigator human, who is also dex-based.
They were very lucky at the protest and only barely got hit, but the dogs at the livery nearly killed the Investigator. The other two members are also pretty upset because he assured them he was going to be the primary damage dealer, and he is not at all built to be. I HAVE already been talking to the whole group, but he seems fairly unconcerned overall, if slightly apologetic for the inconvenience.
That aside, I love to encourage RP and flavor thoughts, as two of the three have struggled in the past (aforementioned Investigator and the Cleric,) and I went with a lower stat array than usual (they work from a pool of eighteen dice and can arrange as they like four 3's, seven 4's, four 5's, and three 6's. We usually roll anywhere from four to NINE sixes.) I have also decided to use the background skills from Unchained, and because they all worked with cool backgrounds and such, I also granted a free level one feat that I called a background feat: it needed to tie into their backgrounds, much as their skills did, to reflect what they have learned up to this point.
I don't FEEL like I should necessarily do anything to assist them further, logically, but I also worry that they'll die, to be honest, as are they. The Cleric currently can deal no damage (though he intends to get a weapon that will very shortly, like, this coming session,) and the Investigator has been knocked unconscious four times so far, and uses a cane sword for flavor. Should I help more? Give more? I don't know what to do. Did the party as a whole or parts make poor decisions? Or am I worrying for nothing?
Well your party is at a pretty big disadvantage, being only 3 big. Keep that in mind. Perhaps work on letting them have some kind of assistance, whether from a cohort type option or just some like minded citizens when the going gets tough.
You can also give out extra magic items to help them out.
I play with a guy that runs two groups. He makes combat easier for the first group since they are big on role playing and their campaigns often wander off in weird unexpected directions, and the characters tend to be non-combat oriented. And then there's us who tend to be prototypical murder hobos who happily follow along the campaigns invisible rails and tend to stomp all over even his enhanced monsters and NPCs.
The sweet spot seems to be knocking a PC out in combat and/or causing the group to retreat. The DM seems to get pretty happy when we are forced to abandon our kick down the door strategy and come at the encounter from a different direction.
Okay, the following comments are game mechanic centered and do not address the value of role-playing, background developing, narrative centered characters which appear to be in play here. That's all good stuff but game mechanics are real too. And can kick you in the... shins.
First you have three pc's and AP's are geared for 4 15-point buy pc's. You appear to have provided higher ability scores than might come with a 15 point buy but that's probably not enough to overcome a 25% resource deficit. If you didn't modify the encounters accordingly, I'm not surprised they're getting bounced around some. One option beyond modifying the encounters is to add a GMPC. Rexus might work.
Second, I'm a bit uncertain what exactly was expected of the Investigator player - was he supposed to build a different class or were they all expecting the investigator to be the primary damage dealer? Not sure how the latter would be reasonable. Double especially if he's wielding a cane sword.
Am I correctly interpreting the tengu fighter's dex-based build comment to mean that character is focused on ranged weapons? Not to get all old-school, conventional, this-is-how-we-did-it-in-my-day (too late!) but every party needs a meat shield. Maybe no one wants to play such a role and they have all kinds of cool character concepts. All great. Except the wicked thing about meat shields is there will be one in every fight whether someone wants the role or not. Or is built to be successful or not. Someone has to take enemy melee attacks. Since the investigator is the only one wielding a melee weapon, that role has fallen to him. Not surprising he's dropping unconscious regularly. Long term, that's probably not going to work.
Speaking of weapons... Why exactly was the cleric dealing no damage - let me guess: he had a whip. (a halfling running around with strange magical powers carrying Calistria's favored weapon isn't exactly hiding his priesthood.) If he wasn't fighting than it was down to two pc's vs the encounters. That made things even harder. He should have an armor class and hit points that make him just as good at getting whacked as the investigator. And he's proficient with simple weapons. If its possible, he needs get into combat at least some of the time. At 1st level there isn't a lot of difference between characters - the difference in base attack bonus is as low as it will ever be.
One other thing that occurred to me after I hit submit - being short a pc might be even more of a challenge in Hell's Rebels specifically. As it explains in the AP, the CR of encounters is higher than might be "normal" because the pc's can readily retreat while in the city and don't have to manage their resources across multiple encounter areas like they typically would in a dungeon or wilderness setting.
All good points, Latrecis. To add a couple onto the list though:
XP: With a three man party - assuming you divide XP equally - the characters will generally be close to a level ahead, with the notable exception of 1st level, when they're the most vulnerable; It's not exactly one level ahead - each PC will be getting a third more XP than they would with 4 PCs, while they typically need about 50% more XP to gain the next level as they did the last one.
In Hell's Bright Shadow there is around 44,000xp to divide among the PCs, plus random encounters (and if you use them as published, likely another 6-12k there, but lets assume you don't for a sec).
- Divided 5 ways, the PCs will have 8,800xp, and with a random encounter or two should just hit 4th level.
- Divided 4 ways, the PCs will have 11,000xp, putting them solidly into 4th level.
- Divided 3 ways, the PCs will have 14,670xp each, and with a random encounter or two could easily be pushed into 5th level.
Turn of the Torrent has around 122,000xp to hand out (plus random encounters). Combined with the above, that amounts to around 166,000xp.
- Divided 5 ways, each PC would have around 33,200xp, putting them a little below 7th level - a few random encounters would nudge the PCs over.
- Divided 4 ways, each PC would have 41,500xp, putting them solidly into 7th, but still a decent way from 8th.
- Divided 3 ways, each PC would have 55,300xp, putting them solidly into 8th level.
My PCs are in a similar scenario, and I found starting them a level ahead to begin with seemed to help make up a lot of the difference.
All Options Are Not Equal: While Pathfinder offers a tremendous array of choice in terms of character options and activities in combat, all options are not created equal. It is possible to assemble characters who, although correct to the rules, are incapable of handling encounters the game assumes they can.
A friend of mine calls this "Power Laming".
If the cleric isn't doing damage, and at that level won't have enough healing to meaningfully contribute in more than one encounter per day (putting aside the issue of cure light wounds in combat)... what are they doing with their actions? Casting buffs or control spells is a good tactic, but must be balanced against what the people receiving them can actually do with it within the course of the combat - buffing before combat is enormously superior, if possible, primarily because it means the buffs are used for all of the combat, and the cleric can contribute as well.
With regard to Dex builds: Is the Tengu an archer (powerful, but better with some Strength as well), or going the Fencing Grace/Slashing Grace/Dervish Dance route? I ask as I've seen a lot of players dump Str and then simply not pick up any Dex-to-damage options at all, only to discover later that it typically results in very low damage - and the longer the monster lives, the more it brutalises PC hitpoints.
Lastly... The Investigator is a cool class, but it suffers massively in the damage department due to the fact that a given creature can only be subject to one studied strike per 24 hours, unless the Investigator spends Inspiration, but even then it takes more move actions. Snagging Quick Study and later Mutagen can help prop them up a fair bit, and some extracts can certainly boost them... but it isn't exactly an easy class to make a hard-hitting front liner out of, and definitely not at low levels.
Frankly, I wouldn't be miffed at the Investigator for not bringing a melee powerhouse, so much as questioning why the other PCs expected one member of the party to do all the heavy lifting in combat.
To clarify the great points being brought up:
Cleric: yes, he is using a whip, though he intends to pick up probably a crossbow or some such. And he used up hid various spells keeping them alive - they expected a different kind of combat (not a combat, actually,) and so were playing some catch up.
Tengu: Using a rapier, he wants to go a Dazzling Display route, overall, though he's already decided his feat progression. He currently has arcane strike and weapon finesse. He's taking fencing grace at fourth level.
Investigator: the reason they're displeased isn't because they thought the INVESTIGATOR isn't being their powerhouse - I have a fairly hands-off policy, and let the players communicate amongst themselves what they wanna do (so, for instance, until yesterday, the tengu was convinced the Cleric was a hard, which was precisely what he wanted.) what they had heard from the player last was he was going to be a mesmerist, and then that he was changing, but that he would have "damage covered." So they didn't know what he was doing. I communicated my concerns to him, because I like the Investigator, but know it's not... ideal for being the main melee, and he assures me as well that he had it covered, and was absolutely thrilled and determined to see this character through. I communicated to the other members as well, but they felt the same about their characters, so I issued a general warning that they didn't have a strong (STR) melee combatant.
Generally, the group has a very good flow together, particularly myself, the Cleric player, and the tengu player. The kinda unspoken (though totally spoken) rule is that you pay attention to your party and balance because we tend to be so small a group. Whoever picks last has to help fill holes, essentially. The Investigator player picked both kinda an uneasy first, held his decision while he made one but gave the impression he was going meat shield, and then picked last as well, but picked this class instead. He was also under the impression that the Cleric would be a Bard, thus having face and skills well-covered, but was super concerned and wanted to be the face and skills guy himself because that's what they needed? I'm trying to pin down a time to talk to him about that, but, thigh a fantastic guy, he and I are not particularly friends and he isn't very forthcoming or responsive to me.
So, essentially, they assumed there'd be a meatshield, a dex-y Fightee, and a ranged Cleric.
I should also point out: The Investigator gets significantly better as they level up - but the first few levels kinda suck.
At 3rd level they can pick up Mutagen, which for a Dex/Int based character can be made of pure awesome: Long duration, +4 Dex, -2 Wis, +2 Natural Armor, for a serious boost to combat ability.
At 4th level they gain Studied Combat (which is awesome) and Studied Strike (which is terrible). Studied Combat at this point is a +2 Insight bonus to attack and damage for <Int> rounds, and increases by +1 every two levels thereafter.
Stacking those with some buff extracts and the right feats, and the investigator can be pretty solid.
I'd say that this is what Morgar or Laria is for. Heck, if they succeed at some of the later missions, they'll have a choice of mercenaries to recruit.
More generally, they need to be really good at scouting and preparing for missions. You need to let them play it smart for a while early, before introducing complications to their plans. Let the planning pay off big time during the early levels until the Investigator and Dex Fighter get their tag-team going.
Just thought I'd post an update, since you all were really helpful to me. :)
Unfortunately, that particular group has fallen apart. It wasn't the first time the guy who picked Investigator had kinda... not worked with the other members or did what he said he was going to, and also they just have lives (the cleric player and I are married, so it's easier to get us to do things!)
Oh. And then we moved halfway across the country.
But! I actually have a new group coming together, about five players this time, and took these notes in consideration with them too. They're really looking forward to enjoying being rabble rousers and the like. So, while maybe one group just wasn't suited, another is going to benefit anyway. Thanks for all your help!
You know, this AP would be great for a single player campaign.