Level 1 party CR concern

[Sevillief]

Ok, so I'm working on a custom scenario and it's meant to be hard. One of the middle encounters is CR 4, so according to the chart should be "Epic", but I'm concerned it will actually be guaranteed TPK.

Should be a five person group of level 1's with 25 pt buy stats, 500 starting gp, and the foreknowledge that they'll be facing undead, and that it'll be brutal. The encounter I'm concerned about is 3 ghouls. I even toyed with one ghoul having a single class in cleric as that keeps the CR at 4. But I'm starting to think that at level 1 specifically CR +3 might be more than just Epic.

For reference the other CR 4 encounters are:
Burning Skeletons x 4, Bloody Skeleton x 2
Gelatinous Cube x 1, Giant Botfly x 4 (big room they can kite the cube in)
Apocalypse Zombie x 1, Flapping Heads x 2

Let me know what your thoughts are and if I should tone all these down.

[Lady-J]

bump them up to level 2 and adjust the lower cr encounters would that be an option? or you could do what ddo does and every one gets 30 extra hit points at level 1 makes them a little bit more durable but slowly falls off in potency at higher levels

[SmiloDan]

In our 5th Edition game, we were doing a conversion of the Sunless Citadel from The Yawning Portal with six 1st level PCs.

spoiler:

We were kind of running through the encounters, so the DM upped the age category of the dragon (there are only 4 in 5th Edition D&D), so it went from Wyrmling to Young, so it front CR 2 to CR 6 (which means something different in 5E D&D), and it became really scary, since the breath weapon was 8d10! That's 22 points on a successful save! Which kills even if you somehow have cold resistance. It would have been a better encounter if we had to fight two CR 2 wyrmlings instead of one CR 6 young dragon.

Basically, especially at very low levels, many weaker monsters are more fun than one or a few big monsters.

Can you make it 2 ghouls and 2 zombies? Or 1 ghoul and 4 or 5 zombies? A ghoul and a pack of gnoll skeletons?

Or can you make the ghouls weaker? Just unlucky ghouls that rolled below average on their hit points? Unless you have a couple elves in the party, ghouls can paralyze the whole party in 1 round.

And paralysis is kind of a bummer of a condition. The player just sits there, watching everyone else play. Or even worse, all the other players watch the DM chase down the elf.

Are you willing to alter how ghoul paralysis works? Such as maybe having it go Fatigue to Exhaustion to Paralysis? Or Sickened to Nauseated to Paralysis?

[Sevillief]

Thanks for the replies! I'm not opposed to changing how paralysis works, but I'd like to stick as close to RAW as possible.

What I'm thinking right now is either the 1 ghoul + mooks, or what I'm leaning towards is a scene of 3 ghouls that are feasting on a fourth dead on after a fight amongst themselves. One will be missing an arm, one will be missing a jaw and arm, etc. And they will be down some HP. Additionally the party will come upon them from an upper level so they can get a surprise round off before the ghouls run up the stairs or the party drops down. Does this sound a little more balanced?

[SmiloDan]

Yeah. 9 paralyzing attacks vs. 5 PCs each round can lead to a TPK.

Reducing each ghoul's numbers of attacks per round should help.

It also depends on what your party composition is.

A cleric, paladin, undead hating ranger, a wizard, and a barbarian might do better than a bard, rogue, monk, druid, and enchantment sorcerer.

[Sevillief]

Yeah, I won't know the party composition until closer to the first game. We're still a month or so out. But I'm designing it for a bunch of our veteran GMs and known optimizing players.

I'm kind of shooting for a Bonekeep level of difficulty across a 13 level campaign. I want to standardize it to the degree that I could eventually release it for free for others to enjoy if they so choose. What I'm planning is after the first group plays it, I'll have another GM run it with a new group and see how they fair before balancing it.

This is the first thing I've designed and CR balance seems to be the hardest right now. Thanks for the help.

Do the other CR 4 encounters from my first post sound ok? I know some people have commented about bloody and burning skeletons also being hard for their CR, and the tactics will not be in the PCs favor for that fight, quite the opposite.

[Chess Pwn]

lv1 pc's are just so fragile. Like a barb has 14-16hp. the hardiest class is barely able to take a few hits, bards and clerics with their like 10 hp can easily go down in two hits or 1 good hit. And they have the fewest tools available.

Possible for players that make great characters to win easily, I have a lv1 buid that would have a +10 to hit for 1d12+15 and has reach and isn't flat-footed so would likely crush the fight buy himself. If you have players with characters like this than it's not a problem.

But if you have things that have trouble hitting like a cleric with 16 str for a +3 to hit for 1d8+4 damage as your best damage dealer than you can be in trouble with just 1 ghoul.

[Mark Hoover 330]

How experienced are your players? If these folks have never picked up PF before then this will be a challenge. If however they've played before consider: with 100 GP a starting wizard could craft 8 scrolls. If you're looking to fight undead that's 8 castings of Enlarge Person or defensive buffs.

A DPR monster martial at level one delivers about 13 damage on an average greatsword shot. Then again even with a 25 pt buy if the PC is poorly built or played, CR 1 fights can be challenging.

Run the numbers on your PCs and know how well they play, then build the encounters around that.

[Matthew Downie]

Maybe they could find a few useful scrolls (Remove Paralysis, Hide from Undead)...

Also, you could have the enemies act in an less effective manner. The skeletons are just lying around; each one has a 50% chance of waking up per combat round. The ghouls take the time to torture a paralysed PC rather than paralysing the rest. That kind of thing.

[Philippe Lam]

Average Party Level + 3 is normally manageable, but at level 1 or 2 this is a little too difficult. I think you could also add 2 Skeletal champions to the list of encounters. It will be CR 4 but if these skeletons can be a little too strong individually, they're more manageable because less numerous than simply four fast zombies and four skeletons who can throw huge volumes. If you want to nerf them you could but normally you wouldn't even need to.

More simply on your list you could just remove one monster or two and it would be very fine

[Smallfoot]

Sevillief wrote:

Ok, so I'm working on a custom scenario and it's meant to be hard. One of the middle encounters is CR 4, so according to the chart should be "Epic", but I'm concerned it will actually be guaranteed TPK.

Should be a five person group of level 1's with 25 pt buy stats, 500 starting gp, and the foreknowledge that they'll be facing undead, and that it'll be brutal. The encounter I'm concerned about is 3 ghouls. I even toyed with one ghoul having a single class in cleric as that keeps the CR at 4. But I'm starting to think that at level 1 specifically CR +3 might be more than just Epic.

For reference the other CR 4 encounters are:
Burning Skeletons x 4, Bloody Skeleton x 2
Gelatinous Cube x 1, Giant Botfly x 4 (big room they can kite the cube in)
Apocalypse Zombie x 1, Flapping Heads x 2

Let me know what your thoughts are and if I should tone all these down.

How much will you allow the characters to know about undead? Obviously the players can do all the research they want, but are you going to require Knowledge Religion checks to act on it? If so, that might be another area to give the characters a boost. Perhaps, rather than a straight bonus to K(Religion), grant them full knowledge of basic undead up to CR = character level +2 and only require rolls for knowledge of variants or higher level opponents.

You allude to tactics being against the party in the skeleton encounter. That's huge. You might want to factor the tactical situation into the CR. Finally, it's less about the CR of a single encounter than how all the encounters stack up between chances to rest and resupply.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Yeah, throwing a group of ghouls at PCs isn't exactly a fair encounter. High enough DCs combined with poor rolls and few ways to deal with that is an easy TPK.

Even throwing a Wraith, a single CR 3 bad guy, at 1st level PCs is bad due to them being able to kill a PC in a single round if they even so much as touch them once, and having very strong defenses via Incorporeality that very few PCs can deal with. But it's much easier to face than a group of ghouls due to lack of action economy manipulation, and if they're prepared enough, could easily cut him down before it could even act.

[Lady-J]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Yeah, throwing a group of ghouls at PCs isn't exactly a fair encounter. High enough DCs combined with poor rolls and few ways to deal with that is an easy TPK.

Even throwing a Wraith, a single CR 3 bad guy, at 1st level PCs is bad due to them being able to kill a PC in a single round if they even so much as touch them once, and having very strong defenses via Incorporeality that very few PCs can deal with. But it's much easier to face than a group of ghouls due to lack of action economy manipulation, and if they're prepared enough, could easily cut him down before it could even act.

not to mention wraiths are incorporeal and the pc's will likely have only 1 maybe 2 ways of dealing with them at level 1

[DM Livgin]

As a player and a GM I've seen groups of ghouls put against against level 1 parties several times. If they play tactically and have reasonable party balance they have a good chance, if they don't it becomes 50/50 on TPK or not.

Make sure you think about the terrain. Is it an ambush with the ghouls surrounding them, that bumps the CR up a point or two. If they have a place they can bottleneck the ghouls and rely on one character with high AC and Fort (and are clever enough to use it), that drops the CR by one point.

[Tacticslion]

Consider the dead guy they're eating to have been an anti-undead specialist (or paranoid guy who believed he was a specialist) that continually ingested onions, holy water, colloidal silver, and sacred boozeohol, and the like, to better combat the undead menace. Didn't prevent his death, obvs, but it might just be enough to afflict the ghouls with the "drunk" template or a "slow" effect or similar (or both). If he was powerful enough, it may be that he destroyed a bunch of more powerful undead before the PCs got there, and might have even (accidentally) scattered or lost some of his own treasure that could be useful to the PCs.

As others have said, all that paralysis is dangerous to anyone, but 1st levels are ready to become the tastiest new editions to the undead they were just fighting.

[The Nite Owl]

Chess Pwn wrote:

I have a lv1 build that would have a +10 to hit for 1d12+15

How do you get these hit and damage bonuses at 1st level?

[Zhayne]

Fudge.

Roll your dice in secret, and if things are going horribly bad through no fault of their own (bad die rolls, or you realize that the encounter really WAS just too much), well, a streak of bad luck just hit your bad guys.

[Lady-J]

The Nite Owl wrote:

Chess Pwn wrote:

I have a lv1 build that would have a +10 to hit for 1d12+15

How do you get these hit and damage bonuses at 1st level?

22 str for a +4 str race, will be a +6 str mod, which means +9 damage if your a barbarian that's a 26 str for +8 to hit and +12 damage full bab will make it +9 to hit power attack makes it +8 and +15 damage but no idea were the other +2 to hit is coming from alternatively weapon focus instead of power attack would be +10 to hit and +12 damage

[Darksol the Painbringer]

The Nite Owl wrote:

Chess Pwn wrote:

I have a lv1 build that would have a +10 to hit for 1d12+15

How do you get these hit and damage bonuses at 1st level?

Assuming Human Barbarian, 5 Strength mod + 1 BAB + 1 Weapon Focus + 2 Rage - 1 Power Attack = +8. It might get to +10 with flanking or charging, but that's not reliable by any means.

For damage, that's at +13 with two-handing Power Attack and Strength modifiers, which can't really get any higher than that.

Even with unorthodox optimization, those numbers don't match at all, which means that it's high-balled.

[Chess Pwn]

anger id bloodrager. Gets power attack and and extra +2 str while raging. so with 18+2 for race and rage+6 we get 26 str for +8 to attack and +12 damage
masterwork weapon
weapon focus
bab
lucern hammer
and we have the +10 for 1d12+15
doable by any race with a str bonus and within the 500gp that they started with.
have the trait Defensive Strategist and you're not flat-footed when combat starts so you're able to make an AoO as they come to you if they beat you in initiative
PFS legal ;)