Last weekend we played kingmaker campaign for the first time. Alle the players have the fealing that something went terrible wrong. The last fight in the bandid camp we fought a overwhelming force of bandids.
Can someone tell me how many bandids we should have met in the camp? I like to know because Challangerating was to strong but my GM tells a different story.
Ps whe had a party of 5.
Thanks
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I assume you're referring to the bandit camp known as the Thorn River Camp. Yes, that can be a very challenging encounter. There are a large number of bandits that can easily prepare for an incoming party, and if you allowed them to know you were coming, they would've been pretty well prepared for you.
The encounters in the Kingmaker campaign are not always going to be tailored exactly to your level. There are many instances where discretion is the better part of valor, and you'd be wise to use Diplomacy, running away, or at the very least good tactics and planning, as opposed to a frontal assault.
Beware any monster that appears to be a randomly rolled encounter. It is entirely possible for the dice to decide that your 1st level PCs will encounter a gang of 4 trolls. Believe me when I say that you are NOT supposed to fight them.
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A spoilery explanation:
My PCs made this easy on me by capturing one of the bandits during the ambush at Olegs and, due to the speed with which they slaughtered the leader, combine this with the fact that they strung up an unconcious (but still alive) bandit from the palisade and executed one of the two remaining bandits who was a little too slow to give up information, and they had all the intel they needed to get there quickly and dispatch the bandits with ease (maps, location of guards, etc.). It was a massacre, but they played it smart so I didn't mind (plus I got to drop a wizard :D).
I guess that this is actually one of my players, who should in general not be looking at these forums.... but then I don't mind for this specific subject, because , maybe some other GM's can convince my players.
Note:
I don’t claim everything went perfect during this fight as I might not have given them enough of a warning about the risks of the Kingmaker campaign with its open sandbox situation with fights happening possibly at different levels (the impression I got afterwards, though I thought I had warned them) and also the fight was somewhat disorganized as I am not really used to running large combats anymore).
Situation
There were 5 players with 20 point (point buy) characters, who (at least mostly) had a primary stat of 18.
As such, I used the 6 player conversion of the Adventure Path, although somewhat powered down (Note that that thread is full of spoilers! So don't read it if you are one of my players!)
The heroes let one of the bandits escape, and he was able to warn Kressle thus I used the “warned” state for the bandits. Also, because they had to track the bandit (and movement while tracking isn’t great) the PC’ arrived at the 3rd day after the first fight, as they had to track the escapee.
Note however, that I didn't play up the ambush tactics, cover etc too much, also because of the extreme deadliness otherwise.
The fight
Standard fight
8 Bandits (CR 1/3) (9 hp each, armed with longbows, short swords)
1 Level 2 Ranger (CR 1)
Converted Fight for 6 players
12 Bandits (CR 1/3) (9 hp each, armed with longbows, short swords)
1 Level 3 Ranger (CR 2)
My fight
11 Bandits (CR 1/3). One of them being the escapee from the first fight.
1 Level 3 Ranger (CR 2)
What happened
Two players (the Alchemist & Cleric of Gorum) ran up to the bandits, standing in the middle or to the front of them and were hit easily and wounded. The other heroes did play more tactically and were hardly harmed.(From a talk afterwards I understood that one of those player’s, the alchemist, thought that is was safe as his bomb would kill anything he was supposed to encounter at level 1…..)
My opinion
Barring my mistakes (I definitely made some, but as much to the benefit of the players as to their detriment) I am of the opinion that I did definitely not go too hard on the players.
This fight I think can easily get players killed if they don't use the appropriate tactics. And this was also discussed in another thread, thus find the comments from that thread summarized:
Berhagen, oddly I think the key to the Thorn River battle is to avoid just what you said- I've rarely seen a game when tactics were as necessary as this one. I suppose you could just stress that to the characters.
It is relatively easy to pick up the bandits if you go by stealth, or you shoot arrows and magic from afar. But the two characters (of four) that I had who decided to go barreling straight at the enemies got cut up without doing ANY damage. The other two remained unharmed
I'd personally say with 5 players on a 20 point buy the encounter should be almost perfectly balanced. It SHOULD be a hard fight if Kressle is ready for them though; and I think both my version and the book version assume that the PC's are going to use tactics; blundering into a camp full of archers and a skilled ranger is going to get people hurt.
There's not much of a better way to get characters killed than something truly stupid.
Feel free to weigh in on whether I went too hard on them, noting that actually there were no PC deaths. (some fudging admittedly. And taking into account that my warning on the risks of Kingmaker may have been somewhat too weak)
p.s. If this (against my expectations) wasn’t one of my players, I would be happy to see that I am not the only one with these kind of issues……
Common Sense may have left RL politics but shouldn't have vacated from the game table.
The alchemist's player was metagaming, expecting that his bomb should kill anything he encountered. Well, when one runs into a bandit camp like that, it is reasonable to eat a volley of arrows / bolts and fall over. This is about the same as charging into a gangbanger's hideout IRL waving a lit stick of dynamite - and not having paid attention to how MANY gangbangers are inside, you find yourself staring at eleven handguns instead of four.
Either way gets one shot full of holes and filled full of lead, the only difference being how many holes and how much lead. Without playing an alchemist myself, nor having used one as an NPC, I would wager that the alchemist was fortunate that the Molotov Cocktail didn't go off when he fell over and incinerate the character. A 'prepared' flask of oil very likely would have, as would any flasks of alchemists' fire in hand...
Berhagen, I would have probably gone with 10 mooks instead of 11 - with 5 players and using the 'happy medium' between 8 (4 players) and 12 (6 players) and all that. A 20 point buy is not the big deal, it is what one's players do with it that makes a difference. And remember, the more points invested in one ability score = that many more ability scores at about 10 you have to work with! ^_^
Kingmaker is - and should be - a wake up call to all those who have gotten spoiled on the CR system of 'no critters too tough to handle will ever be encountered in this chapter / adventure / campaign'. You're wandering around in the boonies, far from civilization. Big nasty critters - and small nasty critters - lurk and prowl every where. Now and then you will come across them.
Hopefully, one has hired a few hobbit / gnome / dwarf or gimp-legged torchbearers that you can outrun - and thus do not have to pay any more once they are eaten. If not, hopefully you have the Endurance feat so that you can outrun the rest of the player characters. Maybe you can get back to the trading post before the trolls follow your scent and eat you anyway. Maybe you lead the trolls back to the trading post and everyone gets eaten in the middle of the night, then the new characters show up and have to figure things out the hard way. Good times!
Running away means you can (eventually) come back and kill what made you run away at 1st and 2nd level. A suggestion to GMs is to note what 'high level' wandering critters were encountered in a given hex in their campaign, so that when the time comes the characters can track them down later and dispatch them. If the same critter type comes up in later chapters as a problem for The City of Critters, they can be the same creatures - especially if there are any distinguishing characteristics from the first time around.
Players should be glad that the random encounter tables do not (yet) have the REALLY nasty stuff in them, such as "GM's Choice". The random critter charts are about what they should be - terrain appropriate, leaning towards 'frequency likely to be encountered' (common, uncommon, rare, very rare and so on). The further away from civilization, the tougher the terrain's inhabitants are and the greater the difficulty in providing the supply train necessary to bring large numbers of humanoids to bear against a BBEG or two.
Enough warriors with fire arrows will bring down packs of trolls, especially since large groups of men have a nasty habit of using ranks of spears set to receive a charge in front of the archers as well as pickets, fires and the use of defensible terrain to encamp within. The warriors will likely suffer casualties, probably out of proportion to those they inflict. However, ultimately the question becomes: how many trolls are there? A few dozen at best, compared to hundreds and thousands of armed men within a few weeks' travel...
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Last weekend we played kingmaker campaign for the first time. Alle the players have the fealing that something went terrible wrong. The last fight in the bandid camp we fought a overwhelming force of bandids.
Can someone tell me how many bandids we should have met in the camp? I like to know because Challangerating was to strong but my GM tells a different story.
Ps whe had a party of 5.
Thanks
Erm. I dunno.
I've run tough fights for my PCs before, sometimes PCs have died. Sometimes they got through by the skin of their teeth. Sometimes they've just cake walked all over my awesome encounter.
If players started questioning my judgment every time the game got tough, I'd probably get really sick of it really fast.
If the fight was tough then your problem isn't with your GM its with your fellow PCs, you need to figure out effective tactics and soon. The Greenbelt is not a forgiving place.
Don't go questioning your GM. Trust he has the best interests of the game at heart, and you need to lift your game.
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Don't doubt that Kingmaker is deadly. Period.
This adventure path doesn't take a direct route from Start -> Point A to Point B -> finish.
The VERY first random encounter we had in my group was 1d4 trolls and th party was still level 1 and 2. I rolled a 4 which I GM'ed a tad and read as "2" which was more than enough.
PC's need to play some old school DnD and know when to RUN!!!!!
Tactics are key and players to play with the PC immortal attitude will likely be the first to pay 5000 GP for raise dead.
I think the DM in the original post did fine. Some times the dice roll bad. Sometimes players do dumb stuff. PC's will die in a long campaign and that is fine. The "threat" of death is what keep the suspense up!
PS
Paizo staff....The formula you have going with Kingmaker with the open game feel is fantastic keep this up please.
Berhagen, I would have probably gone with 10 mooks instead of 11 - with 5 players and using the 'happy medium' between 8 (4 players) and 12 (6 players) and all that
It looks to me like that's exactly what he did - went with 10 and then added the one that got away from Oleg's. And that's exactly what I would have done, too.
My group is going to be leaving Shackled City to start Kingmaker in the next few weeks. When they started Shackled City I told them point blank, "There will be situations, especially early in the game, where the group is going to be under powered compared to some of the things you will fight." Because we're all adults and it's just as much their game as mine, I asked how they wanted those situations to be handled. "If you'd like, I can try to steer the group away from those kinds of encounters until I feel you're ready to handle them. Or you can take them on as they come and decide dynamically during the fight whether you feel they pose too great a risk and then act accordingly."
To a man, every one of my players decided to take the challenges as they come and to let them decide their own fate, so that's how we've played it. They lost two characters to Kazmojen in their first battle with him, another two in the second battle, and then they came back with the one thing they were missing... strategy. They came back with a plan and they effing stuck to it. No one ran out in front to get surrounded and flanked to death, they closed off the corridor so no one could get past them to attack the healers/wizards, they steadfastly refused to get drawn into the large open room, etc.
It took them three fights with Kazmojen but they now have a much better understanding of when to call a retreat. When they next went up against Drakthar and the entire area was filled with bat swarms and they were taking damage every round and they couldn't do anything to overcome the situation, they retreated. And they did so before anyone died. And they came back with a plan.
Your group too can learn from their mistakes, but be open and honest with them. Let them know that there WILL be encounters that are too difficult for them to handle. You might want to try the same technique of asking them if they want you to keep them safe or let them make the decision of when to retreat. That serves the dual purpose of informing them of the dangers beforehand AND solidifying in their mind that they and not you are responsible for their fate. You gave them the option and they chose the more dangerous route, but the one that leads to greater glory.
said lots of cool stuff.
I think you've hit both nails squarely on the head, ArchAnjel. Thankyas!
This is interesting:
My wife's rogue almost died in the same encounter.
We tracked the bandits (the rogue has a trait that gives her survival as a class skill) right after the first fight.
As I understand from the GM, we were not necessarily intended to fight this fight "right away".
Anyway our party is as follows:
My wife plays a half elf rogue
I have a half orc monk
There is also a human fighter
and an elf diviner
We waited on the edge of the forest while the rogue "reconoitered"
She flubbed a stealth check and was spotted.
Her dagger did not kill the centry who alerted more bandits.
She flubbed another stealth check and didn't blend back into the vegitation.
One bandit nailed her with a crit from a longbow that dropped her from full HPs to dying in a round or two.
We heard to commotion and shouting on our side of camp and the diviner used 2 alchemist fires to start a diviersion.
The fighter and the diviner took up positions with longbows whilst the monk was sentto recover the rogue (thus dividing the group of bandits in two)
I had mobility, so I was pretty hard to hit as I basically ran by the bandits who missed on all their AoOs.
I made it to the rogue just in time to save her life (a nat 20 on a heal check untrained...more on this later)
The diviner(who is really just as good a fighter as the fighter) started picking off bandits with his bow.
The fighter had a few shots against bandits with his longbow, but moved into melee to keep the forces fully split 50/50 with their attention.
The diviner kept his shots balanced between my side of the fight and the fighters side of the fight.
The diviner kept missing kressel.
Kressel kept missing me and I ket missing kressel.
It got down to five bandits and kressle.
The diviner finally cast true strike and next round nailed kressle with his long bow from max range.
The fighter has a spiked shield and a kukri and was doing very well two weapon fighting against the three bandits he had left.
My half orc monk was fighting with his falchion, rather than flurry of misses because he was having such a hard time hitting kressle.
The diviner finally hit kressle onemore time with his bow and I dropped her with the falchion.
the fighter was down 5 hit points (he had good armor) the diviner never got touched (long range only) and I never got hit either.
After kressle went down (who by the way never hit anyone with her axes)
it was simple to pick off fleeing bandits with ranged weapons ( I even got one with a heavy crossbow)
Interstingly enough, we were able to level after the coombat, everyone took a second level in their existing class, and my monk took a level of cleric (irori) as a result of his daring rush to save the life of the rogue, he had an ephiany moment.
IT's funny because i have a 7 chr (-2) and as such can only channel 1/day
but I found that I can use a longspear as a result of cleric weapon prof.
so I have a reach weapon and my feet so I am a square threantening machine.
(plus i have some heals, domain power and finaly the skill heal)
A class choice based out of an in game "expereince"
Cool huh?
It is time to react on my own quastion now. Some thing need to be sead:
1 Berhagen is my game master and good friend.
2 All 'issues' are no issue any more!
3 I was geeking over the boards for other geek crap. Before i knew there kinmaker discussions and i picked up a bandid camp fight with 6 bandids. So we faced a different number! I wanted to check it before bringing it up, there is nonsense enough in the world. (it would mean 6 extra bandids for the fifth player.)
4 We as party, somehow got the strong fealing that the campaign was easy, this miscummuncation is already solved.
5 I play the Gorum priest, and don't expect to die of old age!
Sincere Greating to everyone and Berhagen!
And so it all comes to a happy ending ;-).
Thank you everybody for the input!
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I'm glad my conversion is getting some use firstly :)
Secondly, considering the camp was in it's 'aware' state it SHOULD have been a hard fight; and the tactics and meta game the players displayed didn't make that any easier. It sounds like you had a very tough fight but came out victorious; as Berhagen quoted from me that's about what you should have expected.
@Pendagast Frankly i'm amazed Kressle didn't manage to hit anybody. She's pretty fiendish with both axes and daggers, especially against humans. I critted one of my 6 20 point buy players with a thrown dagger (the PC was human) and took her straight to negative HP.
As for the original post... be thankful you don't play in my games. Sometimes I throw challenge rating out of the window; I intensely dislike the heroes always fighting appropriate challenges. My players know this, and they know that heroes have to retreat sometimes. After the giant whiptail centipede took the party fighter down to -10 in the mite lair, after vanquishing it they knew it was GTFO (get the &%"£ out) time as Grabbles and his honour guard chased them.