What you're missing is the monster building rules in alien archive. That creature is not built by the same rules as your PCs.
In general, things built with the critter rules have high attack, and lower AC, so that low level summons aren't useless and a confused soldier is less likely to murder a party member outright in one round than a confused PF barbarian.
My only downside with this system (other than abilities that ask for a target's Int score) is everything seems tuned for a mostly optimized character.
By level 4 my Envoy generally needs 15+ to hit most of the Dead Suns enemies. This wouldn't be bad if most of my abilities weren't mind-effecting, so my only options are to attack or cover/harry (and even then I need to roll an 11 to accomplish it).
On the flipside, enemies in many moments have been pretty much unable to miss (once actually only requiring a 2 to hit). This isn't exclusive to me though, our Technomancer has the same issue. I understand things need to be high enough to hit our 22 AC Soldier, but they regularly hit 28s, which generally means anyone not the Soldier will only be missed by enemies largely below our APL.
I just played an operative through level 4 in Dead Suns and I didn't seem to have any trouble hitting the enemies at all. I'd guess at least 70% of my attacks were landing.
The real problem was constantly failing my trick attack skill checks, so that my hits did minimal damage.
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I just played an operative through level 4 in Dead Suns and I didn't seem to have any trouble hitting the enemies at all. I'd guess at least 70% of my attacks were landing.
The real problem was constantly failing my trick attack skill checks, so that my hits did minimal damage.
well... as an operative one can assume that you are relying on dex to up your BAB.
an envoy or technomancer is plowing points into CHA and INT, and not in things that help them hit the bad guys with weapons.
Low levels, high monster cr, and the monster rules still being made makes book one tough.
It gets better.
We're almost done book 2. As a party of 6 we have heightened encounter numbers but are overall a little behind the EXP curve.
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We're almost done book 2. As a party of 6 we have heightened encounter numbers but are overall a little behind the EXP curve.Low levels, high monster cr, and the monster rules still being made makes book one tough.
It gets better.
I'm GMing for a party of 4 that is entering book 4. The only combats I have modified are space combats to be more difficult.
Instead, they get greater advantage in the other things they do, like casting spells and dropping buffs/debuffs. Also, in what way is a non-fighter "only" hitting 25-50% of the time supposed to be a problem?I just played an operative through level 4 in Dead Suns and I didn't seem to have any trouble hitting the enemies at all. I'd guess at least 70% of my attacks were landing.
The real problem was constantly failing my trick attack skill checks, so that my hits did minimal damage.
well... as an operative one can assume that you are relying on dex to up your BAB.
an envoy or technomancer is plowing points into CHA and INT, and not in things that help them hit the bad guys with weapons.
When those spells and debuffs are negated or unavailable. Dispiriting Taunt, even with Universal Expression taking out the language barrier is still mind affecting. Fun fact, all plants, constructs, and undead, as well as a whole slew of others are entirely immune. This reduces a character to their ability to hit.
For those spells though, that 25-50% also extends to their spell hit, meaning not only are they generally limited, also subject to the mind affecting hiccup mentioned above (Mind Thrust is one you don't think of as a purely damage spell), but you can burn one of your... We'll be generous and say 8 spells, on a total wiff because your attacking modifier was not also maximum.
I have actually found that when creating CR appropiate challenges with more than 2 or 3 enemies, their CR ends up being low enough that they struggle to injure the combat orientated PCs. The soldier in the group has started frequently hitting the 30s with their rolls to hit, and the solarian frequently does 20-30 damage in a single hit, while most enemies they encounter in groups have an AC roughly in the 18-20 range and hp in the 39-45 range.
It's tricky in this system to create threatening encounters of an appropriate CR where the party of 5 doesn't have a numerical advantage (which gives them a great deal of advantage in action economy) so tbh I would like it if the ACs and attack bonuses of creatures where a bit higher.
(for example, the party is currently level 6, and a squad of 4 CR 3 formian warriors is both outnumbered by the party, and only have a +11 to hit at most, so they hit the soldier and solarian less than 50% of the time, and thats before the envoy debuffs them all and the technomancer summons shadow creatures to set up them all to be flanked).
The key thing to remember is that in most cases, a CR6 enemy isn't meant to be equivalent a single CR6 PC - it's meant to be an average challenge to an entire party of 4-5 level 6 PCs (who get way more attacks than it does collectively), so naturally its bonuses and ACs need to be much higher than those of an individual level 6 PC.
edit: I suspect that this is why dead suns throws some relatively high CR encounters at the players pretty frequently, because there is some awareness there that the CR system is a bit wonky.
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Instead, they get greater advantage in the other things they do, like casting spells and dropping buffs/debuffs. Also, in what way is a non-fighter "only" hitting 25-50% of the time supposed to be a problem?I just played an operative through level 4 in Dead Suns and I didn't seem to have any trouble hitting the enemies at all. I'd guess at least 70% of my attacks were landing.
The real problem was constantly failing my trick attack skill checks, so that my hits did minimal damage.
well... as an operative one can assume that you are relying on dex to up your BAB.
an envoy or technomancer is plowing points into CHA and INT, and not in things that help them hit the bad guys with weapons.
not at all.
envoys are force multipliers, and are the only ones with the ability to restore stamina points in the middle of battle.
technomancers can change a battle with supercharge weapon, or throwing a grease at arriving reinforcements. not to mention all the nasty stuff they get at higher levels.