I'm a inexperienced GM and I want to talk about game difficulty in PF1 and PF2


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MaxAstro wrote:


One thing that has been a huge, huge resource for me: If you go to PFD20SRD and check the Bestiary section, there is a section labelled "NPCs" that contains a staggering number of NPC stat blocks prebuilt at a wide range of levels. Humanoid opponents tend to be the easiest to mix into an encounter (maybe the monster hired some mercenaries?), but they normally take forever to build.

With that list on the SRD, you can just scroll to the CR you are looking for, pick out an appropriately classed NPC, and if needed reskin it to fit (maybe change the race, or the weapon selection, or the favored enemy choice for rangers - whatever makes it work for what you need). That CR17 encounter I mentioned, other than the ice devil, consisted entirely of NPCs from that list.

The danger of using the provided NPC statblocks, however, is giving the party access to their loot. Which translates into the party getting more powerful items or gold to craft more items. It's a tricky balance...


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
The Rot Grub wrote:
The danger of using the provided NPC statblocks, however, is giving the party access to their loot. Which translates into the party getting more powerful items or gold to craft more items. It's a tricky balance...

True. I forgot my own houserules; I use enhancement bonus-by-level instead of magic weapons/armor/etc so most of the NPCs I use don't have an outsize amount of treasure.

Still, it's a great resource that by a long shot beats writing your own NPC statblocks (easily the most time consuming part of GMing).


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Ed Reppert wrote:
Fair enough. Would some grunt sent to find out what happened to the guys in the guard tower think of that? :-)

Three guards in the east tower are found dead and the night watch sergeant relies on a grunt soldier's observation? No, he looks for himself and politely asks the castle wizard to look into the deaths, too. That wizard has Knowledge(Arcana). She can recognize burns, and magical fire can kill without setting other things, such as hair, on fire, so it leaves a different pattern of burns. That's the same as the sergeant recognizing the difference between sword wounds and animal claw wounds, though he missed the greataxe wounds.

The details of the conversation don't matter, because the party never hears it. All they know is that when they return the next day, the number of guards has doubled, one of the guards they fight is a rogue who evades the Fireball, and the wizard has prepared Resist Energy. Their timid effort to thin out their opponents and come back fresh to avoid risk backfired. Strategies that work in a cave complex of monsters do not necessarily work in a castle.

I like my games to involve a lot of exploration, where the players can ask, "What is going on here?" and gradually piece together the story. My players like it, too. In Lords of Rust, the 2nd module of Iron Gods, the party goes to the shantytown Scrapwall to investigate the Lords of Rust who in the 1st module sent a team to steal from their hometown Torch. My party, instead of marching in in full view and demanding answers and being answered with combat, moved into Scrapwall disguised as refugees and lived there for a few weeks. This is not an easy style to GM, because I had to invent the details of daily life in Scrapwall, but the variety is entertaining.

MaxAstro wrote:
One thing that has been a huge, huge resource for me: If you go to PFD20SRD and check the Bestiary section, there is a section labelled "NPCs" that contains a staggering number of NPC stat blocks prebuilt at a wide range of levels. Humanoid opponents tend to be the easiest to mix into an encounter (maybe the monster hired some mercenaries?), but they normally take forever to build.

I use those premade NPCs from d20pdsrd.com, too. Thankfully, when I ran the D&D 3.5 version of Rise of The Runelords adapted to Pathfinder rules, d20pfsrd already had the adjusted stat blocks available: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/fan-conversions/adventure-paths/

Lantern Lodge

Ed Reppert wrote:
Fair enough. Would some grunt sent to find out what happened to the guys in the guard tower think of that? :-)

Almost certainly not, though a wizard sent from the main group might be able to use arcana. I do know that npc's are generally not fleshed out very much, but when I run a game I tend to assign them skill's if they are intelligent appropriate for their level. Someone with a skill check would normally be needed to identify exactly what happened. That is what skill checks are for, after all.

On the other hand, some things MAY be obvious. If you see a 20' radius scorch mark with no sign of wood or something else... then it's not THAT big of a leap to say that magic was involved.

Boojum


@Mathmuse

Mathmuse wrote:
This can be a problem for min-maxers. They might have sacrificed all their good abilities for running away or hiding to gain more combat abilities, instead. I call this overspecialization. Then I have to give them a humiliating way to escape, such as a peasant hiding them in her manure wagon, to teach them to prepare for encounters that combat will not win. Or they die

I literally laughed. I'll definately keep this in mind.. because you're right, they have over specialized for combat. I really appreciate the ideas for how to counter a 15-minute day. I want to discourage it.

@MaxAstro @The Rot Grub
I will note this down too (with everything else this thread has helped me with). Seems like a great idea. Thank you.

Grand Lodge

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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

PF1 and the PF2 playtest are completely different games with fundamentally different building blocks. It's only natural that some people would like one more than the other.

-Skeld


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Malthraz wrote:

PFe2 has made a lot of changes to address this. However, I think it had also sacrificed a lot of player fun. I think a lot of the negative reviews are coming from the players rather than the GMs. It is great to have a game that is easy to run, but it is hard to run a game without players.

So I think there is a decent amount of work to be done to put back characters customisation and abilities and systems that feel enjoyable.

I think there's opportunity for customization to increase. However, as a GM, I don't particularly care if someone doesn't want to play in my game. If someone wants me to run a system that requires double the amount of prep time because they can't roleplay without a specific piece of crunch, then I'm *happy* they're not at my table.

Grand Lodge

Boojumbunn wrote:
Ed Reppert wrote:
How does one tell, after the fact (i.e. when finding bodies after the fight is over and the winners have left the area) that burns are "magical"?

I would say by making some lore rolls. Arcane and Healing are the two that stand out the most.

For example, a fire inspector, after a fire, can tell you if an accelerant was used, or if it was an electrical short, or a bunch of things based upon the patterns of the fire... particularly at the source of the fire.

So an expert would likely be able to tell if a fire was started by an alchemist, a magician, or a torch.

Boojum

And what are the DCs of these checks?

What chance does my character (with +11 to the relevant skill) have?

Lantern Lodge

Re◆⃟ wrote:


And what are the DCs of these checks?

What chance does my character (with +11 to the relevant skill) have?

Comparable to the OTHER DC checks in the game. It depends on how weird what happened was, so I can't give you a hard number. The GM would need to determine how easy/hard the check would be.

This is no different than using Nature Lore skill to determine things about a monster, or healing to determine cause of death.

Personally, if it was just determining if fire damage was magic or not I wouldn't make the DC more than 15. Determining which spell did it would be harder. But that is me.

Naturally, if the fire damage was done by a custom thing in the module, that would be significantly harder than if it was done by the produce flame spell.

Boojum the brown bunny


EberronHoward wrote:
Malthraz wrote:

PFe2 has made a lot of changes to address this. However, I think it had also sacrificed a lot of player fun. I think a lot of the negative reviews are coming from the players rather than the GMs. It is great to have a game that is easy to run, but it is hard to run a game without players.

So I think there is a decent amount of work to be done to put back characters customisation and abilities and systems that feel enjoyable.

I think there's opportunity for customization to increase. However, as a GM, I don't particularly care if someone doesn't want to play in my game. If someone wants me to run a system that requires double the amount of prep time because they can't roleplay without a specific piece of crunch, then I'm *happy* they're not at my table.

From that, I would think vice versa!

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