I am a big fan of difficult but aesthetically pleasing games such as Dark Souls and Bloodborne. I like some dark fantasy and have recently been planning something similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Nioh but set in Minkai.
I’m just wondering how I set the starting levels and encounters so they’re not too difficult where TPK is incredibly easy each battle, or too easy, where CR is low. We tried a campaign at level 20 and well, it just ended up with a lot of cheesing past enemies and such, and I don’t want that again.
I just don’t know what to do because I feel trapped between mechanics and aesthetic. I know what level to start at (enemies I like and that fit range around various CRs).
Balancing encounters in Pathfinder is extremely hard when there's intra-party variance. One level 20 PC can literally be an order of magnitude stronger than another level 20 PC. Restricting the game to lower levels narrows the band a bit, but doesn't fully solve the problem- you may still get situations where any encounter that meaningfully threatens the Cleric will almost certainly kill off the Rogue.
I would suggest playing at around level 6, where most PCs can do interesting things but can't yet break the game. I'm also going to shill for the Spheres of Might and Spheres of Power third-party systems: they are significantly better balanced than first-party classes, which makes fine-tuning encounters easier.
I'd also suggest softening the consequences of death for player characters, maybe by some in-universe conceit of them returning to life over and over again. If the PCs have even a 10% chance of losing each fight, then after just seven or eight fights it's a coinflip as to whether they've completely wiped and had to make new characters.
If you're running a sheet-grinder campaign like that, most players will naturally lose emotional investment in their own characters since they know they won't last more than a couple of sessions. They'll play in a more paranoid and "gamey" way, and this may keep them from appreciating the atmosphere and aesthetic you're trying to cultivate.
Balancing encounters in Pathfinder is extremely hard when there's intra-party variance. One level 20 PC can literally be an order of magnitude stronger than another level 20 PC. Restricting the game to lower levels narrows the band a bit, but doesn't fully solve the problem- you may still get situations where any encounter that meaningfully threatens the Cleric will almost certainly kill off the Rogue.
I would suggest playing at around level 6, where most PCs can do interesting things but can't yet break the game. I'm also going to shill for the Spheres of Might and Spheres of Power third-party systems: they are significantly better balanced than first-party classes, which makes fine-tuning encounters easier.
I'd also suggest softening the consequences of death for player characters, maybe by some in-universe conceit of them returning to life over and over again. If the PCs have even a 10% chance of losing each fight, then after just seven or eight fights it's a coinflip as to whether they've completely wiped and had to make new characters.
If you're running a sheet-grinder campaign like that, most players will naturally lose emotional investment in their own characters since they know they won't last more than a couple of sessions. They'll play in a more paranoid and "gamey" way, and this may keep them from appreciating the atmosphere and aesthetic you're trying to cultivate.
I was considering Level 6 or Level 8 since those seem like good enough levels to start with kicking ass as well as several monsters I want being around there (Drider, reflavored as a Jorogumo, is CR7, for example)
I don't plan on it being a Sheet Grinder (though I will add in some Souls/Sekiro-esque resurrection mechanics if or when players die) since I like a good story and the aesthetic more than the difficulty of the settings.
Thanks for the help!
You're welcome, and good luck! Be mindful that level 7 is a very significant jump up from level 6 if you have any full casters in the party- 4th-level spells are no joke.
Make all the monsters have the Advanced Template; +4 to all stats. Don't increase CR when you do this, just make it the norm for all encounters. Try to throw a variety of enemies at the players, don't get locked into a few types or they'll get too used to fighting them. Huge Elementals for one encounter, a horde of 8 bugbears for another, Shadows, Will o Wisps, etc. If the group doesn't have much range, give them an encounter against flying creatures that hit and run, like a few Wyverns. I also like to look at what Knowledge skills they have, and put them against monsters they can't identify.
If you aren't sure if an encounter is too hard, try imagining how it will play out. You know the monsters plus to hit and their ac, compare it to the players. How often will they be hitting or getting hit and about how much damage will be done in a round? Does the Fighter hit 50% on the first hit, or 25%? Can you estimate the party doing 50 points of damage a round, or 70? Will a monster die every round, or will it take 2 or 3 rounds to kill? Will a player be able to take 2 or 3 rounds of attacks before dying?
Lots of good advice in here already. Biggest piece of advice is to know how much punishment your table can take. One of the reasons that tabletop gaming works is that death HAS CONSEQUENCES. This is the same in dark souls, death has consequence. I'd suggest that if you are going to make the penalties for death cheaper then you need to add in other penalties elsewhere. Something like "each death increases the cost of basic adventuring gear by 5%" a small penalty that eventually becomes a detriment. "Killing big bads and completing tasks for the town lowers the cost of this gear by 5% (to a maximum of 25% discount)." This way, if they eat a tpk the party loses 20-35% of it's spending power, but perseverance will right the balance and killing that NPC restores the party's buying power. After that all you have to do is be aware of how many rounds each combat will take. Difficulty in Pathfinder is more about resource expenditure. Don't allow frequent rests to put pressure on your casters, don't just make punching bags with massive HP, give enemies a way to fight back. Don't just bloat damage values, hitting consistently for smaller amounts is often scarier than one hit for big damage because it feels much more inevitable.
Edit:
I should also say that combats don't just have to be about damage. Tactical enemies are often more threatening than big beefy Bois. Hit the Archers and clerics with sunder, if you're feeling particularly vindictive, go after the wizards spell book too, these classes don't have the CMD to protect their toys. Hit the fighter with targeted Dispel on his spendiest magical toy (or worse, his belt and headband), he doesn't have the capacity to protect that. Don't make the fight impossible by nerfing your players too much, but put stress on them in ways other than simply lowering health points. Stealth, ambushes, invisibility, traps. false trails that lead nowhere are a good way to mess with the trackers while also alerting your bad guys and allowing them to buff up.
The best way to create a challenging adventure is to write it specifically to the party. When you know what you player’s characters are able to do you can challenge them. Trying to create an adventure that any party can accomplish means writing to the lowest common denominator. Equally important is knowing your players. Some players have a good grasp of tactics, while other are less inclined towards strategy. By tailoring your adventures to the party you can create a much more challenging adventure.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Make all the monsters have the Advanced Template; +4 to all stats. Don't increase CR when you do this, just make it the norm for all encounters. Try to throw a variety of enemies at the players, don't get locked into a few types or they'll get too used to fighting them. Huge Elementals for one encounter, a horde of 8 bugbears for another, Shadows, Will o Wisps, etc. If the group doesn't have much range, give them an encounter against flying creatures that hit and run, like a few Wyverns.
While this sort of thing will make individual encounters objectively harder, it's terrible advice for making a serious, atmospheric, dark-souls-y campaign. If you set out to make the players' lives difficult like this, they'll respond by gearing up and optimizing (or getting discouraged and losing investment).
Most players consider "dying" to be a failure state. People naturally adapt to avoid failure states. Before you kill off someone's Rogue because he couldn't fly or one-shot a Wyvern, seriously contemplate the future where that player comes back with a bat-riding lance-wielding barbarian, and think about the lessons you're teaching and their ramifications for the feel of the game.
OP has stated their dislike for cheesing past encounters. Turning the game into an arms race towards high-op strategies can be fun for very specific types of players, but it absolutely destroys a brooding and dark atmosphere and makes cheese near-mandatory. Instead of making players fear failure by brutalizing them, make them fear failure by giving them emotional stakes and building tension.
Go copy their sheets and make them fight shadow versions of themselves :D
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Make all the monsters have the Advanced Template
Do not do this. Ever. If you want to increase the difficulty of a monster you should be advancing it by adding hit dice. This template exists as a quick and dirty edit when you don't have time to do the work in actually advancing the creature properly. It is poorly balanced and will increase the challenge of many monsters in unintended ways.
The thing with challenging video games is that you are expected to replay content over and over until you succeed. Video games will do things like have some sniper shoot you in the back, forcing you to replay. There's really know way to know they are there, you are expected to die over and over until you memorize the location of the enemies. This kind of difficulty doesn't translate to tabletop rpgs at all.
In a game like pathfinder, failure can only be a setback. You have to be able to fail forward, otherwise the game ends. In my experience, making the combat part of pathfinder as hard as possible is not very fun. Instead, I look to instill difficulty into the story aspect, into the choices players make, the mysteries they solve, the problems they tackle. Failure in these aspects is meaningful and has impact. Failure in combat can't be meaningful or the game just stops.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Skills. Base your challenges on certain skills. This doesn't mean "Use Knowledge checks for attack rolls" or something crazy. It means use environmental hazards that require Climb, Swim, Perception, and Acrobatics checks.
Example: Fighting a bunch of goblins on an open plain im broad daylight would be easy for any party. But, fighting a bunch of goblins in wet, slick-floored cavern with 20ft pitfalls and no light? Where there are areas that involve squeezing and difficult terrain? That's challenging without being cheap.
Also, Bluff and Intimidate have combat value. Check the rules for feinting and demoralize, then toss them in. Feinting a high Dex creature makes them sitting ducks, but it only lasts a round, so it's not game-breaking.
And have your monsters fight defensively or use Total Defense. And look into using the cover rules.
The absolute, 100% worst thing you could do is just add hit points and damage. While you want that Sekiro/Dark Souls feel, the players rely on dice rolls to hit, not personal skill. I could blind a monster, flank it with a barbarian ally who Aids Another on my next attack roll, but still roll a 1 automatically miss.
So Invisible Pink suggests, "softening the consequences of death for player characters, maybe by some in-universe conceit of them returning to life over and over again", but when I suggest making fights challenging, he says don't make player's lives difficult, they'll respond by gearing up and optimizing. Seems bizarre to recommend making dying and returning to life easier, but criticize me for saying make fights more challenging. If fights aren't challenging, why would there be a need to make coming back from death easier?
Gnoams says to never give enemies the Advanced template, like I recommend. He says, "I look to instill difficulty into the story aspect, into the choices players make, the mysteries they solve, the problems they tackle". He never gives any examples of this. He recommends a theory with no real substance, you just have to figure something out. I give clear, concrete examples for you to consider. Is giving creatures the +4 to all stats too much for your players? The horde of 8 bugbears I mentioned will now have hit +7, their hp 22, AC of 19, and their damage 1d8+5. This doesn't seem all that harsh against a group of level 7 players to me. Against certain groups it won't be easy, someone could die if ganged up on. Against a wizard with fireball this encounter is a joke.
In the second paragraph of my first post, I specifically talk about if an encounter seems too hard. I make a point of doing this, because the things I recommend can be too hard for some groups. I want the GM to think about how the players will be able to handle these tougher fights. This is a thread called, "Help me challenge my players", after all. I don't know what is too difficult for your group, and neither do these people saying my advice is terrible.
I apologize for not being clear on some stuff and not responding to feedback. Been kind of a long week. So thank you all for the feedback! It’s been super super helpful!
The party consists of a human ninja, a human wizard who fights via touch (utilizing Ofuda), an Aasimar oracle, a kitsune shrine maiden (a sort of Cleric/Shaman hybrid), and a human samurai. They are all level 6.
The campaign is set to tie into our eventual run of Jade Regent and is set 200 years prior. Based around the Sengoku Era, and follows the murder of the Shogun and a civil war that has erupted from that, with the players being called upon by the emperor to not only help put down the civil war but also keep Yōkai from terrorizing the people. (Honestly it could have been homebrew but the eventual Jade Regent DM really wanted it to tie in.)
I have taken the resurrection with consequences idea, with 10% HP loss per resurrection, (restorable through a rare item) but I may add in a world-related consequence as well.
Most of the boss enemies are either Yōkai such as Jorogumo, an oni with barbarian class levels, and wizard based on Tamamo no Mae. The basic yōkai are basic oni and tengu and such. The human enemies are mostly samurai, ninja, and a group of foreign mercenaries with maybe the occasional bandit thrown in.
I hope all this info helps!
One thing worth mentioning is that Dark Souls style "One Huge Dude" fights are significantly less threatening in Pathfinder unless the Dude has special abilities that cheat the system a bit. If you give your players a single, obvious target, then they are going to blow their load squashing that target because DPR in Pathfinder is most efficient in single-target scenarios (outside of specific Evocation builds cleave and AOE is much harder to come by). Make sure you provide your bosses with minions to block the path and give them time to do their thing.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So Invisible Pink suggests, "softening the consequences of death for player characters, maybe by some in-universe conceit of them returning to life over and over again", but when I suggest making fights challenging, he says don't make player's lives difficult, they'll respond by gearing up and optimizing. Seems bizarre to recommend making dying and returning to life easier, but criticize me for saying make fights more challenging. If fights aren't challenging, why would there be a need to make coming back from death easier?
1. she
2. You need to take that tidbit advice in the context of the sentence that follows it: "If-then". In other words: I don't recommend making your campaign unusually lethal if you want it to be serious and atmospheric, but if you must, then don't do permadeath.
I don't know what is too difficult for your group, and neither do these people saying my advice is terrible.
You're entirely correct, and this is why I've stayed away from hard mechanical recommendations like "give everything the Advanced template".
To explain my position in more detail, Megatron: what gives a campaign the subjective experience of the tension of difficulty is like what makes a horror movie scary. What's scary isn't the probability of death or the gruesomeness of execution- a film can have a 100% mortality rate for its characters and still be a snoozefest, just like an adventure can be full of TPKs and merely feel frustrating rather than tense or challenging.
What gives us- the audience or the players- that feeling of fear and tension is our connection to the characters. An emotional connection is the difference between feeling scared for the victims and rooting for Jason to rack up a new high score. And in the case of tabletop games, coaxing your players to develop that kind of connection means not killing off their characters all the time, even if the implicit threat is there.
Another good way to challenge your players is to add conditions to the encounter. Generally speaking there are two main ways to add conditions to an encounter. The first and most common is altering the battle field. This is pretty straight forward and most GM’s are familiar with this. Adding in difficult terrain or other adverse situations are examples of this. The second is to alter the rules for victory. This is more difficult but can also be a lot more challenging.
The standard encounter usually involves the party facing a variety of opponents and they achieve victory by simply killing them. The party is usually free to use any method to achieve victory. By altering either the condition or the allowable methods you can significantly increase the challenge to the party from the same foes. Just be sure that the party actually does have a way to achieve victory. This is why knowing what your players can actually do is critical.
One of the most difficult encounters I ran was one where the party had to avoid killing the BBEG. They did not find out about the condition until after the battle started which made it a lot more difficult. His dying by violence was the last step for him to gain a template. His power level was such that if he had gained the template he would have easily been able to kill the entire party.
Limiting the methods the players can use often requires more work, but can still be done. If you wanted to limit the use of fire spells you could have the battle take place in an area where there are a lot of valuable combustible items. Using a fireball in the library where you are trying to research the weakness of the BBEG is going to be costly. Having innocent people around the opponents that would be killed by powerful area of effect attacks is a classic plot device. Another classic plot device is having to take down the opponents without alerting anyone. In one encounter it meant that wizard had to avoid most of his usual spells, and the cleric had to waste the first round casting silence.
Another good way to challenge your players is to add conditions to the encounter. Generally speaking there are two main ways to add conditions to an encounter. The first and most common is altering the battle field. This is pretty straight forward and most GM’s are familiar with this. Adding in difficult terrain or other adverse situations are examples of this. The second is to alter the rules for victory. This is more difficult but can also be a lot more challenging.
The standard encounter usually involves the party facing a variety of opponents and they achieve victory by simply killing them. The party is usually free to use any method to achieve victory. By altering either the condition or the allowable methods you can significantly increase the challenge to the party from the same foes. Just be sure that the party actually does have a way to achieve victory. This is why knowing what your players can actually do is critical.
One of the most difficult encounters I ran was one where the party had to avoid killing the BBEG. They did not find out about the condition until after the battle started which made it a lot more difficult. His dying by violence was the last step for him to gain a template. His power level was such that if he had gained the template he would have easily been able to kill the entire party.
Limiting the methods the players can use often requires more work, but can still be done. If you wanted to limit the use of fire spells you could have the battle take place in an area where there are a lot of valuable combustible items. Using a fireball in the library where you are trying to research the weakness of the BBEG is going to be costly. Having innocent people around the opponents that would be killed by powerful area of effect attacks is a classic plot device. Another classic plot device is having to take down the opponents without alerting anyone. In one encounter it meant that wizard had to avoid most of his usual spells, and the cleric had to waste...
What about like, alternate solutions as well? Like, instead of hurting the big Oni that’s on fire directly with swords (which would work but risk fire damage), you can trick it into stumbling into the lake? That feels like it would require logic and some thinking without being too difficult.
Also, side note, I changed it from Minkai to just an alternate fantasy Sengoku Era Japan with different clan and character names. Just a note, since I didn’t want to deal with elves and dwarves. The Aasimar is just reflavored to be part Deva.
Variety is the key. Vary the number of encounters per day, the types of encounter and the terrain the encounters occur in.
The variety will counter hyper specialisation and make some CR appropriate encounters harder than typical whilst others will stroke the players egos. The variety will also lessen the perceived overpowered nature of wizards. They won't be able to pick a perfect spell list for the day, nor will they know whether to cast a useful spell now or save it in case it is really needed later.
Making full use of the terrain will make each encounter more interesting and playing each creature intelligently its full potential will make each encounter more challenging.
Some examples.
Tucker's kobolds (search for the story)
Twigjacks ambushing the partyin dense forest. The initial volley, followed by their stealth and movement ability amongst the 3 dimensional trees can make for a very difficult encounter.
Wolf packs that actually attack like wolf packs ie surround the party, use total defence if attacked and the flanking creatures attack.
An earth elemental attacking through solid ground using earthglide. Note their 10' reach means they can have 5' of solid ground as total cover to foes that cannot earthglide or similar themselves and are impervious to attack unless the character has the strike back feat.
Alternative solutions are what good players use on the GM, not a GM tactic. While this is something to be encouraged it does not address how to challenge the players.
Make sure you vary the threat level of your encounters. Don’t make all encounters extremely challenging. Throwing some easy encounters at the players give them a chance to feel superior. It can also lure them into a false sense of security so when you do pull out the big encounter is more memorable. A good story usually has gradual build up instead of starting out fast and furious. It is also a good way to bleed off some of the players resources. This especially true if the players use their strongest weapons as soon as they can. When your casters have used their high level spells and the paladin has no smites left what would have been a cake walk suddenly becomes a challenge.