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I'm looking for reports (from players or GMs) about how the Challenge Point system worked or didn't work for your tables. We're getting into the point that we'll have a lot of characters at level 2, with a smattering of higher levels from playtest points, which I think lands at one of the tricky thresholds for mustering. Just looking to see how its working for people and what type of guidance people like to give when players have an option of what to play.
Here's an example of what I'm thinking about for a game later today:
Gearing up to play one of the September scenarios today, and trying to decide which character to bring. Looking at the levels at the table via warhorn its showing a sticky place, IMO, for Challenge Points. Now I'm generally a fan of the challenge point system, I like that difficulty strictly increases as you add characters/decreases as you remove them. However, I do think its making it very difficult from a mustering perspective at least for people who understand the new rules and are trying to be considerate.
I haven't looked at the scenario yet, but I know that they're trying to make how to adjust encounters more obvious based on challenge points. So if the scenario's implementation of the scaling is rather different in execution that the org play's generic guidelines, what follows might be less grounded.
Starting with a table of four level 2s. Currently 12 points -> so they're currently in the GM choose (low tier w/6 player, best for all level 1s OR low tier w/ level bump, best for all levels 2s). Both options make sense, and I'm glad the guide allows that GM choice.
Now I'm trying to add in to that table. I have a level 3 (started at level 2 with PTP and then added GM credit), and a level 4 (started at level 3 with PTP and then played), and a lot of level 1s w/ 1-01 GM credit.
Would really like to play one of the level 3 or 4s, but definitely looks like it would be bad for the table. Level 3 pushes it to 16 points, Level 4 pushes it to 18. Both are the same adjustment: High Tier 4 player. As the other four players are all level 2, no one gets a boost or benefit from my mentor boon. From a previous experience with one level 3, pulling a 6 person table up into high tier, I know how deadly that gets with only 1 high tier character in high tier -- especially if the one character in high tier isn't a frontliner type.
So instead using a level 1, we get 14 points --> 5 player w/ level bump to the adventure. This sounds appropriate, and its what I'll likely end up doing. That said, I wouldn't expect that many players/GMs to really think through the options (yet) and we'll likely see some low-tier tables pulled up, out of ignorance, and into a deadly place.
Addendum: While writing this, two other people signed up(level 1 and ?), so maybe it'll be a moot point. Guaranteed to be high tier now no matter what. High tier with all low tier sounds worse, than 5 player high tier, with at least one high tier character.
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It's better to have an idea 'going in' than suddenly showing up to a table under the PFS1 system of suddenly realizing "Oh, hey, we only have one exceptionally non-optimized character actually in the tier that we are playing in, and everyone else is in the mid-tier or lower".
Unfortunately, this also leads to the pre-mustering of "Well, won't play, because don't want to ever have THAT experience again".
Feedback on this would be appreciated, even if 2e isn't on the radar for a year or so overall.
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So here's the report from how a session went.
We started off with levels 2, 1, 1 and me. (Apparently two of the signed up level 2s, either forget their characters, or had selected no-society legal options and used pregens instead). So we're at 7 points not counting me, any of my 1,3,4 level characters work and keep us low tier.
A level 2 shows up, but whoops also forgot their character sheet, drops to a level 1 pregen. 9 points, all my options stay under the limit
A level 2 shows up, 12 points, my level 1 keeps us under, my 3 or 4 push us to high tier.I start planning to run the level 1. GM starts the scenario, but says if the seventh player shows up before we get past the briefing I can swap if it makes sense.
The 7th shows up mid briefing, with a level 2. We're now at 15 points, not counting me. Any of my character push us to high-tier, in spite of being the only high tier character. Tables decides, please bring the level 4, we're going to need it.
We play out the scenario, its a combat heavy one, and even with 7 people we had a lot of difficultly. We did have two mentor boons in play (Radiant and Verdant), the Radiant one in particular stopped the level 1s from being one-shot on numerous occasions. W/o that one I think we would have lost characters. We commonly had at least two characters with wounded conditions. We were basically out of spells and consumables before the boss fight. The bosses tactics seemed weak, but its possible that's what was written in to the scenario.
I felt that players were playing effectively with the resources they had, and if we hadn't used our consumables early we would have failed the mission as early as the second encounter. I was also the only PC who could handle one of the ongoing scenarios specific things, which was costing me an action a round. Which as the single high level character in the group, limited my ability to contribute.
On the whole however, it didn't feel like mustering took any longer than it would have with a similar PF1 table of player's trickling in. The adjustment felt on the extreme end however of threat -- but it did feel like monsters had less HP and more to-hit/damage than expected. Ie most combat's only lasted 1-2 rounds, but were still dropping PCs in one round, which feels more like PF1 who wins initiative wins, not who uses their actions effectively wins. Which felt different than the other scenarios I've played/GMd.
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You should put the scenario in a Spoiler, so Leadership can take that into account.
If 7/10 groups play the same scenario but it was a cakewalk then it could have been something different about your group.
Of if 9/10 groups report that the same scenario was a TPK machine, then maybe the Challenge Point system works but the scenario was tough.
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i did GM the first quest we had a level 1 with level bump, 3 level 2, and 2 level 3 and it was a nightmare. they barely made it alive plus an issue with a certain creature which i have already commented here https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42o0n?PF2-1A-Sandstone-Secret
they were very shocked by how they were mostly always critted by first attack.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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We play out the scenario, its a combat heavy one, and even with 7 people we had a lot of difficultly. We did have two mentor boons in play (Radiant and Verdant), the Radiant one in particular stopped the level 1s from being one-shot on numerous occasions. W/o that one I think we would have lost characters. We commonly had at least two characters with wounded conditions. We were basically out of spells and consumables before the boss fight. The bosses tactics seemed weak, but its possible that's what was written in to the scenario.
Just as a clarification two of us didn't run out of consumables at all. I think the one wounded condition was the result of me forgetting until the next encounter that Soothe has a range on it. The last encounter though was ridiculous. I think the solution would have been:
Remove bleed on critting.
Because that flat out was a problem where we couldn't just use stabilize and would have killed the PC. Especially given the encounters gimmick .
Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Bellevue
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I would suggest playing, and then reviewing how things went, rather than previewing how things might go.
OP made a good post. Thinks there may be an issue. Identified the concern and asked how its working for others.
I ran 1-01 for the fourth time last Sunday. First time I had the challenge point system to use. (First three were at GenCon and I didn't have it available.)
I had 7 players show up. No other GMs, so rather than send someone home I had him sit down. Two of the players were veterans of PF1 and were concerned it would make the scenario too easy. I said, hey I've got this new challenge point system .. I think we'll be OK.
So seven 1's in a 1-4 = 2 x 7 = 14 challenge points. Table says run 5 player adjustment with a scenario bump. Honestly, it seemed to work pretty well.
The initial skill challenge portion was slightly more difficult, but they got two of the four.
The fights were a little tougher, but they had the extra body. They also had all the Pathfinder Training free consumables. (Important enough I emphasize these up front as GM.) The quest-like format helps in that they don't have to push through the fights.
Like usual, someone "volunteered" to demonstrate the dying rules. But with Hero Points, dying isn't as fatal as it sounds.
On Wednesday night, I got to run the first Quest scenario. Four players, one at 2nd, three at 1. 3x2 + 1x3 = 9 pts. No adjustment. Walked right into a trap and crushed the combat encounter (mostly because of classes selected). For once no one had to "volunteer" to demonstrate the dying rules.
At least with those two cases, the challenge point system seemed to work well. I'll have a chance to see the system in action again at NukeCon this coming weekend. Might see a couple more level 2s or even a 3 there. Those may test the system a bit more rigorously.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Today I had a table with 6 level 1 characters show up to play #1-05. I got the choice to go with a level bump or 6 player mode, and chose the latter.
In retrospect, I think the level bump would have been better. There were some skill challenges with "best roll among the PCs is the one that counts" where two extra players really helped the odds. And this party had a lot of ranged weapons, and the 6P adjustments mostly added mooks. So they could easily focus fire the encounter bosses.
However, there were also a bunch of new players and plenty of teachable moments, so if it turned out rather easy, that was not really bad. And the bard who cast Magic Missile from the back of the party learned that it's not actually all that safe in the back anymore, monsters can get closer to you more easily now.
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Bellevue
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OK,
I GM'd 1-04 at NukeCon last weekend and have another datapoint for this discussion.
6 characters 2 x level 1 (4 pts), 2 x 2 (6 pts), 2 x 3 (8 pts) = 18 pts total.
So, per the table, we played at high sub-tier. One of the level 3s says - I have a mentor feat. The other level 3 asks "what's that?". We do the explanation and the second level 3 buys one from his faction.
So the level 1s get:
+2 to attack (with mentor)
+2 to saves (with mentor)
+1 to damage, ACs and Perception
+10 hit points
Per the table, I don't adjust the bad guys or apply either the 5 or 6 player adjustments.
It went surprisingly well. I never dropped anyone to 0, though several players were scrambling for healing at various points. Monster tactics in the scenario may have helped with this.
Skill portions were tough, but within reason. The final fight was the toughest on skill related tasks.
As a comparison, I ran 2-07 for a table of 5 who barely rounded up to high subtier. In PF2, this group would have mirrored the one above, but without the challenge point table, I was running the high sub-tier without the four player adjustment. It was much tougher. In this case, I actually preferred the PF2 situation.
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Bellevue
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Friday night I played in 1-06, our character mix was:
7 players, 2 x 3rd level (8 pts), 1 x 2nd level (3 pts), 4 x 1st level (8 pts) = 19 pts.
So, high sub-tier, with the 5 player adjustment. We had the same mentor bonuses for the 1st level players.
I was concerned with the high number of 1's. But it workeded really well as the two 3rds were well suited for the scenario. (The alchemist lined up with the vulnerabilities well and the monk was able to lay down bulk HP damage).
We took a couple of really large blows. One player dropped to 0, and our 3rd level monk was reduced to low single digits with a crit. But my fey sorcerer (2nd level) was able to put everyone back on their feet quickly (reach spell plus 2 action heal).
Character mix vs the foes faced is going to make a real difference here. I feel we got a little lucky with that. I thought I'd be doing more attacks as a sorcerer, but I find I'm often filling the role a cleric normally would.
In general, my experience with the new balance system has been very good.
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Bellevue
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... 7 players ...
A quick afterthought. We sat a 7th player Friday. My PF1 experience makes me think this is generally not a great idea. There's no mechanism to make things more difficult in a PF1 scenario for 7 players. Which means that players aren't challenged much.
But with the new point system, the 7th player didn't make things noticeably easier as the mechanism is there to add a little more challenge to the scenario.
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... 7 players ...
A quick afterthought. We sat a 7th player Friday. My PF1 experience makes me think this is generally not a great idea. There's no mechanism to make things more difficult in a PF1 scenario for 7 players. Which means that players aren't challenged much.
But with the new point system, the 7th player didn't make things noticeably easier as the mechanism is there to add a little more challenge to the scenario.
The challenge point system accounts for this as the adventures are now including instructions on how to adjust the adventure based on the points.
I think the system is good provided the adjustments are balanced by the writers.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I don't have any spectacular data points yet, ran and played in a couple of scenarios with mostly level 1s and a level 2, generally ending up at 6P adjustment.
Although "nothing shocking happened, in the normal case the difficulty seemed normal" is a data point in itself.
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One interesting data point about how tight the math is : one player realized after the fact that he wrote down L1 when his fighter was L2 which made a slight difference in the total challenge points. This difference was enough to make the scenario siginificantly easier than it should have been in 1-03.
Since 1-03 does not use the challenge point system, the only changes that could be made are those listed in the adventure.
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So far is seems to be working well. It seems a little on the weak side for small groups of lowest levels, but a little on the tough side for large groups of second lowest levels. I haven't seen a table run with lowest levels with the temporary level pump to judge that.
In a recent running of Lost on the Spirit Road, I ran a table of 7 2nd levels, which pushed things up to high tier with the 5 person adjustment. The final encounter was very tough and ended with 4 of the 7 down with the dying condition and things didn't get worse mostly because the fighter managed to score 2 Crits in a row. This was due in large part to the age old problem of playing up against creatures that have AoE abilities. At the same time, a table of 7 1st levels had no problem, but they were going against a different set of monsters. I have seen this mod run a total of 4 times and run twice with the same set of monsters I ran it with. The other table had 3 3rds and 1 1st. It seems this particular set of monsters is simply more difficult.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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You ran two 7-player scenarios? Isn't the policy still that those should happen only as a last resort?If there's not a lot of GMs running the new system yet, it's bound to be the rule rather than the exception until enough players gain the game mastery to be able to GM.
I really think people are exaggerating how well you have to master to be able to GM. If you GMed PFS1 before and have played 2 PFS2 scenarios and been able to make your own character, then you're ready to GM PFS2.
Will it be flawless? No. But that isn't needed. If you get a rule wrong just admit it, see if it's bad enough to need a small rewind, and move on.
I'm currently pushing my own lodge to give GMing it a try. I find it easier to GM than PFS1 high level play.
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I'd agree... as as system most of the stuff takes less time to grasp well enough to GM. And once you start, you are going to pick it up faster.
I have found the stat blocks much easier to deal with, and honestly ther are usually fewer options for critters, at least in the levels I have seen.
Of course, the critters and bad guys also have the ability to attack three times (even with penalties).
There are a few things that will get you, but most isn't a big deal. Mostly remembering DCs for things like healing (though players can look that stuff up, too).
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You ran two 7-player scenarios? Isn't the policy still that those should happen only as a last resort?
We have had several 7-person tables in my area. If we would have had 8 players we would have broke into 2 tables of 4. But we had 6 players and the second GM who had not played yet. I like full tables so we went with the second GM joining instead of running two tables of 3 players and a pregen.
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You ran two 7-player scenarios? Isn't the policy still that those should happen only as a last resort?
I would say half the games in my area seem to be either 7-player tables or 3-player tables. It just seems to work out that we can't quite get the right numbers.
But the story behind this one is too sadly funny not to share.
So, I had scheduled 2 tables on Warhorn for my Saturday gameday running of Lost on the Spirit Road. We had one GM already signed up and only 5 players, including me. So, I was looking forward to playing that week instead of running. However, by Wednesday there were 7 players signed up. Now, one thing I have discovered is that players tend to not sign up to play if they don’t see enough GMs to run everyone. So, I switched from playing to GMing.
That was when I noticed that a group in Orlando (50 miles away) I am familiar with, was running the same mod on Friday night. And they only had 5 players signed up. I could take off a little early from work, drive over, and still get to play. So, I signed up, then prepped the mod Thursday night, since I wasn’t going to get to do it Friday. But by Friday morning there were 8 players signed up. So, I sighed and bit the bullet, and decided to sign up to GM. After all, I had already prepped the mod. Besides, Dawn, the other GM signed up, ALWAYS seemed stuck running 7-player tables. So, I thought it would be great to give her a break for once. It would also give my wife a chance to play since she had avoided signing up due to too many players and not enough GMs.
It was at this point that I discovered Warhorn had added a new feature that required organizers to manually authorize GMs. While I had GMed many games for the group in Orlando, the organizers hadn’t set me up as a GM yet. So, I got on their Facebook group to make sure everyone knew I would be GMing a second table in case people weren’t signing up because of the lack of GMs. Sure enough, by early afternoon, there were 12 players signed up. By the time we arrived at the game, we had 14 players.
So, in the end I still didn’t get to play and Dawn still got stuck running a 7-player table again.
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You ran two 7-player scenarios? Isn't the policy still that those should happen only as a last resort?If there's not a lot of GMs running the new system yet, it's bound to be the rule rather than the exception until enough players gain the game mastery to be able to GM.
The game has been out less than 4 months. NO ONE has system mastery. And if everyone waited until they did, no one would be playing. If you wish to help the community, I strongly urge you, and others with similar reluctance, to gain your system mastery through experience GMing, just as I am doing. No one is going to fault you for getting a rule wrong, and most should be willing to help you with the learning process. Frequently, if we have a rules question while playing, I may have a player who isn't currently doing anything look it up while we move on. Sometimes we go back over a rule on Facebook after the game. So far the only one I have killed due to a rules mistake was an Animal Companion, because I thought if you were at Dying 2 and got healed, then you went to Wounded 2, but you only go to Wounded 2 if you had Wounded 1 when you got the Dying condition.
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I have GM'd poorly twice, by my standards.
If I haven't played in the system, I have zero perspective from the other side of the screen to inform what tolerances the system has.
I may be setting an unreasonable standard for myself, but my personal experience has proven it necessary in the past.
EDIT: Back on track, how clunky have folks found the challenge points to be? Is it more difficult than PFS1 tier calcs? Easier?
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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You ran two 7-player scenarios? Isn't the policy still that those should happen only as a last resort?I would say half the games in my area seem to be either 7-player tables or 3-player tables. It just seems to work out that we can't quite get the right numbers.
But the story behind this one is too sadly funny not to share.
(...)
Okay that's both funny and slightly horrible :P
Over the last decade of gaming I've found my preferences shift towards smaller groups - once upon a time I was crazy enough to GM for a 7-player Vampire the Masquerade party, nowadays I consider 3-5 player Pathfinder to be the sweet spot. A lot of the best sessions I've had in the last years were 3 players in a season 0-3 scenario.
It's a combination of a more balanced game. 6 player action economy can overwhelm many PF1 scenarios, even the ones ostensibly designed for it. But also that a 3-4 party just has nicer teamwork, spotlight and communication.
I was quite curious how the Challenge Point system handles variable size parties vs. variable level parties. I like that the basic setup gives the GM some leeway between choosing a #player adjustment or going up a tier.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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EDIT: Back on track, how clunky have folks found the challenge points to be? Is it more difficult than PFS1 tier calcs? Easier?
Easier, somewhat to my surprise, because the writeup was intimidating. It's just adding numbers and looking at a table.
No division, but especially, no weird double rounding for in between subtier parties, and no edge cases for scenarios from old seasons, or for 4-player parties that can't take another 4P adjustment.
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Columbia
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I really liked the way the Challenge Points worked in 1-06 and 1-04. I am working on installing 1-07 in Roll20 and its Challenge Points seem to be set up well too.
I've ran over 30 sessions of PFS2 now and I see how they've tuned the later scenarios so they feel better when the points go up. At least that's been my experience running 1-04 and 1-06 several times now.
As for PFS2 GMing, it's great. I keep having to remember that what I did GMing PFS1 doesn't necessarily work the same way in PFS2. That's been the single biggest problem I've had in running PFS2. Just like in PFS1, I feel like I'm getting better as I run more PFS2 scenarios.
I do know that running 7 player tables is painful because it just cuts down on what players can do with their characters as there are more of them trying to do things. It also can cause time issues. At one FLGS we have had to institute a 5-player table limit due to time concerns. We're constantly running into the closing time and it's become a major problem. Once we instituted the 5-player limit we started finishing the sessions on time. Part of that may be that everyone is new to the game. We will adjust this as needed.
I also know that it is foolhardy to have a party of 5 L1s and 1 L4. I strongly suggest those be avoided at all costs.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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BUMP
Today we played 1-11 Flames of Rebellion with a party of levels 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, which was just enough to push us into the high subtier.
Most of the adventure this was fine, it would honestly be hard to tell we were in high subtier. The encounters relied on relatively obvious traps together with feeble monsters, so as long as you manage to not step into anything while first shooting all the monsters, that's fine.
But when we got to the boss, we took a good long look at that and decided to run. I'm fairly sure that if we'd actually gone into that fight we would have been slaughtered mercilessly.
The boss inflicts Infernal Wound which causes persistent damage that takes a DC 20 flat check to end, and you can't be healed unless the healer passes a counteract check DC 21, while the monster has a counteract level of 3. So with the level 1 healing magic we had available, we'd need a natural 20 to get the critical success needed to counteract.
Apart from that the boss had Resistance 5 against non-silver weapons and nowadays silver weapons are quite expensive so of course nobody had them. We'd have had trouble scratching the paint on this thing.
The boss on the other hand had superior mobility in the room and high to hit and damage, and a deadly weapon to add injury to injury. A 3d8+14+4d6 crit would drop just about any of us and has a chance of actually instantly killing a level 1 or 2 character on a high roll.
But even if it "only" drops you, you're immediately at Dying 2 while taking persistent damage that's hard to end and you can't be healed except with a natural 20 on the counteract check.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this was a boss where superior numbers of low level characters wouldn't have done a whole lot. It would have been a scary fight for a level 3-4 party, but for a level 1-2ish party it would have been fairly quick suicide.
In this thread the consensus is that higher-than-party level monsters are actually much harder than an equal XP budget of lesser monsters. For a 4 player party, a level +2 monster is already quite frightening. But this was a level +3 or +4 boss respectively.
So while I think challenge points don't work all that bad for encounters where the "oomph" is split between multiple monsters, bumping people up into high tier doesn't work so well against solo BBEGs.