Anyone else running this one on "easy mode?" Spoilers


Age of Ashes


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

So the encounters in this one seem to be pretty brutal, and often scale to be pretty severe even when they don't need to be. I chalk some of that up to developers still learning the pacing of the new system, but it does seem like quite a lot.

For example, the Corrupt Guards in book 4 are either at the party's level or one below them. But they are really just town guard. There is no real reason for them to be that badass. Especially not when the interesting story outcomes don't require an intense fight. You either fight them off and then have to deal with the fallout of the tow thinking you just beat up guards for no reason, or you surrenderand have to orchestrate a jail break. Both of those work even if the party can smoke the guards in a straight fight.

Or consider the bug bear in book 1. As discussed in the Hellknight Hill thread, she's not a very interesting fight. But what is interesting is that this bugbear made a blanket fort and you're not allowed in it.

I have a 5 person group, but don't think I will be increasing difficulty. Some fights will still be tough, but others I would like to let the party feel like badasses.

One of my favorite things about the AP are how many encounters don't have to resort in murder. I'm gonna lean further into that, I think. Like letting the party use diplomacy for Fort Yoletcha.

Anybody further in want to weigh in? Has it been overly challenging or is it hitting the right balance as written?


So I'll be starting this shortly with a 6 person group, and am worried about having the opposite problem - encounters being trounced by action economy.

Anyone with tips on adjusting encounters in my direction would be welcome as well. I think adding 10 more (5 per extra player) civilians to rescue to the fire encounter might be sufficient there? Not sure if I should also buff the mephit (probably not).

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Adam500 wrote:

So I'll be starting this shortly with a 6 person group, and am worried about having the opposite problem - encounters being trounced by action economy.

Anyone with tips on adjusting encounters in my direction would be welcome as well. I think adding 10 more (5 per extra player) civilians to rescue to the fire encounter might be sufficient there? Not sure if I should also buff the mephit (probably not).

Pathfinder Second Edition is designed to scale up with additional players. Check out the Character Adjustment and Different Party Sizes entries on page 489 if you haven't already. It might help.


I'm not as far as you. Midway through chapter 3.

The only fight that's really been worrying was the gelatinous cube. That s*%@ is brutal. I eased up on it a bit by allowing critical hits to count, as they were all failing their Fort saves against the paralysis.

Aside from that, I've made it harder for my four-person party. Gave Calmont another mephit. Had some encounters underground bleed into each other--they just fought a boggard warrior and two charau-ka, one of which ran into the next room and rallied three more of his ilk. Party got a little bit rawed up, but no one went down. Doesn't help that I have legendarily poor dice rolls as a GM I guess, haha.

But I have Ralldar and Malarunk and Voz coming up, and the pillars in book 2... we'll see how that all looks.


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My group just started Book 2, and I was concerned about difficulty when I started the campaign, especially after looking at Ralldar and Voz. My players, I think, represent the same approach that many take to tabletop games: "I'll know enough of the rules to play, but I won't think to hard about them." So for the first half of Book 1, their strategy was using as many actions as it took to get into range for attacking and then blowing the rest of their actions on Strikes.

It worked for the first half pretty decently! Sure, they got messed up by wights in the basement, but they could manage. Then the fight with Voz came and my players had two characters knocked out in the first round of combat (Dimiri was chased into Voz's area as well). After some hero points, careful use of healing potions, and grit, they managed to overcome the encounter.

But that wasn't the fight I was worried about. It was Ralldar. He shrugged off spells, most attacks missed him, and he chewed through hit points. The barbarian in the group was barely standing while the alchemist and sorcerer fell back on "un-dodgable" damage with magic missile and splash damage from bombs. It was hard fought, but they pulled through... barely.

Cut to a week ago with the sorcerer talking with me, confused by how they were getting beaten recently. He was going over spell lists, combat actions, the group build and went... "Oh my god, why are we wasting our third action on -10 attacks? Much less the second! None of us have agile weapons." And suddenly everything started to click into place.

Fights start with the cleric and sorcerer throwing out buffs while the barbarian Intimidates and the alchemist attempts some Recall Knowledge checks. A change in strategy made a dramatic difference immediately, with everyone looking at the encounters more carefully. I can't speak for what's going to happen in the future, but I don't plan on pulling any punches for my group. They showed me that they've learned how to handle combat and I think the system will allow them to overcome whatever Age of Ashes throws at them.


For me so far is hitting the right balance, but i only did 4 sessions yet, they are on the second level of the citadel, past the birds, beatem some cultists and release the bear.

The only change i did so far to the adventure was that the bear returned to the wild (my party went all the way to make a clear route with bodies as bait for him to get out).

My decision was well received it seems, they are talking about naming the citadel Bear something and having a banner with a bear on it....

Oh and they met Alak only on the second day in the Citadel, their first day into the Citadel was like this:
Nice doggies, give food, no problem»Kill Bugbear that put the rogue down with a strike, kitchen, no problems with the spider swarms» long corridor/short corridor/room noise on the courtyard, investigate, beaten elite Grauladon and Elite Calmont (they 5 in that day), on that fight the rogue went down twice, and the monk once.

Some fights were harder than the others, but my party plays very well as a team and are enjoying the challenges.

But i am worried about the Gelatinous Cube indeed!

The party is usually 4 players, but in two sessions they were 5, and i did increase the challenge either giving elite or adding monsters/hazzards to the fold.

They are friends with Alak and he is with him on the second level.

Normal composition of the party:

Goblin Rogue
Dwarf Fighter
Human Cleric
Human Sorcerer

Sometimes a Elven Monk joins in.


John Compton wrote:
Adam500 wrote:

So I'll be starting this shortly with a 6 person group, and am worried about having the opposite problem - encounters being trounced by action economy.

Anyone with tips on adjusting encounters in my direction would be welcome as well. I think adding 10 more (5 per extra player) civilians to rescue to the fire encounter might be sufficient there? Not sure if I should also buff the mephit (probably not).

Pathfinder Second Edition is designed to scale up with additional players. Check out the Character Adjustment and Different Party Sizes entries on page 489 if you haven't already. It might help.

Thank you i wasnt sure where that was!


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

We had 5 during the gelatinous cube. It didn't have to bump it up due to the party was convinced there was a second one and wasted 3 rounds trying to find it by throwing daggers and spears. Of course I fed into the paranoia. The poor alchemist almost died inside the real cube.

K-ray

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I'm finding the balance to be pretty good. I'm also running a 7-8 person table, so basically doubling all the creatures except the bosses, who tend to become elite. We're starting book 2 tonight. They walked through the citadel with no issues, above and below.

The platform fight outside the caves, and the final boss fights were the hardest so far. In both cases the thing that made it difficult was the terrain advantage.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I just finished running book 1. Actually loving the encounter balance so far - a few fights have forced my players to come up with clever strategies. They were getting trounced by the graveshells until the rogue hit on the idea of readying attacks for when the things come out of their shell.

The gelatinous cube turned out to be an easy encounter because a lucky player spotted it before it attacked. Some of my players have a healthy respect for cubes after losing a party member to underestimating one in another campaign, so they backed off and poured ranged attacks into it. Still resulted in one character getting engulfed but they pulled through with minor damage.

Ralldar was a eye-opener for them, though. They went into the fight feeling like they could handle anything and he kicked the crap out of them. Renali joining the fight turned out to be pretty clutch as she bought them an extra turn by blinding him with color spray (they were losing so I decided to ignore the Incap trait; I told them she cast a heightened color spray).

Even with that most of the party was over half dead when he finally went down, but no one died. Which is nice - that's how boss battles should be, in my opinion, and that was a hard experience to create in 1e.

The actual boss fight right after Ralldar went much more smoothly, despite being down resources, but lot of that came down to an absolutely clutch cast of Sound Burst from the bard. She caught all four minions in it and they rolled 1, 1, 3, 5; the two natural 1s popped like overripe grapes and the other two lost enough health to die to the rogue immediately after.

Malarunk didn't turn out to be a very threatening solo encounter. :) Although he did some good damage with a fireball and then suicided with a 3-action harm.


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MaxAstro wrote:
Although he did some good damage with a fireball and then suicided with a 3-action harm.

Why would Malarunk choose suicide? Was the situation that desperate?


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Yeah, that was actually after they'd already killed all his minions knocked him out, and then woke him back up to interrogate him. They rolled minimum on the Treat Wounds roll, too, so he woke up with only 2HP...

I considered just letting them interrogate him, but honestly there wasn't anything he could tell them that they hadn't already learned from the three or four cultists they had already captured and interrogated.

And I'd been roleplaying him as a "true believer" in Dahak, kind of in contrast to how I'm going to play the Cinderclaw leader in book two; Malarunk was fully aware that he would face destruction at Dahak's claws, too, so dying for a final strike at the enemies of Dahak was fine by him.

Technically he could have excluded himself from the harm, per the errata, but he wasn't going to survive the entire party surrounding him with weapons drawn anyway, and he wanted to deny them the pleasure of killing him.

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