I am looking at starting up a 2E game (conversion of Book 1 of Serpents Skull as a stand alone)
Right now I am struggling for a fourth player and the three agreed players have picked the following:
- Goblin shortbow flurry ranger
- Gnome fey sorcerer
- Dwarf Bomber alchemist
I am worried that the party is all ranged with no traditional front liner (unless an extra player materialises)
Could this group work or would they have a really tough time ?
I am disinclined to create a burly front liner NPC as historically I have found that at low levels those characters do a lot of heavy lifting and I wouldn’t want three players to be outshone by an NPC
(There are NPCs in the adventure but they aren’t in a position to aid the group immediately )
What do people think?
In my opinion, they should be fine as long as you avoid putting them against AoO enemies too often. A Ranger and a dwarven Alchemist should tank well if needed.
As a side note, your Ranger should go Precision. Flurry Rangers are extremely static, Precision Rangers are extremely mobile. Considering your party, kitting will be an awesome strategy if the Alchemist manages to land some Frost Vials.
In my opinion, they should be fine as long as you avoid putting them against AoO enemies too often. A Ranger and a dwarven Alchemist should tank well if needed.
As a side note, your Ranger should go Precision. Flurry Rangers are extremely static, Precision Rangers are extremely mobile. Considering your party, kitting will be an awesome strategy if the Alchemist manages to land some Frost Vials.
Kitting?
And thanks for the above. I don’t think there are too many AOO foes in this. Some skeletal champions , perhaps a scorpion (or something using the scorpion base for a reskin) and maybe one of the sub bosses
Also could you clarify why flurry rangers are more static? Doesn’t hunted shot allow two arrows as one action ? Which would be the same as a precision one ?
Kitting consists in using high mobility + ranged attacks to kill a melee enemy without possible retaliation.
Flurry Rangers want to use all their actions attacking while Precision Rangers don't have much incentive in using their -10 attacks. If you just make 2 attacks per round, Flurry is nearly useless.
On average Flurry X Precision works like this.
2 Attacks
Precision do more damage
3 Attacks
Both will do around the same damage
4 Attacks
Flurry do more damage.
And anyway, that party will do, the Ranger player might have to go frontline in emergencies though, the one that I am GM even though was build as an archer at first found himself on the frontlines often.
As a GM, the real trick will be on you to set up encounters where range can matter. I haven’t played serpent skull, but the party should do well in more open outdoor encounters where they can move around and only be in trouble when they are dungeon crawling in tight circumstances. You could consider giving them a level -1 or 0 level NPC with a shield and light mace who spends more actions defensively positioning themselves to block the back line
The ranger can have a Bear Animal companion which "can" frontline a bit. Give it the best armor it can have (+3 I think) and try to keep it healed up. Another trick is if the alchemest has a fimiliar put it on/in a little pack on the Bear. Give it hands/manuplate actions ability and several elixers of life. This way the alchemest can give his familiar an action to have it draw an elixer and feed it to the bear in combat to give it a touch more staying power. (Also a cute/scene)
Note this works "better" with percision ranger as they tend to have a spair action to give the bear companion commands.
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It's "kiting", not "kitting".
As in you run along w/ the monster following you like a kite, yet never catching you. Generally you use ranged attacks or lure it into traps.
This is difficult unless the whole party increases their mobility as much as possible. Monsters only get faster, and as long as they get one swing in, they're getting in a good portion of their offense.
Plus, Paizo does a good job of giving monsters a mix of attacks.
This is not a tactic to depend on.
A Flurry Ranger is less mobile because they need to take as many attacks as possible to gain an advantage over a Precision Ranger. Add on an animal taking another action and that's that many fewer actions to take advantage of your Edge.
I disagree w/ some others, nobody there can tank in PF2.
Some may survive a bad round better, but all should try to avoid standing in place. A Bear can help, yet animal companions don't tank well either.
If the animal can buy you a round before retreating, then it should be worth the feats (assuming somebody has excellent Medicine).
The Ranger could also MCD Druid to pick up Heal Animal as a Focus spell, which may give the bear a second round in front.
As for Serpent's Skull, the large amount of (potential) NPC allies can aid significantly! They don't have the best builds, but they're all effective bodies on the map. For combat, you might even let the players run the ones they ally with. Essentially, it'd be similar to having a 6-PC party (which in the early stages, is quite necessary which is why they're in the adventure!)
And yes, the outdoor encounters should help, just make sure to give the Ranger the chance to get in an early Perception check.
The party (w/o NPCs) will do okay going nova, yet lacks consistent offense for gauntlets. Once they're spent, that's it. I'm not saying you have to adjust for that, but they may need to know this. (I know in some parts of the AP the party will need an exit strategy to go recover.) Hopefully they'll already realize they need to pummel w/ their best offense right off the bat because they have so little defense.
Good luck.
A couple of the npc’s can’t quite work as straight conversions in 2E:
- doesn’t seem an avenue for fighter to effectively use unarmed combat. Not until level 2 and monk mcd anyway. And I am not sure I want them at level 2 and the PCs at level 1 really . But I could I suppose
- rogue can no longer sneak with the katana. And that npc’s katana is part of his story
A couple of the npc’s can’t quite work as straight conversions in 2E:
- doesn’t seem an avenue for fighter to effectively use unarmed combat. Not until level 2 and monk mcd anyway. And I am not sure I want them at level 2 and the PCs at level 1 really . But I could I suppose
- rogue can no longer sneak with the katana. And that npc’s katana is part of his story
Then don't do a straight conversion.
I'd argue punchy-Fighter hadn't been that good anyway. Pretty easy bar to match. There are other ways to keep the flavor.-Change katana to elvish curved blade (albeit a Tian-forged one)
-Punchy-Fighter can use gauntlets...as horrible as that is.
Player running NPC: "Wow, this guy sucks."
Other player: "Yeah, this Cleric has minimum Con!"
GM: "Yep. You are the heroes and they aren't."
That said, being NPCs you don't need to build them w/ PC rules.
You want punchy-Fighter to punch well, give him a punch ability. Done.
Same w/ the sneak attack katana, have it be his special ability (or maybe he's a Ruffian who can treat it like a Simple Weapon).
(The trouble w/ making them like monsters being of course that you have to rebuild every level. The casters should be easier as PCs.)
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A couple of the npc’s can’t quite work as straight conversions in 2E:
- doesn’t seem an avenue for fighter to effectively use unarmed combat. Not until level 2 and monk mcd anyway. And I am not sure I want them at level 2 and the PCs at level 1 really . But I could I suppose
- rogue can no longer sneak with the katana. And that npc’s katana is part of his story
By default you don't build NPCs with the PC rules any more. So...this is just super not a problem. Build appropriate NPCs that
That said, if you wanted to mostly use the PC rules for the fellow castaways (a reasonable idea), it's pretty simple. Looking over the NPCs in question, I'd do the following:
For Ishirou, the Rogue, you could easily just make him a Fighter. Give him Int 14 and the Natural Skill Ancestry Feat, and that nets him Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Lore (Sailing), Society, Stealth, and Thievery, which is better than his PF1 Skills...which were the main mechanical reason he was a Rogue in the first place. Have him wear light armor and flank during combat and his 'rogue' thematics remain entirely intact.
Basically, you're getting too hung up on keeping Classes the same in your conversion. Make a character that does the same things the PF1 character does, don't worry too much what the 'Class' line at the top of their sheet says.