So my party was battling a large group of enemies below their level (some even 5 levels lower) when something interesting happened. Because the enemies were lower level, they all rolled initiative below the party. So we had the situation that also occurs when grouping enemy initiatives (giving all goblins the same initiative but a goblin boss a different one for example). This is known to cause swingyness in battles, and indeed: a battle with enemies that are not even worth XP according to the rules became a very intense battle, as all the low level enemies ganged up on one of the PCs. They only hit on a 19 or so, but with flanking and other debuffs and tricks and so many attacks, they were much more successful than if their initiative had been higher. Because then all the attacks would not come at the same time.
It also didn't help that there were no AoE spells to be used in that battle, as I think that is the biggest counter to this, but this all does show that enemies having lower initiative is not always better for the party.
I would be dubuious about throwing swarms of low level enemies if the group does not have AOE which would be the standard counter response. If they are forced to go one at a time the sheer amount of rolls being made and flanking is going to make it a much tougher fight than it should be.
Depending on location but yes, low level enemies and their better than average attack ratings are still dangerous.
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I always have monsters go on their own initiative. It's easier for me, because I use a VTT which automatically puts creatures in the tracker for me.
But if you're doing group inish, maybe try grouping them up. If you have 12 goblins, maybe do groups 1, 2, 3, and 4 of sets of three?
I agree that having mobs of creatures all moving at once can be a thing.
Some situations I'd still do it, like a group of soldiers. Having them all move in formation makes sense, since they're trained for war and all that.
But a group of lots of kobolds? I'd put them in blocks, at least.
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Tactical players will choose to hold their actions anyway when they roll high and the rest of the party doesn't rather than rush into a large group of enemies. When you are out numbered and you spend one or two actions moving, you better make sure it is to prevent the enemy from getting an even bigger advantage then you just holding your turn and making 3 or 4 of them waste 1 or 2 actions moving, giving you a full three actions to retaliate.
Personally, It think the fact that multiple lower level enemies are an actual threat to a party that doesn't take them seriously is a strength of the system. It doesn't take a lot of of AoE buffing to really make a group of level -2 or level -3 enemies a serious threat to the party. Casters who can take them out in swaths or easily counter the buffs that make them a threat are an important party resource that PCs should undervalue at their own risk.
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Tactical players will choose to hold their actions anyway when they roll high and the rest of the party doesn't rather than rush into a large group of enemies. When you are out numbered and you spend one or two actions moving, you better make sure it is to prevent the enemy from getting an even bigger advantage then you just holding your turn and making 3 or 4 of them waste 1 or 2 actions moving, giving you a full three actions to retaliate.
Personally, It think the fact that multiple lower level enemies are an actual threat to a party that doesn't take them seriously is a strength of the system. It doesn't take a lot of of AoE buffing to really make a group of level -2 or level -3 enemies a serious threat to the party. Casters who can take them out in swaths or easily counter the buffs that make them a threat are an important party resource that PCs should undervalue at their own risk.
Game's working as intended.
The players have to consider what to do when facing 6 threats or 1 threat that's 6x as threatening, and all variants between. They may not be able to address the breadth individually, but as a group they kind of have to. It may take a side feat they hadn't intended or some item purchases, i.e. AoE scrolls, or sharing the forethought of pulling back to a doorway or other chokepoint, or maybe circling up when such fights arise.
I wouldn't go easier on them, just like I wouldn't go harder on them if they take down solo enemies that much quicker for having that focus. It may be a lesson they need to learn given 3.X onward, but yeah, groups are a threat again. :)
I feel like the encounter building rules are more of a guidelines, it is interesting that you found it to be quite a bit of a threat. Personally if I was a GM and the party had no AOE then I probably just wouldn't throw encounters with huge amount of enemies that low.
There are just so many factors though that go into why the monsters were tough though. A level -1 monster vs a level 4 player will probably die in one hit but a monster 10 vs 15 a level 15 player might take 2-3 hits.
Grouped initiative definitely annoying in every game I played with it. It is interesting that the way PF2 works super low level enemies would be grouped together indirectly.
Of course I play PF1 with a +8 initiative or something an my allies have like a +3 and I have been at the bottom every time.
I definitely try to play the enemies to their intelligence or cunning.
Lots of skeletons, I don't have them flank or employ anything but very rudimentary tactics.
Lots of trained soldiers I will definitely have them focus fire on one PC. Because why wouldn't they?
Zombies will attack the nearest brains they can find.
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Having groups of enemies that focus their attacks efficiently is not bad.
Having every group of enemies, regardless of what they are, in universe, what their motivations are or how you've balanced the encounter always focus their attacks efficiently is bad.
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I definitely try to play the enemies to their intelligence or cunning.
Lots of skeletons, I don't have them flank or employ anything but very rudimentary tactics.
Lots of trained soldiers I will definitely have them focus fire on one PC. Because why wouldn't they?
Zombies will attack the nearest brains they can find.
While this is a very logical way of running things I can't help but feel it depends on your group and as a GM one also needs to be able to read the room a bit. The simple answer to the question 'why wouldn't they?' is that it might not be fun for your players. For groups that enjoy grittier games that more 'realistic' approach is great. For more swashbuckling heroic leaning players and tone I'd try to spread the damage out as much as I could.
My 2 cents. I don't disagree but I've run a few games that while doing so would have made perfect sense it just wouldn't have been fun for my group.
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Perhaps a tactical party, knowing the initiative order, can have their healer Delay their turn and jump in when it's appropriate?
That's assuming the party knows the initiative order. I never tell the group what the monsters' initiative is. They have to wait until the first round is over to find out. Doesn't keep the cleric from delaying, tho.
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I don't get it. Every enemy going last is, in fact, the absolute best situation for the party because it means they have every opportunity to set the tone for the battle before the enemy gets a chance to respond. Focus firing is the same no matter where the enemy is on the tracker, if all enemies go last then that should mean that enemies are dead before they get an opportunity to focus fire (since, y'know, the party got to focus fire first).
I would be dubuious about throwing swarms of low level enemies if the group does not have AOE which would be the standard counter response.
Yeah our wizard had to leave mid-session due to IRL issues. I asked the party if they wanted to stop the session but they wanted to continue.
Personally, It think the fact that multiple lower level enemies are an actual threat to a party that doesn't take them seriously is a strength of the system. It doesn't take a lot of of AoE buffing to really make a group of level -2 or level -3 enemies a serious threat to the party. Casters who can take them out in swaths or easily counter the buffs that make them a threat are an important party resource that PCs should undervalue at their own risk.
I agree, it's a good thing, GMs just need to take into account that the battle might be swingy due to initiative pooling this way. Or at least the party should consider using the delay action so they can act between enemies if they want. And as thejeff said, it is a problem that this is not considered in the encounter building guidelines (though personally I still give XP for groups of very low-level enemies, with two low-level enemies acting as one enemy of 2 levels higher than the low level).
Perhaps a tactical party, knowing the initiative order, can have their healer Delay their turn and jump in when it's appropriate?
Yup, they definitely should have considered delaying, but a group of low-level enemies is easily underestimated. Some were not even worth any XP according to the rules.
As I read the OP, he or she was excited that a combat that "should" be trivial and boring became challenging and exciting.
tl;dr: not a bug - a feature.
I was more surprised than excited, but yes it is good that low levels can still present a challenge. It's just something that neither I nor the players were expecting, and I am giving out XP for it unlike what the rules say. And the possibility of initiative pooling is something that both the GM and the players should be aware of.
I don't get it. Every enemy going last is, in fact, the absolute best situation for the party because it means they have every opportunity to set the tone for the battle before the enemy gets a chance to respond. Focus firing is the same no matter where the enemy is on the tracker, if all enemies go last then that should mean that enemies are dead before they get an opportunity to focus fire (since, y'know, the party got to focus fire first).
The thing is, both in my situation and in the solo-boss situation (another situation known to be swingy), if the party does something like spend actions to move next to the enemy, and then the enemy takes their turn going all out in attack, it will turn out badly for the party. For solo boss monsters I already knew this, and I expect my players knew this too, but for a group of low level monsters we were both unaware this could happen.
The players need to strategize at this minimal level because coordinated enemies could easily Delay to set this up.
One PC heading out into the enemy is asking to be focused on, and it only requires modest intelligence for a leader to have their troops "jump the first guy that charges us!" (or for that matter, "if the first guys charge us, swarm around them to get to the juicy bits in back, especially if their fingers twinkle!"). An enemy's first Strike makes up a significant portion of their offense, so as long as they can get that swing in, they've lost little by moving around.
It's a bit harder for PCs who haven't seen the terrain yet, but it's important to have several "white room" opening options other than rushing forward. Trading an opening blow (especially if it moves you further than 30' from the healer) for tactical advantage for your enemies and their many blows seems much too common (though that could be I'm seeing sloppy veterans with a PFS1 mindset).
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...if you're doing group inish, maybe try grouping them up. If you have 12 goblins, maybe do groups 1, 2, 3, and 4 of sets of three?
Good advice! Also, if you're using a VTT with token markers, like Roll20, you can put colored dots and numbers on the enemy tokens to better group and track them.
Saying something like "This group of four is 'blue team' while these groups over here are 'green team' and 'red team' respectively." goes a long ways towards keeping everyone on the same page. Much better than having people constantly asking "which goblin are you referring to?" You can just say "blue goblin #2 [does something]" from the outset.
You can even have the colored groups listed in the initiative tracker as a single entity.
This actually works great for smaller groups of individual enemies as well. Even when using real Pathfinder pawns, I often use the color dots on the pawns to differentiate between similar creatures.
I definitely try to play the enemies to their intelligence or cunning.
Lots of skeletons, I don't have them flank or employ anything but very rudimentary tactics.
Lots of trained soldiers I will definitely have them focus fire on one PC. Because why wouldn't they?
Zombies will attack the nearest brains they can find.
I never understood the whole "smart, tactical enemies focus fire" notion. It's totally meta/gamist thinking. In truth, the smart tactical thing for the enemy to do would be to spread their attacks out evenly and drop as many bodies as they can before the enemy can respond (think of a swat team picking their targets then sniping a room full of bad guys through the windows immediately prior to a breach. Most of the targets are dead before the enemy even knows they're under attack).
Now, it certainly won't work out that way in the game, but the enemy has no reason to know that. They don't know they are in a game, or that they're necessarily fighting big action movie level heroes. Usually when they stab a peasant or crossbow a knight, they die.
Exceptions abound of course! If there is only one target, then focus fire makes logical sense in-game and out. Likewise, if the enemy knows that one of the targets is a caster powerful enough to wipe them all out with a single spell, they will likely prioritize that target first to prevent that event from occurring. If the heroes are high level, and their exploits well known, enemies might also gang up with focus fire, hoping to bring down at least one "big damn hero" so that other BDHs have to drop out of the fight to help them.
Good advice! Also, if you're using a VTT with token markers, like Roll20, you can put colored dots and numbers on the enemy tokens to better group and track them.
You can even have the colored groups listed in the initiative tracker as a single entity.
I use Fantasy Grounds. I don't know if it has that option, but it sounds super useful, and I need to put it in their suggestion box. Having blue, orange, and purple or something would be SOOOoooo handy.
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I never understood the whole "smart, tactical enemies focus fire" notion. It's totally meta/gamist thinking. In truth, the smart tactical thing for the enemy to do would be to spread their attacks out evenly and drop as many bodies as they can before the enemy can respond (think of a swat team picking their targets then sniping a room full of bad guys through the windows immediately prior to a breach. Most of the targets are dead before the enemy even knows they're under attack).
Now, it certainly won't work out that way in the game, but the enemy has no reason to know that. They don't know they are in a game, or that they're necessarily fighting big action movie level heroes. Usually when they stab a peasant or crossbow a knight, they die.
NPC's don't know they're in a game, but they DO know that they're in a setting where you probably need multiple bullets to the head before that barbarian stops moving. If it was impossible for the SWAT team to kill someone in one shot they'd have multiple people working on the same target, too.
I use Fantasy Grounds. I don't know if it has that option, but it sounds super useful, and I need to put it in their suggestion box. Having blue, orange, and purple or something would be SOOOoooo handy.Good advice! Also, if you're using a VTT with token markers, like Roll20, you can put colored dots and numbers on the enemy tokens to better group and track them.
You can even have the colored groups listed in the initiative tracker as a single entity.
FG already numbers all additional enemies of the same type. They all have the number after their name on the tracker and it shows up when you hover over their token. If you want to have small bundles of enemies at different initiatives you can just roll for the leader of each group, put that number into the tracker for the rest of that group then rotate their tokens to show they are a different little team. Colors might be slightly more noticeable, but what your looking for is already there.
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The thing is, both in my situation and in the solo-boss situation (another situation known to be swingy), if the party does something like spend actions to move next to the enemy, and then the enemy takes their turn going all out in attack, it will turn out badly for the party. For solo boss monsters I already knew this, and I expect my players knew this too, but for a group of low level monsters we were both unaware this could happen.
That's more a problem of the players making decisions that give the enemies free actions more than an issue of initiative, though.
The players could always not do that and even freely delay their initiative as much as they want, which means I really have to disagree that rolling high is a bad thing. After all, at the very least winning initiative lets you choose when you go.
NPC's don't know they're in a game, but they DO know that they're in a setting where you probably need multiple bullets to the head before that barbarian stops moving. If it was impossible for the SWAT team to kill someone in one shot they'd have multiple people working on the same target, too.I never understood the whole "smart, tactical enemies focus fire" notion. It's totally meta/gamist thinking. In truth, the smart tactical thing for the enemy to do would be to spread their attacks out evenly and drop as many bodies as they can before the enemy can respond (think of a swat team picking their targets then sniping a room full of bad guys through the windows immediately prior to a breach. Most of the targets are dead before the enemy even knows they're under attack).
Now, it certainly won't work out that way in the game, but the enemy has no reason to know that. They don't know they are in a game, or that they're necessarily fighting big action movie level heroes. Usually when they stab a peasant or crossbow a knight, they die.
You're still thinking like a gamer. Rules don't apply to NPCs and monsters when there are no PC heros present. All that behind the scenes stuff is handled by hand waving narration powers.
This is backed up by the fact that the same chef NPC might have totally different stat blocks depending on whether they appear in a cooking encounter or a combat encounter.
The stats and rules only matter when the PCs are involved. The rest of the time, the world works as it is generally expected to work (with people getting killed by long falls, single sword thrusts, and the like).
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You're still thinking like a gamer. Rules don't apply to NPCs and monsters when there are no PC heros present. All that behind the scenes stuff is handled by hand waving narration powers.
This is backed up by the fact that the same chef NPC might have totally different stat blocks depending on whether they appear in a cooking encounter or a combat encounter.
The stats and rules only matter when the PCs are involved. The rest of the time, the world works as it is generally expected to work (with people getting killed by long falls, single sword thrusts, and the like).
Some systems like to handwave like that but Pathfinder sure as hell isn't one of them. We already accept that Golarion doesn't work like our world in a dozen different ways, least of all the presence of magic. People (especially people with military training or adventuring experience) being generally tougher is just a fact of the setting and I don't see any good reason to ignore that because it isn't the way the real world works.
Some systems like to handwave like that but Pathfinder sure as hell isn't one of them.
Oh really? Care to cite some officially published examples of NPC characters possessing, and what's more, acting upon such knowledge?
Frankly, if the NPCs knew the PCs were action movie heroes, they wouldn't even bother with their evil schemes half the time.
Necromancer 1: You may have bested my zombie minions, but you're no match for my power! Prepare to be dusted you nincompoop! *begins casting disintegrate*
Necromancer 2: Don't even bother, Bob. He's a hero. Can't you tell by his shiny armor and glowing sword? (I mean, come on, there's an angelic chorus and a beam of light every time he lifts the damned thing over his head; it couldn't be more obvious!) Best go home and raise another family.
The chef is a published NPC if I remember correctly. He was essentially a high level chef, but a low-level combatant.
I would expect intelligent enemies to adapt to the circumstances fairly quickly. The example swat team would be quite shocked to see that they had missed, or that the targets manged to all "roll with the blow" or deflected it off their armor, or otherwise minimize the worst impacts in some way.
They might try again in round 2, but I imagine they will do something very different by round 3 (if any are still alive).
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Some systems like to handwave like that but Pathfinder sure as hell isn't one of them.Oh really? Care to cite some officially published examples of NPC characters possessing, and what's more, acting upon such knowledge?
Frankly, if the NPCs knew the PCs were action movie heroes, they wouldn't even bother with their evil schemes half the time.
Necromancer 1: You may have bested my zombie minions, but you're no match for my power! Prepare to be dusted you nincompoop! *begins casting disintegrate*
Necromancer 2: Don't even bother, Bob. He's a hero. Can't you tell by his shiny armor and glowing sword? (I mean, come on, there's an angelic chorus and a beam of light every time he lifts the damned thing over his head; it couldn't be more obvious!) Best go home and raise another family.
You're the one claiming that PC's work on different rules, not me. The Necromancer is just as durable and just as unlikely to go down to a single blow as an equal level PC.
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The chef is a published NPC if I remember correctly. He was essentially a high level chef, but a low-level combatant.
I think the chef was just a described example of how an NPC might work as a low level combat challenge but higher level skill challenge, not an actual stat block.
At least, I can't find a chef NPC on AON.
There are a couple such NPCs in the Gamemastery Guide, but they don't have 2 different stat blocks. Their skills are inconsistently higher than what a PC character of the same combat level would be able to accomplish, making them effectively a higher level challenge under certain narrow circumstances.
It was actually an example I was going to bring up for this thread; if low level enemies that should not be a challenge to your group turn out to actually be a challenge, you should grant an appropriate amount of XP instead of what the rules say a creature of that level is worth. After all, you don't actually get XP for killing a creature, you get it for overcoming a challenge. Though in fairness the normal method for doing so is by killing that creature. Regardless, it's the challenge, not the death, that is the important part.
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Just my opinion, but it seems to me having all enemies focus their efforts on a single PC may make sense from a game/mechanics perspective, but it feels very inauthentic and breaks suspension of disbelief.
I could see a scenario in which- if given a good rationale (ie, seeing someone cast a spell)- a group is directed to focus their efforts on that person, but as a general practice it seems weird to me.
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You're still thinking like a gamer.
I'm sorry, but I think you have this one completely backwards.
Eschewing narrative consistency in order to maximize the convenience to the players by having the very fundamentals of the world warp around them is a very gamist mentality. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the scenarios you described create some pretty big narrative dissonance that could be very distracting for some.
If a character is described as a highly trained warrior they should, generally speaking, have some idea how combat works and not act shocked and surprised when a fight ends up going the exact same way literally any fight in that level range would go.
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In Friday's game session, my players decided to ambush a 2nd hobgoblin patrol after successfully ambushing a 1st patrol. Alas, the captain of the army had investigated that first patrol and decided that a female wizard that the spies reported in the area had done it. He decided to mobilize the army and attack town before the wizard could prepare fresh spells in the morning. Ten hobgoblin troops (20 xp each), two sharpshooters (30 xp each), Captain Dargg (60 xp), and Dargg's dire wolf (10 xp) walked into the ambush.
Related to the theme of low-level enemies, I designed each 5th-level hobgoblin troop to represent four 1st-level hobgoblin soldiers because I decided that sending forty 1st-level characters against a 7th-level party of 7 Pcs would be too awkward to play, but I wanted the army to have a substantial size. I also deliberately grouped the troops into three separate initiative groups, high, medium, and low, to avoid all the enemies acting consecutively. High initiative did not matter much in this battle, because the players waited in hiding for two and a half rounds for the enemy to advance to the best spot for the ambush.
When the female gnome druid in the party cast Lightning Bolt, Captain Dargg declared that she was the wizard and ordered the troops and sharpshooters to take her out. He assumed that she was the truly dangerous member of the party based on a false assumption.
The party focused attacks on the captain, so that he went down first. And the halfling rogue/sorcerer Sam threw Produce Flame and announced in Goblin language (with a high Deception check) that he was the wizard, to pull some damage off of the druid.
NPC's don't know they're in a game, but they DO know that they're in a setting where you probably need multiple bullets to the head before that barbarian stops moving. If it was impossible for the SWAT team to kill someone in one shot they'd have multiple people working on the same target, too.
I agree with Arachnofiend. The NPCs have been living in their world, they study the histories and listen to the bard songs. They know that some experienced adventures and god-blessed clerics and sorcerers with non-human bloodlines have powers far beyond normal people. They live in a world with dragons and ancient ruins and multiple intelligent humanoid species, so adventurers are uncommon but accepted.
Thus, the captain listened to the fireside tales of hobgoblins soldiers versus elf wizards and learned anti-wizard tactics. He might not know the spell level of Lightning Bolt (level 3) but he does know that mere apprentice wizards can't cast it. His troops are not as knowledgeable and could be impressed by the Produce Flame cantrip.
A lowly Hobgoblin Soldier has 20 hit points, and a longbow shot typically deals an average of 4 or 5 damage, so they expect that a soldier can usually absorb three hits with an arrow and recover with professional healing.
Some systems like to handwave like that but Pathfinder sure as hell isn't one of them.Oh really? Care to cite some officially published examples of NPC characters possessing, and what's more, acting upon such knowledge?
Frankly, if the NPCs knew the PCs were action movie heroes, they wouldn't even bother with their evil schemes half the time.
Necromancer 1: You may have bested my zombie minions, but you're no match for my power! Prepare to be dusted you nincompoop! *begins casting disintegrate*
Necromancer 2: Don't even bother, Bob. He's a hero. Can't you tell by his shiny armor and glowing sword? (I mean, come on, there's an angelic chorus and a beam of light every time he lifts the damned thing over his head; it couldn't be more obvious!) Best go home and raise another family.
My party encountered a maenad with three captive dwarves in an official module. I had to port the maenad to PF2 and noticed that maenads don't typically take captives. The party could have easily defeated her, so I took a different tack. She looked at the 8 characters (they had an NPC with them) dressed in Chernesardo Ranger colors and said, "I have been waiting for you. What did you bring in trade?"
I made up a story that the Chernesardo Rangers allowed her to stay in the area they controlled if instead of immediately eating her victims, she would hold them captive one week to give the rangers an opportunity to trade to free them. She lived in a world with NPC heroes and had adapted to them.
This lead to an interesting moral challenge for the players rather than a quick combat challenge. Giving the NPCs more background is more fun.
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I have always seen the RAW as a model of the physical rules of the in-game universe. Rules like gravity, friction ...
They do not change based on being applied to PCs or NPCs. Even though the latter are not necessarily built like PCs in PF2. But that is a completely distinct point IMO.
Note that I am not talking about rules such as wealth, but more how a Striking rune works.
The SWAT team would likely try taking down each PC separately if they have zero inkling that they are facing high-level threats. But if they know they are up against something dangerous, the rules of the world will have them focus fire as the most efficient tactic.
Actually, truth be told, if the swat team is high-level enough, they will do it anyway as they can easily get rid of low-level opponents. In other words, the swat team will act just as PCs of their level would to maximize combat efficiency.
Also a little Detect magic beforehand should be part of any such ambush, so that you know in advance whether you are facing nobodies or dangerous opponents.
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I'd say this is an interesting quirk of the rules but ultimately not that problematic.
If the players all win initiative (even if they can't see the tracker, the players will notice they all get turns before any enemy does anything) it's possible for some of them to Delay. This allows them to break in halfway through the turns of Team Monster and reposition a bit, break up the tactic the monsters are using.
So while this is a "teachable moment", it's not a deep flaw in the game system because the rules already allow players to cope with it, now that they know it can happen.
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As a side note: there are obviously situations where "let them come to us" is good tactics. It can let you be the first to get to use your full three actions of close combat abilities.
So it's good to look for "opening volley" type abilities for your characters. Stuff like a cantrip you can cast at range, to show the enemy that if they wait for you to come to them, you're just going to pick them off at range.
It's a bit trickier for melee characters because you have only so many hands, and probably want all your weapons/shields ready for when they close in too. But drawing and throwing a javelin, then drawing your sword, can be a decent opening round move.
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I have always seen the RAW as a model of the physical rules of the in-game universe. Rules like gravity, friction ...
They do not change based on being applied to PCs or NPCs. Even though the latter are not necessarily built like PCs in PF2. But that is a completely distinct point IMO.
Note that I am not talking about rules such as wealth, but more how a Striking rune works.
The SWAT team would likely try taking down each PC separately if they have zero inkling that they are facing high-level threats. But if they know they are up against something dangerous, the rules of the world will have them focus fire as the most efficient tactic.
Actually, truth be told, if the swat team is high-level enough, they will do it anyway as they can easily get rid of low-level opponents. In other words, the swat team will act just as PCs of their level would to maximize combat efficiency.
Also a little Detect magic beforehand should be part of any such ambush, so that you know in advance whether you are facing nobodies or dangerous opponents.
First of all, I think the appropriate response is always going to be the one that increases the fun for everyone at the table. If that means erring towards having heroic heroes that constantly shock the world with their awesomeness, then you can definitely play it that way. If you want a more tactical challenge then playing smart NPCs as savvy of the world around them makes sense to me.
However, one of the things I see happen too often (especially in PF1) was GMs letting casters throw spells around from stealth when the game is explicitly designed around making it impossible to cast detect magic from an ambush position (unless the character invests heavily in the resources to be able to do so). Detect Magic is a 30ft emanation. Emanation heavily implies a magical emanation that is visible in the world. Not to mention it has somatic and verbal components that should also be a give away without conceal spell or preferably silent spell. Using magic for divination and recon is a great and powerful tactic that really should be subject to the rules the game has in place to restrict it from being so obviously amazing that it would be the default usage for every caster in the world. Secret casting has a lot of value but it eats up feats and skills and very few NPCs are going to be very good at it. Masterful levels of magical espionage are probably limited to less than a 100 people in all of Golarion, meaning PCs that invest in it should have a massive advantage over most enemies, and the enemies that do engage in it should be the campaign masterminds and shouldn't over employ it unless the party is getting into it. The occasional detect magic spell to feel out power levels of enemy is not masterful levels of magical espionage, but doing it from an ambush should require either a second level feat limited to only a few caster classes, the previous use of a spell like ventriloquism and then still alerting enemies, but to the wrong location, or the GM might fairly decide that all emanation spells have visual manifestations, and can't be done secretly. It is definitely something worth discussing with your table as a player thinking about employing such tactics and as a GM with enemies who might be capable of doing the same.
I do try to give away the general power level of enemies when my PCs make recall knowledge checks (it is also one of the easiest things to get wrong when someone crit fails rather than having to make something up on the spot), and NPCs can try to do the same thing against PCs. Untrained goons might not think to do it, but a SWAT team would absolutely never engage an enemy without taking some time to evaluate the situation and the threat level of the enemies if that is at all possible to do.
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FG already numbers all additional enemies of the same type. They all have the number after their name on the tracker and it shows up when you hover over their token. If you want to have small bundles of enemies at different initiatives you can just roll for the leader of each group, put that number into the tracker for the rest of that group then rotate their tokens to show they are a different little team. Colors might be slightly more noticeable, but what your looking for is already there.I use Fantasy Grounds. I don't know if it has that option, but it sounds super useful, and I need to put it in their suggestion box. Having blue, orange, and purple or something would be SOOOoooo handy.Good advice! Also, if you're using a VTT with token markers, like Roll20, you can put colored dots and numbers on the enemy tokens to better group and track them.
You can even have the colored groups listed in the initiative tracker as a single entity.
A few other things you can do in FG. Under options, you can choose to run NPC initiative in Groups. You can set the tokens to have labels instead of hover labels.
If you wanted to do multiple groups of goblins, for example, with a dozen goblins, you could set up three encounters of four goblins, and change their name in the encounter to "red" blue" and "green" goblins, and the system will append 1-4 for each of those, and you would then have 4 goblins of each color with labels and grouped up intiiative.
I never understood the whole "smart, tactical enemies focus fire" notion. It's totally meta/gamist thinking. In truth, the smart tactical thing for the enemy to do would be to spread their attacks out evenly and drop as many bodies as they can before the enemy can respond (think of a swat team picking their targets then sniping a room full of bad guys through the windows immediately prior to a breach. Most of the targets are dead before the enemy even knows they're under attack).
This is a turn-based game, however. When the creature previous in the turn order fails to knock out a PC, the current creature knows that. Just as PCs know that they're encountering a high-level goblin boss when their first attack fails to knock them out.
What you're saying certainly sounds realistic, but it would only make sense if the players were made to declare all their actions at the beginning of the round, and the monsters were, too.
I never understood the whole "smart, tactical enemies focus fire" notion. It's totally meta/gamist thinking. In truth, the smart tactical thing for the enemy to do would be to spread their attacks out evenly and drop as many bodies as they can before the enemy can respond (think of a swat team picking their targets then sniping a room full of bad guys through the windows immediately prior to a breach. Most of the targets are dead before the enemy even knows they're under attack).This is a turn-based game, however. When the creature previous in the turn order fails to knock out a PC, the current creature knows that. Just as PCs know that they're encountering a high-level goblin boss when their first attack fails to knock them out.
What you're saying certainly sounds realistic, but it would only make sense if the players were made to declare all their actions at the beginning of the round, and the monsters were, too.
Said in a thread in which many GMs have the enemies go on the same initiative count, or on grouped initiative counts...
Said in a thread in which many GMs have the enemies go on the same initiative count, or on grouped initiative counts...I never understood the whole "smart, tactical enemies focus fire" notion. It's totally meta/gamist thinking. In truth, the smart tactical thing for the enemy to do would be to spread their attacks out evenly and drop as many bodies as they can before the enemy can respond (think of a swat team picking their targets then sniping a room full of bad guys through the windows immediately prior to a breach. Most of the targets are dead before the enemy even knows they're under attack).This is a turn-based game, however. When the creature previous in the turn order fails to knock out a PC, the current creature knows that. Just as PCs know that they're encountering a high-level goblin boss when their first attack fails to knock them out.
What you're saying certainly sounds realistic, but it would only make sense if the players were made to declare all their actions at the beginning of the round, and the monsters were, too.
If two creatures roll the same initiative, the list puts one first. In my game session with 7 PCs and 14 NPCs, some characters rolling the same number was almost inevitable.
No matter how much real-world physics say that certain actions must overlap in time, such as 21 characters all taking actions in a 6-second round, the playability of Pathfinder 2nd Edition says to ignore time and stick with consecutive actions to avoid an unmanageable tangle of actions.
Simultaneous Actions
You can use only one single action, activity, or free action that doesn’t have a trigger at a time. You must complete one before beginning another. For example, the Sudden Charge activity states you must Stride twice and then Strike, so you couldn’t use an Interact action to open a door in the middle of the movement, nor could you perform part of the move, make your attack, and then finish the move.
But we can roleplay that the time works normally. I assigned some initiatives rather than rolling them to make that easier.
I wanted my hobgoblin army to march down the road smoothly. The hobgoblins at the front would move first, the 2nd row being them would move 2nd, the 3rd row behind them would move 3rd, etc. For smooth movement I had to clear a space for each character to move into before that character moved. That required a particular order to the initiatives.
Captain Dargg and his wolf mount Gruzak had rolled a high init and they were in front. The sharpshooters were supposed to be in the middle of the formation and they rolled 21 and 20. The troops between the captain and the sharpshooters I assigned initiatives between 27 and 22. The troops behind the sharpshooters I assigned inititatives between 17 and 14. The average initiative of the troops was 20.9. The troops should have rolled 1d20+10 for initiative, which would give an average of 20.5.
Here are the actual numbers.
Tikti* 33 (rolled a nat 20)
Captain Dargg 28 (rolled 29, but I slowed him to his mount's init, 1st row)
Gruzak, Dire Wolf 28 (rolled, 1st row)
Hobgoblin Troop Epsilon One 27 (assigned, 1st row)
Hobgoblin Troop Epsilon Two 26 (assigned, 1st row)
Hobgoblin Troop Epsilon Three 25 (assigned, 2nd row)
Stormdancer* 25 (rolled)
Hobgoblin Troop Beta One 24 (assigned, 2nd row)
Hobgoblin Troop Beta Two 23 (assigned, 3rd row)
Hobgoblin Troop Beta Three 22 (assigned, 3rd row)
Sam* 22 (rolled)
Sharpshooter Frank 21 (rolled, 4th row)
Zinfandel* 21 (rolled)
Binny* 21 (rolled)
Sharpshooter Annie 20 (rolled, 4th row)
Ren'zar-jo* 20 (rolled)
Honey* 19 (rolled)
Hobgoblin Troop Gamma One 17 (assigned, 5th row)
Hobgoblin Troop Gamma Two 16 (assigned, 5th row)
Hobgoblin Troop Gamma Three 15 (assigned, 6th row)
Hobgoblin Troop Delta One 14 (assigned, 6th row)
Asterisk (*) marks a PC. The party had killed the three Hobgoblin Troop Alphas while those troops were on patrol. Hobgoblin Troop Deltas Two and Three were left behind to guard the camp.
The effect that assigned initiatives had on the battle was overshadowed by the 80-foot length of the enemy army. The hobgoblins in the front were fighting a different battle than the hobgoblins in the back.
already allow players to cope with it, now that they know it can happen.
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As a side note: there are obviously situations where "let them come to us" is good tactics. It can let you be the first to get to use your full three actions of close combat abilities.
So it's good to look for "opening volley" type abilities for your characters. Stuff like a cantrip you can cast at range, to show the enemy that if they wait for you to come to them, you're just going to pick them off at range.
It's a bit trickier for melee characters because you have only so many hands, and probably want all your weapons/shields ready for when they close in too. But drawing and throwing a javelin, then drawing your sword, can be a decent opening round move.
Yup. This is why people shouldn't sleep on picking up Ray of Frost on a melee character, especially sword and shield or dual weapon types. Being able to pepper enemies and force them to waste actions closing and then not having to fumble to draw a sword is gold.