What's the Best Party Configurations?

[Harles]

Before my group threw in the towel, they were unable to find a good balance of character classes that work well together. They kept getting stomped by the encounters in Age of Ashes.
Their most recent configuration was fighter, champion, cleric, wizard, and monk.
Was this a suboptimal party? Were they missing something vital? (A previous incarnation included a rogue for the monk and a sorcerer for the wizard - but they still got TPKed.)
Are there character classes that just shouldn't be taken? (I've read elsewhere that arcane casters are dead weight.)
We were averaging a TPK every 2-3 sessions. If I'm going to restart PF2 at some point, I'd like some guidance to offer them.

[Ruzza]

Sounds fine to me. PF2 combat is a lot less about party comp and builds and more about important decisions in combat.

What was a typical round for your group like? I ran a three caster group (drac sorc, elemental sorc, harm cleric, giant barb) through book 4 until we hit a TPK.

EDIT: Also, were you feeding yourselves to enemies? What I mean is, did you spend actions just to get to enemies only to stop within range of them so they had their full 3 actions and superior bonuses to flatten you? What were your debuffs looking like? Your buffing? My group made it far with primarily frightened, prone (Cast Down still great), and slowed doing the heavy lifting along with vital beacon for combat healing (which seemed to be incredibly suboptimal, but harm cleric gonna harm).

[Harles]

Ruzza wrote:

Sounds fine to me. PF2 combat is a lot less about party comp and builds and more about important decisions in combat.

What was a typical round for your group like? I ran a three caster group (drac sorc, elemental sorc, harm cleric, giant barb) through book 4 until we hit a TPK.

EDIT: Also, were you feeding yourselves to enemies? What I mean is, did you spend actions just to get to enemies only to stop within range of them so they had their full 3 actions and superior bonuses to flatten you? What were your debuffs looking like? Your buffing? My group made it far with primarily frightened, prone (Cast Down still great), and slowed doing the heavy lifting along with vital beacon for combat healing (which seemed to be incredibly suboptimal, but harm cleric gonna harm).

The party was purely reactionary, because they didn't have time for anything else. Fighter would put himself in the way of the priority targets and get smashed. The cleric would spend every action trying to keep the party alive. The champion would move up to use his reaction to get an attack of opportunity on those attacking the fighter (and try to reduce the damage output). The wizard would attempt to widdle away the hp of the monsters. The monk would try to move into position to flank and cause as much damage as possible to the enemies.

They could never get into a flow during combat. Buffs, de-buffs, etc., did not occur, as every available slot was spent trying to keep the party alive. The cleric (who was a new gamer) just did what he was told - e.g., "don't 'waste' spell slots for anything other than heal."

[Qaianna]

I don't like the 'don't waste spell slots for anything other than heal'. It may depend on cleric but they may have a few other tricks up their sleeves. Even a level one cleric has two first-level spells to buff or debuff along with some free Heal spells from the font (assuming they didn't dump Charisma..but who doesn't like free spells?).

[Ruzza]

Yeah, mitigation is always a better idea that repair. Even a Forbidding Ward coupled with Bless goes a lot farther than "spam Heal always," which also means that PCs not getting hit is even better. Tripping and backing away, Readying actions to Shove enemies aside, even Calm Emotions.

If the strategy was to get into melee and then Strike, Strike, Strike, then yes they're going to die.

[Harles]

Ruzza wrote:

Yeah, mitigation is always a better idea that repair. Even a Forbidding Ward coupled with Bless goes a lot farther than "spam Heal always," which also means that PCs not getting hit is even better. Tripping and backing away, Readying actions to Shove enemies aside, even Calm Emotions.

If the strategy was to get into melee and then Strike, Strike, Strike, then yes they're going to die.

So how do you "ramp up" to this sort of expectation of play? Should I just tell them "your character builds are fine - try to buff your characters and hinder your enemies." The players put all the blame on the encounters and the design of PF2 or on their character builds not being perfect.

Is that a hold-over from PF1?

[Ruzza]

You teach this style of play through the game itself. Typically if groups are having limited success with the same tactics, they change them. But that's not every group and I get that. As a GM, I would note particularly clever play or the importance of that +1 ("Wow, that would have hit if you hadn't raised your shield." "And that +1 from bless makes that into a crit!" "Now that you've Hidden successfully, the opponent if flat-footed for your Sneak Attack.") Not every player sits down at the table an immediately groks the rules. Some don't even do it four books in (absolutely looking at my elemental sorc who had master Stealth, 16 Charisma, and Cleric dedication and never exactly figured out that your deity doesn't somehow boost your damage).

This is doubly true when coming from OSR, 5e, PF1, nearly any mainstream fantasy TTRPG where your options in combat are typically less effective if you don't devote your entire build to them. So occasionally pointing out, "Well, you have a third action and a second swing is likely to miss. You could Stride away, perhaps Demoralize, or set up an Aid reaction," can be very helpful.

[Ruzza]

As for the group, like I said up-thread, it seems fine. From a white room theorycraft standpoint, it sould be great.

Fighter - Melee damage
Monk - Melee support
Champion - Front-liner, damage mitigation
Cleric - Support
Wizard - Ranged damage and utility

So an example combat might start with the champion Striding in front and Readying an action to Trip the first enemy in melee range (so the champion can "choose the battlefield" so to speak). The monk and fighter should Delay so that they can essentially act together, allowing the monk to provide flanking for the fighter to get in a nasty crit (even better, Stride > Demoralize > Strike). Cleric tosses out a Bless or perhaps Forbidding Ward on the Champion or other melee. Wizard enjoys Electric Arc sprees with the occasional spell peppered in for bigger targets.

Change up the "default" as the situation demands. Big single enemy? Wizard tosses out consistent damage with spells while the cleric heals and the melee tie up its actions. Ranged enemies? Champion moves forward with shield raised while cleric and wizard cover the fighter/monk advance. Swarms? Melee protect the wizard and cleric while they cackle and destroy the encounter.

[Arakasius]

Both PF1 and 5e are more about just the player builds. Teamwork doesn’t matter as much. Just do your schtick and the enemies go down. In 2e if you’re not playing together you’ll have issues. Sure some builds are better than others but teamwork beats best classes. I think partly this could have been helped by you as the GM in leading them towards rethinking the paradigm that was held over from PF1. Maybe train them towards it by ramping them up a bit by taking it easier as they learn. Probably a bit late for that and that’s also a hard thing to do when the GMs are new to the game too. It’s not like the GM will know what works and doesn’t without experience themself.

[RPGnoremac]

Well the group comp seems fine overall but I would say it is probably just on their playstyle.

I think in general APs are just too tough for newer players. This was true in Extinction Curse anyway.

Also you didnt say what levels they were but in Extinction Curse 1-4 was harder than 5-8.

Also arcane casters arent dead weight at all, at level 1-3 magic weapon almost doubles damage for allies and fear can be great too then after that they just keep getting better. Admittingly if casters take "bad" spells it 100% can feel that way.

Imo there could be a few issues...

1. Tactics are probably the obvious thing. Try to never stand next to a strong monster without having your shield raised. If you dont have a shield just move after the attack. There are just too much to go through.

2. Maybe you are playing the monsters too smart. Sometimes you have to attack the champion/monk raising the shield.

Side note once our monk started using a shield battles were a lot nicer.

3. Maybe some rules arent being followed correctly, either for the players or the monsters. Too hard to say but I have seen LOTS of rules not being followed in PFS and our first campaign on accident.

In general I actually made a post about it but just found APs to be really bad for teaching/learning PF2E and you should probably just scale encounters back a bit until they start learning.

There really are just to many factors too much. I 100% dont think there are "bad" classes but you can definitely play a class poorly.

The dynamic of battles success being about tactics vs mostly builds is a big change. PF1 a character can easily carry players in the low levels but in PF2E every single character has to pull their wait.

[SuperBidi]

RPGnoremac wrote:

3. Maybe some rules arent being followed correctly, either for the players or the monsters. Too hard to say but I have seen LOTS of rules not being followed in PFS and our first campaign on accident.

This. Having a 5-man party for a 4-man campaign and still having TPKs makes me think you are doing something incorrectly. A mistake as stupid as miscalculating hps or AC (like forgetting about proficiency) can lead to a massive disadvantage to the PCs leading to tons of TPKs.

[shroudb]

Also a thing to note is that pf2 assumes you WILL take damage, and often a lot of it.

In early levels it is as swingy as pf1 was, but on later levels you simply cannot go by the logic of "no need for defence i just kill everything too fast" that was for pf1.

so, every party member should have good AC, preferably the maximum for their class at each level or at most around 1-2 points behind (and the 2 points is really pushing it)

While positioning and teamwork is important, "i am in the backline" is no longer an excuse to totally neglect your AC due to the much more mobile combats and the ease that enemies can reach said backline often.

[Blue_frog]

Harles wrote:

Ruzza wrote:

Sounds fine to me. PF2 combat is a lot less about party comp and builds and more about important decisions in combat.

What was a typical round for your group like? I ran a three caster group (drac sorc, elemental sorc, harm cleric, giant barb) through book 4 until we hit a TPK.

EDIT: Also, were you feeding yourselves to enemies? What I mean is, did you spend actions just to get to enemies only to stop within range of them so they had their full 3 actions and superior bonuses to flatten you? What were your debuffs looking like? Your buffing? My group made it far with primarily frightened, prone (Cast Down still great), and slowed doing the heavy lifting along with vital beacon for combat healing (which seemed to be incredibly suboptimal, but harm cleric gonna harm).

The party was purely reactionary, because they didn't have time for anything else. Fighter would put himself in the way of the priority targets and get smashed. The cleric would spend every action trying to keep the party alive. The champion would move up to use his reaction to get an attack of opportunity on those attacking the fighter (and try to reduce the damage output). The wizard would attempt to widdle away the hp of the monsters. The monk would try to move into position to flank and cause as much damage as possible to the enemies.

They could never get into a flow during combat. Buffs, de-buffs, etc., did not occur, as every available slot was spent trying to keep the party alive. The cleric (who was a new gamer) just did what he was told - e.g., "don't 'waste' spell slots for anything other than heal."

I'm having a hard time understanding how you could get a TPK with a 5-man group including a champion and a heal. Could you perhaps list the opponents in one of those fights so we can see what went wrong ?

Also, at low level, a wizard's job is not to whittle away the hp of the monsters (apart from magic missile on a boss), he's really bad at it. Burning hands is no actually no better than his cantrip. Good spells at first levels include the ever-popular Magic Weapon but, if he doesn't want to be a buffbot, spells like grease or gust of wind give the prone condition to multiple opponents, while fear can debuff a single boss.

[Captain Morgan]

Ruzza wrote:

Yeah, mitigation is always a better idea that repair. Even a Forbidding Ward coupled with Bless goes a lot farther than "spam Heal always," which also means that PCs not getting hit is even better. Tripping and backing away, Readying actions to Shove enemies aside, even Calm Emotions.

If the strategy was to get into melee and then Strike, Strike, Strike, then yes they're going to die.

Honestly, I'm starting to realize the Heal spell can be a trap. It is easy to look at how much healing it does and feel like it is the best spell in the game, but having access to it can lead players to panic and use it as a default tactic whenever things start going bad.

I recently had a session where the unthinkable happened-- a PC Nat 1'ed against Dominate fighting a Rakshasa. The party started taking some serious damage. The arcane sorcerer picked up heal through a feat recently, and immediately started using in 3 action bursts, even though it healed the Rakshasa. (Being fair, it also hurt his undead minions, but still.) This went on for several rounds with the dominated PC continuing to pump out huge damage against the Investigator medic.

The thing is, the sorcerer also had Dispel Magic as a signature spell. She could have freed the PC at any time, and when I remembered this I pointed out she had a game changing spell on her Repertoire being overlooked. I'm pretty sure she would have remembered this herself it she'd taken the time to look at her spell list, but instead she just used heal because her allies were in trouble and it was an obvious solution.

Pre-crossblooded, she was much more effective at pulling out the one spell that wins the encounter. Many hazard fights were won by casting either Dispel Magic or Wall of Wind, for example.

I mean it isn't like Heal doesn't have its place should usually be when the party has some breathing space, like between waves of successive enemies.

Tl;dr: heal makes players so focused on not losing the fight they stop trying to win it.

[Ubertron_X]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Tl;dr: heal makes players so focused on not losing the fight they stop trying to win...

I know where you are coming from but being the party healer in my group I have the exact opposite impression: Heal makes players so focused on winning the fight that they stop trying not to lose.

3rd attacks are very common in my group despite me advocating against it at every possible opportunity because the general mood of "if things go wrong the Cleric will patch you up".

However please mind that this kind of fishing for a lucky roll behavior can also easily be fueled by a couple of bad experiences. For example our Barbarian joined our AoA campaign at the start of the second volume at level 5. We are now level 8. The Barbarian has Demoralize as a viable 3rd action (as he is an entirely new player I helped making the character concept). After using Demoralize for like half a dozen times and either straight failing the check or simply having bad timing (monster acting immediately after his action) this new player is now back to making attacks at -10 where he did indeed manage to score some hits / crits already. That math is on your side means nothing if you have an unimpressive ability that somehow failed every single time you tried to use it versus the massive damage you cause with just a single lucky roll.

We are currently approx. 1/3 into the climax of volume 2 but if I had to guess I'd say that we are directly headed for a TPK. Stand-and-fight tactics might still work versus any kind of opposition in a 1/day battle, but are not sustainable in a dungeon, especially when fights chain.

P.S.: Another example of "learning by bad experience" would be our Wizard who has had almost every single target spell (like Slow or Phantasmal Killer) used versus a level+1 or better enemy critically resisted during volume 2 so far. Blasting in general (especially mooks of course) is working as intended (usually just by the sheer volume of rolls) but he does not seem able to even get the spells consolidation prices on a regular basis. He has not openly complained yet, so I can only imagine the levels of his frustation...

[Ascalaphus]

Ubertron_X wrote:

After using Demoralize for like half a dozen times and either straight failing the check or simply having bad timing (monster acting immediately after his action) this new player is now back to making attacks at -10 where he did indeed manage to score some hits / crits already.

I want to single this one out. Demoralize timing is something that a lot of people just don't do very well.

I mean, consider this initiative tracker

PC1 - first up
PC2
PC3 - has Intimidate
Monster - reduces Frightened at the end if its turn

Should PC3 use Demoralize on his turn? He could, but it's rather underwhelming.

Instead, while it's still PC1's turn, he should tell PC1, "if you Delay until after me, I can try to Demoralize first". And the same to PC2. So that you instead get:

PC3 - Demoralize!
PC1 - coming out of Delay, profits from Demoralize
PC2 - coming out of Delay, profits from Demoralize
Monster - reduces Frightened at the end if its turn

This seems really really basic but I see it being done poorly so very often. This one, and people setting up a flank after the rogue's turn, are prime examples of not really thinking enough about your teamwork. Too much thinking about what your own abilities do for you, instead of what everyone's abilities do for everyone.

[Unicore]

Ubertron_X wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Tl;dr: heal makes players so focused on not losing the fight they stop trying to win...

I know where you are coming from but being the party healer in my group I have the exact opposite impression: Heal makes players so focused on winning the fight that they stop trying not to lose.

3rd attacks are very common in my group despite me advocating against it at every possible opportunity because the general mood of "if things go wrong the Cleric will patch you up".

However please mind that this kind of fishing for a lucky roll behavior can also easily be fueled by a couple of bad experiences. For example our Barbarian joined our AoA campaign at the start of the second volume at level 5. We are now level 8. The Barbarian has Demoralize as a viable 3rd action (as he is an entirely new player I helped making the character concept). After using Demoralize for like half a dozen times and either straight failing the check or simply having bad timing (monster acting immediately after his action) this new player is now back to making attacks at -10 where he did indeed manage to score some hits / crits already. That math is on your side means nothing if you have an unimpressive ability that somehow failed every single time you tried to use it versus the massive damage you cause with just a single lucky roll.

We are currently approx. 1/3 into the climax of volume 2 but if I had to guess I'd say that we are directly headed for a TPK. Stand-and-fight tactics might still work versus any kind of opposition in a 1/day battle, but are not sustainable in a dungeon, especially when fights chain.

P.S.: Another example of "learning by bad experience" would be our Wizard who has had almost every single target spell (like Slow or Phantasmal Killer) used versus a level+1 or better enemy critically resisted during volume 2 so far. Blasting in general (especially mooks of course) is working as intended (usually just by the sheer volume of rolls) but he does not seem able to...

My group ( I am a player) is just past half way through the second book of AoAs and we just, last session, hit an encounter location where everything hammered us at once. We thought we had mitigated the situation, but didn't catch 2 things that resulted in teleporting enemies really putting the hurt down on us. We are not going to TPK, because our party is comfortable with individual character death and when it is clear we got in to things way over our head, we are not afraid to have a character or even 2 hold the line to let everyone else escape.

Age of Ashes, at least in the two books that we have played through, has some brutal encounters to it. It is an amazing, tactically challenging, fairly old school brutal adventure path that feels like it has deep roots in the Fantasy RPG world, but a lot of folks coming to RPGs today probably have a little less comfort with facing regular character death. I am GMing Extinction Curse and, other than the first chapter, it plays a lot softer as far as throwing the whole dungeon at you at once. I haven't even looked at Agents of edge watch yet cause I still hope to get to play in it, but I don't think most APs will have the same level of "its a cruel cold world" dungeon building as Age of Ashes and Fall of plaguestone did.

I think most parties, ours included, vastly underestimate the value of being able to counterspell and deal with the onslaught of magical effects and powers that Age of Ashes will throw at you. Hit points alone definitely cannot win every encounter.

Pathfinder Society Scenarios and Quests can be a much better introduction for newer players, especially if you as a GM need more direction for how to make sure that you are giving enough credence to skill checks and social challenges in your games. It seems like some of those rules were under developed as Age of Ashes went to print so a lot of parties might not be getting enough opportunities to use skills to learn information about encounter locations and do more than rush from fight to fight. That also played a major role in what happened to us, although Age of Ashes is just absolutely brutal about throwing some curveball encounters into dungeons that are really hard to see coming as players.

[Captain Morgan]

Ubertron_X wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Tl;dr: heal makes players so focused on not losing the fight they stop trying to win...

I know where you are coming from but being the party healer in my group I have the exact opposite impression: Heal makes players so focused on winning the fight that they stop trying not to lose.

3rd attacks are very common in my group despite me advocating against it at every possible opportunity because the general mood of "if things go wrong the Cleric will patch you up".

Actually, yeah, this is true, but I don't think the two ideas contradict each other. Let me rephrase: it makes casters waste actions and slots on healing rather than winning and encourages martials to play reckless and dumb.

The giant barbarian in my group keeps charging golems, even when the golems are basically immobilized and he could just poke them to death with reach. Subsequently the sorcerer winds up trying to save them with heal rather than exploiting the massive elemental weakness. Worse, they wind up wasting spell slots during encounters (and after, when the story doesn't allow for treat wounds) when it easily could have been won on cantrips.

It is bad play all around.

[Unicore]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Ubertron_X wrote:

After using Demoralize for like half a dozen times and either straight failing the check or simply having bad timing (monster acting immediately after his action) this new player is now back to making attacks at -10 where he did indeed manage to score some hits / crits already.

I want to single this one out. Demoralize timing is something that a lot of people just don't do very well.

I mean, consider this initiative tracker

PC1 - first up
PC2
PC3 - has Intimidate
Monster - reduces Frightened at the end if its turn

Should PC3 use Demoralize on his turn? He could, but it's rather underwhelming.

Instead, while it's still PC1's turn, he should tell PC1, "if you Delay until after me, I can try to Demoralize first". And the same to PC2. So that you instead get:

PC3 - Demoralize!
PC1 - coming out of Delay, profits from Demoralize
PC2 - coming out of Delay, profits from Demoralize
Monster - reduces Frightened at the end if its turn

This seems really really basic but I see it being done poorly so very often. This one, and people setting up a flank after the rogue's turn, are prime examples of not really thinking enough about your teamwork. Too much thinking about what your own abilities do for you, instead of what everyone's abilities do for everyone.

I can't like this enough.

Winning at initiative in PF2 is not going first. It is synergizing your party's turns for maximum effectiveness, and that almost always will involve someone delaying in the first round of combat. The 3 action economy is almost too good at doing what it does to make each action matter.

[Ruzza]

I had a player ask me if I could design a quick set-piece of five encounters so that he could essentially play out a few ideas outside of white room math. I had some free time, so I put together the encounters, tossed in some skill challenge stuff, threw in some social encounters just to see how well rounded he'd made the group.

Anyway, he pointed out quite quickly that by Delaying and stacking his party into the order that he wanted to allow for strong debuffs into attacks helped him to sort of 'leapfrog' up the encounter difficulty. He did say it would be hard to convince people to play that way, which has since proven true in his Edgewatch group. Still, I don't think that Delaying optimally is 100% necessary, but it definitely helps a lot more than people think.

[Ascalaphus]

I don't think you have to go to the far extreme in stacking turns in the right order, but it sure does feel good when everyone just "gets" it. A while back I was playing the 7-8 tier for King in Thorns and the barbarian and my fighter were continually building flanks for each other, and the rogue joining in with Gang Up soon after. It's just this nice feeling of all the pieces fitting together.

[Tweezer]

I GM Age of Ashes, and we just finished book 2, and I completely concur that the AP can be brutal at times.
That said, the big difference between the party I GM for and yours seem to be the Bard, which shouldn't make that big a difference (even if inspire courage is too good to be true).

Adding to that, I love my players, but most of the time, they are tactical nitwits (even though they do get it right from time to time). They don't stack their turns, the martials never wait for the Bard to sing and our dearly departed rogue liked to pretend she was a frontline fighter (which means now she gets to play one ).

Even though we've had two perma deaths (one through epic story the other through damned luck) we haven't experienced anything close to what OP describe, so I am quite curious as to hearing if his party is just really REALLY unlucky, or if they have miscalculated AC like someone above suggested or something similar?

[Ubertron_X]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Actually, yeah, this is true, but I don't think the two ideas contradict each other. Let me rephrase: it makes casters waste actions and slots on healing rather than winning and encourages martials to play reckless and dumb.

And thats the reason why I usually unload a Fireball first, even with my Warpriest's abyssal DC, whenever I win initiative and there is a sizable number of opponents.

Captain Morgan wrote:

The giant barbarian in my group keeps charging golems, even when the golems are basically immobilized and he could just poke them to death with reach. Subsequently the sorcerer winds up trying to save them with heal rather than exploiting the massive elemental weakness. Worse, they wind up wasting spell slots during encounters (and after, when the story doesn't allow for treat wounds) when it easily could have been won on cantrips.

If you are lucky and have the appropriate cantrip available (which of course should be easier on a sorcerer). In the given scenario our Wizard successfully manged to Recall the weakness, but as the game had told him to avoid spell attack rolls during his early levels he did not have the correct cantrip memorized and we had to brute force our way past the monster wasting a lot of ressources doing so.

[RPGnoremac]

I am curious if PF2 was balanced around stacking turns or players are just supposed to take their turn most the time. If every player has supportive actions then stacking isn't as obvious.

Demoralize is a huge offender, if you demoralize and then your party attacks you get a huge advantage.

I have been playing PFS and a current campaign, my conclusion is the majority of people don't like to delay for better tactics. In general characters who just want to attack should always try to manipulate the turn order to go after buffers/debuffers.

I have seen many many times where a player will attack 2-3 times instead of delay until after the bard to have crazy bonuses. It has actually came to the point where I just gave up on mentioning it. These sorts of things can really change the tide of battle.

Even then I really am not sure how you could TPK that often. I feel like maybe there is something going on with the rules. Sadly there isn't anything we can help with except giving some examples of "common missed rules / situations".

-Miscalculating AC or to hit could be a common for players. Maybe a player missed that they have expert/master etc.
-I have actually heard of people skipping the free ability boosts at the end of character creation.
-Maybe you are using "psychic" enemies to never let Fighters use attack of opportunities etc and using your knowledge when you should be fighting as "monsters" who don't have knowledge of things.
-Not having frightened/sickened lower AC.
-Not following monster rules correctly and giving them too many actions. I have seen GM play monsters wrong sometimes.
-Players should be able to refocus/heal to full between pretty much every fight. If you aren't battles are going to be lopsided.
-Are players resting once they are out of spell? Maybe the casters need to rest.
-Are you giving monsters "surprise rounds" because that is not a thing in PF2.
-Are you giving hero points out correctly? Every player should get one at the start and every hour a player should be getting one. Do players know how to use them for attacks/saves so that you get important hits out while also not dying to a horrible spells.

Those are just some common things I have seen players/GMs "misplay" because they are used to other systems. If you have been doing everything 100% correctly I think it is safe to say you need to lower the difficulty until players learn tactics.

The biggest new gm issue I see/hear is not letting players heal to full between combats. If players are half dead when they end up in a moderate fight things will go south quickly.

[Arachnofiend]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Ubertron_X wrote:

After using Demoralize for like half a dozen times and either straight failing the check or simply having bad timing (monster acting immediately after his action) this new player is now back to making attacks at -10 where he did indeed manage to score some hits / crits already.

I want to single this one out. Demoralize timing is something that a lot of people just don't do very well.

I mean, consider this initiative tracker

PC1 - first up
PC2
PC3 - has Intimidate
Monster - reduces Frightened at the end if its turn

Should PC3 use Demoralize on his turn? He could, but it's rather underwhelming.

Instead, while it's still PC1's turn, he should tell PC1, "if you Delay until after me, I can try to Demoralize first". And the same to PC2. So that you instead get:

PC3 - Demoralize!
PC1 - coming out of Delay, profits from Demoralize
PC2 - coming out of Delay, profits from Demoralize
Monster - reduces Frightened at the end if its turn

This seems really really basic but I see it being done poorly so very often. This one, and people setting up a flank after the rogue's turn, are prime examples of not really thinking enough about your teamwork. Too much thinking about what your own abilities do for you, instead of what everyone's abilities do for everyone.

"Let the God Wizard go first" was an essential tip for PF1, because engaging after the buffs/debuffs have gone up makes any difficult combat much easier. In PF2, a lot of the control power that used to be the exclusive domain of your full caster can be found in your swashbuckler as well; hell, your wizard should probably delay to go after the swashbuckler if the swash has bon mot!

[Deriven Firelion]

Age of Ashes is tuned poorly. It is a very hard module up until say Book 4. There are at least a few encounters in Books 1 to 3 that are nightmares or can turn into nightmares with some bad rolls.

My feeling is module designers are used to tossing in some encounters and leaving the DM to tune as needed. In PF1 the encounters were often super weak and the DM needed to tune up to make things challenging. In PF2 the opposite is true. If the module designers grab a few monsters or toss in a challenge like a hazard at the same time as a hard encounter, things can turn rough extremely quickly.

I don't think your party composition was bad. Maybe some tactics were suboptimal as the natural reaction of most players is to run into battle and attack. That isn't necessarily the best idea in PF2. I've found going second in initiative is better for non-ranged casters. The enemy using their move action to reach you prevents them from going off on attacks or using 3 action abilities which are nasty. Though that can change if you are grouped up for an AoE attack.

PF2 is a much more lethal game up to lvl 9 to 11 or so. After that the math seems to shift greater in favor of the PCs. But getting there isn't easy. Those early levels can be a TPK no matter what your composition is. One lucky roll by the enemy and bad rolls by you and a low level party can die quickly.

[Candlejake]

Both my groups actually fared really well in both AoA and Extinction Curse. The EC crew is full of relatively new players that dont really optimize. That said that group was probably carried by my GF playing a dragon barbarian and doing ridiculous ammounts of damage and me emphasizing medicine and the champions lay on hands for OoC healing.

The AoA group has had some trouble but generally managed well for being a bit of a weird team comp. Rogue , wild druid, alchemist bomber, bard. The wild druid couldnt really go into melee the first two levels but now makes good use of wildshape.

The APs can be pretty harsh at first level. Also rather swingy. My players stomped some fights i thought they would have Problems with (ima just say worms and the other severe encounter at the start of EC) and then struggled with encounters that should have been easier.

In AoA i once downed their well armoured npc ally quickly in a medium or low encounter because two f+!#ing birds just high roll crit him two times imediatly.

My way of making things easier for the players is handing out lots of Hero points. I give out about 1 for every one each hour of play. It makes stuff a lot easier and i especially do it in fights that turn out too hard.

[Harles]

Candlejake wrote:

Both my groups actually fared really well in both AoA and Extinction Curse. The EC crew is full of relatively new players that dont really optimize. That said that group was probably carried by my GF playing a dragon barbarian and doing ridiculous ammounts of damage and me emphasizing medicine and the champions lay on hands for OoC healing.

The AoA group has had some trouble but generally managed well for being a bit of a weird team comp. Rogue , wild druid, alchemist bomber, bard. The wild druid couldnt really go into melee the first two levels but now makes good use of wildshape.

The APs can be pretty harsh at first level. Also rather swingy. My players stomped some fights i thought they would have Problems with (ima just say worms and the other severe encounter at the start of EC) and then struggled with encounters that should have been easier.

In AoA i once downed their well armoured npc ally quickly in a medium or low encounter because two f!&@ing birds just high roll crit him two times imediatly.

My way of making things easier for the players is handing out lots of Hero points. I give out about 1 for every one each hour of play. It makes stuff a lot easier and i especially do it in fights that turn out too hard.

I tried just giving each player two Hero Points to start the session, because I kept forgetting to award them during play.

[Captain Morgan]

One per hour is actually the recommended rate in the book. Being overly generous with them isn't bad though. Find any excuse you can to do it regularly. Let whoever keeps notes for the game start with 2, or whoever tracks loot start with 2, or whoever writes a backstory or draws a portrait of their character.

[Demonknight]

Ascalaphus wrote:

I want to single this one out. Demoralize timing is something that a lot of people just don't do very well.

I mean, consider this initiative tracker

PC1 - first up
PC2
PC3 - has Intimidate
Monster - reduces Frightened at the end if its turn

Should PC3 use Demoralize on his turn? He could, but it's rather underwhelming.

Instead, while it's still PC1's turn, he should tell PC1, "if you Delay until after me, I can try to Demoralize first". And the same to PC2. So that you instead get:

PC3 - Demoralize!
PC1 - coming out of Delay, profits from Demoralize
PC2 - coming out of Delay, profits from Demoralize
Monster - reduces Frightened at the end if its turn

This seems really really basic but I see it being done poorly so very often. This one, and people setting up a flank after the rogue's turn, are prime examples of not really thinking enough about your teamwork. Too much thinking about what your own abilities do for you, instead of what everyone's abilities do for everyone.

This is so true! The party i am GMing (Fighter/Rogue/Sorcerer/Cleric), they are stuck in the mentality of getting near the monsters and hack away, but what is saving them is that the fighter and rogue are very experienced players and coordinate very well the Demoralize/Flanking/Intimidating stuff.

That with a awesome Cleric for Healing and Buffing and a Blasting Sorcerer are keeping them going strong.

19th level in the final book of Age of Ashes, so far they had just a huge scare, a near TPK in book 3.

[Ms. Bloodrive]

Fighter, champion, cleric, wizard, and monk looks solid IMO, but besides classes there are a lot of things to consider, like what kind of fighter is yours or if the cleric was warpriest or normal, or what divine font he has.

Is worth noting that according to what I've been told 2e adventure paths are very hard o.o I've only read the first book of extinction course and the encounters are a little above my every day Encounter so I assume age of ashes is as hard.

Anyways, for me balanced would be 2 melee front liners (a tank and a damage dealer), one utility caster (prepared casters are better at this than spontaneous) and one face/skill monkey (bard or rogue) are enough but there are other roles like the knowledges guy, ranged damage dealer, blaster, buffer and debuffer.

[Nooie]

Your comp is fine. Like others have said, your martials can't just walk up to an enemy and hit it until their turn is over, nor can the casters just nuke on every turn. That strategy will end with a lot of TPKs. They need to coordinate better with delaying their turns, buffing/debuffing, positioning, etc... 2e combat is more strategy oriented than most modern RPG systems. The champion or fighter might want to play the role of a battle hardened commander or field general when in combat, using free actions to suggest larger strategic ideas to the rest of the party in order to better coordinate their turns and tactics.

[AnimatedPaper]

Captain Morgan wrote:

One per hour is actually the recommended rate in the book. Being overly generous with them isn't bad though. Find any excuse you can to do it regularly. Let whoever keeps notes for the game start with 2, or whoever tracks loot start with 2, or whoever writes a backstory or draws a portrait of their character.

I've been absolutely terrible at remember these myself. I've been playtesting someone's homebrew this weekend, and totally forgot about those.

Luckily my character lived anyways, but the 2 critically failed saving throws might have been avoided.

[Ms. Bloodrive]

I'd say that's more a thing of strategy rather than party composition.

Take a look at This Thread it has a lot of good input regarding strategy and the use of tactics like demoralize, flank and so on, the thing is that strategy really matters in 2e.

[Candlejake]

Captain Morgan wrote:

One per hour is actually the recommended rate in the book. Being overly generous with them isn't bad though. Find any excuse you can to do it regularly. Let whoever keeps notes for the game start with 2, or whoever tracks loot start with 2, or whoever writes a backstory or draws a portrait of their character.

The way i kept remembering them is always reminding the players they have one if they fail something, especially at the beginning of sessions. Once the players get used to using them and seeing how nice they are they will ask for them more often.

That said i also play on roll20 currently, and even on home games before pandemic hit harder in my country used it for maps. And i made a second bar next to HP for hero points.

[Elfteiroh]

Candlejake wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

One per hour is actually the recommended rate in the book. Being overly generous with them isn't bad though. Find any excuse you can to do it regularly. Let whoever keeps notes for the game start with 2, or whoever tracks loot start with 2, or whoever writes a backstory or draws a portrait of their character.

The way I kept remembering them is always reminding the players they have one if they fail something, especially at the beginning of sessions. Once the players get used to using them and seeing how nice they are they will ask for them more often.

That said I also play on roll20 currently, and even on home games before the pandemic hit harder in my country used it for maps. And I made a second bar next to HP for hero points.

On roll20, I personally use the "deck of cards" system. I made a "deck" with only one card called "Hero Point" with the picture of a hero point, and distribute them in the players "hand", they appear on top of the player names, and they can "drop" it on the map when they use it. It makes it a bit more "physical", and easy to remember.

Example

[Ravingdork]

Elfteiroh wrote:

Candlejake wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

One per hour is actually the recommended rate in the book. Being overly generous with them isn't bad though. Find any excuse you can to do it regularly. Let whoever keeps notes for the game start with 2, or whoever tracks loot start with 2, or whoever writes a backstory or draws a portrait of their character.

The way I kept remembering them is always reminding the players they have one if they fail something, especially at the beginning of sessions. Once the players get used to using them and seeing how nice they are they will ask for them more often.

That said I also play on roll20 currently, and even on home games before the pandemic hit harder in my country used it for maps. And I made a second bar next to HP for hero points.

On roll20, I personally use the "deck of cards" system. I made a "deck" with only one card called "Hero Point" with the picture of a hero point, and distribute them in the players "hand", they appear on top of the player names, and they can "drop" it on the map when they use it. It makes it a bit more "physical", and easy to remember.

Example

Can you teach me this power?

[Ascalaphus]

Ravingdork wrote:

Can you teach me this power?

Chris Marsh made a tutorial about this: Youtube

[OrochiFuror]

My AoA GM just gives us all one hero point to start, and one at the start of every combat, makes it reliable and thus easy to remember.

[Timeshadow]

I am often in the group that forgets to give hero points so instead I usually give 2 at the beginning of each session and 3 if I know there is a "Boss" battle. The funny thing is now my players get super worried when I give them 3 Hero points lol sometimes I give them 3 just to mess with them :-)

[Zapp]

Harles wrote:

Before my group threw in the towel, they were unable to find a good balance of character classes that work well together. They kept getting stomped by the encounters in Age of Ashes.

Their most recent configuration was fighter, champion, cleric, wizard, and monk.
Was this a suboptimal party? Were they missing something vital? (A previous incarnation included a rogue for the monk and a sorcerer for the wizard - but they still got TPKed.)
Are there character classes that just shouldn't be taken? (I've read elsewhere that arcane casters are dead weight.)
We were averaging a TPK every 2-3 sessions. If I'm going to restart PF2 at some point, I'd like some guidance to offer them.

It appears you were five characters. Can I assume you still ran the adventure as-is, i.e. you didn't feel the need to make it even harder by adjusting encounters per the guidelines for five characters?

Them I must confess I believe the problem isn't with your party composition.

If you have that many TPKs it's time to discuss a sensitive issue:

Might it be that your players' playing style doesn't work well in Pathfinder 2...?

Just kicking in the door, feeling awesome and charging the puny monsters will get you killed in PF2, full stop, no exceptions.

Pathfinder 2 is the polar opposite of a sword & sorcery type of game, where each player plays mighty Conan or something, who can easily handle half a dozen enemies from the get-go with zero tactics, relying only on his brawn and general awesomeness. (That kind of game is cool, but you won't find it here.)

I am saying this because it's a perfectly good playing style. It's just that it is entirely unsustainable in Pathfinder 2, at least at the lowest levels. We've found that the time where you really can start messing around with low-level foes is at... level 15(!)

I guess what I'm saying is that if your players can't or won't find it fun to think first, act later (making tactical decisions, acting as a close-knit team, no solo shenanigans, ...) then you might have more fun ditching PF2 and simply using a different ruleset.

[Ascalaphus]

The only thing you really need to do as a GM to "flip the Conan switch" on your campaign is reduce the level of enemies, but maybe increase the amount of them a bit.

A bit like a PFS2 game where there are some high subtier characters playing in low subtier, but juuuust not so many that the scenario flips to high subtier. So then instead the scaling you get is more monsters, instead of tougher monsters.

AoE casters love it.

[Sapient]

Captain Morgan wrote:

One per hour is actually the recommended rate in the book.

This has been unclear to me. Is this per person or per group?

[Shandyan]

Sapient wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

One per hour is actually the recommended rate in the book.

This has been unclear to me. Is this per person or per group?

One per group. I hand mine out with a more-or-less hourly timer, and let the players decide who gets it - they normally pick whoever's spent their starting one!

[AnimatedPaper]

Ascalaphus wrote:

The only thing you really need to do as a GM to "flip the Conan switch" on your campaign is reduce the level of enemies, but maybe increase the amount of them a bit.

A bit like a PFS2 game where there are some high subtier characters playing in low subtier, but juuuust not so many that the scenario flips to high subtier. So then instead the scaling you get is more monsters, instead of tougher monsters.

AoE casters love it.

I frequently playtest homebrew and other characters using this method. There’s actually rules for it; a solo character should in theory be able to handle level-3 adventures (so a 4th level character should be able to handle a level 1 adventure). Or level-2 for dual class characters. It feels pretty great to smack around creatures that can’t scratch me, and the rather simpler tactics speeds things up.

For your table, I’d recommend the dual class variant with no adjusting. They’ll still hit and be hit just as often as they should, but their survivability will be *lots* better. Plus they’ll be able to try out multiple classes at once, and that’s always a plus, if they can handle the number of abilities dual classes gives you.

[Harles]

Zapp wrote:

It appears you were five characters. Can I assume you still ran the adventure as-is, i.e. you didn't feel the need to make it even harder by adjusting encounters per the guidelines for five characters?

Them I must confess I believe the problem isn't with your party composition.

If you have that many TPKs it's time to discuss a sensitive issue:

Might it be that your players' playing style doesn't work well in Pathfinder 2...?

Just kicking in the door, feeling awesome and charging the puny monsters will get you killed in PF2, full stop, no exceptions.

Pathfinder 2 is the polar opposite of a sword & sorcery type of game, where each player plays mighty Conan or something, who can easily handle half a dozen enemies from the get-go with zero tactics, relying only on his brawn and general awesomeness. (That kind of game is cool, but you won't find it here.)

I am saying this because it's a perfectly good playing style. It's just that it is entirely unsustainable in Pathfinder 2, at least at the lowest levels. We've found that the time where you really can start messing around with low-level foes is at... level 15(!)

I guess what I'm saying is that if your players can't or won't find it fun to think first, act later (making tactical decisions, acting as a close-knit team, no solo...

I didn't up the challenge of the adventure path. However, when I was creating sample encounters for them to test their characters (according to the guidelines of the CRB), I did account for 5 characters, and surprisingly they did much better in those sample encounters.

I don't feel like they did bad play. I think some of the players maybe didn't have the best fit classes for their play style. For instance the Wizard player wanted to blast and do big damage and didn't care about buffs and de-buffs, which would be the domain of clerics and bards in other systems.

[rainzax]

1) Someone who can mitigate incoming damage.
2) Someone who can reciprocate incoming damage.
3) Someone who can overcome various skill challenges.
4) Someone who can facilitate in that mitigation, reciprocation, and overcoming.
5) And a cheerleader!

X) These "someones" are not one-to-one character-to-role - indeed it's possible for "someone" to check multiple boxes above to varying degree.

[RPGnoremac]

I dont think playing a blaster caster is bad. I kind of feel prepared casters for newer players would be really tough.

I am curious why new players tend to choose Wizard for blaster though. After I read the core classes Elemental Sorcerer and Storm Druid stuck out if me as the go to blasters.

Just as an example at level 5 a Sorcerer having access to fear for when they have low Will as a signature spell+fireball means you are great at AOE. Then for single targets you can take slow. Not go mention all the other great spells.

Other than that you could pretty much just fill your spell repetoir with anything. You of course should never use spells level -2 for blasting.

My guess is in the sample encounter players were just 100% focused on playing smart while during a campaign your focus goes all over the place with story/lore/RP.

This happens to me too when playing, where I do one action and realize that was dumb... I should have done something else but it is too late. Even something as simple as using demoralize before casting a spell I have done on occasion. Normally I forgot things when the battles are super easy though.

[Nik Gervae]

My storm/animal/leaf druid is almost more versatile than I can stand. I've got blasting, buffing, flanking, vulture vomit, healing. That might be overwhelming for a new player, but then again they can easily focus on whatever they like and switch/add as they get more comfortable. WIth a blastersorcerer you're more likely to be stuck with blasting your whole career.

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That™

[Blue_frog]

RPGnoremac wrote:

I dont think playing a blaster caster is bad. I kind of feel prepared casters for newer players would be really tough.

I am curious why new players tend to choose Wizard for blaster though. After I read the core classes Elemental Sorcerer and Storm Druid stuck out if me as the go to blasters.

Just as an example at level 5 a Sorcerer having access to fear for when they have low Will as a signature spell+fireball means you are great at AOE. Then for single targets you can take slow. Not go mention all the other great spells.

Other than that you could pretty much just fill your spell repetoir with anything. You of course should never use spells level -2 for blasting.

My guess is in the sample encounter players were just 100% focused on playing smart while during a campaign your focus goes all over the place with story/lore/RP.

This happens to me too when playing, where I do one action and realize that was dumb... I should have done something else but it is too late. Even something as simple as using demoralize before casting a spell I have done on occasion. Normally I forgot things when the battles are super easy though.

Blaster caster is bad at low level. Most beginners will browse through the spells available to them at first level and pick things like burning hands, because hey, that's an AOE. Or they'll take Shocking Grasp because, hey, 2d12 is a lot of damage.

The truth is, both those spells are just awful. Burning hands is worse than burning arc, a cantrip (7 damage average vs 6,5, with more targeting issue) unless you can somehow get three targets in the small AOE. And Shocking Geasp is an attack spell, which you should absolutely never take as a caster (read my wizard handbook if you wonder why). The only blasting spell worth something at level 1 is magic missile.

As for wizard, they're actually among the best blasters in the game if they poach dangerous sorcery and take the right thesis (spell blending). But that only comes online at level 5, which can be frustrating for new players.