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Every time I see the topic of difficulty come up in the boards or on the Pathfinder Discord, one thing that is said a lot, even by some people who defend the standard difficulty of the game being where it is (I don't), is that Adventure Paths and modules in 2e are generally very hard. Harder than most GMs would ever make their homebrew games. And honestly...? It's really jarring to me that this is the case.
As the content that is most easily accessible to people who are new to the game, shouldn't published adventures be playable and fun your average group who picked up the game somewhat recently? Instead, they're filled with very level+ boss fights, even at low levels; sequences of a bajillion encounters that you need extremely tight resource management to even have a chance; and a very scary amount of deathtraps and similar things.
On the last point, difficulty isn't the only reason I think AP designers seem to be treating the game like an old school meatgrinder. Between level+ bosses with death effects, hazards that crit people on 12s, and monsters and traps that can literally instakill you on a critically failed save (with an obtusively high DC to pair, of course), pretty much every adventure that isn't the Beginner Box's seems to be going for the feel of a gritty grimdark game where life's always on the line and you can lose your character to one unlucky moment. But isn't Pathfinder supposed to be a game about epic heroes?
Super hard adventures existing is not a problem, don't get me wrong, but should't they be the minority? Or at least, not the majority (or all of them)? And probably advertised as such? Expecting new GMs with new groups that picked up their first AP to know how to adjust difficulty down, or even know that it needs to be adjusted in the first place, is insane to me. It feels like putting the burden on the wrong people, and ends up being a huge barrier of entry to a game that is otherwise very accessible.
I guess I might be screaming at the wind, but if someone on Paizo is reading this: please, try to consider new and casual players a bit more when designing your next adventures. They need content they can pick up and play too, and probably more than anyone else. Pathfinder isn't, and imo shouldn't be, a hardcore-exclusive game.
I guess I might be screaming at the wind, but if someone on Paizo is reading this: please, try to consider new and casual players a bit more when designing your next adventures. They need content they can pick up and play too, and probably more than anyone else. Pathfinder isn't, and imo shouldn't be, a hardcore-exclusive game.
Abomination Vaults seem very easy to me. I just have the first part and haven't read it up to the end, but I find that (finaly) Paizo has reviewed everything down. Skill checks are often asking for 12s (easy skill checks). Monsters are not scary at all, there are always a few tough fights, but I don't find there are that many. Also, you can have some intel about what happens next allowing you to be ready for the tough ones.
The only thing, of course, is that resource constrained classes are once again forgotten. Not a single offensive scroll in the portion I've actually read. That is really something Paizo should account for: Scrolls (and maybe extra reagents for Alchemists) help a lot in a dungeon where you are supposed to chain encounters.
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Really a lot of the problem with the current APs stems from the ridiculous number of encounters per day they put you through at low levels.
AoA, AoE and ExC book 1 and 2 have adventuring days with 8+ encounters in them, which are guaranteed to grind you down... then they top it off with a severe/extreme boss at the end. Why?
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It is much much easier to adjust down than it is to adjust up. This assumes that the adventures are universally hard "meatgrinders" though, and I am not sure I can get behind that.
A lot of the difficulty imo comes from people learning the game, both players and GMs.
Age of Ashes I have run nearly all of (covid has slowed things down), and while it has some problematic encounters that are extremely glaring. That is likely more of a "written before the rules were finalized" issue.
I really think it would benefit from an errata pdf document that just tidies up some of the problems, even if it never gets another print run.
Plaguestone, god I wish this had not been the launch adventure. For people who don't know how PF2e plays this is brutal and not suitable for a first adventure. For experienced players it isn't that deadly, but know that people new to the system experienced has me lamenting.
I have run the first volume of Extinction curse and Agents of Edgewatch, I have read to book 3 of both APs. Both have a few minor spikes in difficulty but nothing that huge imo, heck in Extinction curse I had a party of casters go through it.
The beginner box ideally would have launched before the system proper launched imo and ideally came with the otari adventure book packaged imo. This may not have been possible, but in an ideal world I think that would have been a huge benefit to the system.
Abomination vaults is an EXCELENT onramp so far, the first book is perfectly balanced for new players and is nice and easy to prep for as a GM. I still find Paizo adventures to be a bit verbose outside of descriptive boxes but outside of that it does really well.
My ranking would be:
Hard/Very Hard: Plaguestone
Moderate/Hard: Age of Ashes, the Slithering
Moderate: Extinction Curse and Agents of Edgewatch
Easy: Abomination Vaults, Trouble out of Otari
Very Easy: Beginner box
I wouldn't be too worried, it looks like Paizo are diversifying the sorts of adventures they put out and we will get a good stable in the long run.
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I generally agree with Gleeful Grognard's assessment of the APs and think GMs understanding of encounters to be the largest sticking point of APs and something I think the awesome folks at Paizo are looking into providing better direction.
For Abomination vaults example:
At this point in the adventure there really should be no immediately pressing "need" to push on and attack the creature without taking time to at least rest and heal, if not take some down time to do research on it. To become a TPK, a party has to pretty much commit to attacking this thing relentlessly without any sense of what they are fighting.
Compare this to everyone's favorite encounter in Age of Ashes where the big scary monster is not a boss, doesn't look like a boss, and basically blocks the only path forward, while simultaneously being set up in an environment that is very difficult for PCs to escape from.
Where I think RPGS have gone so horribly wrong in the past, and it has created really problematic expectations for players and GMs is for the idea of "level" not to be a consistent and equal force on either side of the table. Everything about adventure and encounter design is easier when equal numbers means equal chances. Players have gotten used to systems that lie to them about the difficulty of an equal level encounter, and that is creating some resistance, but as more game developers see how much it improves consistency over the course of the whole game for number balance to be reliable, I think you are going to see more and more games shifting to this baseline.
I generally agree with Gleeful Grognard's assessment of the APs and think GMs understanding of encounters to be the largest sticking point of APs and something I think the awesome folks at Paizo are looking into providing better direction.
For Abomination vaults example:
** spoiler omitted **Where I think RPGS have gone so horribly wrong in the past, and it has created really problematic expectations for players and GMs is for the idea of "level" not to be a consistent and equal force on either side of the table. Everything about adventure and encounter design is easier when equal numbers means equal chances. Players have gotten used to systems that lie to them about the difficulty of an equal level encounter, and that is creating some resistance, but as more game developers see how much it improves consistency over the course of the whole game for number balance to be reliable, I think you are going to see more and more games shifting to this baseline.
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It is much much easier to adjust down than it is to adjust up.
This is only true if you look at the situation in a vacuum. For you and me, sure, adjusting difficulty down is a little easier than adjusting up. But that's completely ignoring a second factor: who is doing it.
Who's the most likely to need adjusting an adventure up in difficulty? Experienced GMs with experienced groups that make average difficulty stuff easy via very good tactics. They know the ins and outs of the system like the palm of their hand and could make most adjustments by heart.
Who's the most likely to need adjusting an adventure down in difficulty? New GMs with new players that have a very crude understanding of running the game, character buildings and tactics. They probably don't know how to and/or are afraid of f#$@ing something up if they try to adjust difficulty, and might not even realize something's wrong before they get frustrated with the game and quit. Or worse, think something's wrong with them. These really aren't the people I want to put the burden of change on.
Remember that adventure difficulty heavily depends on the GM and his specific style of gamemastering. Imagine a GM giving away information freely, leisurely and without you as a player having to go out of your way for even tiny scraps of information versus an environment where you always have to stumble in blindly and have to learn everything the hard way? Big difference.
Having said so to me (as a player) it looks like there was not enough guidance provided to the adventure designers and/or new or old GMs on how the new meta really works and how to adjust difficulty accordingly, probably because at the time of writing the core rule books and first couple APs this was not known extensively. And this is in addition to the players having to learn or adjust to the new meta too.
For example I can imagine one of the more infamous fights in the first volume of AoA unfolding totally different if a) the party knows that something big is up and maybe even has a clue of what to expect in comparison to b) "you walk around the corner and booyah, boss battle in your face"!
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not an AP but Fall of Plaguestone was pretty deadly. I had to bail out my players twice from dying.
You go from a pretty easy fight against 4 wolves to potentially fighting a lvl 3 bear or a lvl 2 boar. That said there's ways to avoid combat for both encounters but both creatures are strong and in the case of the boar highly mobile and able to shred any backline characters.
There's usually not any time pressure planned into the AP so I don't think the dungeons are particularly taxing. Out of combat healing is so strong that parties should always be pretty topped up in health and characters can refocus in the time it takes to reset from being healed.
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A lot of Dungeons in APs are places where the creatures inside are allies. It takes a pretty significant amount if methane thinking to assume that they'll never move around, find their allies dead and react. "No time pressure" isn't a natural assumption. So the length of those dungeons adding to a meatgrinder effect on new players, like Dmerceless was talking about at the start of this, is very much a factor.
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logically yes but that's something a GM has to decide if they want to do that to their players. The APs do not usually mention encounters moving out of bounds.
Right, the APs often don't say anything about creatures not sitting in their room waiting to die...
What does that have to do with what you would assume as a new player delving into your first dungeon (not as someone who has read a bunch of AP volunes)? The players aren't generally reading the AP, and if the logical time pressure exists in their minds, then it affects their actions.
I wasn't even bringing table practices of running things with more reactivity than the book provides into this, since it wouldn't fit the core question of "how do these pre-written adventures work for new groups running things strictly by the book?"
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My conclusion was that Plaguestone was the 'conversion' adventure to bring as many experienced PF1 players over to PF2 as possible and highlight the Alchemist.
If they didn't convert a large chunk of PF1 stalwarts to PF2, there wasn't going to be a need for the Beginner Box or any other entry-level material.
So it was never intended for d20 newbies; it was always meant to appeal to people with a great deal of experience who would be irritated by any 'watered-down' or 'too easy' modules.
It also suffered from the 'developed in tandem with the final rules' pitfalls.
Signing up to play through a full AP takes a lot of commitment. If you aren't sure whether you want to make that commitment, Paizo makes it very easy to splash around in the shallow end of the pool: Beginner Box, an adventure that is written for newbie GMs and players (Menace Under Otari), and a large supply of Level 1 scenarios to play around with various niche aspects of the rules.
I expect APs to be written for hard-core gamers. There's plenty of other material if you aren't that committed.
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Running both early PF2 APs (AoA, Extinction Curse) and PF1 APs converted to PF2 (Rise otRL, Ironfang Invasio) has highlighted this issue for me. The latter are easier. They will use lower level monsters more often and often have lower xp budgets for particular fights. This also makes it easier to do organic dungeons with encounters that chain together. That can result in difficult encounters, but also creates room for clever tactics to keep them separate and therefore easier, which is good. Cleverness should be rewarded.
Also I think the old APs did a better job of sign posting when a particular enemy was going to be a doozy. Having an APL+3 teleport out of nowhere is less satisfying than hyping up a particular dragon over the course of a book.
It sounds like the newer APs are easier, though, so hopefully Paizo has already realized this.
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Right, the APs often don't say anything about creatures not sitting in their room waiting to die...
What does that have to do with what you would assume as a new player delving into your first dungeon? The players aren't generally reading the AP, and if the logical time pressure exists in their minds, then it affects their actions.
I don't agree that there is such a logical time pressure. Pen and Paper worlds are very gamey. Everything can be a dice roll after all and the reasoning for a PC's central role in a plot is often very weak.
Focus points take 10 minutes to regain and often are core class features so why wouldn't you take 10 minute breaks between combat and why wouldn't the adventures usually grant you these 10 minutes.A gamey logic just makes more sense to me.
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If they didn't convert a large chunk of PF1 stalwarts to PF2, there wasn't going to be a need for the Beginner Box or any other entry-level material.
To be honest, I'm not sure if the crippling difficulty of FoP did a good job at this either, since PF1 was a very "power fantasey" game, and you could see a ton of 1E converts playing FoP and giving up on 2E because "PCs are too weak and fail at everything".
I expect APs to be written for hard-core gamers. There's plenty of other material if you aren't that committed.
By "plenty other material" you mean the one adventure in the Beginner Box, a gimmicky one-shot where everyone's Kobolds and the Pathfinder Society scenarios that are bately advertised and most newbies don't even know exist? Cause the only other non-AP modules are Fall of Plaguestone and The Slithering, and those manage to be even harder than the APs.
And sorry, but it does sound kind of elitist to me to say that only hardcore gamers are going to play adventures with a heavy time commitment. I played 3-year long campaigns with people that are very casual as far as mechanics go.
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It is much much easier to adjust down than it is to adjust up.
I don't think this is really true.
I mean, you can slap a Weak or Elite template on anything. You can add more minions to any encounter with minions, or remove some minions. Seems symmetric so far.
But as dmerceless pointed out, the GMs who are least skilled and confident in making changes are the ones that need the lowering.
And it's often somewhat trickier things that need re-toning, like a bad guy with particularly good terrain, for example climbing or squeezing obstacles that separate party members and leave melee characters isolated from healing backup. Or a boss with a tricky action economy advantage such as debuffing the whole party at once that takes some GM skill to really understand the ramifications of.
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A lot of Dungeons in APs are places where the creatures inside are allies. It takes a pretty significant amount if methane thinking to assume that they'll never move around, find their allies dead and react. "No time pressure" isn't a natural assumption. So the length of those dungeons adding to a meatgrinder effect on new players, like Dmerceless was talking about at the start of this, is very much a factor.
Yeah this really irks me. It's very anti-immersive.
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Really a lot of the problem with the current APs stems from the ridiculous number of encounters per day they put you through at low levels.
AoA, AoE and ExC book 1 and 2 have adventuring days with 8+ encounters in them, which are guaranteed to grind you down... then they top it off with a severe/extreme boss at the end. Why?
When pressed about this topic in a discussion roughly last year, eventually the writers said that it was always their idea that it should be up to individual GMs to pick the adventure pace that was right for their groups. Sounds a bit like a weak excuse to me. If this "make it your own to make it work" was always the intention, perhaps we should also have GM's guides to APs with that kind of information in it, similar to having a player's guide to the AP that tells what kind of character would work well in it.
I find it a bit hard to believe, compared to PFS which is much clearer and more balanced in its adventure pacing.
As the content that is most easily accessible to people who are new to the game, shouldn't published adventures be playable and fun your average group who picked up the game somewhat recently? Instead, they're filled with very level+ boss fights, even at low levels; sequences of a bajillion encounters that you need extremely tight resource management to even have a chance; and a very scary amount of deathtraps and similar things.
I thought that this was the case with the Pathfinder 1st Edition adventure paths. I had to regularly raise the CR of encounters by +2 because the players had mastered teamwork and were twice as effective as the optimized builds discussed in the forums.
Then in Trail of the Hunted, 1st module in my Ironfang Invasion campaign converted to PF2, they went off the map to investigate the garrison at an Ironfang Legion roadblock. I set it up twice as powerful as them, 300 xp, so that they would scout and leave. Instead, they invented an ambush plan, lured 40 xp of the forces into the ambush, and then fought the remaining 260 xp in open combat. They used tactics, terrain, and teamwork. They won.
I conclude that teamwork is just as powerful in PF2 as in PF1.
Remember that adventure difficulty heavily depends on the GM and his specific style of gamemastering. Imagine a GM giving away information freely, leisurely and without you as a player having to go out of your way for even tiny scraps of information versus an environment where you always have to stumble in blindly and have to learn everything the hard way? Big difference.
I don't give the PCs that information for free, except that I am generous on Recall Knowledge checks. My players work for their advance information. They talk to NPCs, they scout ahead, they read up in dusty libraries about old legends. They earn their information. And then they apply it tactically.
Having said so to me (as a player) it looks like there was not enough guidance provided to the adventure designers and/or new or old GMs on how the new meta really works and how to adjust difficulty accordingly, probably because at the time of writing the core rule books and first couple APs this was not known extensively. And this is in addition to the players having to learn or adjust to the new meta too.
Yes, the meta changed. Building for maximized numbers was nerfed in PF2. Going toe-to-toe against a monster of the same level gives the monster an advantage because the ones in the Bestiary typically have higher attack bonuses and more damage dice. However, teamwork was not nerfed at all. And adaptive tactics, where the party figures out how to exploit an opponent's weakness or nullify the opponent's strongest attack, are easier to implement in PF2. For example, in my game two rogues had trouble hitting the enemy barbarian with Deny Advantage preventing flat-footedness from flanking. So the ranger tripped the barbarian and the rogues gained their sneak attack again due to flat-footedness from prone condition. The ranger wielded a +1 kukri as a found weapon and was trained in Athletics. In PF1 the ranger would have needed Combat Expertise and Improved Trip.
The PF1 meta of bigger numbers is obvious. Gameplay essentially teaches it: "I hit on a 25 and missed on a 24. Next time we are in town, I will trade in my +1 sword for a +2 sword." The PF2 meta of adaptive tactics is subtle. The countermeasures require thought: "This monster breathes a cone of fire that hit our entire front line and the vulnerable wizard behind them. That's not fair." The tactic of surrounding it so that it can breath on only one person at a time is not obvious, unless the rogue already moved into flanking position and escaped the first breath attack.
The early encounters in the adventure paths should be built to teach about vulnerabilities. Have the Icicle Snake (weakness cold 5) attack the party in a corridor lit by torches in sconces. Let the party outrun a pair of snapping turtles.
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Who's the most likely to need adjusting an adventure down in difficulty? New GMs with new players that have a very crude understanding of running the game, character buildings and tactics. They probably don't know how to and/or are afraid of f#$@ing something up if they try to adjust difficulty, and might not even realize something's wrong before they get frustrated with the game and quit. Or worse, think something's wrong with them. These really aren't the people I want to put the burden of change on.
That is the reason I said I believe the beginner box should have launched with the system and been packaged with the otari module. I recognise the value.
I don't believe AoA or Plaguestone should have released in the states that they did, let alone the abomination that is Torment and Legacy.
Extinction Curse and Agents of Edgewatch aren't punishing adventures from what I have run. But they would have been better served with a good onramp.
Compare this lineup
Little Trouble in Big Absalom -> Beginner Box/Trouble in Otari -> Abomination VAults
To the launch lineup
Torment and Legacy -> Plaguestone -> Age of Ashes
It would be nice if the past were difference but given that both Trouble in Otari and Abomination Vaults are marketed in the beginners box I see a good place for new GMs to start.
Having too many easy APs is just as problematic as having too many hard APs.
I don't think this is really true.
I mean, you can slap a Weak or Elite template on anything. You can add more minions to any encounter with minions, or remove some minions. Seems symmetric so far.
But as dmerceless pointed out, the GMs who are least skilled and confident in making changes are the ones that need the lowering.
And it's often somewhat trickier things that need re-toning, like a bad guy with particularly good terrain, for example climbing or squeezing obstacles that separate party members and leave melee characters isolated from healing backup. Or a boss with a tricky action economy advantage such as debuffing the whole party at once that takes some GM skill to really understand the ramifications of.
Weak templates feel better at a table for players than elite templates imo, both share the same issues when it comes to balance (especially at low levels) but elite is far more noticable as it detrimentally impacts the player experience.
Given that low level creature path is already adjusted up this makes it a poor choice for the first couple of levels. Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating Paizo releasing lots of hard adventures, just saying that Paizo seems to be targeting moderate difficulty ones going by Extinction Curse and Agents of Edgewatch.What I often suggest to people who want to play an easier game is start at level 2-3 and use the milestone leveling. Doing this in reverse doesn't really work, not just because you start at level 1 but also because the game expects certain abilities/options/items to be around by specific levels. This further increases the difficulty beyond the drop in stats, health and damage.
IMO, even for a new GM it is easier to adjust a prewritten PF2e game to be easier. Even down to simply not playing creatures tactically on purpose (it is easier to self sabotage with bad combat actions).
Give some advice, a disclaimer at the start of APs and get new GMs playing via the beginner box first while they learn the ropes and it isn't as big of a problem.
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I think the APs should be hard and the modules should vary (w/ transparency on the intended difficulty).
The market for APs skews toward veterans who can tune difficulty better, while dabblers can pick up modules to taste. And PFS adventures should be marketed better toward those on the fringes of Paizo culture because those are the basic "go be heroic with little worries" adventures.
This would also help Paizo cater to the spectrum of tastes, from easy to difficult. Thing is, I don't find difficult difficult, but rather as the norm for RPGs (and have run across much more difficult scenarios). On the other hand, I've had players who can't handle setbacks, not at all. They want a stressless game full of victories with little adversity. (Which is fine, but IMO boring.)
A code marking adversity level would be good for products.
And sidebar advice too. One bit I'll toss out there is rather than having the GM make all sorts of adjustment or adding/subtracting levels to PCs (which messes with ability access in some cases) maybe try applying the elite templates to the PCs (which also helps at level 20 where there's no extra level to give). Or add the weak template because wow, that'd be an achievement!
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Not actually sure i buy the assumption there. Seen too many people pop onto Discord channels saying things along the lines of "After spending some time reading the CRB, I'm excited to start running my first game with [Age of Ashes/Extinction Curse/Agents of Edgewatch] Book 1."
I think a lot of people wanting to start running a TTRPG are thinking Big Story and are going to look at the APs immediately, not just smaller modules. Eapecially because they haven't had the struggle of trying to keep a group working logistically for the length of a 1-20 campaign, yet.
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Not actually sure i buy the assumption there. Seen too many people pop onto Discord channels saying things along the lines of "After spending some time reading the CRB, I'm excited to start running my first game with [Age of Ashes/Extinction Curse/Agents of Edgewatch] Book 1."
I think a lot of people wanting to start running a TTRPG are thinking Big Story and are going to look at the APs immediately, not just smaller modules. Eapecially because they haven't had the struggle of trying to keep a group working logistically for the length of a 1-20 campaign, yet.
Yeah, I've played with and talked to a very substatntial amount of new people who started out playing Adventure Paths. I don't think they're exclusive to veterans at all; new players, especially new to TTRPGs in general, seem to be very attracted by the idea of an epic, long-running campaign, as far as my experience goes.
I don't think anybody said APs were exclusively for veterans, rather that veterans make up the bulk of AP customers (and likely nearly all of the subscribers). What % are veterans and what % of those want different difficulty levels, who knows? (Hopefully Paizo!)
For newer players, there should be advice (a GM's Guide as someone suggested above) w/ simple tools. And there should be immersive module options, i.e. Dragon's Demand, where there does feel like a long arc, yet it's also easy (maybe two tough fights? and hard to screw up the plot).
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If joining two encounters doesn't make the resulting fight very dangerous, it means that the two combats taken one at a time are rather easy. Many people will then complain that there's no challenge, that the encounters are meaningless and boring and should rather be cut to go straight to the 'interesting' ones.
It's hard to find the right balance, because everyone likes a different thing.
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I would find great value, in any adventure, scenario or AP in :
- a sidebar explaining which encounters can be combined and which should not, with IC plausible reasons.
- a sidebar explaining the expected timing (ie which are the racing the clock parts and which are explore at your leisure).
Reading this thread, I realize that PFS scenarios usually aim at rather new GMs (even if they can be GMed by veterans obviously), while APs usually aim at veteran GMs.
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I think the best thing would be for APs to lean a bit towards the easy side but market it as "normal" difficulty, and then have some sidebars explaining how to lift it to "hard mode".
As opposed to the current situation, where they're decidedly harder than is beginner-friendly and if you complain you were told that you should have known that you should adapt them and that you should have known how.
Pathfinder 2.
When a GM or DM might intuitively feel "sure adding a couple of retreating mobs will turn a moderate encounter into an exciting tense game" the reality of PF2 encounter math is that it will likely turn that moderate encounter into a bloodbath.
This becomes trivial if I explain with numbers:
While adding a moderate encounter to another moderate encounter is inituitively expected to become a "slightly harder than moderate, right?" it in actual reality becomes an Extreme encounter (80+80=160 XP) in Pathfinder 2.
But does it happen every time that a full 80XP moderate encounter retreating mob joins with another full 80 XP moderate encounter? Why didn't the party wittle down that 80XP before it fled? (80-60=20+80=100 XP)
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If joining two encounters doesn't make the resulting fight very dangerous, it means that the two combats taken one at a time are rather easy. Many people will then complain that there's no challenge, that the encounters are meaningless and boring and should rather be cut to go straight to the 'interesting' ones.
It's hard to find the right balance, because everyone likes a different thing.WOOSH is the sound of the point flying over your head if that's your takeaway.
Fights in 3E and indeed almost every fantasy games aren't always on a razor's edge. PF2 is very much oriented towards only fights with real danger.
Joining two encounters were a trivial thing before, but aren't in Pathfinder 2.
When a GM or DM might intuitively feel "sure adding a couple of retreating mobs will turn a moderate encounter into an exciting tense game" the reality of PF2 encounter math is that it will likely turn that moderate encounter into a bloodbath.
This becomes trivial if I explain with numbers:
While adding a moderate encounter to another moderate encounter is inituitively expected to become a "slightly harder than moderate, right?" it in actual reality becomes an Extreme encounter (80+80=160 XP) in Pathfinder 2.
This is a real problem, and Megistone's response is actually quite instructive in showcasing how this phenomenon is downplayed or outright dismissed.
I'm sorry, but your numbers are off.
If you join two encounters and put them on the players all at once, yes, you are right. But if you allow one enemy to run away and come back with reinforcement, it is not an Extreme encounter. I got one such fight recently, a Severe encounter with a Moderate encounter next door who hears the fight and come. The resulting fight has been nowhere close to a 200xp fight as the second encounter arrived late. It took one round for the first enemy to come, and 3 rounds for the real big baddy of the moderate encounter to arrive. So, obviously, a Severe encounter is already quite hard, if you add 2 enemies, it makes a real hard encounter even if they come up late. But it doesn't make an overwhelming encounter at all.If you delay the second encounter by one round (rolling initiative at round 2, to represent the fact that the second encounter enemies won't react immediately) and if it takes 1 round for the enemies of the second encounter to join the fight (as they are not in the same room), then you make at most a Severe encounter out of 2 Moderate ones. I even think you can chain Moderate encounters that way, adding a new Moderate encounter every 2 rounds, and I'm pretty sure a group of characters is able to handle that without much issue (it takes roughly 2 rounds to dispatch a Moderate encounter) as long as your monsters are not playing defensive while waiting for the reinforcements. Just try it once, you'll see it's not that frightening.
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If joining two encounters doesn't make the resulting fight very dangerous, it means that the two combats taken one at a time are rather easy. Many people will then complain that there's no challenge, that the encounters are meaningless and boring and should rather be cut to go straight to the 'interesting' ones.
It's hard to find the right balance, because everyone likes a different thing.WOOSH is the sound of the point flying over your head if that's your takeaway.
Fights in 3E and indeed almost every fantasy games aren't always on a razor's edge. PF2 is very much oriented towards only fights with real danger.
Joining two encounters were a trivial thing before, but aren't in Pathfinder 2.
When a GM or DM might intuitively feel "sure adding a couple of retreating mobs will turn a moderate encounter into an exciting tense game" the reality of PF2 encounter math is that it will likely turn that moderate encounter into a bloodbath.
This becomes trivial if I explain with numbers:
While adding a moderate encounter to another moderate encounter is inituitively expected to become a "slightly harder than moderate, right?" it in actual reality becomes an Extreme encounter (80+80=160 XP) in Pathfinder 2.
This is a real problem, and Megistone's response is actually quite instructive in showcasing how this phenomenon is downplayed or outright dismissed.
I'm sorry, but your numbers are off.
If you join two encounters and put them on the players all at once, yes, you are right. But if you allow one enemy to run away and come back with reinforcement, it is not an Extreme encounter. I got one such fight recently, a Severe encounter with a Moderate encounter next door who hears the fight and come. The resulting fight has been nowhere close to a 200xp fight as the second encounter arrived late. It took one round for the first enemy to come, and 3 rounds for the real big baddy of the moderate encounter to arrive. So, obviously, a Severe encounter...
I do this a lot as a GM. Maybe I qualify as a more experienced GM, but all of us are pretty new to PF2 and the secret to making it work and not turning it into a blood bath is to have Character motivations more interesting than "murder everyone" for NPCs and to keep those characters honest to their motivations. Most bandits are not fiercely loyal and willing to fight to the death for nothing. Even if it looks like they could win the fight overall, individually intelligent "mook" very rarely should intend to be the first one cut down while their boss regroups and assembles reinforcements. Occasionally, they may get cocky and overestimate what they can do against the party, but monsters that only want to attack and kill everyone, as quickly as possible, are incredibly boring. Abomination Vaults is really really good for having complex and interesting motivations for monsters, even "throw away mooks." I think that this is an area where adventure writers are improving and will continue to improve in the future.
No it doesn't happen every time.Your point is...?
That if it doesn't happen every time then
While adding a moderate encounter to another moderate encounter is inituitively expected to become a "slightly harder than moderate, right?" it in actual reality becomes an Extreme encounter (80+80=160 XP) in Pathfinder 2.
isn't always going to occur
So that
When a GM or DM might intuitively feel "sure adding a couple of retreating mobs will turn a moderate encounter into an exciting tense game" the reality of PF2 encounter math is that it will likely turn that moderate encounter into a bloodbath.
it isn't always likely to turn into a bloodbath
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But does it happen every time that a full 80XP moderate encounter retreating mob joins with another full 80 XP moderate encounter? Why didn't the party wittle down that 80XP before it fled? (80-60=20+80=100 XP)No it doesn't happen every time.
Your point is...?
Chill, Zapp. It feels like I'm watching religions duke it out (or denominations, since we're all fans of PF2, aren't we?)
Some people find Paizo low-level play "normal" BTW, much like how in the playtest some groups got TPKed by encounters that others ran over.Different strokes and such.
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If a mob retreats before losing any creatures, either the encounters are meant to be linked or something odd is happening (likely on the GM's side, but maybe the party has instilled that degree of fear in enemies).
I'm going to guess his point is either that mobs seldom retreat intact, so the simple 80+80 doesn't usually apply. It's more like 80-X+80 where X is the fatality threshold before retreating (and those that retreat are typically wounded too or have spent resources).
OR that 80 XP then 80 XP plays different than 160 XP faced all at once. And it does, usually to the benefit of players (though not always, i.e. Barbarian's Rage might expire or that devastating AoE will catch fewer enemies).
That said, I think the concept of chaining encounters is separate from AP difficulty (which seem not only to not chain encounters, but to rest between them). And the newer APs, I've heard, have done solid job addressing this with sidebars to help GMs decide when or when not to do this.
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It isn't always likely to turn into a bloodbath
Well, to be fair, things only need to turn into a bloodbath once to potentially ruin a campaign. Which is why I think conditional stuff like "most monsters are dumb" or "not all monsters fight to death" are not good solutions/excuses for the baseline difficulty being unfriendly.
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The difficulty of APs, especially new ones is not unfriendly. It “appears unfriendly” to GMs accustom to past systems where level of PCs did not balance with enemy levels.
I agree that there is a problem with communication between the adventure writers and GMs, but a lot of GMs are coming in with their own ideas anyway and not reading adventures that carefully. Which isn’t really that big of deal unless it becomes a big deal because GMs are resorting to “I’m just running this by the book” in response to , “my players are feeling overwhelmed and not having fun.”
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I think the best thing would be for APs to lean a bit towards the easy side but market it as "normal" difficulty, and then have some sidebars explaining how to lift it to "hard mode".
As opposed to the current situation, where they're decidedly harder than is beginner-friendly and if you complain you were told that you should have known that you should adapt them and that you should have known how.
So you are saying that adventure difficulty should be based around GMs without experience as the baseline?
I believe a middle ground where there was a product line clearly labeled for new/learning GMs could help. Maybe "beginner box compatible" would be good.
But I want to draw attention again that Extinction Curse and Agents of Edgewatch don't seem to have Age of Ashes style encounter spikes (unless the GM skips reading encounter text, and even then nothing as dangerous as that Grikitog, Greater Barghest or Clay Golem).
My EC game had half the party (of full casters) be brand new to the game, and nobody was playing an optimal build. My AoE game had 3/4 players be new to the game, and one player was playing what could be considered an optimal build... incredibly suboptimally. Just the first book of both but reading up to book 3 of both campaigns and skimming the rest I don't see that many issues going forwards if I were to return to either introductory games, PF2e gets easier as you gain levels.
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So you are saying that adventure difficulty should be based around GMs without experience as the baseline?
That sounds pretty great, honestly...? I'm willing to put on the extra work to make adventures harder if I have to, if that means new people can get into the game and get a campaign going and fun easily.
But I want to draw attention again that Extinction Curse and Agents of Edgewatch don't seem to have Age of Ashes style encounter spikes (unless the GM skips reading encounter text, and even then nothing as dangerous as that Grikitog, Greater Barghest or Clay Golem).
I've heard as many horror stories about early game wipes and grueling difficulty on Extinction Curse as I have heard (and experienced) on Age of Ashes. Especially with a couple of early level+ bosses that can easily one shot PCs. And a couple of high level Hazards that are absurdly overtuned (yeah, especially those... very reflective ones, to be spoiler-free). Agents of Edgewatch I've only read, and a certain series of encounters involving animals early on seems super brutal. The one group I know that played it confirmed that it was, indeed.
The Slithering is just a broken mess in so many aspects that even the pregens barely work on that adventure, so not much to say about it.
I think the best thing would be for APs to lean a bit towards the easy side but market it as "normal" difficulty, and then have some sidebars explaining how to lift it to "hard mode".
As opposed to the current situation, where they're decidedly harder than is beginner-friendly and if you complain you were told that you should have known that you should adapt them and that you should have known how.
So you are saying that adventure difficulty should be based around GMs without experience as the baseline?
I believe a middle ground where there was a product line clearly labeled for new/learning GMs could help. Maybe "beginner box compatible" would be good.
But I want to draw attention again that Extinction Curse and Agents of Edgewatch don't seem to have Age of Ashes style encounter spikes (unless the GM skips reading encounter text, and even then nothing as dangerous as that Grikitog, Greater Barghest or Clay Golem).
My EC game had half the party (of full casters) be brand new to the game, and nobody was playing an optimal build. My AoE game had 3/4 players be new to the game, and one player was playing what could be considered an optimal build... incredibly suboptimally. Just the first book of both but reading up to book 3 of both campaigns and skimming the rest I don't see that many issues going forwards if I were to return to either introductory games, PF2e gets easier as you gain levels.
Reading the text sometimes is an issue, no doubt.
One notorious TPK encounter in the playtest had:Creatures are working (so weapons not in hand), distracted (so they don't detect the party before the party detects them), and they rush the party (despite having excellent cover and ranged weapons).
Many complaints involved GMs that had the creatures ready for battle and peppering the PCs from cover.
Maybe intentionally poor tactics need highlighting? Dunno.
And yes, labels seem the best route, though I wonder how that'd work in practice. Beginner scenarios seem easy to implement, yet how does one define further differences (and w/o insulting anybody!)? I think everybody kinda wants to think they're overcoming a tough obstacle, even when it isn't. And different party builds of course have different experiences. Hmm.
My experience from level 12 to 16 in Age of Ashes has led me to the conclusion the fights with monsters from the Bestiary or humanoids are easy to moderate challenges. Every single creature that is homebrew punch WAY above their level. These creatures have at will abilities equal to nearly top level spells you can cast or better then any combination of class feats including capstones. If this trend is throughout the books and present in other APs then I think most GMs should compare the encounters with creatures in the Bestiary and see how things line up.
After my last brutal fight that I thought was going to be an easy TPK, I started thinking back and even with an all caster party at times, the only difficult fights were with custom creatures. Some regular monsters were tough, but I only ever thought we were going to TPK against these custom creatures. Has anyone else had similar experience?
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So you are saying that adventure difficulty should be based around GMs without experience as the baseline?That sounds pretty great, honestly...? I'm willing to put on the extra work to make adventures harder if I have to, if that means new people can get into the game and get a campaign going and fun easily.
But I want to draw attention again that Extinction Curse and Agents of Edgewatch don't seem to have Age of Ashes style encounter spikes (unless the GM skips reading encounter text, and even then nothing as dangerous as that Grikitog, Greater Barghest or Clay Golem).
I've heard as many horror stories about early game wipes and grueling difficulty on Extinction Curse as I have heard (and experienced) on Age of Ashes. Especially with a couple of early level+ bosses that can easily one shot PCs. And a couple of high level Hazards that are absurdly overtuned (yeah, especially those... very reflective ones, to be spoiler-free). Agents of Edgewatch I've only read, and a certain series of encounters involving animals early on seems super brutal. The one group I know that played it confirmed that it was, indeed.
The Slithering is just a broken mess in so many aspects that even the pregens barely work on that adventure, so not much to say about it.
I stopped playing PF1 a year before I heard there was a new system in development specifically because APs, while fun stories to read, were completely unplayable without having to do a ton of reworking of encounters, which was a lot of work in that system. PF2 is easier to adjust up and down, but at most it has been one encounter or grouping of encounters per book that I have GM'd or Played that were a difficult encounter, and only one of them really sneaks up on the party without any hint of it being an incredibly dangerous situation.
There is definitely a case of GMs playing monsters by the stat block instead of by the adventure description, and I wonder if the tendency to use pre-loaded modules in VTTs is making some GMs approach encounters without reading carefully about how they fit into the adventure or immediate plot. If your party is encountering every single encounter in an AP as a full combat encounter, and are getting hammered for doing so, it might be a good idea to talk to them about their expectations and think about either encouraging more interacting with NPCs (so many of the creatures in PF2 APs are capable of talking) or even just encouraging them to rest more often, AND ESPECIALLY RESEARCH what they are getting into.