As the title implies, I am currently running Ironfang Invasion for 6 players. Playing 15 pb with the optional rules for Unchained Skills, Hero Points, and Wound Thresholds.
My party consists of
1. Treesinger Druid
2. Cavalier who aspires to battle herald
3. Desnan Cleric (Luck/Travel)
4. Barbarian who aspires to Darechaser
5. Brawler
6. Sacred Huntmaster Inquisitor
Which as I'm sure you can tell, means that I basically actually have 8 players not 6 with the druid and the inquisitor being companion classes. This has kind of led to a small slew of problems so far even only 3 sessions deep.
1. Combat takes too long - Thus far I've been evening the odds by increasing enemy count. So far this has made combat still a challenge, but it has the downside of making rounds go so long that I've had players actually pass out while waiting on their turn. (doesn't help that we play late, but still)
2. Applying the Advanced Template makes monsters a bit too much to handle so far. This was the other method I've tried to make things a bit more of a match, but its turned combats into a long slog of constant near misses followed by the maiming of a PC who then retreats to be healed while the other 4 are able to defend the wounded and healer until they finally manage to take down the enemy.
3. Bosses. I haven't quite gotten to the point of boss fights yet. But when I do, I imagine the standard problem is going to be exacerbated quite a bit. That being action economy. Making an important enemy stay significant and intimidating is difficult to manage when they get 1 move per the party's 8 unless I buff them up to potentially unwinnable levels.
4. This one is rather unique to Ironfang I think. But the militia management is a lot bigger of a time sink than i think any of us expected. It being a big theme of the campaign I don't want to cut it. But ways to expedite it would be appreciated.
Here's some solutions I've been looking at and was hoping to get some advice on the viability of.
1. Troop Template. Ironfang does this one on its own, and even has quite a few in the books. Problem is I've never used them before, and was curious as to how balanced they really are. They put out quite a huge amount of unavoidable damage that makes me think they should probably be avoided until my PCs have a bit more HP on them.
2. Make Monsters Share initiative. Similar to the Troop idea, just make say X amount of hobgoblins act as a unit.
3. Stick to adding Templates or extra levels to the default enemies. Tried this one so far, and it seems to be a bit hard on the difficulty for my Players thus far.
4. Check which of my players have life insurance policies and go from there.
Post Book 1, I did away with "militia management". Have loadouts of role assignments pre-set to go and if more survivors are added to the group, assign them accordingly. Once they reach the Troglodyte Caves, they won't have to worry about keeping everyone alive anyways.
15 PB AND Wound Thresholds. The entire point of these two options are to slow your game down. Calculating your HP and appropriate penalties sounds rough, especially low level and you go from hale and hearty to CRITICAL CONDITION CANT DO ANYTHING.
Hero Points are likely too sparse to change anything and your players will likely want to save them for only crucial saving throws or when they're already on death's door(which Wound Thresholds mean they'll be likely to continue to be ineffectual).
Bosses should have minions. My group pulled the entire camp at the end of book 1 and 2. Through clever positioning and battlefield control spells like Entangle, they pushed through. They can also pick enemies off in the night too!
1.Troop Template is likely too much for Book 1/2 and they're used more liberally when the party can handle it in book 3.
2. Shared Initiative is very hit or miss. If all the enemies go at once, they can gun down 1 player before they have a chance to do something. Upside is yes, it does speed things up.
3. Advanced Template is your friend.
Rule of thumb for the future, for big parties, don't let people play animal companion classes/summoners or have them take the options that get rid of it.
15 PB AND Wound Thresholds. The entire point of these two options are to slow your game down. Calculating your HP and appropriate penalties sounds rough, especially low level and you go from hale and hearty to CRITICAL CONDITION CANT DO ANYTHING.
I dont see how 15pb makes the game slower. As for Wound Thresholds we are on R20 so it autocalculates everything.
I dont see how 15pb makes the game slower. As for Wound Thresholds we are on R20 so it autocalculates everything.
15 PB AND Wound Thresholds. The entire point of these two options are to slow your game down. Calculating your HP and appropriate penalties sounds rough, especially low level and you go from hale and hearty to CRITICAL CONDITION CANT DO ANYTHING.
Being more likely to fail means you either spend time to retry or especially with Wound Thresholds, you become more likely to fail. 15 PB means your party is less likely to succeed at any given task but especially their primary tasks than say a 20 PB or 25 PB group. Every +1 or -1 in play means that on average a -5 to +5% of success or failure which over the course of an adventure means a % duration increase or decrease in time spent.
Wound Thresholds as a system is intrinsically favoring the enemies since the party carries on their injuries and is expected to win. The party will likely go into combats injured still whereas the enemies won't be.
How many rounds is each combat taking?
I think Wound Thresholds were a good way to encourage the style of Ironfang as the hit and run guerilla warfare style AP.
As for combat round time its been wildly varied. If my party rolls above a 10 on dice they will just casually roll through and one shot every single enemy one by one. But they roll poorly so a fight against some spiders and an ettercap that ended up going for almost 2 hours because no one could roll above a 6 all night.
My party is plenty strong even on 15pb. They just roll like hot garbage and theres basically 8 of em. So each round ends up taking like 30ish minutes and fights for for several rounds.
I think Wound Thresholds were a good way to encourage the style of Ironfang as the hit and run guerilla warfare style AP.
Encourage or punish? Is the entire party decked out for stealth and all that? Keeping hidden with such a large party seems impractical. The problem is the party is always at a disadvantage with Wound Threshold. Every fight that starts where everyone is not at 75%+ is a disadvantage. Every fight where the enemy gets to go first is an even bigger disadvantage than normal. Since the PB is low as well, they may not even be able to capitalize on it. 6(8) is a lot of people to keep healthy and it's unlikely the divine casters can keep up for more than 1 or 2 encounters a day.
As for combat round time its been wildly varied. If my party rolls above a 10 on dice they will just casually roll through and one shot every single enemy one by one. But they roll poorly so a fight against some spiders and an ettercap that ended up going for almost 2 hours because no one could roll above a 6 all night.My party is plenty strong even on 15pb. They just roll like hot garbage and theres basically 8 of em. So each round ends up taking like 30ish minutes and fights for for several rounds.
Sounds like you're still early in, so one shotting enemies is a feature of low levels not so much a problem. My concern is what we define "rolling poorly". If they're seriously not rolling better than a 6 for 2 hours, do a mass /roll 20d20 to see if that helps. If they're missing on an average roll of 10 or better then that's Wound Threshold/PB working against you.
The animal companions are likely better combatants than most of the party in the early levels and quite possibly later on too because 15 PB if they are any of the really good ones like the Grizzly Bear or Large Cat options.
Aside from all that, as just a general play tip, if encounters are going more than 4 rounds, that's usually indicative of some kind of problem. Make sure your players aren't deciding what to do once their turn comes up. They should know already what to do so turns should just be execution/dice rolling.
Yeah they are level 2 currently. Brawler, Barbarian, and the companions are damn strong. Just bad rolls. The cavalier is an aid another build and can basically guarantee a hit with his aid. I dont think buffing the PCs to a higher PB is the answer when the main problem I need to deal with is making sure the campaign isnt made into a cakewalk for them off of action economy alone.
As for encourage or punish? I'd say encourage. Its a campaign with heavy guerilla warfare elements. It encourages them to plan ahead and use tactics that arent just "run in and bash". Most of our combats have ended up being a drag. But some of them they have done flawlessly. Pulling off a 1 round victory against any fight in which they have a numbers advantage instead of being outnumbered. I find it an interesting mechanic that helps represent that they are the underdogs fighting and running vs this established force in the form of a trained professional army. Yeah the enemy is always going to be freshed while the heroes might not be, but the enemy can afford to send wounded soldiers back to recover. The heroes dont exactly have that luxury. So they have to pick their battles accordingly.
You should only apply the advanced template to named mobs. Let fodder be fodder. If the AP gives you a named monster that already has the advanced template, then throw another template on there, like giant. If bosses are dying too fast, then double their hit points, but it sounds like bosses dying too fast is not your problem at this stage.
I'll agree with 15 point buy slowing down combats, but it's really too late to do anything about that now. In addition to the previously mentioned problems with 15 point buy, it also encourages playstyles that lead to longer combats, like relying on pets and summons with their independent stats.
At the most extreme, you may want to add a turn clock to the game, if you have a couple of players who are taking too long with their turns. The character and pet should share the same turn timer. Pet based characters can be particularly slow, and in your situation you need to make sure they don't take too much time compared to other players.
Rule of thumb for the future, for big parties, don't let people play animal companion classes/summoners or have them take the options that get rid of it.
Yeah, I wish I'd thought of this before starting my Ruins of Azlant game. Same situation, 6 players with two animals. I find the animals a real hassle. They're great for low player count games, but they're really annoying in this situation.
Same situation, 6 players with two animals. I find the animals a real hassle.
Would the players accept trading them for something else? Last campaign I offered the samurai player to trade his mount for armor training I, and he accepted. Outside of combat he was still able to use it, I guess that sweetened the deal. Finally he liked the idea that the horse wouldn't be targeted in combat anymore.
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Would the players accept trading them for something else?
Yeah, they probably would. However, I think I'll stick with it for the time being. It was my mistake not thinking of it beforehand. If it becomes unbearable, I'll ask them to switch them out. Lesson learnt for the next game I run, though.
Haven't really had many players keen on pet classes before this game so never gave it much thought.