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I don't think that there really is any TTRPG where I'd recommend running it straight from the page with no deviation. That's sort of rule zero in every game. That said, for new GMs, the Beginner Box and the Trouble in Otari module are fantastic introductions to GMing as well as being very hand-holding for learners.
I'm gunna have to disagree here. Paizo chooses to produce their APs in such a way that makes play testing them difficult at best. But that is not the only way that it's done.
My personal expectation, that I have brought from playing almost 2 decades of 3.5, is that official modules ought to be playable right out of the box. I think it's reasonable for DMs to familiarize themselves with the module, but I don't think it's reasonable for them to figure out if it's balanced or will play well.
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I don't think that there really is any TTRPG where I'd recommend running it straight from the page with no deviation. That's sort of rule zero in every game. That said, for new GMs, the Beginner Box and the Trouble in Otari module are fantastic introductions to GMing as well as being very hand-holding for learners.I'm gunna have to disagree here. Paizo chooses to produce their APs in such a way that makes play testing them difficult at best. But that is not the only way that it's done.
My personal expectation, that I have brought from playing almost 2 decades of 3.5, is that official modules ought to be playable right out of the box. I think it's reasonable for DMs to familiarize themselves with the module, but I don't think it's reasonable for them to figure out if it's balanced or will play well.
Only GMs actually know what PCs are in the party and what their abilities are though.
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Correct, this game assumes you have a well-versed GM at all times. APs should not be viewed as an "out of the box" adventure that beginning GMs run. They are story ideas and nothing more. That is the problem with Society play since it assumes that all scenarios and APs are out of the box readyI mean, if APs aren't meant to be out of the box things new GMs can run, then what should fill that role? Homebrew adventures? It's hard to come up with one when you barely know what you're doing. Mind, I don't disagree that this is the current situation. It is. But I don't think it should be. It's like if BMX bikes had training wheels but kids bikes didn't.I don't think that there really is any TTRPG where I'd recommend running it straight from the page with no deviation. That's sort of rule zero in every game. That said, for new GMs, the Beginner Box and the Trouble in Otari module are fantastic introductions to GMing as well as being very hand-holding for learners.
Edit: The things that many posters are noting here aren't "secret advanced GM tricks" that are discussed in back alleys. You can find this sort of advice in the Core Rulebook. While I don't advocate for everyone to read every page of the rules, I would hope that GMs would at least read the Gamemastery chapter.
Because as we know, there are no new GMs, no GM variation. All GMs spring forty from the earth with a good grasp of when to go easy on the party and when not to and only grow from there. They all have an implicit grasp of the proper way to keep the party having fun, none have even a bit of us vs the players mentality, even subconsciously, and they always have the game mastery chapter in the back of the mind even when having to juggle a boatload of story things, a really complicated monster fight, all the player abilities, and real life drama.
(End sarcasm)
Also, not for nothing, but no, we DID NOT decide that it was not the fault of the CR system and it was all dice and the tactics. YOU did. Several people have agreed that many monsters don’t scale well, especially at low level where PCs have very limited resources. At level 4 a caster PC is expected to have 6 spells (8 for a sorcerer) plus their cantrips, and martials should have a +1 striking weapon. At level 2? 3 spells and no striking weapon, that is literally half the resources, damage potential, and, ALMOST half the hit points (racial hit points being the reason for almost, so I guess roughly around 3/5ths the HP depending on race/class?). Heck, for casters that is MORE than half the resources because a level 2 spell is more powerful than a level 1 spell.
If, IF we had been level 4, bard could have cast Inner radiance torrent from outside the barn for 8d4 x1.5 damage against the swarm and it would have been all over. But we didn’t have that option because we didn’t have access to those resources because we were broke and level 2. Some monsters don’t scale well at low levels, and I don’t see why that is so hard to accept.
But then it would have been a Trivial encounter.
I accept that some monsters do not scale so well, but your GM's decisions and your party's tactics made the encounter definitely more difficult than it could have been. So I do not consider this as sufficient basis to just throw away this kind of encounters.
And we have been given several examples of play with parties that did not have that kind of difficulty with this specific encounter.
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I don't use the Adventure Paths (I may part them out, though), and mostly run my own modules. What I've found is that it's best to stick to the CL-4 to CL+2 range and I don't even both with CL+3 or CL+4 unless it's established as a "campaign ending threat" in terms of the story. If I use something CL-4 those can be just as much a nuisance, and anything that for story purposes needs to be there but is CL-5 or greater they either just run or I simply ask my players to describe how horribly they decimate them and don't even bother going in to combat.
I get the OP's point though, and the fine-tuning of the numbers in PF2E mean that I need to stick hard to the "safe range" of the challenge levels or things get too wonky. Also, for the most enjoyment it works best when combats fall between CL-2 and CL+1, anything outside of that window is either trivial or brutal, and needs to have a useful reason for me to subject the players to it.
Worth noting that my players are (for the most part) not hardcore optimizers, so I have to plan accordingly. If I run an encounter like it's intended for tactically focused optimizers, the group will almost certainly go down in flames.
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My personal expectation, that I have brought from playing almost 2 decades of 3.5, is that official modules ought to be playable right out of the box. I think it's reasonable for DMs to familiarize themselves with the module, but I don't think it's reasonable for them to figure out if it's balanced or will play well.
Sorry to be blunt, but my personal expectation, that I have brought from playing almost 2 decades of 3.5 and Pathfinder and other TTRPGs, is for GMs to work a bit more than just "familiarize themselves with the module" and "play right out of the box".
You can't use the "adventure as written" as an excuse. It's your choice, as a GM, to run it as is. And expecting an adventure to fit any group, any GM and any party composition is a dream.
I don't mean that we (GMs) don't make mistakes. But it's on us. Blaming the adventure or the need for system mastery don't help at improving our GMing skills.
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I think there are plenty of problems in AP encounter design, especially the early ones. I've pointed them out myself, and it has been acknowledged by Paizo staff even within this
I just don't really see the Wasp Swarm as being an example of it, or something that scales badly or whatever. My players had a much tougher time with last set piece in that chapter, which features two extreme encounters so close together it strains plausibility they don't cascade into each other.
That set piece features a monster with +14 to hit and 3d6+4 damage. THAT thing felt stronger than it should be. That's a 30% chance to crit even an optimal non-heavy AC, which will one shot most d8 classes. And it has back up and will actually attack on sight and probably pursue to the death. It doesn't deal persistent damage, so the wasps are more likely to kill someone they knock out... But level+2 monsters are just dangerous.
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I think there are plenty of problems in AP encounter design, especially the early ones. I've pointed them out myself, and it has been acknowledged by Paizo staff even within this
I just don't really see the Wasp Swarm as being an example of it, or something that scales badly or whatever. My players had a much tougher time with last set piece in that chapter, which features two extreme encounters so close together it strains plausibility they don't cascade into each other.
That set piece features a monster with +14 to hit and 3d6+4 damage. THAT thing felt stronger than it should be. That's a 30% chance to crit even an optimal non-heavy AC, which will one shot most d8 classes. And it has back up and will actually attack on sight and probably pursue to the death. It doesn't deal persistent damage, so the wasps are more likely to kill someone they knock out... But level+2 monsters are just dangerous.
1) Please no spoilers, I haven’t finished book 1
2) So the Wasp swarm has resist physical 7 (slashing 3), effectively no MAP, is immune to precision damage, demoralizing, etc, and if you fail both saves you take 2d8 piercing+2d6 poison damage (one right away, one when when persistent comes up) It can hit multiple people up to 15 feet away in one action and can move through player spaces without a roll so you cannot roadblock it with your Paladin with a tower shield. I haven’t fought the final boss of book 1 but the wasp swarm sounds worse and you fight it at level 2.
Not to mention the boss is a boss. He’s supposed to be tough. The wasp swarm is just a random bit of fluff in the town. It isn’t up to anything malicious, just making it harder for the town to get bread.
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I think there are plenty of problems in AP encounter design, especially the early ones. I've pointed them out myself, and it has been acknowledged by Paizo staff even within this
I just don't really see the Wasp Swarm as being an example of it, or something that scales badly or whatever. My players had a much tougher time with last set piece in that chapter, which features two extreme encounters so close together it strains plausibility they don't cascade into each other.
That set piece features a monster with +14 to hit and 3d6+4 damage. THAT thing felt stronger than it should be. That's a 30% chance to crit even an optimal non-heavy AC, which will one shot most d8 classes. And it has back up and will actually attack on sight and probably pursue to the death. It doesn't deal persistent damage, so the wasps are more likely to kill someone they knock out... But level+2 monsters are just dangerous.
1) Please no spoilers, I haven’t finished book 1
2) So the Wasp swarm has resist physical 7 (slashing 3), effectively no MAP, is immune to precision damage, demoralizing, etc, and if you fail both saves you take 2d8 piercing+2d6 poison damage (one right away, one when when persistent comes up) It can hit multiple people up to 15 feet away in one action and can move through player spaces without a roll so you cannot roadblock it with your Paladin with a tower shield. I haven’t fought the final boss of book 1 but the wasp swarm sounds worse and you fight it at level 2.
Not to mention the boss is a boss. He’s supposed to be tough. The wasp swarm is just a random bit of fluff in the town. It isn’t up to anything malicious, just making it harder for the town to get bread.
You forgot to mention really low HPs and rather common weaknesses.
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You forgot to mention really low HPs and rather common weaknesses.I think there are plenty of problems in AP encounter design, especially the early ones. I've pointed them out myself, and it has been acknowledged by Paizo staff even within this
I just don't really see the Wasp Swarm as being an example of it, or something that scales badly or whatever. My players had a much tougher time with last set piece in that chapter, which features two extreme encounters so close together it strains plausibility they don't cascade into each other.
That set piece features a monster with +14 to hit and 3d6+4 damage. THAT thing felt stronger than it should be. That's a 30% chance to crit even an optimal non-heavy AC, which will one shot most d8 classes. And it has back up and will actually attack on sight and probably pursue to the death. It doesn't deal persistent damage, so the wasps are more likely to kill someone they knock out... But level+2 monsters are just dangerous.
1) Please no spoilers, I haven’t finished book 1
2) So the Wasp swarm has resist physical 7 (slashing 3), effectively no MAP, is immune to precision damage, demoralizing, etc, and if you fail both saves you take 2d8 piercing+2d6 poison damage (one right away, one when when persistent comes up) It can hit multiple people up to 15 feet away in one action and can move through player spaces without a roll so you cannot roadblock it with your Paladin with a tower shield. I haven’t fought the final boss of book 1 but the wasp swarm sounds worse and you fight it at level 2.
Not to mention the boss is a boss. He’s supposed to be tough. The wasp swarm is just a random bit of fluff in the town. It isn’t up to anything malicious, just making it harder for the town to get bread.
Not that common at level 2 when you have maybe 20 GP in liquid funds to prep. Also low HP isn’t a big thing when it can ignore most hits from people. Average rapier hit is, say 1d6+4 from a rogue? Average damage is 0. Average hit from a warhammer (or bo staff from my champion?) 1 damage. And what AoEs at level 1 are there that don’t put you in death range of the swarm? Burning hands? Haunting Hymn? Both require you to be within 15 feet, which if you recall, we tried and we got killed as a result. Alchemist’s fire? Does a whopping 1d8+6 damage if you hit, including the vulnerability, and costs, if you recall 3 GP a pop. When you are broke, you can’t afford the 5/6 you need, especially if you are trying not to burn down the mill and get the whole town pissed at you.
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Average rapier hit is, say 1d6+4 from a rogue? Average damage is 0. Average hit from a warhammer (or bo staff from my champion?) 1 damage.
So your party went to attack a monster without a single weapon able to hurt it?
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1) Please no spoilers, I haven’t finished book 1
Trying to keep this spoiler free, but suffice to say I think you are in for a rough time if you didn't like the wasps.
2) So the Wasp swarm has resist physical 7 (slashing 3), effectively no MAP, is immune to precision damage, demoralizing, etc,
Yes, it is dangerous if you don't have the right weapons, though your party had a chance to so it doesn't feel super relevant. Even just switching to a slashing weapon largely alleviates the issue.
and if you fail both saves you take 2d8 piercing+2d6 poison damage (one right away, one when when persistent comes up
Your GM might have run something wrong here-- it doesn't deal persistent damage. You get a saving throw once per round to determine if you take damage, so you'd need 3 failed saving throws (or a failure and a crit failure) to take that amount of damage. It is also spread out over time, so there's more opportunity for response. By comparison, that bruiser I referenced? If they get two actions to attack you, you will almost certainly be knocked out immediately. It only needs one crit to knock you out.
Oh, and I should mention it is ALSO level 4.
It can hit multiple people up to 15 feet away in one action
10 feet, it is large size.
and can move through player spaces without a roll so you cannot roadblock it with your Paladin with a tower shield.
It can, true, but why would it? They are angry wasps, they should stop and sting the closest moving target.
I haven’t fought the final boss of book 1 but the wasp swarm sounds worse and you fight it at level 2.
Not to mention the boss is a boss. He’s supposed to be tough. The wasp swarm is just a random bit of fluff in the town. It isn’t up to anything malicious, just making it harder for the town to get bread.
...Uh oh. You think I'm talking about the final boss? Nah. I said end of the chapter, not end of the book. I'm talking about another fight at level 2. And not a boss in any meaningful narrative sense-- this thing is there for the same reason the wasps are. The Show Must Go On is kind of a slog, IMO. Too many grueling combats for a party that is supposed to be circus performers, not adventurers.
The Wasp Swarm might have proved difficult to your party... But I don't think that is due to it being mathematically stronger than it should be as a bestiary entry. It sounds more like your particular party make up and game style (ie, choices your GM made) had a harder time against swarms than most others. Maybe you'll have an easier time with the brute I described. Challenge levels work pretty darn well, but they also can't account for every possible party weakness. A ghost will always be easier if your primary damage dealer is a spirit instinct barbarian instead of a rogue. But even with that in mind... A certain amount of this might come down to the way your GM ran it.
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In summary, I don't think the issue is that the wasp is a bad choice of level 4 monster, or scales badly, or whatever. It compares just fine to other level 4 monsters, even within the same book. It is just that level 4 monsters are really tough at level 2 and the AP leans too hard on challenging encounters.
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Because as we know, there are no new GMs, no GM variation. All GMs spring forty from the earth with a good grasp of when to go easy on the party and when not to and only grow from there. They all have an implicit grasp of the proper way to keep the party having fun, none have even a bit of us vs the players mentality, even subconsciously, and they always have the game mastery chapter in the back of the mind even when having to juggle a boatload of story things, a really complicated monster fight, all the player abilities, and real life drama.
Sounds spot on, except that I sprang forth from primordial mathematics rather than the earth.
(End sarcasm)
Now that we are back to reality, I started as a GM at age 48 after 30 years as a player. I retired my character in the middle of my wife's Rise of the Runelords campaign to take over as GM, so I already was well versed on the other party members' abilities. And I could consult with my wife. So I began under ideal conditions for a new GM.
Also, not for nothing, but no, we DID NOT decide that it was not the fault of the CR system and it was all dice and the tactics. YOU did. Several people have agreed that many monsters don’t scale well, especially at low level where PCs have very limited resources. At level 4 ...
Level 4 does not matter, since the party was level 2. Nevertheless, checking over the math of the Wasp Swarm shows that it is especially harsh against 2nd-level PCs.
2) So the Wasp swarm has resist physical 7 (slashing 3), effectively no MAP, is immune to precision damage, demoralizing, etc, and if you fail both saves you take 2d8 piercing+2d6 poison damage (one right away, one when when persistent comes up)...
Technically, the venom is an affliction rather than persistent damage. Afflictions are worse.
It can hit multiple people up to 15 feet away in one action ...
Wait. 15 feet away? The Wasp Swarm has no ability to harm opponents 15 feet away. The swarm trait says, "A swarm can occupy the same space as other creatures, and must do so in order to use its damaging action." The Wasp Swarm occupies 4 squares and hurts only people in those squares.
... and can move through player spaces without a roll so you cannot roadblock it with your Paladin with a tower shield. I haven’t fought the final boss of book 1 but the wasp swarm sounds worse and you fight it at level 2.
Not to mention the boss is a boss. He’s supposed to be tough. The wasp swarm is just a random bit of fluff in the town. It isn’t up to anything malicious, just making it harder for the town to get bread.
Level+2 creatures are usually fine as a single opponent. Usually, they don't feel like a sub-boss. The Wasp Swarm is harder, and facing a Wasp Swarm without proper knowledge is even harder.
Average rapier hit is, say 1d6+4 from a rogue? Average damage is 0. Average hit from a warhammer (or bo staff from my champion?) 1 damage.So your party went to attack a monster without a single weapon able to hurt it?
They failed their Recall Knowledge checks, so didn't know which weapons would work. All they knew was the common knowledge that swarms are weak to area-of-effect spells and splash weapons. They did prepare those.
This is where the GM, sprung fully formed from primordial goo, should have been sweating. "Oh oh, I didn't warn the players enough."
By the way, 1d6+4 piercing damage against resistance 7 piercing is zero damage on rolling 1, 2, or 3 on the d6, one damage on rolling 4, two damage on rolling 5, and three damage on rolling 6. That averages to 1 damage, not 0 damage. If the rogue has a shortsword instead, the he could have switched to slashing damage due to Versatile S for an average of 4.5 damage against resistance 3 slashing, but the rogue would try that only if someone had succeeded at a Recall Knowledge check about the resistances.
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I don't think that there really is any TTRPG where I'd recommend running it straight from the page with no deviation. That's sort of rule zero in every game. That said, for new GMs, the Beginner Box and the Trouble in Otari module are fantastic introductions to GMing as well as being very hand-holding for learners.I'm gunna have to disagree here. Paizo chooses to produce their APs in such a way that makes play testing them difficult at best. But that is not the only way that it's done.
My personal expectation, that I have brought from playing almost 2 decades of 3.5, is that official modules ought to be playable right out of the box. I think it's reasonable for DMs to familiarize themselves with the module, but I don't think it's reasonable for them to figure out if it's balanced or will play well.
I mean, this isn't just a "my opinion" thing, it's in the Core Rulebook.
Changing the details of an adventure to suit your group isn’t just acceptable, it’s preferred! Use the backstories and predilections of the player characters to inform how you change the adventure. This can mean altering adversaries so they’re linked to the player characters, changing the setting to a place some of the player characters are from, or excising particular scenes if you know they won’t appeal to your players.
I'm not saying that APs require more work, as they clearly require less than building everything from scratch. But the assumption that you don't prep or tailor these games to your group is one that is thrown entirely out the window. I would argue that GMs not altering the game in any way are those looking to challenge their players as a form of "module purity," which is really down to GM playstyle, but not one that APs are written for.
Also, come on, man. No need to list years playing over various systems. This is the Paizo forums, most of us here have been playing for a very long time. We are not the young, hip forums. We are the old grognards.
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Also, come on, man. No need to list years playing over various systems. This is the Paizo forums, most of us here have been playing for a very long time. We are not the young, hip forums. We are the old grognards.
First of all, how DARE you.
I'm extremely young and vociferously hip.
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Also, not for nothing, but no, we DID NOT decide that it was not the fault of the CR system and it was all dice and the tactics. YOU did. Several people have agreed that many monsters don’t scale well, especially at low level where PCs have very limited resources. At level 4 a caster PC is expected to have 6 spells (8 for a sorcerer) plus their cantrips, and martials should have a +1 striking weapon. At level 2? 3 spells and no striking weapon, that is literally half the resources, damage potential, and, ALMOST half the hit points (racial hit points being the reason for almost, so I guess roughly around 3/5ths the HP depending on race/class?). Heck, for casters that is MORE than half the resources because a level 2 spell is more powerful than a level 1 spell.
I never said that the fault was dice and tactics. You had the exact outcome of a severe outcome. Again (and I know I'm doing this a lot, but I prefer to have solid examples to point to) the Core Rulebook states this outright.
Severe-threat encounters are the hardest encounters most groups of characters can consistently defeat. These encounters are most appropriate for important moments in your story, such as confronting a final boss. Bad luck, poor tactics, or a lack of resources due to prior encounters can easily turn a severe-threat encounter against the characters, and a wise group keeps the option to disengage open.
You have a very challenging encounter, which is the encounter system working as intended. As for me not deciding that encounter building is perfect, I agree! That said, many of us here play multiple games - some more crunchy than PF2, some more freeform. But among the crunchiest titles I play, I would be hard-pressed to find an encounter building system that works better than PF2. Very much a personal opinion, but I think it's one that's fairly well embraced. I could be wrong.
If, IF we had been level 4, bard could have cast Inner radiance torrent from outside the barn for 8d4 x1.5 damage against the swarm and it would have been all over. But we didn’t have that option because we didn’t have access to those resources because we were broke and level 2. Some monsters don’t scale well at low levels, and I don’t see why that is so hard to accept.
I'm going to need you define the word "scale" here because it feels like you're applying it very broadly or in a very strange way. Yes, a level 4 team versus a level 4 creature would have an easy, almost trivial encounter. I think what you mean to say is that your group had a bad match-up against the swarm. A cleric tossing out a harm, a wizard who can retreat and prepare burning hands, or even just an alchemist makes the fight easier - difficult, but still easy. I enjoy when my groups' parties get challenged in ways that they have to think about and adapt to, so I like when modules introduce elements that I don't traditionally think to use. I believe this is because modules are written with a variety of party compositions in mind, not just the one that happens to be popular or easiest. Swarms (especially at low levels) are scary for many classes, but as you can clearly see yourself, even unprepared and with an adversarial GM (from the sounds of things) they aren't impossible.
It's just a severely difficult challenge.
Changing the details of an adventure to suit your group isn’t just acceptable, it’s preferred! Use the backstories and predilections of the player characters to inform how you change the adventure. This can mean altering adversaries so they’re linked to the player characters, changing the setting to a place some of the player characters are from, or excising particular scenes if you know they won’t appeal to your players.I'm not saying that APs require more work, as they clearly require less than building everything from scratch. But the assumption that you don't prep or tailor these games to your group is one that is thrown entirely out the window. I would argue that GMs not altering the game in any way are those looking to challenge their players as a form of "module purity," which is really down to GM playstyle, but not one that APs are written for.None of the changes that you listed from that quote are mechanical. One and all they are narrative. Perhaps you have another quote that isn't rule0 that says something about being wary of published adventures because they lean on 'cram as much XP into as small a package as possible to save on page count' and you might have to tweak things after your party starts looking at you funny when you still hit on a 1?
(/sarcasm)
I'm convinced now that no one is using sarcasm correctly. That said, you can have a bleak outlook about modules and page count, but it has always come down to your group. Always. If your group feels numbers are too high, that's up to the GM to adjudicate. The issue is that the OP had everything go... right? By the book, everything happened as it should have. It was a severe encounter, one that was difficult, but had no deaths. I'm not saying it wasn't frustrating, but that's a player-facing issue ("I don't enjoy playing in a way that requires this level of awareness.") and not a problem with monster math or the encounter math.
Boy, and as always, not every system is for everyone. Plenty of us enjoy the crunchy bits of PF2. PF1 hasn't gone anywhere and I would be staggered if anyone has actually gotten through the backlog of APs. I can fully say that if my group wasn't keen on PF2, I would either adjust the numbers myself or run a different system. I say this as a GM who ended up running 4e for 2+ years for a group that hated 3.5/PF1 for its crunch.
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If the rogue has a shortsword instead, the he could have switched to slashing damage due to Versatile S for an average of 4.5 damage against resistance 3 slashing, but the rogue would try that only if someone had succeeded at a Recall Knowledge check about the resistances.
Actually, I would try this after the GM describes that my first attack had almost no effect despite being a solid hit, rather than keep on using the same damage type my opponent basically ignores.
As a note, when playing a low level Martial, I always have several weapons on me so that I get all physical damage types covered both melee and distance. And, as a caster, spells that target all 3 saves and several energy types if possible.
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I think the issue with the wasp swarm (in general, not the specific encounter) against level 2 PCs is that being subject to a single action from the swarm can lead to a world of trouble for the characters. They could kill the swarm in round 1 and still have a PC die from it, due to the high save DCs and ongoing damage. Now if it stings twice in the first round? It's easy to say run away, but when a PC is down inside of a swarm before anyone else has gotten a chance to act, most groups are going to stick around at least long enough to try to save that PC, which might mean someone else getting stung and poisoned. That's the part that doesn't scale so well. A group can have some healing and still end up in deep trouble pretty easily.
That being said, it sounds like some accommodations were made in the particular encounter.
Also, if the GM doesn't play up that this isn't just a hive of wasps, and instead is described (in the Bestiary) as a "large and aggressive swarm of these territorial insects," with a warning that it "can lay low an entire party of heroes," I can see some groups underestimating it. That description seems pretty accurate. It goes on to talk about a variant that "can decimate entire villages," but I think the regular Wasp Swarm could probably do that on its own.
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I think the issue with the wasp swarm (in general, not the specific encounter) against level 2 PCs is that being subject to a single action from the swarm can lead to a world of trouble for the characters. They could kill the swarm in round 1 and still have a PC die from it, due to the high save DCs and ongoing damage. Now if it stings twice in the first round? It's easy to say run away, but when a PC is down inside of a swarm before anyone else has gotten a chance to act, most groups are going to stick around at least long enough to try to save that PC, which might mean someone else getting stung and poisoned. That's the part that doesn't scale so well. A group can have some healing and still end up in deep trouble pretty easily.
That being said, it sounds like some accommodations were made in the particular encounter.
Also, if the GM doesn't play up that this isn't just a hive of wasps, and instead is described (in the Bestiary) as a "large and aggressive swarm of these territorial insects," with a warning that it "can lay low an entire party of heroes," I can see some groups underestimating it. That description seems pretty accurate. It goes on to talk about a variant that "can decimate entire villages," but I think the regular Wasp Swarm could probably do that on its own.
They could if they were not just normal insects with no thoughts of strategy or annihilation.
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I believe that it's very much on record that APs don't get playtested, which makes sense given the monthly nature of their release and the time investment it takes to play them. I also believe that devs are on the side of "please modify these to suit your games," often pointing to the very robust rules for doing so.Yes. I've done enough playtesting (for my own and others) and seen the before/after to know that bad bad things would have gotten printed otherwise.Paizo adventure writers don't playtest adventures. If they were to do so, more time, more money. You ready to pay/wait?Writer:
"Gee, I guess I better playtest that."1st attempt
"Yep a moderate encounter"2nd attempt
"Little more Severe than Moderate"3rd attempt
"Wow they turned that into a cakewalk, maybe the wasp swarm is too weak"4th attempt
"Yeesh, sorry about the TPK guys"5th attempt
"Moderate again"
Those always sound like after the fact excuses to me. What are some of the primary reasons for people to buy APs? Because they want to gain experience before doing their own homebrew, or because they don't have the time to do extensive tweaking and wanted something that rolls well out of the box.
And Paizo is perfectly happy to sell to these people. I don't think you'll find anything obvious in most AP volumes (let alone on the back blurb) saying you're still expected to do a lot of customization and should be experienced enough to compensate for any lack of playtesting.
It's only when people come to complain about something crazy in the book that you hear about these expectations. Then we get the "you should make the game your own" boilerplate text that you have in every RPG. But if the wide consensus is that a particular encounter is broken (say, a certain greater barghest) then it's not a matter of tuning to your particular taste, it's a lack of testing. Yeah yeah the game was new, that excuse has been used for 1.5 years of AP product now. But were the PF2 playtest rules so much more forgiving to PCs that these encounters were okay difficulty then? I don't remember the PF2 playtest times like that...
If you haven't tested it, it's broken.
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I don't know what to tell you? I'm sure we would all love for each module to get 10+ devoted groups of varying playstyles, party comps, and desires to playtest them, but it really isn't feasible with the turnover that APs have. Even if Paizo moved to once a year APs with books coming out every other month, that's a lot of work.
APs are, by and large, easier to run out of the box for many people. Modules like The Slithering or Malevolence, I would argue, are even easier as they don't presume a long running game with all the bits and bobs that a group picks up along the way. But Paizo writers don't know your group. The encounter building guidelines work, they really do. If a writer wants to include a difficult fight, then a single level + 2 enemy will be that fight. The problem arose in the first few APs (I honestly think it was better by the time of AoE, but people tend to disagree) when we had an over abundance of Severe fights. Some groups are into that, but by and large the advice has become "modify the early APs," even slightly.
But my point is that GMs should always be adjusting their games for the enjoyment of everyone at the table. And this gets repeated over and over again because it is sort of our job to run the game in an enjoyable fashion. If you have a group that enjoys a tough fight, you scale things up. If you have a group who won't compromise their roleplaying for what might be a stronger tactical choice, a GM should reward that (Hero Points even give you a tool to do this). So, yeah, absolutely GMs should adjust APs as they play just as they should adjust their games constantly because they know their players better than any Paizo writer ever will.
EDIT: Again, this isn't something onerous being put upon GMs. This is written in the rules how to adjust encounters, how to prep pre-written adventures, and how to run the game for your group. It's something that goes along with playing the game.
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Those always sound like after the fact excuses to me. What are some of the primary reasons for people to buy APs? Because they want to gain experience before doing their own homebrew, or because they don't have the time to do extensive tweaking and wanted something that rolls well out of the box.
And Paizo is perfectly happy to sell to these people. I don't think you'll find anything obvious in most AP volumes (let alone on the back blurb) saying you're still expected to do a lot of customization and should be experienced enough to compensate for any lack of playtesting.
It's only when people come to complain about something crazy in the book that you hear about these expectations. Then we get the "you should make the game your own" boilerplate text that you have in every RPG. But if the wide consensus is that a particular encounter is broken (say, a certain greater barghest) then it's not a matter of tuning to your particular taste, it's a lack of testing. Yeah yeah the game was new, that excuse has been used for 1.5 years of AP product now. But were the PF2 playtest rules so much more forgiving to PCs that these encounters were okay difficulty then? I don't remember the PF2 playtest times like that...
If you haven't tested it, it's broken.
I'll certainly not be objective (but who is?): I have 20 years of organized play and have played a few APs and I've seen countless adventures undermined by lack of GM preparation. From the GMs who repeatedly search the pdf for info, the ones who don't know the monsters' tactics and over or under play them, the ones who have no clue what a certain spell does and learn it while using it, the onessss who read NPC dialogs instead of playing them, etc, etc, etc...
And nearly always, it's not the fault of the GM, it's "because of the adventure", it's supposed to be played right out of the box, the GM's not supposed to change anything, lots of excuses. So, when someone complains about something that could have been handled better with proper preparation, I have hard time considering it's only the AP's fault.And actually, when reading the OP, it looks like the party is composed of a Rogue, a Champion, a Bard and a Witch, and both the Rogue and the Champion don't use weapons able to hurt the swarm. So, from my point of view, big red flags should have been raised by just seeing that there's a swarm encounter against a party who's especially weak against swarms.
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First off, elitism is not telling people to know their group. It's good advice for anyone in any game group - whether it be Pathfinder, 5e, or even a game of poker. Secondly, there are a tremendous amount of resources for new GMs, even if they only have the Core book to pull from, that tell you what you can do with limited time to prep and if players are struggling. If asking the person running the game to read the rulebook is too much, then I don't know what you want.
Beyond that, there's the Gamemastery Guide, Beginners Box/Trouble In Otari, not to mention countless and countless number of general GM guides out there. None of what SuperBidi has mentioned is particular to PF2.
I agree that PF2 is just a game, but it's one that does require knowledge of the rules to play (as many games do). Not super high-level knowledge, not read every book cover to cover knowledge, but at least the part where the GM understands that they're cooperating with the group to have a good time. Like the craziest thing about all of this is, I don't necessarily disagree that authors should take care with their encounters. Recent evidence has shown that encounters have been dialed back quite significantly from AoA and EC. I just disagree that this is a system problem.
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Before the thread got derailed with yet-another 'why was that a severe encounter' rant, the actual request from the op was to be aware of the bounded save ranges and not put stuff in that players need to roll 19's just to pass.
'So please take these new ranges into account when coming up with DCs.'
That's not a system complaint. That's an editorial complaint.
Well, the "coming up with DCs" is a system complaint. And I addressed this earlier. I don't think it's strange to respond to the thread chronologically. The topic has shifted to "what could be done about this," to which the answers are abundant.
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Well, the "coming up with DCs" is a system complaint. And I addressed this earlier. I don't think it's strange to respond to the thread chronologically. The topic has shifted to "what could be done about this," to which the answers are abundant.Before the thread got derailed with yet-another 'why was that a severe encounter' rant, the actual request from the op was to be aware of the bounded save ranges and not put stuff in that players need to roll 19's just to pass.
'So please take these new ranges into account when coming up with DCs.'
That's not a system complaint. That's an editorial complaint.
Well the chain dude is essentially an editorial complaint. He was effectively a misprint given what Michael shared earlier in the thread. The wasps are a system complaint, but one that misses the mark IMO. It presents the wasp as being too dangerous for it's level. I think you and I agree that the wasp swarm isn't over powered for a level 4 creature, even compared to other level 4 creatures in the same adventure. Level+2 monsters are just dangerous.
I think the actual issue that Vamp is running into is that early APs just overuse higher level encounters. We will see how Vamp feels by the time they've hit level 3. I'm predicting there will be some other challenges between now and then.
Which does sort of bring us around to your point of what to do about it. And ratcheting down the difficulty is a legit conversation to have with the GM, assuming you don't want to abandon EC and play Abomination Vaults or something instead.
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It's somewhere between an authorial complaint and a system complaint.
System complaint because the system does advise authors to do this. If you look at the GMG's advice for a dungeon crawl, it says "Combat Encounters 2 trivial, 4 low, 6 moderate, 6 severe. Many encounters can be bypassed through secret routes." That's six severe encounters, a third of the total number. And a solo level +2 creature is actually just a Moderate encounter, of which there are also six. So the high frequency of big nasty monsters that gets complained about, doesn't clash with the guidelines the system gives you.
It's also an authorial complaint: putting too much trust in these guidelines, not giving it a test run to see how that pans out in practice.
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It's somewhere between an authorial complaint and a system complaint.
System complaint because the system does advise authors to do this. If you look at the GMG's advice for a dungeon crawl, it says "Combat Encounters 2 trivial, 4 low, 6 moderate, 6 severe. Many encounters can be bypassed through secret routes." That's six severe encounters, a third of the total number. And a solo level +2 creature is actually just a Moderate encounter, of which there are also six. So the high frequency of big nasty monsters that gets complained about, doesn't clash with the guidelines the system gives you.
It's also an authorial complaint: putting too much trust in these guidelines, not giving it a test run to see how that pans out in practice.
I read system complaint as something about mechanics. Not about advice.
It's somewhere between an authorial complaint and a system complaint.
System complaint because the system does advise authors to do this. If you look at the GMG's advice for a dungeon crawl, it says "Combat Encounters 2 trivial, 4 low, 6 moderate, 6 severe. Many encounters can be bypassed through secret routes." That's six severe encounters, a third of the total number. And a solo level +2 creature is actually just a Moderate encounter, of which there are also six. So the high frequency of big nasty monsters that gets complained about, doesn't clash with the guidelines the system gives you.
It's also an authorial complaint: putting too much trust in these guidelines, not giving it a test run to see how that pans out in practice.
Yeah that GMG section is weird, and clashes with the expectations of the CRB. CRB describes severe encounters as appropriate for an important story moment, like a final boss. And having a final boss level encounter a third of the time is... Weird. 8 think they are throttling back those expectations based on staff comments.
I actually think level+2 monsters are usually fine enough. They are scary and dangerous but rarely to a point they feel demoralizing.
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I read system complaint as something about mechanics. Not about advice.It's somewhere between an authorial complaint and a system complaint.
System complaint because the system does advise authors to do this. If you look at the GMG's advice for a dungeon crawl, it says "Combat Encounters 2 trivial, 4 low, 6 moderate, 6 severe. Many encounters can be bypassed through secret routes." That's six severe encounters, a third of the total number. And a solo level +2 creature is actually just a Moderate encounter, of which there are also six. So the high frequency of big nasty monsters that gets complained about, doesn't clash with the guidelines the system gives you.
It's also an authorial complaint: putting too much trust in these guidelines, not giving it a test run to see how that pans out in practice.
System complaints are everything that is written in the book as actual rules or guidelines to follow.
Authorial complaints are everything else that isn't quite rules, but does affect how you play. What monsters to fight, when to fight, how the fight is telegraphed in the books, etc.
If the system recommends 3 extreme encounters, would you all say its "fine" or would you see a problem with it? How about if the system have 10 easy encounters? The number of encounters your are told to use as the "guideline" is thus a system complaint.
I get what you mean. But what words can we use to differentiate between rules and guidelines ? Because those are not the same either.
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If you haven't tested it, it's broken.
Preach it, brother!
In my job as an applied research mathematician my data-analysis algorithms had mathematical proofs that they would give correct results. Nevertheless, they needed to be tested before being applied in real life. The proofs relied on assumptions about the data, and the assumptions could be wrong. The proofs merely provided a tool to more easily spot unexpected deviations from the correct results.
What's the recourse for a fresh-faced GM and group of players who simply don't understand what the hell just happened?
Not everyone comes into a game like this with 20 years of organized play experience. Not everyone comes into this with >0 hours per week of prep time. Sometimes people just pick it up and play because it sounds cool or they saw it on twitch or some such.
Telling anyone 'know your group, figure it out in advance' is elitist I'm-better-than-you-ism. Stop acting like it's easy or intuitive for just anyone to look at a book full of encounters and think 'oh, this will be a problem' or (and appropriate to THIS THREAD) 'oh, the math really looks off here, those DC's are 10 points higher than the suggested baseline' because that's just not going to be the case.
Sometimes a game is just a game, and you can be forgiven for thinking that if you pick it up off the shelf and sit down with your friends that it will work, it will be correct, and it will not need you to have spent 15 hours in reddit and these forums picking through 'git gud' nonsense in order to figure out that an encounter has a problem.
I would not call the advice to adapt the modules elitist. But that advice is beyond what beginner GMs can handle. The GM has to recognize when an encounter challenges a weak spot in the party, making it more challenging than the numbers say. The GM has to have the confidence that they can rewrite the encounter to be more suitable for their party than the encounter as written. And then the GM has to put in the labor of rewriting. Likewise for encounters that run into the party's strengths and should be made tougher for a more exiting game.
And the GM does not get to test their changes. The game session itself is the only test. If that test fails, then changing the encounter on the fly is the only solution, and that is extremely difficult.
Pathfinder 2nd Edition was designed to be easier on the GMs than Pathfinder 1st Edition. I have read that claim in reviews of the game, so that goal was a success. But this is an area that is still not easy for GMs. It undermines the new reputation of PF2.
Honestly the Beginner's Box into Trouble with Otari seems like a pretty great intro. I don't think either are amazing narratives (the dungeon ecology of the Beginner's Box gives me conniptions, and Trouble's first quest hook is flimsy) but they are super accessible. I ran it for a bunch of people who'd have never played Pathfinder and barely touched D&D in general with almost no issue. Neither seems likely to need modification.
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In my job as an applied research mathematician...Kurt Gödel: Great mathematician or greatest mathematician?
Great but not greatest. Kurt Godel made major contributions in understanding the foundation of mathematics, but his work had little effect outside that area. Carl Friedrich Gauss was probably the greatest of mathematicians. For 20th century mathematicians like Godel, I am fond of Alan Turing. and Willaim Gosset. They laid the foundations for a new mathematical fields, computer science and statistics respectively.
To tie this in to the Pathfinder discussion, Godel determined what mathematics is possible, but Turing and Gosset made mathematics that others could use. An abstracted system, whether math, science, or a roleplaying game, should strive to be manageable. The level system in PF2 strives to create a manageable formula for balanced encounters with a desired difficulty. On a few occasions it fails due to flaws in creature design. An alert and experienced GM can spot those flaws, but that does not excuse the failure of the design. It can also fail due to unusual situations, and no system can anticipate all the situations in a creative game.
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That set piece features a monster with +14 to hit and 3d6+4 damage. THAT thing felt stronger than it should be. That's a 30% chance to crit even an optimal non-heavy AC, which will one shot most d8 classes. And it has back up and will actually attack on sight and probably pursue to the death. It doesn't deal persistent damage, so the wasps are more likely to kill someone they knock out... But level+2 monsters are just dangerous.
I think we fought the creature you are talking about and . . . here are some things that made that fight easy for our party:
1)The game straight up gives you a weapon that the creature is vulnerable to. You don't get that for the swarm.
2)That creature is . . . a creature. Not a swarm. If I'm right about the encounter you fight it where there is a bunch of furniture around which our GM at least declared was difficult terrain. Meaning you could play ring around the rosy while your ranged characters shoot at it. A swarm could just fly over all that stuff.
3)That creature can't hit multiple people at the same time and suffers from MAP
4) I realize this is an 'our group' thing but since I'm a liberator champion, I could reduce the damage the creature dealt by getting close without worrying that it would also poison me for 6 rounds. Also most fights went: monster steps up, hits rogue once, I react, rogue steps away and I reduce damage, monster has to spend third action getting next to rogue again and so can't attack him again.
5) Our rogue got into position and sneak attacked it several times, it went down pretty fast
6) Didn't have DR physical 3, with bludgeoning and Piercing actually being 7
That set piece features a monster with +14 to hit and 3d6+4 damage. THAT thing felt stronger than it should be. That's a 30% chance to crit even an optimal non-heavy AC, which will one shot most d8 classes. And it has back up and will actually attack on sight and probably pursue to the death. It doesn't deal persistent damage, so the wasps are more likely to kill someone they knock out... But level+2 monsters are just dangerous.
I think we fought the creature you are talking about and . . . here are some things that made that fight easy for our party:
1)The game straight up gives you a weapon that the creature is vulnerable to. You don't get that for the swarm.
2)That creature is . . . a creature. Not a swarm. If I'm right about the encounter you fight it where there is a bunch of furniture around which our GM at least declared was difficult terrain. Meaning you could play ring around the rosy while your ranged characters shoot at it. A swarm could just fly over all that stuff.
3)That creature can't hit multiple people at the same time and suffers from MAP
4) I realize this is an 'our group' thing but since I'm a liberator champion, I could reduce the damage the creature dealt by getting close without worrying that it would also poison me for 6 rounds. Also most fights went: monster steps up, hits rogue once, I react, rogue steps away and I reduce damage, monster has to spend third action getting next to rogue again and so can't attack him again.
5) Our rogue got into position and sneak attacked it several times, it went down pretty fast
6) Didn't have DR physical 3, with bludgeoning and Piercing actually being 7
Glad to hear that one was easier for you! I ran two groups through it. One managed to scout them and identify some weaknesses they could use and had a fairly easy time thanks to extensive prep. The other got spotted and charged into a slugfest with the thing and had a really awful time.
The champion definitely explains why you had an easier time with that enemy than the swarm. Conversely, a group without one but with an alchemist or some of those new AoE cantrips would probably find their experience reversed. They'd be plincking away at that brute's larger HP pool and getting downed quickly. Neither group I ran had any trouble with the wasps though.
Champions are a particularly unique class when it comes to encounter difficulty. So many of their abilities are based around defeating really specific kinds of enemies.
4) What reaction allows a rogue to step away on the attacker's turn? That isn't a level 8 feat?
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4) What reaction allows a rogue to step away on the attacker's turn?
The liberating step. Underated ability.
So nothing the rogue can do on it's own. Tarnation. I was so hopeful for my rogue.
So nothing the rogue can do on it's own. Tarnation. I was so hopeful for my rogue.
I think there might be a higher level rogue feat that allows something along those lines... Can't recall exactly though.
There's a level 8 feat Nimble Roll that needs Nimble Dodge from level 1 that allows you to stride as part of the nimble dodge