Did I poorly design this encounter?

[markrivett]

My players (Healer Cleric, Druid[caster], Mage, Ranger[bow], all 7th level) have been pretty much walking through combat against encounters that I think should pose a bit of a challenge.

Today I put them up against a Graveknight(lvl10) and a Nightmare(lvl6) - guardians of an area the players wanted to explore.

The players put down the Nightmare after taking some hits, but the Graveknight pretty much critically hit every time with his great sword and took huge chunks of HP with every attack.

The Cleric had a big heal spell countered by the knight's aura. The druid went to Dying 1 when he attempted to cast a spell within counterattack range, and the Ranger went to Dying 1 when the Graveknight took his turn. We ended the session with the players and I deciding that the Cleric and Mage were able to use all their spell resources to escape through trickery and grit.

I know that Extreme encounters are supposed to be just that - extreme. Did this fight just go exceptionally badly for the party? Moderate encounters seem almost like an exercise in rolling dice until the monsters are dead. Severe encounters are not much better - just more drawn out. Is there a threshold with extreme encounters that I should be conscious of?

Advice welcomed. Thank You

[Cydeth]

My personal experience, as a player and as a GM, is that a single higher-level creature is going to be absolutely brutal for the PCs. It will crit hard, be difficult to hit, and be very frustrating in general. While this can be good for major boss encounters, it isn't something I would use lightly, because by their very nature these monsters tend to focus their full potential on one character at a time.

What I personally recommend is that when you go for an extreme encounter, that you instead build it out of lower-level creatures. I was a player in a converted Red Hand of Doom campaign, and when the GM put in an at-level or level plus one boss, but with tons of minions (level-2 or even -4) all over the place, it was a blast. Lots of chaos and madness just because there was so much going on. It was a threat, but we could focus down small parts of it and reduce the enemy potential without having enormous strikes ripping us apart.

There were a few encounters where we were punching up, but even going against a level+2 in Pathfinder 2e can hurt, a lot. It sounds like a bit of bad luck and the nature of it being an extreme encounter nearly undid your group, which sounds... accurate to the difficulty.

[breithauptclan]

Two thoughts on encounter design.

1) Party composition. We have spellcaster, spellcaster, spellcaster, ranged attacker. So really good at dealing damage, but somewhat of a glass cannon composition. Not much in the way of defensive abilities. Against things that have defensive resources or can simply take a beating for a while while also dishing out punishment the party will struggle.

2) CR +3 fighter-type melee enemies are going to be the bane of this party composition. High offensive abilities, good defensive abilities. They can take a beating from the party for a while because of the defenses and high HP. They will land attacks and crits regularly because of the high melee attack and attack of opportunity.

Now, that doesn't mean that the encounter was badly done. It is certainly a learning experience for all of the players at the table - GM and character controllers both. Taking a loss and a mulligan on it seems like a good way to handle that outcome.

With proper preparation, the party should be able to handle the battle. With some additional knowledge and preparation, they can come back for round two against the graveknight and be able to carry the day.

That preparation being things like Recall Knowledge about the graveknight so that they know things like that it has attack of opportunity and the aura that counterspells Heal. Knowing that it is a higher level than they are, so blasting spells are likely to be lackluster - expect successful saves against the spell as the default and don't bring anything with the incapacitation trait.

Also tactics. Disclaimer, I don't know all of the details of the party and this is all my opinions and plans given the information that I have. I also don't have the largest amount of player experience, so take the following with a grain of salt.

The party doesn't really have a front line at all. So drastic amounts of skirmishing are going to be needed. The Ranger may even need to put the bow down and body block for the spellcasters when things get critical. Don't forget that the Druid gets shield block automatically.

And yeah, kite that thing like your life depends on it. Each character should be trying to end their turn at least 30 feet away from it (outside the aura range, and outside of 1 move action) - preferably more than 50 (outside of 2 move actions). Even if that means that they don't do much on their turn except move away. Since the players are a bunch of spellcasters, this will be a bit more difficult since most spells take two actions to cast.

[Deriven Firelion]

Sometimes it's good for a party to be humbled. They got their butts kicked. Sometimes you should run. Encounter seems fine to me.

[Castilliano]

You didn't really tell us how you designed the encounter! In a tight space, yeah, that'd be extra rough; while if fighting outdoors or where there are corridors or doors the party can shut to gain respite, that'd ease issues. Also we don't know whether the party went in at full power with awareness of a tough battle coming or after some attrition and caught off guard.
Being on the upper fringe of what's recommended, the battle's context makes a difference.

That said, the group's default tactics would be to blitz (a difficult task which seldom works with bosses) or kite (as noted above, and putting the boss on a steed nullifies that). So yeah, that's pretty tough if they're relying on that to survive, especially w/ that counteracting aura taking out their healing too.

Still, I don't think it was too hard judging from what little you have said. It might be a learning experience, maybe to value Slow a bit more, making difficult terrain (which seems pretty important for this party IMO), or use other debuffs (if they've focused only on damage before that is). Seems best for them to review their strategies in character if possible, though given the thrashing maybe OOC w/ your input too.

Or they could value scattering! In Starfinder organized play I landed in a group of fragile ranged attackers + one higher level less fragile ranged attacker, a situation yours reminded me of. We'd park ourselves as far away as possible, yet as far apart from each other too. Then one lone guy would venture forward, open a door, and run like blazes! Then we'd wait, and this worked out really well in fact. If an enemy did catch up to one of us, that guy would flee full speed while others kept peppering the enemy. And this was on a haunted ship, not even open ground.

[Mathmuse]

Back in PF1 I would analyze an opponent's abilities to check that the party had a way to counter them, such as having magic weapons to hit an incorporeal creature. PF2 creature design is more forgiving, but Extreme-threat encounters are not forgiving.

The graveknight's Sacrilegious Aura is an anti-cleric ability. Thus, a cleric will be at a disadvantage against a graveknight. markrivett said it worked, too: "The Cleric had a big heal spell countered by the knight's aura."

As breithauptclan pointed out, a level+3 martial enemy is a massive damage dealer. The party has to avoid or heal that damage. The Sacrilegious Aura hindered healing. By putting the graveknight on a nightmare with fly speed 90 feet, the party won't be able to keep their distance from the graveknight's melee damage. Ordinarily, the graveknight would summon a phantom speed with speed 60 feet and air walk instead of flying, which is still tough to avoid, but costs the graveknight summoning and command animal time.

The party still has good tactics available, because PCs are versatile. Take out the nightmare quickly to reduce the graveknight's mobility. Cast flying on the cleric so that he can keep to the air out of the Sacrilegious Aura. Since the players have walked through other combat challenges, they are probably good at tactics. But against massive damage, they have little time to invent and test tactics. If they have a rematch against the graveknight, they should fare better.

[The Raven Black]

Did the players try Recall Knowledge ?

That is a part of the game where the GM has very big influence on how things happen during an encounter.

[SuperBidi]

markrivett wrote:

I know that Extreme encounters are supposed to be just that - extreme.

Extreme encounters have 50% chance of TPK. So you roll it as it should be. Expect other Extreme encounters to end the same way.

I'm still puzzled by your experience with Severe encounters. Sure, most of them can be handled without too much issue, but from my experience Severe encounters put characters down. If it's not the case, I'm wondering if they are really Severe.

But I also think your players met an enemy that is especially strong against the party. AoO when everyone is either a caster or a ranged attacker, an anti Heal aura when Heal is both the kind of spells that save the day and quite central to your team with one healer and a secondary healer. In my opinion, it's normal for such an encounter to go into TPK territory, being both Extreme and quite a nemesis for your party.

[HumbleGamer]

Not having a tank or way to mitigate damage might be a bad idea for adventurers.

I always imagine that while adventurers like to go on a journey, they are also aware they may fight enemies. To think that they go without a front line it's kinda odd.

A ranger could provide assistance with a companion, and druid might do the same.

Even other classes, because of the archetypes, might get a companion too.

Spell casters can also summon creatures to tank a little.

The ranger could swap to shield and finesse weapon to be the front line, of required.

The front line could be enhanced with stoneskin or some other protective spell.

Illusory stuff ( don't really know whether in your case the enemies were immune or not) may also be excellent. Think of illusory image for example.

And if the players payed it bad, the encounter is just too much or the odds ( enemy permacrit) are against them, they can always choose to withdraw.

Sometimes a party member dies, and there's nothing players can do.

[Ubertron_X]

The Raven Black wrote:

Did the players try Recall Knowledge ?

That is a part of the game where the GM has very big influence on how things happen during an encounter.

Not only in combat but also in front of it. The difficulty of a well telegraphed +3 enemy is very, very different to a meeting engagement with said +3 enemy, even without passing each and every knowledge check. For example just knowing that a difficult melee type enemy is ahead (high chance of AoO and low chances to land attacks yourself) could have had your mage stock an abundance of Hideous Laughter and high level Magic Missile spells, most probably and single-handedly making the encounter a lot, lot easier.

[markrivett]

Some additional context:

The players were navigating a mudflow. There were large areas (about 80ft diameter) of dry ground with patches of scrub which provides standard cover. The mud between (averaging about 15ft) was greater difficult terrain. Basically a player could freely move in the dry areas but would either have to use athletics to jump between or wade through the mud slowly.

They did not know they would be facing a gravekinght beforehand. They were exploring an area that they learned about in a previous encounter that was "forbidden". The only warning they had was the ranger scouting as an exploration activity giving them a bonus to initiative.

During the encounter they rolled a good number of recall knowledge checks to understand what they were up against. I am pretty liberal with my skill substitution. Basically, if you can justify why a skill could be used in a certain way, I allow it. Two important failures were the Cleric's failed recall knowledge roll to know about the anti-magic aura and the Ranger's recall knowledge roll to know about attacks of opportunity - which he provoked on his turn before the grave knight's turn.

Thank everyone for all their feedback thus far. I appreciate the insight.

[Castilliano]

Sounds like the Graveknight had the upper hand when it rode the Nightmare, which tilts the encounter to too difficult IMO, at least vs. a group so imbalanced toward range losing that advantage. Though the party should have scattered after they'd dropped the steed, that's irregular thinking; heroes want to act immediately/attack every round when peers are threatened. Yet with the monster unable (at 25' speed) to catch any of them (assuming no Dwarf, which I shouldn't since I love them) it could've been easy...maybe even too easy! I suspect the rematch might go somewhat more like that, unless the party assumes they simply went to that site too early in the story.

And yeah, Magic Missiles. Mediocre against minions; brutal against bosses.

[Unicore]

I think everything about the encounter except the purpose of the main enemy is perfectly fine for the party.

At level +3 + a minion, I think it is important for the enemy team to have a more complex goal than "Kill the party as quickly as possible." Maybe the Grave knight is tired of its sworn duty and would prefer the PCs be able to bring him something that will release him. When they are resistant to such a plan, he could aim to bring one party member down and use as a hostage to get the rest of the party to comply. They can of course choose not to and fight the good fight to save their ally and quite possibly TPK, but then that feels like a choice the party is making, rather than the only possible outcome of the encounter.

Very challenging encounters are good to mix into fights about 10-20% of the time, but the key to making them more than just a 20% chance of TPK is making them feel like meaningful encounters to the plot with multiple choice points for consequences and for story reveals. Powerful henchfolk with their own agendas slightly incongruent with their masters can make for really fun moments in a story arc.

[breithauptclan]

Unicore wrote:

At level +3 + a minion, I think it is important for the enemy team to have a more complex goal than "Kill the party as quickly as possible."

Yes, absolutely.

Alternatively (or maybe even in addition to) is to have a more complex goal for the party than "kill the enemy as quickly as possible".

Get in, get the thing, and get out.
Get past the enemy and to a safe place.
Lure the enemy into a trapping location.
Survive until help arrives.
Trigger the thing that will drive away the enemy.