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That encounter was super easy for my players, to the point that I'm surprised to hear that it is so difficult for other groups. The enemy may be nasty, but they are slow and have no ranged capabilities.
The party simply kited them to death, always keeping the tombstones and other obstacles between them and their enemy. The baddies never even got the chance to drop someone in a hole.
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Hoe it goes well for you Harles. And possibly show them the thread so that a) they can understand that you are concerned enough to seek assistance/solve a problem and b) find some help herein to adjust their expectations and their tactics!
And it certainly isn't going to do the group any favors if they go on to other tables with deluded expectations of how the game works. That's setting people up for failure.
I don't think making the game a little easier while they learn the system is deluding players. It creates an opportunity for them to learn and get better instead of get frustrated and quit.
The players have explicitly said they do not want it made easier for them. Respecting that choice seems easy enough. Because when someone tells you that they don't want something, then you do it anyway--that's transgressive and rude behavior.
I hadn't realized the players had been reluctant about applying the weak template when I made that suggestion. I thought they just chose the harder adventure because it had a more interesting premise.
If that limits the games the group is willing to play that limits the game the group will play. /Shrug. It also depends on if this is an established group looking for a game or a GM looking to play PF2. The former can get by with something that suits their tastes. The latter has to find a way to stop killing people repeatedly.
I definitely had the impression it would be the latter. This group seems like it is dissolving, and I meant my suggestion for the next group Harles begins. (We will see how their conversation goes.) Though even in the former, if no one else is willing to DM then Harles either needs to learn a new system or learn to stop killing people. Learning new systems is the harder choice, IMO.
That encounter was super easy for my players, to the point that I'm surprised to hear that it is so difficult for other groups. The enemy may be nasty, but they are slow and have no ranged capabilities.
The party simply kited them to death, always keeping the tombstones and other obstacles between them and their enemy. The baddies never even got the chance to drop someone in a hole.
I had an animal barbarian in my group who basically has to be in melee and a bard, sorcerer, and thief who needed to stay within 30 feet for their own offense. And the fight basically starts you in melee range. My players did kind of kite the slurks, though, so maybe the learned something.
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And it certainly isn't going to do the group any favors if they go on to other tables with deluded expectations of how the game works. That's setting people up for failure.
There is not intrinsic difficulty level in playing PF2. The difficulty is a combination of factors including the GM- and each individual player-specific factors. They could also get used to the OP's level of difficult then move to another table where the GM kills off half of the party every fight. So the OP modulating how he GMs in response to his players' frustrations is not deluding the players nor setting them up for failure.
The players have explicitly said they do not want it made easier for them. Respecting that choice seems easy enough. Because when someone tells you that they don't want something, then you do it anyway--that's transgressive and rude behavior.
Based on the OP's description of the results--souring players on PF2--the players don't actually want the difficulty level they're experiencing.
On to the OP:
I may have missed clarification along the way, but how reasonable a TPK every 3rd session is or isn't depends on how much content is covered in a session. If you cover 2 whole AP books per session, then it's rough but not that unreasonable. However, extrapolating from your last TPK, you're getting through ~2/3 of a chapter per session, in which case a TPK every 1.3 chapters (2-3 TPKs per book) is unusually deadly.
Assuming that calculation is correct and reading your tactics, I think that, without judgement, you are a "killer," per your words, GM. Unintentionally or not.
The fastest way to address it for APs is to keep doing things the way you're doing them but, as others have suggested above, start everyone at 2nd level and keep them 1 level above the milestone leveling system.
To modulate yourself as the GM, you need to be thinking of ways to make a fight challenging without being too hard. Third action attacking is inefficient for player characters. Third action attacking by NPCs/monsters is actually pretty dangerous, especially in a Severe encounter. Have creatures Step back after attacking. Have creatures use maneuvers instead of attacks. E.g., a creature Strides in, Strikes, and Shoves the target back or a creature Trips on the first action then Strikes (now at a -5/-4 penalty--effectively -3/-2 if the trip worked--it will probably still hit but less likely to crit) and then Steps back.
So there's really nothing I can do to stem the TPK frequency?
Without getting bogged down in the details of specific groups and encounters, you can:
Make encounters easier by reducing the quality or numbers of enemies.
Make encounters easier by having the enemies act inefficiently.
Check the reputation of published adventures; run the ones that are easier. Or create your own adventure.
Recruit five or six players, instead of the usual parties of four, so group synergy is easier to achieve, and one or two PCs going down is less likely to push them into a death spiral.
Level up the PCs early, give them higher stats, or give them better magic loot.
Teach the players how to play better (using the tips given in this thread).
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I think one idea in particular that could be important to bring up with your group, is that RPGs are not about winning and losing, they are about having fun with your friends and telling a story together.
Pathfinder 2nd edition is not a video game, and it is not a great idea to think about any of these settings as "difficulty modes" because that can really feed into a "winners and losers" mindset.
Instead of thinking about it in terms of difficulty, think about it in terms of character driven narratives.
If the party hates the idea of one PC dying, and will go all in on "leave no one behind," then challenging encounters have a high risk of becoming TPKs as the party decides to go down with the ship. This is a perfectly fine way to play...if the players like making new characters and facing the possibility of bringing in a whole new team every time that an encounter does not go according to the expectations of the players (which really is the problem with the winning/losing mentality, do the players expect to always be in control of the outcome of encounters? If so, they will feel like they lose every time an enemy is powerful enough not be able to be destroyed in a given encounter regardless of how well prepared the party is when they run into the creature(s).)
In my long running AoA campaign, we have had one encounter a book on average that very much could have been a TPK, except the party split up and ran when it was clear that we were in over our heads. The Gm is on us about making death and dying checks, but if we stabilize and get left behind, intelligent enemies will often take prisoners to gain information about their enemies and as bargaining chips. Players can have back up characters to use until someone gets rescued or released, and narratively, this can create a more interesting web of characters and plot lines, without touching game mechanics.
Even with monsters like spiders and alpha predators, many are willing to carry off prey to ripen/age/feed off slowly over a long time instead of having to risk life and limb to hunt again. By level 10/11, even a death does not have to be the end of a character and if the players think that the cost of resurrecting the PC comes out of their future spoils, then they are playing the "winning/losing" game instead of the collaborative story telling game because the Game expects the GM to compensate the party to keep them at the right power level for the upcoming encounters. That is actually the GMs job and not the PCs job. If the players are having fun spending wealth to help NPCs build up their community, and are behind on weapon runes, throwing the same encounter at them that you would a party that has been focused on prying up every flagstone and selling it for personal treasure is pretty much breaking the intent of the game, and encouraging the PCs to act like bandits instead of heroes.
So there are lots of ways for GMs to adjust campaigns to best suit the interests of their players and doing so is not cheating, unless it is going against the wishes of the players. BUT players who are insisting that they are having no fun because they are forcing the GM to play the game a certain way because of imaginary expectations about how the game is supposed to be played are 100% at fault for not thinking about and communicating their expectations with their table.
A really good session 0 question is "How do you feel about character death and the risk of character death in game?" If the players have different expectations from each other, and have different ideas about what is expected by other characters to avoid the risk of death for an individual character, then you have a recipe for a lot of hurt feelings in the chaos of a difficult encounter. It also presents you as the GM with the opportunity to talk to your players about how you will handle introducing new characters into the game, as well as how you will handle wealth by level and how you handle access to resources like raise the dead.
I still recommend you try running a Play-by-Post game. If you start one and message me, I'd join it.
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Well, last night's discussion included a ranked voting of where to go next. No one chose sticking with Pathfinder 2e as their top vote.
Complaints that came up were...
it's too deadly/characters are expendable
we fail too often
it requires too much system mastery (and studying)to have fun with the systemEven if it were possible to convince them otherwise by changing my GM style, it seemed they had already made their decisions.
So I'll take the advice in this thread and apply it to future games I run.
It does kinda stink that my attempt to run PFS at the local game store fell apart after one game due to no interest and this game has also collapsed - all in about 2 weeks.
It sounds like you enjoy running PF2, in part because it is a game very much designed by GMs and that has made GMing it much easier than many other systems that are as rules intensive.
Playing a different game with this group might make a lot of sense and hopefully will work out for you all. Maybe after a year or two of other systems, your players might long for the customization and tactical potential of PF2, or maybe not.
But, I hope you are not in a position of being a forever GM who has to run systems that are more difficult on your side of the screen just to make the players happy. Consider talking to your friends about testing out some different systems, but encourage a play style that involves rotating GM responsibility so that everyone can see what responsibilities GMing involves. Also, this might help soften attitudes about "playing games by the rules" when players realize that GMs make 1000s of choices every session that are guided by instinct and party dynamics, not by a set of rules, and that is really hard to do without having players talk about how they want those less tangible aspects of the game handled.
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Players also have very few and limited ways to improve the situation, while having many ways to make it worse.
I've always felt that you need to be actively TRYING to make a bad character in this edition to end up with one.
Unlike other games and editions where there were tons of trap options and pit falls.
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Players also have very few and limited ways to improve the situation, while having many ways to make it worse.I've always felt that you need to be actively TRYING to make a bad character in this edition to end up with one.
Unlike other games and editions where there were tons of trap options and pit falls.
I generally agree. There are many reasonable paths to success, but there are still plenty of options that are significantly stronger than others.
I consider the skill system to be a bit of a trap, as its balanced assuming maximum attributes and item bonus, if you don't have that just taking better proficiency is not going to do much - its still going to be a poor option.
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I consider the skill system to be a bit of a trap, as its balanced assuming maximum attributes and item bonus, if you don't have that just taking better proficiency is not going to do much - its still going to be a poor option.
Compare that to putting ranks in cross-class skills in D&D 3.5. Because for flavor you wanted your Fighter to be stealthy.
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I understand why your group chose that OP, but as a forever GM I can say to anyone that wants me to run pf1e or 5e that I simply flat out refuse.
I don't have the time or energy to deal with that nonsense anymore.
Players still come to my games, my current Isekai campaign has a waiting list of 5 players if any of the 6 main ones abandons it before we get started.
You get to choose what you want to run, if they want to run something else, they can GM
(One of my players has been trying to restart our skulls and shackles campaign for like... A year and a half and just not doing it, when he does I played an aeromancer arcanist in there and I was about to get icy prison...)
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One thing I always ask myself when prepping a severe or extreme encounter in an AP: "If things go bad in the first round, am I ok with this being a TPK?" There's often severe encounters that don't feel "load bearing" -- they aren't a boss, they aren't telegraphed; there's no good reason for a harder than moderate fight (other than variety). If one of these ends up being a TPK, it does feel horrible in general for the players I tend to play with -- they don't want to cycle through 5 characters each in a single campaign, etc.
So for those encounters part of my prep is "How do I limit it to a non-TPL if things go bad?" The answers might be "once someone is down, actively concentrate on that person to get a kill, while giving the rest of the party a chance to escape", it might be "strut/posture/villain monologue", it might be "carry off an unconscious opponent for feasting later", or "take their valuables and run away. while my colleagues keep them busy".
This is especially useful if the players/party are looking like they want to flee/retreat. Find a way to let that be the story. This does get tricky as players/PCs often have a "no one left behind" viewpoint, but limiting it to one character death instead of a TPK is often possible.
With the example about shoving into graves, it feels like you're (subconsciously) looking for reasons/excuses to go hard on the party. -- Maybe the demons don't close right away and try to lure the party closer to the graves -- use their two action harm spell or fear spell to start at range. Spend actions to shove people closer. I don't think I would have had the demons concentrate on a single PC, nor move to flank unless they were having trouble hitting -- they aren't pack hunters -- they're scavengers.
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** spoiler omitted **...
Having reviewed this finally, I do think you had room to make this less deadly. One glaring moment for me: requiring the sorcerer to use an action for a Medicine check to tell how close the enemy is to dying. That isn't the in the rules. Personally, since I switched to VTTs I just display enemy health bars. No numbers, but either a bar or some sort of mod that says whether a creature is badly injured, near death, etc. Wounds should be visible apparent, and while creatures mechanically don't get worn out as their HP approaches zero in narrative they should be looking worse for wear.
That said, the house rule you applied isn't an outrageous one, and feels intuitively consistent with how actions like Seek and Recall Knowledge work. However... it is the sort of house rule you may need to bend. It sounds like the sorcerer taking that action is what prevented him from successfully fleeing. I would have either let them figure this out as a free action, or advised the player that spending the action would mean getting attacked.
You also could have had the injured monster focus on healing and eating any of the bodies around it, instead of pursuing. Occasionally going for the downed character may make you seem like a cruel GM but actually helps the party survive. (And in this case it would be extremely in character for the creatures.)
It also seems like attacking the revived, prone champion instead of any of the standing characters might have been a turning point. You also could have pointed out the enemy would be acting next in the initiative so healing the champion at that moment wouldn't help. (Side note: did you remember to move the champ's initiative when they were knocked out?) Now, some people resent having the GM make suggestions like this, so this isn't a sure fire best practice... But it is something to consider if your players are missing tactical considerations, especially if they should be obvious to their characters.
Nothing you did was unfair, but you may consider opportunities to cut players slack in the future, especially with your luck.
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The opponent should not have attacked the revived Champion.
It makes no sense to waste an action on a prone wounded opponent who has dropped their weapon and maybe their shield when other opponents are still striking and blasting you. The ones unharmed are the greater threat you should focus on.
Ehh.... That kind of statement makes a lot less sense when talking about someone that you've just seen magically revived than it would if we were talking about not spending actions finishing off an unconscious, dying enemy.
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Just going to weigh in to say that imo adjusting difficulty on the fly so that the players are having fun is absolutely the GM's job. Yes, it is the GM's job to know what the players need better than the players do. Yes, often this will mean doing things that your players would tell you not to do if they knew you were doing it. The GM screen exists for a reason.
As a GM you have the benefit of constant feedback from your players. You can constantly see, in real time, what they are enjoying vs not enjoying. You have "hard data" here, while players will generally only have a sense of what they "usually enjoy".
There's a well-known issue in game design where players will "optimize the fun" out of their game experience if the developers allow them to. If you provide a route to a reward that is more optimal but less fun, players will take it almost every time. Similarly, players often have no idea what they actually want, and are just as prone to "vote away the fun". A game designer's job is to anticipate those issues and find ways to solve it - and in my opinion the role of GM shares a lot with the role of game designer. You didn't write the adventure, but you are in a very real sense designing the moment to moment experience of your players.
This is all to say, I will absolutely not hesitate even a little bit to mislead my players if the observed result is that they have more fun, and I think any decent GM would do the same.
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Ehh.... That kind of statement makes a lot less sense when talking about someone that you've just seen magically revived than it would if we were talking about not spending actions finishing off an unconscious, dying enemy.The opponent should not have attacked the revived Champion.
It makes no sense to waste an action on a prone wounded opponent who has dropped their weapon and maybe their shield when other opponents are still striking and blasting you. The ones unharmed are the greater threat you should focus on.
To each their own I guess.
I think most PCs I know would focus on downing the opponents that are actually hurting them.
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It is possible. Though troll posting doesn't typically include extensive details like party composition including stats, and a play-by-play. That is a lot of work to simply invent for the lols.
But troll post or not, I am fairly satisfied with the responses that are on this thread. It is good information to give to players or GMs who are experienced with PF1 and trying out PF2.
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Pride certainly is something that stops people from enjoying things, but "I know you've stated a preference, but I know better than you so I'm going to ignore your preferences" is the kind of sketchy behavior people shouldn't be encouraging.
I mean, in the scenario described everyone voted to quit the adventure because they were so frustrated with the encounters.
I can't really wrap my head around looking at that and then arguing that the encounter difficulty was tuned properly for that party and that not changing how things were run was the right call.
Having reviewed this finally, I do think you had room to make this less deadly. One glaring moment for me: requiring the sorcerer to use an action for a Medicine check to tell how close the enemy is to dying. That isn't the in the rules. Personally, since I switched to VTTs I just display enemy health bars. No numbers, but either a bar or some sort of mod that says whether a creature is badly injured, near death, etc. Wounds should be visible apparent, and while creatures mechanically don't get worn out as their HP approaches zero in narrative they should be looking worse for wear.
I may have a problem with too many modules... but have you looked at the Health Estimate module? It displays a description above tokens based on their current HP, with things like "Barely Wounded", "Wounded" and "Near Death". It's completely customizable and also has a colour gradient (default green = healthy, dark red = dying).
Only problem I've had with it is that it doesn't use the vehicle options ("Damaged" instead of "Wounded") for Constructs, which would be really nice!
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Having reviewed this finally, I do think you had room to make this less deadly. One glaring moment for me: requiring the sorcerer to use an action for a Medicine check to tell how close the enemy is to dying. That isn't the in the rules. Personally, since I switched to VTTs I just display enemy health bars. No numbers, but either a bar or some sort of mod that says whether a creature is badly injured, near death, etc. Wounds should be visible apparent, and while creatures mechanically don't get worn out as their HP approaches zero in narrative they should be looking worse for wear.I may have a problem with too many modules... but have you looked at the Health Estimate module? It displays a description above tokens based on their current HP, with things like "Barely Wounded", "Wounded" and "Near Death". It's completely customizable and also has a colour gradient (default green = healthy, dark red = dying).
Only problem I've had with it is that it doesn't use the vehicle options ("Damaged" instead of "Wounded") for Constructs, which would be really nice!
Yup, that is the one I use! Health bars is fine but it isn't the default in Foundry so I'd have to manually enter them all. So that module makes things easier.
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It is possible. Though troll posting doesn't typically include extensive details like party composition including stats, and a play-by-play. That is a lot of work to simply invent for the lols.
But troll post or not, I am fairly satisfied with the responses that are on this thread. It is good information to give to players or GMs who are experienced with PF1 and trying out PF2.
That's fair something just seems off though. Not really sure what. The replies are fine and you're probably right, still not seeing how the party wipes every three sessions though it's almost outside of probability
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What tipped me off, or rather, gives me a suspicion as to what is going wrong is when OP mentioned that the players are not only using ALL of their Actions (even if it's not all the time) to make Strikes/Attacks and additionally they're burning Hero Points in order to try to make it land.
If they're making the mistake of burning all their Actions on Attacks and even using Hero Points on them it is highly suggestive that they are almost certainly making a ton of other even EASIER to make mistakes such as failing to move around in combat, take cover, flank, retreat, apply conditions, and just generally cooperate to ensure that the best possible PC is getting whatever numerical bonuses possible on their "primary role" type Actions instead of trying to bring up lesser numbers.
Overall, and NOT to be insulting at all, I think the party that the players are probably stuck in a 3.X mindset and want to burst encounters down and rely exclusively on the luck of the dice to help bring it home when statistically speaking, the enemies are always going to be far more likely to land critical hits and consistent overwhelming force than ANY party will be able to muster. Combine this with more "balanced" PCs who don't focus on having their primary stat being 18 to start and doing what I'd charitably call zerg combat behavior and semi-frequent TPKs are... going to happen, esp in the earlier PF2 APs since those were a bit overturned for the average group.
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The other thing that I'm a little worried about is it often sounds like the OP is looking for a silver-bullet/missed rule that will magically fix things. They've been answering questions on hard facts, but have avoided responding to any of the replies that talk about the softer/subjective GMing skills.
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If the Killer GM title has been following you through multiple editions, I think you have your answer; and if you don't want it that title, you need to look at retraining your GM habits.
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I guess I want to start with the rules and make sure I'm running everything correctly before looking at retraining three decades of GMing habits - though some of that might be in order (especially since I've had this Killer GM title following me since 3rd edition D&D - when the focus of the game turned very tactical and the rules became very precise).
Some of the advice I've been getting has been kind of diametrically opposed, so it's hard to know what to do.
If you've been known as the killer GM for 30 years, and it's not "accidental" TPKs (bad luck rolls, etc.), then I think you should lean into it as long as it's fun. Maybe look at some Old School Revival stuff.
Otherwise, you need to learn how to keep the game moving forward.
For example, if Locked Door A is not important to the plot (just a treasure room), then a failed lockpick roll means the door stays locked and you don't get to try again.
If Locked Door B is important to the plot, then that Door has to open no matter what. So a failed lockpick roll instead opens the door, but the picks break, or the door opens, but guards are alerted.
From a combat perspective, if the fight is leading to TPK Town, you need to do something about it. Either fudge monster HP (lower it), or fudge die rolls behind a screen ("miss" more often).
If you're better at miniature combat than the players, you need to dumb down your playstyle so you don't wipe out the party.
If you're down to one player, the enemy could demand surrender, or tell the player to run and tell everyone what a badass the monster/villain is.
If the party does TPK, you still control the narrative. The party wipes, but wakes up in a cage/cell and now they have to escape. Book of the Dead came out; revive the party, but they have to take ghoul archetypes.
If the party TPKs, they are resurrected and owe a debt to the benefactor who paid for it.
The story doesn't continue unless you turn the page, so it's your job to keep these things in your pocket and avoid dead ends.
I've read this thread through twice now and part of me is wondering if this isn't a troll post? I've been in a tpk (Abomination Vaults), but only the one in my entire gaming life (2004). So I am not sure.Hey there. Assuring you this isn't a troll post.
I can give you a few examples of PF2 TPKs I've had, as well as encounters that were so difficult the party just gave up. Alas, no full details because some of them were a couple years ago now. Some of these were admittedly due to my learning the system - especially one of the Age of Ashes TPKs.
Putting in spoiler tags...
** spoiler omitted **
Those are tough encounters, especially if you don't have the right class mix and/or walked into the area at a lower level which is why I don't care for sandboxes as they can be TPK machines if your party takes the wrong route then tries to engage something much stronger than them. I can see TPKs on those encounters if the party makes even a few mistakes or even a few bad roll streaks or in the case of Abom Vaults walked down the wrong hallway at too low a level.
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The other thing that I'm a little worried about is it often sounds like the OP is looking for a silver-bullet/missed rule that will magically fix things. They've been answering questions on hard facts, but have avoided responding to any of the replies that talk about the softer/subjective GMing skills.I guess I want to start with the rules and make sure I'm running everything correctly before looking at retraining three decades of GMing habits - though some of that might be in order (especially since I've had this Killer GM title following me since 3rd edition D&D - when the focus of the game turned very tactical and the rules became very precise).
Some of the advice I've been getting has been kind of diametrically opposed, so it's hard to know what to do.
The amount if information available on Campaign Mastery may be daunting, but skim through the index and you'll find ways to retrain or shift your perspective on game elements.
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If you've been known as the killer GM for 30 years, and it's not "accidental" TPKs (bad luck rolls, etc.), then I think you should lean into it as long as it's fun. Maybe look at some Old School Revival stuff.
The Alien RPG would also be great for this. The cinematic scenarios are brutal on the PCs, yet so very, very much fun to play (and run).
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If they're making the mistake of burning all their Actions on Attacks and even using Hero Points on them it is highly suggestive that they are almost certainly making a ton of other even EASIER to make mistakes such as failing to move around in combat, take cover, flank, retreat, apply conditions, and just generally cooperate to ensure that the best possible PC is getting whatever numerical bonuses possible on their "primary role" type Actions instead of trying to bring up lesser numbers.
Yeah, spending Hero Points to reroll a third strike is a real headscratcher. If one of my players did that I would definitely ask if they were sure they wanted to do so. My players almost exclusively use them to reroll saving throws, unless they really, really want to succeed at a skill check and aren't anticipating any combat for the session.
My players all hate OSR and what they call "expendable characters" - so I'll need to go in another direction.
Since we play on VTT and I display dice rolls - I'll need to conceal those if I'm going to fudge.
Back in the day (running 2nd edition AD&D) I'd make all die rolls behind the screen and keep a running tally on all characters' HP just to make sure I didn't kill anybody. There were much fewer deaths, as you might imagine, but I knew the game wasn't actually a game: it was my friends sitting around and listening to me tell a story (and they had little control over it).
I have trouble believing that I'm so much better tactically than the playtesters and designers of PF2. I'm regularly dropping parties (across three different groups) with what are considered standard encounters (even if some are Severe they aren't beyond what a party are expected to handle).
Foundry's anti-dice cheat module ironically comes with a couple buttons that let your dice lean towards the low side or high side. If you need to ease up, just give yourself some bad luck. That aside, it seems clear, to me at least, that your players are just plain bad at the game. The way pf2e demands to be played isn't the most intuitive thing in the world. Consider giving a breakdown of system expectations during a session 0 to make sure your players build and play the way the game requires them to.
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Once you enter encounter mode, PF2 more or less becomes a cooperative board game. So if you dont want to or can't fudge dice or don't want to or can't change the inherent difficulty you only have one option left: If your players play subpar for any reason, you also have to play subpar, else the cooperative game will quickly spiral into a competitive and deadly one.
And I literally mean any reason, which does include the players playing bad, but not exclusively so. For example if a character (not player) has arachnophobia and the module/adventure comes up with a +3 level boss fight versus a spider creature and said player does a great job of roleplaying his fear by rarely completing coherent and useful turns and actions, then you can not have the monster simply fighting on as if nothing has happened versus a party deprived of one members HP and actions.
To come up with plausible bad moves for deadly enemies is one of the GM's hardest tasks because it is not easy riding the line in between keeping tension and a general sense of danger versus making fights feel cheated in favour of the players and the feeling of being invincible no matter what you do.