Players Can't Land Specials, FeelsBadMan


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So I've run about 10 sessions of 2E across two groups at this point (we were just starting to transition when the OGL nonsense went down), and the whole "PF2E encounters are brutal" thing is definitely showing up here. But besides just being brutal, the encounters have been uniquely frustrating in that the players just can not seem to get their specials to land.

The swashbuckler either blows their attempt to Tumble Through and just throws away an action instead, OR has panache but can't manage to land another hit ever.

The champion only ever gets critically hit. The first one breaks their shield, the second one breaks them.

The magus either can't successfully hit with a spellstrike, OR the monster insta-dies from the weapon attack and the spellstrike is wasted.

(The rogue not getting sneak attack is on them for never hiding or flanking.)

Is this... normal? I feel like my players are being trained "Never Attempt Specials, They Do Not Work." One group is going through Abomination Vaults, the other is homebrew stuff using the established guidelines, and both groups end up every fight Wounded 2 and with 7 hp spread across the party. Even handing out hero points like candy doesn't help because they just get hoarded to ward off Dying 2 From Critical Hit.

They do tend towards being gloryhounds, and I've been trying to nudge them towards more tactical, team-oriented play; so I know that some of this is their own choices biting them. But even not-always-optimal play shouldn't be THIS punishing, should it?

-The Gneech


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To start with the basics:

What is the party's character level and what is the level of the enemies that they are facing? That is the big dial. That is what is going to make fights seem like nothing hits - because the level difference is too high. (either that or Negativity Bias)

The players do need to spend some of their actions on defense. That will help them keep their own HP. Anyone with Shield block should consider using it.

Similarly, they should be spending some of their actions on debuffing. Lowered AC is easier to hit. Similar for other stats like will saves.

Attacking the enemy's stats or actions is at least as valuable as attacking their HP.

So, like you mentioned: a synergized and cooperative party is much more powerful than a loose collection of individual gloryhounds. Trying to solo-fight an entire party-balanced encounter on your own really will be that punishing.

Horizon Hunters

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*sigh* And yes, Swashbuckler is meant to be a 'go big or go home' class - and with the math of PF2, each of those outcomes is about equally likely.


The game math puts you at a roughly 60% success rate baseline. If your groups aren't playing the buff/debuff game they're going to suffer. Playing badly on purpose like the rogue isn't going to do them any favors either.

For the specific classes, the champion is unlucky and shields that aren't "sturdy shield" are bad at blocking anything, swashbuckler is a bad class from the start and the magus is dealing with early enemy hp which will quickly scale past the point of dying like that.


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breithauptclan wrote:

To start with the basics:

What is the party's character level and what is the level of the enemies that they are facing? That is the big dial. That is what is going to make fights seem like nothing hits - because the level difference is too high. (either that or Negativity Bias)

The players do need to spend some of their actions on defense. That will help them keep their own HP. Anyone with Shield block should consider using it.

Similarly, they should be spending some of their actions on debuffing. Lowered AC is easier to hit. Similar for other stats like will saves.

Attacking the enemy's stats or actions is at least as valuable as attacking their HP.

So, like you mentioned: a synergized and cooperative party is much more powerful than a loose collection of individual gloryhounds. Trying to solo-fight an entire party-balanced encounter on your own really will be that punishing.

They're 1st level, fighting mostly 0-level but anywhere from -1 to 2. I did overtune my first couple of encounters because I was unlearning bad habits from 5E, but this past weekend it was a level 1 ghoul backed up by a level 0 skeletons and level -1 zombie. By the math it should have been a "moderate" encounter (it's a 7-player group), but they still had a character death. It wasn't the ghoul that did it, tho: the skeletons resist 5 against every damage type in the party. XD


Without a full play-by-play including dice rolls, it is hard to pin down what exactly the problem is or what could have been done better.

My suspicion is either bad luck with the dice, or tactics.

For the dice, it is rather reliable that just by looking at the face of the dice showing you can determine if you succeed or not over half of the time. If the d20 comes up less than 8 you failed. If it is more than 13 you succeeded. There are exceptions, of course. But most of those are caused by level difference rather than character build choices or tactics.

Tactics is about attacking the enemy in ways other than their hit points. Or buffing your allies. Finding something useful to do with all of your actions (rather than swinging for the fences at a -10 MAP penalty). Or just being in the right place at the right time. There is an art to it that only comes with practice.

Liberty's Edge

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The part that sucks about it is that for it to even feel effective you have to first succeed the Tumble or associated Skill check which doesn't even have great odds of working and then once that is done you also have to spend further Actions trying to use an Attack or Finisher which itself has a not to great chance of succeeding. Sure, if you use the Finisher you can deal SOME damage on a failure but that's spending two of our three Actions on a turn to do something like 3-9 damage depending on what level you are, very bad feels.

That's why I can't ever suggest anyone play a Swash no matter their concept, they have to actually get LUCKY to do their primary thing to any effect.


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If you're adjusting encounters for your large group, try adding more weak enemies rather than beefing up the existing enemies, adding templates or up-tweaking enemies can easily throw off the game's math because level scaling is relatively intense (and because PF2 is so accuracy gated, it exacerbates those issues). Avoid focus firing with those enemies (but also avoid stacking enemies with cheap, easy to use AoEs because those can be deadly and break encounter math even on lower level foes).

Have to agree that Swashbuckler in general is a little bit underwhelming, but that wouldn't explain everything else happening here.

Can you elaborate a bit on that combat encounter with the ghoul where someone died? 7 people against what sounds like three enemies (a ghoul, a skeleton, and a zombie?) all of which are APL or lower feels like it should be extremely free, like the kind of encounter where not everyone even gets to take their turn because the enemies go down so fast.


yea, a moderet encounter for 7 players should be 140 xp. You had 90 xp. That is a trivial encounter. Something is wrong. Do the players have an 18 or 16 in their main stat?


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OP, you've got several troubleshooters on the case. I bet they get you sorted out.

I also think it's cool that it doesn't usually take this bunch too long to pinpoint the problem(s) and suggest fixes.

Credit to the designers for a game that generally "just works" and to the community for it's willingness to help!


John Robey wrote:
They're 1st level, fighting mostly 0-level but anywhere from -1 to 2. I did overtune my first couple of encounters because I was unlearning bad habits from 5E, but this past weekend it was a level 1 ghoul backed up by a level 0 skeletons and level -1 zombie. By the math it should have been a "moderate" encounter (it's a 7-player group), but they still had a character death. It wasn't the ghoul that did it, tho: the skeletons resist 5 against every damage type in the party. XD

I have a 7-player party, too, but they have been playing PF2 for years and are tactical experts.

Throwing three different kinds creatures at the party is a minor mistake. I made that mistake in my combat last week (I wrote up a description at this Ironfang Invasion link). I improvised a Trivial-Threat encounter when the dice created an unexpected plot twist and threw a 17th-level Honor Guard troop, a 16th-level gargoyle, and a 14th-level Ironfang Commando at them. I had to keep scrolling between the different creature descriptions to look up their AC and saves. The leshy sorcerer enthralled the gargoyle, the gnome rogue accepted the surrender of the commando (they had met before), and the other five party members killed the Honor Guard.

In addition to confusing the GM with three creature stat blocks, the three different foes slow down the PCs' ability to invent tactics. Zombies generally are weak to slashing damage. Skeletons generally resist non-bludgeoning damage. Ghouls generally inflict ghoul fever and paralysis. If the party faced three of one kind, then they would realize the countertactcs that would turn the tide. With three different creatures, identifying the ghoul's abnilities does nothing to help against the skeleton or zombie and vice versa. Likewise, the players had no way of telling that some enemies are weaker than others and might focus their best attacks on the weak zombie.

Squiggit wrote:
Have to agree that Swashbuckler in general is a little bit underwhelming, but that wouldn't explain everything else happening here.

John Robey provided a good opponent that could let the swashbuckler shine. Zombie Shamblers are slow, lack reactions, and have Reflex DC 10. So it should be a good target for Tumbling Through. A tactical swashbuckler could gain panache by tumbling through the zombie and then use the panache against a more dangerous target. With the extra +2 precision damage from Precise Strike, the swashbuckler could afford to pummel the skeleton with their fist, bypassing the damage resistance to piercing and slashing damage. But this requires identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the opponents.

John Robey wrote:

The swashbuckler either blows their attempt to Tumble Through and just throws away an action instead, OR has panache but can't manage to land another hit ever.

The champion only ever gets critically hit. The first one breaks their shield, the second one breaks them.

The magus either can't successfully hit with a spellstrike, OR the monster insta-dies from the weapon attack and the spellstrike is wasted.

(The rogue not getting sneak attack is on them for never hiding or flanking.)

Is this... normal?

Are they playing rocket tag? Rocket tag is a strategy that works well at high levels in PF1 and D&D: it means to move fast and hit first, trying to keep the combat as short as possible. Rocket tag is not as useful at 1st level, and it is a weak strategy for a 7-member party.

Large parties are better at slower, more defensive strategies. Some PCs rush into the fray while others can afford the time to make Recall Knowledge checks to find enemy weaknesses (be sure as a GM to give information that the players can use tactically, not some useless information). And when a melee PC gets low in hit points, they can back away to ranged combat rather than risk getting knocked down dying, because the party has other PCs that can take their place. That is how my players find time to invent clever tactics that devastate the enemy.

John Robey wrote:
I feel like my players are being trained "Never Attempt Specials, They Do Not Work."

The balanced math in PF2 means that specials only work sometimes. Routine attacks work 55% of the time, less routine special maneuvers work less often. No single action is highly reliable at 1st level.

The gnome rogue in my party developed a special style at 2nd level. Though she took the Thief Racket that gives Dexterity to Damage on melee attacks, she chose to become a sniper. She would Hide behind a bush, rock, or barrel. She invested her first skill increase into Stealth. She would shoot from Hiding, catching an opponent flat-footed and gaining her sneak attack damage if she hit. Then she would Hide again. Each turn was Shoot, Hide, and maybe reroll a weak Hide or Sneak to a safer hiding place. The advantage of those sniper tactics was that the Hiding served two purposes: offense and defense. Offensively, it gave her sneak attack damage against foes with a -2 penalty to AC. Defensively, many opponents did not notice her, those that did notice her still had a DC 11 flat check to hit her, and the opponents would decide to attack someone else in the 7-member party.

That is how specials work well at low levels. They need more than one purpose. The champion's shield is both a +2 circumstance bonus to AC and a way to absorb damage. The swashbuckler's panache either is kept for a steady +1 circumstance bonus and +2 precision damage or spent at a key moment for a finisher. And so on. With two purposes the character is more likely to have some advantage from the tactic.


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Squiggit wrote:
Can you elaborate a bit on that combat encounter with the ghoul where someone died? 7 people against what sounds like three enemies (a ghoul, a skeleton, and a zombie?) all of which are APL or lower feels like it should be extremely free, like the kind of encounter where not everyone even gets to take their turn because the enemies go down so fast.

Four enemies, actually, there were two skeletons, and those were the real problem. But specifically:

Level 1 Team:
* Hobgoblin Magus, 16 Str and Int; can't seem to land a meaningful spellstrike but is working on it
* Halfling Rogue, Dex 18, tends to use archery when possible but neglects to hide (which I have nudged her to do)
* Tiefling Inventor, Int 18, with a subterfuge suit; the one who died after a crit fail on her armor explode and then getting swarmed
* Kitsune Fire Oracle, Cha 16, insisted on using fire even after learning skeletons resisted it, and actually told the rogue to come over and take the mace out of her sheath and use it, rather than stop using fire herself -.-
* Human Swashbuckler, Dex 18, most tactical one of the night, scooped up a bone from the ground to use as a club because nothing else was working
* Human Summoner with a lightning dragon eidolon

Opposition:
* Level 1 ghoul
* Two level 0 wolf skeletons (from Book of the Dead); resistance 5 to cold, electricity, fire, piercing, and slashing
* Level -1 zombie hound (from PF #181), has knockdown and does extra damage to prone creatures
* "Second wave" of two level -1 skeleton warriors who were visibly lurking in the background but were not going to join in the fight until the swashbuckler taunted them; also resistance 5 to cold, electricity, fire, piercing, slashing

The Setup:
The party is escorting a young woman who is being targeted by an ancestral curse (think Mina Harker being tormented by Dracula); BBEG hypnotizes the NPC into wandering out into the woods, party tracks her down, BBEG summons undead interference, pretty straightforward. The "second wave" skeleton warriors were mostly set dressing, menacing the NPC, but the swashbuckler deliberately aggro'd them away from her in a move which was heroic but tactically very unsound >.>

Things the Party Did Right:
* The zombie hound was taken down with something like two hits
* The ghoul was nearly one-punched by the magus and easily finished off by the oracle

Things the Party Did Right That Failed:
* The swashbuckler attempted to Recall Knowledge to try to identify the ghoul; unfortunately, they rolled an 8, and that was the last RK check anyone made
* The swashbuckler did also come up with the idea of using bones on the ground as a club
* When prompted by the oracle, the rogue did in fact come forward and take their mace to do bludgeoning damage; of course the rogue was not proficient and couldn't sneak attack with it, but at least it wasn't resisted
* When the summoner realized his eidolon was getting pounded by the wolf skeletons, he withdrew and attempted to kite; unfortunately, his lightning breath was completely ineffective against their DR
* The magus engaged the ghoul and hurt it quite badly, but then got a critical chomp and a nasty claw that skipped right past paralysis and just knocked 'im out
* The inventor started with a critical success on Overdrive, adding +4 to their damage, but that damage was a shortbow >.>

Things the Party Just Plain Did Wrong:
* The oracle wanted to use fire, and so they used fire. And kept using fire. And kept using fire. It was only after two people were down and the inventor was "dead" that she finally said "FINE, I'll use disrupt undead."
* As mentioned, rogue won't hide and won't flank, I don't get it
* Magus and summoner basically cycled through electricity and cold next, after fire was established not to work... which of course were also resisted
* Swashbuckler wasted time pulling and engaging "background" monsters that would have ignored the party (which, admittedly, they had no way of knowing)

Evil Dice:
* Failure on DC 15 Recall Knowledge check made them decide not to "waste any more time" on Recall Knowledge
* Critical hits by the ghoul and the skeletal wolves did lots of damage and knocked people prone multiple times
* Inventor used a hero point to reroll their initial failed Overdrive check, leading to critical success—which was great until they got taken down by a critical hit and had no hero points to prevent going straight to dying 2
* Once at dying 2, inventor immediately critically failed their first recovery check and died instantly

So to some extent, it was kind of a perfect storm of bad luck combined with bad decisions; honestly if I was going to point "blame" I'd put it at the feet of the oracle who wants to just Set Fire To All the Things All the Time; once she "got over" that and started doing stuff effective against undead (including a three-action heal that only did 2 points, but brought up two unconscious party members and hurt three monsters), the encounter ended pretty quickly.

And with the benefit of 50/50 hindsight, if I'd realized the skellies were effectively immune to most of the party's primary damage sources, I probably would have done something like four zombie hounds instead, but I am leery of doing too much 'massaging' encounters either for or against them.


Mathmuse wrote:
Are they playing rocket tag? Rocket tag is a strategy that works well at high levels in PF1 and D&D: it means to move fast and hit first, trying to keep the combat as short as possible. Rocket tag is not as useful at 1st level, and it is a weak strategy for a 7-member party.

Nothing so deliberately planned; each one of them wants to do their cool thing and goes to do that. XD Except for the rogue, who just wants the fight to be over so we can get back to the story. ;P

(Actually, as I've been going back through this thread, I will probably suggest to her that she might want to re-spec as a fighter. I don't know if that will fly, but it's certainly closer to how she plays.)


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

One small thing you may have missed: when you hit 0 HP and fall unconscious, your initiative moves to the turn just before it happened. This gives the party the maximum amount of time to pick said member up including with things like the Heal the oracle used.

But it's also possible no one recognized the danger the Inventor was in (or had no way to remedy it) at Dying 2.


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John Robey wrote:
Squiggit wrote:
Can you elaborate a bit on that combat encounter with the ghoul where someone died? 7 people against what sounds like three enemies (a ghoul, a skeleton, and a zombie?) all of which are APL or lower feels like it should be extremely free, like the kind of encounter where not everyone even gets to take their turn because the enemies go down so fast.

Four enemies, actually, there were two skeletons, and those were the real problem. But specifically:

Level 1 Team:
* Hobgoblin Magus, 16 Str and Int; can't seem to land a meaningful spellstrike but is working on it
* Halfling Rogue, Dex 18, tends to use archery when possible but neglects to hide (which I have nudged her to do)
* Tiefling Inventor, Int 18, with a subterfuge suit; the one who died after a crit fail on her armor explode and then getting swarmed
* Kitsune Fire Oracle, Cha 16, insisted on using fire even after learning skeletons resisted it, and actually told the rogue to come over and take the mace out of her sheath and use it, rather than stop using fire herself -.-
* Human Swashbuckler, Dex 18, most tactical one of the night, scooped up a bone from the ground to use as a club because nothing else was working
* Human Summoner with a lightning dragon eidolon

Opposition:
* Level 1 ghoul
* Two level 0 wolf skeletons (from Book of the Dead); resistance 5 to cold, electricity, fire, piercing, and slashing
* Level -1 zombie hound (from PF #181), has knockdown and does extra damage to prone creatures
* "Second wave" of two level -1 skeleton warriors who were visibly lurking in the background but were not going to join in the fight until the swashbuckler taunted them; also resistance 5 to cold, electricity, fire, piercing, slashing

The Setup:
The party is escorting a young woman who is being targeted by an ancestral curse (think Mina Harker being tormented by Dracula); BBEG hypnotizes the NPC into wandering out into the woods, party tracks her down, BBEG summons undead interference, pretty straightforward. The...

Yeah... What your players are doing wrong? Well, pretty much everything, to be honest. I would even say it simply like this: They're playing 5e in PF2e.

Since your party is full of newbies, make it clear to them you're introducing a homebrew mechanic: They get one free action at the start of combat to do a Recall Knowledge.

This might increase the chances of them getting more information and try to use it to their advantage, it will also let them branch out into other activities in certain cases. Also, try to give the most crucial information on basic successes and on critical success give out saving throw numbers, specially abilities, resistances and weaknesses. Over time, maybe in another campaign, you roll back these rules (once PF2e Remake drops with new Recall Knowledge rules).

This is the most inconspicuous and effortless way of helping the party while still making them having to learn the system's game mechanics. More than that and you can get really close to trivializing core aspects of the game in order to accommodate your players' mistakes.

"Getting good" will only feel rewarding if the players know failure and what they did wrong.

This playlist made by Knights of Last Call is incredibly helpful for newcomers and players who are still lost with Pathfinder 2e's tactical RPG focus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ2-labfJHI&list=PLx9XBZIzERNFdGf54C1dE rN8AfuSWM_Bk&index=1


Xethik wrote:

One small thing you may have missed: when you hit 0 HP and fall unconscious, your initiative moves to the turn just before it happened. This gives the party the maximum amount of time to pick said member up including with things like the Heal the oracle used.

But it's also possible no one recognized the danger the Inventor was in (or had no way to remedy it) at Dying 2.

We're playing in Foundry, which IIRC moves the person in the initiative order automatically. Unfortunately, the party was pretty spread out across the battlefield and I believe at least one of the others was also unconscious at that point but my memory is hazy now. I do think they were all surprised when she immediately failed her recovery check and died; if I'm not mistaken it was actually the first recovery check made by the group, as everyone has consistently spent their hero points to avoid the dying condition before now.


Lightning Raven wrote:
Yeah... What your players are doing wrong? Well, pretty much everything, to be honest. I would even say it simply like this: They're playing 5e in PF2e.

Ouch. XD But I mean, I can't say you're wrong.

Lightning Raven wrote:

Since your party is full of newbies, make it clear to them you're introducing a homebrew mechanic: They get one free action at the start of combat to do a Recall Knowledge.

This might increase the chances of them getting more information and try to use it to their advantage, it will also let them branch out into other activities in certain cases. Also, try to give the most crucial information on basic successes and on critical success give out saving throw numbers, specially abilities, resistances and weaknesses. Over time, maybe in another campaign, you roll back these rules (once PF2e Remake drops with new Recall Knowledge rules).

That's an interesting idea!


You already pointed out a lot of the mistakes, but to add a few observations:

-- That's a lot of 16 KASs. This is a big newbie trap. You can get away with it, but it makes most everything harder. Also, if they are making that mistake, I wonder if they are also matching their armor to their dexterity scores. You really can't get away with it, but a lot of newbies do it.

-- Your oracle might as well not have been on that battle for most of it despite being the best weapon against undead. :( That's just... Bad. Like there are bad tactics and then there's just being willfully suicidal.

-- The rogue would have been proficient with the mace as it is a simple weapon.

--Any party member could have dealt bludgeoning damage with a fist.

-- You have two Advanced Players Guide classes, which are really built for advanced players. Your group... Isn't.

Overall, they are either going to need to get good or you're going to need to pull punches. Put them a level ahead of whatever the adventure or encounter design planned, or don't adjust encounters to their larger group size.

Edit: Lightning Raven's suggestion about the free Recall Knowledge actions is interesting. Could certainly help the party learn the game better. I will second that you should tailor the information you give the players to what will actually help your party.


Captain Morgan wrote:
-- The rogue would have been proficient with the mace as it is a simple weapon.

True. I should have said it's not finesse and she has no STR. ^.^' Point is, her attack bonus was severely reduced (and as mentioned, no sneak attack).

Captain Morgan wrote:
Overall, they are either going to need to get good or you're going to need to pull punches. Put them a level ahead of whatever the adventure or encounter design planned, or don't adjust encounters to their larger group size.

I've thought about doing the "level-1 APL" thing; I'm not excited by the prospect, but I also don't know how much willingness to get good they'll have. I think that's an OOC discussion we're going to have to have.


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John Robey wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
-- The rogue would have been proficient with the mace as it is a simple weapon.

True. I should have said it's not finesse and she has no STR. ^.^' Point is, her attack bonus was severely reduced (and as mentioned, no sneak attack).

Captain Morgan wrote:
Overall, they are either going to need to get good or you're going to need to pull punches. Put them a level ahead of whatever the adventure or encounter design planned, or don't adjust encounters to their larger group size.
I've thought about doing the "level-1 APL" thing; I'm not excited by the prospect, but I also don't know how much willingness to get good they'll have. I think that's an OOC discussion we're going to have to have.

One thing I've had to come to terms with is Pathfinder is not the best system for everyone. It is very crunchy. PF2 is less complex than PF1, but it is much more tactically demanding in actual play even if you're well optimized. Not everyone deals well with crunch or tactics. If you want to run it anyway, you'll likely need to make concessions.

Liberty's Edge

Who heals the party in-combat and how ?

No need for all-out healing, but a party need to have 2 emergency healers.

And the PCs have to stay within healing range. Spreading all over the battlefield and choosing different targets usually is the worst tactic.

Who heals the party out of combat and how ?

PCs are supposed to start almost all encounters with full HPs. And it's better to use renewable resources (Medicine checks, Focus spells) for this.

And yes, RK can be a very good use of an action, as long as the PC has a real chance to succeed (easier at low levels actually).

I did not make the calculations here, but be aware that waves of enemies are the most difficult kind of encounters to properly calibrate for the GM in PF2.

Liberty's Edge

Just calculated : Encounter budget without the skeleton warriors is 120. That is slightly lower than a Moderate encounter for your party of 7. It would be a by-the-book Moderate encounter for a party of 6.

Considering your players are beginners, it feels appropriate.

Including the skeleton warriors makes it 160. This turns it into a by-the-book Moderate encounter for a party of 8. With beginning players at level 1, just a few unlucky rolls on the PCs' part would be enough to make the encounter almost Severe. And with 7 players, this is very likely to happen.

So, what starts as a "serious challenge to the characters" (Moderate) easily becomes one of "the hardest encounters most groups of characters can consistently defeat" (Severe).


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As far as I can tell, the rogue should have had sneak attack. Undead in PF2E do not have blanket sneak attack and/or precise damage immunity. It will say in the creatures' stat block what they are immune to. If it does not say sneak attack, then it works on them.


Lia Wynn wrote:
As far as I can tell, the rogue should have had sneak attack. Undead in PF2E do not have blanket sneak attack and/or precise damage immunity. It will say in the creatures' stat block what they are immune to. If it does not say sneak attack, then it works on them.

The mace was neither finesse nor agile, and she generally didn't get into flanking position anyway.

The Raven Black wrote:

Who heals the party in-combat and how ?

No need for all-out healing, but a party need to have 2 emergency healers.

And the PCs have to stay within healing range. Spreading all over the battlefield and choosing different targets usually is the worst tactic.

Healing has been a recurring issue with these guys—again, the oracle wants to spend her time setting things on fire instead of doing literally anything else, leading to the magus saying "I've just accepted the fact that we have no healer." It didn't come into play as much in this particular fight (people generally went from "fine" to "out" all on the same turn), but it has been a thing. My current suspicion is that the artificer will probably pick up Battle Medicine at level 2.

Liberty's Edge

How do they deal with out of combat healing back to full ?

Liberty's Edge

Note : in combat healing can be provided through healing potions and the like. You just need someone with one hand free.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

One of the most fun, but challenging aspects of PF2 for players coming from other systems is how much all PF2 encounters are puzzle encounters. Even creatures without resistances or weaknesses will tend to be really good at something/somethings , and not great at others.

PF2 doesn’t really do “do one thing better than everything else and no one can stop you.” A lot of other games do, so players trying this approach tend to get shutdown the hardest when facing an encounter just like you presented them (where creatures have lots of resistances , at a low enough level where that can cover almost all damage).

First and foremost, the encounter was rough, but it was only too rough if no one had fun and people have bad feelings about the risk of character death. Crit failing recovery checks is bad luck, but probably more than any other common game in the genre, luck matters in PF2 and lucky PCs or Enemies will usually define the flashy, big moments of play. This is why tactics matter so much. Luck is everything, but luck can be manipulated. The moment heroes can hit on a 9 instead of a 10, they have doubled their crit chance. Which your players saw: crits flip the script on encounters (for enemies too). So there is nothing wrong with some difficult encounters when the party has bad luck, and when bad tactics and bad luck combine, characters die in PF2. It is by design. If your players hate that, and are used to really investing in character development that assumes character continuity and no character death, then figuring that out is important and GMs have many dials they can turn to change that, starting especially with hero points. With newer players that are used to video games where you can quit and reload the save, or are more narratively invested in their character’s connection to the story than the story itself (both pretty common and perfectly fine places for players to be), I’d consider starting them with 2 hero points while they are still struggling through realizing that carrying no back-up weapons with different damage types will get someone killed.

I have a lot to say about recalling knowledge. Learning how to do it effectively is a whole table skill that requires players and GMs having some shared expectations for how important it will be and when to do it. Imagine if players made one attack roll, missed on an 8 and decided attacking was not useful in this encounter, and didn’t make another attack roll. Your players thought recalling knowledge was a waste of actions and ended up wasting a character’s life and it sounds like several rounds of actions attacking pretty high resistances with low damage die weapons, ineffective spells and minimal attribute bonuses. Now making attacks instead of recalling knowledge can be a way to learn about an enemy, but if it involves moving into melee against melee monsters and making attack rolls, then that not only wastes your own actions, it is giving actions to the enemy.

When is it appropriate to let players learn tactical information about enemies before spending actions in combat? Or more mechanically, what exploration activities were your players engaged in in the moment before this encounter broke out? With 7 PCs and some weird stuff afoot, no one was investigating? As a GM, I recommend letting someone investigating in exploration mode start the encounter with a recall knowledge check as well as letting them use that skill for initiative. If the encounter hinged on being “this is the encounter where the players first learn about skeletons and zombies, things they will fight more of in the future, then probably aiming for a trivial or low encounter fist followed up by a moderate encounter with mostly the same creatures is another way to slow feed the relevant tactical information to the players.

As an aside, I have GM’d some of abomination vaults too. I love it. It is hard though, I play it hard, and my players like opening doors on terrifying horrors, closing those doors, running away back to town, and then researching how to fight them.it has made them really move around the dungeon, prove different paths forward, come back at different times of day and night, and take notes about the dungeon ecology and what is connected to what. Hitting level 2 really ends up feeling like an accomplishment.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
John Robey wrote:
The champion only ever gets critically hit. The first one breaks their shield, the second one breaks them.

This is one thing I hadn't seen addressed yet: A shield should never break unless a player wants it to.

Why? Because a player doesn't have to declare that they are using Shield Block until AFTER they know how much damage is coming at them. If the damage would be enough to break or destroy their shield, they can simply choose nit to Shield Block, keeping their shield intact and in reserve for its AC bonuses, or for a less damaging attack that isn't going to disable the shield.

Shield Block genrally works best on normal hits, not crits, unless you have a sturdy shield.

Contrast that to other reactions, such as the rogue's Nimble Dodge, which must be declared after you're attacked, but before you know the result of the attack roll.

Pay close attention to the triggering conditions, as they can make a world of difference.

As an aside, take care to pay attention to Traits and their meanings as well. Lots of new players screw up things like Flourish, Open, Press or Stance.


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Honestly, considering how they seem to play their character against all logic, I'd encourage you to play at APL-1. It will allow them to shine despite being clearly subpar in their tactics.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
SuperBidi wrote:
Honestly, considering how they seem to play their character against all logic, I'd encourage you to play at APL-1. It will allow them to shine despite being clearly subpar in their tactics.

I'm a big proponent of using the many tools to adjust game difficulty to suit your table's desires. Adjusting encounter level is one of the easiest.

It makes no sense to me to play default mode when everyone at the table wants to play easy mode. If they're not willing to take on the tactical challenges, but also not willing to change the difficulty, they're asking for all the groceries in one bag but for that bag to not be heavy.


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I also think it's not a "table decision" but a GM one. Players dislike knowing that the difficulty is toned down as it implies they don't play the game well, something that very few people accept easily.


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John Robey wrote:
Healing has been a recurring issue with these guys—again, the oracle wants to spend her time setting things on fire instead of doing literally anything else, leading to the magus saying "I've just accepted the fact that we have no healer."

That might be a problem - especially in a large party. With a larger party there will be a larger opposition. Which leads to more damage even if it is spread across more allies. If no one is doing any healing even when it is needed, that is going to be rough. It doesn't necessarily need to be the Oracle doing the healing, though Heal is definitely the S-tier in-combat healing.

John Robey wrote:
* Tiefling Inventor, Int 18, with a subterfuge suit; the one who died after a crit fail on her armor explode and then getting swarmed

Especially a problem if the higher number of enemies that exist due to the higher number of players are all focusing on one character in the party. With 7 or 8 players, you should effectively have two fronts to the battle in order to make sure that you don't focus all of the damage for the entire party onto one character.

With a 4-player party and 3 enemies, a 3 => 1 is survivable.
With a 7-player party and 6 enemies, a 6 => 1 is not.

John Robey wrote:
* The oracle wanted to use fire, and so they used fire. And kept using fire. And kept using fire. It was only after two people were down and the inventor was "dead" that she finally said "FINE, I'll use disrupt undead."

LOL. Yeah, that should get unlearned fast.

John Robey wrote:

Except for the rogue, who just wants the fight to be over so we can get back to the story. ;P

(Actually, as I've been going back through this thread, I will probably suggest to her that she might want to re-spec as a fighter. I don't know if that will fly, but it's certainly closer to how she plays.)

A Fighter is a very different character than a Rogue. Especially as levels are added.

If the player is role-playing a fighter, switching over to a fighter is appropriate. If the player is role-playing a rogue but fighting as a fighter, switching over to a fighter will still be a disconnect. The Fighter won't have the skills and skill feats that the Rogue would have.


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If your players have trouble with teamplay, may I point you to this guy?

He has a lot of videos with combat examples like this one. It shows off a lot of stuff PCs can do themseleves, and how they can use their abilities to support their fellow party members.


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An Investigator miiiiight be a better respec than a fighter for that halfling rogue. They have a much better tool kit than a fighter for engaging with the narrative and don't need to hide or flank to get their damage bonus. If you can get her an offensive cantrips she will have an alternative when she rolls a low Devise a Strategem. Investigators also can get free Recall Knowledge actions in combat, and are generally chalk full of tools to feed information to players without making it seem like you're putting things on easy mode. They are often regarded as weak in combat but I'm not sure this player will care.


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The best video series for new players that I've found is "Knights of Last Call" Combat and Tactics series.


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Because my players operate at the high end of tactical acumen, I am shocked and enlightened by the description of gameplay at the low end. I have been imagining the details that John Robey did not write up. Writing a full description of a game session is too much work for a forum posting. I know because I do a writeup for my players whenever someone misses a game session.

John Robey wrote:

* Kitsune Fire Oracle, Cha 16, insisted on using fire even after learning skeletons resisted it, and actually told the rogue to come over and take the mace out of her sheath and use it, rather than stop using fire herself -.-

... The oracle wanted to use fire, and so they used fire. And kept using fire. And kept using fire. It was only after two people were down and the inventor was "dead" that she finally said "FINE, I'll use disrupt undead."

Ah, a thematic spellcaster. Some players want to play on a theme, such as an ice sorceress who casts only ice spells. This does not mesh well with PF2, which offers victory through versatility, but it can be made to work. The proper suggestion to the fire oracle was not "No more fire! Cast Disrupt Undead!" Nope, their advice should have been, "Attack the ghoul! It will burn better than bone!" That way the fire oracle could stay on theme yet be effective.

The other way to make the fire oracle effective is to reskin her non-fire spells to stay on theme. For example, rename Disrupt Undead as "Flames of the Positive Plane," with flavor text, "You draw flames from the plane of positive energy. This flame is made of positive energy so it deals positive damage rather than fire damage and affects only undead." Then the rest of Flames of the Positive Plane performs exactly like Disrupt Dead.

John Robey wrote:

* Tiefling Inventor, Int 18, with a subterfuge suit; the one who died after a crit fail on her armor explode and then getting swarmed

... The inventor started with a critical success on Overdrive, adding +4 to their damage, but that damage was a shortbow >.>
... Unfortunately, the party was pretty spread out across the battlefield and I believe at least one of the others was also unconscious at that point but my memory is hazy now.

A subterfuge suit on an inventor means a Dexterity build. Int 18 and high Dexterity (probably 16) means few ability score bonuses left for Strength or Constitution. Hence, the inventor probably hung back from the front line, shot with her shortbow, and relied on Overdrive for additional damage. The ghoul closed in on the isolated inventor, so she used her Explode ability to damage it rather than risk an attack of opportunity for a ranged attack despite the delightful +4 damage to Strikes from critical Overdrive. She did not know that ghouls don't have Attack of Opportunity ability. A critical failure on the Crafting check for the Explode would deal 1 fire damage to her. Then a wolf skeleton--possibly after taking another PC down to unconscious--decided to use its Speed 35 feet to run over and attack the inventor, too. One lone 1st-level party member had the 1st-level ghoul and a 0th-level wolf skeleton on her. While dying so quickly was from terrible luck on dice rolls, the inventor was in recognizable big trouble before those dice rolls.

John Robey wrote:

Evil Dice:

* Failure on DC 15 Recall Knowledge check made them decide not to "waste any more time" on Recall Knowledge

That was an encounter design mistake. I already mentioned that having three different creature types would mean a lot more Recall Knowledge rolls by the party to figure out the opponents. One failed roll againt that triple task convinced the players that they did not have time to figure out all their opponents' strengths and weaknesses in advance. Sometimes my tactically-savvy party comes to the same conclusion and decides to figure out the details by trial and error.

John Robey wrote:
* Magus and summoner basically cycled through electricity and cold next, after fire was established not to work... which of course were also resisted

And the multiple resistances on the wolf skeletons made trial and error take way too long.

John Robey wrote:
* Critical hits by the ghoul and the skeletal wolves did lots of damage and knocked people prone multiple times

Knockdown on the wolf skeletons and paralysis on the ghoul rob the PCs of actions, removing the action economy advantage of 7 PCs versus 4 foes.

John Robey wrote:

The Setup:

The party is escorting a young woman who is being targeted by an ancestral curse (think Mina Harker being tormented by Dracula); BBEG hypnotizes the NPC into wandering out into the woods, party tracks her down, BBEG summons undead interference, pretty straightforward. The "second wave" skeleton warriors were mostly set dressing, menacing the NPC, but the swashbuckler deliberately aggro'd them away from her in a move which was heroic but tactically very unsound >.>
... * Swashbuckler wasted time pulling and engaging "background" monsters that would have ignored the party (which, admittedly, they had no way of knowing)

There is no such thing as a background monster. They were monsters that could have engaged but had not done so yet. Perhaps they had a sinister plan, such as cutting the throat of the young woman if the party won. For the party to know that the bottom-level skeleton warriors would stay out of combat, the GM has to telegraph their intentions strongly, such as having them grab the young woman with their weapons still sheathed.

What happened to the young woman? Was she still stuck in a hypnotic trance? If you decide on a retcon to save the dead inventor rather than having that player make a new character, you could claim that the woman snapped out of her trance upon rescue, moved to the right place at the right time, and Administered First Aid in two actions to the dying inventor with a lucky successful roll. The woman could babble, "I saw her dead while bewildered by my trance. It seemed so real that I had to prevent it."

The design of this combat encounter clearly called for good tactics.


Dancing Wind wrote:
The best video series for new players that I've found is "Knights of Last Call" Combat and Tactics series.

Ohh, those look nice too, good advice!


I forgot the detail about not being able to block a critical, but problem is that he takes so many criticals he rarely gets to block anything else. XD It's like the dice have it in for him specifically.

I will bring up that part of the rule next session and try to integrate asking him if he wants to block in regular hits.

Mathmuse wrote:
What happened to the young woman? Was she still stuck in a hypnotic trance? If you decide on a retcon to save the dead inventor rather than having that player make a new character, you could claim that the woman snapped out of her trance upon rescue, moved to the right place at the right time, and Administered First Aid in two actions to the dying inventor with a lucky successful roll. The woman could babble, "I saw her dead while bewildered by my trance. It seemed so real that I had to prevent it."

Her breaking out of the trance is what made the skeletons appear, actually. She's a competent (but not PC-level) fighter with a gunblade, and my plan had been for her to be fighting the skeletons in the background as a bit of scenic flourish—it was only when the swashbuckler worked so hard to pull them off of her that I relented and had them respond to the party.

re: the inventor, I offered the player the choice of the character dying, or taking on a long-term consequence. Since the character's backstory was that she was inspired to become an inventor in order to create better protection after her adventurer father lost his arm in battle, we decided it was fitting that the inventor should lose a limb as well, so we described it as the skeleton wolf tearing off her leg from the knee down. The character remained comatose for the rest of the session, but the player was happy with the result and went off to HeroForge to revise their avatar. :)


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Prosthetics are actually pretty easy to get in Pathfinder by RAW, and that's without touching up on the special archetypes like Golem Grafter or Sterling Dynamo.


Captain Morgan wrote:
Prosthetics are actually pretty easy to get in Pathfinder by RAW, and that's without touching up on the special archetypes like Golem Grafter or Sterling Dynamo.

Yup, she'll be picking one up in the next town. :)

Liberty's Edge

John Robey wrote:

I forgot the detail about not being able to block a critical, but problem is that he takes so many criticals he rarely gets to block anything else. XD It's like the dice have it in for him specifically.

I will bring up that part of the rule next session and try to integrate asking him if he wants to block in regular hits.

Mathmuse wrote:
What happened to the young woman? Was she still stuck in a hypnotic trance? If you decide on a retcon to save the dead inventor rather than having that player make a new character, you could claim that the woman snapped out of her trance upon rescue, moved to the right place at the right time, and Administered First Aid in two actions to the dying inventor with a lucky successful roll. The woman could babble, "I saw her dead while bewildered by my trance. It seemed so real that I had to prevent it."

Her breaking out of the trance is what made the skeletons appear, actually. She's a competent (but not PC-level) fighter with a gunblade, and my plan had been for her to be fighting the skeletons in the background as a bit of scenic flourish—it was only when the swashbuckler worked so hard to pull them off of her that I relented and had them respond to the party.

As soon as the skeletons joined the fight, it was time to weaken all the opponents. Because the difficulty was not the one you had planned anymore.

In a way, the whole party suffered because the swashbuckler successfully acted heroically.


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The Raven Black wrote:
In a way, the whole party suffered because the swashbuckler successfully acted heroically.

Looks like a good moment to award a hero point to the character, and offset the negative consequences.


The Raven Black wrote:


As soon as the skeletons joined the fight, it was time to weaken all the opponents. Because the difficulty was not the one you had planned anymore.

In a way, the whole party suffered because the swashbuckler successfully acted heroically.

Going for under moderate to above moderate is not exactly a massive shift in difficulty. Nothing preventing the fight to go on fine. I've done (much much) worse things to my players.


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Yeah, but your players are from all descriptions quite adept. Here we have fairly unoptimized players with some inordinately bad dice luck piled on top of that.

I think a little more attention should be paid to the enemy choice too. Not that the GM made a mistake but given the make up of the party (lots of dex-based damage dealers at low level), the skeletons ended up being disproportionately strong because of how much damage gets mitigated by that resistance.


SuperBidi wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:


As soon as the skeletons joined the fight, it was time to weaken all the opponents. Because the difficulty was not the one you had planned anymore.

In a way, the whole party suffered because the swashbuckler successfully acted heroically.

Going for under moderate to above moderate is not exactly a massive shift in difficulty. Nothing preventing the fight to go on fine. I've done (much much) worse things to my players.

My group survived a few 240XP worth encounters, sometimes with 1 round in between "waves" (A second encounter), another two times it was at once (both in Age of Ashes) and one that feature a gauntlet of combat with 3 or 4 encounters of moderate difficulty in Age of Ashes as well. This last combat ended with roughly 15 enemies dead, no PCs killed by everyone but my Monk (15HP) was downed by the end, this was a level 11 combat.

Depending on character level and player skill, PCs can get through a lot of tough situations... And easily die in easy encounters. The dice gods are fickle.

Sovereign Court

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Going through the various posts, there are a couple of places where I wonder if the players are getting good actionable description?

* The woman was supposed to be in the background dealing with background enemies. A PC pulled those enemies though. What if she'd shouted "It's okay, I got these, you deal with those other enemies"? Or, given that the PC pulled those enemies, she'd still joined in the fight and helped the PC fight them together? She could have even given the PC some advice, since she was using a gunblade; "hey my blade doesn't work on these skeletons, but bullets do. Maybe you should punch them, not use your sword?"

* Are you describing resistances and weaknesses? Recall Knowledge is just one way of finding out about them. If you're fighting the creature and they trigger, that should also make them obvious. PF 1E said this more explicitly to the GM but I think this is a really important thing to do while GMing. If an attack does more or less than the normal amount of damage, you need to say that. And describe it. "Sticking a rapier in between the skeleton's bones doesn't seem to work very well." "When you cut the zombie with your axe it's really effective, there's blood and gore everywhere." "The skeleton doesn't seem to burn very well, they're just bones." By giving more description, players get hints on what else to try.

* Are you educating players on silent assumptions they may have? In PF 2E, undead aren't immune to sneak attack and aren't immune to nonlethal damage. This means that just punching skeletons to do bludgeoning is viable. The swashbuckler was probably using a rapier or short sword, and suffering a -5 damage due to resistance. If they switch to just punching, that's a d4 minus nothing, instead of a d6 minus five.

I think Recall Knowledge to find out stuff about enemies that your character might not know, that's okay. But you have to separate that from cases where players don't really know enough about the game system. Asking "why didn't you move to the other square, so you'd flank and get sneak attack?" or "did you know that you can punch them, undead aren't normally immune to nonlethal attacks" shouldn't cost them actions and checks that might fail.


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Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, but your players are from all descriptions quite adept. Here we have fairly unoptimized players with some inordinately bad dice luck piled on top of that.

What I meant is that the GM is not to blame for adding 40 xps of enemies on an under moderate fight. That's not something that should be an issue.


Ascalaphus wrote:
Going through the various posts, there are a couple of places where I wonder if the players are getting good actionable description?

I'm certainly trying to give it to them. This group has been together a long time and they can (usually) pick up on things like when something is intended to be "also happening nearby" or such.

I definitely tell them when damage is being resisted, though. Four of the players go all the way back to AD&D with me as the GM, and one back to 3E, it's a concept they're all familiar with. And as I say, I have been trying to nudge and/or point out opportunities, without being ham-fisted about it. Sometimes my suggestions are acted on, sometimes they aren't.

To some extent, I think the players just learned to faceroll over the past ten(?) years of 5E and it's a habit that's hard to break.


John Robey wrote:
Ascalaphus wrote:
Going through the various posts, there are a couple of places where I wonder if the players are getting good actionable description?

I'm certainly trying to give it to them. This group has been together a long time and they can (usually) pick up on things like when something is intended to be "also happening nearby" or such.

I definitely tell them when damage is being resisted, though. Four of the players go all the way back to AD&D with me as the GM, and one back to 3E, it's a concept they're all familiar with. And as I say, I have been trying to nudge and/or point out opportunities, without being ham-fisted about it. Sometimes my suggestions are acted on, sometimes they aren't.

To some extent, I think the players just learned to faceroll over the past ten(?) years of 5E and it's a habit that's hard to break.

PF2e is built on Dark Soul level of difficulty. Yeah some people like it, but most people just want to play an action RPG and face roll.

But given how things are it fall on you the GM to adjust things down and the gane absolutely does not tell you this. This is also one of the reasons why free archetype is such a popular rule as it greatly helps combat that without the GM changing the numbers.

Liberty's Edge

SuperBidi wrote:
Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, but your players are from all descriptions quite adept. Here we have fairly unoptimized players with some inordinately bad dice luck piled on top of that.

What I meant is that the GM is not to blame for adding 40 xps of enemies on an under moderate fight. That's not something that should be an issue.

It is making the fight harder for the whole group because one player wanted to do the heroic thing.

Lesson learned should be : "Do not do the heroic thing".

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