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All the PF2e games I've paled in were PFS games and I've never even seen a party that wasn't mixed-level. Most games had a 3 to 4 level character level split. I'm guessing this is more common in organized play than in home games?
So what's your experience with split-level parties? how well do you think they work? What can help make them work better?
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Mostly PFS too, and a kind of PFS-style take on Abomination Vaults.
So, always varying levels.
I think the PFS rules to adapt to this work well (including the boons related to this situation).
But then the PFS scenarios are usually on the easy side IMO.
In my home games, I would definitely keep everyone in the party at the same level.
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I have never played like this and have never even seen it played. To be honest, I also see no good reason to ever try it. It's just an artificial barrier between players.
Also, how the hell do people manage a 3-4 level difference in PF2?
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Mostly PFS too, and a kind of PFS-style take on Abomination Vaults.
So, always varying levels.
I think the PFS rules to adapt to this work well (including the boons related to this situation).
But then the PFS scenarios are usually on the easy side IMO.
In my home games, I would definitely keep everyone in the party at the same level.
I was just looking at boons to see what boons you might be talking about and saw the Mentor boons. I've never seen anyone locally use one before those look like they could help a lot. The description on the webpage doesn't give a full description, do they give a reroll or an aid to a check?
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I have never played like this and have never even seen it played. To be honest, I also see no good reason to ever try it. It's just an artificial barrier between players.
Also, how the hell do people manage a 3-4 level difference in PF2?
On top of that, I've never been in an organized play game that had a session zero, most of the players have not played together before, and there is little or no time before the game starts to work out group tactics. Part of the problem was we were rushed to finish before the game store closed so other groups might have more time for this.
In one game it was really funny I had my back to a wall surrounded on the three other sides by zombies and yelled "What are you waiting for I got them all flanked!" And no one took advantage of the flanks, even after the GM explained the flanking rules right after I had yelled out.
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So what's your experience with split-level parties? how well do you think they work? What can help make them work better?
PFS, a Westmarches game and I was the GM of Raven Black's Abomination Vault game.
Overall, they work quite nice as long as you don't have more than 2 levels of difference (that's why PFS uses level bumps). There's only one thing you have to take into account if your player base is not very big: you need all players to sometimes play the higher level character and sometimes the lower level one. If, from the structure of your campaign, some players (typically the more casual ones) end up always under-leveled the feeling will be bad for them.A solution to alleviate that is the optional rule Proficiency Without Level. It's not perfect and needs quite some GM adjudication to avoid exploits (with Summons for example who get much stronger) but otherwise it allows a wider level difference between PCs.
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Never done that since 3.5, did not think that was still a things (only play home games)
but wow to be 1-2(assuming even spread in the 3-4 level difference) level behind in pf2 sound horrible your effectiveness would be awfull if you meet anything that is a threat to the party.
or do the GM only throw encounter designed for the lowest member at them?
then the Higher level players would totaly decimate them :p
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Haven't done that since maybe 2nd edition D&D. It's easier to have the party the same level for the DM and players.
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but wow to be 1-2(assuming even spread in the 3-4 level difference) level behind in pf2 sound horrible your effectiveness would be awfull if you meet anything that is a threat to the party.
PF2 is wonderfully balanced. You can nearly build encounters blindfolded and it just works wonder. Lower level characters are very important during fights, they just move to different roles depending on their level positioning.
It also shows how PF2 characters are versatile. Depending on your level positioning, you'll move from more active positions to more supporting ones and it works fine. Obviously, when the player plays soundly from a tactical point of view.I just finished a fight with 3 levels of difference in PFS (I should say 2 as the level bump partially offset this difference even if my level 3 Barbarian with a level bump would have loved a Striking Rune) which was rather tough (the party ended the fight at half hit points, roughly) and every character, independently of their level, had their role in the fight. My low level Barbarian has been a great flanker for the high level Rogue (I made sure to be the one using actions to give them flanking) and an ok damage dealer (even if I obviously didn't deal as much damage as the said Rogue but I'm aware of the level difference).
Even in a same level party you have difference in efficiency. As long as they are not crippling people don't complain.
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I have never played like this and have never even seen it played. To be honest, I also see no good reason to ever try it. It's just an artificial barrier between players.
Also, how the hell do people manage a 3-4 level difference in PF2?
Old post about PFS level bump, so the link might be out of date.
If your the lowest level of a tier (so level 1 in a 1-4) and you're playing high tier, you get a level bump, basically a +1 to all d20s, some temp HP, and +1 to your AC.
"Level Bump for PCs": http://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/encyclopedia/pathfinder-2-0-gm-basic s/#more-469
Can't seem to link directly to the paragraph near the bottom.
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I was just looking at boons to see what boons you might be talking about and saw the Mentor boons. I've never seen anyone locally use one before those look like they could help a lot. The description on the webpage doesn't give a full description, do they give a reroll or an aid to a check?Mostly PFS too, and a kind of PFS-style take on Abomination Vaults.
So, always varying levels.
I think the PFS rules to adapt to this work well (including the boons related to this situation).
But then the PFS scenarios are usually on the easy side IMO.
In my home games, I would definitely keep everyone in the party at the same level.
Post in the same old thread from 2019. I guess all mentor boons work similarly. IIRC some give an extra low level spell slot for a caster.
I'm seeing this under the new Faction Boon descriptions, e.g., Rugged Mentor (Horizon Hunters), but not sure what it means or where to find it.
Any ideas?
Text:
While working with less experienced Pathfinder allies, you provide important insights that keep your less experienced colleagues safe from harm. For any PCs benefiting from a Level Bump and whose levels are lower than yours, you increase the Level Bump’s modifier to saving throws to 2.
Normal A Level Bump increases a PC’s saving throw modifiers by 1.
Special A PC can only benefit from two mentor boons.
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I have never played like this and have never even seen it played. To be honest, I also see no good reason to ever try it. It's just an artificial barrier between players.
Also, how the hell do people manage a 3-4 level difference in PF2?
Old post about PFS level bump, so the link might be out of date.
If your the lowest level of a tier (so level 1 in a 1-4) and you're playing high tier, you get a level bump, basically a +1 to all d20s, some temp HP, and +1 to your AC.
"Level Bump for PCs": http://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/encyclopedia/pathfinder-2-0-gm-basic s/#more-469
Can't seem to link directly to the paragraph near the bottom.
Thanks, Raven, between the level bump and the mentor boons, I feel much better about mixed level play now.
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but wow to be 1-2(assuming even spread in the 3-4 level difference) level behind in pf2 sound horrible your effectiveness would be awfull if you meet anything that is a threat to the party.PF2 is wonderfully balanced. You can nearly build encounters blindfolded and it just works wonder. Lower level characters are very important during fights, they just move to different roles depending on their level positioning.
It also shows how PF2 characters are versatile. Depending on your level positioning, you'll move from more active positions to more supporting ones and it works fine. Obviously, when the player plays soundly from a tactical point of view.I just finished a fight with 3 levels of difference in PFS (I should say 2 as the level bump partially offset this difference even if my level 3 Barbarian with a level bump would have loved a Striking Rune) which was rather tough (the party ended the fight at half hit points, roughly) and every character, independently of their level, had their role in the fight. My low level Barbarian has been a great flanker for the high level Rogue (I made sure to be the one using actions to give them flanking) and an ok damage dealer (even if I obviously didn't deal as much damage as the said Rogue but I'm aware of the level difference).
Even in a same level party you have difference in efficiency. As long as they are not crippling people don't complain.
I felt really bad for one new player we had. He was playing a barbarian and had the worst dice luck I've ever seen. He was having a hard time picking a 3rd action and tactics, all the experienced players and GM were helping him out and giving him advice. 90% of the time when he followed anybody's advice he was reduced to 0 hp before his next turn. By his 3rd and last week of playing, he gave up even using his sword and would only hang back and throw javelins. This might have played out differently had he had a level boost.
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Haven't done that since maybe 2nd edition D&D. It's easier to have the party the same level for the DM and players.
I also hadn't played in any mixed party since 2nd edition D&D I don't remember mixed parties playing 1st edition D&D because most games ended in a TPK because all the DMs I played with back then thought it was their job to kill the party. But 2nd edition we had some crazy mixed levels, like 1st through 7th, or a party of all 1st level characters taking on giants, somehow we survived that. When 3rd edition came out we hadn't played in a while so everyone started at a 1st level and I've never played mixed again until I started playing SFS and PFS2e.
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In PF2? Never. It's a terrible idea, don't do it. Too much of the game mechanics are dependent on level. If your character is 2 levels behind someone else you will suck compared to them and probably be worthless against enemies. It's not fun. Don't do it.
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I have only seen PF2 played with characters of different levels in PFS. And even then, the level difference is usually 1-2 levels at most.
I have only heard about this being done outside of PFS in the threads about GMs asking 'how do I stop killing my player's characters so often'. Or that one thread with the person arguing that when a player's character dies that the player has to either leave the game or rejoin the game with a level 1 character - that it is cheating to start with a character of higher level equal to the other characters.
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It works in Pathfinder Society because the scenarios are slightly undertuned at a baseline, and challenge points and level bumps give the devs a ton of levers to adjust things*. I don't suggest it for home games, though. I think it's also telling that the more lethal Special scenarios have a level range of 2 instead of 4 (1-2, 3-4, etc... instead of 1-4, 3-6, etc...).
That being said, a minor PSA: Pathfinder Society Players... REDEEM YOUR MENTOR BOONS. They are free. Unless you a) consistently failed secondary objectives or b) switched factions halfway, and are thus below 20 reputation with your first faction, you have no excuse besides ignorance for not having them by level 3 (When you start significantly contributing to the likelihood of a level bump).
*Level <4 alongside 4+ can be a little awkward due to the huge damage jump striking runes add, though.
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One thing about PFS scenarios is that they generally have a fair number of skill challenges. Even if your level 1 character is not particuarly effective in combat high tier, if you paid attention to your skills, you can probably contribute significantly out of combat. I've definitely had scenarios saved by a low-level character with the right skill mix.
(I'd say typical PFS is approx 2 significant sets of skill challenges and 3 combats.)
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One thing about PFS scenarios is that they generally have a fair number of skill challenges. Even if your level 1 character is not particuarly effective in combat high tier, if you paid attention to your skills, you can probably contribute significantly out of combat. I've definitely had scenarios saved by a low-level character with the right skill mix.
(I'd say typical PFS is approx 2 significant sets of skill challenges and 3 combats.)
Agreed. With the last combat being the big one.
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I have not run a mixed-level campaign since my Rise of the Runelords campaign that ended in 2012.
I found single level easier to track. I track the experience points for the party as a whole and tell all the players to level up their characters at the same time. In addition, I was running my game sessions at the Family Game Store in Savage, Maryland, and some of players could not make every session. Tracking individual XP would punish my players for having a job schedule or life events that were more important than a mere game.
On the other hand, my current campaign has two 2nd-level NPCs tagging along with the 5th-level PCs. Two players run the NPCs in combat along with their PC, so that I can focus on the enemy. That is somewhat like having mixed levels.
Currently running Abomination Vaults with a group of 6, they are on the 7th dungeon and one player just hit 9th while the lowest is not quite 7th yet.
I don't think I've ever had a game where everyone was at the same level at the end of the campaign.
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Absolutely never, I despise it
I don't think I've ever had a game where everyone was at the same level at the end of the campaign.
How do you distribute XP?
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In my experience with D&D, RuneQuest, Pathfinder home games, etc. the guy who always shows up slowly pulls ahead, and the least frequent player falls behind.
In PFS, 2e adventures are written for a four-level spread. Level 3-6, frex. As I mostly play at conventions, a 3-6 module will usually have all the characters at 3-4, or 5-6. Which works out decently.
In a recent convention game there were four 7-8 characters and a level 5 character in a 5-8 module. The level 5 character got a level bump to 6, and a mentor boon added an additional +1 to all saves. The bigger characters were all carefull of the level 5, and we all had a good time.
I was also in a convention game where there was one level 3 char, four level 4 characters, and a level 6. The one level 6 guy threw everything out of whack for the rest of the party, but not enough for the level 3 to get a level bump. So the level 3 got knocked out in every fight.
It helps if the judge steers the boss/tougher monsters at the bigger guys and goes easy on the weaker guys, but the judge in the 3/4/6 module didn't. The level 3 was the only fighter in plate, and drew all the monster attention.
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I was going to say never, but I did play organized play, where mixed level parties are the norm. So never in private games, all the time in public games.
I don't think I've ever had a game where everyone was at the same level at the end of the campaign.How do you distribute XP?
Everyone gets the same amount, when we track it at all instead of just leveling at milestones.
I was going to say never, but I did play organized play, where mixed level parties are the norm. So never in private games, all the time in public games.
Everyone gets the same amount, when we track it at all instead of just leveling at milestones.I don't think I've ever had a game where everyone was at the same level at the end of the campaign.How do you distribute XP?
Then how do they end up at different levels?
do you just ignore giving exp to a character bacause he was not there that session?
I was going to say never, but I did play organized play, where mixed level parties are the norm. So never in private games, all the time in public games.
Everyone gets the same amount, when we track it at all instead of just leveling at milestones.I don't think I've ever had a game where everyone was at the same level at the end of the campaign.How do you distribute XP?Then how do they end up at different levels?
do you just ignore giving exp to a character bacause he was not there that session?
You realize that you are talking to different people, yes?
I don't think Jader7777 ever actually answered the question.
I was going to say never, but I did play organized play, where mixed level parties are the norm. So never in private games, all the time in public games.
Everyone gets the same amount, when we track it at all instead of just leveling at milestones.I don't think I've ever had a game where everyone was at the same level at the end of the campaign.How do you distribute XP?Then how do they end up at different levels?
do you just ignore giving exp to a character bacause he was not there that session?
You realize that you are talking to different people, yes?
I don't think Jader7777 ever actually answered the question.
You are correct, at first glance it looks like he was answering.
Did not expect someone else answer the question Fuzzy-Wuzzy directed to Jader7777.
Excepting PFS? Never. Not even in 1st Edition Pathfinder.
We might have done it for a little while during our early D&D 3.0 days, but we were young and stupid.
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I've been in some 1st through 7th to 8th level AD&D games. Our DM would always try to end a session in a town or someplace that would let the party split up during the week between game sessions and would run solo adventures during the week to help low-level characters catch up quicker. If someone was starting at 1st level in an otherwise high-level party, the first few sessions would be more social and low-level encounters playing out how the new character joined the party before moving on to harder encounters.
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By design, unless you are playing proficiency without level mixed level parties are not really well supported in PF2e.
In AD&D mixed level parties were a feature as different classes required different amounts of XP to level, only humans had access to every class, other ancestries had huge class restrictions. Only humans could have unlimited levelling (and I think Half Elf bards in 2nd Ed) other ancestries were capped in what their max level could be so Halflings could only ever go to level 8 as a fighter and never higher.
Part of me misses how organic parties were in that it encouraged different levels of ability but told the story of them well. I never liked limited class levels based on ancestry but the rest was lore defining. Also every ancestry was better than human which is probably why they were unrestricted in level and class choices.
PF2e class levels make a huge difference to ability to survive or dominate an encounter. A 1st level character in a fight against a 5th level boss that might be easy for 4th level party members is all but guaranteed to die in a hit.
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In an AD&D game, I was in a party of all 1st level characters encountered a group of hill giants. We just ran away, then spent several weeks of game time figuring out where the giants lived and then setting traps. So that doesn't really work in PFS where you don't have time to turn the scenario into a drawn-out downtime game, and still complete the scenario in 4 hours.
So I thought that plan might still work in a non PFS game, but rebuilding that encounter in PF2e I realized running away is not really an option if the giants are aware of your party, and are in range to throw rocks. The Giants have Perception +13 so will very likely go first, also makes hiding from the Giants very hard. The Giants have a Speed of 35 feet so likely can outrun most of the party. The Giants also can throw rocks up to 120 feet, with 3 actions can grab a 2nd rock and make 2 attacks at +19 and +16 to hit doing a minimum of 15 points of damage each. So with 2 Giants, that's a likely TPK against a party of 4 before the players can even try to run away.
I had always gotten that you didn't want to be outside of your level range for combat but this is an eye-opener that you shouldn't even be near an encounter that's too powerful.
Yes. Fleeing combat that is going badly for the party relies entirely on GM Fiat.
Never run games with mixed level players anymore... was super happy to ditch that with pf1e moving away from level drain and racial level sacrifice... oh and God awful exp costs on spells.
Actually not quite true, I run b/x via old school essentials and that inherently has different leveling speeds, but I keep the exp totals equal.
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The only time I've run it was as a proficiency without level and automatic bonus progression game, in a west marches style sandbox. Even there, we found that it really started breaking things down if you got more than about 3-4 levels apart, so we had tiers of adventures kind of like what you see in PFS, 1-4, 5-8, 9-12 and so on.
Our central premise was that the world was progressively being infused with more magic due to the machinations of the BBEG. There were a bunch of side quests, but once a high level party completed a capstone story quest, everyone leveled up to the lowest level of the next tier, with those who had reached max level of the lower tier going up one extra level as a reward. We were also somewhat open with our difficulty and reward expectations, with blue missions being the lowest level for a given tier, then green, then yellow, then red at the highest level. The players could choose how much danger and reward they wanted to dive into.
For the most part, things worked well. Players who made more sessions either tended to stick together and go after red missions, or have one or two high level characters mixed in with a group of low level characters going after the yellow or green missions. Proficiency without level meant the difference between characters meant less than they would have, and the limited level gap minimized it further. Due to automatic bonus progression magic items tended to be 'cool' instead of necessary...think immovable rods and decanters of endless water, so even if a character didn't have any magic items they could still contribute. My fellow GMs and I also put a focus on non-combat encounters, with rewards for roleplay and investigation, where the level gap mattered even less.
Without these modifications and conventions I think it would be a nightmare.
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I don't think I've ever had a game where everyone was at the same level at the end of the campaign.How do you distribute XP?
Sorry for not following this up sooner, I just use the normal XP system in PF2e but if players don't show up for sessions or die they don't get XP for encounters. In addition some players will complete individual milestones for their characters which is usually something that is roleplay dependant and flicks them a moderate XP bonus.
PF2e in general seems to be very good at rubber banding players together, at my table after everyone finishes a combat I tell them "You just defeated 3 5th level creatures and a 6th level creature." and they look up the XP table appropriate to their current level.
Players that rush ahead tend to slow down while those left behind get sped up.
EDIT: Also worth noting that my group migrated to Proficiency Without Level about 4 session in to speed up the game and reduce math load.
Simple answer, Nevr since PF-2E is not meant for mix level play. At least in my experiences.
Wait why would you use PWL? I have never actually seen it be used.
Simple answer, Nevr since PF-2E is not meant for mix level play. At least in my experiences.
Wait why would you use PWL? I have never actually seen it be used.
For mixed parties, hence the fact that you never seen it be used.
Wait why would you use PWL?
The effect that Proficiency Without Level has is that it flattens the differences between characters of different level. That goes for both player characters compared to other player characters and player characters compared to enemy characters.
I know of two reasons for its existence and use.
One is to be more familiar to people coming from D&D5e. Enemy characters can be pulled from the Bestiary and used with less regard to their level and no adjustments needed.
The other is to allow player characters with a larger level difference play well together. With the standard rules (including proficiency in level) a difference of two levels is felt quite a bit, and differences larger than that become unmanageable. The higher level characters will drastically outperform the lower level characters on the dice rolls and it becomes nearly impossible to create an encounter challenge that is appropriate to both tiers of characters.
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I've only recently started GM'ing regularly. I have a regular group going through the Abomination Vaults every 2nd Wednesday. I also GM PFS Scenarios where I can.
PFS is built around the likelihood of different leveled characters involved in the Scenario, and I find it accommodates that reality quite well.
For my AP campaign, I've made the conscious decision that all players will be at the same level. If a player misses a session, he still gets the XP the group earned. I do it this way to make things easier for myself, and I make no apologies. I've made it difficult enough for myself by allowing the group to grow to six players.
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PFS is built around the likelihood of different leveled characters involved in the Scenario, and I find it accommodates that reality quite well.
I find that it accommodates it marginally well.
To start with, there are actual math fixing changes at extreme ends of the level differences that are allowed.
And those level differences that are allowed are usually about 1 to 2 levels different.
And even with that, it is still very noticeable when some of us are bringing new level 1's and a couple of others join the table with a level 3. Those extra two levels really make a big difference. Especially at low levels.
If you want to use PFS as a model for having different levels of PC playing together, I would recommend using the model fully - including only a 2 level difference maximum and having some buffs to lower level characters when at the full 2-level difference.
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Basically what I've learned from lots of PFS2 is that you need to be particularly careful when you have characters on opposite sides of the level 4 boundary -- but the same is true even in a non-mixed level party when you're designing fights. The jump from martials w/ and w/o striking runes is extremely noticeable. Monsters for above that tier have more HP as a result. So if the party is punching up, across that tier before they get their striking runes, the fights go longer than expected (and are already tough fights). if you have a mixed level party, the one-two combo of lower to hit, and 1/2 damage when you do hit, can be extremely disheartening. And the PFS level bump system doesn't help a lot -- but runic weapon can be a huge help -- especially if you're a 3rd/4th level caster whose 1st rank slots are less useful -- using that to help the lower level people catch up is extremely useful.
Most of the other damage increases (property runes, weapon specialization static boosts, bonus precision damage) phase in in ways that don't feel like an almost pure doubling and the jump in opponent HP feels more "diluted" as a result.
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If I was going to run a campaign where characters might come or go and be different levels from each other, I would use proficiency without level, and a variant of Free archetype where the free archetype feats were gained levels 3/5/7 etc, to prevent the dead level feel of PWL. I would also use the variant rule where attribute boosts are spread out rather than bunched up every 5 levels.
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Simple: lower level PCs gain XP faster from completing the same encounters as higher level PCs do, so its only a matter of time before they catch up.
Why do we even? Because then you can have living campaign settings that contain 10s of PCs from 10s of players from multiple campaigns that might crisscross and run into each other from time to time. Also, a player that has enough PCs at your table to have their own "Character Selection Screen" is far less likely to get pissed off if one of them dies.
How: I calculate XP using the formula that's heavily implied by the rules about encounter budgets.
let M(i) represent the XP for a single enemy based on PC's level i
(this comes from the Table in the rules that tell you how much XP an enemy is worth dependent on the level difference between it and the player)
let F(n, i) represent the XP awarded to n Characters all of level i
F(n, i) = (M(i) * 4) / n.
Yes, this means you have to calculate encounter XP for each group of differently leveled PCs. But it also allows encounters to be pretty flexible. Is an NPC helping the PCs? Great just increase the number of Characters in the fight by 1 and the formula does the rest (the PCs would get less XP cause the NPC is soaking some, but the fight is easier so that tracks). Did another NPC arrive mid-encounter? No problem, just apply his Character +1 to the Enemies/Hazards defeated after he got there.
NOTE: I still award accomplishment-based XP statically (10/30/80) regardless of level.
- Jee
{. . .}
In AD&D mixed level parties were a feature as different classes required different amounts of XP to level, only humans had access to every class, other ancestries had huge class restrictions. Only humans could have unlimited levelling (and I think Half Elf bards in 2nd Ed) other ancestries were capped in what their max level could be so Halflings could only ever go to level 8 as a fighter and never higher.
{. . .}
This. Back in my day (AD&D 1st Edition), this was the rule rather than the exception. Although I will mention that for some weird reason, everybody other than Half-Orcs could gain unlimited levels as Thief . . . .