Should players be prevented from trivializing an enemy with an obvious weakness?
Non-flying enemies with low reflex saves fall into pits for entire encounters, wizards get grappled to prevent casting and can't escape.
DM wasn't happy with the results because the combat is so binary. We're playing published adventure paths and these are the encounters in the book. Should the DM just keep playing the APs as written and let the players trivialize fights? Counter all player tactics in advance by giving all enemy casters talismans of freedom and all the golems levitate spells? Spawn extra minions in each boss fight, thus spiking up the CR of the encounter? DM discussed the issue with us and asked us how we'd like him to handle it.
Players that are exploiting obvious weaknesses or those their character would know about should not be penalized. Spell casters have a limited number of spells, so using one spell diminishes their resources more than the fighter fighting for multiple turns, especially when they are using up their higher-level spell slots. Unless the player is using his own knowledge of the game that his character would not be aware of this is just part of the game.
A good GM will adapt any published AP to his party but should do so carefully. What the GM should be doing is using those same tactics against the party. When the enemy wizard targets the fighter in plate mail and shield with the pit spells or grapples the party wizard that is also fair.
If the players are bored with the game, then the GM should of course make adjustments, but if everyone is having a good time allow the characters trivializing the encounter to have their moment of glory.
This is exactly the reason I create my own adventures. When I run a game, the challenges are designed for the current party, not a generic party of 4.
Many years ago I played a high level wizard in a different (LRP) system who specialised in debuffs. One campaign ref believed that the "best" fights were the ones where the party combatants faced off against the NPC combatants and they hit each other, so he set every single monster with an ability that allowed them to "no effect" the first spell that targetted them.
He thought it made for cool cinematic fights. The party all hated it, not because it made the fights harder, but because it made some of the characters look and feel useless.
The point of an RPG is to have fun, and the trick to being both a good GM and a good team player is to come up with things that allow everyone to have fun. So to extrapolate the above to Pathfinder, if a player has a "trick" that they use to trivialise every single encounter (pits) then maybe that isn't fun for everyone, *but* equally if that trick never works because every monster has a get out, it's not fun for that player either. The hard bit for the GM is to come up with a balance so that the player's thing works often enough that they feel competent and cool, but doesn't work just often enough that they can't afford to get careless.
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I usually take it further when I run games for new players where combats are designed to teach different aspects. So when they go up against the thieves guild, they encounter just two or three rogues who get the jump on them and start flanking, then I keep up that tactic as enemies get tougher so they come up with a way to counter it.
Same for enchanters, creatures with DR, SR, multiple attacks, etc. The goal is never to mire the party, but keep them on their toes.
For experienced parties, sometimes I throw a curveball like a group of magi when they expect just mooks or more powerful combinations like undead + channel negative clerics. Putting traps in the same room as a fight also keeps the party on their toes since finding and remove traps is usually the habit when the party finds an empty room.
TL;DR: a GM’s job is to create memorable fights so the players feel like they improve their system mastery at the same time they level up. Even after a group masters the game, more memorable fights make for better stories being retold years down the road.
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A few thoughts.
It might not seem like it, but the GM is “playing” the game as well, it’s not just the players. So the players should make an effort to engage in the game world in a way that is fun for the GM too. It should not be up to the GM to solve every problem at the table.
It sounds like the player who wrote the opening post is interested in helping fix the problem, which is a great start.
If I was a player at that table I would:
1) Encourage the GM to boost boss encounters so that they remain significant.
2) Tell the GM to change the occasional encounter to invalidate normal tactics.
3) Otherwise, leave the other encounters as written, if the PCs come up with clever tactics let them work most of the time.
Short answer: Yes, most of the time.
Longer answer: Experienced, knowledgeable players who tailor their tactics to target their foes weaknesses will be more successful than players who use a "one size fits all" approach. The GM should still use a variety of foes and situations, with the occasional "misdirection" (such as ogre magi "pretending" to be ogres or other "dumb brutes"), but should resist getting into an "arms race" with the PCs. The GM will "win" (eventually), but this tends to cause hard feelings. The game assumes that the PCs will win fights; taking that away is "petty" of the GM.
so, a GM should not tailor an encounter to be specific to the party involved. The players should not be metagaming, but neither should the GM.
That being said, run the AP as published, but make the encounters more difficult. Add templates to the bad guys, add more of them, max or double HP, and boost any major NPC to be equal to APL or higher.
this will be enough to make most encounters more of a challenge. But be sure to remind your players that what they know and what their character knows are two different things.
There is nothing wrong with tailoring encounters to the party. What they should not be doing is stacking the deck either for or against the players. The trick is to make the encounters challenging, but not to totally invalidate a players build. Giving all enemy casters talismans of freedom is going too far. When you start using the word all you need to really look at what you are doing. Something like maxing out HP is probably ok, but giving all creatures a specific feat or item is usually not.
A lot of times an inexperienced GM may not use the monster to its full ability. For example, golems usually have good STR, and climb is a STR based skill that can be used untrained. Nothing prevents a golem from trying to climb out of a pit created by a create pit spell.
Enemy Casters can be protected by the non-casting enemy. Most parties try and protect their casters, so there is no reason they enemy should not do the same. Most of the time encounters that involve enemy casters are with sentient creatures. Even a chaotic evil orc is smart enough to realize they have a better chance of surviving an encounter if they prevent their spell casters from being killed.
All Red Mantis Assassin is a lot different than all creatures. Having a common feat for a select group is fine, giving every creature in the world a specific feat is what I am objecting to.
Nothing prevents a golem from trying to climb out of a pit created by a create pit spell.
Note that the Climb rules also list these DC modifiers:
–10 Climbing a chimney (artificial or natural) or other location where you can brace against two opposite walls.
–5 Climbing a corner where you can brace against perpendicular walls.
So a large creature effectively gets +10 to climb checks for climbing out of a 10x10 pit.
A large creature typically isn't 10 feet wide, even with arms and legs stretched out, so I would not rule that he gets to brace against two opposite walls.
A normal human’s arm span is about 2 inches longer than their height. Assuming a similar body builds a large creature would have a similar arm span. Considering a large creature usually has a 10’ reach that seems to indicate they will usually be able to brace against a 10 x 10 pit. That combined with a high STR makes it fairly easy for a golem to get out of a pit.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. My playgroup are all a group of friends and we've been playing together for a long time, so we're trying following the official rule #1 that everyone should have fun.
We're playing through Return of the Runelords. We know each runelord is a wizard, we have a wizard in the party, so there's no reason our characters couldn't know the strengths/weaknesses of wizards.
I was going to suggest using the minions concept from 4e, which are adds that only have 1 hitpoint to add complexity to boss fights without pumping up the CR...although a multi-target magic missile would kill them all unless they SO HAPPENED to be under the effects of the Shield spell, which ties directly into the original problem of this post.
On a slightly related note, fighting enemy casters just sucks because their biggest weaknesses are being grappled and taking damage from prepared actions while they try to cast. The entire combat turns into prepared actions to attack if the caster tries to cast or grapple them.
For reference, acid pit spell specifies the climb DC of 30, and clay golem has a STR mod of +7 and no climb skill. Even on a natural 20, resulting in a 27 climb check, it will never reach 30. Even invoking the bracing rule to effectively reduce the DC to 20, the golem would have to roll a 13 to, per RAW, climb at 1/4 of its 20 ft movement speed per round, which is 5 ft. At our level, which is 10, the pit would be 50 ft deep, and require 10 consecutive successful climb checks to climb out. Even if you gave the golem the benefit of starting 10 ft high, if any climb check that rolled at or below at 15 (so 8 on the d20) the golem would fall, and any roll 16-19 it would make no progress, and any time it took damage it had to make another climb check at the DC of the climb to not fall.
The golem is eventually going to get out of the Acid Pit, at 10th level an Acid Pit last for 11 rounds. Once has made at least 1 climbing roll it no longer takes the acid damage. Even if it does make any attempt to climb out and takes damage every round, it will still have about ¼ of its HP left when the spell runs out. Also, after the first round the clay golem can hast itself for 3 rounds. That will increase the movement speed to 40’ so the climb speed goes up to 10 for those rounds. This means that if the party does not deal with the golem while it is at a disadvantage it will be able to threaten the party again.
If the party is attacking it while in the pit they are going to need to use ranged attacks. Spells are unlikely to be effective vs the golem, which means attacking with weapons. The Golem still has DR 10 adamantine and bludgeoning, the chances of a party having adamantine bludgeoning ranged weapons is pretty unlikely. That is going to seriously reduce the amount of damage the party can do. Even if they do have adamantine bludgeoning ranged weapon any used are going to be destroyed by the acid at the bottom of the pit.
Because the golem has no DEX bonus to AC its AC is not reduced while climbing. So, the characters that are not ranged focused combatants are likely to have trouble hitting and damaging the golem. Unless the party has an archery focused ranger with maxed out favored enemy golem the golem is likely to be able to get out of the pit with a decent amount of HP left. Any ammunition used to attack the golem likely to be destroyed by the Acid Pit even if it normally would not be.
Using Acid pit has also caused the wizard to expend about ¼ of his second highest level spells. The characters attacking the golem with ranged weapons have also expended a decent amount of their ammunition.
Using Acid Pit should not automatically defeat the golem. If the GM ran it that way, it is because he did not fully think out the situation. That goes back to the point I made in my second post.
On a slightly related note, fighting enemy casters just sucks because their biggest weaknesses are being grappled and taking damage from prepared actions while they try to cast. The entire combat turns into prepared actions to attack if the caster tries to cast or grapple them.
My first thought is "what on earth is the wizard doing getting themselves in range of grapplers and prepared attacks?" It sounds as if your DM isn't fighting terribly tactically, because clever use of terrain can make a huge difference to a fight - the wizard who pops out from behind a tree 100' away, casts a spell then drops into cover as a free action is not going to be so easy to catch.
My first thought is "what on earth is the wizard doing getting themselves in range of grapplers and prepared attacks?" It sounds as if your DM isn't fighting terribly tactically, because clever use of terrain can make a huge difference to a fight - the wizard who pops out from behind a tree 100' away, casts a spell then drops into cover as a free action is not going to be so easy to catch.
On a slightly related note, fighting enemy casters just sucks because their biggest weaknesses are being grappled and taking damage from prepared actions while they try to cast. The entire combat turns into prepared actions to attack if the caster tries to cast or grapple them.
unless there are enemy archers with a prepared action to shoot him when he pops out, and believe me, those concentration checks suck.
We missed the bracing mechanic, so the golem didn't get +10 to its climb skill, making the pit impossible to climb, which removed the golem from the fight with 3 rounds to spare before the pit expired. The defeated caster had the golem control rod on them, making the golem a non-issue. IMO the pit spells should have a reminder about larger creatures being able to brace against the sides.
In the AP we're playing almost all the combat takes place in ruins/dungeons, I don't think any rooms have been larger than 30 squares/150 ft to a side, so the point about distance is somewhat moot without redrawing all the dungeons. A PC with haste can charge 120 ft per round, and the PC wizard can dimension door himself and both martial PCs on top of enemy casters.
The AP specifies which buffs the enemy casters begin with if they have time, and they usually do. They have been using mirror image, but our brawler also has flurry of blows, which tends to shred through it immediately. The action economy of 4 PCs vs 1 caster boss really works against bosses, I think giving them some adds would really help.
Grappling in itself is tricky to balance around, because it goes both ways. If a big enemy grapples a PC then the other PCs have to try to free them before they're killed/swallowed and makes for some good mechanics. But when the PCs grapple enemy casters (unless the enemy caster is a very strong race, like giant or ogre) it just locks them down entirely. 2 turns later the enemy is pinned and gg.
One thing to keep in mind is that if your Wizard is constantly using his higher-level spells, they are going to run out of them very quickly. Unless your party is doing a 15-minute adventuring day this is going to be a big problem.
If you are outnumbering a caster boss 4 to 1, then something is really wrong. Most caster bosses should have minions.
If the encounters are in ruins/dungeons some of the area should be difficult terrain. Throw in some rubble and debris and those charges get cut way down. I am not saying all if it should be but enough to give some trouble to those charging.
Grappling is a standard action so cannot be used with flurry of blow. The brawler can either flurry or grapple, but cannot do both in the same round, unless he has some ability that allows him to make a grapple as part of a full attack. Some combat maneuvers can be used instead of an attack in a full attack, but grapple is not one of them.
If you are outnumbering a caster boss 4 to 1, then something is really wrong. Most caster bosses should have minions.
There's nothing wrong, Remember He's playing an AP, sometimes they are written that way.
It's not fun, or within everyone's ability/time constraints to rewrite whole APs.
This is why I suggest using Combat Manager.
It's very easy to boost the bad guys by adding templates. Or just add more mooks, pick something common to the dungeon and add 4 or 5 to every encounter. This can all be done on the fly.
That being said, in an AP, even with boosting, it's still very easy for a well built fighter/archer to kill the Boss in round one before the rest of the party gets to go. So you'll want to talk to your players about not building characters that are so well built, or implement some house rules to limit what they can or cannot play.
well, "boosting" would be raising the CR, "reworking" keeps the CR the same. I don't think APs or such are sacrosanct unless you are in a normal PFS setting, even "Campaign Mode" allowed for alterations. Honestly a lot of NPCs are subpar & generic as written and could use some rework. Most NPC spellcasters are downright incompetent and aren't complete.
Note: adding a creature at CR-4 does not alter the CR. XP wise adding 2 at CR-5 should just be at the next CR but I don't think they effectively change the CR... Personally I believe vector addition (RMS) should be used for multiple creature CRs but the game uses simplistic addition.It's my belief that defining moments should be dramatic and if martial; challenge the PCs or make them sweat. Clearly CR=APL+3 is a tricky situation of moderate to epic battle depending on the physical(battlefield) setting, PC abilities & equipment, PC's actual skill set and player's grasp of strategy & tactics. I will say in PFS with a good group APL+5 was needed for epic (can everyone say Hard Mode?). That's something the Home Game GM considers and balances within his group, setting, and theme.
I also think only 50-66% of challenges should be martial. It is a roleplaying game, not a fight game. PFS had to learn that lesson to reduce the percentage of murder hobos from the first 4 seasons.
Time constraints are the issue. My group plays every Saturday night, we do AP's and we rotate GMs to prevent burnout. We ignore XP and do milestone leveling.
All of us work 40+ hours a week, have families and other hobbies, and adult responsibilities. it's difficult to set aside much time to prepare for each weekly game, much less time to rework every encounter. Therefore, using the AP as written, with quick and easy enhancements to the encounter is our best solution. and APL +3 is "normal mode" for our experienced set of players.
Now imagine the golem, prior to the PCs' arrival, piled a bunch of rubble up with a hollow space inside, around the enemy spellcaster. They are essentially looking through "arrow slits;" tiny openings in the stone, but otherwise have Improved Cover. Enemy spellcaster keeps a Dimension Door on hand just in case they need to make a hasty retreat and then just hangs out using a Rod of Maximize to max the damage on whatever 3rd level spells they're casting or whatever.
The game can play in 3 dimensions; use height to the villain's advantage if you can. Putting that rubble pile hideout 40' up with no easy way to reach it will certainly slow down the PCs' tactics. Make the PC spellcasters burn their spells to solve problems, so they have less resources to actually fight with.
And the next campaign/game they build an archer who can ignore cover, has a 110' range, can fire 6 arrows per round and go before the villian, dealing around 150 damage in one turn, killing the bad guy before anyone else goes.
so then the bad guy get protection from normal missiles, and then the party builds a dimensional agility build and just teleports behind the spellcaster, etc, etc,
this is the kind of metagaming that turns the game into rocket tag.
I really hate this kinda GMing
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Why is using basic tactics metagaming? Creating cover is something that soldiers in the real world do even today. Being able to attack while being protected from being attacked, is something as old as human civilization.
The term cover was used way before any roleplaying game.
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It’s all meta gaming when the tactics go beyond what the character would do based on their knowledge and skills, so yeah, the GM should stay one step ahead of the PCs and still manage to lose.
Then the party adapts, and the GM throws in something new for the party to overcome that is a little bit stronger and a little bit smarter than before. If the GM doesn’t, then combat is repetitive, which is the real enemy of story telling.
But don’t forget, the party is moving the plot forward each time they win. And sometimes they win a fight but suffer a setback still. That’s what makes the next win something to look forward to (and still satisfying even though the cards were stacked against the GM).
The GMG has really great ideas on making losing fun for the GM, which seems to be the issue that drives rocket tag the most IMO, try combats that are red herrings or force the party to choose a side in the middle of the action, or even a simple moral dilemma.
Some links I love:
Types of Adventures
TL;DR: as long as combats feature cool and new enemies, the GM should give the party their moment to feel powerful, knowing the next plot point should put them back on their heels enough to make the next win for the party even more important. Or don’t and just rotate GMs so everyone gets to sit in the loser’s chair.
Some things will require some skills or special knowledge, but other things are just common sense. Move the rubble around to create a kind of fort is something that any character is able to do. If a child can build a fort out of boxes a wizard should certainly be smart enough to build one out of items laying around.
If it were a fighter with no knowledge planes that has never encountered a devil, pulling out the sliver weapon, that is a different story.
Basic tactics is something every character should be able to handle.
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For reference, acid pit spell specifies the climb DC of 30, and clay golem has a STR mod of +7 and no climb skill. Even on a natural 20, resulting in a 27 climb check, it will never reach 30. Even invoking the bracing rule to effectively reduce the DC to 20, the golem would have to roll a 13 to, per RAW, climb at 1/4 of its 20 ft movement speed per round, which is 5 ft. At our level, which is 10, the pit would be 50 ft deep, and require 10 consecutive successful climb checks to climb out. Even if you gave the golem the benefit of starting 10 ft high, if any climb check that rolled at or below at 15 (so 8 on the d20) the golem would fall, and any roll 16-19 it would make no progress, and any time it took damage it had to make another climb check at the DC of the climb to not fall.
Other posters have already mentioned things like bracing and the clay golem's haste ability.
But what many people forget is that it is possible to take two Climb skill checks per round. A Climb skill check is a move action. Anyone can take two move actions per round instead of a move action and a standard action (or just a single full round action).
So a clay golem could climb 10 feet per round normally or 20' per round if hasted.