I see arguments come up now and again about what is optimal. Main counter argument is whats the situation. This thread is for GMs to lay out the way they set up encounters and use monsters. I think this conversation will actually help everyone understand where everyone is coming from when they say a build is optimal. I also home the conversation helps anyone wanting to GM as they will have a lot of viewpoints from experienced GMs on how to set up and run encounters.
Ok pulling in some categories i tend to consider.
GM Core offers some quick encounters
Ill stick to extreme ones
1) enemy party size and level
Boss and Lackeys a +2 with four -1s
Boss and lieutenant a +2 with a same level
Elite enemies three same level
2) Then there is composition.
Which monsters matter. Some will stretch the party farther because the party just might not be suited to fighting them.
3) Terrain, map size, and starting positions. Distance and map size will decide how good something like sudden charge will be or how good a 60 ft spell is vs a 30ft spell and so on. Areas of difficult terrain or elevation differences can also change how difficult the fight is or give a nice moment for character prepared to handle it.
4) Starting situations
Open fight
Ambush either direction
Conversation gone wrong
5) Party and foe goals
So much of the combat difficulty is decided by what the party and the foes are trying to accomplish that lead to conflict. If the party must take a foe alive that changes the difficulty, if the foe is only trying to escape that changes things. Usually the most basic assumption in argument is that both sides have one goal, kill the other side.
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I started a thread on balancing encounters about a year ago, and I gave my style of designing encounters in the 2nd comment: Encounter Balance: The Math and the Monsters, comment #2. The first comment explained PF2's Threat Budget system.
For me, the most important factor in designing an encounter is plausibility. A foreshadowed strong Big Bad Evil Guy has to be strong (Severe Threat) when finally encountered. A disrespected minion on guard duty has to feel weak (Trivial Threat). A patrol would be Moderate Threat. An uncommon or rare monster has to have an explanation why it is there--this is often a clue to a mysterious new evil moving into the area.
I ran the PF1 Ironfang Invasion adventure path under PF2 rules, so I converted a lot of monsters. The first module, Trail of the Hunted, began with CR 1/2 (very weak) Ironfang Recruits who were terribly disorganized and threw in a few CR 2 Ironfang Heavy Troopers for a challenge. I did not like that. It sent the wrong message about the Ironfang Legion being undisciplined. I replaced them with Hobgoblin Soldiers creature 1, who stuck together in disciplined groups of four. These would have overwhelmed the 1st-level party of four, but the town invaded by the Ironfang Legion immediately organized into defensive forces, so the party never faced a squad of four hobgoblins without aid.
The leader, Aubrin the Green, assigned the party to help children and elderly across the north bridge to hide in the Fangwood Forest, which is how the party ended up hunted by Ironfang patrols as they protected the refugees. Rescuing the villagers let the party earn 2nd level, so the standard Ironfang patrol of two 1st-level Hobgoblin Soldiers and a 2nd-level Heavy Trooper was only a little more difficult than a Moderate Threat. The module phased out the Ironfang Recruits as too weak to ever face the party again, but I was able to keep using Hobgoblin Soldiers with one tougher leader for the entire module. I liked the plausibility that the Ironfang soldiers stayed consistent. And this let the party hone their abilities in fighting that one kind of creature.
In my current Strength of Thousands campaign, the Magaambya Academy believes in protecting its students. It can ask them to face Trivial or Low Threats, but any Moderate or Severe Threat has to be a surprise to both the PCs and the academy. In an extra encounter I added (River into Darkness Revisited) the 7-member 2nd-level party of student mages faced a 6th-level Will-o'-Wisp immune to non-force magic. The Will-o'-Wisp fit the venue, so I used it despite the difficulty. Yet they were also forewarned, so those who could learn Magic Missile/Force Barrage prepared it. And they were accompanied by two 6th-level NPCs. The encounter was actually Trivial Threat, except that the PCs were very vulnerable.
As for optimizing against my threats, I am solidly in the camp that believes that teamwork is optimization. To aid the teamwork, I give information about threats ahead whenever the party seeks advance information. And they are smart enough to seek it.
Ok pulling in some categories i tend to consider.
GM Core offers some quick encounters
Ill stick to extreme ones1) enemy party size and level
Boss and Lackeys a +2 with four -1s
You have a copying error there, the GM Core, page 76, says:
• Boss and Lackeys (120 XP): One creature of party level + 2, four creatures of party level – 4A +2 creature and four -1 creatures would be 80xp + 4(30xp) = 200xp, beyond Extreme Threat.
Boss and lieutenant a +2 with a same level
Elite enemies three same level
Why are you listing only the Severe-Threat encounters from Quick Adventure Groups on page 76? Most encounters are supposed to be lower threat than that. An informal recommendation from one developer is that a party face three Moderate Encounters per day. Severe Threat is limited to the toughest encounters. My players are very good at resource management and can handle ten Moderate Threat encounters per day, but I give them a chance to rest and recuperate after a Severe-Threat encounter.
2) Then there is composition.
Which monsters matter. Some will stretch the party farther because the party just might not be suited to fighting them.
Yes, if an encounter includes the first flying creature or the first incorporeal creature that the party has faced, then they had not developed team tactics against such an opponent and will probably waste a round figuring them out. They will be ready for the 2nd flying or incorporeal creature on another day.
3) Terrain, map size, and starting positions. Distance and map size will decide how good something like sudden charge will be or how good a 60 ft spell is vs a 30ft spell and so on. Areas of difficult terrain or elevation differences can also change how difficult the fight is or give a nice moment for character prepared to handle it.
Give the PCs terrain. My players are experienced and will take advantage of terrain. I make detailed maps for Roll20 so that they can have terrain. It makes combat more interesting.
4) Starting situations
Open fight
Ambush either direction
Conversation gone wrong
In Ironfang Invasion, the PCs who spent the middle of the first module hiding in the forest became very good at ambushing from the forest at the end of the first module. They chose the terrain (see Fording a River for an example).
In contrast, the difficult combats in Strength of Thousands were all surprises. The party, however, was in the middle of a campus, not wandering down a lonely road, so the terrain did not help an enemy ambush. Instead, the PCs' main difficulty is that their gear and cantrips were prepared for classwork rather than combat. My players would rather roleplay than dominate combat.
5) Party and foe goals
So much of the combat difficulty is decided by what the party and the foes are trying to accomplish that lead to conflict. If the party must take a foe alive that changes the difficulty, if the foe is only trying to escape that changes things. Usually the most basic assumption in argument is that both sides have one goal, kill the other side.
The gremlins were four pugwampis, creature 0. That would be Severe Threat against four 1st-level PCs, but not fatal due to the nonlethal damage. But I had seven 1st-level PCs and one was a Curse-Eater tengu, so I gave the pugwampis a class level to make them creature 1. The level was in monk, so their fists dealt 1d6-2 bludgeoning damage with no attack penalty for dealing nonlethal damage. And they had Flurry of Blows. Heh heh heh.
The party had to invent some clever tactics involving Demoralize with Gremlin Bells (explained on the Pugwampi page) and Repositioning to drop them down the hole they had entered by. And the gremlins knocked out one PC.
Ok pulling in some categories i tend to consider.
GM Core offers some quick encounters
Ill stick to extreme ones1) enemy party size and level
Boss and Lackeys a +2 with four -1sYou have a copying error there, the GM Core, page 76, says:
• Boss and Lackeys (120 XP): One creature of party level + 2, four creatures of party level – 4A +2 creature and four -1 creatures would be 80xp + 4(30xp) = 200xp, beyond Extreme Threat.
Ah! thanks. Yeah i meant to write four -4. Appreciate the correction.
Why are you listing only the Severe-Threat encounters from Quick Adventure Groups on page 76? Most encounters are supposed to be lower threat than that. An informal recommendation from one developer is that a party face three Moderate Encounters per day. Severe Threat is limited to the toughest encounters. My players are very good at resource management and can handle ten Moderate Threat encounters per day, but I give them a chance to rest and recuperate after a Severe-Threat encounter.Boss and lieutenant a +2 with a same level
Elite enemies three same level
This has been my approach at early levels in my campaign. I have more exposition early on and days where they have a fight has been 1 for the whole day with some travel and downtime in between.
Once they get further into the campaign they will have adventuring days with multiple encounters to overcome however they choose to to accomplish their goals. But I see the point there.The first category is what does the adventuring day look like.
How many encounters need to be overcome. What kinds of skills can players bring to bear to change the difficulty or even bypass the encounter. (not a rigid and formulaic thing here, my players are going to come up with way better ideas of how to do something than I will)
Undervalued skills in an encounter might just have a lot more value in changing the encounter parameters before they even start.
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Undervalued skills in an encounter might just have a lot more value in changing the encounter parameters before they even start.
I have a detailed example of this. When I participate in a Paizo public playtest of a new character class, I add the playtest character to the party in our ongoing campaign. The inventor Arkus joined the party during Fangs of War in our Ironfang Invasion adventure path soon before the party took back Fort Trevalay from the Ironfang invaders. I chronicled the events at Arkus, playtest inventor.
Fort Trevalay is located between two gorges. A river canyon had split and left a tall island in the middle. The module provided three well-guarded bridges into the fort and a secret cave that led up the well in the middle of the fort.
The party invented their own way to enter the fort by carefully scouting around the fort (the sorcerer transformed into a bird for an overhead view) and discovering a blind spot. The blind spot was a tower balcony that should have been a watch point with a sentry, but it was empty. They used a Jump spell to string a rope to the balcony and climbed to the fort via the rope.
The skills involved, besides the spells, were Stealth to scout the fort, Athletics to cross the gorge and to climb the rope, and Thievery to unlock the door to the balcony.
By entering from a blind spot into the center of a tower, they avoided alerting the entire fort. The tower was designed by the module writers to be cleared one floor at a time in a PF1-style gauntlet of four Low-Threat encounters and a trap to tire out the party before the big boss battle at the top of the tower. I bumped up the difficulty by merging two Low-Threat encounters into one Severe-Threat encounter.
The big boss was the dragon Izbairiak (CR 10 male young adult variant black dragon), who had been hinted at throughout the entire module and was featured on the cover art. However, the plot said that Izbairiak was away and would fly into the open top of the tower when the party arrived there.
The party captured one tower resident and interrogated her about the fort's habits (Perception check for Sense Motive). They avoided the trap and the top of the tower. They also left the first floor of the tower untouched and unaware until the tower locked up for the night. Then they cleared the first floor and got a good night's sleep inside the enemy-occupied fort. By stealthily exploiting a blind spot, they managed to split the recapture of Fort Trevalay into two separate parts, rather than exhausting themselves taking it all in one continuous string of encounters.
Good example.
Another GM might have railroaded players into going through the gauntlet as intended invalidating how planning and clever use of out of combat abilities can alter the difficulty of the adventuring day.
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I hadn't seriously looked at that sidebar before, but I have to say, it's bad advice. Creatures of party level -4 are really pointless.
I feel like the golden range for enemy levels is really the -1 to +2 range.
A level -1 enemy is still able to hit the PCs occasionally and can assist a boss creature with flanking and all that. But it's noticeably weak compared to the PCs. But not pointlessly weak.
Level +2 enemies tend to feel pretty tough, but aren't frustratingly tough. By level +3 you start to feel like "this isn't clever, it's just super high numbers".
I feel like level +3 enemies should never feel like a "random" encounter. They must be strongly embedded in the story, usually quite foreshadowed. Players shouldn't be asking "so why was the hardest fight in the dungeon against a random construct?" If on the other hand it's the famous golem that guards the entrance to the pharaoh's tomb and is well known to have defeated numerous would-be thieves, then it's palatable. In many cases, the players should also have some kind of advantage against such a creature - maybe they found an item that helps, they could get some info from another creature in the dungeon that's willing to help, or the monster is famous and the party did their research and prepared.
For a boss fight, you don't want the boss to be underwhelming compared to other monsters in the adventure, but you also don't want the bossfight to be a frustrating one where they keep critically saving against all spells. Level +2 with a very generous helping of level -1 to +1 mooks can make it a tough fight, while not being too frustrating.
I keep talking about frustration. That's because you can win fights in two ways:
- there's a single enemy. They have high numbers, so you fail most attacks/spells. But there's more of you than of them, so eventually out of many attacks, enough finally succeed
- there's more enemies, but they're weaker. More of your attacks/spells work, but you also need to spread them over more enemies
Both of these fights could be equally hard. But in the first one, maybe you miss 60% of the time, and in the second one you miss only 30% of the time. The first one is more frustrating.
That said, a bit of frustration can also be good. When you finally win against a tricky tough opponent, it can be more satisfying than when they're a walkover.
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Level -3 and 4 creatures are great for giving your players an easy win moment, especially if they’ve been struggling through some tougher encounters.
They are also great for filling a dungeon and bringing it to life with NPCs that can be sniped in one or two shots, but can raise an alarm and cause trouble if they are ignored. At higher levels -3 creatures can even be a threat to the party by providing flanking opportunities for a boss, taking up space on the battlefield, opening doors, resetting traps, interacting with the environment and even stealing treasure from the room and running off under the boss’s nose, just to change up the encounter and force folks to start moving around again if they’ve grown static.
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I really love encounter design in Pathfinder 2e and could spend a lot of time talking about it. Unfortunately, I don't have that time at the moment! Rather than dotting the thread and coming back later, though, I did write a whole lot about adventure design (for low-levels) and that includes some encounter design talk - with more coming soon in the same vein!
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About the -4: depend on which ones.
One time, I added a handfull of lvl-5 exploding skeletons to be easy fodder with interesting effect to a necromancer's encounter. The PCs had dragged their feet, giving the necromancer a full week of time to prep against the PCs... The Champion Paladin got surrounded by them, another PC did a 3 action heal... that dealt minimum damage, keeping them all alive... Paladin then one-shotted a skeleton... that exploded, and all surrounding skeletons died from that, only to explode themselves... The palladin either failed or crit failed ALL the saves... That dropped him from full to 1 hp. On his own round. xD So yeah. Technically, these skeletons were worth 0XP... :P
Also on the -4 creatures pretty much what Unicore said.
Any creature no matter their level can do certain things equally well. Playing lower level creatures by doing things like Unicore mentioned allow them to waste player actions which cuts into their action advantage on the +2 creature they would rather focus on.
If a player doesn't want to stay flanked they need to kill a -4 setting it up or move. It helps the +2 from getting focused down at the start and if the -4s are completely ignored it can allow the +2 more crits from flanking help against persistent affects from aid and that's if your on a flat grid with nothing in the environment the -4s can take advantage of.
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In the first chapter of the PF2 playtest the big boss had a giant rat. Oddly it wasn't mentioned at all in tactics, but hey, boss had sneak attack IIRC so he flanked with it. By proxy that rat did a decent amount of damage before someone obliterated it.
Turns out the rat & its h.p. had been a line typo. :-)
Also ran a module against an OP party who were intercepting a rival party at some docks. I added some token ninjas to help balance the battle, having the ninjas pop up among the nearby boats and piers. The party had fought a horde of similar ninja already, so felt at little risk. In round one they spread out the take out the ninjas. In round two, the real threat arrived and they had the mobility to confront the vulnerable PCs left on the shore. HUGE difference, lots of scrambling despite the PCs having a strong power advantage. Tee hee.
Even old school in module G1 (revamped for 3.X), there's a dining hall with many ogres among a hill giant clan, with even a cloud giant guest. Round one I had all the ogres scatter and run (thankfully before AoEs nuked too many). While it did help clear the clutter, they also had specific missions on who to go signal! Stopping the ogres mattered.
Also speaking of ogres, they're often bosses in early adventures (and have a streak of downing Rangers at my tables!) which makes them great metrics for PC growth. Fight one as boss...later fight one speaking just as boldly, but falling in one blow. While technically trivial, it can enthuse one's players. One has to break out of the rut of "all combats feel as hard despite leveling up" with a palette cleanser once in awhile.
Optimal has very little to do with how a GM sets up encounters and more to do with how to leverage the strengths of a given class.
That being said, I will state my methodology for encounter design.
I don't read much on encounter design in the game rules. I design around the players I run based more on an idea of what I want the fight to look and feel like and how best to build to challenge my players as well as offer them opportunities to shine. You want your players to feel like the heroes of some epic tale and encounter design is based around that goal as a GM.
1. Standard encounter: This is general group of henchmen or raid type of group or some solo monster that isn't meant to be particularly difficult. It should feel like you're fighting an enemy that looks threatening, but the party are the heroes so they should win this pretty easy.
2. Mini-boss with mooks: This encounter can be tough. One of the main enemy's right hands leading mooks. This fight should be fairly tough draining some resources, causing some serious damage, but the heroes should survive and carry on. Let's them know the main enemy is a serious threat.
3. Main Boss Encounter: This is the fight where I take the gloves off. I want the players to feel as though they can die during this fight. Maybe it's a legendary dragon or some other monster or the main boss lich and his minions or some great demon lord or a crime boss with his core bodyguards. This fight should be a knock down, drag out anyone could die encounter. I want the players to win as they are the heroes, but I want it to be earned and feel like it was intense and deadly. I want their hit points low, perhaps a few players dropping and stacking some dying and wounded, drained of resources, and the players feeling like they might TPK. It's a hard line to walk with the randomness of die rolls, but if you get this right it feels great to the players that they achieved a noteworthy victory against a very dangerous enemy.
The numbers in PF2 are tighter, so it is far easier to gauge what a group of characters can handle. A less experienced group you have to tone things down. A more experienced group like I play with allows me to ramp things up without worrying about them dying.
As a DM I like to make the encounters feel like the players are in a TV show or story when fighting, so I like to add some good color to the encounters with enemy personality, foreshadowing, or other narrative tools to make the encounter meaningful and enhance verisimilitude.
The build up should be good for main encounters or mini-boss encounters. Standard encounters I don't put as much work into unless there is some other reason to make it interesting, but they can be good for making the players feel their strength in the world. You don't want them to always have their backs against the wall and close to death. Sometimes you let them show off and feel strong, especially as they gain levels.
Narratively driven encounter design is my main method for encounter building customized as much as possible to challenge the PCs while allowing them to shine.
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I have probably designed/converted/reimagined about 20 monsters and 50 encounters in the last 2 weeks, and I really cannot stress enough the importance of including a lot of trivial and low threat encounters with creatures that are level -2, -3, and even -4 behind the party into dungeons. Without these kind of encounters, dungeons are stuck in a mode of having to remain mostly static, with minimal spill over between encounter sites, or else the lethality of encounters balloons much too quickly. Additionally, they provide different kinds of characters to shine in ways that feel significant, because they are not just a bunch of easy to kill fodder, they are creatures that are going to be running around the encounter site, activating more trouble for the PCs if they are not quickly dealt with. They can unlock the doors to bigger animal pens, reload the weapons of more powerful creatures/defenders/turrets, raise and lower bridges/ropes, block narrow passages, and just do so much to make an encounter more memorable without making those encounters radically more difficult.
But perhaps even more importantly for the sake of campaign development and growth, getting stuck in a "never less than level -2 creature" mindset, especially when paired with a "never more than a level +2 creature" mindset, ends up just making the band of creatures you can use at any level so flat and it makes it so much harder to have peaks and valleys of danger in a dungeon that change as the party gains more experience and equipment. Almost nothing gets players hearts racing better than when a dungeon that has been relatively easy to overpower for a couple of rooms suddenly turns into a fight for the players lives as that one little goon that got away suddenly brought the house down.
I have probably designed/converted/reimagined about 20 monsters and 50 encounters in the last 2 weeks, and I really cannot stress enough the importance of including a lot of trivial and low threat encounters with creatures that are level -2, -3, and even -4 behind the party into dungeons. Without these kind of encounters, dungeons are stuck in a mode of having to remain mostly static, with minimal spill over between encounter sites, or else the lethality of encounters balloons much too quickly. Additionally, they provide different kinds of characters to shine in ways that feel significant, because they are not just a bunch of easy to kill fodder, they are creatures that are going to be running around the encounter site, activating more trouble for the PCs if they are not quickly dealt with. ...
The low-threat creatures are also a good way to switch from combat encounters to social encounters when the enemy realizes that they are outmatched. This is often humorous, too.
Their battle against the froghemoths attracted the attention of the blightguards, who watched the fight and made bets on the outcome (the blightguards are evil and uncaring and no friend of the froghemoths). They watched the party defeat the froghemoths and barely get winded in the process. Then the party approached the watching blightguard and said, "We would like to see your boss, the Duchess of Rot Naphexi." The blightguard were very happy to cooperate and escort the party to Naphexi, because they knew that if they had to fight the party then they would die.
However, the GM has to prepare for both the combat and conversation in such an encounter, because the whims of the players and of the dice determine which one will happen. I like giving the players the choice.
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I have probably designed/converted/reimagined about 20 monsters and 50 encounters in the last 2 weeks, and I really cannot stress enough the importance of including a lot of trivial and low threat encounters with creatures that are level -2, -3, and even -4 behind the party into dungeons. Without these kind of encounters, dungeons are stuck in a mode of having to remain mostly static, with minimal spill over between encounter sites, or else the lethality of encounters balloons much too quickly. Additionally, they provide different kinds of characters to shine in ways that feel significant, because they are not just a bunch of easy to kill fodder, they are creatures that are going to be running around the encounter site, activating more trouble for the PCs if they are not quickly dealt with. ...The low-threat creatures are also a good way to switch from combat encounters to social encounters when the enemy realizes that they are outmatched. This is often humorous, too.
** spoiler omitted **...
Another fun thing to do with the low and even trivial threat encounters that turn into social encounters is to have those creatures escort the party to the boss, so that if a combat breaks out, it can appear to have an extra level of danger to it if the boss is not too strong of an enemy.
Or you can monkey wrench the boss encounter by having the lower threat encounter creatures try to take advantage of the situation to accomplish other goals. Like having some of them fight on loyally with the boss, but consider having one "switch sides" if they think the party will reward them by making them the new boss of the area, or let them keep some minor treasure. I have had some very memorable encounters as both a player and a GM from lower ranking minions/goons deciding to show the invaders in to meet the boss instead of fighting right away.
These things become possible only when every encounter in a dungeon is not already dialed up to severe threats, or over reliant on level +1 and level +2 creatures, as even adding 1 level +1 creature to a severe encounter takes it over the extreme threshold...which some parties can handle, but it can get very dangerous, very quickly.
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-3 and -4 level creatures are also nice to help show how the PCs have progressed. At the start of the book one of the Soldiers is a tough fight, but by the end your PCs mow through a group of 4.
It makes the players feel powerful and gives a fun easy encounter before they go up against the lvl+3 boss.
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Speaking of metrics, I used to use "kill ogre in one hit" (or two hits or two ogres easily, etc.) to convey info the PC knows/learns in narrative form to the player rather than in mechanical terms. That was when ogres were more ubiquitous, though one could adjust for whatever theme suits the ongoing story.
Hmm, wondering if I stopped because PF1/PF2 powers up so dramatically that it makes it harder to establish baselines. Thank goodness for Troops. :)
This thread is for GMs to lay out the way they set up encounters and use monsters.
I set up encounters and I use monsters and it works.
That's a great asset of PF2: you don't have to give too much thought in that. Any Moderate+ encounter can be challenging, most enemies have fun abilities that can surprise the party, there's no setup that is doomed to be too strong or too weak, play as you like.I hardly think there are much patterns in what I do, considering the numerous ways I get my encounters from (PFS adventure, APs, adapted PF1 adventures, fully made-up encounters, fully made-up encounters with fully made-up enemies).
There's one thing I think PF2 lacks: easy to apply templates. PF1 was good at that: I was taking a basic monster, creating 6 tokens of them, then adding one or two class levels to each token from a different class each time and that was giving just enough differences between enemies so they felt all different.
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There's one thing I think PF2 lacks: easy to apply templates. PF1 was good at that: I was taking a basic monster, creating 6 tokens of them, then adding one or two class levels to each token from a different class each time and that was giving just enough differences between enemies so they felt all different.
I use the Gamemastery Guide's Building Creatures tables as a substitute for templates. It is twice as hard as applying a template, but the results are more lively.
Start with the original monster and its original level and find where its numbers fall on the tables. Is the number in the High, Moderate, or Low column? Trace the column down to the new level and replace the old number with the new number from the new level.
Next, the monster needs some feats or features of its new class. Pick some iconic abilities of the class, about one for every two levels added. The main criterion is that the features are easy to play. The Building Creatures guide recommends avoiding invisible features, such as a ranger's Hunt Prey, that use up actions but do nothing that the players can observe. If you check some ranger-based creatures in the Bestiary, such as Hobgoblin Archer, you see how abilities dependent on Hunt Prey in a ranger were rewritten to no longer require Hunt Prey.
That's it.
For example, in my Strength of Thousands campaign Esi Djana asked the 1st-level party to chase away four pugwampis who had taken over a storeroom. She said that the campus gremlins were tame, so that if the party dealt nonlethal damage, then the gremlins would respond with nonlethal damage, too.
But my party is oversized with seven members, so I decided to level up the pugwampis to 1st level by giving them a level of monk. The version I created was based on the Pre-remaster Bestiary, but the example below is based on the Remastered Monster Core.
Pugwanpi Monk Creature 1
Recall Knowledge - Fey (Nature): DC 15
Mean, dog-faced, and craven, pugwampis take disproportionate enjoyment from the accidents and missteps of other creatures— something that happens often due to the supernatural aura of ill fortune these gremlins project. They enjoy preparing pranks involving spikes, excrement, pits full of spiders, and similar twisted torments. Pugwampis are somewhat deaf and thus often yell loudly to each other when not hiding. Many pugwampis worship kholos as gods and aspire to be more like them. Kholos, on the other hand, hate pugwampis because of their sycophantic fawning.
Names Caramel, Hazel, Mocha, Onyx
Small Fey Gremlin
Perception +7; (–2 to hear things); darkvision
Languages Kholo, Sakvroth
Skills Crafting +3, Deception +3, Nature +5, Stealth +6, Thievery +6
Str -2, Dex +3, Con +0, Int +0, Wis +2, Cha -2
Items shortsword, satchel
AC 15; Fort +6, Ref +9, Will +7
HP 24; Weaknesses cold iron 3
Unluck Aura (aura, mental, misfortune, primal) 20 feet. When a creature that isn't an animal, gremlin, or kholo enters the aura, it might become unlucky. It attempts a DC 17 Will save; it must roll twice and take the worse result. On a success, the creature is temporarily immune to pugwampi unluck auras for 24 hours. On a failure, the creature must roll twice and take the worse result on all checks as long as it's within the aura.
Speed 25 feet
Melee [one-action] shortsword +9 (agile, finesse, magical, versatile S), Damage 1d6-2 slashing
Melee [one-action] fist +9 (agile, finesse, nonlethal, unarmed) Damage 1d6-2 bludgeoning
Ranged [one-action] thrown bottle +6 (nonlethal, range increment 10 feet), Damage 1d6 bludgeoning
Primal Innate Spells DC 17; 2nd speak with animals (at will); Cantrips (1st) prestidigitation
Powerful Fist
Flurry of Blows [one-action]
Flourish, Monk
Make two unarmed Strikes. If both hit the same creature, combine their damage for the purpose of resistances and weaknesses. Apply your multiple attack penalty to the Strikes normally. As it has the flourish trait, you can use Flurry of Blows only once per turn.
The difference between skills, saving throws, and DCs from 0th level to 1st level is only +1. The 17 hp of the pugwampi is the lowest value in the High column of Table 2–7: Hit Points at 0th level, so the pugwampi monk uses the lowest value in the High column of Table 2–7: Hit Points at 1st level, 24 hp. Weakness cold iron 2 was between columns in Table 2–8: Resistances and Weaknesses at 0th level, but at 1st level had no gap between columns, so I had to chose a column and went with 3. I did not alter the pugwampi's primal innate spells except for raising the DC.
The two monk abilities I added were Powerful Fist and Flurry of Blows. That is more abilities than I would typically add, but Powerful Fist essentially replaced the shortsword that the pugwampi would ordinarily use, except it was better an nonlethal attacks. The pugwampi monk did not get a monk feat. Swapping out the pugwampi's shortbow for a thrown bottle was done by the module, to make them seem more like a nuisance than an enemy combatant.
The seven PCs had trouble against the pugwampi monks, despite the tengu Jinx Fuun absorbing all the misfortune from the Unluck Auras (she had a cursed family heirloom that made her an involuntary curse eater at 1st level). Most were spellcasters. Since their spells dealt lethal damage, they avoided using those spells and had picked up simple nonlethal weapons instead. They ended up grappling the pugwampi monks, dropping them down the tunnel they had dug into the storeroom, and piling boards and barrels to close the tunnel.
Yeah, but that's so much more work than a template.
I'd prefer having a template telling me what I should remove or add to a monster for it to become a monk.
Yeah, but that's so much more work than a template.
I'd prefer having a template telling me what I should remove or add to a monster for it to become a monk.
Templates were nice. I do miss those. A quick easy to way to modify a creature in an interesting manner.
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I don't have the book yet, but I understand that Howl of the Wild has reintroduced templates you can add to different animals, and I would not be surprised if we will see more of those in future thematic books as well.
Howl of the wilds monster section is great.
It introduces a category of creature like Hydras.
Gives a history of them from the research perspective of the researchers introed in the beginning of the book.
Then cultural impacts of hydras
Then behaviors and physiology
Then they give the entries and stat blocks of different types of hydras.
Being a fan of hydras this is really cool to me to have some interesting new options
The adjustments or templates they provide include things like environment adaptations, a new elite and weak template, a miniature template, mutations like a second head or winged.
But cool if i want to take the basic hydra which is a level 6 creature weaken it make it miniature and add wings for a terrifying flying mini hydra hoard, the rules are there to do it.
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Behold the CR 14 slug! re: Order of the Stick, though I too made perhaps abusive use of templates in 3.X/PF1 so I'm leaning toward a looser style with parameters, tables, suggestions, etc. rather than pseudo-rigorous rules that can hardly balance across all the varieties of monsters. Ex. Imagine adding a troll template to a Will O' Wisp, where template patch up weaknesses too well or amplify strengths. Another example being the old hybrids that made a regenerating monster immune to the effects that overcame their regeneration.
Not that I'm saying I'd do that anymore, yet it's feels so nice to synergize in such ways. And there's the next generation so they don't assume that "allowed" = "endorsed" we have to put monster-building principles > stat algorithms.
Okay, I'm meandering here trying to say that I'd prefer a glossary of cool abilities to add suitable for certain level ranges over templates. That's straightforward when using PC classes, but monstrosities be different.
When is the switch from Grab to Improved Grab warranted? And what thinking went behind the Roc getting it at only level 9? (Which it does need given its iconic tactics & limited actions due to flight.)
That kind of thing. Though I understand it's more art than science, Paizo does run numbers too.
And don't worry, the party overcame the slug with spices and a party member who'd invested a lot in cooking skills.
There is a nuance that the developers want to be sure not to write out or obfuscate if they adopt more elaborate templates.
Many times, due to the structure of PF2, it might very well make a lot more sense to use a generic NPC base for a character of a class at a specific level, and then add on what essentially amounts to an ancestry template than it does to go the other way and add the class as a template to the monster. So more generic NPC stat blocks of different class builds would probably be more useful for a lot of GMs than elaborate templates to try to add class abilities to monsters, if the only thing staying the same is some special defenses or attacks.
Also, one of the tricks for dialing in the level of a creature and whether giving it more abilities really changes how difficult the creature is to fight vs just changing it’s role in a combat is whether the new abilities are essentially just new options to spend a limited 3 actions on, or if they are abilities that essentially change the creatures action economy in a way that justifies a level change. Most of the time it is going to be the former, but some abilities that allow for multiple attacks without MAP are going to feel more like a level boost, and what those abilities are is going to vary from feat to feat you might be trying to add to a creature.
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the fact that there isn't a level 1/5/10/15/20 generic version of some of the core classes (rogue, wizard, fighter, cleric) in statblock form feels like a huge gap, in my opinion.
1/5/10/15/20?
If the party is level 7, either you have very weak NPCs (with an Elite template they are just weak) or boss NPCs. It's very limited. So you need much more NPCs. Also you need a version of the 20 classes (or at least most of them)? With information on how to create a monster version of these, like a Troll Barbarian?
That's why I think templates would be better. As there are tons of enemies at each and every level, being able to give uniqueness to your mooks will really help. The goal is not to recreate an actual Wizard, Rogue or Barbarian, but to give the feeling the enemy is an actual Rogue, Wizard or Barbarian. Which in general comes down to using signature abilities, that are easy to define in a template.
Most of the wizards the party encounters are not going to be troll wizards, or frost giant wizards. They're going to be humanoid wizards whose main power does not come from being a troll or a frost giant, but from being a WIZARD.
For that you have the monster creation guidelines. If you need a full fledged wizard who's just a wizard, templates won't help you.
I'm speaking of templates, ways to slightly alter a creature to give it a bit of color or tailor it to your adventure. So the Barbazu Commander can have a few Commander abilities, the Troll can be a Barbarian, with the same abilities than a normal Troll but just a "Barbarian playstyle" (Rage and such), or you choose to give the dragon a shadow template without being a shadow dragon because you may prefer another type of dragon that makes more sense in your story, etc...
I don’t think any of it really needs to be either/or. There are times where a “class template” that just changes saves around a bit, weapons, gives an HP modifier, and then one core class ability will work well enough, like say you wanted the elite level 3 boggard warrior war party leader to feel like a barbarian, so she gets a rage like ability maybe tied to an instinct and you are done. But later in that adventure, the party has leveled up a couple times from 2 to 4 and you want them to fight the main camp, where those war party leaders are now body guards and you want a war chief Queen that is a level 5 barbarian boggard with maybe a level 4 Boggard Oracle and a level 4 Boggard Rogue/Assassin to be high ranking NPCs encountered in the camp as well as the elite warriors. You can get close with an elite swamp seer and maybe just a level 2 elite scout, but the scout is really not rogue like at all and is 2 levels behind, but even worse, everything in the camp is going to feel mostly the same, with the same save distributions and mostly the same actions in every encounter.
Being able to add a boggard template to a generic NPC can have a lot more diversity of abilities while making sure everyone still croaks and swampwalks and has a tongue attack. This feels especially necessary where creatures already have higher level versions of their ancestry, but those higher level versions are already pretty obviously just class and training/fighting style adjustments rather than innate abilities.
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Well, I have good news for you then, because Paizo has announced an NPC Core book. Unfortunately you will have to wait until 2025 for it.
I got trumped by Perses13's news of the upcoming NPC Codex as I wrote this, but here is what I have done for shortcuts on creating NPCs.
The Gamemastery Guide has a chapter called NPC Gallery that offers a list of human NPCs.
Monsters and PCs aren’t the only inhabitants of your world. Though they might not be heroes, NPCs can play various roles in your game, such as calling PCs to adventure, serving as obstacles in social encounters, or opposing PCs in battle. This chapter presents almost a hundred NPCs for your game, plus rules to modify them to fit any particular niche.
The rules to modify them include one-paragraph templates to switch their ancestry to dwarf, elf, gnome, goblin, or halfling. However, the highest level of these NPCs is 8th level for Assassin and Guildmaster.
These NPCs can all be found in the Archives of Nethys at https://2e.aonprd.com/NPCs.aspx. In addition, all the NPCs from PF2 adventure paths are also in same section, and any No-Prep characters from the Paizo Blog. While many of these NPCs are unique, some are generic adversaries. For example, I needed some duergar/hryngar guards for my PF2-conversion of Siege of Stone. Their details were not important, so I lazily copied the Scarlet Triad Thugs stat blocks without change.
When I converted the blightguards in Prisoners of the Blight to PF2 creature 13, I started with the Butterfly Blade Warrior from Pathfinder #166: Despair on Danger Island and switched the species to blightguard (they are a redcap-quickling crossbreed). I called that version the Butterfly Blade Blightguard and found Internet artwork for their tokens. To also use the original scythe-carrying artwork I modified their weapons and weapon abilities to scythe for Scythe Blightguards.
The most annoying opponents to create in PF2 are primary spellcasters. Spell lists are highly individual. When I converted Iuwlas, morlock oracle 10, to PF2 creature 11, I started with a Morlock Cultist creature 4 and had to write a new 6-rank divine spell list from scratch. Sometimes I could copy the spells off of Abendego Priest or Cult Leader for the low-level beginning of a longer spell list.