Pathfinder 2E Another Deadly Session, and It's Getting Old

[Retreater]

Can someone please tell me the name and page number of the supplement where this trap is described, so we can find out the context of the events?

Spoiler: Hazardous Information

"Cult of Cinders" pp 57-59, Areas C6 and C7.

 

[kenada]

Wow. What happened to Paizo APs? in the ‘olden days’ they were the watchword for easily beatable adventures. I used to have to pile multiple encounters together in order to prevent a challenge.

There are a handful of reasons for the apparent increase in difficulty.

1. The guidelines for encounter building actually work. Because build optimization could make so much of a difference, they weren’t in PF1. Encounters might be hard or might be easy depending on the players. Consequently, hard encounters in PF2 are hard.
2. Per the guidelines, higher-thread encounters can end the adventuring day or kill PCs (for severe- and extreme-threat encounters). Moderate-threat encounters are an example of the former, and they’re fairly common in APs.
3. PF2 shifts system mastery from character building to tactical play. This helps with balance and making the guidelines work reliably, but it means consistently poor tactics gets you wrecked by moderate-threat encounters on a regular basis.

Related to number 3 there is that certain tactics that are okay in other games are a really bad idea in PF2. Charging into combat is usually worse than forcing the enemy to come to you. If you’re standing there, slugging it out because you want to fish for a crit on your third attack, then you’re probably taking damage you could have avoided. It’s much better to retreat and force the enemy to close the distance again.

Additionally, another part of tactics is teamwork. If the group is not fighting as a team, it’s going to have a harder time (especially at severe and extreme threats where it’s practically a requirement). For example, a party that casts bless (+1 status bonus to attack), uses Demoralize (−1 or −2 status penalty to AC), and imposes the flat-footed condition (−2 circumstance penalty to AC) on a target has an effectively 20~25% higher hit and crit rate against it than one that doesn’t put much effort into maximizing its effectiveness.

Edit: I’m speaking generally here. In this case, there was an apparently nasty hazard involved in the encounter. That can also affect things, though I’d expect it to be factored i to the encounter’s budget.

 

[TheSword]

There are a handful of reasons for the apparent increase in difficulty.

1. The guidelines for encounter building actually work. Because build optimization could make so much of a difference, they weren’t in PF1. Encounters might be hard or might be easy depending on the players. Consequently, hard encounters in PF2 are hard.
2. Per the guidelines, higher-thread encounters can end the adventuring day or kill PCs (for severe- and extreme-threat encounters). Moderate-threat encounters are an example of the former, and they’re fairly common in APs.
3. PF2 shifts system mastery from character building to tactical play. This helps with balance and making the guidelines work reliably, but it means consistently poor tactics gets you wrecked by moderate-threat encounters on a regular basis.

Related to number 3 there is that certain tactics that are okay in other games are a really bad idea in PF2. Charging into combat is usually worse than forcing the enemy to come to you. If you’re standing there, slugging it out because you want to fish for a crit on your third attack, then you’re probably taking damage you could have avoided. It’s much better to retreat and force the enemy to close the distance again.

Additionally, another part of tactics is teamwork. If the group is not fighting as a team, it’s going to have a harder time (especially at severe and extreme threats where it’s practically a requirement). For example, a party that casts bless (+1 status bonus to attack), uses Demoralize (−1 or −2 status penalty to AC), and imposes the flat-footed condition (−2 circumstance penalty to AC) on a target has an effectively 20~25% higher hit and crit rate against it than one that doesn’t put much effort into maximizing its effectiveness.

Edit: I’m speaking generally here. In this case, there was an apparently nasty hazard involved in the encounter. That can also affect things, though I’d expect it to be factored i to the encounter’s budget.

Thanks for the response. Sounds painful - particularly when it comes to traps.

 

[!DWolf]

Never. It just doesn't come up. As presented in the module, there is no way to learn anything about the showdown dungeon to gain a tactical advantage. You're in the middle of a jungle with no helpful NPCs who have ever seen the area - your allies are even magically blocked from getting close to it. They don't know how to pre-buff until a trap is sprung and combat started - and by then there is no time to waste on buffs. The cleric spends every available action and spell slot to heal the party. The party is 100% reactionary to the challenges of the adventure.

Okay. I see the problems:
0) When combined the two encounters are an extreme level threat.
1) That trap is way outside the norm for a complex hazard of that level. I have been told that this model was written before the rules were finalized so that might explain it.
2) The designers (probably from the second they heard the word hex crawl) assumed a playstyle for the module - but they never explicitly said so. This will lead to some groups being frustrated because it feels like they are missing something (because they are) and are getting annihilated every fight.

The good news is that I can give you a lot of advice to help make your game better since I actually have experience with this problem.

The bad news is my lunch break is over so it will have to wait until tonight.

 

[kenada]

Thanks for the response. Sounds painful - particularly when it comes to traps.

I kind of have the same impression of official adventures.

To be fair, tactics can be taught. I’d posit that they’re easier to learn than character optimization. Also, having a reliable tool for building encounters is really helpful as a GM for assessing whether one is appropriate.

In this case, it sounds like the encounter was busted. It might not be a bad idea to fix the trap and giving the group a mulligan. Sometimes we (GM, adventure writer, etc) mess up, and that’s more fair than just rolling with it.

 

[CapnZapp]

Spoiler: Hazardous Information

"Cult of Cinders" pp 57-59, Areas C6 and C7.

Thanks.

Though you could have made it much simpler to respond by explaining that everything revolves around

Spoiler

the spell Phantasmal Killer

I see nothing egregious about this. The effect is appropriate for the level.

As I understand it, your described outcome required the character to make two saves, first rolling a critical failure and then a failure.

Even with the use of a Hero Point, this can happen.

What seems to be a mistake, however, is
"while monsters (immune to the hazard) entered the fray, swarming and dealing sneak attack damage and others at range blasting with spells."

Unless I am mistaken, you have activated room C7 and its monsters while the heroes were still busy with the trap in C6, yes?

This is a mistake. An honest mistake that's very easy to make. But still - encounters are never intended to mix together.

Pathfinder 2's encounter math simply does not allow it. One Moderate encounter can be deadly as is (as you have discovered!)

Two moderate encounters combined... that's immediately equal to an Extreme encounter! Edit: ninja'd!

Twice as many monsters is quadruple the danger in this game, to phrase it a bit crudely but very directly!

I heartily recommend every PF2 Gamesmaster to never combine encounters. You simply can't.

Having monsters react to pesky heroes' invading by doubling up on guard shifts, retreating to fortified positions and combining their strengths are very natural actions to have your monsters take, especially if reasonably intelligent. And in nearly every other game, doing so is good GM:ing!

This can trip up the best of us. It is sometimes easy for the heroes to accidentally trigger two room's worth of foes at the same time. I know of few other games that would punish such an innocuous mistake as harshly as Pathfinder 2...!



But you can't do that in PF2 unless you know exactly what you're doing.

By this I mean that as you gain experience with the system you will learn what your heroes can take. You can also create the illusion of reinforcements while not actually having the heroes face a double-strength encounter, by having the monsters come in waves and not all at once.

I hope you see that I'm not saying your experiences aren't valid. PF2 is sometimes very VERY hard. But in this case there is hope, because there was never any intention that the heroes should have to deal with monsters while still figuring out the trap.

 

[CapnZapp]

1) That trap is way outside the norm for a complex hazard of that level. I have been told that this model was written before the rules were finalized so that might explain it.

In what way do you think it is outside the norm?

The spell itself is fair game against level 8 heroes.

The save DC is higher than "High" but lower than "Extreme".

Maybe you're thinking of the trap's durability? It is very sturdy - way more durable than a flesh'n'blood spellcaster of that level. So it basically must be disabled rather than destroyed. (Listing dispel magic is a cruel joke... one I keep seeing for traps - why do that when the writers know the heroes are one level short of the requirement! )

That the trap's effect probably should have been a 2-action activity is of academic concern only, since it only emits its effect once per round just like a correctly formatted trap should.

Did I miss anything?

 

[CapnZapp]

In this case, there was an apparently nasty hazard involved in the encounter. That can also affect things, though I’d expect it to be factored i to the encounter’s budget.

In my experience hazards are very nasty for their level.

What this means in practice (for my group) is that they all agree they need a Trap Specialist (=someone that focuses on the skills).

Though they also all agree it would be best if that person is somebody else than their own character...

The problem with nasty traps is that the consequences of failure are often very painful indeed. And failure always remains a distinct possibility (you generally have less than 50% chance of making a DC from a higher-levelled effect). And who do you think is the first one to suffer the trap's effects...?

 

[CapnZapp]

Yeah, I think so. We used Pathbuilder to construct the characters, then sort of double check that everything is entered correctly in the Character Sheet on Roll20 on a case-by-case basis.

I should add that I see no reason to doubt your characters' numerical correctness.

Everything you describe can happen to correctly calculated characters. There's nothing here that suggests your defense values are wrong.

Yes, you can easily be asked to make a save where you have a 25% risk of critical failure! (Where you need to roll a 16 to succeed)

There's nothing like the dismay on the players' faces when they realize the monster hits their AC even on a 3...

Pathfinder 2 certainly isn't messing around - this game is not cuddly like 5th Edition!

 

[Retreater]

I suppose I shouldn't have included the other attackers from a balance perspective, but the character pushed the door open and triggered those enemies. Perhaps I should have said "well as soon as you touch the door and before it is opened, this hazard happens, and you guys deal with that first."
I'll take the blame for not knowing how deadly Phantasmal Killer can be when attached to a higher level hazard. The party's wizard regularly casts it and the effect is never this nasty.
But to be fair, the party was at 100% strength, their first encounter of the day. They have several characters who can deal with things like this with Disable Device and Dispel Magic. The rolls were just really bad, and they burned through their Hero Points. I just didn't expect it would go that badly, and based on the description of the adventure, I ran it pretty close to how it was intended, I think.