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

[FrozenNorth]

As GM I should probably cut the descriptive text down a bit and focus on a handful of interesting features.

It would be a shame to. Interacting with the weird and wondrous (even if it isn’t trying to kill you), is a large part of what makes the setting feel alive and makes the Exploration pillar fun.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yeah, but I doubt there are many other monsters that can one-shot a character from max health to perma-dead in a single action. And in the case of this hazard, it could blast these off every round. And also only limited abilities could do anything, whereas with monsters, anyone can attack and fight them off.

Absolutely. Had the trap spewed fireballs (upscaled to spell level 5) or cones of cold, nobody would have complained.

The issue here is 1) one spell in particular, and even more specifically, that it will likely be cast several times over. (Also, that you started the next room's fight while one character was still down)

That last part is important. Any spellcasting creature could theoretically have Phantasmal Killer already at level 9. So the sequence of the party Fighter rolling two low rolls in sequence (to account for one Hero point) followed by a roll that's no better than average is definitely something that can happen in this game. This is absolutely going to result in a crit fail followed by a regular fail from a monster of higher level than yourself.

Death is definitely an outcome that is supposed to actually happen, whereas death is arguably only a theoretical threat against 5E heroes (once past the low levels).

Pro-tip: it doesn't help against Phantasmal Killer, but random bad luck is the reason our Cleric always has a Breath of Life spell prepared. (Other resurrection magic is uncommon) He hasn't gotten to use it yet, though.

Edit: stupidly linked to PF1 spell

 

[kenada]

That said, being hit by a Phantasmal Killer spell with a DC 32 is entirely plausible for a level 8 scenario.

As I understand it, the difference is that if it came from a creature, it would die much faster.

That’d be an extreme DC for a level 9 creature. Primary casters should be using high DCs, so 32 would make it level 12. That’s technically in the range for an 8th level party, but it’s be an extreme threat.

I guess you could have a (level 9) glass cannon creature with an extreme DC, but an encounter that ganks a PC then dies doesn’t seem like it would be very fun, especially if it’s positioned such that bringing in another encounter on accident is easy to do.

 

[kenada]

Right, which is why I told him to roll Perception. Still, it would be great if PF2 (and I'll include 5e here too) actually telegraphed traps better. The dungeon in question had lots of carved statues, bas reliefs of battle scenes, spiked dragon iconography. The party thought nothing of "just another door with a dragon shape on it." Like if it stood out in importance, the party could better prepare not only for traps/hazards but also for a room of importance beyond.

I highly suggest reading the series on traps I linked earlier if you haven’t already. It has some good suggestions for making traps less boring.

As GM I should probably cut the descriptive text down a bit and focus on a handful of interesting features.

There’s an art to it, including finding the right balance. I find boxed text usually errs too far on the side of verbosity at the expense of clarity (and even evocativeness sometimes). I’ve run into particularly bad ones in Paizo adventures that neglect to mention the creature(s) in the room even though that’s the most important thing there.

My rule of thumb is to hit all the major things that clould be interesting and foreshadow anything that might be coming or is important. If the PCs want to know more, they can interact with the scene to find it out.

 

[CapnZapp]

That’d be an extreme DC for a level 9 creature. Primary casters should be using high DCs, so 32 would make it level 12. That’s technically in the range for an 8th level party, but it’s be an extreme threat.

I guess you could have a (level 9) glass cannon creature with an extreme DC, but an encounter that ganks a PC then dies doesn’t seem like it would be very fun, especially if it’s positioned such that bringing in another encounter on accident is easy to do.

You're focusing on the wrong thing.

The reason I mentioned level 9 was because the spell is level 5. If you want DC 32 to be "within guidelines" you'd need a level 10 or 11 creature. Point remains: that level 8 heroes might face a spellcasting monster capable of casting an effect where a critfail followed by a regular fail insta-kills a character is what Pathfinder 2 is.

Had the writers used a different spell... the outcome would have been different.
Had the hazard been a creature instead... there would likely not have been that many castings of the spell.
Had the OP not thrown the next room's encounter at the reeling party... there wouldn't have been a party wipe.
Had the player had two hero points, he could have used his second one to prevent death.

There are plenty of issues with Pathfinder 2, but this one doesn't really merit this long a thread, in my honest opinion. naughty word happens. Best is to roll up a new party and to get back into the fray!

 

[kenada]

You're focusing on the wrong thing.

The reason I mentioned level 9 was because the spell is level 5. If you want DC 32 to be "within guidelines" you'd need a level 10 or 11 creature. Point remains: that level 8 heroes might face a spellcasting monster capable of casting an effect where a critfail followed by a regular fail insta-kills a character is what Pathfinder 2 is.

Had the writers used a different spell... the outcome would have been different.
Had the hazard been a creature instead... there would likely not have been that many castings of the spell.
Had the OP not thrown the next room's encounter at the reeling party... there wouldn't have been a party wipe.
Had the player had two hero points, he could have used his second one to prevent death.

There are plenty of issues with Pathfinder 2, but this one doesn't really merit this long a thread, in my honest opinion. naughty word happens. Best is to roll up a new party and to get back into the fray!

I think I’ve said already I’d just mulligan the encounter, so we’re just left to nitpick the design of the hazard.

 

[!DWolf]

It doesn't come off as preachy. I believe you are genuine.

Problem is, it has almost no bearing on official adventure paths as written.

Plus, it... doesn't work.

The game is clearly and obviously geared toward fighting monsters in scenarios resembling your type 1.

No it’s not. There are no mechanics that enforce that type of scenario. There are many mechanics that enable scenario 2 to be run (for a small sampling: perception, skills like survival, actions like recall knowledge, feats like experienced tracker, and classes like the investigator). It is clearly geared towards running scenario 2.

Now whether scenario 2 is a better game experience than scenario 1 is a different question. I focus heavily on player decision making and enjoy giving them situations to see how they react. If they can trivialize or bypass an encounter, especially through skilled or clever play, then I am overjoyed. My players tend to play proactively, coming up with lots of solutions. Some people play different though: they are in it for the combat. For them the decision making and skilled or clever play is draining. They are more reactive, they just want to bash in some monster heads you know? The problems is when the game (scenario + mechanics) assumes one styles and the players assume the other style:

• If players assume 2 and the game assumes 1 (common in 1e pathfinder): then they either get bored of the endless fights with little interesting in between (see retreaters post about 4e in the exploration thread) or they start to easily blow through the fights with clever tactics and strategies that are completely overmatching the encounters.
• the players assume 1 and the game assumes 2. Then the game becomes a nightmarish slog of deadly combats, repeated tpks, parties huddled together desperately trying to heal before a monster finds them. (Though I guess some people might find that fun? Like dark souls for tabletop?)

Note: I don’t mean to exclude other styles of play such as heavy role playing or building focused, it’s just that the mismatch between the two styles is what is causing the problems here.

If you get to spot the monster at a distance (much more than what it can cover in a single turn's movement), you have basically won already. (The Giant is an outlier here since it has such an extreme ranged attack.)

Yes having foreknowledge of a fight and being able to choose when and how to engage it makes the fight much easier. The complaint was that the encounters were excessively difficult resulting in tpks and frustration. This approach addresses the complaint.

Sure you can fix this in your own home game, perhaps by giving the Giant an entourage of sycophantic Orcs that make it much harder to ambush and take out the Giant (without first dealing with the Orcs). Or by giving the Giant a mate, so that the encounter of "fighting one Giant" is disguised - you would then be fully expected to take out the first giant at range, but the idea is that once you would have done so, the second Giant would have caught up to you, so the encounter could STILL play out as in your take 1. (Obviously, this is playing with fire, since if the ambush fails, the heroes have two Giants on their hands and will likely die)

I find this totally unnecessary (and counterproductive to what I want to accomplish). Again I focus heavily on decisions and agency. I find it perfectly acceptable if the players choose to save the wine merchant, learn that the hill giant stole his wine, stealthily track the giant back to his camp, wait until he’s passed out drunk, and kill him in his sleep and thus they entirety negate the combat. I realize that this style is not for everyone - your reaction (adding more combat to make up for a reduction of combat) shows that you are firmly in the stream-of-combats camp. Which I stress is not a bad thing. It’s just you may struggle a bit with material that assumes the other playstyle and find features that support the other playstyle unnecessary or frustrating.

But here I just want to point out that official APs almost never start encounters at range. Playing an official AP is playing out maybe two hundred encounters over twenty levels, nearly all of your type 1.

Your advice is not wrong. But it basically amounts to rewriting the adventures...

When I started encounters were written basically as a footnote. Creatures: two guard dogs (ac 6, hp 10,THAC0 19). It took me a while to realize that there was supposed to be more to the encounter than just having creatures randomly appear/sit in a room waiting and attack. And when I did I found running the adventures a much richer experience (because again I focus on player decisions and agency). Today, 25 years later, I find that adventures are basically written the same - and what I am advocating (going through and supplying the encounter fundamentals that the writer can’t include because otherwise it would be a massive, unrunnable mess) is not rewriting them but translating them to be run at the table and thereby bringing them to life.

 

[!DWolf]

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

...

Did I miss anything?

I was looking at the average damage table in the gmg. The average of 10d6 (it’s heightened to level 5) is equivalent to a 14th level complex hazard.

 

[!DWolf]

And I agree with CapnZapp -- I've taken a look at this encounter area and the designer/author clearly had the idea of the party taking extended rests between encounters while every monster sits in their room waiting to be killed. If you want to run a more dynamic/intelligent enemy, you will need to adjust the encounters downward.

I read it quite differently! To me it seems like the writer was expecting the temple to be run dynamically. Look at the descriptions of the creature tactics in areas C3 and C4:

Spoiler

C3: Should the cultists here the sounds of combat or otherwise become aware of intruders, however, they rapidly equip their gear and move to join the battle.
C4: Should they become aware of intruders within the fortress, they heat their warhammers in the trench before running to join the battle.

Very clearly a frontal assault is intended to be cause a dynamic response from the dungeon. The tactics of the priest in c7 are to avoid the negation of the door trap by having him open it when he hears fighting or to keep a reserve force in case the PC’s choose to use attrition tactics.

Also notice how the walls are described - they tell both how to climb them and how to break through them. Clearly the author intended for the characters to try creative approaches to the situation.

 

[Retreater]

I think I’ve said already I’d just mulligan the encounter, so we’re just left to nitpick the design of the hazard.

Yes, and that's how I'm going to handle it at the (virtual) table. They're going to go back to the same encounter, one level higher and with a bonus Hero Point (I hope that's enough), with the same characters to try again. Future encounters can be tweaked, but they want to see (from a purely academic perspective) if they can beat the encounter as it was presented if they have an extra edge and knowledge of the hazard.
Considering the recommendation of a Stealth approach, I did describe the temple as having exterior walls that could be climbed and hinted that they could approach in a more favorable method than attacking the front gates.
However, in systems such as PF2 when it benefits the party to have highly specialized characters, only a few characters might be good at such an approach. This would either make the Stealth approach fail for everyone due to bad rolls or having a split party. Perhaps the wizard could levitate up there and the monk could Stealth approach, leaving the warriors and cleric on the ground - but that could get very bad.