This is a valid criticism, I have to admit that I have not yet futzed around with features of the combat system itself, other than applying the variant rules for PWL, which I have yet to playtest.
Pathfinder 2E Encounter Design in PF2 works.
dave2008
Legend
I've had Archives of Nethys bookmarked for years. It is a very useful site. However, I have more changes I would do to monsters than just prof. w/out level, so I would be making all custom monsters anyway.
That is very help as I hadn't thought about those issues. Thank you for the input.
Philip Benz
A Dragontooth Grognard
Well, last night's session was a very close call indeed, in part because the PCs' actions allowed the adversaries to prepare for their entrance into the final room by pre-casting several key spells. More importantly, it allowed two separate encounter groups to combine into one, which many folks warn against, given the tight math of challenges in the Building Encounters guidelines. This said, I prefer things to develop logically, and the arrival of reinforcements from the roof of the tower was the only logical way to have the scenario work out. I used some threat mitigation strategies to make things a little easier on the PCs, and I suspect it was the only thing standing between success and a TPK.
There were 5 12th-level PCs (fighter, rogue, druid, cleric & wizard). The initial threat was the leader of the Aspis Consortium expedition, a 14th-level assassin/cleric of Norgerber, a 12th-level Omox demon (nasty guy!), a 9th-level occult sorcerer and two 9th-level specters (dominated by the leader). That totals to 165xp, a severe to extreme threat encounter (150-200 for a party of five).
The second wave included a 9th-level Vrock demon, a 10th-level occult sorcerer and 2 8th-level mercenaries. Only 85xp on their own, a low to moderate threat encounter, but combined with the previous one, a whopping 250xp, well over the extreme threat encounter ceiling of 200xp. So I decided that the second wave would arrive only after a couple rounds. The Vrock demon arrived at its initiative on round 2, flying in through the crumbled gap in the top right corner of the tower, and the 2 mercenaries with their sorcerer would arrive pelting down the corner staircase on round 4.
This sort of threat mitigation approach is key in evening the odds, and changing a deathtrap into something that proved to be just barely manageable. The druid was down as far as "Dying 3" (the equivalent of being deep in negative hit points), the rogue was twice down to single-digit hit points, and even the fighter with 200 hit points was down to less than a quarter of that total. The wizard was blinded around round 6, and only the cleric was really holding his own, though he was also down below half on two separate occasions.
The Omox demon and Vrock demon were destroyed, as were the two specters, the two mercenaries and one of the occult sorcers, but the leader and the other occult sorcerer dimension doored away once it was clear they no longer had the advantage. That's another threat mitigation strategy - I really dislike the notion that everybody and everything fights to the death. It doesn't make sense to me, when they could just as easily retreat, regroup with some nearby allies, and return to mop up the floor with the PCs a few minutes later. Fortunately, the players realized their time was limited, they grabbed what loot they could, managed to spot a second force of a dozen men racing towards the tower, and made good their escape before having to face those forces, using a Living Landslide (a mid-level Earth elemental) to collapse part of their escape tunnel and prevent direct pursuit.
Now, some folks would say that I broke several rules in PF2 encounter design:
1) don't go beyond an "extreme" threat encounter
2) don't combine multiple encounters into one
3) don't allow adversaries to pre-buff before the encounter begins.
I did all those things, because it was logical, to my DM way of thinking, to do so. But I also used a few threat mitigation approaches that also felt logical and warranted. That's where your DM intuition and experience comes in.
There has been a lot of talk in this thread about how the relative threat level math in PF2 is far tighter than in other games. It's true. It would be disingenuous of me to claim otherwise. But there are always ways to change or finesse the playing field, so to speak, and those ways tend to make an RPG session far more interesting than a constant kill or be killed approach.
There were 5 12th-level PCs (fighter, rogue, druid, cleric & wizard). The initial threat was the leader of the Aspis Consortium expedition, a 14th-level assassin/cleric of Norgerber, a 12th-level Omox demon (nasty guy!), a 9th-level occult sorcerer and two 9th-level specters (dominated by the leader). That totals to 165xp, a severe to extreme threat encounter (150-200 for a party of five).
The second wave included a 9th-level Vrock demon, a 10th-level occult sorcerer and 2 8th-level mercenaries. Only 85xp on their own, a low to moderate threat encounter, but combined with the previous one, a whopping 250xp, well over the extreme threat encounter ceiling of 200xp. So I decided that the second wave would arrive only after a couple rounds. The Vrock demon arrived at its initiative on round 2, flying in through the crumbled gap in the top right corner of the tower, and the 2 mercenaries with their sorcerer would arrive pelting down the corner staircase on round 4.
This sort of threat mitigation approach is key in evening the odds, and changing a deathtrap into something that proved to be just barely manageable. The druid was down as far as "Dying 3" (the equivalent of being deep in negative hit points), the rogue was twice down to single-digit hit points, and even the fighter with 200 hit points was down to less than a quarter of that total. The wizard was blinded around round 6, and only the cleric was really holding his own, though he was also down below half on two separate occasions.
The Omox demon and Vrock demon were destroyed, as were the two specters, the two mercenaries and one of the occult sorcers, but the leader and the other occult sorcerer dimension doored away once it was clear they no longer had the advantage. That's another threat mitigation strategy - I really dislike the notion that everybody and everything fights to the death. It doesn't make sense to me, when they could just as easily retreat, regroup with some nearby allies, and return to mop up the floor with the PCs a few minutes later. Fortunately, the players realized their time was limited, they grabbed what loot they could, managed to spot a second force of a dozen men racing towards the tower, and made good their escape before having to face those forces, using a Living Landslide (a mid-level Earth elemental) to collapse part of their escape tunnel and prevent direct pursuit.
Now, some folks would say that I broke several rules in PF2 encounter design:
1) don't go beyond an "extreme" threat encounter
2) don't combine multiple encounters into one
3) don't allow adversaries to pre-buff before the encounter begins.
I did all those things, because it was logical, to my DM way of thinking, to do so. But I also used a few threat mitigation approaches that also felt logical and warranted. That's where your DM intuition and experience comes in.
There has been a lot of talk in this thread about how the relative threat level math in PF2 is far tighter than in other games. It's true. It would be disingenuous of me to claim otherwise. But there are always ways to change or finesse the playing field, so to speak, and those ways tend to make an RPG session far more interesting than a constant kill or be killed approach.
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To me, this is what a TTRPG truly is about. The rules are there to have a baseline, the players make it come to live.
dave2008
Legend
Thinking about this a little more, couldn't just change the crit math to get it back to where it was? Instead of +10/-10 use +5/-5 or whatever the correct number is? I think that would solve the problem.
Philip Benz
A Dragontooth Grognard
Getting critical successes or failures at +10/-10 is already problematical in its frequency, shifting that to +5/-5 would exacerbate the situation.
I don't advocate using variants like ABP or PWL because the system isn't designed for that.
ABP removes the place of many magic items which both I and my players enjoy using, that have been a part of RPGs since their inception. It's also predicated on the mistaken belief that the bonuses given by magic items at various levels are essential to the game. They aren't. It's true, PCs won't have the same potential for power without the "expected" magic items, but a DM can work around that.
PWL, I'm less sure about. I simply don't see the point.
I don't advocate using variants like ABP or PWL because the system isn't designed for that.
ABP removes the place of many magic items which both I and my players enjoy using, that have been a part of RPGs since their inception. It's also predicated on the mistaken belief that the bonuses given by magic items at various levels are essential to the game. They aren't. It's true, PCs won't have the same potential for power without the "expected" magic items, but a DM can work around that.
PWL, I'm less sure about. I simply don't see the point.
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
Are you saying its too frequent? My concern was PF2 I had the lowest amount of critical rolls ever. Getting criticals is fun, but I do see a problem with them becoming too frequent at <5>.
The point is it pushes the top limit of player challenge a little higher. Instead of +4 partly level or lower, it makes it +6(8?) party level or lower in theory. I haven't tested it out but Id much prefer it if it shakes out.
Thomas Shey
Legend
My only real complaint with PF2e is to some extent it lives and dies by Ancestries and Archetypes, and I'm not at all confident of keeping the balance present when doing my own.
I think they're too frequent for enemies, who normally outrank the levels of characters (at least in the published adventures I've run). Their attack bonuses are often so high they crit very often, and their save DCs are so high that it's easy to crit fail. And in the case of spells and monster abilities, a crit fail is often worse than just "more damage."
When I ran PF2, I used PWL. It let me design dungeons in a more naturalistic and old-school style. I could say, “this level has 1st level encounters”, and they wouldn’t be immediately trivial for a higher level party. The same goes for deeper levels in the dungeon. Well, in theory. We only made it to the second level of my megadungeon before the campaign went through a series of system shifts and a major reboot.
Also, my players were not good about keeping their sheets updated. PWL reduces the number of things you have to tick up by one every time you gain a level, reducing the places where mistakes can be made. I coupled it with Gradual Ability Boosts to provide a sense of progression.
