Pathfinder 1E Forked from Pathfinder: Rogues

[billd91]

I don't think it's wrong to tailor encounters to the capabilities of the PCs, but I think basing the ACs on the attack bonuses of the fighter-types is a bad idea. I wouldn't base them on anything higher than the mid-range attack bonuses - the clerics/rogues/2nd iterative attacks for the fighters.

If you base a key defensive ability in combat, the AC, to the most extreme end of the PC range, anyone who can't keep up with that yet participates in non-spell combat suffers. And that's not a good balance for your players. The rogue gets pretty hosed in that scenario.

It's OK for fighters to do really well at hitting for their first attack (and maybe second). They have things they can do with their excess attack bonus like raising their own ACs or damage potential through BAB-trade-off feats like Combat Expertise and Power Attack. Other classes can do that too, but nobody does it better because nobody else has the attack bonus to spare.

I've yet to see a 3e game in which having optimized fighter-types was ever a major problem. So they chew through monster? That's their job. If encounters seem to be ending too quickly, I'd consider adding more creatures rather than buffing up the defenses of fewer creatures. More creatures can mean more challenge to the fighters without sidelining the mid-range combatants.

 

[Celtavian]

I don't think it's wrong to tailor encounters to the capabilities of the PCs, but I think basing the ACs on the attack bonuses of the fighter-types is a bad idea. I wouldn't base them on anything higher than the mid-range attack bonuses - the clerics/rogues/2nd iterative attacks for the fighters.

If you base a key defensive ability in combat, the AC, to the most extreme end of the PC range, anyone who can't keep up with that yet participates in non-spell combat suffers. And that's not a good balance for your players. The rogue gets pretty hosed in that scenario.

It's OK for fighters to do really well at hitting for their first attack (and maybe second). They have things they can do with their excess attack bonus like raising their own ACs or damage potential through BAB-trade-off feats like Combat Expertise and Power Attack. Other classes can do that too, but nobody does it better because nobody else has the attack bonus to spare.

I've yet to see a 3e game in which having optimized fighter-types was ever a major problem. So they chew through monster? That's their job. If encounters seem to be ending too quickly, I'd consider adding more creatures rather than buffing up the defenses of fewer creatures. More creatures can mean more challenge to the fighters without sidelining the mid-range combatants.

What we've done to bring the fighter and +20 BAB classes down to earth a bit is reduced crit damage. Now we only multiply base weapon damage rather than everything. Crit damage was getting way out of hand where even one lucky crit was an encounter ender.

If the reduction in crit damage makes encounters more challenging, maybe the Dm can build encounters around the rogue BAB rather than the BAB of the fighter. +20 BAB classes do alot of damage now. Our barbarian was averaging +21 damage a hit with her axe and +63 +3d10. The archer is averaging +15 damage a hit and +45 damage +3d8 with arrow crits. The paladin with a one handed weapon was averaging +19 to +27 a hit and +38 to +54 with a crit. All of them too improved crit. The rogue is using daggers and averaging 1d4+5 damage a hit and 2d4+10 with a crit. He does shine when he can sneak attack, but even a simple blur spell eliminates sneak attack.

The archer has been the biggest problem. Attacking for that much damage from range while melees are attacking frontline has been hard to deal with. When they're all hasted, it's a pain train of damage. We had to lower it somehow, so we adjusted crit damage since it is what seemed to be derailing our encounters.

 

[gamerprinter]

When any of our group of players DM, we switch this role constantly, and we're playing epic characters. Rather than beefing up monsters, we're altering the terrain/environment. Using greater darkness, various fog effects, anti-magic/anti-psionic fields/zones, weather... if all the players are blinded due to conditions combating a creature that doesn't have eyes or requires seeing to combat foes - things become much more dangerous and how hard we hit, makes less of a difference.

Altering the monster is one way to create a challenge, but it seems to be the only method your group uses. Try creating a challenge for five players who average 50 levels each between mutliple classes - we succeed and we don't have to artificially lift the monsters stats to do it, necessarily.

We do beef the monsters up sometimes, but as said, that's only one tool in building a challenge.

When I DM for example, I tend to use lots of undead. Undead are immune to critical hits, so all those cool critical powers become useless. They are still great targets for the paladin, but for others not so much.

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

but even a simple blur spell eliminates sneak attack.

I don't have links handy, but there's a thread regarding this issue here and on the Paizo boards. As it seems silly to me (and to many others) that working in their preferred environment (shadowy illumination) prevents Rogues from using their primary combat ability, you might try house ruling this situation.

In my game only effects that grant 50% concealment or more protect from sneak attacks (James Jacobs suggested this one in one of the above mentioned threads).

 

[Scott DeWar]

with information from bad axe games :

beefing up the encounters:

Wulfratbane's Trailblazer document suggests that you "buy the monsters based on the pary level. He has assigned exp values to the pcs and to the monsters.

for example a party consisting of a level 7 and 3 level 6 pcs would have a value of (360 * 3) + (480 * 1) for the 6th level and 7th level respectively. that gives a total value of 1560 exp budget.

for an average encounter it would meah a cr 6 monster and a bit left over, say a cr 1/2 minion. Or it could mean 6 cr 1 monsters harrassing the party.

for a challenging encounter you increase the budget to 1 1/2 times the amount or 1560 * 1.5 =2340 exp budget. that could be a cr 7 boss and a cr 3 minion. it would be a little over budget, but that won't hurt too much. I could also be a group of 6 cr1 and a leader of cr5 encounter. thissystem is quite malluable. .

a hard encounter would be 1560*2=3120 exp budget. That wpou;d be a cr 8 encounter with a cr1 trap lurking about.

For a base of level 20 party, you would be looking for 276480 exp budget for a challenging encounter to be say, a cr 19 monster and a cr 15 minion or a cr 21 monster.

a hard encounter with a budget would be 368640exp or a cr 22 monster.

to keep this as pathfinder as possible, i keep the monster's actual values and use the pathfinder level advancement tables.

Does this make sense? instead of throwing the value balence of a monster off, choose a better monster?

 

[Celtavian]

re

When I DM, I do alot of the things you guys suggest. I can't change how the guy DMing right now does things. He like big, beefy monsters that can straight up challenge a party so he designs them accordingly. Rogue screwed in that campaign, always has been. That's why no one wants to play a straight class rogue. Too hard to shine in that type of campaign.

And he also designs the enemies to deal damage to drop the fighter and his his heavy armor AC. So you can probably imagine what happens to the rogue if one of the enemies decides to turn on him. Not fun for him.

 

[billd91]

What we've done to bring the fighter and +20 BAB classes down to earth a bit is reduced crit damage. Now we only multiply base weapon damage rather than everything. Crit damage was getting way out of hand where even one lucky crit was an encounter ender.

I fully recognize that some crits really do a lot of damage (those axes are pretty potent). But do they really come up that often in your experience? I've found that having those wild crits that can potentially end an encounter, but are rare, have been part of the fun of the game and help keep players on the edge of their seat, particularly when facing axe-wielding frost giants.

Given that you've determined that it is a problem for your group, I can't really fault your solution, though. It seems a pretty reasonable one that preserves differences between high crit and more frequent crit weapons.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

When I DM, I do alot of the things you guys suggest. I can't change how the guy DMing right now does things. He like big, beefy monsters that can straight up challenge a party so he designs them accordingly. Rogue screwed in that campaign, always has been. That's why no one wants to play a straight class rogue. Too hard to shine in that type of campaign.

And he also designs the enemies to deal damage to drop the fighter and his his heavy armor AC. So you can probably imagine what happens to the rogue if one of the enemies decides to turn on him. Not fun for him.

Then at the risk of being upsetting, the issue is with your DM.

He's creating things meant to be challenging for the fighter and only the fighter. If rogues seem ignored, it's because they honestly are.

 

[Celtavian]

I fully recognize that some crits really do a lot of damage (those axes are pretty potent). But do they really come up that often in your experience? I've found that having those wild crits that can potentially end an encounter, but are rare, have been part of the fun of the game and help keep players on the edge of their seat, particularly when facing axe-wielding frost giants.

Given that you've determined that it is a problem for your group, I can't really fault your solution, though. It seems a pretty reasonable one that preserves differences between high crit and more frequent crit weapons.

One of our group has a green 20 sided die he's been using for 20 years or so that rolls 19 and 20 crits with this bow every single major encounter. He does this in front of us, sometimes multiple times. He's really been slamming the end game encounters and making them trival. He opens with Manyshot. When he crits with that it is 4d8 +60 damage, then he follows it up with two more shots with Rapid Shot and his regular second attack. It gets pretty out of hand even without the crits, and when he crits it is game over. He crits quite a bit.

But we also play with a six person party. One mage, one rogue, one cleric, a ranger archer (green die), a paladin, and a fighter. At least one of them crit one or more times every major battle. They all have improved crit and the fighter is a 2-handed fighter with an elven curved blade. She crits quite a bit for alot of damage. But the archer is the worst because even when you use a fly spell or terrain, he can still hammer what we're fighting. Deadly Aim makes archers more potent than they used to be by quite a bit.

 

[Celtavian]

Then at the risk of being upsetting, the issue is with your DM.

He's creating things meant to be challenging for the fighter and only the fighter. If rogues seem ignored, it's because they honestly are.

Yeah. Our DM has alot to do with it. He dropped blasphemy in two separate consecutive encounters on 8th level characters. He's a pretty vicious DM. Blasphemy isn't as stong as it used to be, but on 8th level characters it is still more than likely a TPK.