JoeCrow
Explorer
I'm currently running a Pathfinder game for a crew of roughly CR 7 (by the numbers) monster characters, and I'm finding that I need 10th level npcs to challenge them. (It's an Against The Humans! campaign, essentially the reverse of the Against The Giants! modules.) Designing opponents for them is a hassle and a half, and the base assumptions about what character class-type opponents carry for equipment is resulting in the crew ending up with bags full of what's essentially vendor-trash items to take back to the base camp and sell to the duergar merchants.
On top of that, combat takes forEVER to get through. The last two sessions have taken about seven hours of play-time to get through eleven rounds of combat between the seven monster characters and a monastery full of monks and clerics (about twenty of them), a cavalier and his kirin mount, and a guardian naga. And the combat's STILL GOING.
On the other hand, when I was running the playtest packet, I ran the same crew with 4th level characters up against an army of 100 hobgoblins and bugbears, led by three hill giants, and got through the whole thing in one session. Granted, once they'd tooled the giant leaders and fireballed a few hobgoblin squads, the rest were fairly easy to intimidate into running away, but still.
I'm hoping that that speed and flexibility remains part of the final product.
On top of that, combat takes forEVER to get through. The last two sessions have taken about seven hours of play-time to get through eleven rounds of combat between the seven monster characters and a monastery full of monks and clerics (about twenty of them), a cavalier and his kirin mount, and a guardian naga. And the combat's STILL GOING.
On the other hand, when I was running the playtest packet, I ran the same crew with 4th level characters up against an army of 100 hobgoblins and bugbears, led by three hill giants, and got through the whole thing in one session. Granted, once they'd tooled the giant leaders and fireballed a few hobgoblin squads, the rest were fairly easy to intimidate into running away, but still.
I'm hoping that that speed and flexibility remains part of the final product.
