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<blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 6094971" data-attributes="member: 13966"><p><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite3" alt=":(" title="Frown :(" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":(" /></p><p></p><p>Sorry Lily. I understand your frustration, and I share it too. And I know I have a tendency to blame it on the system, but it's just as much my own fault at least. I continue to struggle with finding the right balance in Pathfinder and then have trouble dealing with it when the monsters I pick or the NPCs I prepare turn out to be overwhelming the PCs. I eventually start fudging things or bring in an NPC rescuer or whatever. I'm not especially clever or quick-witted so I don't come up with the best solutions on the spot. It's another thing I have to think about more, I know. I also failed to factor into the sabosans' CR the fact that the forest terrain gave them a tactical advantage with their flight, even though it still hindered them some. Otherwise I would've made them a level lower at least.</p><p></p><p>And I totally understand the last part; if you feel like it'd be better for ya to chat with folks instead of playing in the campaign, I wish ya well. I know I've suffered depression since preschool, but at least I don't need medication for it. Depression seems to run in my entire extended family anyway; more than one of my aunts, uncles, or distant relatives has had to stay on daily medication to avoid suicidal depression, and not all of them are with us anymore. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite3" alt=":(" title="Frown :(" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":(" /> My best friend in high school has been on medication for it, but I haven't seen him since my family moved to Arizona so I don't even know how he's doing these days. It sucks, but ya can't let the bad things in life keep ya down. Gaming's what keeps me sufficiently distracted and mildly entertained enough to be okay. Besides watching comedies like The Simpsons, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, etc. Also I watch sappy TV shows and listen to sappy music. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> So do whatever makes ya happy.</p><p></p><p>I apologize for being rude or mean-sounding after that Nue battle earlier where Lily teleported away, I didn't mean to sound like I was blaming you for it going poorly. I have this problem with being bad with words and getting my meaning across. So much so that I used to have an explanation/apology in my forum-signature for some months or years after previous misunderstandings, over my awkward choice of words and rambling that sometimes gets mistaken for ranting when it's just me being overly-wordy in my explanations or presenting my arguments in a discussion. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite3" alt=":(" title="Frown :(" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":(" /> The following is mostly just an explanation, in my own rambling manner, and some things I realized by the end of the session or have thought about since this week's game.</p><p></p><p>I wasn't sure this encounter was getting too difficult until about halfway through, after the group had dropped two sabosans and started wearing down the other two. Metaxo and Synjin came close to dropping the leader twice, and it would have made a notable difference if they had; the other sabosan would've been easier to hit and become less effective in a few rounds, besides the fact that he probably would've fled if he was the last one standing and still outnumbered. Short of just suddenly turning both sabosans into cowards or suddenly having all of their active powers expire early for no reason, all I could do was fudge every decent roll of theirs or hope for the party to pull together with a little more coordination or defense of their own, besides having the sabosans split their attention between multiple targets each like I was already doing.</p><p></p><p>I had hoped that Hero Points would keep me from needing to fudge the dice whenever anything went awry, but that hasn't worked out very well with the terrible dice-rolls and the fact that the PCs couldn't gain more Hero Points for anything daring in the same encounter where they spent Hero Points..... Hero Points still help a little but apparently not enough. Once it became clear that the Hero Points weren't helping in this encounter and that the sabosan leader was going to survive a few more rounds until he ran out of power points and Strategy uses, by which point another PC or two might drop, I knew I had to bring in some kind of NPC support to help the group defeat or drive off the last two sabosans. Took a little bit to figure out what would work. I had forgotten that last week I considered the possibility of a dinosaur or similar beast rampaging through the area and giving the PCs a chance to mount up and flee while the sabosans would be distracted.</p><p></p><p>Your party has been able to consistently dish out 1, 2, or 3 hundred damage per round for at least a few levels now, and I expected another sabosan to die sooner or something, but it turns out I gave the sabosans one or two AC-boosting powers or class features that I shouldn't have (as the tactician's Collective Defense strategy and the psychic warrior's Force Screen made the latter too difficult to hit beyond like 20% of the time), which could've been replaced with more-utilitarian or miscellaneous options from their classes. I'm too-used to Synjin and Nelwyn (and Orishi previously) consistently hitting ACs in the high 20s or low-to-mid 30s without difficulty and scoring frequent crits, and I didn't factor in the bonuses the psychic warrior would get from his allies; before that his buffed AC of 31 seemed like it'd just be a minor obstacle to Synjin and Nelwyn, while his touch AC around half that would be easy enough for Lily and Metaxo to hit with the right powers or abilities of theirs. I should've had the leader wait longer before getting serious with Catapsi and such, but I tried running him as a competent tactician first (Tactician is literally his class), rather than running him as more of an arrogant sadist first, watching his comrades tear into the prey before he joined in.</p><p></p><p>Nelwyn did well for a few rounds fighting defensively or using total defense, but nobody else did so the sabosans didn't miss very often before their primary buffs wore off. I didn't blame the party for not coordinating better, I just mentioned that I had expected or hoped for some coordination among them and things could've gone better if there had been more of that. Generally the best thing to do against a group of strong opponents is to gang up on the leader or the strongest and take them down first, but there just wasn't enough of the party focused on one sabosan or the other. The leader was the most vulnerable of the two, but the other sabosan was also vulnerable to touch attacks or most offensive magic/psionics (nearly all his AC came from natural armor/armor/Force Shield). I usually have intelligent or semi-intelligent enemies flee when it seems like they're most likely going to lose and there's a decent chance of escape, which the sabosans had, but a lot of parties tend to make it tough for most enemies to escape without getting shot down/chased down/blasted down before they get more than a few dozen feet. Thus it often ends up being a fight to the death for many critters. The two remaining sabosans were holding their own and it didn't look like they needed to give up and fly away yet, but if one more had fallen it would have been a bad sign for the last one's chances.</p><p></p><p>I know I made some mistakes during the combat encounter and didn't account for a few factors during my NPC prep-work earlier. I try to learn from my mistakes but sometimes I forget and make the same miscalculations later. But there is also an element of the system involved, as well. I have yet to play in any Pathfinder game (or Paizo adventure) or run one that did not end in a TPK or just come close to a TPK before the PCs managed to pull off a victory, in every adventure or every second adventure of those Adventure Paths or campaigns. There is a genuine difficulty running Pathfinder long-term, and with how NPCs or advanced monsters are handled in the rules (and of course, the PC classes, <em>especially </em>when used for any NPC foes). It's an exaggerated form of the problem in 3.x D&D (main difference being, it was mostly just full-casters/full-manifesters that were troublesome in 3.x). And it's an issue I've been giving serious thought for months now.</p><p></p><p>I think one thing I'm likely to do is just start using some lower-CR monsters or NPCs and just giving them more HP when I need them to last long enough for a challenge. I don't intend every combat encounter to be challenging, but wilderness encounters typically only occur once or twice a day so I have a tendency to make more of them challenge-oriented instead of minor speed-bumps. I may also have to just give the party something more useful to get out of tough situations when Hero Points aren't gonna cut it. And I need to give the party more hints/suggestions/info with Intelligence or Wisdom checks sometimes, as I haven't done that often enough in this campaign (it's a shame the rules don't already have any hint-system like that, or it would be easier to remember when I should call for Int/Wis checks to give the party some hints). I'm still thinking about some other fixes or solutions, but there is one thing I have been considering for some time now that will most likely begin to show up sporadically when needed during the campaign, given the nature of the Weird Frontiers campaign.</p><p></p><p>Lastly, it should be noted that I <strong>did try </strong>to give the party some clues, hints, warnings, suggestions, and different routes to follow (the river not least of them, or the outskirts of the jungle), but they <em>chose </em>to march right into the most-dangerous part of the jungle they were warned about. The valkyrie that showed up late in the sabosan battle will at least give the group a strong nudge in the right direction and all, but beyond that, it's up to the PCs' own decisions and how they handle the end of the encounter before the valkyrie's departure. While I need to give more hints/suggestions based on what any high-Int or high-Wis characters might know or realize in-character, I can only do so much to help without autopiloting the PCs. I made this campaign to be fairly open-ended as far as how the party goes about finding and reaching their goals, with many different paths/methods they could use, but it seems I need to do some minor rail-roading or lend more guidance to make it easier. It'd help if the party had more of an active "face" character or really just any decent utility beyond Survival and Ectoplasmic Creation, but they don't. The druid dropped out early on, the inquisitor had to drop out early too, the wizard/rogue/arcane trickster had to drop later, etc.........only the combat-focused-PC players have been reliable. So the party is left with only fairly-direct options and I have to deal with that by making the combat encounters less risky/troublesome, since there's little in the way of noncombat resources in the party. Anyway, the party should at least get some information from their contacts in the Nakaali cities once they return there, and from the elves of the Floating Vale if they find them.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Oh, and forum-text can be put in a spoiler block by using (sblock)text stuff(/sblock) but with square brackets instead of parentheses, in case it ever matters.</p><p></p><p></p><p>In any case, this weeks update is just the expanded details on Vanigor and Haliyane in the first section of the Rhivian Pantheon posts. And now I'm sad/depressed again too. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite3" alt=":(" title="Frown :(" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":(" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Arkhandus, post: 6094971, member: 13966"] :( Sorry Lily. I understand your frustration, and I share it too. And I know I have a tendency to blame it on the system, but it's just as much my own fault at least. I continue to struggle with finding the right balance in Pathfinder and then have trouble dealing with it when the monsters I pick or the NPCs I prepare turn out to be overwhelming the PCs. I eventually start fudging things or bring in an NPC rescuer or whatever. I'm not especially clever or quick-witted so I don't come up with the best solutions on the spot. It's another thing I have to think about more, I know. I also failed to factor into the sabosans' CR the fact that the forest terrain gave them a tactical advantage with their flight, even though it still hindered them some. Otherwise I would've made them a level lower at least. And I totally understand the last part; if you feel like it'd be better for ya to chat with folks instead of playing in the campaign, I wish ya well. I know I've suffered depression since preschool, but at least I don't need medication for it. Depression seems to run in my entire extended family anyway; more than one of my aunts, uncles, or distant relatives has had to stay on daily medication to avoid suicidal depression, and not all of them are with us anymore. :( My best friend in high school has been on medication for it, but I haven't seen him since my family moved to Arizona so I don't even know how he's doing these days. It sucks, but ya can't let the bad things in life keep ya down. Gaming's what keeps me sufficiently distracted and mildly entertained enough to be okay. Besides watching comedies like The Simpsons, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, etc. Also I watch sappy TV shows and listen to sappy music. :) So do whatever makes ya happy. I apologize for being rude or mean-sounding after that Nue battle earlier where Lily teleported away, I didn't mean to sound like I was blaming you for it going poorly. I have this problem with being bad with words and getting my meaning across. So much so that I used to have an explanation/apology in my forum-signature for some months or years after previous misunderstandings, over my awkward choice of words and rambling that sometimes gets mistaken for ranting when it's just me being overly-wordy in my explanations or presenting my arguments in a discussion. :( The following is mostly just an explanation, in my own rambling manner, and some things I realized by the end of the session or have thought about since this week's game. I wasn't sure this encounter was getting too difficult until about halfway through, after the group had dropped two sabosans and started wearing down the other two. Metaxo and Synjin came close to dropping the leader twice, and it would have made a notable difference if they had; the other sabosan would've been easier to hit and become less effective in a few rounds, besides the fact that he probably would've fled if he was the last one standing and still outnumbered. Short of just suddenly turning both sabosans into cowards or suddenly having all of their active powers expire early for no reason, all I could do was fudge every decent roll of theirs or hope for the party to pull together with a little more coordination or defense of their own, besides having the sabosans split their attention between multiple targets each like I was already doing. I had hoped that Hero Points would keep me from needing to fudge the dice whenever anything went awry, but that hasn't worked out very well with the terrible dice-rolls and the fact that the PCs couldn't gain more Hero Points for anything daring in the same encounter where they spent Hero Points..... Hero Points still help a little but apparently not enough. Once it became clear that the Hero Points weren't helping in this encounter and that the sabosan leader was going to survive a few more rounds until he ran out of power points and Strategy uses, by which point another PC or two might drop, I knew I had to bring in some kind of NPC support to help the group defeat or drive off the last two sabosans. Took a little bit to figure out what would work. I had forgotten that last week I considered the possibility of a dinosaur or similar beast rampaging through the area and giving the PCs a chance to mount up and flee while the sabosans would be distracted. Your party has been able to consistently dish out 1, 2, or 3 hundred damage per round for at least a few levels now, and I expected another sabosan to die sooner or something, but it turns out I gave the sabosans one or two AC-boosting powers or class features that I shouldn't have (as the tactician's Collective Defense strategy and the psychic warrior's Force Screen made the latter too difficult to hit beyond like 20% of the time), which could've been replaced with more-utilitarian or miscellaneous options from their classes. I'm too-used to Synjin and Nelwyn (and Orishi previously) consistently hitting ACs in the high 20s or low-to-mid 30s without difficulty and scoring frequent crits, and I didn't factor in the bonuses the psychic warrior would get from his allies; before that his buffed AC of 31 seemed like it'd just be a minor obstacle to Synjin and Nelwyn, while his touch AC around half that would be easy enough for Lily and Metaxo to hit with the right powers or abilities of theirs. I should've had the leader wait longer before getting serious with Catapsi and such, but I tried running him as a competent tactician first (Tactician is literally his class), rather than running him as more of an arrogant sadist first, watching his comrades tear into the prey before he joined in. Nelwyn did well for a few rounds fighting defensively or using total defense, but nobody else did so the sabosans didn't miss very often before their primary buffs wore off. I didn't blame the party for not coordinating better, I just mentioned that I had expected or hoped for some coordination among them and things could've gone better if there had been more of that. Generally the best thing to do against a group of strong opponents is to gang up on the leader or the strongest and take them down first, but there just wasn't enough of the party focused on one sabosan or the other. The leader was the most vulnerable of the two, but the other sabosan was also vulnerable to touch attacks or most offensive magic/psionics (nearly all his AC came from natural armor/armor/Force Shield). I usually have intelligent or semi-intelligent enemies flee when it seems like they're most likely going to lose and there's a decent chance of escape, which the sabosans had, but a lot of parties tend to make it tough for most enemies to escape without getting shot down/chased down/blasted down before they get more than a few dozen feet. Thus it often ends up being a fight to the death for many critters. The two remaining sabosans were holding their own and it didn't look like they needed to give up and fly away yet, but if one more had fallen it would have been a bad sign for the last one's chances. I know I made some mistakes during the combat encounter and didn't account for a few factors during my NPC prep-work earlier. I try to learn from my mistakes but sometimes I forget and make the same miscalculations later. But there is also an element of the system involved, as well. I have yet to play in any Pathfinder game (or Paizo adventure) or run one that did not end in a TPK or just come close to a TPK before the PCs managed to pull off a victory, in every adventure or every second adventure of those Adventure Paths or campaigns. There is a genuine difficulty running Pathfinder long-term, and with how NPCs or advanced monsters are handled in the rules (and of course, the PC classes, [I]especially [/I]when used for any NPC foes). It's an exaggerated form of the problem in 3.x D&D (main difference being, it was mostly just full-casters/full-manifesters that were troublesome in 3.x). And it's an issue I've been giving serious thought for months now. I think one thing I'm likely to do is just start using some lower-CR monsters or NPCs and just giving them more HP when I need them to last long enough for a challenge. I don't intend every combat encounter to be challenging, but wilderness encounters typically only occur once or twice a day so I have a tendency to make more of them challenge-oriented instead of minor speed-bumps. I may also have to just give the party something more useful to get out of tough situations when Hero Points aren't gonna cut it. And I need to give the party more hints/suggestions/info with Intelligence or Wisdom checks sometimes, as I haven't done that often enough in this campaign (it's a shame the rules don't already have any hint-system like that, or it would be easier to remember when I should call for Int/Wis checks to give the party some hints). I'm still thinking about some other fixes or solutions, but there is one thing I have been considering for some time now that will most likely begin to show up sporadically when needed during the campaign, given the nature of the Weird Frontiers campaign. Lastly, it should be noted that I [B]did try [/B]to give the party some clues, hints, warnings, suggestions, and different routes to follow (the river not least of them, or the outskirts of the jungle), but they [I]chose [/I]to march right into the most-dangerous part of the jungle they were warned about. The valkyrie that showed up late in the sabosan battle will at least give the group a strong nudge in the right direction and all, but beyond that, it's up to the PCs' own decisions and how they handle the end of the encounter before the valkyrie's departure. While I need to give more hints/suggestions based on what any high-Int or high-Wis characters might know or realize in-character, I can only do so much to help without autopiloting the PCs. I made this campaign to be fairly open-ended as far as how the party goes about finding and reaching their goals, with many different paths/methods they could use, but it seems I need to do some minor rail-roading or lend more guidance to make it easier. It'd help if the party had more of an active "face" character or really just any decent utility beyond Survival and Ectoplasmic Creation, but they don't. The druid dropped out early on, the inquisitor had to drop out early too, the wizard/rogue/arcane trickster had to drop later, etc.........only the combat-focused-PC players have been reliable. So the party is left with only fairly-direct options and I have to deal with that by making the combat encounters less risky/troublesome, since there's little in the way of noncombat resources in the party. Anyway, the party should at least get some information from their contacts in the Nakaali cities once they return there, and from the elves of the Floating Vale if they find them. Oh, and forum-text can be put in a spoiler block by using (sblock)text stuff(/sblock) but with square brackets instead of parentheses, in case it ever matters. In any case, this weeks update is just the expanded details on Vanigor and Haliyane in the first section of the Rhivian Pantheon posts. And now I'm sad/depressed again too. :( [/QUOTE]
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