Pathfinder 1E poor party composition

take for example the last fight they had, the rogue was on watch and the fighter was on overwatch from some small distance, surprise round the rogue goes from 57 hp to 2 in one shot, how may I ask can he be healed? he would have to sleep 5 nights to be fully healed correct?
1) "Healed?" How about resurrected? 55 damage requires a massive-damage save.
2) Did the rogue get surprised? If the party is smart enough to put their rogue on watch, you should probably give them the benefit of the doubt.
3) I hear wandering merchants sell healing potions.
4) If the party stinks at combat, maybe they should have more non-combat encounters?
5) You're the GM. Kill them or keep them alive. Give them all regeneration. It doesn't matter. The rules are guidelines.

How did the players reach such a high-level without knowing the rules?

You need to teach them the basics, out of the game.
Good question. It takes experience points to get to tenth level. Yet, it doesn't sound like the PCs have a lot of experience.

Teaching the basics could occur in-game as well. They might need a good drill instructor to slap them around.
 

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Present the options to your players. You've had a number of suggestions here. If your players are happy, no changes needed. If they're feeling the struggle, make the following suggestions:

-Tough DM education with TPK threat.
-Gentle DM education with actual teaching your players how to play their characters effectively. Probably in between sessions, sit down with each player and suggest options.
-Start over at a lower level. Have them start simply, and work up to complexity.
-Lower the CR. make the game easier.
 

Is the group having fun?

None of the other things matter if they are. If they are not having fun then see if they want to swap out some or all the characters for something more effective. Don't kill the PCs to teach a lesson that's not going to solve the problem.

If they are having fun then a cleric NPC is a simple answer. Or tailor adventures more to what they do excel at. There is nothing wrong with this composition of characters as long as the players enjoy it.

This, and simply ask the players if they are okay with PC's dying in game. If the players are ok with losing a PC or two and rolling up new ones (I suggest one level lower than the current group level, or even making that level up with an NPC class Warrior/expert/ari).

A long time ago in the days of the 90's my friends and I did this. We had 2 TPK's and one where I managed to run and survive ... we created new PCs, but ran out of time to actually continue on with the campaign. It was huge fun and we were all ok with not getting to attached to our creations.
 

I didn't want to impress any party roles on them which is why they have the party they have now, I could toss in a medic that avoids combat and I probably will do so.

I've never liked the massive damage rules so I ignore them, to answer how the rogue was surprised, botched perception and it was a rogue with a double hackbut that shot him, and got a crit

I'm also going to throw in something to help the rogue's UMD since the wizard (naturally) already has one

Probably have to lower CR by one, and 2 if that is too much still and see if I can get them familiar enough with their abilities and feats so they can actually do something memorable

Thanks for the replies
 

At a guess (maybe I'm wrong) but your players didn't want to start at level one, so they started at a much higher level closer to 10th. Doing so is fine, if everyone knows what they are doing and how to play their character, which by your description they don't. So it was very foolish to allow them to start any higher than level 1. Your players need to learn the game before they can effectively play it.

You say, your summoner PC feels like the eidolon is doing the work, but not the summoner himself. First of all, a summoner is a spellcaster, so is he casting any spells not related to the eidolon? I'd hate to see that player running a caster that doesn't have an eidolon, like a sorcerer or witch, because if he is a spellcaster and not casting spells - something is seriously wrong. Regarding the eidolon, it cannot exist without the summoner, in a very real way the summoner and his eidolon are two halves of the same character. Without an eidolon, who'd want to play a summoner? So if the eidolon is doing well, as long as the summoner casts a non-eidolon spell now and again - its as effective as he can ever get.

While my adventuring crews always include a cleric, if not some other dedicated healer, have your group ever heard of a Wand of Cure Light Wounds? Its probably the most common magic item in every adventure party. If you don't have a dedicated healer in the party then it is implicit that you have potions of healing, wands of CLW and other objects that can heal the party.

Have you considered adding a healer NPC to the party, someone who they meet on the road who will provide healing for an immediate need, and then volunteers to join the party? You could even use an Adept who stands no chance of succeeding in combat who waits outside the area of combat, waiting for an injury to call his attention and do his job. A GMPC is possible too, though many GMs don't play party NPCs well. A GMPC is an extra PC run by the GM for the sole purpose of party healer, in this case.

While its a definite requirement that your players learn how to operate their characters effectively, if you are still having party problems I suggest the real problem is the GM, not the players. You, the GM, aren't designing your encounters, nor altering existing encounters to accomodate the makeup and strengths of the adventuring party - this is your most important job as a GM. Every gaming group in existence generally cannot handle a published adventure as is, because often the published adventure has prerequesites of a full party of effective players that match the number and CR values necessary to meet the challenge of the module. I've never met a single GM that hasn't had to alter every encounter in a published module to accomodate the adventure party.

While adventuring parties built for most standard adventures generally require someone to take the post of the four basic classes in the game: cleric, fighter, rogue, wizard. Of course the variety of classes available allow you to take different options than those four basic classes, so these can be replaced with oracle, barbarian, urban ranger, and summoner, or some other combination. If you are playing a standard adventure, the four basic jobs of the adventuring party need to exist. If there is no party healer, you are missing one of the basic four.

Consider that I usually homebrew and create my own adventures, but some of the more specialized settings and adventures I've run were adapted to include a party of nothing, but rogues (all from the same Thieves Guild), or nothing but clerics, and such a party can be very effective as long as the GM is doing his job in building his encounters to accomodate the make up of that kind of group. So bizarre mixes and unequal balance of PCs should not be a problem. If it is, the problem is almost always the GM, not the players (unless your players really don't know how to run their characters, then that is the first priority in resolving the issue.)
 

My campaigns always have a sandbox element to them. I may plan out an adventure, but I plan out several more that can occur if the characters choose to head off in another geographic direction. When push comes to shove, I improvise.

I don't come up with a single solution to mysteries or other challenges and force the players to discover that one thing. I generally have a couple of different solutions, but I really like it when players come up with one that had never occurred to me.

If all the players wanted to play halfling clerics, it wouldn't be a problem. I would just remind them that they need to keep their strengths and limitations in mind, and make choices accordingly. I always tell players that running away from a bad battle is a viable option.
 

Q: Does the party have a Summoner?
A: If so the party wins pathfinder.

Seriously if they have a 10th level Summoner then they should be fine. He has access to Summon Monster V which has access to a Bralani Azata which can cast cure serious wounds 2 times a day. The Summoner can summon these 3+ his charisma modifier each day.

The first time I played Pathfinder we thought the Summoner was neat, but after watching him overshadow the combined party our group stopped playing them in subsequent campaigns.
 
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An inexperienced summoner player might not know what creatures to summon. Of course, it's still a really powerful PC.

D&D has a lot of "unwritten" rules that players might have trouble getting. A player of mine, now a medical doctor, didn't grasp that creatures had obvious weak saving throws until I outright told him. This was impacting a playtest I was running - it's hard to playtest if the PCs are losing due to poor tactics. (After letting him win one battle, I threw a large aberration I was playtesting at him that had a really high Will save...)
 
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so in addition to the other things I will do I will talk with the summoner's player and make sure they take a good hard look at the creatures it can summon, and it's not that it doesn't cast spells it just casts haste and slow often and some monsters happen to have will saves, to be honest the character is scared of combat and has mostly buff spells, thing is it can't touch the characters if it doesn't stop hiding so haste it is

we've played a 1st-3rd level game, a 5th-7th, and a short 8th level one and they said they wanted to do higher level and I got voted in a GM, I set the cap a 10th and told them they would have to read the rules and I told them that they would be crippled if they lacked one of the primary party roles, technically they only left out the healer since they have so many warrior types but still

what types of encounters should they face? the majority are ranged combatants with two dedicated melee characters (and the eidolon) and the wizard, should I use higher HP monsters with a lower CR? if so how can I make them feel like the fights aren't too easy? and using more low CR creatures will lengthen fights by a lot and while a long fight can be interesting if you know you're going to win from the get go it loses its appeal
 

I wouldn't substantially reduce the difficulty of encounters that the party faces but if they are a military unit, could not a superior officer witness their performance and offer some suggestions?
 

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