Savage Tide and Difficulty Level

[Retreater]

Retreater, a few questions if I may.

Do you as DM roll your rolls in the open? That probably accounts for most of my lethality, a total reluctance to fudge in favor or against the players.

Would you characterize your players as capable tacticians? This is really going to play into things. As was mentioned, if your players are very high rp sorts who think that taking power attack is for munchkins, then the AP's are going to chew them up and spit them out. Wow, that came out condescending. That's totally not what I meant. I mean that if the players are more concerned with an immersive experience rather than a more strategic approach, then they are likely going to have problems. I noticed this in the group I played in with Shackled City. Half the group was far more into high rp mode while the other half was into the hack.

I honestly don't believe that adding splatbooks makes for much of a power difference. Think about it this way, whenever people talk about the three most powerful classes, core classes tend to come up far more than anything else.

I roll my dice in the open. I try not to fudge very much at all. However, if I can tell that my group is having a lot of difficulty with an opponent, I may drop his hp a little bit. Or if I notice if no one in the party has a cold iron weapon, I may drop a monsters DR from 10/cold iron to 5/cold iron. [Running SCAP has taught me that all modules need a bit of adjusting for my group.]

I've learned not to fudge die rolls after running playtest sessions and tournaments at my FLGS.

Most of the group has their characters as tooled out and as effective as permitted by the core rules. I regularly check their gear to make sure they have at least the average character wealth. I give bonus XP for roleplaying and run "easier" side quests to try to get them even one level above the suggested level for SCAP, and it still seems to do no good.

However, to me, it seems like a possible bad design issue. For example, don't put a vampire against a third level party that can't reasonably own a magical silvered weapon, with an AC so high that a 3rd level fighter with an 18 strength has to roll an 18 to hit, with fast healing, and the ability to escape at any point and regenerate any damage, and the ability to level drain. Or another example ... a red dragon with an 8d10 breath weapon against 5th level characters.

I mean, I don't know if we're playing the game incorrectly, but this kind of stuff is just not survivable. It seems that with the SCAP just about every battle was a fight against impossible odds.

My players are decent tacticians. They may not have the rogue flanking and dealing sneak attack in every combat, and sometimes they don't work well together. But what can you do about that? TPK the group every session until they begin to learn from their mistakes? More than likely, I'd find myself without a group to DM for. Write my own modules? Nope, it takes way too long these days, and job and wife take up most of my time.

Another player and I take turns DMing. It doesn't matter who is running the game. Our parties just seem too weak to really accomplish anything worthwhile.

 

[Arnwyn]

However, to me, it seems like a possible bad design issue. For example, don't put a vampire against a third level party that can't reasonably own a magical silvered weapon, with an AC so high that a 3rd level fighter with an 18 strength has to roll an 18 to hit, with fast healing, and the ability to escape at any point and regenerate any damage, and the ability to level drain. Or another example ... a red dragon with an 8d10 breath weapon against 5th level characters.

Just as an aside - and FWIW - Drakthar's Way is the most complained-about adventure in the SCAP - so it's not just you.

From what I understand, that's just one of a couple of hiccups in the SCAP - most of the rest of it is difficult, but nothing like Drakthar's Way. (While I own and have skimmed the SCAP, I haven't had a chance to run it yet.)

 

[Qualidar]

Well, my group has 6 players, so my experience is slightly different than yours, but what happened with the vampire was they blithely walked in, started fighting, and than ran for their lives to the nearest temple. When they came back better prepared (holy water, good spell selections) he lasted all of 2 rounds. The dragon encounter was laughable, he ran away after his first attack because they had damaged too much for him to stay around long enough for a breath weapon recharge.

If I may ask: what were they playing, exactly?

In regards to the question about how many characters SCAP was for, they originally did say 4, and I think that's where the meatgrinder reputation started. Realizing how hard it actually is, they upped the number to 6 for the hardcover. Just my guess.

~Qualidar~

 

[GwydapLlew]

However, to me, it seems like a possible bad design issue. For example, don't put a vampire against a third level party that can't reasonably own a magical silvered weapon, with an AC so high that a 3rd level fighter with an 18 strength has to roll an 18 to hit, with fast healing, and the ability to escape at any point and regenerate any damage, and the ability to level drain. Or another example ... a red dragon with an 8d10 breath weapon against 5th level characters.

Hrm. To be honest, part of the challenge in Drakthar's Way is figuring out Drakthar's secret. There are several clues in the adventure itself as to his true nature ("Drakthar is dead! Long live Drakthar!") and he's underpowered as a vampire.

I ran a party of 3 sub-optimal characters through DW and they tooled the goblins and Drakthar - the cleric turned him within two rounds of combat, and the only reason they had to return to the surface was that the fighter was dominated by Drakthar (they acquired a wand of protection from evil to resolve that problem.)

As for Gorrtrod in Zenith Trajectory... there have been some who have taken issue with his appearance, but I've heard far more reports from the Paizo boards that he just rolls over when a party stands up to him. The only exceptions seem to be that parties without sufficient ranged attacks end up hurting, but that's always the case. I've heard far more horror stories about the cryohydra than Gorrtrod. :shrug:

 

[Zog]

As a player in Qualidar's group, I can tell you that we've made him weep many times at the ease with which we dispatch villians and monsters.

A few minor hints/Spoilers for Shackled City below.

A few points: We were level 4 when facing Drakthar. And level 7 when facing Gottrod. That made all of the difference. I think we took, total, as a party, something under 20 damage from Gottrod. We saw the fire, I (the wizard) tossed a Resist Fire on myself. One of the clerics cast one as well I think. The dragon caught almost all of us with his breath, and we laughed. Monk/Rogue evaded, I lost a few temporary hit points from my False Life, the dwarven Fgt/Cleric took damage, but she has 60+ hit points. And then we kicked his tail. The warlock got a bit burned, but had made his save, as did the other cleric, who had a resist fire.

The next encounter, in the Pit of 7 jaws, lasted just long enough for me to power up a Channeled Pyroburst. No serious injuries once again. But we were careful, and scouted slowly, expecting trouble.

The party has a Warlock, a ranger (archer), 2 clerics, 1 wiz & 1 monk/rogue.

Now, later in that Module, with a certain *other* flying wench, we had serious problems. *That* Encounter can easily kill 2-6 party members. In a party of six. We were very, very lucky and only lost a cohort.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Now, later in that Module, with a certain *other* flying wench, we had serious problems. *That* Encounter can easily kill 2-6 party members. In a party of six. We were very, very lucky and only lost a cohort.

Oh, man, that encounter is brutal. When I played,

Spoiler

she just stayed at range and kept nailing us with her flaming bow, and there was not a damn thing we could do about it (fly spells used up). Finally, the wizard nailed her with a web spell, and under cover of that (pun intentded), we fled

. It was one of the most hair-raising encounters in the entire Adventure Path, and the party had something like 6 hp remaining... collectively.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

From reading on the Paizo boards, the battle that Zog and Joshua Randall are describing is listed as the toughest of the SCAP by many people. There were a few TPK's from what I remember too.

Olaf the Stout