Thoughts on pregens for Hollow's Last Hope?

[jasin]

An often-heard comment on Age of Worms is that it's very difficult, and it's often countered with the comment that it's easier if you have and use [PHB2/Spell Compendium/Book of Nine Swords/Libris Mortis... pick one or more], and, probably more importantly, if you're good at the character design mini-game.

This is explained by Paizo playtesters being hardcore D&D-ers who overwhelmingly are good at it.

However, looking at the characters for Hollow's Last Hope, I can't really say I see l33t minmaxing skillz shining through. A fighter with TWF and Wis 8, a sorcerer with Dodge, a cleric with Iron Will and Martial Weapon Proficiency (scimitar), a rogue with Int 8...?

Now, I'm fine with sample characters not being twinked to the utmost in principle, but characters with included in an adventure should assume whatever difficulty level the adventure assumes. Taught by AoW experiences and comments on Shackled City, I wonder how many people will actually be able accomplish much with the pregens if Pathfinder/GameMastery adventures are as difficult. I sure wouldn't want to take a Wis 8 fighter into AoW...

Thoughts?

(I also asked about this on Paizo's boards, so I'm hoping to get some comments from the Paizo crew themselves over there, if not here.)

 

[kaomera]

Now, I'm fine with sample characters not being twinked to the utmost in principle, but characters with included in an adventure should assume whatever difficulty level the adventure assumes. Taught by AoW experiences and comments on Shackled City, I wonder how many people will actually be able accomplish much with the pregens if Pathfinder/GameMastery adventures are as difficult. I sure wouldn't want to take a Wis 8 fighter into AoW...

I got to play through (part of) HLH on Free RPG Day. First of all, this ain't AoW. We blew through six combat encounters in about two and a half hours. We played it pretty much kick-in-the-door style, and while the last fight was actually a bit of a grind (I spent pretty much the whole fight bringing the other PCs back from negative hps), if we had been playing at all sneaky / cautious / smart I think the entire area we hit would have been a cake-walk. Also note that we could have easily have backed out and rested, AFAICT.

They aren't the "best-designed" PCs out there, but when you're trying to stay core-book (a publisher really can't assume that players will have access to all of the supplemental books, IMHO) and trying to create different / interesting characters it can lead to some very tough decisions about character builds. I generally prefer these characters to pure cookie-cutter... They pretty much aren't the way I would build them, but that's more or less a given for pre-gens.

I understand that these characters are to be the Iconics for the GameMastery and Pathfinder lines. They certainly look good in the art, so far, but I'm not sure where they're going with the characters, build-wise. And it would have helped quite a bit if they could have gotten more in the lines of an actual character sheet, There was talk about "space constraints", but these characters aren't even in the printed version of the module. For a PDF, not giving each at least a full page seems downright silly.

 

[jasin]

They aren't the "best-designed" PCs out there, but when you're trying to stay core-book (a publisher really can't assume that players will have access to all of the supplemental books, IMHO) and trying to create different / interesting characters it can lead to some very tough decisions about character builds.

I generally prefer these characters to pure cookie-cutter...

Agreed. I guess my concern isn't actually about the characters but about the adventures; I wouldn't want more efficiently designed characters as much as I would want adventures playable with these characters.

 

[Old_Man_Fish]

a rouge with an 8 int is just BAD design... I didn't notice that on first inspection, but I will now not be using at least one of these characters for the group I was planning on running through this on pregens...

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

One of the most effective rogues I've seen played had an 8 int. He had seriously maxed STR and was quite a combat machine, fighting with a glaive and combat reflexes. He was human, so he still had 8 skill points per level.

Ken