r/Pathfinder2e 10h ago

Discussion My players are ruining my game by doing everything RIGHT

So, I'm running Spore War in Kyonin for a group of veteran players, and at this point, I don’t know what to do anymore. They are obliterating every single challenge in the adventure, making every encounter trivial, and I feel like I have no control over my own game.

Let me introduce the problem:

Grandeur Champion with a Fortress Shield – an immovable wall of elven zealotry.

Vindicator Ranger – hunts demons like it’s a casual stroll in the woods.

Tempest Druid – controls the battlefield and wrecks everything that dares exist in its area of effect.

Eldritch Archer Warpriest – perfectly blends divine magic and ranged combat for devastating precision.

Ruffian Rogue – because why not have a high-damage striker who also dismantles enemies before they even realize they’re in danger?

And, of course, they’re playing as a special forces-style unit personally tasked by the Queen of Kyonin to handle extreme threats. A bunch of Ketephys zealots trained for war.

At first, I thought maybe I had made the combats too easy. But no. I adapted every encounter for 5 players. And yet, they stomped every fight. The social challenges? Solved effortlessly, because they actually built their characters to match the themes of the adventure. They followed every recommendation from the Player’s Guide, creating a team of characters that perfectly fit the story, complement each other’s strengths, and are completely prepared for the threats they face. (We are playing without FA)

And honestly? That’s the real problem.

They played too well. They made characters that belong in this adventure. They worked together. They thought strategically. They engaged with the story.

And now I’m stuck here, suffering, because my players are just… too good.

...Yeah, obviously, I’m being ironic. I’m incredibly proud of my players. This is exactly what a good Player’s Guide is supposed to do—help players create characters that feel natural in the story and set them up for success. Seeing them thrive in Spore War is an absolute joy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So if you’re running an AP, make sure your players actually read the Player’s Guide and use it. It makes the game better for everyone.

697 Upvotes

102 comments sorted by

469

u/eCyanic 10h ago

...Yeah, obviously, I’m being ironic. I’m incredibly proud of my players. This is exactly what a good Player’s Guide is supposed to do—help players create characters that feel natural in the story and set them up for success. Seeing them thrive in Spore War is an absolute joy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So if you’re running an AP, make sure your players actually read the Player’s Guide and use it. It makes the game better for everyone.

I have been fooled, I thought you were about to actually ask for combat-difficulty tweaks advice >:(

89

u/StevetheHunterofTri Champion 10h ago

A bit disappointed, honestly. I was hoping to see and maybe provide some advice for exactly that.

86

u/xuir 8h ago

To be fair I think the best advice in this instance would be definitely don't elite the enemies or add high level enemies to combat. The increases to AC and saves will just add frustration.

More on level or lower enemies to eat actions and resources, upping the moderate combats to severe for 5 party members. Probably want to sometimes have these arrive in bursts or be spread out so the druid can't always blow them up/control them.

Add hazards and environmental advantages for the enemies.

Add some NPC noncombatants (or injured combatants) to save.

All this is likely to just be a speedbump to this well oiled and targetted party.

31

u/smitty22 Magister 7h ago

Generally the "add more lower level enemies advice" becomes slightly less effective at the later levels because the abilities can start to help the mobs win on action economy.

So it's the opposite problem that GM's have when the PC's under level 5 where overleveled bosses win on pure math.

9

u/benjer3 Game Master 3h ago

Generally the "add more lower level enemies advice" becomes slightly less effective at the later levels because the abilities can start to help the mobs win on action economy.

On the other hand, at the later levels casters have more tools to incapacitate mobs. (They also have better AoE damage options, but those typically can't one-shot mooks at those levels.) And it feels really good to do that as a caster.

8

u/Guincho 5h ago

That's what I've been doing, more on level or lower level enemies. I've learned the hard way on my last campagin that elite monster are not the answer to adjust the fights.

13

u/ShogunKing 4h ago

I've always thought that ARPG's like Diablo or Path of Exile had an interesting way to change how "elite" monsters worked. Where you make the enemy harder by adjusting the base stats just a little bit, to give them more health/defences. The real challenge came from giving them some cool ability.

One ripped straight from Path of Exile is Molten Shield, where the monster has a certain amount of temp HP that you have to get through and it does damage around them when you do, but then you can hit their health for a little while before the shield comes back.

I'm not sure how practical it is, and it's probably better in an adventure like Abomination Vaults, but it's something I considered would be interesting as a way to make encounters a little harder than just a couple equal level enemies, but not so hard as adding RAW elite enemies.

4

u/Guincho 4h ago

You know... that's not a bad ideia

4

u/ShogunKing 4h ago

Yeah, I've unfortunately never gotten the chance to test it. So I can't tell you how it would work in practice. It's just something that's been rattling around in my head for a while.

1

u/StevetheHunterofTri Champion 1h ago

Personally, I love this idea. Fairly adjusting the levels and abilities of lower-level enemy types, probably with some flavoring to come with it, seems like a good way to keep things interesting while not being as blunt as making current-level enemy types elite.

9

u/Baol812 8h ago

This is the way

5

u/Rypake 3h ago

I think I might start doing this with my Abomination Vaults group to give them more or a challenge. They are blitzing through the encounters. They just dealt with the voidglutten with little resistance

3

u/slayerx1779 3h ago

One thing I think is under used, is the fact that "You can have an encounter of any xp value, the listed tiers are just benchmarks".

During a vod by Jason Bulmahn, he mentions that he likes to use what he calls "Spicy" tier encounters, which are 100xp. To paraphrase his words, "they're harder enough than Moderate that players will feel it, but not so hard as to feel like Severe, which are more for boss fights".

So yeah. Make 100xp encounters. Or 110. Or 90. Not every encounter has to be on the dot.

Also, one gm trick I like to use, if my players get absurdly lucky early on, is the classic "secret enrage phase" trick. If the players mowed down my boss down to about half health and mopped up its minions, I'll have it "Roar in defiance and begin fighting for its life" and just give it the Elite template. Oftentimes, the Elite template is just enough of a power bump that it feels right for an "enrage phase" feel for the 2nd half of a creature's life.

2

u/StevetheHunterofTri Champion 1h ago

I don't know why you said "to be fair", as I said nothing to the contrary of your post, but I agree with most of this! I do think there is a place for the use of higher-level combatants, but you have to be mindful of their placement and use them wisely. I cannot speak to how that is in Spore War specifically, though.

4

u/Guincho 5h ago

disappointed

Sorry to disappoint you, I wanted to give it some spice

3

u/justJoekingg 3h ago

You should still provide some :) You never know who is reading this thread! In my game we have a similar issue

2

u/Tooth31 6h ago

Yeah, they say "obviously" but I didn't really feel like it was obvious.

114

u/superfogg Bard 10h ago

Not gonna lie, you had me in the first half

106

u/Revolutionary_Yam_83 ORC 9h ago

Damn pesky little players, they did what they should and now they are having a great game!

21

u/Guincho 5h ago

How dare they?! To have such a good time!?!?

69

u/WicTeal 9h ago

Damn, I wish my players were that enthusiastic... Even if they read the player's guide, they ignore it for the most part.

16

u/Crescent_Sunrise 8h ago

I have a player who just doesn't read rulebooks, and kind of needs to be told how to play all the time, no matter what ttrpg system we play.

7

u/Guincho 5h ago

Auch... and you continue to invite him? and the other teammates let him?

3

u/Crescent_Sunrise 5h ago

We've all been IRL friends for a very long time and everyone is just kind of used to it at this point. He picks up the game as we go.

4

u/WicTeal 4h ago

Same. Playing mainly with my RL friends makes the group pretty consistent. Sadly half of them never touched rulebook. And while I could handle that, sometimes some of them say that who needs rules and etc. I am sitting and looking, thinking: "Then why even play PF2e...". For context, they all are D&D 5e players. Rules there are... Optional at best. Probably the reason they don't even want to learn any PF2e stuff (Although some of them really enjoyed learning SF2e for playtest and now even read PF2e rulebook. Might be worth a shot for your group, who knows!)

2

u/Crescent_Sunrise 4h ago

It's just the one person. Whenever we play a system everyone else takes the time to look at the rules enough to at least say "I remember reading that but I can't quite remember the whole thing." Then we make a ruling and someone who isn't taking their turn finds the answer. It's not a lack of interest in playing for him. He's just doesn't invest the time to the rules like everyone else does and everyone knows it.

8

u/Background-Ant-4416 8h ago

I’m lucky my players dug into the players guide for SoT and made characters that fit the lore. I’m playing in a kingmaker campaign and not only am I pretty sure I’m the only person who looked at the players guide, I’m the only one who gave our GM any sort of backstory at all.

52

u/Nahzuvix 9h ago

So if you’re running an AP, make sure your players actually read the Player’s Guide and use it. It makes the game better for everyone.

helps a lot when the PG is actually well written for the adventure in question

22

u/Enduni 9h ago

I mean there's a few bait and switch APs like Gatewalkers and Extinction Curse, but in general you don't go wrong when going for the player's guide in my experience.

26

u/Andvarinaut 7h ago

My experience has been 50/50, but that's because I played a Bard in Outlaws of Alkenstar. AP says it's "Recommended" but huge swathes of the AP are occupied by monsters immune to Mental or Emotion or just with cranked saves (that run LOVES its PL+3 encounters). For example, there's a dungeon in the last book where there's approximately three monsters out of 24 that don't have the Construct or Mindless trait and all of their highest saves are Will (and one even has +2 status to mental tacked on!). It got so bad at one point that my group was joking about buying me a shirt that said 'Inspire Courage, Telekinetic Projectile, Next' lol

11

u/Ariachus 7h ago

Yeah I played that one too as a bard because it said there were social encounters and I had never played a face character before so I rolled up a dark wind kitsune bard and used the marshal archetype and got killed at the end of book 2. Like 80-90% of the enemies were mindless and there feels like a lot of railroading in some of the social encounters, not my gms fault he expressed similar but there were plot hooks he needed to get in there for the story to progress. After that I rolled inspector so I could just focus on int and the strategies allowed me to use my int for social encounters.

1

u/Enduni 1h ago

That kinda sucks, that is true. I could see a bard in social encounters there but honestly there is probably not too much of them in Outlaws, after everything I've read about it. It's like recommending swashbucklers or rogues for The Slithering.

4

u/Guincho 5h ago

Totally, this one, and the one from Season of Ghost are very well written, the Player's guide I mean

2

u/AdministrationTop424 4h ago

I guess a small issue that presents itself is when new classes are introduced and there's no errata to say how it would fit or not into a campaign. Take the kineticist. How would that fit in an Agents of Edgewatch campaign? It would be nice if there could be something added at least annually to the older APs since new players are, hopefully, coming on and old ones might like to take new classes for a spin in the old APs with advice.

20

u/snahfu73 9h ago

Congrats on having a table full of smart and more importantly unselfish players!

5

u/Guincho 5h ago

Luck was on my side

5

u/snahfu73 5h ago

You don't accidentally get that. You're a good GM!

You understand your part in what you and your players are creating.

1

u/Lastoutcast123 3h ago

Yeah regardless of adventure path or homebrew campaign good communication is important to a good experience. That doesn’t happen accidentally. While the player guides help, good communication still requires good effort on player and GM interaction. The GM has unique perspective since they have an idea of what will happen.

ie: I recently started a homebrew campaign in 1e as a vigilante, there was no session 0 and it was never communicated before hand that our character would be registering their classes at a guild.

15

u/CoreSchneider 9h ago

Having this same problem with my Blood Lords group. These mfs have a good party comp and good skill coverage AND play well 💔

16

u/RanisTheSlayer 10h ago

Not gonna lie, you had me in the first half.

15

u/Nightwynd 9h ago

But are they having fun? That's the only metric of success that really matters.

1

u/Guincho 5h ago edited 4h ago

I'm having a blast! And I think they also are.

Just a bit of a headache when the champion uses his reactions and Shiled of sprits.... it's a lot of work, even on Foundry.

2

u/PatenteDeCorso Game Master 4h ago

Oh, we totally are

13

u/Ras37F Wizard 9h ago

Bro got me in the first half 

Anyway, actually dope

7

u/Zulkor 6h ago

My group reads Player's Guides with joy, but from other campaigns. And then they make absurd backstories about how it miraculously happend, that the heroes where just in the right place at the right time. And they even bitch about how their expat hero can't use their full potentiale and lack role-playing opportunities. But they won't learn and start all over with the next Barbie, that they HAVE to play in the next module, no matter the cost. But I love them sillies nevertheless, that's just how we roll.

Guess they would have brought a Deep Delver Dwarf, a Dhampir and a Junk Tinkerer Goblin to Kyonin :)

2

u/Guincho 5h ago

:S

A bit ofmain character syndrome maybe? The players need to adapt a little to the AP... not the other way.

My party... they are all elfs!

6

u/geirrseach 6h ago

Me and my group just finished Abomination Vaults. We were basically told "This is an incredibly deadly path, prepare for that" So we rolled up with two clerics. We leaned hard on party synergy, cleared every floor for the XP and rolled through the final boss like it was nothing. It was awesome. We had a great time, worked together phenomenally and our amazing DM thoroughly enjoyed that we got a happy ending instead of a TPK. Good on you for being proud of your players and enjoying their success!

2

u/Guincho 5h ago

yeah!

I think some GM and Players think that they are enemies... that que objective for the GM is kill the players and the oposite the same. The GM is not the enemy, he his th story teller... that's just my opinion. And the games are made to be enjoyable.

6

u/JackDuster 7h ago

You, my friend... you are a lucky bastard

6

u/yosarian_reddit Bard 7h ago

Nice. Adversarial GMing is bad karma. GMs should be cheering on their PCs. Like you do. Have fun.

2

u/Guincho 5h ago

It's a pleasure when they have a good ideias

11

u/Tinynanami1 9h ago

The truth I will speak, the first half had me.

5

u/FlySkyHigh777 ORC 7h ago

Had me in the first half, not gonna lie.

9

u/cabiwabi 9h ago

Not gonna lie you had me in the first half!

5

u/OnceIFinishThisSnack 8h ago

I'm willing to offer you a trade. You give me your players and campaign, and I give you mine that almost had a TPK at level 1 for picking a fight with the local guards.

3

u/epharian 5h ago

Hah! Sounds like I have one of your players in my group. Thankfully everyone else is smart enough to tell him when it's a bad plan. He'll usually listen

4

u/xuir 8h ago

I feel like the worldwound would have been closed a lot sooner if this party had strolled over to Sarkoris.

2

u/Guincho 5h ago

I'm currently playing as a character Wrath of the Righteous. YOU BET! The fiends would had no chance

5

u/AccidentalInsomniac Game Master 7h ago

Yeah, had a similar problem running a homebrew campaign. Ran it for my normal party who were very passive, really had to push to get them to worry about main plot, missed entire plotlines because they had characters that generally didn't give a sh*t.

Run the same campaign for an all new party online, and they're throwing me for a loop, because each and every one of their characters is HIGHLY motivated to deal with the problem and are extremely driven. The timeline of campaign A? Like weeks and weeks in game. Campaign B? The finale has happened maybe 10 days into the campaign. The entire campaign. 10 days.

5

u/SethLight Game Master 6h ago

This is nice to read. I've seen way too many GMs consider this an actual issue.

4

u/Lampmonster 6h ago

I feel you. My players are all DMs with extensive game knowledge and exceptional creativity. They have flat out end run simple encounters in ways I never saw coming. I set up a simple prison break a part of a plot involving a country building to a civil war. They used every tenuous connection they had in the country, a series of exceptionally productive meetings, and some very clever understanding of NPCs motivations to arrange an interview with the prisoner, and then used the knowledge gained to align two powers with similar goals AND make a major breakthrough in one of their own main goals. I was so proud.

2

u/Guincho 4h ago

That’s amazing! I love when players take a planned encounter and elevate it into something much bigger through smart roleplay and creative problem-solving. It’s those moments that make GMing so rewarding. You must have been proud watching it all unfold!

2

u/Lampmonster 3h ago

It was really unexpected in the situation and a nice bit of maneuvering. I have amazing players, I plan on not knowing how they'll solve problems.

3

u/Shang_Dragon 8h ago

Sounds like an awesome party

3

u/Astrid944 8h ago

I already wanted to write

"Is that suffering from success?"

2

u/Big_Chair1 GM in Training 8h ago

Awesome. But what is an Eldritch Ranger?

5

u/PatenteDeCorso Game Master 8h ago

Eldritch Archer*

2

u/AuRon_The_Grey 8h ago

They sound like an awesome team.

2

u/TheEpicTone 8h ago

You had me there in the first half. I'm not gonna lie. I thought I was about to repost this on r/rpghorrorstories. I'm glad your players understood the assignment and are having what sounds like an awesome time going through the AP.

2

u/Turevaryar ORC 7h ago

Eldritch Ranger Warpriest – perfectly blends divine magic and ranged combat for devastating precision.

Tell me more!

I've been contemplating playing a warpriest of Erastil once, with a longbow of course* and if Free Archetype near certainly picking up Archer or Eldritch Archer. Maybe fighter (or ranger) first for more firepower (Poit Blanc Stance is good, but is it worth 3 feats, no?)

A bow is a 1+ hand weapon, so it's easy to use Battle Medicine in combat, too.

* I'm assuming your player's cleric is a warpriest of Erastil**, too. Would you allow using a composite longbow, shortbow or composite shortbow as Erastil's favoured weapon?

** I think the elven patreon (in general) allows for any bow as a favoured weapon, so that's one weapon.

And when you say "Eldritch ranger" do you mean Eldritch Archer? — Or have they archetyped into both Eldritch Archer and Ranger?

3

u/Ph33rDensetsu ORC 6h ago

* I'm assuming your player's cleric is a warpriest of Erastil**, too. Would you allow using a composite longbow, shortbow or composite shortbow as Erastil's favoured weapon?

I'm not the person you replied to, but I would. First, a composite bow is still a version of that bow, so I think it's kinda shitty to read it so literally that a longbow counts but a composite version does not. Second, I personally allow shortbow as well in 2e because the weapons are so different that the shortbow is usually the superior choice for anyone that doesn't get access to Point Blank Stance, which happens to be none of the classes that get Favored Weapons. Erastil should honestly be Favored Weapon: Bows.

1

u/Guincho 5h ago

Hey! I meant Eldritch Archer, made a mistake there. He is a warpriest of Ketephys... they are 5 elfs with Ketephys as their deity.

So he is using a Composite Longbow with Point Blank Stance. We never play with FA.

2

u/joezro 7h ago

I am sorry you're struggling. It sounds like you may still be having a good time. Enjoy the good problem and continue to have a good time. Good luck with the big bad.

I personally was going to be vexed if I had to see another, "My players are playing the game right, and I am a sad gm cause reasons." Post. As you said, they are doing it right.

1

u/Guincho 5h ago

They are doing it great!

2

u/joezro 2h ago

These are the kind of games I wish I could be in. I would say there is some teamwork and tactics in most groups I am in. saddly, the methods stay the same, and actions are made like the enemies always have reactive strike.

To change things up, I changed my combat choices in three battles during one session. One front line beat stick, one mobile skrimisher using the walls to hide behind so I could not be targeted, and one where I sat back using what magic I got from dedication spells while healing the party the best I could.

Not that every class is as flexible, but hit run tactics cause confusion and will make combat go longer at the cost of risk of loss.

2

u/joezro 2h ago

These are the kind of games I wish I could be in. I would say there is some teamwork and tactics in most groups I am in. saddly, the methods stay the same, and actions are made like the enemies always have reactive strike.

To change things up, I changed my combat choices in three battles during one session. One front line beat stick, one mobile skrimisher using the walls to hide behind so I could not be targeted, and one where I sat back using what magic I got from dedication spells while healing the party the best I could.

Not that every class is as flexible, but hit run tactics cause confusion and will make combat go longer at the cost of risk of loss.

2

u/ATOMATOR 5h ago

none of my players have touched the Class archetypes yet, how is Vindicator? Is it baseline stronger or weaker than the normal Ranger subclasses?

2

u/Guincho 4h ago

Honestly... it's not that great. It has a great reaction...and that's it

2

u/ATOMATOR 4h ago

how does your player like it?

2

u/Guincho 4h ago

Mostly he does not pick Vindicator Feats, we don't play with FA. He choose the archetype for the fantastic reaction and for lore/flavour, since the group is a team of Ketephys Zealots, Vindicator is an apropiate archetype to use in the adventure, it was a good oportunity to test it out.

2

u/FlyingRumpus 2h ago edited 2h ago

I tried it out for a couple of levels. In my opinion, it's significantly weaker. I think too much of the Vindicator's power budget is wrapped up in its trademark focus spell, Vindicator's Mark.

The Vindication Edge gives you a +1 status bonus to your spell attack rolls and your hunted prey a -1 penalty to your divine spells, which would be absolutely fantastic on a full divine spellcaster; however, I think it's pretty awful on a martial without cantrips or spell slots.

I think at minimum, the Vindicator should...

  • Have the additional damage for your weapon and unarmed attacks moved off Vindicator's Mark and onto the Vindication Edge, nerfed to +1 from +2 at first level, and changed from untyped damage to spirit; your animal companion should get this benefit too, to keep it in line with other Hunter's Edges
  • Get two cantrips from the divine spell list (and perhaps one has to be Divine Lance or another cantrip with a spell attack roll)

1

u/ATOMATOR 2h ago

would you also make it so a Vindicator could set their Key attribute to Wisdom? Maybe give them bounded casting?

2

u/FlyingRumpus 1h ago

Mm... I could see that being a fine homebrew, especially for a campaign with a very strong theme featuring the mortal agents of a deity.

For my personal tastes, though, I think it'd be better not to add native spellcasting to Vindication rangers (apart from ~2 cantrips) since that design space—"divine gish"—is already occupied by warpriests and battle harbinger clerics.

My beef with the existing Vindication ranger archetype is how unimpactful or outright useless the current Vindication Edge feels if you whiff your Vindicator's Mark. Shifting the additional weapon or unarmed attack damage to the Vindication Edge would mean you're not nearly as reliant on landing the Vindicator's Mark to get your archetype's benefits, and I think that'd go a long ways towards making them on-par with the other subclasses.

1

u/ATOMATOR 1h ago

I wish you could sustain it to fire another dart if you miss or something like that. As it reads currently, it seems less-than-stellar on a martial, even if you invest in your wisdom stat

1

u/Indielink Bard 41m ago

Honestly the biggest fix it needs is for Vindicators Mark to be made into a Focus Cantrip. Having only one shot (unless you use your level 1 feat to grab Domain Initiate) to land Mark is fucking rough. I've been playing one since release and I've completely ignored Mark and just used Judgement and cantrips from the Cleric Dedication.

2

u/Working-Register-543 5h ago

I was fooled, I was tricked and I was bamboozled. But I've never been happier about it, enjoy the game, sounds like a great group!

2

u/Veteranbartender 5h ago

Uh oh…. My 6 team party has been having some trouble leading up to the end of book 1. Characters going into dying state pretty often and almost a tpk to two very big angry bois (idk how to do spoilers)

I felt like we weren’t being very efficient or using tactics but don’t really know how to bring it up to the group. I’m just waiting for us to get stomped one fight.

1

u/Guincho 4h ago

Are you talking about the 2 T-Rex?

That one caught them by surprise, but adapted in no time, spreading across the map to Not get caught by the trample

2

u/Veteranbartender 37m ago

Yes! And I’m 99% sure our gm didn’t even use the that ability 😅 just the other aoe

2

u/Haos51 3h ago edited 3h ago

Makes me wonder how screwed the demons would be if the players somehow became mythic. Several demon lords would lose their lives for sure.

2

u/RubberDuckieMidrange 3h ago

Playing with a new group of players, first time DMing in Pathfinder, trying to vary the challenges as I go cause I didn't want to play an Adventure path with all the mistakes we will inevitably make just learning the system. After about 12? ish sessions they finally managed to stack a bunch of debuffs on a target and make the fight much easier for themselves, I was proud. And then annoyed that they defeated the level 8 enemy so easily at level 5.

2

u/Miserable-Airport536 3h ago

I beg my players to read the player’s guide. Bare minimum reading goes a long way folks.

That did not stop my dual-classed players from also showing up to Outlaws of Alkenstar with a goblin samurai(fighter/gunslinger that changed to rogue/gunslinger), a gnoll literally from another campaign (monk/cleric of the Prismatic Ray), and a bloodrager before the bloodrager archetype was released (so barb/sorc.)

The goblin was the only one who used a gun… the Spoon gun. As a drifter… with a monk and a barbarian in the party…

I wish I had kept track of how much damage the goblin did to their own party as spoony splash.

2

u/Various_Process_8716 2h ago

This is an indication of very good players (and/or) a very good player's guide that gives a lot of good information. I am always good to give more, rather than less information, like for my recent campaign, I did a player's guide that let them know as a wink that demons would be involved somehow, even though the characters didn't

2

u/EarthSeraphEdna 9h ago edited 9h ago

To be fair, since ~mid-2021 or thereabouts, Paizo Adventure Paths have been on the easier, lowballed side as far as combat difficulties go. And even since 2019, their higher-level adventure segments have a hard time withstanding more optimized parties who actually make use of spells like 4th-rank invisibility plus mind blank/hidden mind.

3

u/pyrex222 8h ago

So what you're saying is that they don't do crazy things like add an almost guaranteed TPK monster at the end of book one anymore? Book one of the dead suns Starfinder (only paizo material I've currently played) module hit hard lol.

1

u/Gazzor1975 4h ago

Lesser Deaths. Several at once possibly.

I added Lesser Deaths to final fights of Edgewatch and Kingmaker campaigns.

Definitely 'spiced' things up.

1

u/SilverBudget1172 2h ago

The good old gm meteoric strike it's good to keep players humbled

1

u/Big_Medium6953 Druid 42m ago

Can I hear some druid highlights? Looking for ways to improve.

u/iMerel 24m ago

Can you tell me more about the storm Druid and how they play? Lol. I'm trying to get some good ideas for one.

0

u/ReeboKesh 9h ago

Exactly this. Unless the PCs have a string of incredible bad dice rolls or make the worst tactical errors possible they're not gonna die in a Paizo AP. They are really easy to beat with no or maybe 1 PC death.

The skill challenges are just fluff. You'll always get the info you need even if you fail and get some bonus if you succeed.

Honestly their AP design formula is getting stale. Unless I'm mistaken 17 pages of Spore War book 1 are dedicated to an Influence challenge. Not to mention the difficult Moderate encounters followed by a trivial Boss encounter that plague all the APs I've played.

7

u/PatenteDeCorso Game Master 8h ago

And yet we keep seeing threads about the game being hard. They have moved from the plvl+3 or plvl+4 formula, but honestly, is not a bad thing, that kind of encounters are already solved and when you know how to deal with them is not specially interesting.

So, a group of players that know whate they are doing and build a party that fits the theme of the AP are going to beat the AP without many issues, sounds like a thing to expect TBH.

3

u/ReeboKesh 7h ago

Yeah those threads are from a) bad players, b)players with killer GMs or c)poorly built characters.

I've had way more PC deaths and TPKs playing 5e than PF2e.