I know it's a well-known fact that Pathfinder is trash but holy frick is it impossible to make a dungeon anymore. Random encounters are just pointless, character damage output is such that they can wipe creatures of their CR in a single round, or just summon monsters that can do it for them. Its genuinely hardly worth playing the game. I have 5 whole bestiaries full of monsters and 90 percent of them are useless once a party is level 9 and can take down CR 15s with barely any strategy. I'd demand to run ACKS or some other old school game next campaign but they're so allergic to any game not chock full of power gaming summoning and pet overload (three fifths of the party has pets) that they'll rebel and I'll be forced to be a player in Pathfinder which I find severely fricking boring.
The sad thing is that the bestiaries have a lot of cool monsters and mechanics but they just get lost in the waves of megadamage so it doesn't even matter.
Look for a high fantasy game that lets players get over the top nonsense but also has enemies with over the top nonsense that you dont have to homebrew.
Here's what coming to /tg/ accomplishes
>people read your thread and consider your problem
>people imagine up solutions and wonder why you didn't just think of them yourself instead of coming to /tg/ to complain
/thread
Well I know the answer I just want to know why the developers thought it was okay to make such overpowered classes.
If a combat lasts 3 rounds on average, ideally, and they assume 4 members in a party, then a particular character should deal 1/12 of a monster's hit points on their turn. If they hit around half the time, then they should deal 1/6th of the monsters hit points if they hit with an attack. So if they deal 10 damage a round on average, the monster should have 60 hit points. But the problem is that they have monsters that have 150 hit points at a level where the average character deals out lik 60 damage a round. Or can enable their ally to deal that much and basically autohit. It just gets ridiculous. The math is utterly broken. And 5e is hardly better, it just doesn't have warlocks with eldritch blasts that deal 120 damage in a hit, they at least have to use spells slots for it.
If you want all the monsters to have the same hitpoints and you want the characters to all deal the same damage then I don't think I can help you, anon. There's more to a combat encounter than damage per round so that's not even an especially helpful example.
You can look at the monster stat blocks and your characters' sheets and you're the one who decides what monsters they fight and where. It's unironically a skill issue.
>There's more to a combat encounter than damage per round so that's not even an especially helpful example.
True but that provides the basic framework, excluding save or die spells. Which are usually touted as the thing that makes PF combat broken, alongside summoning and polymorph, but even without that the damage output is just too goddamn much, It's not even a game, it's a powerwank simulator.
What? They obviously deal damage based on how often they hit. The entire point of a challenge rating is to evaluate the strentgh of monsters in a straight up fight against a party of PCs. Yes, things like ideal encounter length in rounds is part of that. It's part of the rough math of figuring these things out. Yes, a fight against a lower CR monster will be shorter. Combats that consistently last one round means a lot of character options and monster abilities get closed off because they take more than one round to work. Stuff like poison for example.
Also, characters """should""" deal damage based on a multitude of factors, not based on how often they hit or how long you think combat is supposed to last. It just sounds like you're taking an incredibly simplistic approach to the combat and then getting angry when you don't understand it.
>doesn't tailor encounters to the group
>doesn't make his own monsters
>doesn't use the out of the box monster advancement rules
>doesn't bodge monster stats
>doesn't use a zero effort online monster advancer
>doesn't even just add more monsters to the encounter
I hope this is just nogames LARPing, because if not you might be moronic.
>doesn't tailor encounters to the group
I do. It's a bit immersion breaking but I do.
>doesn't make his own monsters
I could do that. I could give monsters insane stats that vastly exceed the CR I write down for them. But then when the PCs die they will get angry at me for killing them with an unbalanced homebrew monster and accuse me of "overcompensating"
>doesn't use the out of the box monster advancement rules
They are trash and hardly do anything. the 3.5 advancement rules were more flexible but not much better.
>doesn't bodge monster stats
Yeah I could just fudge everything and invalidate any reason for using an actual system.
>doesn't use a zero effort online monster advancer
Most of those are hardly functional or create bziarre rules glitches. Yes I have used them.
>doesn't even just add more monsters to the encounter
There are only so many monsters you can add before it just becomes ridiculous. But that has generally been my best solution. Find a monster of CR = APL and use 3 or 4 of them. Only thing that produces an actual challenging encounter.
>But then when the PCs die they will get angry at me for killing them with an unbalanced homebrew monster and accuse me of "overcompensating"
Will they actually do this or are you being schizophrenically paranoid? If they would actually do this, why are you playing with such awful people?
>pcs mad about dying
The first game run always has a fight PCs must run from. I roll on the board, they know how much damage it does, how much it can crit for and how fricked they are. If they want to fight it, good luck. It teaches them not everything can be solved with fighting, and if the dice go bad they should run.
If you're going to mess with stats make it obvious it's modified. Not pc levels, that's hard for them to tell, more like oversized, mutated, firebreathing, flying, spellcasting ambushing, disappearing, intelligent and illusionary...
You're at level 9 or 10? Give them a nemesis in Hell. Sending them assassins from a place outside the world. They've been scry'd and sized up and it knows what they're weak to. Pull their Clerics soul out of his body and toss him in the astral plane or a mirror dimension or something.
Then let them adapt. They're at a point where Demons and Gods will take notice and knock them around. Test their power. Bind someone to a rock and toss it into the sea.
What's really cool is at that level they can deal with a lot of stupid shit.
You're going to be in for an tough session when you have to remind them the world is bigger than a few mortals though if they somehow got it into their heads they can't lose. Unfrick your game Anon.
>The first game run always has a fight PCs must run from. I roll on the board, they know how much damage it does, how much it can crit for and how fricked they are.
Unless they somehow knew about this before it hit them and killed them, no, they don't know.
>I do. It's a bit immersion breaking but I do.
How? I don't mean you introduce enemies that perfectly counter the party's strengths every time. That's lame. But take, for instance, that most parties can't naturally fly. Dragons can fly. The game used to be called Dungeons and Dragons.
> I could give monsters insane stats that vastly exceed the CR I write down for them
Well, if they're having an easy time with as-is CR, what's the harm in upping it?
>But then when the PCs die they will get angry at me for killing them with an unbalanced homebrew monster and accuse me of "overcompensating"
A lack of trust in the group is another issue entirely. And there's a big difference between a more challenging encounter that isn't mogged immediately by the players and a TPK.
>They are trash and hardly do anything.
Your complaint in the OP is entirely mechanical, though.
>Yeah I could just fudge everything and invalidate any reason for using an actual system.
Contrarian bullshit. You say the monsters die too easily. Make them die harder. Problem solved. Stop seeing advice as a recommendation to just go 100% in the other direction. The game needs a DM for a fricking reason. An arbitrator of what happens in the world. This isn't a video game where everything is figured out in advance. The book also doesn't give you your campaigns, your dungeons, your NPC's, your encounters etc. YOU are supposed to figure this shit out, Mr. DM. That is also literally in the rules.
>Most of those are hardly functional
Not an issue I've had.
>There are only so many monsters you can add before it just becomes ridiculous
Depends on the initial strength. Two instead of one is less ridiculous than 6 instead of three.
Look, I think you're too focused on CR. You probably have a party of powergamers who know the system well and have made combat efficient characters. Just make things more difficult.
> I know it's a well-known fact that Pathfinder is trash
Name a "Good" game then
D&D B/X or ACKS.
It’s a shame all the popular systems are so abusive to DMs
That's why they're popular. People don't trust DMs not to abuse their authority, so they gravitate towards systems that put in mechanical roadblocks to the DM being able to do pretty much anything without the consent of the players. And in time, that anti-DM style became the accepted norm.
Put an extra 0 on the end of all the monster HP stats. Tell your players openly. Tell them that as long as they continue to optimize to the degree that it renders the CR system meaningless, you will keep on adding 0s. There is no rule that prevents modification of npc statblocks, and your players can either tone down their power fantasies so that encounters are meaningful again, they can try to keep up in an arms race that you can stretch to literally infinity, or they can quit.
Remember, OP, no game is better than a shitty game that makes you miserable.
If they didn't want me breaking Pathfinder they wouldn't have given me the ability to have infinite Ki and access to a splatbook which allows me to abuse it.
Are your players having fun?
If they are, frick it. Give them hordes of trash to mow through until they're sick of it. Make the fights quick and find your fun in other parts of the game
If they're not, start raising the challenge level. Give them organised squads of foes that work together, give them puzzle fights with glowing weak points (so to speak)
If the book is making you miserable throw the book out unless this is just a thinly veiled "PF sucks" thread and you don't play games
My friend ran a pathfinder game where the level capped at 6. It kept things grounded. I think every certain amount of XP we'd get a new feat and some skill points or whatever, so progression still existed
yeah, it's called E6 rules.
It's a feature, not a bug
Play Pathfinder 2e.
> party is level 9 and can take down CR 15s with barely any strategy.
Is this true? Can a four member, non all 18s party really take down most cr 15 monsters with impunity? Or is OP talking out of his ass again?
by ninth level absolutely, of course 3.X has absolutely enormous variation in both player power and monster output so the real answer is "it depends" but using an extreme example, my current sixth level party could take on a CR10 fire giant and it wouldn't even be that hard. Outnumbering an enemy gives you an enormous advantage in 3.X which is even more pronounced if you have summons or companions/phantoms/eidolons. A fire giant doesn't have spell resistance and is vulnerable to cold, just casting a second level touch spell (against touch AC of 8......) like Frigid Touch or Stricken Heart and it will be no-save Staggered every round, only able to take a single move OR standard action (and therefore no full attacks)
https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Fire%20Giant
All you really need to do to kill it is have a couple ranged characters shoot at it while somebody makes difficult terrain and someone else staggers it. This is a completely intended gameplay style and isn't even 1% as abusive as you can get in Pathfinder, this is "playing the game the way it's meant to be played, fully in good faith" level of non-abuse and you can still curb stomp something that's CR10 at like level 5 or 6. That's not even getting into how a fire giant being a Humanoid makes them incredibly fricking vulnerable to hundreds of effects that most monsters dodge due to immunity.
If this was a CR10 incorporeal undead the party would probably TPK though, since it's totally immune to mind-affecting spells, ignores difficult terrain, takes only 50% damage from most spells and magic weapons, and many non damage effects straight up don't work or have a 50% chance to outright fail and it's probably got some cancerous ability damage/drain touch attack. Against something like THAT you're gonna have to break out the actual cheese, because many Pathfinder monsters are fricking bullshit and the most effective way to deal with them is to fricking nuke them from orbit
>Is this true? Can a four member, non all 18s party really take down most cr 15 monsters with impunity?
In Pathfinder? Easily.
Kineticist blasting shit buffed by other party members, crowd control from any number of tricks to make it more vulnerable and nerf its attacks.
Depends on the classes
Depends on the magic item access
Depends on the source/splats access
3.PF has a lot of standard deviation
It depends but there are things that will just beat you with a discrepancy that big, if you run into blasphemy spam for instance the party will just wipe.
Not only is this true but in several modules (Wrath of the Righteous and Kingmaker included) you are supposed to fight monsters with a much higher CR.
What OP doesn't understand is how worthless CR becomes when your players are capable of doing basic math. Instead of using CR as his holy bible, OP should have just looked at the stat blocks of monsters, compared them with his players' character sheets, and then figure out for himself what his players are capable of handling.
>what OP should have done is figured out things that the game system he paid for is supposed to do for him
If your read the manual you'd know that CR is just an aproximation and depends on many factors, the fricking manual tells you that the more characters the party controls the higher their APL is, that magic items and wealth per level play a important role so if they're well equiped they can deal with higher CR than if they're underequipped, etc. Is not "party level 10 that means CR 10 will always be hard for them"
Even APL = CR isn't hard, is just average that might deplete 1/4th the character's resources
>supposed to do for him
Here's the cause of your made-up problem. You're playing an imagination game with lots of player freedom and then deciding to be an angry moron when the game can't account for everything a player can do. I already gave you the solution but you're continuing to be an angry moron about having to think for yourself.
When your computer tells you to Press Any Key, do you look for the Any key or do you press the power button?
>I have 5 whole bestiaries full of monsters and 90 percent of them are useless once a party is level 9 and can take down CR 15s with barely any strategy. I
are they having fun? Are you? Why not make the fact these professional murderers are capable of slaughtering dragons by the dozen an explicit part of your campaign and narrative, with nations and powerful interests trying to alternately entice them to their service or assassinate them because they're terrified of what they're capable of. Having powerful player characters in and of itself is not a problem, the problem is trying to play a low fantasy mudcore game when your party consists of fricking Circe, Cu Chulainn, and Achilles. If your players are regularly one-rounding CR15 threats and mulching these supposedly powerful and mythical enemies in a manner that baffles Christendom THEN HAVE THE WORLD REACT TO THAT APPROPRIATELY. Your game will end up being more Birthright or Exalted than Lord of the Rings, but that's fine, not every fricking game has to be a goddamn LOTR knockoff holy frick it's been 40 years
If you can't figure it out, just look up "Dragon, on CD"
You are a piss drinker.
Just up the challenge, lower wealth by level, no xp, only milestone leveling, no safe places to rest for the 15 minute adventuring day.
No magic markets, no permanent item crafting, everyone allied is shit.
Your level 9 party needs to face four cr 9 mooks, and a cr 15 badguy, all behind a throng of cr 4 fodder, and the monsters are wearing armour.
CR of our level is pretty challenging in our group as a 10th level but our GM rolls magic items, give us almost nothing of gold (I have like 10k in gold and magic items as a 10th level char) and also throws 4+ encounters per day the times we go on adventures/follow quest
Yeah, magic items play a big part on the party's powerlevel
Yea man, I know that DMs ideally shouldn't have to be game designers and the imbalance isn't your fault, but this seems like a problem that would be very easy to solve with a very small amount of game design. Or just by breaking guidelines and using multiple CR15 monsters or lone CR20 monsters. I'd be unhappy too if my GM switched game systems without ever having challenged my character, the game won't feel complete until you kill some PCs.
What's the party composition?
What's their wealth?
What items do they have?
How many encounters do your run per day?
I have the opposite problem in pathfinder. My players cannot do damage to save their lives and are constantly wrecked by encounters severely under their weightclass, even after just handing them a bunch of items to help balance
>My players cannot do damage to save their lives and are constantly wrecked by encounters severely under their weightclass
I would be willing to bet money the difference is because OP's players are making extensive uses of summons and animal companions/eidolons/etc and yours probably aren't. Even enemies with Pounce (one of the strongest abilities in 3.pf and the single most important martial melee damage steroid you can get) can still only really full attack one target per turn, having a bunch of furious celestial lions who all smite evil and clog up the battlefield and dedicated bodyguard companions to draw attacks can easily result in enemies needing to waste multiple turns dealing with what are essentially disposable bodies rather than, say, pouncing on top of the bard and ripping him in half with half a dozen natural attacks all made at its full bonus because they're all primary natural weapons. Denying enemies full attacks is probably the single most important piece of strategy and charop you can do in 3.X and a lot of inexperienced players end up getting fricking rekt because they will do things like have their fighter charge into melee with an enemy and make one attack only for the enemy to turn around and delete them with claw+claw+bite+wing+buffet+tail sweep+automatic grab+rend or whatever nonsense
which version of pf is this?
has to be 1e, 2e nerfed summoning into the ground
It's 1e. I wouldn't even bother playing 2e, it has one interesting idea tops and I'm not learning a new system just for that. Let alone converting all my NPCs and custom rules. But I'd rather play 5e or some OSR game preferably.
This is why i just play HeroQuest or something. Simple shit, no outleveling content.
>implying