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ChaosArchon
2014-06-22, 09:03 PM
So I'm going to be starting my first campaign as GM soon and was hoping you lovely people could help me figure out what is fair for a combat encounter? I understand CR is a big part of it but (my players will start at lv6) I just feel like one CR 6 creature is going to get utterly destroyed by the party (which is going to be 4-6 players), so what else factors into designing encounters other than CR vs the party's level.

Kid Jake
2014-06-22, 09:42 PM
Yeah, one big creature will find himself at the mercy of the action economy more often than not and that's no fun for anyone, I'd suggest throwing a couple of CR5s or a handful of CR4s at them instead. Keep in mind that terrain and tactics can heavily influence the difficulty of a battle. Just giving a bunch of kobolds a superior position and a plan can let them outperform what their CR would suggest.

Find out what your party can do and try to give everyone their chance to be useful, you don't have to (and shouldn't) tailor every obstacle for them; but give them more of what they're into and they'll forgive the small stuff.

Cyrion
2014-06-24, 10:57 PM
How much experience have you had as a player? If you've got good experience there, draw on it. Think about what kinds of things and in what numbers you've found easy or difficult to deal with, and use those as models.

Another suggestion- if you've got questions about the suitability of the encounter, play test it yourself. Play both sides of the fight in a mock encounter. Of course, your players may make entirely different decisions that alter the difficulty (either up or down), but it will allow you to avoid a lot of the major mistakes.

ChaosArchon
2014-06-24, 11:05 PM
Yeah I'm thinking I'll do exactly that, but as a question, if I made an enemy with PC levels, is their CR the amount of class levels they have? Like a level 5 barbarian would be CR 5?

Cyrion
2014-06-24, 11:21 PM
According to the rules, yes. My general experience for a party that size though is to simply ignore the CR guidelines except for awarding experience; the party's action economy is going to be a very powerful factor in their favor. I've found it best to think about what abilities the characters have and plan an encounter that plays to those abilities. You can makes some plans on what the party can do that will work well and what won't.

You should also have a plan on how the party can deal with the encounter. Know whether you want them to defeat the beastie(s) easily or with casualties. Do you want them to have to run? Plan a reasonable escape route. Your party may not use what you've planned, but always make sure that an appropriate way to deal with the encounter exists. Then you can be excited when the come up with something entirely different.

ChaosArchon
2014-06-24, 11:26 PM
Yeah I'm planning the first encounter but not trying to make it too challenging (its gonna be a pack of dire pugs) so I expect them to handle it pretty well but I'm also using it as a chance to introduce them to a person I hope they take as their guide.

Also later down the line I plan on introducing them to a very powerful priest who's the high priest of one of the main evil gods, thing is I want the priest to be a quest giver (for reasons that will take awhile to write out), my question is how do I make sure the party knows attacking the priest would be a REALLY bad idea?

Thrudd
2014-06-25, 12:13 AM
Yeah I'm planning the first encounter but not trying to make it too challenging (its gonna be a pack of dire pugs) so I expect them to handle it pretty well but I'm also using it as a chance to introduce them to a person I hope they take as their guide.

Also later down the line I plan on introducing them to a very powerful priest who's the high priest of one of the main evil gods, thing is I want the priest to be a quest giver (for reasons that will take awhile to write out), my question is how do I make sure the party knows attacking the priest would be a REALLY bad idea?

Let them try, then he casts blasphemy and paralyzes, weakens and dazes all of them. Or he has some really powerful undead servants under his control, like a couple mummies or vampires, or even a couple demons there doing his bidding.

Make him as powerful as you want. Let them attack him if they want. If he's powerful enough, he can take down one or two of them easily and then ask them to yield, offering to talk and let them heal their friends . If they're smart, they'll take the offer. If they aren't smart, they will all fight to the death, and then maybe he'll raise them and place a geas on them, or something. If they're lucky, they will win and kill him, and then you can find another way to give them the quest. Maybe the deity itself or a powerful demon appears to them because they killed his top servant, and gives them the geas.

ChaosArchon
2014-06-25, 12:18 AM
Hmm I guess that would work although I feel like breaking out a geas would be a bit heavy handed, but hopefully they'll stay my hand because the high priest (while fairly powerful) is a young girl (right now I'm thinking 12ish) partly to discourage them from killing her and partly because seeing a young child act blatantly evil while still being cheerful and cutesy about it seems perfect for the high priest of a trickster god.

Citizen Nij
2014-06-25, 01:26 AM
Also later down the line I plan on introducing them to a very powerful priest who's the high priest of one of the main evil gods, thing is I want the priest to be a quest giver (for reasons that will take awhile to write out), my question is how do I make sure the party knows attacking the priest would be a REALLY bad idea?
Where do they meet the high priest to begin with? If it's somewhere they could reasonably be expected to have dominion, say one of the god's temples or similar, then he might easily and simply deflect any physical attacks using an existing magical shield (and if someone makes a check on its strength, they're automatically given information that they can't mess with it); anybody who tries to prepare a spell has it fizzle out immediately, maybe the caster feels a slight nausea from the evil power that interfered with it. Then he launches into a spiel about not wanting to waste such abilities fighting the party, but instead would like them to perform jobs he can't trust to others.

"Nothing important like destroying a city, please you understand, but my regular underlings - they are evil of course! I'm rather fond of the wine from [famous region] but my stocks are low, and if I asked anybody else to go fetch it, they'd replace the thing with some inferior goatblood. My rewards are handsome for those who succeed... what do you say?"

Then the party can choose what to do - take the first quest, avoid the priest entirely, try to go against him, or subvert his quests somehow.

ChaosArchon
2014-06-25, 03:09 AM
Hmm I may try that out also little side note but how is a werewolf only CR 2 in PF? I mean isn't it like CR 5 in 3.5, how'd it drop so much.

Firest Kathon
2014-06-25, 07:34 AM
Hmm I may try that out also little side note but how is a werewolf only CR 2 in PF? I mean isn't it like CR 5 in 3.5, how'd it drop so much.

The Lycanthrope template (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/lycanthrope) gives CR+1 to the base creature (or animal, if it's CR is higher).

The example Werewolf (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/lycanthrope/werewolf) is based on a Warrior 2 (CR1), so its final CR is 2. If you want a stronger one, use another base creature (either more class levels, or a better Humanoid (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/) base creature (e.g. Ogre (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/giants/ogre) for CR4 or Cloud Giant (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/giants/giant-true/giant-cloud) for CR12). Or make a Dhampir (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/dhampir) Werewolf... You can also choose a stronger Animal, e.g. make a Wereelephant (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/elephant/elephant) for CR 8.

mephnick
2014-06-25, 08:15 AM
I'm going to link you to this. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg/edit

It's a great guide for setting up encounter expectations.

Cyrion
2014-06-25, 09:52 PM
Also remember that depending on the situation, "evil" does not equate to "attack instantly." If they meet the high priest in a city, the party is going to be breaking a number of laws and pissing off a variety of important people if they start making unprovoked attacks. If you need the priest to be getting them to do things, make him reasonable to deal with; make him a sophisticated evil like some of the portrayals of Richelieu in the Three Musketeers.