Terrible campaign end. Spoiler warning: Jade Regent

[Calthropstu]

My pathfinder campaign ended today. After numerous horrendous battles that drew out forever, several grindfests and two years of play both I and my players agreed that the Jade Regent was a crapfest of "screw the pcs as hard as we pissibly can."

The straw that broke the camel's back was a battle against three omox demons. The demons themselves wouldn't be a problem... except this is the Jade Regent adventure. So what do they do? Against a lvl 13 they give them their favored environment AND have that environment grant them fast healing 10.

So, with water all around them and them being able to swift action dimension door at will AND 3 hezrous demons waiting in the woodwork AND them being able to summon... we decided enough was enough.

We will not complete this adventure path. For 2 years we have played this campaign and the encounters were all set up to screw the party.

And most of these fights don't look too dangerous. Until I put the combat into motion, I don't really notice how devastating these creatures really are. I understand I could pull my punches and just not use the abilities to their fullest, but neither I nor my players would want that.

I have read about many players ditching this campaign, and I guess this is another notch on that list.

I have asked for advice many times on this forum regarding this campaign, and I would like to thank everyone here who responded to my advice requests. I now know to stay away from Paizo adventure paths.

[ArendK]

My group enjoyed Jade Regent quite a bit. I'm sorry you didn't like it.

Jade Regent (and this statement is true for almost all the AP's) has it's own quirks, themes, difficulties, challenges, and flow that is different from the others.

Wrath of the Righteous is a power curve that just goes crazy, Kingmaker is sandboxy, JR can feel like a giant railroaded escort mission, Skulls and Shackles feels like a bait and switch where you are expecting freedom and get stuck in a story, Crimson Throne feels political to get everything going (which turns some groups off), etc.

My party eviscerated the Omox demons without a second thought (few encounters really challenged us as they were written, but we're also a bit more optimized than the expected group of players). It's a cool, varied AP with a lot of different scenery to make each book feel different.

[Faily]

Published adventures are hit and miss, depending on the campaign in question and the group. My playgroup has greatly enjoyed the Pathfinder APs so far, and the only one we didn't complete was Iron Gods because of an untimely TPK nearing the end (I had several issues with Iron Gods myself, but not enough to make me want to quit it while it was in progress). Of 3.5 APs, we did drop Savage Tide because some of the challenges were a bit too ridiculous to what we thought was fun.

Other than those mentioned, we've played through Red Hand of Doom, Shackled City, War of the Burning Sky, Reign of Winter, Strange Aeons, Ruins of Azlant, and now doing War for the Crown.

Sometimes, the adventure and the group just don't mesh. Sorry to hear it didn't work for you, but you might enjoy some of the other APs. I at least greatly enjoyed Ruins of Azlant and Strange Aeons.

[Calthropstu]

My group enjoyed Jade Regent quite a bit. I'm sorry you didn't like it.

Jade Regent (and this statement is true for almost all the AP's) has it's own quirks, themes, difficulties, challenges, and flow that is different from the others.

Wrath of the Righteous is a power curve that just goes crazy, Kingmaker is sandboxy, JR can feel like a giant railroaded escort mission, Skulls and Shackles feels like a bait and switch where you are expecting freedom and get stuck in a story, Crimson Throne feels political to get everything going (which turns some groups off), etc.

My party eviscerated the Omox demons without a second thought (few encounters really challenged us as they were written, but we're also a bit more optimized than the expected group of players). It's a cool, varied AP with a lot of different scenery to make each book feel different.

My group wanted to focus more on rp rather than combat. They weren't completely unoptimized, but I find it hard to pull punches.

I find it difficult to see how you plowed through them though when they have ridiculous hide checks, stinking clouds a total of 9 times, and can dimension door to the bottom of the pool and fully regenerate where it's impossible to see them.

I think your gm probably didn't play them as the ridiculous stealth monsters they are and ran it as a wow mob who stood and slammed you letting themselves get pulverized.

[Red Fel]

I find it difficult to see how you plowed through them though when they have ridiculous hide checks, stinking clouds a total of 9 times, and can dimension door to the bottom of the pool and fully regenerate where it's impossible to see them.

I think your gm probably didn't play them as the ridiculous stealth monsters they are and ran it as a wow mob who stood and slammed you letting themselves get pulverized.

Conversely, is it possible that the problem is that you did play them as "ridiculous stealth monsters," used their "ridiculous hide checks," made use of a "total of 9" Stinking Clouds, and let them Dimension Door "to the bottom of the pool and fully regenerate where it's impossible to see them"?

I'm not saying that's wrong, mind you. But it sounds like you took a party that "wanted to focus more on rp rather than combat", and pitted them against a team of monsters that you specifically played to the hilt.

I get that you find it hard to "pull punches." And you shouldn't have had to play the monsters as drooling incompetent idiots just to accomplish your goals. But it sounds like there was a severe disconnect between the expectations of your players - who ran low-op characters - and the DM - who maximized the utility of his monsters. And that isn't a problem of the AP - that's a problem of the table.

I'm not saying that the AP is perfectly written. I don't think any of them are - several of them have some glaring issues and basically require DM intervention. But it sounds like the AP wasn't the problem here. The AP didn't just spring to life, drag you all to the table, and force you to suffer through two years of its fury. You're the DM. You have the power here. And instead of using it to say, "Here's a problem we seem to have with this AP, how can I address it?" You said, "Well, AP gave me these monsters, now I'mma murder the party. Wait, why is the party dead? This AP sucks!"

I can't help but feel like there's some blame-shifting, is my point.

[Florian]

@Calthropstu:

Weird. I've run that AP twice, each time with understanding and prepared players and it was more or less a cake-walk.

[Elkad]

For those of us that haven't read it, what's the setup?
Expected level of the party?
Can they bypass the encounter? Or at least drag the fight out of the water?

And it seems any of the standard teleportation inhibitors would help a bunch. Not sure what else exists in PF, but Dimensional Anchor definitely does.
Dealing with teleportation is a concern starting about L7, and gets pretty important by L11 or so. It's the kind of thing you should be easing your party into dealing with (especially newbies), the same as introducing them to incorporeals or flight.

So as the DM, you should likely have prepared your party for the encounter. Some APs do it for you, but simply adding a club of Phase Locking (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapon-special-abilities/phase-locking) (expensive) or a few Dimensional Anchor scrolls (cheap) to the loot drop somewhere would likely do the trick.

/and yes, I picked a club on purpose. I like to give my players the tools they need, but not necessarily in their preferred form. Making the Goliath Barbarian put down his whole bag of d6 Large Greathammer because it isn't working on a DR30/Silver&Piercing monster to use a small silver dagger I had a monster drop a couple rooms back is an endless source of entertainment from my side of the screen. Inappropriate size penalty and 1d3-1+strength :)

[Calthropstu]

Conversely, is it possible that the problem is that you did play them as "ridiculous stealth monsters," used their "ridiculous hide checks," made use of a "total of 9" Stinking Clouds, and let them Dimension Door "to the bottom of the pool and fully regenerate where it's impossible to see them"?

I'm not saying that's wrong, mind you. But it sounds like you took a party that "wanted to focus more on rp rather than combat", and pitted them against a team of monsters that you specifically played to the hilt.

I get that you find it hard to "pull punches." And you shouldn't have had to play the monsters as drooling incompetent idiots just to accomplish your goals. But it sounds like there was a severe disconnect between the expectations of your players - who ran low-op characters - and the DM - who maximized the utility of his monsters. And that isn't a problem of the AP - that's a problem of the table.

I'm not saying that the AP is perfectly written. I don't think any of them are - several of them have some glaring issues and basically require DM intervention. But it sounds like the AP wasn't the problem here. The AP didn't just spring to life, drag you all to the table, and force you to suffer through two years of its fury. You're the DM. You have the power here. And instead of using it to say, "Here's a problem we seem to have with this AP, how can I address it?" You said, "Well, AP gave me these monsters, now I'mma murder the party. Wait, why is the party dead? This AP sucks!"

I can't help but feel like there's some blame-shifting, is my point.

That's a fair assertion. I am fairly good at tactical combat and utilize that. I run my combats and monsters with the mindset of "these creatures have existed their entire lives with their abilities. They know how to use them and when."
But even the adventure path stated they should use the tactics I put into play, keeping the party at range firing their globs and stinking clouds and going into the muck to heal if they dropped below 50 hp.

The fact that they had at will swift action dimension door allowed them to do just that. Ultimately, it was when I announced that the damage they had done so far seems to have gone away that they gave up.

After being wrecked last week with the invisible illusion wielding sorceress in the sky dropping confusion on the party, this was just too much.

The problem is, yes, partially my fault. I openly acknowledge that. But the AP gives me a lot of combats that I think the pcs will trounce (I fully expected them to blast through these omox demons before I actually played them) and the combats I expect them to have trouble with they stomp like it's nothing.

The AP also throws combats that literally make no sense. I handwaived the golem combats as not happening because they literally had no purpose. Golems do not "go berserk and attack anyone they see" because someone gets murdered. No.

Yes, there was some issue with me miscalculating how much my party could handle. But why is this AP throwing combats 2 crs above party level AND giving them favorable conditions all while forcing them into narrow easy to ambush spots?

One of my players biggest gripes was actually a combat from a year ago. They gave a dose of black lotus to use against a lvl 6 party with a tactic of "get the wizard." Seriously, how is a party not supposed to have an insta gib there?

Yeah, they have the artifact. Yes, they get Suishen. But it's frustrating to have death after death.

[RoboEmperor]

I don't think "encounters are too hard so module is crap" is an argument. Just get better and roll a higher optimized party. If your players don't know how to optimize then the Jade Regent is just too hard for your players, nothing more.

Terrible Campaigns are campaigns that have crap stories, or are just bland dungeon crawls and the like. Your previous point about requiring obscure skills no one ever would take is a valid reason why a campaign is crap. I'd jump at the chance of playing dungeons that can handle higher optimization.

[Calthropstu]

I don't think "encounters are too hard so module is crap" is an argument. Just get better and roll a higher optimized party. If your players don't know how to optimize then the Jade Regent is just too hard for your players, nothing more.

Terrible Campaigns are campaigns that have crap stories, or are just bland dungeon crawls and the like. Your previous point about requiring obscure skills no one ever would take is a valid reason why a campaign is crap. I'd jump at the chance of playing dungeons that can handle higher optimization.

Well, along those lines there was the whole "let's throw random encounters at the party FOR 6 MONTHS as they journey across the north pole." There was also the fact that there wasn't a single samurai in the whole game acting honorably (except random samurai mooks A-F that they throw at the party and have no chance to talk to) and, although it's supposed to be traditional Japan, they got nearly every aspect of their culture just flat wrong.

Putting that aside, the whole thing was fairly unbelievable. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the whole golems going berserk was extremely far fetched, and the whole "We're gonna set up a ninja clan ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD just in case we missed the guy we were sure we got and leave them there for fifty years."

Honestly, my players decided it was over because of the extremely harsh combats, but not once did I see anything in the module that really made sense. The only believable villians in the whole story were the white dragon and the ice cleric (which, btw, took a grueling 30+ rounds to finish.)

The entire plot line felt... off. I get it, maybe it was meant for more optimized characters. Maybe my experience was skewed by the fact I disliked the npcs I was given, but... meh.

My players have similar gripes about other adventure paths. They tried skull and shackles and hated it. They tried one for starfinder and hated it. Next game is going to be more sandbox.

[Karl Aegis]

Huh, I thought Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde was bad. My gnome fighter basically stabbed the first three goblinoid encounters with their greatspear and the sorcerer lit the monitor lizard on fire with ray of flame. They got the mission complete in like 15 minutes and spent the rest of the time acquiring the multiple suits of half plate and other loots. Not interested in murdering the rest of the goblin gang and no events triggered to continue the campaign, our intrepid adventurers decided they would live in luxury for a while.

[Aotrs Commander]

Interesting. I am eventually nominally planning to play Jade Empire, as a direct sequel to Rise of the Runelords (either as a next-generation of the Runelords PCs or - because I am very, very stupid, as a boosted-to-Epic continuation), so this is interesting feedback.

(The fact we are half-way through Runelords and about a quarter of the way into Shackled City's forth chapter should give you and indication of how long it takes us to get through APs! Runelords was a consistent six months per book of the first three books!)

My players and their parties (which are usually 7-8 characters, though at the moment, we're having some difficulty getting more than four players week-to-week) are pretty good, and generally blend through the even-Bleakbane-boosted encounters without too much difficulty. Heck, most of the time, I spam my Defiant boss monster template (which principally primarily iterates the number of hits monster have) and that is sort of a requirement! (It took them a bit of effort, but the party managed to take out a five-times-normal-hit point Fiendish Umber Hulk at level 6 just, and that was with their downtime spell load outs!) Thus far, the only time they were overmatched was when they ran into, mostly unprepared, a vampire at level three - and they beat a retreat and then trounced him the second time!)




Well, along those lines there was the whole "let's throw random encounters at the party FOR 6 MONTHS as they journey across the north pole."

Can't imagine it could be worse than the 3.5 version of lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (even I was bored, and I was running it, and the PCs broke the module several ways, not least being the Crusader who just had level appropriate armour that put her AC to the "laughable chance of me hitting,") or the middle section of 3.5-converted Night Below, which was mostly "and now larger horde of monsters in massive open cavern," surely...?

[emeraldstreak]

My group wanted to focus more on rp rather than combat. They weren't completely unoptimized, but I find it hard to pull punches.

Look, PF adventures have this dichotomy: they aren't deadly per se, so players are not up in arms about certain death awaiting them. But on the other hand, most parties will run into an encounter that's unsuitable.

For instance, I've run Kingmaker three times, always with fairly optimized parties. Yet two found a certain encounter in the second book really difficult (one TPKed), while the third ran over it because their modus operandi was Eidolon scouting.

[Reversefigure4]

In contrast, we thought Jade Regent was tremendous fun, and is a good one amongst Paizo's many fine adventure paths.

We particularly enjoyed the Emperor's Tomb (where this encounter took place, presumably?) The PCs are openly warned that the Well of Demons is full of high level demons (it's a string of deadly high level fights, which at least 3 separate NPCs warn the PCs about), and that they should take appropriate precautions. PCs at this level should have appropriate offence - or at least have the ability and the capacity to retreat (particularly during the numerous intervals when the Omox Demons retreat to heal).

If your group is consistently having trouble with the CRs in Adventure Paths, then either the group needs to improve their character capacities, or you need to change the way the encounters are GMed. Less tactics, easier monsters, or more wealth and levels for the group.

Minkai, incidentally, is not meant to be Japan, but more a loose conglomeration of various 'fantasy Asia' tropes, which might account for the details issues you're having.

While Paizo's adventure paths definitely have better and worse ones, if you've tried 3 Adventure Paths and the entire group has hated them all, I'd suggest they're not for you, and you'd probably be better off with homebrew sandbox.

[Calthropstu]

In contrast, we thought Jade Regent was tremendous fun, and is a good one amongst Paizo's many fine adventure paths.

We particularly enjoyed the Emperor's Tomb (where this encounter took place, presumably?) The PCs are openly warned that the Well of Demons is full of high level demons (it's a string of deadly high level fights, which at least 3 separate NPCs warn the PCs about), and that they should take appropriate precautions. PCs at this level should have appropriate offence - or at least have the ability and the capacity to retreat (particularly during the numerous intervals when the Omox Demons retreat to heal).

If your group is consistently having trouble with the CRs in Adventure Paths, then either the group needs to improve their character capacities, or you need to change the way the encounters are GMed. Less tactics, easier monsters, or more wealth and levels for the group.

Minkai, incidentally, is not meant to be Japan, but more a loose conglomeration of various 'fantasy Asia' tropes, which might account for the details issues you're having.

While Paizo's adventure paths definitely have better and worse ones, if you've tried 3 Adventure Paths and the entire group has hated them all, I'd suggest they're not for you, and you'd probably be better off with homebrew sandbox.

Oh, their offence is fine. They're easily capable of putting a smack down. High hp bosses have been trounced, and when they went up against hordes of monsters they trounced them all at once. Remember the battle against the hobgoblins? They took down ALL of them at once. One battle, mopped the floor with them. I ran the numbers and it worked out to 4 crs above their level.

What they had problems with in this fight was the fact their main damage dealer, the magus wielding Suishen, got entangled at the start of the fight. The oracle failed to penetrate spell resistance with dispel evil and the wizard also had sr issues, despite having spell penetration. Their wand of dimensional anchor was useless because of sr.

It also didn't help that the wizards primary attack spells were electrical which they were immune to.

With the magus unable to meaningfully reach them, the oracle got grappled and had her mouth filled with mud making her unabled to cast. The npc barbarian cohort was nearly useless as he had no swim speed, the npc ranger was a manyshot build and could barely scratch them with a good damage roll thanks to dr, the shifter newly introduced to the party to replace the barbarian killed last week was the only one able to reach them effectively, and 20 damage a round just wasn't cutting it (charge, single attack then the demon would attack back with full attack and dimension door away)

The npc bard had her music going and could do little else. The npc cleric had spells going but was thwarted by sr and high saves. In short, my pcs and their npc allies were sorely losing that fight. And they hated how out matched they were.

Gear? They literally have artifacts. They had just gotten new gear. They weren't lacking gear, I made sure of that before they went to the Island.

Spell support? They had an oracle, a magus and a wizard as well as a cleric and bard. They had a barbarian front liner and a new shifter. They had a ranger for backup. There were 5 npc supporters to complement the party. I did not think this fight with 3 cr 12 demons would hardcore swat a 13th lvl party with 5 11th lvl supporters.

Until I ran it. At will swift action ddoor is ridiculously powerful. Add their at will telekinesis and it's a tad overpowered. I'm surprised they didn't add "and at the bottom of the pool is several dozen great swords which the omox demons hurl at opponents with telekinesis." Only way they could have been given more advantage here.

I did learn something from this though. I think I will start running mock battles before sessions I gm and see if something supposddly "at cr" is actually overpowered like this.

[Faily]

I dunno... looking at the stats of the Omox Demons, they're certainly a challenge for an ill-prepared party, but not as bad as you seem to make it out? At least, that is how I look at them and comparing it to parties I've seen in various APs I've played.

They can take a beating (160+ HP and DR10/Good), but AC 28 is pretty easy to hit at level 13 (archers, clustered shots is your friend!). A Resist Energy (Acid), Communal pretty much nullifies most of their damage, which is something I expect parties to have up and running before the fight at that level.

At Will Swift Dimension Door is nifty, but considering that teleporting creatures can't take actions after teleporting, it means they can't spring in like crazy each time they use it (though they can certainly use it for tactical retreats after a full attack). Creatures need the Dimensional Agility feat and it's follow-up feats to truly go crazy with Swift Dimension Door.

Entangle should hardly be a hindrance at this level as well, with enough magic items and spells (Magus do get Dimension Door as well, Cleric, Bard, Oracle have access to Freedom of Movement, and Haste makes up for the reduced movement speed).

[Kelb_Panthera]

Oh, their offence is fine. They're easily capable of putting a smack down. High hp bosses have been trounced, and when they went up against hordes of monsters they trounced them all at once. Remember the battle against the hobgoblins? They took down ALL of them at once. One battle, mopped the floor with them. I ran the numbers and it worked out to 4 crs above their level.

What they had problems with in this fight was the fact their main damage dealer, the magus wielding Suishen, got entangled at the start of the fight. The oracle failed to penetrate spell resistance with dispel evil and the wizard also had sr issues, despite having spell penetration. Their wand of dimensional anchor was useless because of sr.

It also didn't help that the wizards primary attack spells were electrical which they were immune to.

With the magus unable to meaningfully reach them, the oracle got grappled and had her mouth filled with mud making her unabled to cast. The npc barbarian cohort was nearly useless as he had no swim speed, the npc ranger was a manyshot build and could barely scratch them with a good damage roll thanks to dr, the shifter newly introduced to the party to replace the barbarian killed last week was the only one able to reach them effectively, and 20 damage a round just wasn't cutting it (charge, single attack then the demon would attack back with full attack and dimension door away)

The npc bard had her music going and could do little else. The npc cleric had spells going but was thwarted by sr and high saves. In short, my pcs and their npc allies were sorely losing that fight. And they hated how out matched they were.

Gear? They literally have artifacts. They had just gotten new gear. They weren't lacking gear, I made sure of that before they went to the Island.

Spell support? They had an oracle, a magus and a wizard as well as a cleric and bard. They had a barbarian front liner and a new shifter. They had a ranger for backup. There were 5 npc supporters to complement the party. I did not think this fight with 3 cr 12 demons would hardcore swat a 13th lvl party with 5 11th lvl supporters.

Until I ran it. At will swift action ddoor is ridiculously powerful. Add their at will telekinesis and it's a tad overpowered. I'm surprised they didn't add "and at the bottom of the pool is several dozen great swords which the omox demons hurl at opponents with telekinesis." Only way they could have been given more advantage here.

I did learn something from this though. I think I will start running mock battles before sessions I gm and see if something supposddly "at cr" is actually overpowered like this.

... Am I alone in thinking this just looks like a lot of bad luck more than the encounter itself?

[Acanous]

the middle section of 3.5-converted Night Below, which was mostly "and now larger horde of monsters in massive open cavern," surely...?

If you have that conversion handy, I am highly interested in running it IRL. Where did you find one?

[ArendK]

We handled it by knowing we were dealing with demons, so prepared accordingly. Party was-
dwarf Warpriest (wielding Suishen)
halfling Arcanist (necromancy based)
tiefling Bladebound magus (dex-based)
gnome barbarian
Sylph ninja/slayer combo focused on archery and nothing but archery. Heavily reliant upon the vanishing trick.
Only when necessary did we take the NPC's with us, and even then, we kept it light. I know we had Ameiko with us for the Well of Demons part.

Once we got the warnings that we were about to face a slew of nothing but high powered demons, we reset, we rested to reset ourselves knowing that our usual "combat loadout" for spells and preparations were going to be largely ineffectual due to a heavy reliance of elemental damage normally coming from different directions. A high combination of the Warpriest, Arcanist, and Magus' Knowledge Planes confirmed in-character a list of common demon immunities and resistances (GM even let us consult the bestiaries for reference and we could see the wide variance that exists in demons without telling us WHAT was going to be in there).
Arcanist switched back to focusing on buffing the party, environmental effects, debuffs, and damage (in that order).
Warpriest would be prepared with adding Holy to Suishen (overkill if I ever heard it) when meeting a demon
Barbarian would take his swings when he could, but be prepared to fall back and help the squishies.
Ninja, due to the prevalence of see invisibility/true seeing amongst as well as the inherent damage reduction ("clustered shots? I don't need that!") of demons, was largely negated on principle.
Ameiko would buff and stay low.

If it's the fight I'm thinking of, it's the one Our group knew about the dimensional door/end of actions rule from dealing with the arcanist (dimensional slide is a wonderful thing), so that might have made the encounter easier/more appropriate. IIRC, we cut them off from the water after the first "attack, get wounded, attack and teleport to the water" cycle through a combination of the wall of force spells and other barriers while keeping some effect up (wind wall maybe?) to keep the stinking clouds away. The hezrous didn't give us much more problem either. Arcanist blasted with enervation and a few other spells white everyone else became a blender of destruction.

A groups adaptability and willingness to change tactics can make or break encounters like this. Had we not known and prepared, yes, we could have been stomped very easily.

None of Golarion is a perfect real-world analogy in their fictional cultures. They are amalgamations of different tropes for ideas. And yes, I agree that some of the antics of the AP were kind of silly (the aforementioned clan of ninjas just waiting in BFE for the person they were supposed to find that they didn't know was alive or not?), but we had a good time with it.

[Aotrs Commander]

If you have that conversion handy, I am highly interested in running it IRL. Where did you find one?

I wrote it myself. In 3.Aotrs (albeit an earlier version, before PF existed, so it is still more 3.5-with-knobs-on than the current 3.54/PF hybrid). It's designed for six PCs (mid-high optimisation and competant at teamwork with good starting stats, so it could likely tear apart a standard-point/less mechanically and tactically adept party if you weren't careful). A quick glance show that I made full use of ToB, psionics (including Hyperconsciousness and Untapped Potential) and what new classes, feats and spells that 3.Aotrs had at the time. Plus, fair warning, I did NOT edit the treasure or do WBL or anything and and such, the PCs ended up with waaay too mcuh gear before I realised and started manually editing the amount of pennies. I ended up, then adding my Defiant template (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=6971094&postcount=1)1 on the fly to a lot of the major solo NPCs to bring the challenge back up for those combats.

So, I certainly do have it all around, but you'd either have to get a dump of the huge amount of 3.Aotrs stuff (current to now, I'm afraid, after a more recent revison pass) to be able to find and use everything in there as written, or just fix/re-write/gloss over anything that you don't recognise.

Night Below sadly comes just before I started using spreadsheets for encounters and XP (and indeed was the reason, as I attempted to track estimated min and max XP as I wrote it) which makes life easier, and also before I started creating a combat document which listed all hits/XP/combat stuff. (Actually, as technically the first campaign I ran entirely in 3.5 1st to 17th ish - the one prior ws 1st to 21st, but started in 3.0 - running Night Below inspired a lot changes, including me creating a cleric/rogue theurge class because Kuo Toa cleric/rogue whips were a bit under whelming.)



1Inspired by one of 4E's few (in my opinion) very good ideas, the defiant template I think was pretty much the best idea I've ever had. I abuse the hell out of it now and I can actually have boss battles that last and you don't have to have a much-higher-level-monster playing low ball as I often did before...

[Peat]

... Am I alone in thinking this just looks like a lot of bad luck more than the encounter itself?

That was my first thought.

My second was why did they have no good options that bypassed SR/why did the Wizard not have good non-attack spells or non-electrical attack spells.

I dunno. I can see why the encounter did over that party, but I can't see why it would do over every party.

[Calthropstu]

That was my first thought.

My second was why did they have no good options that bypassed SR/why did the Wizard not have good non-attack spells or non-electrical attack spells.

I dunno. I can see why the encounter did over that party, but I can't see why it would do over every party.

Here's how it went:
Surprise round: Demons fire telekinesis trying to bullrush people into the muck. Wizard goes into the muck 4 feet deep.
Round 1: Demons win init knock 2 more people into muck (Koya and Shalelu). Stinking cloud covers party.
Wizard stands and casts haste. Shifter takes to the air. Magus moves out of cloud spots the demons and launches a magic missle and preps to charge. Barbarian jumps into muck to rescue koya who can't swim for crap. Oracle casts dispel evil and moves to discharge, failing to overcome sr. Shalelu gets out of cloud and fires ineffectually. Koya blubs and clings to barbarian. Amieko leaves the cloud and sings.

Round 2:The magus gets hit with a glob of slime and gets entangled and the demon he was targetting pops out of charge range. The oracle gets grappled. The third tries to smack the wizard with telekinesis again. The wizard casts angelic aspect and flies out of cloud, gets onto land. Magus casts fireball, failing to get past sr (as does his magus cohort) The oracle fails to cast, the barbarian gets koya to safety, koya sputters out muck and tries to cast flamestrike (fails sr.) Shalelu fires, does a bit of damage thanks to amieko's song, amieko continues singing and realizes she can't do much else. And the shifter... does nothing.

Round 3: The demons throw globs at the wizard who seems to be the only threat and put another cloud around the area the most people were, the one holding the oracle continues to grapple now going into her mouth. The wizard blasts a lightning bolt (having failed to identify the type of demon... in fact the entire party failed) and fails to bypass sr, the magus moves towards the oracle to help her as he can't get to the demons. The shifter goes from bird to snake and enters the water, the oracle chokes on mud demon, Amieko and company move, koya casts dismissal and the demon saved.

Round 4: The demon near the snake provokes an attack of opportunity as he tries to telekenisis the snake by slamming it into the wizard. Fails to get its spell off as the first significant damage the entire fight is dealt to it (31 points, reduced to 21 due to dr) That demon swift ddoors away. The one choking the oracle continues. The other throws a mud glob at someone. The barbarian knows he is hopeless in this fight, moves to shield amieko. The Shifter charges the one holding the oracle. The magus casts another magic missle, fails to overcome sr (both of them) Amieko and company are equally ineffective. The wizard begins summoning. The oracle chokes on mud demon.

Round 5: The oracle is released, slammed twice and that demon jumps to a better spot. The other demons throw globs. The shifter charges a demon and then I let him notice the damage he had done seems to be mostly healed. The fast healing was the nail in the coffin. When they saw they had done almost no damage in 4 rounds of combat they just decided to quit.

[Elkad]

So they prepared poorly, rolled poorly, yet managed to make a safe retreat? And then the decision was made to call the campaign?
Or they just metaphorically flipped the table mid-fight?

Because running away from a fight and coming back better prepared SHOULD be happening occasionally. Or just running away and finding a way to bypass that encounter. If the monsters are as fast as the party, you cast Slow on the Dwarf so his best option is to pick a doorway to die in while everyone else runs (doesn't work in the teleport era, but it works earlier), and then mount a mission to recover his corpse.

Is the problem that they've had it easy-mode until the last few sessions? (The Confusion fight, and now this).

Some of my most memorable player sessions were when we got our ass handed to us, the remnants beat a retreat, and then we came back for revenge (and corpse recovery).

[Kelb_Panthera]

Here's how it went:
Surprise round: Demons fire telekinesis trying to bullrush people into the muck. Wizard goes into the muck 4 feet deep.
Round 1: Demons win init knock 2 more people into muck (Koya and Shalelu). Stinking cloud covers party.
Wizard stands and casts haste. Shifter takes to the air. Magus moves out of cloud spots the demons and launches a magic missle and preps to charge. Barbarian jumps into muck to rescue koya who can't swim for crap. Oracle casts dispel evil and moves to discharge, failing to overcome sr. Shalelu gets out of cloud and fires ineffectually. Koya blubs and clings to barbarian. Amieko leaves the cloud and sings.

Round 2:The magus gets hit with a glob of slime and gets entangled and the demon he was targetting pops out of charge range. The oracle gets grappled. The third tries to smack the wizard with telekinesis again. The wizard casts angelic aspect and flies out of cloud, gets onto land. Magus casts fireball, failing to get past sr (as does his magus cohort) The oracle fails to cast, the barbarian gets koya to safety, koya sputters out muck and tries to cast flamestrike (fails sr.) Shalelu fires, does a bit of damage thanks to amieko's song, amieko continues singing and realizes she can't do much else. And the shifter... does nothing.

Round 3: The demons throw globs at the wizard who seems to be the only threat and put another cloud around the area the most people were, the one holding the oracle continues to grapple now going into her mouth. The wizard blasts a lightning bolt (having failed to identify the type of demon... in fact the entire party failed) and fails to bypass sr, the magus moves towards the oracle to help her as he can't get to the demons. The shifter goes from bird to snake and enters the water, the oracle chokes on mud demon, Amieko and company move, koya casts dismissal and the demon saved.

Round 4: The demon near the snake provokes an attack of opportunity as he tries to telekenisis the snake by slamming it into the wizard. Fails to get its spell off as the first significant damage the entire fight is dealt to it (31 points, reduced to 21 due to dr) That demon swift ddoors away. The one choking the oracle continues. The other throws a mud glob at someone. The barbarian knows he is hopeless in this fight, moves to shield amieko. The Shifter charges the one holding the oracle. The magus casts another magic missle, fails to overcome sr (both of them) Amieko and company are equally ineffective. The wizard begins summoning. The oracle chokes on mud demon.

Round 5: The oracle is released, slammed twice and that demon jumps to a better spot. The other demons throw globs. The shifter charges a demon and then I let him notice the damage he had done seems to be mostly healed. The fast healing was the nail in the coffin. When they saw they had done almost no damage in 4 rounds of combat they just decided to quit.

Yeah, that sounds a -lot- like the dice gods were just being petty that night. Don't get me wrong, it sounds like it would have been tough regardless but sometimes the RNG just wants to kill everybody.

[Florian]

I don't think "encounters are too hard so module is crap" is an argument. Just get better and roll a higher optimized party. If your players don't know how to optimize then the Jade Regent is just too hard for your players, nothing more.

Terrible Campaigns are campaigns that have crap stories, or are just bland dungeon crawls and the like. Your previous point about requiring obscure skills no one ever would take is a valid reason why a campaign is crap. I'd jump at the chance of playing dungeons that can handle higher optimization.

I must admit that I was really baffled when reading that post. I gm´ed that AP the first time while I was still working as a SAP freelancer, playing with other freelancers and total newbies to the hobby as a way to pass the time we were stuck in hotels while working for our client.

After reading the whole six books of the series, it was absolutely no biggie to advice them what classes would work, what artifact weapons would show up, what skills would be useful on their characters and what would be useful in developing or shunting over on the resident NPC.

They took up the advice and it was pretty smooth sailing with a switch-hitter Samurai, Yokai-Hunter Ranger, Witch and Druid.

Same experience with other APs: Playing with people listening to hints was fine, playing with PF veterans unwilling often was ... manure?

[Calthropstu]

So they prepared poorly, rolled poorly, yet managed to make a safe retreat? And then the decision was made to call the campaign?
Or they just metaphorically flipped the table mid-fight?

Because running away from a fight and coming back better prepared SHOULD be happening occasionally. Or just running away and finding a way to bypass that encounter. If the monsters are as fast as the party, you cast Slow on the Dwarf so his best option is to pick a doorway to die in while everyone else runs (doesn't work in the teleport era, but it works earlier), and then mount a mission to recover his corpse.

Is the problem that they've had it easy-mode until the last few sessions? (The Confusion fight, and now this).

Some of my most memorable player sessions were when we got our ass handed to us, the remnants beat a retreat, and then we came back for revenge (and corpse recovery).

No, the problem has been a massive number of fights like this. They also hate the fact that most of the enemies have tactics of "run away" as soon as things turn south. Invisibility, fly and telepirtation has led them to huge amounts of frustration.

On top of the confusion battle and this one there was:
A battle with a fire yai with a tetsubo of the titans which broke their stuff.
A ninja who kept harrassing them and killed some of the npcs forcing raise deads.
A grueling dungeon crawl that didn't move the plot along at all which killed party members more than once.
A 30+ round combat against a flying woman in a wind storm tower.
I have killed pcs and npcs just about every other session. I had to just flat out give my pcs about 100k gold to bring them back to par for wealth by level. To be fair, they are pretty stupid with loot, holding onto things they should flat out sell, overequipping their cohorts etc.
They took the tetsubo of the titans and placed it into their stronghold. 35k of resources just sitting doing nothing. And they claim "it's not ours, it's the rebellion's."
*sigh* Yeah, they are pretty hardcore veterans, as I am myself. All of them gm, and rules arguments are common. "I strongly advise someone pick katana as a weapon" went ignored.

[Reversefigure4]

If you're killing a PC every second session, you desperately need to either crank down your tactics and monstrous ability use as a GM, or change campaign styles to something that will accommodate that. The strength of Adventure Paths in in their story, which rely on not continuously changing out the party. A classic dungeon-crawl with groups of disposable PCs seems to fit better with what your group style plays out as.

If it must be an adventure path, I'd suggest Wrath of the Righteous, which receives the common complaint that it's stacked hopelessly in favour of the PCs, with them effortlessly slaughtering their enemies. That, combined with your method of play, might even out in the middle.

[RoboEmperor]

If you're killing a PC every second session, you desperately need to either crank down your tactics and monstrous ability use as a GM, or change campaign styles to something that will accommodate that. The strength of Adventure Paths in in their story, which rely on not continuously changing out the party. A classic dungeon-crawl with groups of disposable PCs seems to fit better with what your group style plays out as.

If it must be an adventure path, I'd suggest Wrath of the Righteous, which receives the common complaint that it's stacked hopelessly in favour of the PCs, with them effortlessly slaughtering their enemies. That, combined with your method of play, might even out in the middle.

I disagree with everyone who says don't use the monster's abilities to their absolute limit. If PCs die every session then the PCs either need to step it up or ditch the campaign because it's too hard for them.

Holding the monsters back until they die is cheating. If a Balor took a nap for a round in the middle of combat once every 5 rounds because the PCs are too weak, and as a result dies, would you say the PCs beat a Balor? Or would you say the DM just fudged it because... whatever?

[Elkad]

I disagree with everyone who says don't use the monster's abilities to their absolute limit. If PCs die every session then the PCs either need to step it up or ditch the campaign because it's too hard for them.

I don't like dumbing down monsters either, but stepping up the exp until the party is a level or two ahead of the recommended generally works fine. Even if I have to do it by pounding them with random encounters.
Handing out Revivify/Heal charges like candy works too.

[Calthropstu]

I don't like dumbing down monsters either, but stepping up the exp until the party is a level or two ahead of the recommended generally works fine. Even if I have to do it by pounding them with random encounters.
Handing out Revivify/Heal charges like candy works too.

I practically DID give them heal candy. That oracle was a dmpc used to fill out the table. She was literally a walking heal stick. Boots of the earth + fast heal + life oracle damage link ability meant the party healed completely between each fight. Add her huge charisma and healing abilities to the max, and she was literally applying healing like crazy.
She could literally heal almost any status effect and could remove hp damage in an instant with 6 heals per day.
And yet pcs and cohorts and npcs still died. The confusion battle put the cohort barb to neg 120, the pc barb suicided. Few sessions previous there was a paralyze+ coup de grace, another session required a last second breath of life, another saw the pcs fireballed nearly to death. One time the wizard got swallowed by a rhemoraz. Another time greater shadows nearly killed everyone... can't heal neg levels after all. If lack of healing were the issue, sure I'd pop a "and you find a rod of heal that the oracle can use."
But you can't heal instagib.

[Bucky]

Powerful DMPC healbots tend to lead to instagib fights because there's very little separating a cakewalk from an instagib.

Nerf the Oracle.

[Elkad]

I'm wondering if your party is slacking on mutual status clears.

When someone gets paralyzed, how many people can save him from the CdG? Cure, Invisibility (which makes CdG take 2 rounds anyway), Benign Transposition, granting him a reroll on the save, throwing a Resilient Sphere around him, etc? At 11th level, most of the party should probably have something useful to do, even if it's just bull-rushing the guy attempting to deliver the CdG deliverer away from the helpless character. And it's an excellent primary job for a UMD familiar.
Obviously it won't always work, depending on initiative and battlefield placement, but they should have a shot at it.

What IS the plan when someone gets Dominated? Surely they've discussed it. Do at least 2 people have enough Sense Motive to even tell it's happened before the dying starts?

[Calthropstu]

I'm wondering if your party is slacking on mutual status clears.

When someone gets paralyzed, how many people can save him from the CdG? Cure, Invisibility (which makes CdG take 2 rounds anyway), Benign Transposition, granting him a reroll on the save, throwing a Resilient Sphere around him, etc? At 11th level, most of the party should probably have something useful to do, even if it's just bull-rushing the guy attempting to deliver the CdG deliverer away from the helpless character. And it's an excellent primary job for a UMD familiar.
Obviously it won't always work, depending on initiative and battlefield placement, but they should have a shot at it.

What IS the plan when someone gets Dominated? Surely they've discussed it. Do at least 2 people have enough Sense Motive to even tell it's happened before the dying starts?

The answer to those questions is "nope." Yes, they have invis, heal etc. The cdg was a while ago, to be fair, but they didn't try anything other than straight damage. They did leave it at 2 hp, so almost stopped it. But it did 21 points of damage making the dc difficult.

As for dominate/charm/confusion their plan is "let the oracle fix it." She is wearing a cassissian angel. Anyone within 10 feet of her is protected from domination effects. She also has dispel magic and dispel evil.

[Florian]

@Stu:

Something doesn't match up here. You played that AP with veteran gamers with a base of 4 NPC companions, a good 4 more along the route plus a custom-build healbot.
As this is one of the older ones that is still geared towards PB15 and pretty regular builds, along with fairly conservative CR-based encounters, the kind of slaughterfest you describe doesn't match my experience, nor any gm I talked about it. Could it be that you went full combat as war mode and, for example, misunderstood that enemies disengaging should count as a defeat and such?

[Calthropstu]

@Stu:

Something doesn't match up here. You played that AP with veteran gamers with a base of 4 NPC companions, a good 4 more along the route plus a custom-build healbot.
As this is one of the older ones that is still geared towards PB15 and pretty regular builds, along with fairly conservative CR-based encounters, the kind of slaughterfest you describe doesn't match my experience, nor any gm I talked about it. Could it be that you went full combat as war mode and, for example, misunderstood that enemies disengaging should count as a defeat and such?

No, they got full xp. They were at level the entire way through.

[Elkad]

The answer to those questions is "nope." Yes, they have invis, heal etc. The cdg was a while ago, to be fair, but they didn't try anything other than straight damage. They did leave it at 2 hp, so almost stopped it. But it did 21 points of damage making the dc difficult.

As for dominate/charm/confusion their plan is "let the oracle fix it." She is wearing a cassissian angel. Anyone within 10 feet of her is protected from domination effects. She also has dispel magic and dispel evil.


Sounds like "we play pure offense and trust the DM (including the DMPC) to not let us die" and it isn't working.

I'm not sure how the Cassisian protects from possession within 10' anyway, but I'm only rudely familiar with PF.

An Imp (or Lyrakein, Pseudodragon, raven, etc) with a wand of invis would have stopped the CdG, assuming the Imp got a turn before it happened. Even Aid from the Cassisian (if they had it then) is good for 15 temp hp, which should be 15 off the CdG DC, since you didn't actually take the damage. (that's a rules interpretation, but I think a pretty decent one).

What if the Oracle is the one that got Confused? Or just turned out to be a plant and started healing the enemy?

I'm paranoid I guess. I have a plan to kill everyone. Especially my own party members, which is usually easier because I already know all their weaknesses.

[Faily]

Having 4 NPCs around to handhold the PCs sounds a little bit too much for me. From my point of view, they're not learning to deal with problems because they're expecting the NPCs to solve the problems.

I suggest putting on the training wheels for this group. No more big campaign or APs, just running gauntlets to learn them tactics.

Learn to use Protection from Evil/Magic Circle against Evil. Dispel Magic. Break Enchantment. Resist Energy. Battlefield Control. If there's a lack of casters, then it's about learning which you need to have as items or potions to protect yourself. Remove Paralysis potions are never bad to have, same with Remove Blindness/Deafness.

[Reversefigure4]

I disagree with everyone who says don't use the monster's abilities to their absolute limit. If PCs die every session then the PCs either need to step it up or ditch the campaign because it's too hard for them.

Holding the monsters back until they die is cheating. If a Balor took a nap for a round in the middle of combat once every 5 rounds because the PCs are too weak, and as a result dies, would you say the PCs beat a Balor? Or would you say the DM just fudged it because... whatever?

It's not so much about deliberately having monsters choose not to use their abilities, as coming up with monsters that provide interesting, but not necessarily lethal, challenges to the party. A party that has no mobility abilities can fight Omax Demons, who are just Omox Demons with their Dimension Door at will stripped out. Or Omorks Demons, who have an Int of 3 and spend every 3rd round shouting "Poo!" at the party.

CR is a system that flexes wildly on party composition, and GMs need to flex with it if they want a 'fair' challenge. An All-Cleric party will absolutely wreck undead enemies, even ones above their CR. An all-wizard party can be crushed by low CR golems.

Something is very wrong with the OPs group, though. If you really have a group with 4 player characters, 4 levelled NPCs, AND a DMPC, and XP isn't been divided up amongst them all so you're at the right levels, you should absolutely steamroll every encounter you come across in Jade Regent. Hell, the levelled NPCs themselves, run well by the DM, along with a DMPC, should be fine on their own before PCs even enter the equation!

[Calthropstu]

It's not so much about deliberately having monsters choose not to use their abilities, as coming up with monsters that provide interesting, but not necessarily lethal, challenges to the party. A party that has no mobility abilities can fight Omax Demons, who are just Omox Demons with their Dimension Door at will stripped out. Or Omorks Demons, who have an Int of 3 and spend every 3rd round shouting "Poo!" at the party.

CR is a system that flexes wildly on party composition, and GMs need to flex with it if they want a 'fair' challenge. An All-Cleric party will absolutely wreck undead enemies, even ones above their CR. An all-wizard party can be crushed by low CR golems.

Something is very wrong with the OPs group, though. If you really have a group with 4 player characters, 4 levelled NPCs, AND a DMPC, and XP isn't been divided up amongst them all so you're at the right levels, you should absolutely steamroll every encounter you come across in Jade Regent. Hell, the levelled NPCs themselves, run well by the DM, along with a DMPC, should be fine on their own before PCs even enter the equation!

The leveled npcs that the module gives you are flat garbage. Except for koya, the optimization level is pure crap. And koya only because she's straight cleric which are customizable through spells.

And it's 3pcs not 4. Hence the dmpc to round out the party.

[Reversefigure4]

The leveled npcs that the module gives you are flat garbage. Except for koya, the optimization level is pure crap. And koya only because she's straight cleric which are customizable through spells.

And it's 3pcs not 4. Hence the dmpc to round out the party.

Presuming that they stay a level below the party (as the module suggests if you plan to use them in combat), the NPC optimisation levels are only a little below what a standard PC party is expected to be.

Look to the Pathfinder Iconics as a guide to what the PCs are meant to look like (Jade Regent doesn't have these published in it after some format changes). Look at Valeros, a Two Weapon Fighter with a Longsword and Shortsword who has invested his feats in Greater Weapon Focus Longsword and Two Weapon Defence. Ameiko, Shalelu, Sandru and Koya are a little below that level of optimisation, with some NPC class levels (as they should be to not overshadow the PCs).

This is the optimisation level that the Adventure Paths are written for.

[Calthropstu]

Presuming that they stay a level below the party (as the module suggests if you plan to use them in combat), the NPC optimisation levels are only a little below what a standard PC party is expected to be.

Look to the Pathfinder Iconics as a guide to what the PCs are meant to look like (Jade Regent doesn't have these published in it after some format changes). Look at Valeros, a Two Weapon Fighter with a Longsword and Shortsword who has invested his feats in Greater Weapon Focus Longsword and Two Weapon Defence. Ameiko, Shalelu, Sandru and Koya are a little below that level of optimisation, with some NPC class levels (as they should be to not overshadow the PCs).

This is the optimisation level that the Adventure Paths are written for.

Yeah... those guys would be about as effective as throwing marshmallows at them.
Let's take a look.

Valeros has a good number of attacks but crap for penetrating dr. His 7th lvl stats, boosted to lvl 11 picking what makes sense would have him doing about... 3 damage per round. Give 10 fast healing and valeros gets creamed. So the omox demons simply ignore him, simply dimension dooring away so he never gets a full attack... which would do a whopping average of 15!
Oh and valeros' reflex is garbage. So welcome to entangle city.

Let's look at the iconic druid. Whoo, he can elemental shift. Ok, he can transform into a large air elemental and do... nothing. With more than 50% sr chance, he's pretty much sending his animal companion (which has no swim speed so moves a whopping 15 feet per round) to be a minor inconvenience... who can barely penetrate dr.

The iconic rogue? Can't penetrate dr without sneak attack. And with the omox demons immense maneuverability flanking is nearly impossible.

Oh, maybe the iconic barbarian. Lol, welcome to entangle city. No swim speed, crap reflex, easily avoided.

Oh, how about the iconic paladin? Actually, possibly. A ranged smite would actually wreck their day. Yay, an actual iconic threat.

The major spellcasters have crap spells. They take/have spell lists similar to my pcs. Koya had a list similar to the cleric of saranrae. Little change there. The wizard iconic had most of the spells the party wizard tried. There wasn't a sorcerer so that may or may not have been a factor.

I will say this though... a dedicated summoner would have wrecked that encounter. There are iconics who would have made a difference swapped out here. But not many.

[DarkSoul]

Three Omox and three hezrous in one encounter puts it about EL 16, so it's not surprising it trounced a 13th-level group.

[Calthropstu]

Three Omox and three hezrous in one encounter puts it about EL 16, so it's not surprising it trounced a 13th-level group.

I just ran the three omox. The hezrous didn't really have time to enter the fray... 5 rounds is 30 seconds, not really much time.
If the combat had gone much longer, I would have forced a retreat by the hezrous coming in (since the demons couldn't leave the well).
But they tableflipped so eh?
We're starting a new campaign now and I don't have to run. So yay I get to play.

[DarkSoul]

I just ran the three omox. The hezrous didn't really have time to enter the fray... 5 rounds is 30 seconds, not really much time.
If the combat had gone much longer, I would have forced a retreat by the hezrous coming in (since the demons couldn't leave the well).
But they tableflipped so eh?
We're starting a new campaign now and I don't have to run. So yay I get to play.Sounds like it's time for a break. I'm still holding out for someone running Wrath of the Righteous.