Players too weak for AP (Pathfinder)

[Gnaeus]

I’m running a group through Iron Gods. We just finished book 1 with a couple near TPKs, then lost a player. Honestly I think the last parts of book 1 might have been too hard but for lucky crits on the first round against the boss and mini boss.

Current party is Barbarian, Inquisitor, Alchemist, Sorcerer. The sorcerer is highly blasting focused, and is in fact an electricity specialist, highly effective against robots. The alchemist is trapfinding. We just lost the Paladin. Essentially, it’s one new player, 2 casual players and my daughter. I’d rather not just add an NPC. I have enough difficulty fighting my way through the online interface without running a PC also. All first party sources available.

This is pretty much the opposite problem to what my (typical, higher optimization) group normally has with APs where we max every bad guy hp and then boost them so we don’t roll encounters too fast.

Considering just adding an extra level maybe? My first thought was giving them free VMC but that may just make the characters more complicated with little power boost, and make the casual players spend more time making decisions with minor impact. Maybe just give everyone toughness?

[Seerow]

It really depends on in what ways they are feeling too weak for the AP.

Giving extra experience awards until they're a level or so above what the AP expects is definitely one way to handle it. Or adding extra treasure (though if it's a new group you probably want to custom tailor any bonus rewards, I've noticed newer players are generally really bad at spending money efficiently. I had players gain a 25k gp windfall each at like level 7.... one of them spent it all on a ring of prot +3)

I'd only look at things like free VMC/Bonus Feats if the issue is more that they're lacking versatility or unable to cover basic party roles. If the issue is that they are failing to hit numerical benchmarks required to survive/thrive, VMC is unlikely to assist with that much, and just gives another point where an inexperienced player can make a poor decision. You're going to want a solution with guard rails.

[Xei_Win_Toh]

Is the problem that the players' builds aren't optimized, or that they're not playing as smart/tactically as you're used to from your other group? That'll probably impact what the solution should be.

If they just need bigger numbers, you could put them a level ahead of where the adventure expects them to be (put in an extra milestone before the next one if you're using milestone exp, or switch them to the fast exp track if you're tracking exp?), or give them more numeric bonus items sooner. Or more healing consumables, so they're at least always topped off between fights? Or give them more opportunity to rest and recover daily abilities if they have a tendency to use them inefficienctly.

You could also nerf the enemies. Remove a class level or two from humanoids, young dragon instead of adult, put 4 orcs where the adventure calls for 6, etc.

Or maybe you're just used to running the enemies tactically for the more optimized group? If they take inefficient actions sometimes, or provoke more AoOs than they normally would, that could help make them less challenging.

You could also use something like Hero Points (https://www.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Hero%20Points&Category=Optional%20Rule%20Systems) to give them the ability to save themselves without needing to change monsters or give them extra exp or wealth.

[Gnaeus]

Is the problem that the players' builds aren't optimized, or that they're not playing as smart/tactically as you're used to from your other group? That'll probably impact what the solution should be.

It’s a combination of build and over enthusiasm, pushing for one extra encounter. The sorcerer is pretty good at single target damage, but mostly using ranged touch attacks which still have a decent miss chance. The Barbarian is decent if uninspired build. The inquisitor and alchemist are ok at making skill rolls, but not great fighters. As long as my daughter’s sorc is on point they’re pretty solid. But if she runs out of spells or starts missing things drop quickly. IG is a pretty tough AP, and I’m slightly sad I chose it but for the fact that I already had all the maps prepped.

[exelsisxax]

Have them do pushups and laps every time they do badly. This will solve two weak player problems at the same time!

[Kurald Galain]

Since accuracy appears to be an issue, either bring along an NPC bard, or silently drop the enemy AC and touch AC by a couple points, or give the group wands or scrolls of e.g. Bless or Prayer or Haste.

[Faily]

It’s a combination of build and over enthusiasm, pushing for one extra encounter. The sorcerer is pretty good at single target damage, but mostly using ranged touch attacks which still have a decent miss chance. The Barbarian is decent if uninspired build. The inquisitor and alchemist are ok at making skill rolls, but not great fighters. As long as my daughter’s sorc is on point they’re pretty solid. But if she runs out of spells or starts missing things drop quickly. IG is a pretty tough AP, and I’m slightly sad I chose it but for the fact that I already had all the maps prepped.

Oof. Iron Gods is not a walk in the park, and it seems like your group is lacking in frontliners and heals (this will be a problem further ahead due to radiation damage, though the Alchemist might be able to take care of it). I don't think the number of PCs is the problem though, so I'd not want to recommend adding a friendly NPC (since you seem to have enough to deal with).

I'd consider keeping them about a level ahead of what they're supposed to be at first. And then consider scaling down some encounters.

Another thing that I would suggest is to make the tech-loot that the PCs find much more useful and improved than it actually is. In fact, I remember my gripe about Iron Gods throughout the entire AP (until we died*) was that tech-items was pretty much useless most of the time, because it either couldn't do enough damage, or it would run out too quickly, or simply just being worse than any magic item. Oh and being impossible to sell for money to buy better stuff. Maybe there are some suggestions on the Paizo-boards specifically for this AP, as they have suborums for their APs?



*= not to brag but our group has played through several of the published APs is a group of 4 pretty solid players with good system mastery and experience, and a pretty experienced GM who knows his players well. And of the Paizo ones, Iron Gods was the only one we failed at getting through. We had two TPKs, with the second one being one we couldn't get out of/recover from anyway (the first TPK, our Cleric's player was absent that session so his character wasn't with us, and the GM allowed the Cleric to recruit some adventurers to help save his friends).
Iron Gods is pretty tough with some really hard encounters, and the funds for improving are a bit lackluster because a lot of the loot is tech-stuff that is usually not very great.

[BobertTheThird]

I agree with most of the other responses, removing strategy from your NPCs helps a lot. Don't use some of the powerful abilities in your NPC's arsenal or use them sparingly, for example, conveniently forget about power attack. Attack the player with the annoyingly high AC and HP instead of the player doing all the damage, scale down the NPC's equipment and level if necessary, leave lots of treasure troves of healing potions around, or a wand of cure light/cure moderate if anyone in the party has UMD or the ability to cast them. If the player you were attacking starts getting low on HP, have the NPC lose interest and attack the annoying DPS (assuming they aren't of the squishy variety) I nearly wiped a level 3 party with a single level 3 Druid with absolutely zero support, just cast entangle, followed by flame sphere, and then pestered them with fire bolts while the flame sphere was ravishing them and they were still getting out of the entangle, it's a fairly simple strategy and they shouldn't have suffered as much as they did. When I saw they were suffering I didn't do what I should've done: had the druid withdraw while continuing to pester them, instead the druid stayed at the edge of the entangle allowing the party to kill her. I also recommend giving them gear in loot that helps them specifically instead of say throwing a +2 hammer at a party where no one can/will use hammers, and that is probably better than gold in your party's case since they are new and didn't optimize well (ie optimize for them), and possibly bumping them up a level. Find that balance where it is challenging enough for the party to be fun, but not so challenging that they're at constant risk of party wipe. Hopefully you don't end up in my situation where the majority of the party are masochists and encounters designed to discourage them from going a certain direction without killing them just serve to encourage them to continue to go that way, while 1 party member will rage quit because they activated a trap that summoned 2 of the boss they just had difficulty killing (an APL+2 encounter since the previous one was at APL, after said player rage quit, I just had that player's character continue singing inspire courage while the rest of the party was able to get through both that encounter, and an APL+3 encounter after that, which was the one that was supposed to encourage them to turn around XD)

[Arutema]

My experience with the first volume of Iron Gods is that it can be brutal to a lot of builds due to excessive hardness and DR values on enemies. Consider capping enemy hardness/DR at 5, regardless of what is printed.

[Biggus]

What's VMC?

[Kitsuneymg]

A couple things.
1) hardness 10 is rough
2) only objects get 1/2 damage. It’s a property of objects, not having hardness. So robots “only” get universal damage reduction.

Book 1 was brutal even when using 3pp. Book 5 was the next brutal. Can’t talk much about book 6, because it was entirely home brewed.

As a suggestion, give the tech proficiency feat for free or allow easier sale of loot to get standard magic loot. The tech loot being basically unusualness without a feat is awful. Either that, or prod your players to retrain into archetypes that can use tech. Impossible Bloodline sorcerer made surprisingly short work of many crowded encounters with things like suggestion etc.

[Gnaeus]

As a suggestion, give the tech proficiency feat for free or allow easier sale of loot to get standard magic loot. The tech loot being basically unusualness without a feat is awful. Either that, or prod your players to retrain into archetypes that can use tech. Impossible Bloodline sorcerer made surprisingly short work of many crowded encounters with things like suggestion etc.

Her bloodline converts elemental spells to electric, which is pretty brutal against robots. If she can hit them. I guess she will have more options at higher level, which may solve that. My daughter is the best optimizer in the group and my only concern about HER is that her blasting focus means she has few buffs or control options.

The free tech feat may be a good idea tho. Or I may give them a choice between that and a short list of trash feats for the players who don’t want to be techs.


What's VMC?

Variant multiclass. It gives limited class abilities at certain levels. Usually at a cost of one feat per ability (which isn’t usually worth it unless there’s a specific good combo you need, like a familiar) but for free it would be a straight power-up. But as mentioned upthread, I doubt they have the opti fu to really make it do anything

[gijoemike]

What's VMC?

Variant Multi-Class it is a set of rules that allow a primary class to obtain little features from other classes without having to take a full level. Every other feat gain is given up in place of a class feature. Each class has set of rules and abilities that are slowly gained. 3, 7, 11, 15, 17 grants a secondary class feature. It is considered a weaker version of multi classing but does allow for straight classes to break their mold and branch out.

[unseenmage]

When we ran through Iron Gods we had the Guns Everywhere optional rule active for tech items instead.

We also allowed the scrapping of Constructs with a price based on their CR.

CR *CR * 500 for a functional Construct.
÷2 to sell it.
÷2 again if it is destroyed.

The existence of the Memory of Function spell means that destroyed Constructs can be repaired.

If that spell or other means aren't available then base price * 0.01 will give you the cost of just the Construct's physical body. Again ÷2 to sell it and ÷2 more if it is destroyed.


The above are taken from the Building and Modifying Constructs section of the PRD and the sale price reduction for selling a broken item.

[Biggus]

Variant multiclass. It gives limited class abilities at certain levels. Usually at a cost of one feat per ability (which isn’t usually worth it unless there’s a specific good combo you need, like a familiar) but for free it would be a straight power-up. But as mentioned upthread, I doubt they have the opti fu to really make it do anything


Variant Multi-Class it is a set of rules that allow a primary class to obtain little features from other classes without having to take a full level. Every other feat gain is given up in place of a class feature. Each class has set of rules and abilities that are slowly gained. 3, 7, 11, 15, 17 grants a secondary class feature. It is considered a weaker version of multi classing but does allow for straight classes to break their mold and branch out.

Thanks guys!

[Arkain]

Sometimes, characters may also need a certain time until they begin to shine. My experience with the Inquisitor class is that early levels aren't too great, while levels 4-6 are each significant power boosts, particularly 5 and 6 for the martial aspect. In that sense, maybe the characters are in fact a bit on the weak side right now, but will pick up the pace later.

[Kurald Galain]

Sometimes, characters may also need a certain time until they begin to shine. My experience with the Inquisitor class is that early levels aren't too great, while levels 4-6 are each significant power boosts, particularly 5 and 6 for the martial aspect. In that sense, maybe the characters are in fact a bit on the weak side right now, but will pick up the pace later.

That's a good point. The inquisitor should be fine once he gets Bane, and the alchemist should be fine once he gets Shock Bomb. I'm frankly surprised that the Barbarian is somehow not good at dealing damage, how on earth do you even build that?

[NightbringerGGZ]

I'm frankly surprised that the Barbarian is somehow not good at dealing damage, how on earth do you even build that?

Challenge accepted =P

[Xervous]

Challenge accepted =P

TWF gnome barbarian seems like an okay start.

[SpacemonkeyDM]

Iron Gods, especially the first book is a rough row to hoe. I put it up there with the first book of the reign of winter as just a tough and unforgiving.

Pathfinder is a game where all choices are not equal, there are bad choices. I see this with new players and I try to look over their first few levels to guide them in the right direction. Making sure there not wasting feats, and planning on where the character will be down the road. The other issue is party build. You need to have all the bases cover. A melee meat shield that can absorb abuse, a blaster, a healer, and a skill monkey. Things like these are not the fun part of the game, the planning ahead. It would be more fun if I the party does not have to think of itself as a group and everyone just makes whatever kind of character they want. That might work, but it could add a lot of difficulties as the campaign develops.

Also understanding the rule and tactics will go a long way. That comes with a little seasoning of players. So the first book was hard, well they learned a lot. The next book will be easier.

[Gnaeus]

To be fair, the Barbarian isn’t bad by new player standards. It’s just uninspired by playground standards. It’s not aggressively badly built just unoptimized. It figured out to have a decent strength, rage, swing a 2h weapon.