Are all Paizo games so lethal?

[Mirilene]

Hello!

Naturally I know that I'm probably biased, but let me tell you my experiences:

- Pathfinder 1: (Kitsune Ninja, Automaton Bard, Human Monk, High Elf Fighter) Played it once, but our group were TPK'd in our first fight by two monsters, DM said "It shouldn't have worked out like this", but after that almost everyone lost motivation and the group dissolved.

- Pathfinder 2: Played two games.
-- (Sprite Rogue, Orc War Priest, some Tree Kineticist, a Human Mage, Half-Elf Champion) In this one we managed at least to get to level 2 before an Owlbear with some good rolls wiped us and the group dissolved after that.
-- (Human Gunslinger, Half-Elf Samurai (?) and two Goblin rogues) In the other game our first fight against some thugs had half of the party was killed and the others were taken as prisoners, which subsequently ended the game.

- Starfinder: (Vesk Guardsman, Shirren Solarion, Ysoki Embassy, Human Sniper, Human Mystic) We got to level 3, but every fight was a slog. Even primitive barbarians with slings and sticks had better attack roll modifiers than our trained fighters (i.e. Sniper, Guard, Solarion), and usually our Mystic specialized on Healing dealt the most damage with her spells ... then we fought some weird, three-headed boss-monster which killed our Vesk, Ysoki and Shirren, the DM apologized and offered to retcon the scene but after that nobody wanted to play anymore.
 

Each of these games had a different DM, and I'm just wondering at this point: Is that standard for Paizo games, or was I just unlucky? The games I usually play (L5R, The Dark Eye, Battle Century) are by far less lethal.

[zeone3000]

At least in the PF2, sending a level 4 encounter at a bunch of level twos is mean.

[cailano]

I ran a PF1 campaign for five years here on the Weave and while we had some close calls I don't think we ever lost a PC. We very nearly had a TPK around fifth or sixth level though. Some of those boss fights are dangerous.

 

But the threat of defeat is a sign of a good game. I've had groups get TPK'd in OSR games before but usually modern systems offer the PCs a bit more cushion.

It's a bummer your group loses interest when things don't go their way.

[Inash]

I've only TPK'd in one Pathfinder 1e game in my time on the Weave. It was a PFS scenario with a robot as the first encounter. I'm not sure offhand how many games I've played, but enough that I would say that TPKs aren't the norm.

In PF2, I've really only played 1 game in combat so far and it was a very near thing. It wasn't a TPK only because the uncontrolled animal companion chose to attack the Ogre that knocked the druid out (i.e. the GM took pity on us). We did lose one player at that point because it was supposed to be an introductory scenario and they couldn't get past going down that quickly.

[Malkavian Grin]

It sounds like inexperienced/misguided GMing if you want my opinion.

I've played a ton of PF1 and never had a single person even die in any game i played. Someone is definitely doing something wrong for you to be TPKing so much.

Never played PF2 so i can't comment there.

[leons1701]

PF1 generally isn't too bad IF the GM has picked appropriate encounters and the players have built a decent party. Neither of those is completely straightforward though, so PF1 absolutely CAN be brutal. Or a complete cakewalk, it all depends.

Very little experience with Starfinder, would expect it to play similarly to PF1.

 

PF2. I don't know enough about the fight with the thugs to comment on that one, but the owlbear was technically a moderate difficulty encounter, but verging on severe simply because the entire budget was one "boss" creature. Especially at low levels, this is risky, a few good/bad rolls can swing the fight easily. Also, while it looks like you had a reasonably solid team, in PF2 how the team is played is generally a lot more important than how it's built.

[Mirilene]

Hmm. The SF DM actually was a newcomer, but the PF1 and PF2 gms told us they were experienced DM vets ...

I have the PF2 one pretty fresh in mind and it already started bad: Everyone had high init barring our tankiest character (the champion, that was me), so the War Priest with his medium armor rushed in and whacked the Owlbear, but then got critted and immediately was dead. After that every planning fell apart and nobody wanted to use any tactics anymore, so everyone moved in (and out of my range for Liberating Step) and ... eh. Admittedly that group always had bad tactics (Moving behind the champion with her good AC or at least next to her? Naah...) ... but to be honest, nobody of us saw that Owlbear boss (?) onehitting our War Priest from ~27 HP to <0 before the encounter, not even the DM ...

Admittedly, that group before played 5E with a DM who was completely unable to balance any encounter and so even fights against black dragons and a lich were 2-round-cakewalks, so I guess people still were feeling invincible... still sad.

[Yamazaki]

Yeah, PF2e's balance works very well if you follow the instructions of building encounters. But you gotta follow the instructions.  This isn't like 5e where CR is more of a vague guess, either - the math is super tight. And when it says it's going to be severe, it's not joking around.

So yeah, if your GM threw something beyond your weigh class, it's gonna be a rough time.

[leons1701]

Dead or down and dying? Instantly dead probably means someone screwed up the rules since it should take 54 damage in a single hit to outright kill a 27 hp character which an owlbear shouldn't be doing even on a crit. Down and dying is quite likely though, especially with multiple attacks. Which, yeah, that blows. But given the ease of healing out of combat in PF2, it's not that unusual for characters to go down in even a moderate encounter, especially in the first few levels.

[Basil_Bottletop]

The original question was asking if Paizo's games are deadly. I'm not sure I read anywhere that any of these games were based on a Paizo AP though. There are a few of the APs that come to mind that are 'harder' than others and most of them have been out long enough to have internet-built fixes to them. As for Pathfinder/Starfinder as a general rule, I think the rest of the replies here hit the mark.

Between GM error and maybe Player mismanagement, I could see games where death are routine more often than not.

[Phntm888]

2 hours ago, Mirilene said:

Hmm. The SF DM actually was a newcomer, but the PF1 and PF2 gms told us they were experienced DM vets ...

I have the PF2 one pretty fresh in mind and it already started bad: Everyone had high init barring our tankiest character (the champion, that was me), so the War Priest with his medium armor rushed in and whacked the Owlbear, but then got critted and immediately was dead. After that every planning fell apart and nobody wanted to use any tactics anymore, so everyone moved in (and out of my range for Liberating Step) and ... eh. Admittedly that group always had bad tactics (Moving behind the champion with her good AC or at least next to her? Naah...) ... but to be honest, nobody of us saw that Owlbear boss (?) onehitting our War Priest from ~27 HP to <0 before the encounter, not even the DM ...

Admittedly, that group before played 5E with a DM who was completely unable to balance any encounter and so even fights against black dragons and a lich were 2-round-cakewalks, so I guess people still were feeling invincible... still sad.

So, for this encounter, it sounds like someone mis-read the rules (whether GM or War Priest player, IDK), because the War Priest should not have been dead. PF2 doesn't have negative hit points - when your HP reaches 0, you fall unconscious and gain the Dying condition, at Dying 1 for a regular hit or Dying 2 for a crit. Dying 2 gives the War Priest a chance to make a flat check to stabilize or for you, as the Champion, to hit them with Lay on Hands so they can heal themselves further with their Divine Font and get back in the fray. Plus, if one of the characters had Battle Medicine, they could have used that on War Priest to get them back on their feet. PF2 actually offers a lot of ways of avoiding death and healing. If nothing else, the War Priest could have spent their Hero Point(s) to avoid dying. It's very easy to get knocked down in PF2 - much harder to actually die. There may also have been some bad tactics there - if the Initiative order went War Priest, Owlbear, rest of the party, the War Priest should have perhaps delayed, cast a spell, or readied an attack for when the Owlbear got closer. That way they weren't the only target within range of the Owlbear.

I've played a decent amount of PF2, and I have yet to see a character death as either a player or a GM. I've seen it come close a few times, but they've never actually died. I'm not sure what happened with that other PF2 group, apart from maybe that everyone attacked a different thug and got beat that way. That's especially bad tactics for the Rogues - flanking is the most reliable way to generate sneak attack, so they should always be attacking the same target as someone else.

For PF1, I haven't seen a ton of character deaths, either, but I've seen some occur. Usually from a VERY high damage crit or unfortunately-timed nat 1 on a saving throw. Once you get out of low-levels, though, character deaths happen much more infrequently.

[Llyarden]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned here yet is tactics on the GM's side. Even given two identical encounters for two identical player parties using the same tactics, a GM's choices for the enemy actions can easily make the difference between PCs going down (or dying) or not - and I'm not meaning, like, Tucker's kobolds level of tactics. Simple things on the part of the DM like distributing attacks between the party instead of focusing on a single character can go a long way to keeping the PCs alive - or can go a long way to taking players down! It depends on the party composition and the GM's understanding of the PCs.

To answer the original question though, low-level PF1 can definitely have situations where PCs can get taken down in a couple of attacks (spellcasters who don't have enough spell slots for their defensive buffs are particularly prone to this) but routine TPKs aren't a thing in my experience.

Edited January 22 by Llyarden (see edit history)

[Roughtrade]

Played a lot of PF1, it’s no more deadly than any other D20 system.
Bad rolls can flatline any group, as can bad luck in planning your approach to an encounter.

 

[Malkavian Grin]

I think some GMs need to hear that it's okay to flub the rules and rolls if it makes the game better. Rolling a crit and realizing "this might lead to a tpk" is the moment you weigh the fun of the game against the consistency of rules. If it's the first combat, just ignore it and keep the fun going.

Really it just seems like you had GMs that can't think on their feet or must absolutely go by rules as written because otherwise you have chaos or some such nonsense.

[Michael Silverbane]

7 minutes ago, Malkavian Grin said:

I think some GMs need to hear that it's okay to flub the rules and rolls if it makes the game better. Rolling a crit and realizing "this might lead to a tpk" is the moment you weigh the fun of the game against the consistency of rules. If it's the first combat, just ignore it and keep the fun going.

This is not necessarily accurate. For some people and in some games, "Losing is FUN!" Know your players before you go 'cheating' to 'make the game better'.