Are all Paizo games so lethal?

[Yamazaki]

55 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 known as 'Fudging the Dice' and it's a very decisive topic for many.

For many folks, like myself, fudging the dice is the equivalent of a cardinal sin. To these folks, it's effectively cheating (no matter in who's favor it is for) and deception, and should never be done no matter what. For players with this belief, fudging ruins the fun and invalidates the challenge (or makes things impossible, in the case of killer GMs), or even may be a form of railroading. Many GMs of this belief prefer to roll in the open as much as possible, and leave everything to the dice gods. And when the dice gods demand the heads of PCs, they're gonna get them, and that's just how it goes.

Others, it's just a thing that some GMs do for the sake of their vision of the story. Be it to avoid a TPK because the dice gods really want to take some skulls, or to prolong a fight or to finish it ahead of time, or whatever.

 

There's honestly no wrong answer to this concept, but it is important to recognize your group's tastes.

[Malkavian Grin]

11 minutes ago, Michael Silverbane said:

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'.

I'll give you "know what your players want." But I disagree that it's "cheating" to modify the game. All rules are guidelines and explained as such in many, many explanation sections about said rules. The GM is the ultimate arbiter of what does or doesn't go.

[Michael Silverbane]

11 minutes ago, Malkavian Grin said:

The GM is the ultimate arbiter of what does or doesn't go.

That is true so long as the GM maintains the consent of the players.

[Malkavian Grin]

13 minutes ago, Yamazaki said:

This is known as 'Fudging the Dice' and it's a very decisive topic for many.

For many folks, like myself, fudging the dice is the equivalent of a cardinal sin.

Sorry didn't see your response until i posted.

#1 i think you mean divisive.

#2 if it's that big of a deal, can i ask whether these GMs use a dice screen? Or if they roll everything in front of the players?

Personally i think if you can't trust your GM to run the game as they see fit, you're likely playing with the wrong people.

I think this side tangent is growing out of control tho and we've gone way off topic. My apologies to the OP.

[Yamazaki]

6 minutes ago, Malkavian Grin said:

Sorry didn't see your response until i posted.

#1 i think you mean divisive.

#2 if it's that big of a deal, can i ask whether these GMs use a dice screen? Or if they roll everything in front of the players?

Personally i think if you can't trust your GM to run the game as they see fit, you're likely playing with the wrong people.

I think this side tangent is growing out of control tho and we've gone way off topic. My apologies to the OP.

I figured as much, and that happens.

 

With how I feel about fudging, I don't do a dice screen, even when running in person. Partially because it blocks my view of table space, but also because I see no need to hide my dice rolls with the exception of the few intended to be hidden rolls. I see more value added to rolling in plain sight than not. To my knowledge, this is a common practice among those who are anti-fudging. I agree with you: if you cannot trust your GM, you shouldn't play with them. Which is why I have my specific viewpoint on fudging - I do consider it lies and cheating and unfaithful to the game and the players, and those are the kinds of folks I do not want to play with.

That said, I do not believe it's inherently badwrongfun in the grander scheme of things, just a matter of personal beliefs and principles. I'm not gonna trash anyone who does fudge their rolls, because that's their choice and if their group is cool with it, it's not my place to judge. It's something that we will not agree on, but can agree to disagree about and be cool with each other about our different viewpoints (because it's cool to be chill adults with different opinions, ya know? )

 

But yeah, this is a bit of a derailing and time to go back to the real topic.

---

 

I will say this: it's a known issue with many Paizo Adventure Paths to be rougher and tougher than they actually need to be. Many of the early PF2e APs can be brutal to an unsuspecting party. Many believe this is because some of those earlier APs were under development as PF2e was wrapping up its dev cycle, and kinda got messed up on the balance a bit. Thankfully, the fans have compiled a lot of advice and reworks to help these sorts of short comings.

[Saberfan]

Pathfinder isn't innately any more dangerous than any other iteration of d20, at least in my experience.

Some of the APs- Carrion Crown and Strange Aeons, for instance- are more geared towards advanced players and are much more likely to TPK a less-experienced party.

Bad rolls are the bane of both system veterans and newcomers alike and can lead to some very unfortunate TPKs, but that has been the case ever since the olden days of AD&D.

The 'traditional' 15 point buy of ability scores that most GMs use can contribute to making the game slightly harder because of the soft and unspoken minimum requirements a class needs to truly function. That's why I much prefer going for 25-30 point buys, depending on whether I choose to make a game normal or gestalt, because it allows for more freedom in building characters and allowing for those characters to more easily function.

Edited January 24 by Saberfan (see edit history)

[cailano]

Roll everything in front of the players, be transparent about stats, let the dice fall where they may. No fudging, not ever.

A GM's credibility is rooted in fairness but impartially swings both ways.

If the game ends in a TPK, so be it.

This is the way.

 

 

 

[iantruesilver]

@Mirilene, because tr;dr rest:

I've not played PF2, and still refuse to, so can't speak there. But I've played and GM'ed PF1 for quite a bit, and have had some limited experience GMing SF, so I'll focus on the PF1 side I guess.

 

Not sure where the GM is getting their material from, whether it's an AP or a module you were playing or if it was other material. Either way, there's several factors at work here.

 

First, is the fact that the earlier levels are very fragile. The player characters have anywhere between a d6 to a d12 for hit dice, which even if you play a barbarian and pump everything into constitution, (depending on your ability rolls / point buy), you're probably only going to max out at 16-18 ish for HP, with favored class bonus and maybe something from a feat or trait. That ain't a hell of a lot, in fact two hits from a greataxe or similar weapon will render you unconscious.

 

Second, your monetary resources are severely limited at this point, leading to a lack of good armour. Hypothetically if we use the same example of the barbarian who's maxxed out con, and say their dex is at 15, and they're wealthy enough to have hide armour, their AC is at about 16 at this point, which means that about 1/4's of every attack roll coming his way from a +0 attack bonus is still going to get through.

 

And that's what most would consider a min/max'ed scenario.

 

Third, access to healing is at best next to none at first level. With your party composition at the time, your bard may have had access to CLW? for what, a grand total of 1 + 1 casts per day? At best your party would have the ability to heal 18 HP total per day, barring access to potions, scrolls and other good things, which all cost gp. Not to mention that in-combat casting takes away from the action economy of chopping down your foes.

 

So that's PC and party side.

 

The other stuff is GM side, and since I have no info, I don't have much to go on.

 

I'll only say that, if it felt difficult, it probably was. And if it TPK'ed you, it probably was too difficult. Parties of well-designed and balanced PCs, played by experienced players, could sometimes rather easily trample encounters with a CR (challenge rating) that is 2 levels higher than is appropriate for the party's level. I run into this kind of thing often with the groups I GM for.

 

On the other hand, I've also had times where, given poor party balance, super-suboptimal character designs, and poor communication/teamwork between the players, things have gone pretty bad. Not TPK bad, but bad.

 

And here's where the GM needs to pay attention, really.

 

Rule 0 exists for a reason. If you're in an encounter that's "supposed to happen", ie. your brand new PCs didn't just walk up to the neighbourhood's most dangerous MObs and start poking the bear right at campaign start... Well, that encounter isn't supposed to drop your PCs like flies. So if that's starting to happen, if your players are starting to complain "oh shit that just took half my HP", or "well, I'm unconscious and bleeding to death...", those are cues for the GM to intervene. And like it or not, scaling back the encounter mid-fight, or introducing a third element as a deus ex machina mid-fight to save the PCs hides, can be done without it feeling too cheese. It all depends on what's available in the story's immediate surroundings at the time.

 

And, the other part about that is... PF1 is designed in a sense that, if your PC falls to 0HP or below, it doesn't necessarily mean you're dead right away. At 0 you're disabled, at negative you're unconscious and bleeding out, but you have the opportunity to roll to stabilize and not die. It's only when your negative HP amount becomes equal to your Con score that you actually die.

 

So, if say your entire party gets dropped to negative HP, and you all fall unconscious in one fell stroke (which, again as a CR 1 or 2 encounter should be highly unlikely), there's still an opportunity for that deus ex machina to save your hides, and you'll simply take time to recover before you wake up.

 

What I'm trying to say is, in my more than a decade of actively GMing and playing PF1, I've seen literally one PC that was actually killed, that was not by design (ie. the player and the GM had a talk, or the player had ghosted the table, etc.). One time, and once only did I ever see the GM gleefully walk up to the player, ask to see their character sheet, and rip the pages in half in front of all our faces.

 

That should hopefully answer your question.

[Mirilene]

Thanks a lot for all the answers! In the end I'm just not very used to games that deadly, but admittedly for the two games I'm running at the moment (The Dark Eye and Battle Century) I'm still figuring our lots of mechanics and combat difficulty ... in that regard Battle Century is probably noteworthy as it has a standard ability essentially everyone has which allows you to escape death with a 100% chance - you're just no longer able to participate in the battle that's currently going on, but otherwise are fine ... but I guess I'm going offtopic here myself, ahem.

Anyway, if I get another chance at PF/SF I'll definitely go for it, I guess! Thanks again everyone.

[Kistler]

That orc warpriest could've had Orc Ferocity too. Even on a crit that should pop them back up.

A benevolent GM would then attack them again (okay, it depends on the specifics of the battle). Because no matter the damage roll, they can only do 1 damage. Sure a crit takes the orc to dying 3, but think of how many hp you just saved the party! I did this once and instead of an orc with 1hp and the rogue unconscious, just the orc was unconscious and dying 2. There are lots of ways to tilt the odds away from the tpk without fudging the dice.

Anyway, I've seen only one or two times where someone was on the edge of 'one bad roll and they're dead'. Vampiric Touch spell, getting crit and unconscious right next to an enemy that then exploded on death. Dying 3, one roll from death's door! I've seen combats go poorly, but usually there are enough rolls the dice come around eventually. I've probably had my characters go down a dozen times over a dozen games, but only that one time did I get past dying 2.

The dying saves, battle medicine, lots of elixirs/potions, and the action economy give lots of opportunities to keep everyone in the fight in 2e.

I do like to roll out crits though to keep them from being quite so spikey and force the damage toward the average. It gets better the more dice you have to roll, but most DMs just do doubling because it's quicker.

[bwatford]

On 1/24/2024 at 2:08 PM, iantruesilver said:

Rule 0 exists for a reason. If you're in an encounter that's "supposed to happen", ie. your brand new PCs didn't just walk up to the neighbourhood's most dangerous MObs and start poking the bear right at campaign start... Well, that encounter isn't supposed to drop your PCs like flies. So if that's starting to happen, if your players are starting to complain "oh shit that just took half my HP", or "well, I'm unconscious and bleeding to death...", those are cues for the GM to intervene. And like it or not, scaling back the encounter mid-fight, or introducing a third element as a deus ex machina mid-fight to save the PCs hides, can be done without it feeling too cheese. It all depends on what's available in the story's immediate surroundings at the time.

I just don't understand this entire philosophy as a GM/DM. Scale back? Do you mean you are never supposed to let a character die? or the party struggle to overcome diversity? Then why play the game if there is never no risk because the GM is going to "fix it". That would be a sure-fire way to get me to leave your table if I knew you were doing it. I understand it is a different style of play, but if the encounter is balanced and it's just swingy dice or poor tactics on the players part then I might switch up the enemy tactics a bit, but I am not scaling an encounter back because things are not going in the PC's favor.

As a GM/DM you are there to make sure everything shakes out fair and square and you may do little things to assist, but you are not there to let them win at every scenario. Just my two cents....

[Malkavian Grin]

I see there is a growing divide between whether fudging rolls is okay or not.

I just want to say, yes I sometimes fudge what is happening behind the scenes, but it's all gauged on player engagement. If it's been three weeks of combat (6 rounds or something) because something's only got a few HP left but it also has DR so they have to chip at it over and over and over... well, I'll just say that someone's shot was just cool enough that it killed the thing outright instead of drawing out the monotony. I'm doing it mostly in the name of pacing.

Secondly, yes I sometimes fudge damage rolls against PCs because I am afraid to kill player characters. I'm the type that likes to draw a player into the story by bringing some of their background elements into the ongoing game. Gives them a feeling of being connected. But what happens when that person dies? Those connections can serve for a powerful scene (if that info ever makes it back to said people) but then the new character can't join in on whatever secret "in" jokes and behaviors the party had. I dunno, it just feels like wasted potential. No, I'm not trying to let them win, but I don't know how to just let people die due to random chance. I have trouble letting go, I guess.

[iantruesilver]

@bwatford: I expounded on this point for a reason. A reasonably balanced campaign isn't supposed to be full of TPK encounters, especially right at the beginning levels. If the players are TPK'ed right from the get go, then the encounter isn't balanced for them at their power level, is it?

[bwatford]

13 minutes ago, iantruesilver said:

@bwatford: I expounded on this point for a reason. A reasonably balanced campaign isn't supposed to be full of TPK encounters, especially right at the beginning levels. If the players are TPK'ed right from the get go, then the encounter isn't balanced for them at their power level, is it?

Agreed, if they are being slaughtered, first steps, at level 1 then something is wrong. Although I have heard of a few 1st level groups TPK (or get close) in Lost Mines of Phandelver running into Cragmaw Hideout to quickly and getting overwhelmed by the goblins there.

[iantruesilver]

2 minutes ago, bwatford said:

Agreed, if they are being slaughtered, first steps, at level 1 then something is wrong. Although I have heard of a few 1st level groups TPK (or get close) in Lost Mines of Phandelver running into Cragmaw Hideout to quickly and getting overwhelmed by the goblins there.

Well I have certain tolerance for PCs making dubious decisions, heaven knows I do it enough myself. But if it's a chronic thing, then of course I'm gonna let them eat their own mistakes.