Remedial PF combat question.

[CKorfmann]

Here's a scary thought, I'm the DM...   

So I'm trying to plan an encounter for our first game.  6 level 1 characters, "Hard" encounter is APL +2.  APL should be 2 because 6 members, right?  That means a "hard" encounter should be CR 4, right?  I chose an Owl Bear.  It says:

2 claws +8 (1d6+4 plus Grab), Bite +8 (1d6+4).  Does that mean the owlbear gets to attack 3 times (2 claws & 1 bite) each turn?  BAB is +5 and STR is 19, it seems to me Melee attack should be +9 anyway, instead of +8.  Can someone make sense of this for me?  How do I not kill off my party with this encounter?  I've planned a way to win the encounter by not fighting, but what happens if they don't figure it out and fight?  Am I throwing to much at them?

[kitep]

It gets 3 attacks when it does a "full attack action".  That means it does nothing but attack and maybe takes a 5' step.  If it moves more than 5', then it's doing a move action and an attack action (not a full attack action) and so would only get 1 attack.

The reason the attack is 1 less is because the owlbear is size Large and so gets a -1 penalty, so

to hit = 5 (Bab) + 5 (Str 21) - 1 (size) = +9
(my book reads str 21 and a +9 to attack)

Good luck!  DMing can be a lot of fun.

[CKorfmann]

Thanks both for the help and for not casting dispersions on me.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Don't use a CR 4!

The CR system is an art, not a science, to begin with.  And while that general rule might hold true for a party that's mid-level (maybe), it most certainly does not for a FIRST LEVEL PARTY!  You're using something several times their individual CR!


If you have a larger group, you should use more monsters.  Not more powerful monsters.  Because power in this game goes up quickly, it is not linear.
(Pretty easy to notice, in fact.  I assume PF still has the 3E guideline that two creatures of CR X used together makes an encounter have an effective CR of X +2?  Think about that?  If those creatures are CR 4.  CR 6.  CR 9.  If the power advancement was linear, would the effective CR increase really be so small?)

This becomes even more glaring should you use enemies with spells or spell-like abilities.  A foe with access to 2+ spell levels above what the party could have is generally going to be a TPK barring a lot of luck or the DM misplaying the monster or intentionally sand bagging it.  Just look at Cloudkill for an extreme example.  It requires a 9th level wizard to cast this.  Against foes of nearly equal level, it's fine, jsut maybe some Con damage, whatever.  It, like multiple other spells, is basically designed to cull the weak.  You pit that 9th level wizard against a 6th level party, and it's a save or die.  Huge difference.

[CKorfmann]

I can appreciate what you and saying and do also appreciate the advice.  An interesting thing happened though.  I allowed a Goliath character into the campaign with a pretty decent conversion from 3.5 (+2 STR, +2 CON, -2 DEX).  He rolled an 18 for STR.  Which gave him a 20.  First lvl Barb weilding a Large Goliath GreatHammer 3d6, two-handed.  I gave the Goliath a moderately justified surprise attack then combat began with Goliath going first.  Killed the 42 HP Owlbear with two blows and plenty of damage to spare.  Everyone was stunned, especially me.  There is probably an argument for this character being broken, but everything was legit (PF Goliath use arguable).  I don't expect this to be the norm.

[Jackinthegreen]

Would a Goliath count as a 1st level character though?  As you noticed, he's pretty powerful for a 1st level character and might perhaps be too much depending on how your game goes.  Goliaths tend to earn their +1LA.

Here's where you might run into a problem: A creature that can survive long enough for combat to last a couple rounds might very well have abilities that will murder at least one of your PCs right off the bat.  You've already got rocket tag on your hands in this scenario since it's kill fast or be killed fast.  I'm with Stream in saying that more monsters would probably work better.  Besides possible problems with high level abilities, killing stuff so quickly tends to get boring after a while, and as a game meant for entertainment that's A Very Bad Thing^TM.

[veekie]

I can appreciate what you and saying and do also appreciate the advice.  An interesting thing happened though.  I allowed a Goliath character into the campaign with a pretty decent conversion from 3.5 (+2 STR, +2 CON, -2 DEX).  He rolled an 18 for STR.  Which gave him a 20.  First lvl Barb weilding a Large Goliath GreatHammer 3d6, two-handed.  I gave the Goliath a moderately justified surprise attack then combat began with Goliath going first.  Killed the 42 HP Owlbear with two blows and plenty of damage to spare.  Everyone was stunned, especially me.  There is probably an argument for this character being broken, but everything was legit (PF Goliath use arguable).  I don't expect this to be the norm.

Damage always outpaces defense. You'd see much the same if the Owlbear got it's claws into a PC. High CR is really just high offense.

[CKorfmann]

Damage always outpaces defense. You'd see much the same if the Owlbear got it's claws into a PC. High CR is really just high offense.

That's what I was afraid of and I think I just got lucky.  I knew it could kill them all one at a time with less than it's full attack.  I did give them a pit trap to help, but wanted them to figure it out.  I thought they might be able to lure the beast into the trap, which was there from a previous encounter, and avoid killing everyone. 

At any rate, I understand now what you all mean by adding creatures rather than fighting one big one.  So if I understand the CR table correctly, two CR1 creatures = CR3?  I think that would make things a lot simpler. 

As far as the Goliath goes, I think a lot can be attributed to his high strength score.  Yes, powerful build is a great advantage for a first level character, but I feel like it will not make as much of a difference several levels into the game.  Probably the biggest factor in his favor was the weapon.  It does 3d6 which seems like a pretty big jump from 1d12 as a size modifier, but I'm not sure what a good alternative might be aside from 4d4, but that would just be silly.  I guess you just need a d16 to make it work. 

On the other hand, there is also a half-orc figher in the party that also rolled an 18 (the lucky punk rolled 18, 18, 17, 10, 10, 9 which I thought sounded pretty appropriate for a half-orc) and put it in his STR along with his +2 racial bonus and was using a falcion.  I have a feeling it would have been much the same result against the owl bear, especially when you consider that the goliath rolled a 19 on his second attack.  The falcion would have critted with that and the result might have been much the same. 

It seems to me, that melee characters with lucky stat rolls also bring up questions about balance for first level characters.  A rogue might get lucky with 12 damage on a back stab and maybe a mage or bard could distract it and hit it with an arrow for 1d6 or something.  The questionable balance seems fairly realistic to me though, and I think they even each other out after a few levels.  The other classes just need to be played right.

[veekie]

Not quite, it'd be a bit closer to the following:
CR 1 x2 = CR 2
CR 1 x3 = CR 3
CR 1 x5 = CR 4

But again, note that the scaling is wonky and does not hold true for all levels. At low levels, hordes of weak foes mean something because they can still hurt you, as you approach the teen levels they just bounce off. Also it gets even screwier with mixed CR foes, or synergistic opponents, the CR rules assume they work together, but ALSO, creatures with melee sneak attack often don't live up to their CR without a flanker.

Short version: Best way to gauge it is to run a simulation of the encounter before the game on your own. The amount of difficulty is relative to the CR:
Speedbump encounter. CR < level. Crushed like a bug, no effort expended
Routine encounter. CR = party level+/-1. Theoretically it costs 1/4 of their available resources, but this rarely happens unless you have a large mob of high accuracy mooks.
Tricky encounter. CR = party level +2. They have a genuine risk of losing the fight if luck just went the other way.

EDIT:
3d6 isn't actually a lot of damage. Don't just eyeball it, look at the statistics.
Average damage from 1d12 = 6.5
Average damage from 3d6 = 10.5
Four points, which is significant at level 1(since its the difference between a 2 hit kill and a 1 hit kill), but small in the overall scheme of things. Strength adds +3 damage and accuracy per 4 points. Power Attack adds another easy +3 damage.
Basically, it's his one strong point really. He is only one more hit away from being as squishy as the rogue.

As for the rogue and wizard:
Rogue - In melee, getting into flanking means 1d6+2(str should be 14 or better at least)+1d6 sneak attack, for average 9 damage. If using two weapons and in a flank that goes up to 18(theoretically, but because of lower accuracy it averages lower than that).

Wizard - Has better things to do than deal damage usually. His accuracy is cruddy enough that he might want to use the cantrip splash damage, BUT, it depends a lot on what spells are being used. A wizard is an enabler, he makes other people deal lots of damage.

[CKorfmann]

It matters little, but Table: CR Equivalencies on THIS page looks different.

[veekie]

^^
Official CR wise, yes, functionally it's far more often the one I put up.
They severely overrate the power of extra low level creatures.

The best way to find out CR is still to actually test the encounter.

[Risada]

Considering you are the DM, you are the one most likely to know if your monsters are going to be curbstomped by the players or vice-versa. Take into account how the player thinks and how said player would act when playtesting your encounter.

Also, compare a few of your players' numbers against your monsters' numbers. Is the monsters' average AC too high? Too low? Will it pose a challenge to the players' attacks? (This is not the best way; only one more thing to check).

[StreamOfTheSky]

I can appreciate what you and saying and do also appreciate the advice.  An interesting thing happened though.  I allowed a Goliath character into the campaign with a pretty decent conversion from 3.5 (+2 STR, +2 CON, -2 DEX).  He rolled an 18 for STR.  Which gave him a 20.  First lvl Barb weilding a Large Goliath GreatHammer 3d6, two-handed.  I gave the Goliath a moderately justified surprise attack then combat began with Goliath going first.  Killed the 42 HP Owlbear with two blows and plenty of damage to spare.  Everyone was stunned, especially me.  There is probably an argument for this character being broken, but everything was legit (PF Goliath use arguable).  I don't expect this to be the norm.

It makes sense.  Using singular strong monsters makes combat more swingy in general.  They can wipe out the party with some good rolls, and likewise if the party gets some attacks in first and rolls well...it's only one guy.

I don't think the PC was overpowered.  I am curious how with a -2 racial dex he managed a surprise round and no one else did...  I have a bad feeling it went down like...
Player: "I rush at him with my hammer!"
DM: "Oh, I wasn't expecting combat to start so soon.  I guess you get a surprise round for catching it off guard".
In which case there shouldn't have been surprise.  But oh well.

He paid a feat on Exotic Prof. for the Greathammer?  Not that a greatsword wouldn't do the same damage anyway...

[Vicerious]

In the greathammer's defense, it's 20/x4.  Maybe still not worth a feat, but it's not nothing.

[CKorfmann]

I was under the impression that the Goliath got the Goliath Greathammer as a free proficiency.  Is that not right?  I don't remember paying it when I played a similar character, but that was years ago. 

The surprise round went something like this.  The owl bear was being transported in a sealed crate/cage.  It was on a wagon that overturned in the road where the PC were.  It's a long story, but the Goliath caused it to crash and thus break open and so the owl bear broke out and emerged to find a large angry Goliath waiting for it.  I'm not sure if it was appropriate or not, but I threw it in because I thought they needed the handicap.  Turns out he put a huge dent in the side of it's head and finished it off with his next shot since he was first in order of initiative.  In hind sight, it certainly wasn't necessary.  The Goliath's DEX was still 15.  He used a rolled 17 for the stat to make up for the loss. 

This guy was rolling crazy all night.  Big stats, two high attack rolls, and for the damage rolls, 6's on 5 of 6 dice.  We were all in awe.

[StreamOfTheSky]

No, they don't get proficiency with it for free (in 3E).  It's a racial weapon, but not all races get training in their racial weapons, Goliaths being one of those that don't.

It really doesn't matter, large greathammer is 3d6, 19-20/x2; large greathammer is 3d6, 20/x4, not much difference barring some lucky crits.  Just thought I'd ask.

(Of course, you were converting the race to PF as it is, so for all I know you houserule allowed proficiency)

From the sounds of it, I don't think a surprise round was really warranted, though perhaps starting the combat with the monster prone and still in the opened cage would have been appropriate.  If he got high init and rolled really well to hit, monster probably wouldn't have gotten off much offense regardless, though.  Combat is extremely swingy and lethal, especially at low levels*.  Average 2H damage is very  close to typical hp, so that shouldn't be terribly shocking.

*Well, arguably there's more "rocket tag" at high levels, but that's from spellcasting / save or die effects, not basic mundane melee attacks.

[CaptRory]

Engineering combat encounters is as much art as science. Chalk it up to a learning experience. And ultimately, if everyone had fun, you succeeded.

Another thing to keep in mind when planning combat is the environment. Some things are a lot stronger or weaker in different arenas.

Spoony has a Counter Monkey video up that talks about dragons that illustrates this.
http://spoonyexperiment.com/category/counter-monkey/ <--Main Counter Monkey Page
http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/09/11/counter-monkey-circle-strafe/ <---Video in Particular


Severe language warning on all of Spoony's videos.