Actual CR for encounters?

[Alberic Strein]

Hello all.

I have run into a bit of a problem in a game I am GM'ing. It's closer to a one-shot than a proper campaign, so I won't have a lot of sessions to fine tune encounters so I went and looked at the CR table for pathfinder. I do know my players a little bit, so I knew easy encounters weren't going to cut it. So I just dropped two cockatrices on their four level 1 arses. I had NPCs here, so the party wasn't in danger of wiping out in case my fears were unfounded. The fighter dude came close to one-shotting one of the damn cockatrices. The fighter dude's player thought the cockatrices were a nice touch, so it's the kind of difficulty he expects. Feeling that things were only going to get worse from here, I banned 3rd party content. The fighter dude couldn't do his thing with paizo only material so he rolled Zone and Lemmy as a Summoner/Eidolon pair.

Second game two players were absent, to somewhat strike the fear of God in the players that were present, I advertised a goddamn wight. A "it hits you you die" wight. Of course I wouldn't actually drop a wight on their level one arses, so I hit the two players present with some sahuagins. One to introduce the monsters they were about to face and was promptly killed, then the encounter started proper, one shooting the party from the dark with a heavy crossbow, one in close quarter combat with one player, and two going to Lemmy and Zone.

You know the cool "rage" ability those sahuagins get? Not one lived long enough to use it.

The party gained a level.

Next session, all the players were here so I went slightly... Wild. The party was in some sort of zombie apocalypse and they correctly surmised they would be ambushed by ghouls soon. So they took out spears, prepared to brace and channel positive energy. Except they rolled mostly 1's for initiative so they got charged by the ghouls. Eight ghouls. The team started getting infected and paralyzed. Eventually the cleric used a hero point to double channel positive energy before being paralyzed. The whole party was paralyzed except for the full plated tower shield wielding fighter, who proceeded to finish the encounter by himself, blowing a hero point as a precaution. Then the party, without resting, went to ambush the remaining ghouls, finding an Imperial Ghoul and a Wolf Ghoul. I don't think either even hit the party before getting wrecked. THEN I hit them from the back with the wight, which they dispatched so easily it was almost comical. I had anticipated it at this point and let them know it was a wight spawn and they were in the middle of a wight apocalypse. End of session.

And here I am today, wondering what the hell kind of CR I should give the next encounter.

8 ghouls was a bit too much, the imperial + wolf ghoul encounter was not enough, even with the ad hoc inclusion of the wight spawn. And all those encounters, even the ones with the sahuagins were way above APL+3. As 2 lvl1 adventurers, the APL of the party for the encounter was 0, the CR of 4 sahuagins was 6. That's twice over APL+3. For the ghouls, the APL was 2, and the CR of the encounter was 7. The Imperial+wolf was 6. The Wight spawn was the only easy fight they got and it was the cherry on top of 13 CR of encounters that day.

The party is reaching lvl 3 soon. Am I going to have to bring out common Rakshasas by then or something? I allowed the party to get full HP on level up, should I give the same to the monsters or is that an unfair change?

The party so far consists of:

The Princess, Swashbuckler 1, Vigilante 1 (yes, one of my players sprang the "princess" card on me as the game started. I should have known it was going to be one hell of a bumpy ride here and then)
Tukohama, Fighter 2 (full plate and tower shield at chargen due to having the right traits/skills, his AC is so high the ghouls needed a nat 20 to hit him. Uses a trident)
Saul, Cleric 2 (cleric of Calistria. I actually gave a "touch of fertility" bonus ability. No save, if the targeted creature engages in intercourse, fecundation happens. Purely roleplay until they somehow find a way to weaponize that, besides huge circumstance bonuses to intimidate against the Princess.)
Lemmy & Zone, Summoner 2 (A disgusting pile of tentacles and its violet haired and [short-]dressed interpret/summoner. Slightly skill-monkey due to the Posession trait. Not a synthesis Summoner, thank god.)

Right now I'm considering pooling all their character levels, so 8, soon to be 12 and throw 1.5 times that as the default encounter.

So yeah, I am seriously considering turning that wight into a sword wight with eight normal wights, desecrated ground countering the spawn malus.

I am just actually concerned I'll either end that unofficial module or kill my players before getting the difficulty just right. I get that Pathfinder had quite a bit of power creep over the years, so what are the 2018 rules for getting the CR of encounters right?

[legomaster00156]

I suggest using this CR calculator to determine what kinds of challenges to throw at your party. If they're stomping Average Encounters, throw a couple Hard Encounters at them. Importantly, run multiple encounters a day if it can fit the story - no one encounter is meant to defeat PC's alone.

[Alberic Strein]

The calculator is nice, but it bases itself on the same calculations that I was using, with the actual CR to merely challenge my players is way outside of the chart. It should start at "deadly" and go from there instead of it being the top "you are being insane with your players" option. I'll try throwing more and more encounters per day though. It may very well work. I'll also try maximizing HDs. I don't like how it "bloats" HP like 3.5 did though. I may come back on my ruling and force players to roll for HP instead.

That's just the fine tuning that I was afraid of.

[zlefin]

huh, looks like some numbers were edited in since I started (very slowly) writing up my response :P
hmmm, first let me see if i'm counting the CRs of the encounters right
8 ghouls should be CR 7
imperial + wolf ghoul would be ~cr5
2 cockatrice CR 5 - looking at the cockatrice entry they don' tseem tough enough for a cr3 creature imho. they're certainly far weaker than the 3.5 version; which had the same cr3, but whose petrify was far more lethal. and in particular, the pathfinder cockatrice doesn't have much of an advantage vs a lvl 1 party; since it does ability damage rather than hp damage. so the amount of effort it takes it to disable a party member is about the same whether they're lvl 1 or 3.
the real nuisance of the PF cockatrice would be that it's harder to heal the damage they do, so if you have more adventuring that day you'll have to deal with the stat damage.

4 sahuagin should be cr 6.

a single wight looks to be cr 3, so it really shouldn't be much of a threat to the party anyways, especially not as a weaker wight spawn. not sure what the cr of a wight spawn would be; probably cr 2-ish. it really shoudl've easy.


it sounds like the reason the fighter was able to beat the monsters sometimes is that the monsters used poor tactics so they had trouble hitting his ac. if some of them grappled/used other combat maneuvers or used aid another they'd fare better.

from an optimization standpoint, it looks like your party is well optimized, so they can take on encounters as if their apl is 1, maybe 2 higher than it actually is.
you can optimize the monsters and their tactics a bit. do that before uppin their hp. you should also probably not be giving the players that extra hp at higher levels, since they seem to be fine without it.

dunno how hard it is to post their sheets, they might've gotten somewhat lucky in the battles or have some stuff above where they should be.

[AnimeTheCat]

So it sounds like your greatest success was an ambush by twice their number of lower CR opponents.

Only thing I can suggest is a mixture of threats. Throw an NPC spellcaster to debuff or mind control the fighter, if mind control isn't possible, fear then. If it's an undead apocolypse, they should have fear and there should be a necromancer somewhere.

If their AC is high, target their saves. If their saves and AC are high, remove their ability to properly position (grease, entangle, grapple, trip, lead to a narrow trapped hallway, etc...) it sounds like the party should be a thorn in somebody's side, make that person a smart person.

[zlefin]

I also note that you're using hero points; not sure how readily you're giving them out, but hero points make a particularly large difference when facing occasional high powered encounters.

[Alberic Strein]

For Hero Points: They get one per level and one by scenario (here, after they kill the sword wight in a couple of sessions, which will coincide with the end of the zombie apocalypse)

For the 8 ghoul ambush I sent 2 ghouls on each, and had the surviving ones move on after successfully paralyzing a party member. I could have had them coup de grâce fallen PCs, but I thought it made more sense for the ghouls to try and win rather than make sure they dealt the most damage. This is the only time the party used hero points, the cleric to channel more positive energy and for the fighter to do a ghoul shish-kebab to kill three almost dead ghouls in one blow. It was my most "successful" encounter and I did feel that I had a serious lack of being able to hit anything behind AC.

For the Imperial Ghoul and wolf ghoul, I had the Imperial go for the swashbuckler that moved to flank the ghoul instead of the tower shield fighter, but no attack hit. The wolf tried tripping, but to no avail. I probably should have added more wolves. I wasn't lucky with the dice, and the party didn't leave me much time to recuperate from that.

The Wight fight was indeed supposed to be an easier encounter, managing my climatic reveal with an anti-climatic fight, but I was still disappointed to not even land one energy drain.

And yeah, I did correct some numbers, for exemple I hadn't specified the number of ghouls at first.

Getting the char sheets would be easy if I were on my usual computer but here it is significantly harder. But basically Lemmy and Zone are squishy and rely on the occasional spell and overwatch attacks with multiple tentacles, Lemmy actually almost went down against the sahuagins. Tukohama has a very weak touch AC, but his CMD is quite decent (16 last time I checked, may be his level 1 number). Dreyri (the Princess) has good AC, touch AC and reflexes, but terrible fortitude and will saves. As exemplified by her willingness to do a magical girl number with the help of Lemmy. Saul, the cleric, has low AC and reflexes.

And as I am looking at the bestiary I realize I am looking at CR 6-10 critters for a group of four level 2 adventurers.

I did successfully infect some players with ghoul fever, so I need to keep on the pressure.

Right now the scenario is that the Princess is trying to meet her (not-so-)long lost parents to sock them for abandoning her when she was ill. To that end the party rides towards a village, their only clue. The zombie apocalypse is the stone I use to bar their way as they follow the road to the big city close to their destination.

I think I'll let the party have a full night's sleep, but the next day on the road they'll encounter a huecuva sitting in a middle of bones. The huecuva is only here to "cast" a spell that would dim the day and act as a "desecrate" spell. As it happens, the pile of bones rises up in a bonestorm (CR7), killing the huecuva, who breaks down with cryptic words about the party being "seen". The encounter is simple, though the high CR creature should do some damage before dying. It is mainly here to soften the party up and let them know that from now on, they won't be safe during the day (the ghouls were an exception). The group resumes travelling and eventually gets ambushed from behind by two Phantom Lancers (CR6*2) who will do a flyby attack and then branch off from the road to the forest. The group gets two turns, then they return, flyby, and break off in opposite directions. Two turns, flyby, repeat. Besides some minor f*ckery these guys are the good old AC attacking monsters, just like the previous ones. After those encounters lured the party into a false sense of security, night falls. In the middle of the night, shadows come out. It's not going to be stealthy. The theme is the wild hunt, with four shadow wolves waking the PCs in the middle of the night and accompanied by a shadow (total CR 7). It shouldn't be too lethal, after all the shadows lack some meat to help them, but it will warm my PCs to the idea of getting their abilities damaged. This is the only fight of the night.

Next day, just to make sure my PCs understand they are being watched from somewhere, I'll have them encounter an undead patrol. It is clearly here for them and is led by a cairn wraith with 6 exploding skeletons. The skeletons are only here to trigger AOOs and explode, once the group's AOOs are busted, two skinwraiths ambush the cleric and summoner from behind, grabbing and enveloping them if possible. The cairn wraith will pretend to defy Tukohama in single combat, but a shadow will jump from the wight's shadow into a flanking position the first chance it gets. Once the party eventually prevails, they'll come in view of a town. It has burnt and is probably home to more monstrosities and the base of the wight. I'll probably end the session as a path leaving the town catches their eye. That path goes up towards a cliff, upon which is nested a temple basked in natural sunlight.

They'll somehow go past the town encounter (second to last encounter and they'll be level 3, I need it to be good. Probably some combusted, a fear guard and something to target their saves. Maybe a spellcaster.), get some much needed context from the church and its occupants, and then only the sword wight encounter remains. Maybe flanked with a couple undead spellcasters and some base wights.

And with that, the "beatstick" part of the module ends.

What do you think? Any undead to recommend me?

In any case, thanks a lot for the answers and the support!

Ps: Because yeah, using two CR 7 encounters to "lure my players into a false sense of security" is completely sane u_u

[Alberic Strein]

Sorry for the double post.

Turns out that I extremely underestimated how higher CR monsters can vary in effectiveness and how one point of CR or two can raise a monster's effectiveness. The bonestorm was way out of line. Somehow my players could handle a phantom lancer due to Tower Shield shenanigans, even when attacked by two of them, but when I had decent rolls during the first turn, I dropped a player and almost TPK'd them here and there. I eventually had a DMPC intervene, which is a defeat in and of itself. That being said I was really pleased by my players' tactics. The "hide behind the tower shield wielding dude" strategy, with the shield eventually breaking under sunder attempts. The Calistrian priest using his whip and true strike to fully disarm the second knight, etc...

They're level 3 now, should be level 4, so I'll still try the shadows encounter, after the team had a chance to rest and maybe get some more ways to hit incorporeal targets. Same for the cairn wight/skeleton/skinwraith encounter. With one more level the team may be able to handle these encounters. Otherwise I will lower the CR of the big monsters. I probably won't go higher than cairn wraiths at CR4. Maybe some more CR2 monsters instead.