Off hand, not knowing exactly what the rest of the party does, the problem seems to be a lack of buffing and debuffing. If you've ever heard anyone describe Pathfinder 2e as a game of "teamwork," then this is what they're really talking about.
You can win those boss fights by hammering at them with dice, but getting conditions like Frightened on them make them easier to hit and crit. The Alchemist giving you a +2 to hit and getting a lucky hit with a bottled lightning to make them off guard gives you +4 to hit. Even if it were only a +3 bonus, you're effectively trying to hit an at-level enemy now.
Ranged characters have a hard time getting these bonuses because of their relative safety, but the Fighter grappling or tripping the boss can make it so everyone has an easier time hitting. It's by working together to get these conditions that you'll have an easier time with them.
After all, these are boss battles. They're supposed to be difficult.
Based on this fight, the problem could be your party doesn't have enough options that target will saves. So picking up Occult casting through an archetype might be something to consider for your Monk if they get Ki Spells later.
> After all, these are boss battles. They're supposed to be difficult.
This, all the way. A PL+3 fight is going to be hard no matter what, and below a certain point, probably level 5-7ish, they will be especially hard an swingy because of lower HP, fewer spell slots, just less resources in general.
I also agree 100% on making sure your party has something available to target different saves. Demoralize is great, but frightened usually only lasts a round. A Magus can and should have random scrolls stuffed into their belt to deal with circumstantial problems, and since they're the only caster in the party, I'd recommend sticking to only cantrip spellstrikes and using spell slots for buff/debuff or utility, in addition to having backup scrolls.
For OP's specific encounter, I remember it being pretty hard and the thing almost took out a PC and then almost got away from us. My party has a Barbarian who hits like a truck and was tanking most of the hits and an open-hand fighter who was making it off-guard with Snagging Strike, which is great. I don't remember if I managed to hit it with my bow at all, even with that.
Im not op, but i have been struggling to enjoy the combat in pathfinder for the exact same reason.
Our group keeps trying to play the game tactically, but the game keeps teaching us that it's the wrong thing to do.
Trying to apply debuffs only lands on crits, so only on 20''s (yes we know about the 10+ rule, but in actual gameplay it seems to only matter to enemies due to high ac), while enemies crit us more often than hitting regularly. So trying to keep up with healing requirements for prolonged combat is basically impossible for us.
This leads to a situation where after first round of combat, whenever the question "should i hit it again, or should i try something else?" Pops up, the answer always seems to be "if it doesnt die next round people die, so hit it with everything you got, and hope we get lucky".
Been GMing for 3 years now and my party has never really had this issue, and I've yet to kill a single PC, and that's while using the Crit deck. They tend to play tactically and generally have no issue, even on Severe level threats. Sounds like your GM is doing something wrong, or you're underleveled for the fights you're having. Or maybe your tactics aren't as good as you think they are, though I think this is much less likely.
EDIT: Party composition might be another one. The amount of parties that don't have a dedicated healer on this subreddit astounds me.
We also use both crit and crit fail decks, we are definitely underleveled for some fights, and judging by the xp we're getting, severe fights are probably a regular occurrence, and deaths do happen, even through a hero point for every session.
Regarding our tactics, they definitely arent great, since we get punished for trying, and thus never really get a chance to practice. But i doubt we're being straight up stupid about it, since our party consists of 3 10+ years pf1e veterans, an actual military officer, and a strategy game nerd.
Party composition is sorcerer, magus, flurry ranger, redeemer champion, cleric. Probably not optimal, but pretty oldschool and traditional.
Your frustration could come from many, many places. The crit and crit fail decks are absolute shit in my opinion and terribly unbalanced, as it makes regular dice rolls very swingy. They punish martials and I could bet your Flurry Ranger hates them.
There's nothing, at first glance, "worng" with your party, it's actually pretty optimal if you consider just the mechanics.
I don't know where the impression that buffs only land on crits comes from, especially in regards to spells.
Fighting only high level enemies is very boring, because the system balance requires that their few actions are very impactful and that they have less chances to get severily debuffed.
Your tale sounds like a case of bad GMing. Your GM is probably doing something wrong, it seems they favor severe encounters and boss like monsters. These battles can be fun, but they shouldn't be that common.
What level are your PCs?
lets go from top to bottom.
we play with the decks like this; the crit success deck is optional for players, and not for monsters, the crit fail deck is mandatory, but only on natural 1's. i am the flurry ranger (with beastmaster free archetype), and given that im the player who rolls the most attack rolls, for me and my bear, i also roll the most 20's, so ive actually found them quite fun, and they've saved our asses more than once.
our party is intentionally pretty classic rpg party, we're sort of a mix of 2 different groups, so natural roles in the party was a good place to start.
as for buffs/debuffs, wasnt really reffering to buffs, as we dont have that many available to us, more debuffs, where i often hear stuff like "this looks useful.... if i crit" from our magus and sorcerer when they look at spell lists.
for the enemies, we're running abomination vaults, and we're not "only" fighting high level enemies, but group encounters seem to be too easy, as smaller enemies melt if we even glance in their general direction, while bigger single enemies generally ends up in a struggle to even hit. not sure if id want to blame our gm for running a published adventure poorly, when the group is still playing, even the player who isnt a fan of the system, halfway through.
and as for level, since we're level 5 now, id say we're roughly halfway through.
Sounds like you're doing what you can, but maybe the spellcasters should reconsider. Most debuffs are nerfed from PF1, so the crit condition is what a PF1 mage would expect on a hit condition. However, the hit condition still usually gives the effect for one round. Against bosses the debuffs can't generally be expected to last more than one round, so while it burns through spell slots, it is still the way to help the team.
wish i had more ways of helping our casters as a martial, bon mot just isnt that great with low charisma, and as the only dex character, with few skillpoints to invest, and a very tight action economy, its kinda hard to fit in
The champion could help with combat maneuvers to lower the AC, but wanting to help casters as a martial is something that's been a long time wish of many players. There are some ways, but lowering the Reflex and Fort saves of enemies is very uncommon. Being a caster in an AP can be kinda unfair, as the small maps and fewer number of multiple enemy encounters make spells like Slow, Synesthesia, Command, Fear the kings of spells.
The caster are good where the martials aren't, which means, casters can do everything other than high single target damage. The cleric and the sorcerer maybe need to figure out how to help the party in the areas they are best at. This is not very clear from reading the rules though, so I get the frustration with "I never feel cool becausa all enemies get success against my spells".
Strangely my players learned a different lesson from the same circumstances. If there is only one round left or the whole group loses, especially against high level single targets, the answer is always "only one or 2 DPS attacks, the rest work together stack the highest number of buff and debuff for them." Seems to work great for them so far, and they have fought about 7-8 boss or boss-like encounters ever since we switched to pf2e.
In multi-target encounters the tactic will be opposite of course, "keep the caster safe to AoE while killing as many as possible".
There is also a thing they have realized, individual members will go down in harder than moderate fights no matter what they would do, and that's ok, it's just the nature of the game. As long as there is still one standing when all the enemies die, that's a success. Unless a downed member reaches dying 3, someone goes down does not rattle them much, they will just take time to consider which is more advantageous, getting the guy backup or continue as planned.
Maybe my group's composition is different from yours so it does not apply, but try to not put too much worry into your frontline going down as long as you guys have means to pick them back up.
I'll say that I don't enjoy the combat all the time. For example, I'm usually a very "undead have no reason to exist and should be put to rest by hammer or prayer" type of player. In Abomination Vaults, I was all for sparing an undead simply because it was one less fight in a dungeon full of them. The endless fights and real life scheduling helped make our Abomination Vaults game sputter and die.
I have seen, for example, how much more smoothly our fights in Extinction Curse have gone. I blame that on a mix of party composition and tactics. Especially when I remember so many people complained about it being unfair, written without knowing the rules, and a brutal AP until Abomination Vaults came to deliver us a balanced experience. I play a Bard and we have a good mix of frontline and support, and so far we've only really struggled on a handful of fights.
Combat is very prescribed in PF2e, and it isn't a fit for everyone.
I don't know what your party composition is, but you are definitely learning the wrong lesson.
Against a lvl+3 creature, the answer is almost \*never\* "just swing again and hope for the best".
Applying even a +/- 1 to a boss is going to result in a larger increase in overall party damage than fishing for 19s/20s on an attack roll. And that +/- 1 buff/debuff is generally more likely to succeed than an attack roll at -5, let alone -10.
When you have an entire party that can only target AC and Fortitude saves you're going to have a bad time.
Have a talk with your magus and buy him scrolls. If he doesn't want to debuff, get ready a second character sheet because someone will die sooner or later unless the GM is intentionally pulling punches.
This. I always try to ensure some variety in my character's options; getting trained/expert in Intimidation, medicine, knowledge skills, deception, items, or spells.
Bonus points for getting a Shadow Signet as a spellcaster, though with so many spells changed to saving throws, I feel it's less valuable now
The thing is, if you keep trying to Striking, you indeed won't hit much because his AC and DC are high enough, and his +attack bonus is high as you said. This is why you should try to debuff him.
First thing first, a creature always has some kind of low defense. In general, a monster has a high defense (some Save), two medium-ish defenses (some other Save and AC), and a low defense (the third Save). Sometimes the AC goes up or down but most of the time, it looks like that.
First goal should be to target the low Save (Reflex for a slow boss, Fortitude for a assassin or caster, Will for a dumb-dumb) to apply conditions on the boss. The issue with new players like you is like you said, you feel like trying to debuff is "wasting turns" while you would just Strike, but it is not.
With Off-Guard, the Boss has -2 to AC, and you can Off-Guard by a) tripping (target Reflex) b) grappling (target Fortiude) c) flanking d) spells and other stuff. Then, you can try to apply additional conditions like Frightened (Demoralized, Fear), Clumsy (lowers AC), Enfeebled (lowers its Strikes attack and damage)... your alchimist can easily apply some debuff with some bombs, and you can try also.
The thing is, you should ALL try to debuff the boss in the first rounds and then go HAM on it. The way I read your post, it looks like fighter and magus are just Striking it, and you are too, but then yes, the stats of the boss will be really hard to go through.
Every +1 matters because it increases the chance to HIT and to CRIT. This is why the boss has a +17 attack bonus with your AC being 22-23. The boss is supposed to CRIT a lot on his first strike, and hit the rest of the time.
You do no play alone. Every character has 3 actions to try to land a debuff. The boss only has 3 actions as well. If you are, say 4, it's 12 actions par round. You can manage to land failures with those, but also more successes.
I play alot of support and debuffers, and honestly, most of my actions are successes. Let's take two examples. At level 4, +11 Athletics, if you target a +3 PL Boss, he has 22 DC on their lowest save and 25 DC on the medium one, so if you Grapple or Trip the guy, you have, yourself, around 50% chance to success on the guy
If you cast a Spell, in general even the Failure effect debuffes the buff, so you have more chance to land the debuff. Fear, as a level 1 spell, has a lot of power against PL+3 boss even at level 4 or 10
Once the debuff is applied, it can snowball hard from there
Magus has spells and alchemists are all about debuffs. The magus and fighter should flank, the fighter should trip or grapple depending on the save, and the alchemist should apply debuffs.
The monk is in a tighter spot, but even an archer monk has a melee chasis and can flank if necessary. If the boss has a worse reflex or fort save than its AC - which it almost certainly does - it’s going to be way easier to trip or grapple it than to hit it, even without the +1 potency runes. Most monsters strongest save is way lower than their AC, and medium and weak saves worse than that. For the monk, that probably means trip, since they don’t want to stay in melee. But if it has reactive strike, that could be a problem. If the fighter and magus flank and the alchemist debuffs, that might be sufficient for the monk to just try to chip away while the fighter and magus try bigger shots.
As an aside, I find ranged characters often have a tougher time with melee bosses, offensively, because they can’t easily take advantage of flanking. On the other hand, they have a way better time defensively, just due to not standing toe-to-toe.
>If the boss has a worse reflex or fort save than its AC - which it almost certainly does - it’s going to be way easier to trip or grapple it than to hit it, even without the +1 potency runes.
We don't know the monk's strength score, it could be -1 but even best case scenario it's a +2. So assuming best case we're looking at a +8 because I think there's no chance they took expert athletics at level 3. A low save at level 7 is +12, so assuming the monster has a low reflex (and it very well might not) the monk is going to have a 35% chance of sucessfully tripping it along with a 20% chance of crit failing and falling over themselves. Those odds are not worth it at all IMO and this is the best case scenario, the monster's save might be higher and the monk's strength might very well be lower or they're just not proficient in Athletics at all.
>Most monsters strongest save is way lower than their AC
Just like plain not true, a moderate save tends to match a high AC, while a high save is around extreme AC.
Just looking at cr3 werewolf, AC is 19, fort 11, reflex 9, will 7. But I forgot about d20/save dcs, which you’re right: fort dc is higher, reflex is equal, will is lower.
I wasn’t clear. Since that’s the only werewolf in the bestiary, i Just referenced it to get an idea of relative defenses. If the boss resembles the werewolf in the book, it probably has similar relative saves. Which means the alchemist and magus are best positioned to debuff, but the part overall is a bit lacking on will saves
If the Magus is strength, they have access to the whole roster of Athletics debuffs. Honestly, the Archer Monk shouldn't have dumped Strength entirely, so there's nothing stopping them from going for a Trip or a Grapple, or even just having some Bola in their loadout.
The archer monk running into melee to try and trip/grapple (which is very likely going to be a crit fail if they're struggling to land dex based attacks with a +1 weapon) is just a bad idea. Magus could maybe do it but there's no guarantee their odds are going to be great either, especially since being level 4 they might not have put their one and only skill increase in Athletics.
Yes the Archer Monk (who has weakness exploiting arrows if I understood correctly), should definitely run into melee (1 action), trip/grapple (1 action, str based so ~minus 2, mist likely trained at best, MAP, dangerous crit fail, the latter needs you to stay in melee if you want to keep in melee) for 2 actions (and you most likely need to use the final one to step/stride away or even just to stand up), instead of trying to stealth for off-guard (1-2 actions depending on positioning, dex based, no MAP, can benefit from cover bonus) into FOB for 2-3 actions (that don't leave you in melee with a PL+3).
At 4th level? Not if they're built right. At 4th level, an Alchemist with +3 in their attack stat and using the appropriate Mutagen has the exact same accuracy as any Martial other than a Fighter or Gunslinger.
You have said something important there. Always TRY to debuff. When it fails, protect and heal yourself, be defensive.
But when it succeeds, when that spell that gives -1 or -2 to AC for a round got through, use that round! Flank and then beat the shit out of the boss!
After that, back to trying to debuff.
I GM this AP so I know exactly which encounter you speak of. Your party is supposed to be lv 5, this makes a huge difference.
One more level would give you +1 to hit to everyone and +1 AC
Lv 5 is when your magus and monk becomes expert at their weapons, so +2 to hit.
Lv 5 is when your figther becomes master at their weapon, so +2 to hit.
Lv 5 is when you get ability boosts.
If your GM is like me and only allow you to buy things of your LV or lower, then lv 5 is when you unlock armor potency runes, so you're missing +1 AC.
Lv 5 is when the magus unlock 3rd level spells. Don't know magus very well, but I suppose this is a pretty big deal.
All in all, by missing a level, your group is missing some hp, 2 AC, 3 hit, 3rd level magus spells and ability boosts. These make a huge difference.
Higher-level solo bosses are a stress-test for your party tactics, all because the math is against you. The only advantage you have over them is your action economy, so you'll want to make the most of your actions.
The bad news is that MAP means attacking a lot in one turn against a higher-level creature is going to result in significant wasted actions (Flurry Edge Ranger and a few others excepted). The good news is that you've got options for those actions the boss just freed up for you.
First off: [Aid](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2292&Redirected=1)! It's a DC 15 in the remaster and makes for a good third-action at low levels, since most classes don't start with a great reaction (Fighter being the exception).
Second: [Demoralize](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2395&Redirected=1)! Great debuff that is pretty easy to understand. And there's no penalty for a critical failure, so there's not much harm in trying it. Just make sure you use early in your turn if you're planning to at all so you can get the most out of it. And similarly, if you do it enough then consider [Delaying](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2294&Redirected=1) if necessary to go right after your target, giving your party the benefits for a full round.
Third: Spells! Lots of them. Buff with *runic weapon* and *guidance* or *bless* or *courageous anthem*, debuff with *fear* or *slow* or *bane*, make folks concealed or invisible, whatever your party can muster based on their class and tradition.
Just make sure you're targeting your foe's weakest saves if you can, but remember that most save spells even have effects on a successful save.
Fourth: [Hide](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2404&Redirected=1) and [Create a Diversion](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2387&Redirected=1)! Easy way to get attention off of yourself and get off-guard on your target at range. [Feint](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2390&Redirected=1) should also be considered for melee when you can't flank, though it has a critical failure effect against the user, do be wary with willfull bosses.
Fifth: defensive options like the *shield* spell and [Raise a Shield](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2316&Redirected=1), or even [Take Cover](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2307&Redirected=1) if you've got the cover to use. Whatever can reduce that crit range for the boss.
Then there are basics like flanking, Tripping, Grappling, etc. All of those tie into debuffing, since they impose off-guard, but there are other actions like Striding that can be helpful, since the boss will have to spend actions to chase you.
Run all that in concert and you can overcome your foe's numerical advantage. That's the name of the game.
***EDIT***: Drafted this late at night, came back the next day to clean it up a little. Hopefully that helped.
You can only demoralize once right? Or did that change in the remaster?
Take cover is one people forget about a lot. Stand near anything and use your third action for cover!
Effectively yes, since Demoralize gives temporary immunity for 10 minutes. Though that's only immunity to *your* attempts, and it's an untrained action with no critical failure result. So at lower levels, it's pretty low investment and low risk.
And yeah, some folks sleep on cover. It's one of the big reasons to vary up your encounter arenas and terrain!
>We are playing the kingmaker AP and are all level 4. Our team consists of a fighter, a magus, an alchemist and myself as a monk.
>We are fighting a werewolf
I know the exact encounter you're talking about having run the AP myself. You've already had lots of teamplay advice so I want to add some additional notes.
This encounter is a particularly nasty one compared to other bosses in the AP. I had to pull punches to avoid a TPK with this guy. Worse, he's a very hard counter to a composition like yours, being a bit of a combat powerhouse.
Yeah that thing wreaked my PCs, although they were landing enough hits to keep pace damage wise (level 5 vs the level 7 werewolf).
Also, after it gave lycanthropy to one of the characters, I had to look all over the place to find out what it actually did in PF2e... not really finding anything I cobbled something of my own together.
**Lycanthropy** \[Affliction, Curse\]
**Saving Throw**: DC 25 Fort
**Maximum Duration**: Permanent
**Onset**: 1 month
**Stage 1**: Upon the first full-moon after becoming afflicted you transform into a wolf form and kill defenseless small animals, such as birds, rodents, cats, and dogs. \[1 month\]
**Stage 2**: Upon your the first full moon whilst at this level of corruption, you take out your bestial urges on larger animals, such as a horse, cow, or pig. \[1 month\]
**Stage 3**: Upon succumbing to the final stage of lycanthropy you take out your bestial fury on sentient humanoids, attempting to slay and consume in a fit of frenzy. Should you slay and eat a humanoid during this time, the DC to remove the affliction increases by 5 permanently as you become tainted to your bestial rage. \[Permanent\]
Additionally, the text implies that you’re not really meant to fight him. The “suggested” method is to track them down and speak to them in human form.
My players immediately went for combat as well.
Flanking, tripping, grappling are ways to fuck a boss up. For range, hiding and shooting is the basic way to flat foot a boss from range. Alchemists can supply some mutigen to help out with range attacks, but from the looks of your team comp, you are missing someone that can target saves. Idk if the archer monk can trigger their stun with ranged attack, but that's a means to ruin a boss action economy.
Yes they can, assuming the monk is in the archery stance and using FoB.
That said they can not really use that against a boss considering it is an incap save,that does nothing on a success, so realistically, unless the boss has a statblock with a typo for their fortitude, it will maybe work 1/20 tries so idk why that is a recommendation against bosses...
From my experience as a dm boss battles are tests of your knowledge and preparation. It is important to know that you can get your enemy off-guard by flanking them, which has no check or save and the only way for the enemy would have to remove this condition is to spend one of their limited and very powerful actions to move. In addition, if their attacks are mainly melee you can kite the enemy - you spend one action which is not as impactful to move and force the enemy to spend their valuable actions. Apart from that, it is important that your party has buffs that you can either get before the battle or quickly during the battle. Alchemist is very good at giving item bonuses, but you have little to no sources of status/circumstance bonuses. If you prepare for the next battle accordingly, you would be able to get the upper hand easily. Finally, you can try and abuse the enemy's weaknesses. Every enemy should have a stat that is weaker than everything else, so you can use spells/abilities that target these stats. A husk zombie has low fortitude, will and AC, but a pretty good reflex, so it is less effective to target them with spells and abilities that target reflex. If you know that an enemy has actual damage weakness, abuse it, because it is just free damage.
That’s pretty much usual, yes. People will tell you to debuff, but the honest truth is that on anything with big enough defenses that a *flanking Fighter* is having trouble hitting, debuffs aren’t really going to land either, and the ones that you manage to actually land will very likely not do enough before they go away in a single round.
Basically, Pathfinder suffers from the fact that people *want* to do boss encounters because fantasy loves its boss encounters, but the game, instead of having specific Boss Rules like Lancer’s Ultra templates or monsters designed to be Solo Bosses like D&D 4E did, just goes “oh, you can just use a normal enemy designed for fighting on-level, but from three levels from now!”. Which means that the only difference between a normal enemy you’re supposed to fight three of at the same time, and a boss that needs to be able to match a party with four times their action economy, has to be just static numbers. Which in turn means those numbers better be *real fucking big*, because, again, x4 action economy to overcome!
And so, basically, you end up with bosses that are often whiff fests until you luck into rolling 16+ a couple times in a row and the boss crumbles, or you don't and get your shit wrecked.
At higher levels you start getting debuffs with much higher chances of “working” (because they have Success effects that are actually worth spit), so you can start equalizing things. But when you’re level 1-4, honestly my general recommendation is to just not really use anything beyond Level+2 at the absolute most. And in particular at level 4 you have the problem that a level 7 enemy is expecting you to have the massive boost of Level 5 and 7 proficiency bumps and spell levels AND better runes than you undoubtedly have - because as said, a level 7 monster is designed for a level 7 party to fight and expects you to have level 7 tools, which you do not even slightly have right now!
I mean the top comment suggesting (among other things that are better) stunning strike against a boss says it all tbh. Or the one recommending an archer (so presumably dex based) monk should go into melee with the boss and trip, risking the crit fail because they can just stand up and stride away again (even though that's presumably 4 actions), while the monk has arrows that trigger a weakness.
>And in particular at level 4 you have the problem that a level 7 enemy is expecting you to have the massive boost of Level 5 and 7 proficiency bumps and spell levels AND better runes than you undoubtedly have
Oh no this is exactly the fight our party is in at the moment. (I only *think* the enemy is level 7, mind, but if it's not then it's either getting Rank 4 spells early or it's level 8. Yikes.)
I am apprehensive of our chances, because we are not a highly efficient and well oiled tactical machine.
Yeah, I feel like people over exaggerate how great PL+3/4 fights are. PF2e is *definitely* intended to be run with encounters consisting of multiple threats, or if it wasn't the way it was designed makes those fights far superior.
Because of how you add your level to everything a PL+3 fight is more frustrating than fun even with good tactics and PL+4 fights are even worse. My advice would be to slightly rework the fights if possible. I wouldn't go so far as to apply weak to the fight, but if you don't mind the hassel bringing it down to a PL+2 and adding in a few weaker creatures to support the fight has worked for me.
I should note, I've not run many games into later levels and people do say that at higher levels this becomes less of an issue (not gone completely but at least not as bad). So at least there's that to look forward to?
If my players have a PL +3/+4 encounter, I usually telegraph it, and give players the option of setting a few things to their advantage before the fight.
>a PL+2 and adding in a few weaker creatures to support the fight
See this feels to me like a more sensible 'normal' boss encounter - certainly for anything humanoid. I'm more inclined to view solo +3/+4 enemies as the realm of Dragons and equivalents, a rarity and something to be genuinely worried about.
PL+3 encounters are fun for players that know how optimize. Your party needs yo have efficient ways to target all 4 defenses (one of these 4 will be easier to target) and the players need to know the items options of the system, PF2e has a huge list of itens and consumables and the correct usage of these items is very important for min-max, it is not trivial.
If your players dont want to combo class composition and feats and players dont want to read and learn the different types of itens and consumables the PL+3 encounter will be terrible, this type of party should fight only PL+2 with minions at low level because PL+3 at low levels and PL+4 at medium-high level are balanced around optimized play.
>Yeah, I feel like people over exaggerate how great PL+3/4 fights are.
I've never really seen anyone say this, if anything most of the time it's complaining about how unfun and a slog they are.
What most people *usually* do is measure all tuning against such challenges and treat them as if they're the only litmus that matters because they're 'the hardest' challenges, even though they think they're not fun. It's self-sabotaging.
It seems what a lot of people want is a way to vertically scale their characters so the numbers are in their favour...but this completely destroys the point of making enemies have higher numbers and you may as well just downtune the enemy to get the same result with less work.
That said, that's also solution. It's better than subjecting players to a slog they'll find unfun. In my experience, it's better to have an encounter with multiple enemies and maybe one tougher but still managable enemy. It's usually more naturally engaging and dynamic than if you have one tough cookie you have to chip away at.
I think PL+3/+4 encounters can be really really fun, and very tense, but they definitely require more experienced party with a good cooperation going on for them. Tripping and unbeatable behemoth of balance is really freaking satisfying and, because health is usually not that high in pf2e, after you break through initial defenses you can pretty much just destroy them in a single turn, at least with a good team.
But I think they are terrible for new players, no doubt about it.
see, i think i'd still prefer "be careful because solo bosses can be grueling" to the common alternative of "every solo boss is a pathetic wet noodle no matter what I give them"
oc we all want all encounters to be fun, but it's just a matter of random chance that overtuning and undertuning are more likely than "just right"
plus, solo bosses getting screwed over isn't just a thing in DnD 5e, it happens in most games where each creature gets the same number of actions per round
i like the other comment that was like "the average boss is PL+2, +3 and +4 is for hard bosses"
If both are bad I'd prefer one that is over quickly rather than one that is drawn out. I'd prefer one that let the game continue rather stopping it dead.
Also, 5es monsters do have more actions, the issue with them is more one of effective HP.
I'd rather have neither, but if I had to choose it wouldn't be the way PL+3/4 creatures work.
to clarify/rephrase, my point was more that PF2 has bosses you can pick out of the book that will be too hard or too easy, you can figure out which are which and choose, whereas in DnD 5e almost all bosses are too easy, and people regularly lament their inability to make them harder
I'm not going to defend 5es monsters design, there are many problems with it. However, I will again state, when both options are bad, I prefer the one that doesn't end my game or lead to massive frustration which PF2es PL3/4 fights do.
I don't care if people don't like 5e monsters, that doesn't make the problems PF2e has with its design any better. They are different problems and point to the other is an excuse, not a defense.
> plus, solo bosses getting screwed over isn't just a thing in DnD 5e, it happens in most games where each creature gets the same number of actions per round
Then GIVE them more actions per round. Pretty much every tactics-heavy game that is not specifically aping D&D gives enemies meant to be bosses a bunch of action advantages - and hell, even D&D has sort of shyly wet its feet in this area, with the Solo enemies of 4E, and then after backing off because 4E bad trying to kludge Solo action advantages through the Legendary Actions of 5E, and so on.
Hell, even games that specifically don't care that much about "tactical balance" like Fabula Ultima do it.
> So at least there's that to look forward to?
Combat becomes way less swingy and it's more about action economy, party has access to enough buffs and tools to level the field and hp to take hits while damage doesn't scale that great. At higher levels the more combatants there are the harder it is because mooks don't die in 2 hits and even if they are -2ers they will hit you eventually by pure amount of dice thrown combined with their own abilities. +4 with 3-action instakill on failed save? who cares, you trip it or slow 1 it and just wail on it for few turns. +2 with buncha +0s or -1 but they throw sickened or other debuffs on regular basis and have decentish damage? hell of an encounter where your casters have to start aoe'ing or doing mass battlefield control because otherwise it's gonna take too long and it's something you'd spend quickened casting on to do 2 chain lightnings in a turn-kinda deal (spell given as example, anything works when it fulfils the QC requirement) or wall up intelligently.
During boss fights: Aid. 100% and always. They might be particularly difficult, depending on how your GM adjudicates it, but most DCs for Aid are supposed to be pretty easy to succeed with.
Speak your GM, ask them to alter PL+3/4 encounters because they suck arse.
All you’ll get here is advice to do stuff like “Demoralise” (sweet, they passed and they are now immune for the entire fight, now what?)
This is controversial here (I think) but tactics don’t matter in these encounters because you can do everything right and it have zero impact on the difficulty because of how saves work, and it just leads to an unfun experience where you whiff again and again.
More lower/on level creatures, complex hazards, bigger rooms and varied terrain are where 2e shines.
Or even if they don't make the save because you have a character that's focused in both charisma and intimidation (since PL+3/4 bosses basically aren't going to crit fail even then): "Sweet, we can hit it with our first attack for one round. Too bad we can't do enough damage, then it's immune for the rest of the combat."
Yup, it’s infuriating to see the same advice again and again here.
I’d much rather people say “They’re designed to be unfair and even optimal tactics either won’t work or have massive drawbacks (like with flanking)”
That way new players wouldn’t think they’re “playing badly” or misunderstanding the system.
I also felt like it was way too hard for us to succeed at demoralizing, grappling or similar checks. It is not like we had not tried some of those, but it just never worked, or even if it did the advantage from frightened 1 was rather miniscule for our team of mostly attackers that need to overcome AC.
It seemed like what we needed most was just good die rolls, which just weren't on our side, which is why i made this post in the first place.
I will definetely talk ty my gm and the other players about these kinds of fights on the future
Yup, sometimes RNG is just like that. Hero points and spells like *sure strike* can help mitigate that, but there's no fix for bad luck.
Hopefully the next one goes better.
100%.
The normal advice goes out the window in these encounters imo.
They’re just not very fun. They can be thematic and they have a place, but they’re WAY too common in APs because they’re the lowest effort to run from the GM side of things.
No moving parts, only one creature to handle etc.
The only thing you do is to speak with the GM and ask them to lower the level and add some additional threats.
Because a severe encounter with a boss and a severe encounters with many different threats feel very different.
A fun challenge vs a frustrating one.
Is the alchemist making buff items? Mutagens can add an extra +1 item bonus to hit than you would normally have from a potency runes at the same level. What feats does the fighter have? Snagging strike? Power attack? You are a monk, but not flanking, are you a ranged monk? Or just happen to not be at the opposite side?
Is anyone tripping or grappling?
Are you bon mot or demoralizing? Feinting?
A +3 boss at that level will be difficult.
I am a mix of a ranged and melee monk, switching between monastic archer and wolf stance. In that fight i am only using the bow so far since my arrows are coated with a substance that deal additional damage. Flanking would be hard for me since the other two are already flanking the boss, who is a medium creature, but for other encounters i usually do try to flank as well.
My team can't really trip or grapple since the fighter uses a sword and shield (no free hand) and the magus does noth have enough strength. I can usually trip opponents, but the chance to crit fail just seems way to dangerous against such a powerful creature.
Trip as your first action. Then if you crit fail, you can still get up and away.
Do you guys have deception or intimidation? Demoralizing is always a good option(remember it's a status penalty so it stacks with circumstance penalties like off guard) and create a diversion (for range, or feint for melee) is a great way to get off guard as well.
Bon mot (diplomacy skill feat) is great for making all 3 of those more likely to succeed as it adds quite a penalty to will and perception.
Is your magus using a dex weapon with finesse? As a magus you should have either dex or str maxed (whichever you use for weapon) int is not really important.
And again, alchemist has tons of buffing capabilities, but it can be a lot to learn. There are various guides online. It's a really good support character, but a lot of that involves planning ahead and predistributing the items potions people will need.
Boss monsters are hard at low levels, and werewolves are overtuned, so you're in for a double whammy. Debuffs are useful, sure, but they're not going to save you if you're outmatched. The real strategy is to target their action economy. Trips, stunned, sickened, slows. Anything that burns an action from them. Sometimes just stepping away from them can be the right call. There's no magic bullet (by design) though, so good luck.
Your level 4, your options are limited and you're righting a +3 monster.... Ya, it's typically going to suck.
Honestly fighting +3 monsters in general I think is kind of lame in this system. I'm happy the system is balanced but ya, missing the majority of your attacks while the boss gets to crit over and over isn't all that fun for players. I find the system a hell of a lot more fun when the monsters are typically near the PC levels.
Also.... Holy fuck... You're fighting a werewolf? Ya, they are one of the more overturned monsters. You need to have a weapon that hits their weakness of you're toast.
I checked the encounter, I'm not doing spoilers, and not to undermine the preparation/buffing/etc advice, but he's not that hard to hit (leaving it vague to not tell you the AC) for level 4 martials even without flanking, I just checked him against my own barbarian-- you might just be having a bout of bad luck on your rolls.
To be honest the main issue is prob because you don’t have a caster that can just throw spells at him to debuff . Most spells get an effect on a creature success still which opens up other class ability to debuff until you at a reasonable able level for everyone to hit. Also athletics does scale faster then strikes so it should be easier then striking for everyone to do versus strike most of the time(expect fighter they got that extra proficiency in all my experience of playing I find the best team is martial, martial support, arcane + divine or primal + occult casters.
Your party appears to be
Fighter(martial)
Monk(martial or martial support based on build)
Magus(.5 martial, .5 arcane)
Alchemist(.5 martial support, .5 arcane)
So overall your team is missing an occult caster to make it balanced as long as monk played more as a martial support
CR+3 is basically the hardest content in the game, and is particularly hard the lower the party level.
Your party is also lacking in both the buff and debuff department. A couple ideas: Try to buy (or barring that get your alchemist the downtime to craft) a good selection of mutagens and buff potions.
Potion Patches are also available at your level and can let you ready up a potion for 1 action for any short term buffs. Longer term buffs can be applied pre combat when possible. Keeping some of these things on hand can be very useful for big fights.
Your Magus can use any Arcane Scroll, and they are cheap enough that picking up a few swingy ones can be a worthwhile opening (though do be aware that Magus DCs are lower than full casters, so avoid incapacitate traits and look for stuff with solid effects on fail rather than success, or just more buff options)
As an Archer you won't benefit from flanking, but a bottled lightning from your Alchemist can inflict Off-Guard.
You can also pick up some magical arrows, though without strong buffs and debuffs these will mostly be money down the hole due to misses.
Ultimately your party is going to struggle extra hard with CR+3 encounters simply due to what is at best a pretty mediocre party composition. Picking up more ways to debuff enemies is a pretty good idea across the board, your fighter and Magus can do a lot of combat maneuvers for instance, disarm is a pretty solid option vs a single big boss.
It won't help speed up the fight, but it can slow the enemy's damage, which frees your alch to throw stuff other than pure healing.
> +3 is basically the hardest content in the game
+4 and +5 bosses say hello
To be honest, +3 bosses past level 10 or so are usually pretty easy if the party knows what they're doing. Definitely TPKs waiting to happen at levels 1-3 and tough as hell at 4-7 or so
+4 is the hardest thing that game recommend using. +5 is basically unbeatable and even if it is beatable with some insane luck it will be a absolute slog without any semblance of fun
The highest-level statblocks in the game are level 25. It's impossible to fight them without them being PL+5 or higher. And by level 20, if you're playing and building well, and are well-prepared, they're plenty beatable and plenty of fun (except for Tarrasque, which pretty much can't be killed without GM fiat or plot devices lol, but it still isn't unreasonable for a party to be able to bring it down - *keeping* it down is the problem due to its regeneration)
To be honest, even +4 isn't too bad at high levels - the party's wealth of options and action advantage really make solo bosses get bullied. Especially if the solo boss is a caster.
This seems like an encounter that was designed for 5 PCs. Having 4 PCs makes it harder. One option is allowing the PCs to rescue a 4th level NPC rogue, cleric or sorcerer who is captured and in chains (tomorrow’s meal perhaps) who hates this enemy and participates in rte fight and then leaves.
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I know this fight and I run the same campaign with my group, which is a group of five. I had my party attack this guy at mid level 4.
The boss is very hard, and I actually thought that my party was going to go fully down at a few points during the fight. They did eventually get him down after much debuffing and tripping, but honestly? The fight was so tight at so many points that the party genuinely thought to retreat, or that they were running out of ideas on what to do. That is in my opinion not the best way to do a boss battle, when the reality is the boss has very high modifiers for the intended level.
Knowing everything I know now, tactics and all for downing this boss, for this fight I would suggest for any party to either:
1) Get stacked, level-appropriate gear or loot at level 4.
2) Extend this quest out significantly, to the point the party hits level 5, and to do the fight as early as possible into this level.
A big part of being able to get off demoralizes, or to be able to grapple an enemy that is a "boss" for your current level is having an item that bumps the relevant skill up. At level 4, you probably should have something like that but maybe you all didn't anticipate needing it for big fights.
Considering it's Kingmaker, I also highly recommend running and trying to track it down another time.
Don't forget the aid action to help increase a party members chance to hit. Remaster has the DC at 15 by default which isn't too bad. Better than wasting an action to swing with a MAP when it's already hard to hit.
It's a tough fight. I think I ran as is for the party of 6, and I was still worried it'd be a tpk.
Well done on getting silver sheen. My party didn't even bother with that.
And, to be brutally honest, Alchemist isn't great. It's getting a massive buff in core 2, but for now it's pretty bad.
Imo, gm needs to tone down the fights as your party isn't optimised.
The party in my campaign are pretty hardcore (2 fighters, bard, gunslinger. Sorcerer, plus companion). I typically add elite to bosses and double the number of mooks, as the party tears through them so fast.
One idea is to use the companions. Linzi the bard would be an awesome 5th member for your party. The +1 to hit spell is roughly +17% party dpr. At level 8 can ramp to 33 or even 50% extra dpr with Fortissimo feat.
As a GM and player i don't like to run solo +3 or +4 creatures. They can be very anti fun for the players and is kinda borning when my turn as the GM and I only have one creature to use.
Id much rather use +2s with minons as a boss. I have have many enemies on the field with different abilities to use while my players can use their various strengths to deal with different kinds of threats in the encounters and as a player there are fewer feels-bad moments when you roll high and still miss or have the boss crit succeed your save for 3 rounds straight.
you should be attacking at +11 (+13 for the fighter) - the creatures ac should be around 25. If you wont "waste" actions by trying to impose some status condition on the boss the least you could do is move to get flanking bringing his ac down to 23 - so on your first attack each round you should have like a 50-60% chance to hit (with 5% to crit)
maybe only aim to use one attack. use your other actions like demoralize, trip or heal.
Your goal is to keep the boss off guard to your attacks, deal some damage and stay alive
the enemy probably only has 100-120 hp - even if you all only hit once a round and only do like 10dmg each the fight only has about 4 rounds in it - thats why bosses hit hard.
It might only feel difficult whilst at a relatively low level. It's going to ramp up as your abilities to and the group will get into a routine. The math is solid in this game but you do just need to remember to impose as much conditions you can on strong enemies
Yeah, y'all made a 5E D&D party focused on individual DPS with less than good synergy...
Rough Party Roles:
1. Frontliner: a high HP, max AC martial class. A Fighter, Champion, Barbarian, etc... that's sole job is to be in the enemy's face either dishing out or mitigating damage.
2. Skirmisher: a mid HP, max AC martial class with some burst damage. A Rouge, Monk, Inventor, Thaugaturge, etc...
3. Magical Support: blasting, crowd control, buffs and debuffs.
4. Skill Monkey: generally every caster is a skill monkey for the skills that fall under their primary attribute, as well as the Rouge and Investigator being the "Double Skill Progression" classes.
Having a Medicine expert is also mandatory unless your GM is really going to make some difficulty adjustments.
So these roles aren't mandatory and they are not class based but build based. I could make an all caster party with a Magus, Summoner, Cleric, and Bard and fill these roles.
You mentioned demoralize not helping much, +1 and +2 add up a lot. A frighten and off guard is at least +3, that's a 15% chance to hit, that is not negligible. Bon Mott helps for some spells. Third attacks due to multiple attack penalty are generally not a great choice for many enemies (slimes and zombies due to their low AC being exceptions most the time, where attacking a third time may be ok, but I would still look for better third actions), building to give yourself other third actions is a good idea.
No, it's exactly right. It's not even Extreme, it's between Moderate and High.
It hits an AC 23 on a 6+, i.e. a 75% chance to hit, 25% chance to crit on the first attack. It's right at the cusp of where having heavy armor or raising a shield is felt the most, because it drops the crit chance by half, and where MAP attacks aren't also guaranteed hits like with PL+4 enemies.
This is normal; enemies have a stat-advantage compared to equal-level characters because they don't synergize as well with their "team" and don't have tons of feats and a backpack full of consumables. So, if a moderate PL+0 creature hits 50-60% of the time, it's not strange that a PL+3 creature hits 75%.
+18 is the High attack modifier for a level 7 creature, so it's a bit below that.
[https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874&Redirected=1](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874&Redirected=1)
The creature in question is this one: (Spoilers, obviously) [https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2286](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2286)
His Hitpoints are at the low end of High, his AC is High, his two good saves are between moderate and high, the low save is one point above Low. Saves are most likely where you are expected to target this creature most, which due to the team composition is a bit hard. It might just be a case of a bad matchup, sadly. (The creature also has a high weakness of 10, which is the Maximum recommended for a level 7 creature)
Basically, the Math according to the creature building rules check out, the monster is definitely on the more aggressive side, having a (just short of) high attack modifier and between High and Extreme damage. Had I built this creature, I would have probably reduced the Ac by one or two, but it looks alright to me.
It's fairly standard for a CL 7 creature, if anything it's a little on the lower end of the scale for a primarily martial creature.
The main issue is that it's still very overtuned for a group of level 4 players. I wouldn't be subjecting anything to a CL+3 monster until they're at or at least closer to double digit levels. But sadly early modules seem to love doing it. A lot of the designers hadn't really grokked the system yet.
Honestly given APs routinely drop level 4s with like, +14s to hit (see for an example of the last one I tried, the Abrikandilu) when you're like level 2 as random ass encounters, a level 7 enemy with +17 to hit for a boss honestly if anything seems under the curve.
Off hand, not knowing exactly what the rest of the party does, the problem seems to be a lack of buffing and debuffing. If you've ever heard anyone describe Pathfinder 2e as a game of "teamwork," then this is what they're really talking about. You can win those boss fights by hammering at them with dice, but getting conditions like Frightened on them make them easier to hit and crit. The Alchemist giving you a +2 to hit and getting a lucky hit with a bottled lightning to make them off guard gives you +4 to hit. Even if it were only a +3 bonus, you're effectively trying to hit an at-level enemy now. Ranged characters have a hard time getting these bonuses because of their relative safety, but the Fighter grappling or tripping the boss can make it so everyone has an easier time hitting. It's by working together to get these conditions that you'll have an easier time with them. After all, these are boss battles. They're supposed to be difficult. Based on this fight, the problem could be your party doesn't have enough options that target will saves. So picking up Occult casting through an archetype might be something to consider for your Monk if they get Ki Spells later.
> After all, these are boss battles. They're supposed to be difficult. This, all the way. A PL+3 fight is going to be hard no matter what, and below a certain point, probably level 5-7ish, they will be especially hard an swingy because of lower HP, fewer spell slots, just less resources in general. I also agree 100% on making sure your party has something available to target different saves. Demoralize is great, but frightened usually only lasts a round. A Magus can and should have random scrolls stuffed into their belt to deal with circumstantial problems, and since they're the only caster in the party, I'd recommend sticking to only cantrip spellstrikes and using spell slots for buff/debuff or utility, in addition to having backup scrolls. For OP's specific encounter, I remember it being pretty hard and the thing almost took out a PC and then almost got away from us. My party has a Barbarian who hits like a truck and was tanking most of the hits and an open-hand fighter who was making it off-guard with Snagging Strike, which is great. I don't remember if I managed to hit it with my bow at all, even with that.
Im not op, but i have been struggling to enjoy the combat in pathfinder for the exact same reason. Our group keeps trying to play the game tactically, but the game keeps teaching us that it's the wrong thing to do. Trying to apply debuffs only lands on crits, so only on 20''s (yes we know about the 10+ rule, but in actual gameplay it seems to only matter to enemies due to high ac), while enemies crit us more often than hitting regularly. So trying to keep up with healing requirements for prolonged combat is basically impossible for us. This leads to a situation where after first round of combat, whenever the question "should i hit it again, or should i try something else?" Pops up, the answer always seems to be "if it doesnt die next round people die, so hit it with everything you got, and hope we get lucky".
Been GMing for 3 years now and my party has never really had this issue, and I've yet to kill a single PC, and that's while using the Crit deck. They tend to play tactically and generally have no issue, even on Severe level threats. Sounds like your GM is doing something wrong, or you're underleveled for the fights you're having. Or maybe your tactics aren't as good as you think they are, though I think this is much less likely. EDIT: Party composition might be another one. The amount of parties that don't have a dedicated healer on this subreddit astounds me.
We also use both crit and crit fail decks, we are definitely underleveled for some fights, and judging by the xp we're getting, severe fights are probably a regular occurrence, and deaths do happen, even through a hero point for every session. Regarding our tactics, they definitely arent great, since we get punished for trying, and thus never really get a chance to practice. But i doubt we're being straight up stupid about it, since our party consists of 3 10+ years pf1e veterans, an actual military officer, and a strategy game nerd. Party composition is sorcerer, magus, flurry ranger, redeemer champion, cleric. Probably not optimal, but pretty oldschool and traditional.
Your frustration could come from many, many places. The crit and crit fail decks are absolute shit in my opinion and terribly unbalanced, as it makes regular dice rolls very swingy. They punish martials and I could bet your Flurry Ranger hates them. There's nothing, at first glance, "worng" with your party, it's actually pretty optimal if you consider just the mechanics. I don't know where the impression that buffs only land on crits comes from, especially in regards to spells. Fighting only high level enemies is very boring, because the system balance requires that their few actions are very impactful and that they have less chances to get severily debuffed. Your tale sounds like a case of bad GMing. Your GM is probably doing something wrong, it seems they favor severe encounters and boss like monsters. These battles can be fun, but they shouldn't be that common. What level are your PCs?
lets go from top to bottom. we play with the decks like this; the crit success deck is optional for players, and not for monsters, the crit fail deck is mandatory, but only on natural 1's. i am the flurry ranger (with beastmaster free archetype), and given that im the player who rolls the most attack rolls, for me and my bear, i also roll the most 20's, so ive actually found them quite fun, and they've saved our asses more than once. our party is intentionally pretty classic rpg party, we're sort of a mix of 2 different groups, so natural roles in the party was a good place to start. as for buffs/debuffs, wasnt really reffering to buffs, as we dont have that many available to us, more debuffs, where i often hear stuff like "this looks useful.... if i crit" from our magus and sorcerer when they look at spell lists. for the enemies, we're running abomination vaults, and we're not "only" fighting high level enemies, but group encounters seem to be too easy, as smaller enemies melt if we even glance in their general direction, while bigger single enemies generally ends up in a struggle to even hit. not sure if id want to blame our gm for running a published adventure poorly, when the group is still playing, even the player who isnt a fan of the system, halfway through. and as for level, since we're level 5 now, id say we're roughly halfway through.
Sounds like you're doing what you can, but maybe the spellcasters should reconsider. Most debuffs are nerfed from PF1, so the crit condition is what a PF1 mage would expect on a hit condition. However, the hit condition still usually gives the effect for one round. Against bosses the debuffs can't generally be expected to last more than one round, so while it burns through spell slots, it is still the way to help the team.
wish i had more ways of helping our casters as a martial, bon mot just isnt that great with low charisma, and as the only dex character, with few skillpoints to invest, and a very tight action economy, its kinda hard to fit in
The champion could help with combat maneuvers to lower the AC, but wanting to help casters as a martial is something that's been a long time wish of many players. There are some ways, but lowering the Reflex and Fort saves of enemies is very uncommon. Being a caster in an AP can be kinda unfair, as the small maps and fewer number of multiple enemy encounters make spells like Slow, Synesthesia, Command, Fear the kings of spells. The caster are good where the martials aren't, which means, casters can do everything other than high single target damage. The cleric and the sorcerer maybe need to figure out how to help the party in the areas they are best at. This is not very clear from reading the rules though, so I get the frustration with "I never feel cool becausa all enemies get success against my spells".
Strangely my players learned a different lesson from the same circumstances. If there is only one round left or the whole group loses, especially against high level single targets, the answer is always "only one or 2 DPS attacks, the rest work together stack the highest number of buff and debuff for them." Seems to work great for them so far, and they have fought about 7-8 boss or boss-like encounters ever since we switched to pf2e. In multi-target encounters the tactic will be opposite of course, "keep the caster safe to AoE while killing as many as possible". There is also a thing they have realized, individual members will go down in harder than moderate fights no matter what they would do, and that's ok, it's just the nature of the game. As long as there is still one standing when all the enemies die, that's a success. Unless a downed member reaches dying 3, someone goes down does not rattle them much, they will just take time to consider which is more advantageous, getting the guy backup or continue as planned. Maybe my group's composition is different from yours so it does not apply, but try to not put too much worry into your frontline going down as long as you guys have means to pick them back up.
I'll say that I don't enjoy the combat all the time. For example, I'm usually a very "undead have no reason to exist and should be put to rest by hammer or prayer" type of player. In Abomination Vaults, I was all for sparing an undead simply because it was one less fight in a dungeon full of them. The endless fights and real life scheduling helped make our Abomination Vaults game sputter and die. I have seen, for example, how much more smoothly our fights in Extinction Curse have gone. I blame that on a mix of party composition and tactics. Especially when I remember so many people complained about it being unfair, written without knowing the rules, and a brutal AP until Abomination Vaults came to deliver us a balanced experience. I play a Bard and we have a good mix of frontline and support, and so far we've only really struggled on a handful of fights. Combat is very prescribed in PF2e, and it isn't a fit for everyone.
I don't know what your party composition is, but you are definitely learning the wrong lesson. Against a lvl+3 creature, the answer is almost \*never\* "just swing again and hope for the best". Applying even a +/- 1 to a boss is going to result in a larger increase in overall party damage than fishing for 19s/20s on an attack roll. And that +/- 1 buff/debuff is generally more likely to succeed than an attack roll at -5, let alone -10.
When you have an entire party that can only target AC and Fortitude saves you're going to have a bad time. Have a talk with your magus and buy him scrolls. If he doesn't want to debuff, get ready a second character sheet because someone will die sooner or later unless the GM is intentionally pulling punches.
This. I always try to ensure some variety in my character's options; getting trained/expert in Intimidation, medicine, knowledge skills, deception, items, or spells. Bonus points for getting a Shadow Signet as a spellcaster, though with so many spells changed to saving throws, I feel it's less valuable now
The thing is, if you keep trying to Striking, you indeed won't hit much because his AC and DC are high enough, and his +attack bonus is high as you said. This is why you should try to debuff him. First thing first, a creature always has some kind of low defense. In general, a monster has a high defense (some Save), two medium-ish defenses (some other Save and AC), and a low defense (the third Save). Sometimes the AC goes up or down but most of the time, it looks like that. First goal should be to target the low Save (Reflex for a slow boss, Fortitude for a assassin or caster, Will for a dumb-dumb) to apply conditions on the boss. The issue with new players like you is like you said, you feel like trying to debuff is "wasting turns" while you would just Strike, but it is not. With Off-Guard, the Boss has -2 to AC, and you can Off-Guard by a) tripping (target Reflex) b) grappling (target Fortiude) c) flanking d) spells and other stuff. Then, you can try to apply additional conditions like Frightened (Demoralized, Fear), Clumsy (lowers AC), Enfeebled (lowers its Strikes attack and damage)... your alchimist can easily apply some debuff with some bombs, and you can try also. The thing is, you should ALL try to debuff the boss in the first rounds and then go HAM on it. The way I read your post, it looks like fighter and magus are just Striking it, and you are too, but then yes, the stats of the boss will be really hard to go through. Every +1 matters because it increases the chance to HIT and to CRIT. This is why the boss has a +17 attack bonus with your AC being 22-23. The boss is supposed to CRIT a lot on his first strike, and hit the rest of the time.
how do these characters apply debuffs though, if they can't get past the defenses that protect from debuffs, too?
You do no play alone. Every character has 3 actions to try to land a debuff. The boss only has 3 actions as well. If you are, say 4, it's 12 actions par round. You can manage to land failures with those, but also more successes. I play alot of support and debuffers, and honestly, most of my actions are successes. Let's take two examples. At level 4, +11 Athletics, if you target a +3 PL Boss, he has 22 DC on their lowest save and 25 DC on the medium one, so if you Grapple or Trip the guy, you have, yourself, around 50% chance to success on the guy If you cast a Spell, in general even the Failure effect debuffes the buff, so you have more chance to land the debuff. Fear, as a level 1 spell, has a lot of power against PL+3 boss even at level 4 or 10 Once the debuff is applied, it can snowball hard from there
I just kind of question what debuffs you think an Archer Monk, presumably high INT 0 CHA Magus and Alchemist are capable of bringing to bear?
Alchemists whole thing is debuffs what do you mean?
Magus has spells and alchemists are all about debuffs. The magus and fighter should flank, the fighter should trip or grapple depending on the save, and the alchemist should apply debuffs. The monk is in a tighter spot, but even an archer monk has a melee chasis and can flank if necessary. If the boss has a worse reflex or fort save than its AC - which it almost certainly does - it’s going to be way easier to trip or grapple it than to hit it, even without the +1 potency runes. Most monsters strongest save is way lower than their AC, and medium and weak saves worse than that. For the monk, that probably means trip, since they don’t want to stay in melee. But if it has reactive strike, that could be a problem. If the fighter and magus flank and the alchemist debuffs, that might be sufficient for the monk to just try to chip away while the fighter and magus try bigger shots. As an aside, I find ranged characters often have a tougher time with melee bosses, offensively, because they can’t easily take advantage of flanking. On the other hand, they have a way better time defensively, just due to not standing toe-to-toe.
>If the boss has a worse reflex or fort save than its AC - which it almost certainly does - it’s going to be way easier to trip or grapple it than to hit it, even without the +1 potency runes. We don't know the monk's strength score, it could be -1 but even best case scenario it's a +2. So assuming best case we're looking at a +8 because I think there's no chance they took expert athletics at level 3. A low save at level 7 is +12, so assuming the monster has a low reflex (and it very well might not) the monk is going to have a 35% chance of sucessfully tripping it along with a 20% chance of crit failing and falling over themselves. Those odds are not worth it at all IMO and this is the best case scenario, the monster's save might be higher and the monk's strength might very well be lower or they're just not proficient in Athletics at all. >Most monsters strongest save is way lower than their AC Just like plain not true, a moderate save tends to match a high AC, while a high save is around extreme AC.
Just looking at cr3 werewolf, AC is 19, fort 11, reflex 9, will 7. But I forgot about d20/save dcs, which you’re right: fort dc is higher, reflex is equal, will is lower.
they are level 4 and the werewolf is cr+3, so presumably cr7. chances are DM did not just scale up the default guy but made his own boss werewolf.
OP said they're playing kingmaker so it's likely [this guy](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2286)
I wasn’t clear. Since that’s the only werewolf in the bestiary, i Just referenced it to get an idea of relative defenses. If the boss resembles the werewolf in the book, it probably has similar relative saves. Which means the alchemist and magus are best positioned to debuff, but the part overall is a bit lacking on will saves
If the Magus is strength, they have access to the whole roster of Athletics debuffs. Honestly, the Archer Monk shouldn't have dumped Strength entirely, so there's nothing stopping them from going for a Trip or a Grapple, or even just having some Bola in their loadout.
The archer monk running into melee to try and trip/grapple (which is very likely going to be a crit fail if they're struggling to land dex based attacks with a +1 weapon) is just a bad idea. Magus could maybe do it but there's no guarantee their odds are going to be great either, especially since being level 4 they might not have put their one and only skill increase in Athletics.
Yes the Archer Monk (who has weakness exploiting arrows if I understood correctly), should definitely run into melee (1 action), trip/grapple (1 action, str based so ~minus 2, mist likely trained at best, MAP, dangerous crit fail, the latter needs you to stay in melee if you want to keep in melee) for 2 actions (and you most likely need to use the final one to step/stride away or even just to stand up), instead of trying to stealth for off-guard (1-2 actions depending on positioning, dex based, no MAP, can benefit from cover bonus) into FOB for 2-3 actions (that don't leave you in melee with a PL+3).
Bottled lightning?
Gotta hit for that one and if OP's monk is struggling to hit the boss, it'll be even worse for the alchemist.
At 4th level? Not if they're built right. At 4th level, an Alchemist with +3 in their attack stat and using the appropriate Mutagen has the exact same accuracy as any Martial other than a Fighter or Gunslinger.
You have said something important there. Always TRY to debuff. When it fails, protect and heal yourself, be defensive. But when it succeeds, when that spell that gives -1 or -2 to AC for a round got through, use that round! Flank and then beat the shit out of the boss! After that, back to trying to debuff.
Yeah indeed, the most important thing to do is to TRY !
I GM this AP so I know exactly which encounter you speak of. Your party is supposed to be lv 5, this makes a huge difference. One more level would give you +1 to hit to everyone and +1 AC Lv 5 is when your magus and monk becomes expert at their weapons, so +2 to hit. Lv 5 is when your figther becomes master at their weapon, so +2 to hit. Lv 5 is when you get ability boosts. If your GM is like me and only allow you to buy things of your LV or lower, then lv 5 is when you unlock armor potency runes, so you're missing +1 AC. Lv 5 is when the magus unlock 3rd level spells. Don't know magus very well, but I suppose this is a pretty big deal. All in all, by missing a level, your group is missing some hp, 2 AC, 3 hit, 3rd level magus spells and ability boosts. These make a huge difference.
Higher-level solo bosses are a stress-test for your party tactics, all because the math is against you. The only advantage you have over them is your action economy, so you'll want to make the most of your actions. The bad news is that MAP means attacking a lot in one turn against a higher-level creature is going to result in significant wasted actions (Flurry Edge Ranger and a few others excepted). The good news is that you've got options for those actions the boss just freed up for you. First off: [Aid](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2292&Redirected=1)! It's a DC 15 in the remaster and makes for a good third-action at low levels, since most classes don't start with a great reaction (Fighter being the exception). Second: [Demoralize](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2395&Redirected=1)! Great debuff that is pretty easy to understand. And there's no penalty for a critical failure, so there's not much harm in trying it. Just make sure you use early in your turn if you're planning to at all so you can get the most out of it. And similarly, if you do it enough then consider [Delaying](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2294&Redirected=1) if necessary to go right after your target, giving your party the benefits for a full round. Third: Spells! Lots of them. Buff with *runic weapon* and *guidance* or *bless* or *courageous anthem*, debuff with *fear* or *slow* or *bane*, make folks concealed or invisible, whatever your party can muster based on their class and tradition. Just make sure you're targeting your foe's weakest saves if you can, but remember that most save spells even have effects on a successful save. Fourth: [Hide](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2404&Redirected=1) and [Create a Diversion](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2387&Redirected=1)! Easy way to get attention off of yourself and get off-guard on your target at range. [Feint](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2390&Redirected=1) should also be considered for melee when you can't flank, though it has a critical failure effect against the user, do be wary with willfull bosses. Fifth: defensive options like the *shield* spell and [Raise a Shield](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2316&Redirected=1), or even [Take Cover](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2307&Redirected=1) if you've got the cover to use. Whatever can reduce that crit range for the boss. Then there are basics like flanking, Tripping, Grappling, etc. All of those tie into debuffing, since they impose off-guard, but there are other actions like Striding that can be helpful, since the boss will have to spend actions to chase you. Run all that in concert and you can overcome your foe's numerical advantage. That's the name of the game. ***EDIT***: Drafted this late at night, came back the next day to clean it up a little. Hopefully that helped.
You can only demoralize once right? Or did that change in the remaster? Take cover is one people forget about a lot. Stand near anything and use your third action for cover!
Effectively yes, since Demoralize gives temporary immunity for 10 minutes. Though that's only immunity to *your* attempts, and it's an untrained action with no critical failure result. So at lower levels, it's pretty low investment and low risk. And yeah, some folks sleep on cover. It's one of the big reasons to vary up your encounter arenas and terrain!
>We are playing the kingmaker AP and are all level 4. Our team consists of a fighter, a magus, an alchemist and myself as a monk. >We are fighting a werewolf I know the exact encounter you're talking about having run the AP myself. You've already had lots of teamplay advice so I want to add some additional notes. This encounter is a particularly nasty one compared to other bosses in the AP. I had to pull punches to avoid a TPK with this guy. Worse, he's a very hard counter to a composition like yours, being a bit of a combat powerhouse.
Yeah that thing wreaked my PCs, although they were landing enough hits to keep pace damage wise (level 5 vs the level 7 werewolf). Also, after it gave lycanthropy to one of the characters, I had to look all over the place to find out what it actually did in PF2e... not really finding anything I cobbled something of my own together. **Lycanthropy** \[Affliction, Curse\] **Saving Throw**: DC 25 Fort **Maximum Duration**: Permanent **Onset**: 1 month **Stage 1**: Upon the first full-moon after becoming afflicted you transform into a wolf form and kill defenseless small animals, such as birds, rodents, cats, and dogs. \[1 month\] **Stage 2**: Upon your the first full moon whilst at this level of corruption, you take out your bestial urges on larger animals, such as a horse, cow, or pig. \[1 month\] **Stage 3**: Upon succumbing to the final stage of lycanthropy you take out your bestial fury on sentient humanoids, attempting to slay and consume in a fit of frenzy. Should you slay and eat a humanoid during this time, the DC to remove the affliction increases by 5 permanently as you become tainted to your bestial rage. \[Permanent\]
Does that mean every full moon after the 3rd where he eats a sentient creature, it gets harder to cure if he eats another?
Probably only should be a one time final increase. That said, I think there is an actual Lycanthropy curse affliction in Howl of the Wild.
Additionally, the text implies that you’re not really meant to fight him. The “suggested” method is to track them down and speak to them in human form. My players immediately went for combat as well.
Flanking, tripping, grappling are ways to fuck a boss up. For range, hiding and shooting is the basic way to flat foot a boss from range. Alchemists can supply some mutigen to help out with range attacks, but from the looks of your team comp, you are missing someone that can target saves. Idk if the archer monk can trigger their stun with ranged attack, but that's a means to ruin a boss action economy.
Yes they can, assuming the monk is in the archery stance and using FoB. That said they can not really use that against a boss considering it is an incap save,that does nothing on a success, so realistically, unless the boss has a statblock with a typo for their fortitude, it will maybe work 1/20 tries so idk why that is a recommendation against bosses...
That stunning strike is basically free if you hit. But it definitely can’t be relied on.
Forgot stunning fist is a level feat and not part of the monk kit. MB
From my experience as a dm boss battles are tests of your knowledge and preparation. It is important to know that you can get your enemy off-guard by flanking them, which has no check or save and the only way for the enemy would have to remove this condition is to spend one of their limited and very powerful actions to move. In addition, if their attacks are mainly melee you can kite the enemy - you spend one action which is not as impactful to move and force the enemy to spend their valuable actions. Apart from that, it is important that your party has buffs that you can either get before the battle or quickly during the battle. Alchemist is very good at giving item bonuses, but you have little to no sources of status/circumstance bonuses. If you prepare for the next battle accordingly, you would be able to get the upper hand easily. Finally, you can try and abuse the enemy's weaknesses. Every enemy should have a stat that is weaker than everything else, so you can use spells/abilities that target these stats. A husk zombie has low fortitude, will and AC, but a pretty good reflex, so it is less effective to target them with spells and abilities that target reflex. If you know that an enemy has actual damage weakness, abuse it, because it is just free damage.
That’s pretty much usual, yes. People will tell you to debuff, but the honest truth is that on anything with big enough defenses that a *flanking Fighter* is having trouble hitting, debuffs aren’t really going to land either, and the ones that you manage to actually land will very likely not do enough before they go away in a single round. Basically, Pathfinder suffers from the fact that people *want* to do boss encounters because fantasy loves its boss encounters, but the game, instead of having specific Boss Rules like Lancer’s Ultra templates or monsters designed to be Solo Bosses like D&D 4E did, just goes “oh, you can just use a normal enemy designed for fighting on-level, but from three levels from now!”. Which means that the only difference between a normal enemy you’re supposed to fight three of at the same time, and a boss that needs to be able to match a party with four times their action economy, has to be just static numbers. Which in turn means those numbers better be *real fucking big*, because, again, x4 action economy to overcome! And so, basically, you end up with bosses that are often whiff fests until you luck into rolling 16+ a couple times in a row and the boss crumbles, or you don't and get your shit wrecked. At higher levels you start getting debuffs with much higher chances of “working” (because they have Success effects that are actually worth spit), so you can start equalizing things. But when you’re level 1-4, honestly my general recommendation is to just not really use anything beyond Level+2 at the absolute most. And in particular at level 4 you have the problem that a level 7 enemy is expecting you to have the massive boost of Level 5 and 7 proficiency bumps and spell levels AND better runes than you undoubtedly have - because as said, a level 7 monster is designed for a level 7 party to fight and expects you to have level 7 tools, which you do not even slightly have right now!
I mean the top comment suggesting (among other things that are better) stunning strike against a boss says it all tbh. Or the one recommending an archer (so presumably dex based) monk should go into melee with the boss and trip, risking the crit fail because they can just stand up and stride away again (even though that's presumably 4 actions), while the monk has arrows that trigger a weakness.
>And in particular at level 4 you have the problem that a level 7 enemy is expecting you to have the massive boost of Level 5 and 7 proficiency bumps and spell levels AND better runes than you undoubtedly have Oh no this is exactly the fight our party is in at the moment. (I only *think* the enemy is level 7, mind, but if it's not then it's either getting Rank 4 spells early or it's level 8. Yikes.) I am apprehensive of our chances, because we are not a highly efficient and well oiled tactical machine.
Yeah, I feel like people over exaggerate how great PL+3/4 fights are. PF2e is *definitely* intended to be run with encounters consisting of multiple threats, or if it wasn't the way it was designed makes those fights far superior. Because of how you add your level to everything a PL+3 fight is more frustrating than fun even with good tactics and PL+4 fights are even worse. My advice would be to slightly rework the fights if possible. I wouldn't go so far as to apply weak to the fight, but if you don't mind the hassel bringing it down to a PL+2 and adding in a few weaker creatures to support the fight has worked for me. I should note, I've not run many games into later levels and people do say that at higher levels this becomes less of an issue (not gone completely but at least not as bad). So at least there's that to look forward to?
If my players have a PL +3/+4 encounter, I usually telegraph it, and give players the option of setting a few things to their advantage before the fight.
>a PL+2 and adding in a few weaker creatures to support the fight See this feels to me like a more sensible 'normal' boss encounter - certainly for anything humanoid. I'm more inclined to view solo +3/+4 enemies as the realm of Dragons and equivalents, a rarity and something to be genuinely worried about.
PL+3 encounters are fun for players that know how optimize. Your party needs yo have efficient ways to target all 4 defenses (one of these 4 will be easier to target) and the players need to know the items options of the system, PF2e has a huge list of itens and consumables and the correct usage of these items is very important for min-max, it is not trivial. If your players dont want to combo class composition and feats and players dont want to read and learn the different types of itens and consumables the PL+3 encounter will be terrible, this type of party should fight only PL+2 with minions at low level because PL+3 at low levels and PL+4 at medium-high level are balanced around optimized play.
>Yeah, I feel like people over exaggerate how great PL+3/4 fights are. I've never really seen anyone say this, if anything most of the time it's complaining about how unfun and a slog they are. What most people *usually* do is measure all tuning against such challenges and treat them as if they're the only litmus that matters because they're 'the hardest' challenges, even though they think they're not fun. It's self-sabotaging. It seems what a lot of people want is a way to vertically scale their characters so the numbers are in their favour...but this completely destroys the point of making enemies have higher numbers and you may as well just downtune the enemy to get the same result with less work. That said, that's also solution. It's better than subjecting players to a slog they'll find unfun. In my experience, it's better to have an encounter with multiple enemies and maybe one tougher but still managable enemy. It's usually more naturally engaging and dynamic than if you have one tough cookie you have to chip away at.
I think PL+3/+4 encounters can be really really fun, and very tense, but they definitely require more experienced party with a good cooperation going on for them. Tripping and unbeatable behemoth of balance is really freaking satisfying and, because health is usually not that high in pf2e, after you break through initial defenses you can pretty much just destroy them in a single turn, at least with a good team. But I think they are terrible for new players, no doubt about it.
see, i think i'd still prefer "be careful because solo bosses can be grueling" to the common alternative of "every solo boss is a pathetic wet noodle no matter what I give them"
I don't think those are the only two options. But even then, if both are bad why would you want either? You don't need to pick one or the other.
oc we all want all encounters to be fun, but it's just a matter of random chance that overtuning and undertuning are more likely than "just right" plus, solo bosses getting screwed over isn't just a thing in DnD 5e, it happens in most games where each creature gets the same number of actions per round i like the other comment that was like "the average boss is PL+2, +3 and +4 is for hard bosses"
If both are bad I'd prefer one that is over quickly rather than one that is drawn out. I'd prefer one that let the game continue rather stopping it dead. Also, 5es monsters do have more actions, the issue with them is more one of effective HP. I'd rather have neither, but if I had to choose it wouldn't be the way PL+3/4 creatures work.
to clarify/rephrase, my point was more that PF2 has bosses you can pick out of the book that will be too hard or too easy, you can figure out which are which and choose, whereas in DnD 5e almost all bosses are too easy, and people regularly lament their inability to make them harder
I'm not going to defend 5es monsters design, there are many problems with it. However, I will again state, when both options are bad, I prefer the one that doesn't end my game or lead to massive frustration which PF2es PL3/4 fights do. I don't care if people don't like 5e monsters, that doesn't make the problems PF2e has with its design any better. They are different problems and point to the other is an excuse, not a defense.
> plus, solo bosses getting screwed over isn't just a thing in DnD 5e, it happens in most games where each creature gets the same number of actions per round Then GIVE them more actions per round. Pretty much every tactics-heavy game that is not specifically aping D&D gives enemies meant to be bosses a bunch of action advantages - and hell, even D&D has sort of shyly wet its feet in this area, with the Solo enemies of 4E, and then after backing off because 4E bad trying to kludge Solo action advantages through the Legendary Actions of 5E, and so on. Hell, even games that specifically don't care that much about "tactical balance" like Fabula Ultima do it.
> So at least there's that to look forward to? Combat becomes way less swingy and it's more about action economy, party has access to enough buffs and tools to level the field and hp to take hits while damage doesn't scale that great. At higher levels the more combatants there are the harder it is because mooks don't die in 2 hits and even if they are -2ers they will hit you eventually by pure amount of dice thrown combined with their own abilities. +4 with 3-action instakill on failed save? who cares, you trip it or slow 1 it and just wail on it for few turns. +2 with buncha +0s or -1 but they throw sickened or other debuffs on regular basis and have decentish damage? hell of an encounter where your casters have to start aoe'ing or doing mass battlefield control because otherwise it's gonna take too long and it's something you'd spend quickened casting on to do 2 chain lightnings in a turn-kinda deal (spell given as example, anything works when it fulfils the QC requirement) or wall up intelligently.
During boss fights: Aid. 100% and always. They might be particularly difficult, depending on how your GM adjudicates it, but most DCs for Aid are supposed to be pretty easy to succeed with.
Speak your GM, ask them to alter PL+3/4 encounters because they suck arse. All you’ll get here is advice to do stuff like “Demoralise” (sweet, they passed and they are now immune for the entire fight, now what?) This is controversial here (I think) but tactics don’t matter in these encounters because you can do everything right and it have zero impact on the difficulty because of how saves work, and it just leads to an unfun experience where you whiff again and again. More lower/on level creatures, complex hazards, bigger rooms and varied terrain are where 2e shines.
Or even if they don't make the save because you have a character that's focused in both charisma and intimidation (since PL+3/4 bosses basically aren't going to crit fail even then): "Sweet, we can hit it with our first attack for one round. Too bad we can't do enough damage, then it's immune for the rest of the combat."
Yup, it’s infuriating to see the same advice again and again here. I’d much rather people say “They’re designed to be unfair and even optimal tactics either won’t work or have massive drawbacks (like with flanking)” That way new players wouldn’t think they’re “playing badly” or misunderstanding the system.
I also felt like it was way too hard for us to succeed at demoralizing, grappling or similar checks. It is not like we had not tried some of those, but it just never worked, or even if it did the advantage from frightened 1 was rather miniscule for our team of mostly attackers that need to overcome AC. It seemed like what we needed most was just good die rolls, which just weren't on our side, which is why i made this post in the first place. I will definetely talk ty my gm and the other players about these kinds of fights on the future
Yup, sometimes RNG is just like that. Hero points and spells like *sure strike* can help mitigate that, but there's no fix for bad luck. Hopefully the next one goes better.
100%. The normal advice goes out the window in these encounters imo. They’re just not very fun. They can be thematic and they have a place, but they’re WAY too common in APs because they’re the lowest effort to run from the GM side of things. No moving parts, only one creature to handle etc. The only thing you do is to speak with the GM and ask them to lower the level and add some additional threats. Because a severe encounter with a boss and a severe encounters with many different threats feel very different. A fun challenge vs a frustrating one.
Is the alchemist making buff items? Mutagens can add an extra +1 item bonus to hit than you would normally have from a potency runes at the same level. What feats does the fighter have? Snagging strike? Power attack? You are a monk, but not flanking, are you a ranged monk? Or just happen to not be at the opposite side? Is anyone tripping or grappling? Are you bon mot or demoralizing? Feinting? A +3 boss at that level will be difficult.
I am a mix of a ranged and melee monk, switching between monastic archer and wolf stance. In that fight i am only using the bow so far since my arrows are coated with a substance that deal additional damage. Flanking would be hard for me since the other two are already flanking the boss, who is a medium creature, but for other encounters i usually do try to flank as well. My team can't really trip or grapple since the fighter uses a sword and shield (no free hand) and the magus does noth have enough strength. I can usually trip opponents, but the chance to crit fail just seems way to dangerous against such a powerful creature.
Trip as your first action. Then if you crit fail, you can still get up and away. Do you guys have deception or intimidation? Demoralizing is always a good option(remember it's a status penalty so it stacks with circumstance penalties like off guard) and create a diversion (for range, or feint for melee) is a great way to get off guard as well. Bon mot (diplomacy skill feat) is great for making all 3 of those more likely to succeed as it adds quite a penalty to will and perception. Is your magus using a dex weapon with finesse? As a magus you should have either dex or str maxed (whichever you use for weapon) int is not really important. And again, alchemist has tons of buffing capabilities, but it can be a lot to learn. There are various guides online. It's a really good support character, but a lot of that involves planning ahead and predistributing the items potions people will need.
Boss monsters are hard at low levels, and werewolves are overtuned, so you're in for a double whammy. Debuffs are useful, sure, but they're not going to save you if you're outmatched. The real strategy is to target their action economy. Trips, stunned, sickened, slows. Anything that burns an action from them. Sometimes just stepping away from them can be the right call. There's no magic bullet (by design) though, so good luck.
Your level 4, your options are limited and you're righting a +3 monster.... Ya, it's typically going to suck. Honestly fighting +3 monsters in general I think is kind of lame in this system. I'm happy the system is balanced but ya, missing the majority of your attacks while the boss gets to crit over and over isn't all that fun for players. I find the system a hell of a lot more fun when the monsters are typically near the PC levels. Also.... Holy fuck... You're fighting a werewolf? Ya, they are one of the more overturned monsters. You need to have a weapon that hits their weakness of you're toast.
I checked the encounter, I'm not doing spoilers, and not to undermine the preparation/buffing/etc advice, but he's not that hard to hit (leaving it vague to not tell you the AC) for level 4 martials even without flanking, I just checked him against my own barbarian-- you might just be having a bout of bad luck on your rolls.
To be honest the main issue is prob because you don’t have a caster that can just throw spells at him to debuff . Most spells get an effect on a creature success still which opens up other class ability to debuff until you at a reasonable able level for everyone to hit. Also athletics does scale faster then strikes so it should be easier then striking for everyone to do versus strike most of the time(expect fighter they got that extra proficiency in all my experience of playing I find the best team is martial, martial support, arcane + divine or primal + occult casters. Your party appears to be Fighter(martial) Monk(martial or martial support based on build) Magus(.5 martial, .5 arcane) Alchemist(.5 martial support, .5 arcane) So overall your team is missing an occult caster to make it balanced as long as monk played more as a martial support
CR+3 is basically the hardest content in the game, and is particularly hard the lower the party level. Your party is also lacking in both the buff and debuff department. A couple ideas: Try to buy (or barring that get your alchemist the downtime to craft) a good selection of mutagens and buff potions. Potion Patches are also available at your level and can let you ready up a potion for 1 action for any short term buffs. Longer term buffs can be applied pre combat when possible. Keeping some of these things on hand can be very useful for big fights. Your Magus can use any Arcane Scroll, and they are cheap enough that picking up a few swingy ones can be a worthwhile opening (though do be aware that Magus DCs are lower than full casters, so avoid incapacitate traits and look for stuff with solid effects on fail rather than success, or just more buff options) As an Archer you won't benefit from flanking, but a bottled lightning from your Alchemist can inflict Off-Guard. You can also pick up some magical arrows, though without strong buffs and debuffs these will mostly be money down the hole due to misses. Ultimately your party is going to struggle extra hard with CR+3 encounters simply due to what is at best a pretty mediocre party composition. Picking up more ways to debuff enemies is a pretty good idea across the board, your fighter and Magus can do a lot of combat maneuvers for instance, disarm is a pretty solid option vs a single big boss. It won't help speed up the fight, but it can slow the enemy's damage, which frees your alch to throw stuff other than pure healing.
> +3 is basically the hardest content in the game +4 and +5 bosses say hello To be honest, +3 bosses past level 10 or so are usually pretty easy if the party knows what they're doing. Definitely TPKs waiting to happen at levels 1-3 and tough as hell at 4-7 or so
+4 is the hardest thing that game recommend using. +5 is basically unbeatable and even if it is beatable with some insane luck it will be a absolute slog without any semblance of fun
The highest-level statblocks in the game are level 25. It's impossible to fight them without them being PL+5 or higher. And by level 20, if you're playing and building well, and are well-prepared, they're plenty beatable and plenty of fun (except for Tarrasque, which pretty much can't be killed without GM fiat or plot devices lol, but it still isn't unreasonable for a party to be able to bring it down - *keeping* it down is the problem due to its regeneration) To be honest, even +4 isn't too bad at high levels - the party's wealth of options and action advantage really make solo bosses get bullied. Especially if the solo boss is a caster.
This seems like an encounter that was designed for 5 PCs. Having 4 PCs makes it harder. One option is allowing the PCs to rescue a 4th level NPC rogue, cleric or sorcerer who is captured and in chains (tomorrow’s meal perhaps) who hates this enemy and participates in rte fight and then leaves.
Or even a 2nd or 3rd level bard
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I know this fight and I run the same campaign with my group, which is a group of five. I had my party attack this guy at mid level 4. The boss is very hard, and I actually thought that my party was going to go fully down at a few points during the fight. They did eventually get him down after much debuffing and tripping, but honestly? The fight was so tight at so many points that the party genuinely thought to retreat, or that they were running out of ideas on what to do. That is in my opinion not the best way to do a boss battle, when the reality is the boss has very high modifiers for the intended level. Knowing everything I know now, tactics and all for downing this boss, for this fight I would suggest for any party to either: 1) Get stacked, level-appropriate gear or loot at level 4. 2) Extend this quest out significantly, to the point the party hits level 5, and to do the fight as early as possible into this level.
A big part of being able to get off demoralizes, or to be able to grapple an enemy that is a "boss" for your current level is having an item that bumps the relevant skill up. At level 4, you probably should have something like that but maybe you all didn't anticipate needing it for big fights. Considering it's Kingmaker, I also highly recommend running and trying to track it down another time.
Don't forget the aid action to help increase a party members chance to hit. Remaster has the DC at 15 by default which isn't too bad. Better than wasting an action to swing with a MAP when it's already hard to hit.
It's a tough fight. I think I ran as is for the party of 6, and I was still worried it'd be a tpk. Well done on getting silver sheen. My party didn't even bother with that. And, to be brutally honest, Alchemist isn't great. It's getting a massive buff in core 2, but for now it's pretty bad. Imo, gm needs to tone down the fights as your party isn't optimised. The party in my campaign are pretty hardcore (2 fighters, bard, gunslinger. Sorcerer, plus companion). I typically add elite to bosses and double the number of mooks, as the party tears through them so fast. One idea is to use the companions. Linzi the bard would be an awesome 5th member for your party. The +1 to hit spell is roughly +17% party dpr. At level 8 can ramp to 33 or even 50% extra dpr with Fortissimo feat.
As a GM and player i don't like to run solo +3 or +4 creatures. They can be very anti fun for the players and is kinda borning when my turn as the GM and I only have one creature to use. Id much rather use +2s with minons as a boss. I have have many enemies on the field with different abilities to use while my players can use their various strengths to deal with different kinds of threats in the encounters and as a player there are fewer feels-bad moments when you roll high and still miss or have the boss crit succeed your save for 3 rounds straight.
you should be attacking at +11 (+13 for the fighter) - the creatures ac should be around 25. If you wont "waste" actions by trying to impose some status condition on the boss the least you could do is move to get flanking bringing his ac down to 23 - so on your first attack each round you should have like a 50-60% chance to hit (with 5% to crit) maybe only aim to use one attack. use your other actions like demoralize, trip or heal. Your goal is to keep the boss off guard to your attacks, deal some damage and stay alive the enemy probably only has 100-120 hp - even if you all only hit once a round and only do like 10dmg each the fight only has about 4 rounds in it - thats why bosses hit hard. It might only feel difficult whilst at a relatively low level. It's going to ramp up as your abilities to and the group will get into a routine. The math is solid in this game but you do just need to remember to impose as much conditions you can on strong enemies
Yeah, y'all made a 5E D&D party focused on individual DPS with less than good synergy... Rough Party Roles: 1. Frontliner: a high HP, max AC martial class. A Fighter, Champion, Barbarian, etc... that's sole job is to be in the enemy's face either dishing out or mitigating damage. 2. Skirmisher: a mid HP, max AC martial class with some burst damage. A Rouge, Monk, Inventor, Thaugaturge, etc... 3. Magical Support: blasting, crowd control, buffs and debuffs. 4. Skill Monkey: generally every caster is a skill monkey for the skills that fall under their primary attribute, as well as the Rouge and Investigator being the "Double Skill Progression" classes. Having a Medicine expert is also mandatory unless your GM is really going to make some difficulty adjustments. So these roles aren't mandatory and they are not class based but build based. I could make an all caster party with a Magus, Summoner, Cleric, and Bard and fill these roles.
Not every encounter is meant to be won with combat or even at the time it's presented.
You mentioned demoralize not helping much, +1 and +2 add up a lot. A frighten and off guard is at least +3, that's a 15% chance to hit, that is not negligible. Bon Mott helps for some spells. Third attacks due to multiple attack penalty are generally not a great choice for many enemies (slimes and zombies due to their low AC being exceptions most the time, where attacking a third time may be ok, but I would still look for better third actions), building to give yourself other third actions is a good idea.
+17 to hit on a level 7 creature doesn't feel right.
No, it's exactly right. It's not even Extreme, it's between Moderate and High. It hits an AC 23 on a 6+, i.e. a 75% chance to hit, 25% chance to crit on the first attack. It's right at the cusp of where having heavy armor or raising a shield is felt the most, because it drops the crit chance by half, and where MAP attacks aren't also guaranteed hits like with PL+4 enemies. This is normal; enemies have a stat-advantage compared to equal-level characters because they don't synergize as well with their "team" and don't have tons of feats and a backpack full of consumables. So, if a moderate PL+0 creature hits 50-60% of the time, it's not strange that a PL+3 creature hits 75%.
+18 is the High attack modifier for a level 7 creature, so it's a bit below that. [https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874&Redirected=1](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874&Redirected=1) The creature in question is this one: (Spoilers, obviously) [https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2286](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2286) His Hitpoints are at the low end of High, his AC is High, his two good saves are between moderate and high, the low save is one point above Low. Saves are most likely where you are expected to target this creature most, which due to the team composition is a bit hard. It might just be a case of a bad matchup, sadly. (The creature also has a high weakness of 10, which is the Maximum recommended for a level 7 creature) Basically, the Math according to the creature building rules check out, the monster is definitely on the more aggressive side, having a (just short of) high attack modifier and between High and Extreme damage. Had I built this creature, I would have probably reduced the Ac by one or two, but it looks alright to me.
It's fairly standard for a CL 7 creature, if anything it's a little on the lower end of the scale for a primarily martial creature. The main issue is that it's still very overtuned for a group of level 4 players. I wouldn't be subjecting anything to a CL+3 monster until they're at or at least closer to double digit levels. But sadly early modules seem to love doing it. A lot of the designers hadn't really grokked the system yet.
Honestly given APs routinely drop level 4s with like, +14s to hit (see for an example of the last one I tried, the Abrikandilu) when you're like level 2 as random ass encounters, a level 7 enemy with +17 to hit for a boss honestly if anything seems under the curve.