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[Cthulhu]

Yes, CR is pretty meaningless.  A well optimized level 2 party can beat a CR8 or 9 encounter if they're careful and play well, and it's not loaded up on spell-likes.

4e is much much better on this front.  Monsters are very clearly designed around mechanically rich combats with good synergy

[Neonivek]

Then you also have to add that Wizards INTENTIONALLY give the wrong CR ratings to creatures.

Which I am actually outright against.

[Girlinhat]

My biggest gripe is that 1 player counts the same as 5 players, it's only 6+ that triggers the +1 CR.  The default difficulty simply does not scale to party size at all.

1 level 1 character would face 3 goblins.
5 level 1 characters would face 3 goblins.

At this rate it may just be easier to treat each player as their own party and then pool exp together and build monsters.  After all, 6 players at 400 exp each is rather close to the actual difficulty I ended up with.

[Neonivek]

It is especially wierd when you have unstoppable monsters who can outright solo an entire party... several levels below the CR the party should fight.

If there is one thing 3.5 did that Pathfinder did wrong it is Templates.

[Girlinhat]

Well, they're usually not so hard if you've got the good items, like cold-iron or +1 weapons that can strike through magic and deal with otherwise invulnerable creatures.  At that point you make a judgement call.
1: Take mercy and don't include it.
2: Ignore the party and generate ghosts in the graveyard anyways.
3: Teach the party to carry cold-iron by bashing them with a fay.

[Neonivek]

Some are hard because of the way the game handles the monster type.

For example Swarms.

[Girlinhat]

Same deal.  Thunderstones and alchemist's fire cut through swarms easy, any AoE really, and wizards have a variety of good spells.

[Neonivek]

Same deal.  Thunderstones and alchemist's fire cut through swarms easy, any AoE really, and wizards have a variety of good spells.

Not all swarms are squishy enough to die to that.

As well it is mildly hard to hit swarms with Alchemist fire as they tend to have high touch AC.

It isn't that they don't have weaknesses, it is just not uncommon to see Swarms walk over players and not in a "they weren't prepared" sort of way.

Army ants are a particularly vicious Swarm.

[Naryar]

Well, I'll let you in on how brokenly easy everything is and how I'm basically having to make up my own rules.

In the current party, there's 6 players, each level 1.  Because of that, your 'average level' is of course 1, and for having 6 players, you get a +1, which makes the 'Challenge Rating' of an encounter to 2.

For that rank, it scores you 600 exp for the encounter.
For 'Epic Rank' challenge you get +3 to CR, which puts you at 5, and on the chart that's 1,600 exp.

A goblin is 135 exp - for 600 exp I could place 4-5 of them.  Goblins are Small creatures carrying poor armor and weapons and poor stats.  The individual CR of a goblin is 1/3 (which btw, 4-5 goblins would sum up to 1+1/3 or 1+2/3 CR, which is short of the 2 CR rating, so whatever).  Using the 'cheat sheet' if we take that we've got 4 of the same creature it's +4 CR, so some sort of 4+1/3 CR?  The numbers get confusing.

Either way, basic point is that your 'at level' encounter would give creatures much MUCH weaker than an individual adventurer, AND there's not even 1 for each player!  Even at 'Epic Level' difficulty, that's about 12 generic goblins, 2 for each and still fairly weak, considering they're little stupid goblins.

For contrast, the encounter I've actually made is 16 goblins and 2 'similar to hobgoblins' (but not quite identical) because I just tossed whatever stats I could find, but they're being played as 'very large goblins'.  In ranking, that's a 6 CR encounter that should be so far above you.  Instead, between Bless, 20 str, Eidolons, and archers, you're doing an incredibly decent job of wiping the floor with the whole fort.

The default difficulty rating is incredibly easy and worthless.  The rankings are on Easy, Average, Challenging, Hard, and Epic, going from -1 to +3 along the line.  You're currently playing on 'Roguelike' difficulty of +4.

Needless to say, I'm making no easy passes here.  If you're assaulting a goblin encampment then it'll be a fight.  If you're not fearing for your life, then it's just free exp.

I stand corrected. I didn't know that CR was that broken.

So it's 200 xp per giant goblin and 135 per goblin (although we should get more than 200xp for the giant gobs) ? Eh, 426 xp for each player isn't a lot.

[Girlinhat]

Also I'd like to point out, in case people are unaware.

You have 50% of your HP into the negative - if you have 10HP, then your HP range is -5 to 10.  Positive HP is regular.  0HP puts you unconscious.  Negative HP has you 'bleeding out' and you make CON checks every turn to determine if you stop bleeding or keep bleeding.  If you continue bleeding you get -1 HP, if you stabilize then you just sit unconscious on the ground.  If you drop to or below zero HP, you are not dead yet.  A cleric or potion can heal you and restore you, as well if combat is over you can simply rest and restore.  Only when you're dead-dead do you need a resurrection.

In general, most creatures will ignore a fallen character.  Zombies, wraiths, or various flesh-eaters will actively kill fallen characters, but a bandit will leave you and move on to the next character, and come back to finish the kill later.

So in the current case, Lek is heavily injured.  If Lek gets hit again, he's unlikely to die, but likely to start bleeding out.  The goblins would ignore his fallen form, in favor of the swords that are still stabbing them.  Assuming Lek makes a good save and stabilizes, then there's no problem, the party can camp and let Lek recover or drag him to town or whatever.

NINJA: Yeah, the suggestions for making encounters, really make it incredibly easy for larger parties - brokenly easy.  Apparently over the years things have naturally become easier, and 'encounter' means 'roleplay  moment' where you're pretty much going to win, it's just a matter of how.  I've taken it upon myself to re-introduce combat as a game mechanic. and make encounters that you'll remember and care about.  Not to mention faster - 60-ish exp per player is a lot different compared to 380-ish.  So instead of 6 or so random battles against a handful of kobolds, you're gonna have to buckle down and fight 6x kobolds all at once coming at you in one scaly, adorable horde.

[Dutchling]

That's odd. I thought your negative HP was your CON, and you /always/ lose 1 HP per unconscious turn.

[Naryar]

Hmm, I thought you had your CON score as maximum negative HP.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Hit-Points

edit : ninja baby snatcher

also yeah when you get to -1 HP or less you roll a Constitution roll each round, if you roll less than 10 you lose another HP, and if you roll more than 10 you stabilize.

[Paul]

I never played tabletop D&D 3e or 3.5e, but I remember wickedly hard combats from my days of playing 2e. Both when I DMed and when my friends did. If we weren't risking death every other encounter (especially on the big fights/bosses), the DM wasn't working hard enough. Some of the best games I still remember were from near party wipes and getting out of bad situations by sheer luck or ridiculous plans that somehow worked. I remember saving the group as a near dead rogue by grabbing and using a wand of wonder repeatedly and finally getting a fireball on the enemy (we had made up our own wand of wonder charts, with charts for good intentions and bad intentions and various effects - so it could be used to buff/heal or attack enemies with unpredictable and often undesirable effects).

Maybe all the GMs I used to play with were sadistic, but I kinda liked the constant risk of death and losing party members sometimes and even wiping the entire party on a rare occasion. Made the times that you beat the odds that much more rewarding.

[Neonivek]

Anyhow the idea I wanted to use, but never wanted to, is that each player needs to write a minimum a short paragraph on a location (as big or small as they desire) in the world.

They arn't allowed to consult eachother on what they are writing and there are no limits on what they are allowed to write about.

They then create their character who comes from that location. They however may not play an established character within that location.

Then after I collect everyone's setting stories I will give out the setting along with any extra rules that are nessisary.

[Kansa]

That sounds like a cool idea