>running Pathfinder 1e game that got up to level 20>got really sick of PCs btfoing multiple elder gods effortlessly >finally return to running a game at level 1>party of 6 PCs >make it an EL 3 encounter >they easily btfo it Is there any hope for this game?
>>94790952what is EL?effective level?yeah, one level 3 enemy against a level 1 party that knows even slightly what they're doing will get blown the fuck out (see color spray and similar shit that's amazing early on (or even just average damage values, AC > HP))
>>94791006They didnt even use color spray. Just attacking and dealing damage. They had a couple animal companions too. And it was against two CR 1 enemies. The next fights will get better because I picked more challenging enemies relative to their CR. But I can't go too far because I they get TPKd by something EL 3 or higher they will blame me for running an "overpowered" encounter.
>>94791107>Just attacking and dealing damage.use things with higher AC or concealment>They had a couple animal companions toobarding too I bet, they start off unhittable and decently damaging and fall off hard once the fireballs start flyingalso>6 players + (at least) 2 animal companionsI weep
>>94791129I can't control it bro. I'm pretty sure the whole reason they want to play Pathfinder is petshit. Every campaign includes at least some amount of petshit. The animals don't have barding yet. I don't think they could afford it. The upcoming monsters will have invisibility and high AC as CR 1/3 (iron skin duergar getting +4 natural armor in place of enlarge person because I think enlarge person is gay even if it's technically stronger) so they can get in a first strike without issue. Even so it's just frustrating I have to minmax at level 1 already. 5e has this issue too.
>it's another "petshit" thread
>>94791189Feels like you don't need to fuck with the statblocks so much as you need to add more enemies to the encounters. I once dropped 16 goblins & 3 gnolls on a party of 5 lvl 2's with 1 pet, because they knew what they were doing and wanted to be challenged. And they won, but it was pretty close at times, which felt great for everyone at the table.
>>94790952Sounds to me like the system itself is a bit shit.Pic related and relevant.
Extra bodies is easily the biggest issue with D&D related groups.The Fighter originally getting the numbers back in the early years was slowly phased out because of the hassle involved with so many numbers but then mages just decided that it was acceptable for them to make extra work and now you have shit like Animal Companions, Eidolons and Summoning spells throwing more bodies at shit but the Leadership feat is still considered "too much" in some gaming circles.Maybe it's time we just give Martials some more bodies to thrown at shit until we reach a critical mass point where either everyone has extra bodies or no-one does.
>>94791884Honestly, I agree, the solution is more rather than less. The game needs a way to streamline mass combat and let Fighters just go 'Here's 50 fuckers led by a 5th level fighter' without it grinding to a halt.I hate to mention it since we just had a big barney thread about it, but ACKS can do mass combat really well, don't mention I said that though, lets the Spergs who wander this board looking for any mention of ACKS so they can turn the thread into their own person tantrum hour be summoned
>Is there any hope for this game?No. Pathfinder 1e's foundation is rotten and instead of fixing the rot they made it worse. You either move on from 1e to a different system, hell Pathfinder 2e would be an improvement, or continue to suffer in a hell of your own making.
>>94791816>Every game, at some point, turns into a Marvel movieI was going to argue with this entire screencap, but that line is a perfect description of the problems with modern D&D
>>94791804Alright. Fortunately Pathfinder comes equipped with lots of customization that doesn't technically affect CR because of the dumb ways it works. Technically you could slap full plate on level 1 goblin warriors but that would economically make no sense and would be obnoxious. But an armor upgrade would be tolerable. Especially since every encounter for level 1s is expected to have 260 gp worth of treasure. Just adding more enemies also feels ridiculous. Because a dungeon only has so much living space. Even if they are foraging for food outside, a square mile can only support around 10 people. With "muh fantasy" I could arguably pump that up to 20 or 30 before it starts to feel a bit ridiculous. My best option is to just use higher level NPCs. Which is fine, I can throw a few 2nd level goblin fighters or rogues in there, and Pathfinder has loads of stat blocks for those in the Monster Codex book, which I have.I just feel like basic goblin warriors are supposed to be roughly equivalent to a level 1 character. A 6v6 fight should be a fight that the PCs are favored to win but is still difficult.
>>94791952It has rules for it, but I wouldn't say it does it "very well". It takes forever, and its morale rules are extremely swingy and have a bad habit of popping off and diminishing any strategy. Even just setting up a battle is a pretty long process and it doesn't feel too good expecting all that micromanaging to pay off when it doesn't actually play out like a war game.>The game needs a way to streamline mass combat and let Fighters just go 'Here's 50 fuckers led by a 5th level fighter' The easiest solution I've found was the simple 10x rule, where you just play out the large scale battle, but with 5 fighters representing 50, and it works largely as well as the regular combat in the system does and sometimes better. You can even scale it up to 20x, or 100x for gigantic battles that remain perfectly manageable. I've seen a lot of variants that change things up, like PCs and certain NPCs attached to a group increase the level of that unit (instead of counting as a number of men in and of themselves), or rules for how spells (particularly ones that affect large areas) work, and towers and sieges and all sorts of additions, but often simplicity is best, because we're talking about large scale approximations anyway.
>>94792922Troops, you want troops
>>94792918Slap the Advanced template on everything
>>94792922Posting under cover again to avoid the sped noticing I'm talking about ACKS. I find the Imperial Edition mass combat rules are pretty Kino. Basically they abstract out the battle to an extent allowing you to have large scale battles while still letting players do what're called 'Heroic Forays', where they can run encounters to shape the course of the battle or fuck with heroes on the other team. The practical upshot of this is that battles are very Troy/Lord of the Rings. It's a really tidy midway. Personally I found the DoW rules to be a bit too clunky for my tastes. Currently our crew are roving the lands with ~300-400 dudes and it all works smooth as buttered assholes
>>94790952>PathfinderYou pathfinder people fucking disgust me. Too pretentious for 5e but too retarded for anything that isn't D&D. Stay in your quarantine general you filthy cunt.
>>94793937I dont think I'm too good for 5e, I play that also. I'm just nostalgic for 3.5 and my friends want to play Pathfinder instead of 3.5 and so I tolerate it because it's mostly the same system.
>>94790952I stacked a fight of my lvl 3 party vs 3 8th level Rangers and they were doing good until one of my players decided to have a hissy fit.>shooting from beyond 1st incr as Gunslinger>complaining when you miss>mad you only do 8 damage>reload as a standard because you didn't take RR (he's banking on an item)>throws gun to the ground and starts to grapple one of the RangersThe only thing is, they were doing pretty well before he decided to shit in his pants. 2 of the Rangers were in the last 10 HP, even if one was at basically full. They're incredibly behind on gold/treasure and yet they managed to break two of the Rangers.In the end, the NPCs admired their warrior spirit and offered a truce, but it was like what the hell, their comp seems so terrible: Druid, Fighter, Gunslinger, Rogue, Alch.
>>94791952>>94792973>act like a complete sperg and shitpost for 95% of your post>hurr durr da evul shitposters will get me!1!Sure thing faggot.ACKS has shit mass combat rules also.
>>94792699Level one D&D characters are where many fictional heroes stop progressing at in fantasy story arcs. Just look at what a low level warlock can do, at will. And, try and find his equivalent in a mythological, pulp fiction novel, fantasy movie other well written entertainment medium. You can't.
Learn how to approximate party power vs what you're throwing at them based on their builds and power level, ignore EL/CR shit completely and judge enemies based on their offensive/defensive strengths/weaknesses. I don't know why almost all DMs are so bad at this, it's literally elementary school math you should be able to do in your head. I ran a campaign for 2 years and every single encounter I wanted to be challenging ended up with multiple people dead or dying but never resulted in a TPK. I do use subtle ways to increase/decrease encounter power mid fight that players can never call you out on unless they're mind readers, like slightly suboptimal combat tactics to ease off if they had a bad streak and if the enemies aren't from the bestiary but some PC level ones you threw together you can flex their total HP as they have no way to know it, optional reinforcements, known spells on casters ranging from some meme shit to actually dangerous ones etc., if you do shit like this correctly they can't even suspect they're being played and will just enjoy the challenge without getting too fucked all the time.
>>94791107>And it was against two CR 1 enemies.>6 PCs>pets galoreAre you, like, literally the only DM who hasn't heard the words "action economy" yet?
>>94790952There are rules to scale the difficulty up, use those
>>94790952EL and CR have always been notoriously shit metrics.The people designing them seem to have no clue on what is or is not lethal at a given level.Just have to learn how to parse the damage your players will do and how much damage they can take.
>>94795275>my friends want to play Pathfinder instead of 3.5Why?>worse feats>nerfed classes>same everything elseIf they wanted to be gunslingers or magi, you can just change the number of feats to match 3.5's.
>>94795827>ACKS has shit mass combat rules also.Please elaborate. I have the game and I want to be able to simulate the battle of Hastings at least to the degree of employing a strategy I like, how are the rules shit? Please be as detailed as possible because I willw watch this post until thread death and I'd really appreciate it.
>>947968303.5 sucks donkey dicks dude. Pathfinder fixed way more than it broke.
>>94796931I'm sick of that shit on this board>I'm interested in this game>You should play 3.5/4/osr instead>It's just the same as the game you're interested in, you just have to convert and homebrew the whole fucking gameIf anything it just drives people away from 3.5/4/osr.
>>94796897NTA, but ACKS already had slow combat (especially compared to other BECMI clones), and the mass combat is considerably slower. OSRs originally were about a return to simpler, faster editions of D&D, but ACKS seems to have taken a lot of inspiration from GDR.Glacier Drag Racing.
>>94791107>six PCs + two pets versus two fucking goblinsGenuine learning disability holy shit please never GM anything ever again.
>>94792918>Just adding more enemies also feels ridiculous. Because a dungeon only has so much living space.Nigger, and I mean it in the worst, bicycle-stealing, fentanyl-dozed, people-stabbing, way, D&D stopped being fantasy world simulation 10 editions ago, your>but what do they EAT? shit will only bring you grief and your players boredom. You are literally letting yourself get fucked in the ass by the most important metric in combat- action economy. So stop smoking copious amounts of cock, buckle up and pump the fuck out of those goblin numbers. >but I dun wunna (sad face emoji) Then give every goblin a second action. Give third. >but it's unrealisticThey know these tunnels better, they can do more than PCs in one round. Here, justification. YouFuckingRetard.
>>94792699>modern dnd is marvel>What is becmi?
My dude, if you don't have at least a little bit of a feeling for balancing after running a system from start to finish (lvl 1-20) then I don't know what to tell you. Can't even blame the game for that one. Also:>6 PCs with pets on top of thatYou would have to pay me to run this shit. No way this doesn't run into a slog with combat encounters taking forever.Give them a proper challenge, then kick everyone who cries when the party dies. The 3-4 players that stay can start a new game with reasonable player numbers.
>>94795827I am once again forced to provide evidence of what a perfidious little shite you are it seems.For anyone who is tempted to take the ACKSgargoyle even slightly seriously, see the below threads;https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/94492356/#94513931https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/94415189/#94426652https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/94751280/#94767394And have fun delving into the secret lore of the boards most resentful and autistic poster.
>>94797416>one post is enough to "force" this guy to have another meltdownAbandon thread.
>>94796931Pathfinder is literally powered up 3.5e. Also the "fix" for druids wildshape was fucking gay. Id rather they be OP and play alongside them in a campaign than deal with them basically having a gay version of enlarge person.
>>94797561>Pathfinder is literally powered up 3.5eNot really, they raised the floor and lowered the ceiling. Class are stronger at a base level, but they nerfed the shit out of most of the more overpowered abilities and combos(not the least of which being how they abandoned prestige classes for archetypes and discouraged multiclassing with capstones).
>>94797485>Just posting proof and letting people decide for themselves what they think of you is a 'meltdown'I'm confident enough that everyone will garnish the same opinion of you that I have simply by how you act.I don't feel the need to expand on it further than that.
>>94797626>I'm confidentNot even the guy you were replying to in this thread.
>>94797019Goblins are CR 1/3rd you actual mongoloid. CR 1 is something tougher like a gnoll.
>>94797611>Not really, they raised the floor and lowered the ceiling.So they did power it up, and just removed stupid shit that most DMs would ban anyway. Not to appeal to rule zero, because that is a fallacy, but I'd rather deal with 1 or 2 broken builds than have every class be an overpowered damage spamming machine, or SOD machine.
>>94790952>Played pathfinder campaign until epic levels and somehow didn't figure out how action economy worksI have a feeling this post is disingenuous
>>94797886My man I know how action economy works. The point is that the game is supposed to be balanced around that. If you have 5 goblins each with 5 hit points who make 1 attack for 5 damage, it should be the same as 1 monster who has 25 hit points and makes 1 attack for 25 damage. Yes, overkill is a factor. Yes, losing initiative and getting ganked is a factor. This isn't 5e where the aarmor classes don't go above 20. And again even with multiple creatures in the encounter they still won. "Muh action economy" is not an excuse for a broken cr system.
>>94797933>"Muh action economy" is not an excuse for a broken cr system.Ah yes, now everything makes sense.Not that anon, but in PF1e and D&D 3.5e, the CR system is whack. You really need to experiment with different types of enemies against a specific party until you build the necessary intuition. The CR system as is is more of a suggestion, or general guideline than an actual functioning system.I'm sure that there are discussions and guides and whatnot regarding that.I play D&D 3.5e with an extremely experienced DM and you can see in how he builds encounters how true the CR system being pretty shit is.Sometimes he builds an encounter that by the CR system would be a TPK, but he knows that it the party won't even go past half HP, then he goes and creates an encounter that's seemingly under cr-ed and yet the party struggles because of the specific make up of the encounter, and the way he plays the creatures.It's a lot of work building encounters in these systems from what I gather, but he has a lot of fun with it.
>>94797973>the CR system is whack.I think it's pretty great. A lot of games don't have that kind of approximation, and they just go "Here's some stats, figure out how challenging this would be for yourself."CR may be far from perfect, especially with all the dumb formulas they try to invent for mixed groups, but having a quick number that at least lets you have a ballpark figure to work with is super helpful.
>>94798081For sure. I'd much rather have an approximation you can use as a heuristic than not having it at all, but my point is that it's not a system you can just use as written and expect everything to flow perfectly. There's a level of discernment that's necessary.
>>94798169>it's not a system you can just use as written and expect everything to flow perfectly.As written, almost every edition of D&D and Pathfinder provides advice that says "these are approximations, and any number of factors, ranging from player skill to party composition to just turns of luck, are going to increase/decrease the relative challenge of any monster." They use a lot of language like "In general" and "typically" and also make it clear that the DM is going to have to make assessments and judgements.I think one of the examples I saw in a book is that undead are much easier to handle with a cleric in the party, and more difficult without one. The books, as written, make it clear that the number is helpful, but that a DM/GM is still going to have to actually pay attention to how easily their players are cutting through battles and adjust accordingly.I really think the only people who cry about CR are either:1) People who just want to bitch about the systems in general.2) Autists who sincerely believe that the number should specifically reflect exactly how difficult a monster should be relative to every possible group imaginable, simultaneously.The former are basically just bad faith actors, while the latter are simply idiots.
>>94798308>I really think the only people who cry about CR are either:Or maybe people just think the CR system gives a false impression of how difficult things are.Know what'd be a better option than CR?Average damage compared to a benchmark AC, saves compared to a benchmark save bonus, HP compared to a standard generic monster with its HD, ect. Hell you could even create a 'Generic monster that represents a run of the mill mid-range mook and compare/contrast with that.Then throw on a little abilities, weaknesses & tactics section and behold, you have a general idea of what a monster can do compared to the orc on the Clapham Omnibus.And to prove my point here's what that'd look like in PF 1e:>Owlbear: Dmg: 20 Dmg vs AC 10 (+[X] above average - Bruiser), Save effects: n/a (No save-based abilities - Raw brute force), HP: 24 HP above average (Compared to 5d8 monster with no bonuses - Bruiser)>Tactics: Hoot loudly and PVP the nearest fucker, if wounded to 75% HP attempts to drag its prey off into the underbrush, if wounded to 50% HP stops everything its doing and fights to the death - Momma Owlbear didn't raise no bitch.>Strengths: High damage + HP compared to its HD, the Owlbear is a heavy brute that can act as a set piece for an encounter, or a danger to be avoided, its grab ability means that it can separate players and it has a higher than average fort save for its HD meaning it can keep on coming>Weaknesses: No special abilities barring grab, while an Owlbear is a good brute, it isn't a complex or memorable creature unless mixed with other options or encountered at low levels>Suggestions: [Little paragraph here on where Owlbears might fit, have you considered them as mounts, the following monsters compliment Owlbears nicely, ect]I know that would require a sliver of effort on the part of the game devs while you just want to sloppy toppy them to completion because the game is less shit than 5e, but let's not lie to ourselves that CR is a great system.
>>94798589>And to prove my point here's what that'd look like in PF 1eThat's almost as long as the stat block.If instead of a single number, you want the MM to include a For Dummy's Guide for every monster, you're really missing the original point of CR, which was just an updated version of the XP value, ie. the reward you get for beating the monster. It also looks like you fall into both camps.
>>94798589>Know what'd be a better option than CR?Average damage compared to a benchmark AC, saves compared to a benchmark save bonus, HP compared to a standard generic monster with its HD, ect. Hell you could even create a 'Generic monster that represents a run of the mill mid-range mook and compare/contrast with that.I think they already have that if you follow the monster templates to make your own monsters by the book
>>94790952like all role-playing games, the games fuck up npcs. you need mobs. i usually have 5 enemies per 1 player. so a party of 5 will fight 25 enmies in a encounter.
>>94798864>I love having three hour long combatst. (You)
>>94798589Is this a joke?Also, HD is almost entirely arbitrary and doesn't really mean much for monsters, since monster stats can completely eclipse what's gained by HD.For example, Black (CR3), Brown (CR4), and Polar (CR5) bears all have 5HD, and even the same type of HD (animal). It's really just a relic from older editions and isn't something you can use as a standard to compare creatures with.
>>94790952Sounds like you don't understand 3.PF very well. 3.PF high level combat is very rocket-taggy and dangerous. Offense generally outstrips defense.
>>94798872the enemies have low health but tactics and damage do the trick. long swword? yep twice the normal dice that the players have access to. why? because its my game my rules.
>>94790952I had the same problems in pf2e. It took me quite a few encounters to figure out how to actually challenge my party who had at least 3 super-build characters. I had to push well beyond the encounter building rules. Encounter building is an art not a science. I'd recommend starting off with building only "hard" encounters and seeing how it goes from there. Definitely sounds like you need more enemies though since you have 6 players with pets, that's an insane action economy to fight with. I would try to throw at least 6 enemies at them if not more. If they are only fighting 1-2 enemies, then give those enemies 2-3 turns per round so they can act multiple times (this will make the monsters scary and cool)
>>94798960>Well because we currently put the cart before the horse and force it to headbutt the wheeled vehicle along, that's the best way to do it, if you disagree you're being foolishBless.
>>94790952Do you want your party to lose?
>>94799873Where do you come from? These kind of nonsense posts are so foreign. Is this how they talk on your discord?
>>94797352ok, no games
>>94790952OP, did it ever occur to you that 6 players is a lot of fucking action economy before ANY pets?
>>947909526 level 1 PC easily asphalt a EL 3, yes. The CR rating system is built having a group of 4 unoptimized and heterogeneous PC as reference of that specific level. Learn to GM better faggot.
>>94799873HD is what happens when you need to convince people monsters are "fair" by pretending to build them according to rules similar to PCs, even though you shouldn't build monsters that way because they function completely differently than PCs do. Even to this day there's still people who argue that NPCs and PCs should be governed by identical rules within a system, showing that this kind of naivete has endured, and the old conventions must be maintained to keep them pacified. In reality, the designers add and subtract HD essentially arbitrarily, with some using that to adjust the final numbers while other designers putting more stock into the ability scores and other components of the creature, modifying the final numbers that way. Hoping that HD could or even should be used as some sort of absolute reference point for how strong a creature is would be senselessly putting more faith in an unfilled formula instead of the end results of the inputs put in. The only way that something like that could even come close to functioning is if the formula had strict and narrow rules governing what the inputs could be, which is how you end up with NPCs that feel samey, following the adage that it's very easy to make a game balanced, but hard to do it where a game is balanced and varied.
>>94800327>It's all arbitraryMaybe if you use shit systems. Personally I think monsters should be built like PCs for one simple reason.Sometimes you really want to play a monster.And for that to happen you need to be able to build one.
>>94800491>It's all arbitraryExactly the opposite. It's isn't arbitrary, that's why you shouldn't use terrible ideas like "I need to bind myself to a formula for no reason other than to appease autists who don't understand something as simple as NPCs are not PCs."Pretending to be bound by a formula when the game has no limits on what kind of monsters you can use anyway is like saying you're only going to take one spoonful of ice cream but never specifying what size of spoon.The value that matters isn't the number of spoons or the size, it's how much ice cream you're going to take, ie. the final value.>Personally I think monsters should be built like PCs for one simple reason.>Sometimes you really want to play a monster.And you need to understand that abilities that work fine for monsters may not function the same way for PCs. Do you actually need this explained to you?Take something like free and constant HP regeneration, an ability available to many low-challenge monsters that help to make them interesting encounters, but could be easily game-breaking for PCs, even high level PCs, in a game where healing isn't supposed to be fast and free.People want to play as monsters, sure. But, there's a reason that requires GM approval and careful consideration, and not just carte-blanche access to the monster manual.
>>94800491NPCs not having the same pressures as PCs is consistent from system to system.
>>94800714What a wall of nonsenseIn real systems (e.g. 3.5, nwod) monsters and players are built exactly the same way
>>94800822Now I know you be trollin.'
>>94800822Monsters have super special non-PC rules in both of those games.
>>94800939No they don't, players just can't afford the hoops that have to jumped through to get those things
>>94800939He's just trollin'.
>>94801045Tell me how monster stats are arrived at then.
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY (YOU)
>>94801431They have a race just like players.If you give them class levels they get elite array, otherwise they get standard array. Templates are the same as players. Final budget is based on CR rather than ECL and you don't get a WBL (but may be able to fold treasure into their equipment).In nwod it's literally exactly the same as players because there is no standardized system of ecl/cr/xp/etc. for cross comparison. Same-splat npcs have literally the same stats as players without any variance at all.
>>94790952>running Pathfinder gameLet me stop you right there. You might as well have written>I put myself in the Gulag and now I'm mad that it's coldNo sympathy. Stop fucking up on purpose before posting your woes.
>>94790952My pathfinder obsessed friends considers a "fair" level 1 encounter to be like two minotaurs per player. The game is ass.
>>94792918>worrying about population density per square mile I think the real problem might be your autism
>>94804745100 goblins living in a small keep is retarded no matter how much you accuse people of being autistic.
>>94805593NTA, but please keep your autism to your discord.
>>94792918>Even if they are foraging for food outside, a square mile can only support around 10 peoplekek retard
>>94797626That is not how you use the word garnish.
>>94797933>If you have 5 goblins each with 5 hit points who make 1 attack for 5 damage, it should be the same as 1 monster who has 25 hit points and makes 1 attack for 25 damage.No, that's fucking not the same at all, you fucking goober.
>>94807747How? It's just swinger when it's concentrated into one attack. But it's an extreme example.
>>94809037Because if it's a single enemy, everyone in the party can hit it. If it's five separate enemies, the party has to spread out their attacks. That changes everything. You can just look at total damage output, there is more context than that.
>>94809071To elaborate: the single enemy can do a single attack in a turn, then everyone attacks him. The likelihood is, the single enemy would be toast, but even if it's not, it can only do a single attack the next turn. It can only take out one character at a time. Your 5 enemy horde is doing less damage on average, but it more likely to do damage to everyone, and because everyone is only attacking one of them, they are likely to stay up longer. That theoretical 25 damage is actually more, because the likelihood is they'll be up longer, and probably worse, because instead of having to heal a single bad hit or a two on a single teammate, you have to spend more healing resources to spread it across multiple teammates.
>>94790952well, they are experienced players, they know how to play. instead of playing dumb monsters, you shouldplay Tucker's Monsters, as in Tucker's Kobolds, but across all monsters.Makes your monsters intelligent, cunning and adaptible. playing monsters like they have a hidden intelligence behind their eyes is how you catch players off-guard. also, bring in new abilities to these monsters, bring in variants, like my personal favorite: The Wildfire Troll. basically a troll that doesn't have the weakness to fire, in fact, it heals it and acid has reduced effectiveness. the weakness of the Wildfire Troll is cold damage.another monster Ilike pulling on my groups is Hobgoblins. where Goblins are effectively too weak to pose areal threat and I preffer to reserve Bugbears for different kind of encounters, Hobgoblins are amazing as a standard encounter, they are a martial society, so encountering a patrol means there's a settlement,and thus more patrols and a potential for the party to get overwhelmed through numbers should the patrol spot them first, I give my group 1 turn to act before I have the Hobgoblin patrol sound the calling horn for reinforcements. what's great about Hobgoblins is that you can give them class levels and it doesnt come off as bullshit because Hobgoblin society values all forms of combat forms, some more than others, but they don't shrink away from using Druids and Bards when the situation calls for it.Use Hobgoblins in your campaigns and watch as your players actually become engaged. get your Hobgoblins to talk smack during a fight, talking is a free action when kept to a sentence or two. what im trying to say is run Hobgoblins like Uruks from Shadow of Mordor/Shadow of War and watch your players turn from cheese masters into reserved, conservative and strategic players, its a wonderful thing to observe
>>94809192Using bard levels for hobgoblins actually make sense. They are carrying the battlestandard, wardrums, etc.
>>94791107Target pets and really put pressure on people. Remember that only the ranger and druid can use "pets" effectively because it doesn't take a turn to command them and they have good handle animal. Anyone else with "Pets" will suffer. If a wizard is throwing in his familiar, punish him by killing his familiar, familiars are tools not combat toys. Also Animals are sentient and have their own agendas...the person ultimately controlling the animal is actually "YOU!"for players, have the enemies use tactics and more than just 2 cr1s(seriously dude?) have them face many goblins (cr 1/2 or 1/3 but many of them are a problem), have said goblins attack the one who deals the most damage, have the goblins kill innocent civilians while the party fruitlessly tries to gather up the psycho monsters. seriously dude, how are you going to throw ONLY two cr 1 and think it is fine?
>>94811408Also there is a funny little mechanic called "Troops" which have all the benefits of swarm and none of the drawbacks. You can autohit people with swords and bows and shit.
>>94810184they are als diplomats towards groups they want to be friendly or have a non-aggression treaty, heck they are also archivists, lore scholars, teachers, and a bunch of other things
