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A question about Paizo/PF adventure design
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<blockquote data-quote="GrahamWills" data-source="post: 8138392" data-attributes="member: 75787"><p>Dave, simply stating you disagree is not an argument. Is this just your gut feeling? The school I trained at also taught 6' staff and Japanese sword combat. That experience taught me that being outnumbered 2v1 is never good. I have been friends with some boffer combat people, and 2v1 is hard to defeat there also.</p><p></p><p>Perhaps people who have direct experience of 2v1 sword combat might comment -- is Dave's point of view that two skilled people attacking you is not much different from one justified? I'd prefer people with actual experience, but if you've been involved in SCA and feel good about your expertise, it would be helpful.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I believe that in typical military strategy the goal is to outnumber your opposition at the point ofcontact. Your statement would have value in the situations where all eight could not focus on the four, yes, but in most gaming environments that is not the case. I'd agree that in some cases it might be different, but typically, not so much.</p><p></p><p>I'm sure this will trigger your "that's unrealistic" meter, but if you have played any war-games, then both at tactical and strategic level, a 2v1 advantage is extremely significant. I'm tempted to copy in some old Avalon Hill Combat Result Tables, but I think you get the idea -- a 2v1 advantage is always a serious issue, at the individual, group and mass combat levels.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Apologies -- I made the poor assumption that you had been following the thread. We are not talking about combining two baby challenges and suddenly fearing a TPK. If you read through the thread you will see that we are discussing combining two serious threats -- perhaps looking back at the messages relating to average encounter difficulty in APs might give some context to you.</p><p></p><p>I think you have played PF2, so you should be aware that a fireball, assuming you can target it only at opponents and not engulf friends (which in my experience as a PF2 caster is by no means even likely), is not going to take out any average opposition. </p><p></p><p>At 5th level a fireball does an average of 21 points of damage. 5th level opponents have between 60 and 120 hit points and about half of opponents save for half damage, so taking an average of about 16 points, so somewhere between 25% and 10% of their hits. The ones who Crit Fail will be worried (but still not taken out) but the rest will not even be bloodied by the attack. In 3.x and AD&D games it was indeed much more dangerous, but even so, fireballs don't take out serious opposition -- which is what we're discussing.</p><p></p><p>Finally, I note that you said "enter from another room" which implies that the two groups are not iclustered together -- which is indeed the way many combined encounters work. Or another common situation is that you are melee-engaged with one group when another arrives. In neither situation is it possible to cast a fireball that includes the newcomers.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GrahamWills, post: 8138392, member: 75787"] Dave, simply stating you disagree is not an argument. Is this just your gut feeling? The school I trained at also taught 6' staff and Japanese sword combat. That experience taught me that being outnumbered 2v1 is never good. I have been friends with some boffer combat people, and 2v1 is hard to defeat there also. Perhaps people who have direct experience of 2v1 sword combat might comment -- is Dave's point of view that two skilled people attacking you is not much different from one justified? I'd prefer people with actual experience, but if you've been involved in SCA and feel good about your expertise, it would be helpful. I believe that in typical military strategy the goal is to outnumber your opposition at the point ofcontact. Your statement would have value in the situations where all eight could not focus on the four, yes, but in most gaming environments that is not the case. I'd agree that in some cases it might be different, but typically, not so much. I'm sure this will trigger your "that's unrealistic" meter, but if you have played any war-games, then both at tactical and strategic level, a 2v1 advantage is extremely significant. I'm tempted to copy in some old Avalon Hill Combat Result Tables, but I think you get the idea -- a 2v1 advantage is always a serious issue, at the individual, group and mass combat levels. Apologies -- I made the poor assumption that you had been following the thread. We are not talking about combining two baby challenges and suddenly fearing a TPK. If you read through the thread you will see that we are discussing combining two serious threats -- perhaps looking back at the messages relating to average encounter difficulty in APs might give some context to you. I think you have played PF2, so you should be aware that a fireball, assuming you can target it only at opponents and not engulf friends (which in my experience as a PF2 caster is by no means even likely), is not going to take out any average opposition. At 5th level a fireball does an average of 21 points of damage. 5th level opponents have between 60 and 120 hit points and about half of opponents save for half damage, so taking an average of about 16 points, so somewhere between 25% and 10% of their hits. The ones who Crit Fail will be worried (but still not taken out) but the rest will not even be bloodied by the attack. In 3.x and AD&D games it was indeed much more dangerous, but even so, fireballs don't take out serious opposition -- which is what we're discussing. Finally, I note that you said "enter from another room" which implies that the two groups are not iclustered together -- which is indeed the way many combined encounters work. Or another common situation is that you are melee-engaged with one group when another arrives. In neither situation is it possible to cast a fireball that includes the newcomers. [/QUOTE]
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