r/Pathfinder_RPG • u/Billy_Thunderclap • 1d ago
1E GM Making Games More Fun
Im running a group of 6 through 1e rise of the runelords. We just got through Fort Rannick today. Im having trouble getting the party members to do more than wait around for their turn then doing a basic attack. The group doesnt strategize before or during battles at all. I have 3 magic users who dont seem to ever think about casting healing spells, mage armor, or anything like that. They just cast offensive spells until they run out of slots then pull their crissbows out. Our alchemist only throws bombs until she runs out then does the same. The fighters in the group crowd around each other doing basic attacks. Because of this the games can get kind of boring. I want the group to work more as a team and try more interesting things without having to tell them what to do. Today near the end during a battle with Dorella and Hookshanks the group was pretty close to all dying so I stepped in and kind of told them what to do so the entire party didnt get taken out. Is there a way to get the group to work together more without doing it for them?
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u/FinderOfWays 1d ago
Kill 'em. Make the enemies use efficient tactics to harass and disable the party, preferably with a commander shouting out clear orders to their combatants. The fighters bunch up? "James, head forwards and keep safe, we'll get 'em zoned." then have a guy fight defensively and lure them into fireball/mass X spell area. Mages don't cast support spells? "Their wizards aren't shielded! Archers, hold fire and put an arrow through anyone who starts babbling!"
Hearing enemies shout out their tactics gives the party three things: 1) A chance to counter the tactics, which itself should motivate some tactical thinking. 2) An exemplar of tactical behavior to emulate. 3) A way to understand why the pain they're about to experience is fair and avoidable.
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u/RegretProper 1d ago
Not only enemys can do that. Every NPCs can give tactical advices. More so of they are a tutor role for upcoming adventures. But it works with basically every NPC you have available. Npc talking about tactics = roleplay. GM telling his party what to do = telling your players they stupid
Old Wizard: "you know back in my day, i knew alot of folks of you. Throwing around Fireballs, summoning ice rays. Timmy was the best of my wizard class in doing so. You know what happend to Timmy? Well he is not here to tell you isnt he? I am. One of the few students that focused and understood the value of [insert soell].
MERCHANT: "So your the guys that throw fireballs before asking questions? May i offer you a more - let say - sneaky solution for the next fight. You see just thks morning i happend to get my hands on a scroll: invisibillity. And i am willing to sell it tl you"
CLERIC: "Wow, you are hurt badly? Sure i can patch you up. How did that happen annyway? Wait, let me get this straighr, you did not cast Mage Armor before engaging in combat. I guess this means i has to use a higher lvl healing spell."
BARD: "and than with great effort they finaly defeated the boss. Real Heros i have to admit. Ofc I [in Caps] could have done it to. And i still dont know why they didnt use [insert spell here]. Would have been way easier. But i guess that what makes them even more heroic.
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u/themasonblade 1d ago
That's a nice point. Maybe, OP, you could have Shalelu Andosana (sp) do a similar thing?
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u/YeOldeBard97 1d ago
Suggest that they start thinking about tactics and working together. Start dressing up battles to include variable terrain, rocks for cover or hazards, ice patches, rain that might give electric spells an extra 1 point of damage. Make sure your players can see the benefit of interacting with the battle, not just swinging a sword on repeat.
If they still refuse, not much more you can do.
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u/Poldaran 1d ago
Are they having fun with the talky bits and just going through the motions of the combat parts to get to more talky bits? Because if so, I don't know if necessarily you solve it by getting them to get more into combat. Instead rather by pulling back on combats.
Though, if that's the case, pulling it back to a more rules-lite system like Savage Worlds Pathfinder might be the easiest solution.
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u/spellstrike 1d ago
show them how effective flanking, area control spells, and damage mitigation spells can be by using them on your side. perhaps they will see how helpful it is to use similar tactics.
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u/a_man_and_his_box 1d ago
Yeah, I feel like your comment should be higher up. If you want the players to love tactics and strategy and pre-planning for encounters, you need to be sure your monsters love that too.
For example, my memory of running Fort Rannick is that it was the first place in the adventure path where the players started to be overpowered -- they were like "It's just some ogres? We'll kill 'em fast." So to keep the ogres interesting and a challenge, I started swapping out their feats and giving them teamwork feats or just more optimized feats, or "combat stamina" feats (using the optional rules that I allow for players too), I made sure to give them flanks, made sure to put at least 1 enemy at a distance with a ranged attack so the PCs couldn't just rush 'em all and dominate, etc.
Show the players that a weaker enemy can get more difficult if it tries hard to take advantage of terrain and planning and special items. Even things like having some alchemist's fire held in a ready to splash at a caster when they cast a spell (and thus maybe ruining the spell) is super-effective.
Good luck, OP!
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u/BesideFrogRegionAny 1d ago
Seriously, how has you party not been TPKD before this? PF1e is deadly even when you play tactically.
If they're just basic attacking and blowing through spell slots, I am going to suggest this is a DM problem.
You admit you're pulling punches on the monsters and I suspect they are getting to rest too much. If you want a softer, less tactical game, PF1Ee isn't really for you.
I am in an 8-person group and we JUST finished Book 3. We have had 4 character deaths and a couple of near-TPKs in the campaign so far and we're playing and planning.
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u/KyrosSeneshal 1d ago
It doesn’t help that, in my limited experience with Rise and Return, anything Runelord related is Paizo giving themselves carte blanche to be as big a dick as humanly possible in their combat and implementations.
To be slightly more helpful, I wonder if something more than “boring backwater town of idiots needs saving” might be more up your groups alley—something like Mummy’s Mask or Skull and Shackle or (despite being the same initial premise for book 1) Iron Gods.
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u/godlyhalo 1d ago
You need to start throwing interesting enemy tactics or unusual encounters at the party. Around that same area in RotR for my group, we were encountering monstrosity strong ogres. Barbarians, monks, archers, and spellcasters, that kindof thing. Encounters in Fort Rannick included archers pelting them with arrows, forcing movement, cover, and their approach to the fort. Spellcasters used control spells like confusion, slow, or wall spells to force the party to do different things to overcome the encounter.
At Skulls Crossing I had a tribe of trolls literally force the party to retreat and rethink their approach, they had teamwork feats that allowed for them to work together as a formation. This forced the party to rethink their approach and taxtics to overcome them.
I think your biggest problem is that you, as a GM need to throw interesting and unique encounters and tactics at the party to encourage/ force them to utilize thier entire tool kits. If all your encounters devolve to full attacking every round, then you need to force a change so that doesn't happen. Supprise the party, not every encounter needs to be overcome with combat. My group infiltrated Fort Rannick initially posing as construction workers aiming to rebuild the fort for the ogres, this was simply their method to initially get in before combat started.
Ultimately, your players need to have an understanding that they simply need to review some of their characters and what they are capable of. Skills, spells, & role playing all play a part in developing and playing any TTRPG.
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u/Sudain Dragon Enthusiast 12h ago
- Define fun for yourself.
- Define for fun the individual humans.
- Define fun for the cocktail of humans together.
Based upon your post I strongly suspect there is a mismatch. To answer the question posed in the text of the post - some people can't think in terms of a system. If you've done the explanation of how the math works, don't hold back, trigger the TPK. People will learn or they won't. And far more importantly, if people are not having fun in your game, this provides them a natural exit point.
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u/Malcior34 1d ago
Are THEY having fun?
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u/BesideFrogRegionAny 1d ago
The DM gets to have fun too....
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u/Sudain Dragon Enthusiast 12h ago
Yes. The DM is one of the players at the table. Their fun also matters. And if the rest of the players do not share in that sense of fun, his table may soon be deserted.
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u/BesideFrogRegionAny 11h ago
No DND is better than bad DND.
He can find a new table.
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u/Sudain Dragon Enthusiast 10h ago edited 10h ago
If the underlying behavior (fun mismatch) keeps arising, the odds of finding a new table continually goes down. A better behavior is to learn how to play well with others. Part of which is acknowledging others version of fun might not be his own.
No DND is better than bad DND.
I would suggest to you learning how to compromise is a life skill.
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u/CockroachTeaParty 1d ago
If your players aren't brushing up on the rules on their own time, if they aren't 'planning a build' or looking forward to reaching certain goals or milestones, there's not really much you can do. If they're not interested in the game, if they're just going through the motions, then that's a tough problem to solve. You're trying to run a campaign, not also hold their hand and kindle the embers of interest in their hearts. Probably the best thing you can do is run the best game you can, let your own passion shine through, in the hopes that it rubs off on your players.