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GameMastery Guide / Running a Game / How to Run a Game

The Science of GMing

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 34
Mastering the arts of narrative and group storytelling is crucial to running a good game. Yet game mastering has a practical side as well. The following pages address certain fundamental mechanics and tools that all GMs should familiarize themselves with.

Gamemastering Basics

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 34
While the heart of a roleplaying game is the story cooperatively created by the Game Master and the players, the physical tools used to play the game have an effect on the experience.

Dice Mechanics

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 34
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game uses dice to resolve events during the course of a game, such as whether the fighter hits the vampire or the vampire makes its save against the wizard’s spell. However, the type and number of dice used determines the statistical probability for each numerical outcome, and fiddling with these probabilities can introduce interesting effects.

A single die has an equal chance to produce any of its results; if you roll a d20, there is a 1-in-20 chance for a 1, or a 2, or a 20, and so on. That means those dreaded fumbles and beloved crits come up just as often as an unremarkable 7, 11, or 16. This type of roll result is called a discrete uniform distribution.

Two dice added together do not create an equal distribution of results; if you roll 3d6, there is only a 1-in- 216 chance for an 18 (by rolling three 6s), but a 27-in-216 chance to get an 11 (from multiple combinations of 3 3 4, 2 4 5, 2 3 6, and so on). That means the extreme values at the low and high end are much rarer than the middle values. This type of roll result is called a normal distribution, commonly known as a bell curve because graphing the results gives a line with a hump in the middle that tapers off toward the ends. The more dice you have in a roll, the more probable the middle results become (in the bell curve, the “bell” becomes taller and more narrow, and the rest of the curve is shorter and flatter).

Note that even though a d% is normally generated by two d10s, the result is still a discrete uniform distribution rather than a bell curve because the numbers on the two dice aren’t added together. It’s also worth noting that, when estimating average values such as damage, the average of a d6 is 3.5 rather than 3, as the lowest value possible on most dice is 1, not 0.

Game Accessories

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 34
There are many game aids that help make sessions smoother and more memorable.

Art: In a fantasy world where terrible beasts crush villages and flying cloud castles eclipse the sun, an evocative photo or painting can help set the mood or provide a backdrop for an encounter, or even an entire campaign. With millions of vacationers posting their photos to the internet and professional photographers displaying samples of their work online and in magazines, it’s possible to find free inspiration for almost any game scene, whether a castle, desert, island, or volcano. Most modern fantasy artists have online galleries featuring beautiful illustrations of fantastic creatures and locations, and many artists sell “coffee table books” of their artwork for easy browsing. Art books, history books, and travel books are rich sources for great photos, as are web pages of concept art from movies and television.

Combat Grid: Many aspects of combat in the Pathfinder RPG assume the use of a grid to determine the relative positions of different creatures. You can simply use graph paper for battles, erasing and redrawing each creature’s location as it moves. However, most gamers prefer largerscale squares that are big enough to contain a token or miniature for each creature. Many groups use wet-erase “battlemats” with 1-inch grids; these durable mats roll up for easy storage or travel. Office supply stores carry easel pads with 1-inch grid paper, which are especially handy when you want to reuse a particular map multiple times (such as a prominent street or the PCs’ favorite tavern); laminating the pages or using a Plexiglass overlay (which is safe for dry-erase and wet-erase markers) extends the utility of these pages. Paizo’s GameMastery Flip-Mats are laminated, full-color, eight-panel mats of terrain or locations (desert, dungeon, forest, jungle, tavern, and so on), usable with wet-erase and dry-erase markers. Paizo’s Map Packs are collections of full-color 5" x 8" themed map cards (including generic structures for things like caravans, cities, farms, forests, towns) which you can use singly or to build larger areas or combine them with Flip- Mats. Many companies sell three-dimensional terrain, such as high-quality painted resin or fold-up paper models, and several companies sell inexpensive mapping software for creating your own gridded fantasy maps.

Critical Hit/Fumble Decks: If you prefer a little more randomness and excitement in your games, augmenting critical hits and fumbles is a fun way to introduce chaos and extra bloodshed into combat. Dozens of tables with random results for critical hits and fumbles exist, but an easy, durable, and versatile way of handling this sort of thing is with Paizo’s Critical Hit Deck and Critical Fumble Deck. Each card in these decks has a different result depending on whether the relevant attack is bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, or magic, and the flavorful results vary from extra damage to ability score penalties to even more humiliating consequences.

Face Cards: A picture is worth a thousand words, and even the most descriptive GM may have to deal with players who have a hard time remembering a specific NPC, as it’s a person they’ve never seen. To remedy this problem, you can use index cards with the name of the NPC and a photograph or an illustration, and show the card whenever the PCs encounter that character. For major or recurring NPCs, you might attach them to your GM screen so they’re always on display, or paste them into a player handout about the campaign setting.

To find good illustrations or photographs, look at collectible card games, magazines, and roleplaying games for appropriate historical and fantasy characters. Internet image searches for concept art generate good results, and can be further fine-tuned by adding race names to the search criteria. Given a large enough library of character illustrations, you can create a card for every significant NPC in your game—and the cards provide handy places for the players to record notes about that NPC. Of course, if that sounds like more work than you’re interested in, Paizo’s GameMastery Face Cards are specifically designed for this purpose: a deck of full-color, illustrated characters with a large, blank, writable area on the back for recording the character’s name and salient information.

Miniatures: The ancestors of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game are tactical wargames that used tokens or miniature figures (once called “figs” by gamers, though “minis” is the most common term now). Many players still find miniatures an invaluable asset for gaming. Miniatures exist for almost every type of character, from gnome wizards to elven bards or orc barbarians, in any combination of weapons, armor, and body types. Monsters are just as prevalent, and come in all shapes, sizes, and poses. A trip to a craft or toy store presents dozens of toys, plastic figurines, and action figures suitable for gaming; even if the scale isn’t quite right, the visual impact of a PC or monster miniature on the tabletop can help the players better visualize their allies and opponents—and placing an 8-inch-tall monster action figure in the middle of a party of 1-inch-tall PC minis can set the mood for a dangerous and exciting encounter. Weird monster action figures from movies, television, or other games can also spark the imagination for new creatures in a home campaign.

For decades, most miniatures were sold as unpainted metal or plastic, and painting and customizing miniatures required time and effort to create a visually appealing tabletop setup. While this is still popular, nowadays there are also companies that produce prepainted plastic miniatures or printable paper miniatures in PDF form. Even if you’re not interested in collecting or painting miniatures, consider rewarding a player who provides miniatures for the game with bonus XP ( just as you might reward a player who always hosts the game, or provides food for everyone). Painting minis is also a way to get a non-gamer spouse or significant other peripherally involved in the hobby; more than one “gamer widow” has earned kudos for painting miniatures without ever touching dice.

Initiative Tracker: Combat is the most complex part of the game, and the easiest place for a session to bog down. Anything that helps speed up combat means everyone gets more done and has more opportunities for fun. The simplest way of handling this is to record each PC and monster name on a card; when combat starts, write each creature’s initiative score on its card and sort them into the initiative order. Thereafter, determining who’s next to act is just a matter of cycling through the cards. Ambitious GMs can add info to the monsters’ cards, such as hit points, special attack DCs, and other information relating to what the monster can do on its turn. (This can also be a useful place to record PC Perception checks and saves, so that you can make secret checks without asking players for their statistics.) Especially detailed initiative cards that resemble character sheets, with room for all of a creature’s relevant data, can remove the need to refer to a book.

Another method is using a larger surface like a cork board, marker board, or dry-erase board to track PC and monster initiative and status. If positioned so the players can see it as well, this also lets them know when their turns are coming up so they can plan ahead. Paizo’s GameMastery Combat Pad is a handy page-sized version of this—a magnetic dry/wet-erase board with dry/wet-erase magnets to indicate PCs and monsters. While it fulfills the same function as a pad of paper, the creature magnets make it easy to adjust initiative order for readied and delayed actions, and saves the GM the time and effort of rewriting all the PC names for every combat.

Item Cards: Kill the monsters, take their treasure, and sort it all out later—it’s a standard tactic of most adventuring groups. So what happens when the players want to identify a stockpile of magic items from their last adventure? Just as face cards help players remember NPCs, a physical card describing an item (and perhaps a note about who it was taken from) helps the players remember the unusual items their PCs carry—and helps a busy GM keep track of what that bubbling green potion, smoking longsword, and bleeding gauntlet actually do. Paizo’s GameMastery Item Card line covers all the basics—weapons, armor, magic items, adventuring gear, and more, each with a full-color illustration and an erasable blank space on the back for keeping notes.

Gaming without Accessories: Of course, sometimes you don’t want or need accessories at all—perhaps you’re gaming in a car, at a campsite, or somewhere else with limited space or materials. Many campaigns don’t use miniatures or a grid, even for combat. You can describe items verbally and not refer to cards or pictures. Crits are just extra damage and fumbles are misses. Character initiative is clockwise from the GM. Random results are determined by playing pick-a-number or rock-paperscissors. The appeal of roleplaying games is the shared experience of storytelling (whether the story is an epic quest or a monster bash), and humans have been telling stories together for thousands of years just with their minds and voices. Each gaming group is different; some like all the bells and whistles, some prefer simplicity and abstraction, and many fall somewhere in between. Just as the sort of campaign each group prefers is different, how they choose to play that campaign can vary from group to group or game to game.

Creating Adventures

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 36
It’s the GM’s job to plan and predict the course of an adventure. Depending on you and your players’ play style, this may be an easy endeavor or require a lot of work. The basic types of adventures are linear, unrestricted, and nonlinear.

Linear: A linear adventure scenario is pretty straightforward; the PCs begin at point A, travel to point B, then C, and so on until they reach the end of the adventure. What exactly those points are, and which of them are combat encounters, roleplaying encounters, or merely places to rest and buy new equipment varies from adventure to adventure. For example, a scenario may start at a village where orcs just attacked, follow a survivor’s directions toward the orc lair, deal with the orcs in the lair, and end with the PCs returning triumphantly to the village; there isn’t much room for deviation from the expected plot. Most published adventures are linear adventures simply because a book only holds a limited amount of information—it’s impossible to account for every possible character motivation, wild goose chase, or wrong turn that the PCs may take during the course of one or more nights of play.

With linear adventures, the GM has to be ready to steer the PCs back to the task at hand; one of the easiest ways is to use a timed event to encourage the PCs to stay on track (such as a prisoner held captive in the next location who must be rescued before the monsters kill him), but some GMs fall into the trap of using brute force, such as an army of lizardfolk that coincidentally appears whenever the PCs try to go a different direction. Linear adventures are often called “railroads” because there’s only one place the PCs are supposed to go—but this isn’t always a bad thing. If you’re just running a one-shot game—say if an old friend is in town for a long weekend or the gaming group wants to play a single game with high-level characters— it’s perfectly acceptable to railroad the characters; the expectation is that everyone wants to finish the adventure, and wasting time looking for clues in the wrong place just makes it more likely the group won’t finish in the allotted time. In these situations, it’s okay for the GM to say, “you don’t think this has anything to do with the Dungeon of Bloody Death, and heading to Black Blood Mountain is clearly the way to deal with this threat.” In the same way that your group can use their imaginations to see ex-quarterback Bob as a female gnome rogue, they can accept a gentle push in the direction of the actual adventure when things get too far off track.

In an ongoing campaign, you have to be prepared for the PCs to go off the rails and stay off the rails for extended periods of time. Even if your plan is to run a linear adventure, it’s a good idea to have some mini-adventures, random encounters, or interesting locations for the PCs to visit should they detour from the plot of the adventure. With careful planning, these deviations can help steer the PCs back toward the main adventure—a random encounter with an orc raiding party that’s fresh from cooking and eating some peasants may inspire the PCs to deal with the lair; an old ranger needing help fighting a dire wolf may have a few +1 orc bane arrows he was saving for a special occasion, and so on. Of course, the best solution is to have several linear adventures planned, seeding the PCs with information about each, and letting them pursue whichever one they want—which actually works much like the next adventure type.

Unrestricted: In an unrestricted adventure, the PCs can go anywhere and do anything; they may not even be aware of your initial ideas for the first adventure. This sort of gaming is often called a “sandbox” because there are no limits to what the PCs can do, like children on a playground creating their own imaginative stories with toys. Running a sandbox game requires a GM with a lot of prepared game material or the ability to create multiple story elements on the fly. An easy way to “cheat” at running a sandbox game is to have several parallel adventures planned so if the PCs wander away from one 3rd-level dungeon, you can insert another one in the path of the PCs. Another trick is to “re-skin” one adventure with a different flavor, such as taking a fire-themed temple and changing all encounters, spells, and monsters from fire to cold as the players go through it. If you’re running a sandbox campaign and you get stuck, either because the PCs have lost track of adventure hooks or they’re heading toward something you haven’t thought much about, use the same tactics you’d use in a linear or nonlinear adventure (see below)—steer them in a new direction, tell them where they’re headed isn’t ready yet or is too powerful for them, or ask them what they expect to find there and use that to inspire what’s actually there.

The one big potential trap of a sandbox game is that because there’s so much to do, some players may split off from the main group for extended periods, leaving you to GM one group of players while the rest have to sit and wait until it’s their turn. If this happens, steer the wandering PCs back to the main group, as dividing your attention for too long leads to bored players. Sometimes it’s best to arrange a short session (or even a series of emails or messageboard posts) for just those PCs to let them deal with their plot elements and get back on track with the main plot. Sometimes the most drastic and mysterious action is best—if the wandering PCs turn up near the main group, disoriented and with no memory of the last few days except a sense of horror, you can move on with the main plot and plant seeds for what happened to that “missing time.” For more information on dealing with split parties, see pages 65–66.

Nonlinear: If an unrestricted adventure is a blank page, a nonlinear adventure is a flow chart, as when the PCs have multiple options for engaging a storyline, they feel more in control, and the adventure starts to look more like a flow chart or series of crossroads than a straight railroad—this is the core of a nonlinear adventure. In many cases you’re able to bend or add to the developments of a linear adventure based on the actions and desires of the PCs, turning it into a nonlinear adventure.

For example, in the aftermath of an orc raid on a village, the PCs may decide that tracking the orcs back to their lair is too difficult without a ranger and decide their abilities are better suited to building defenses for the town and waiting until the orcs come back. Instead of the PCs dealing with the monsters room by room, you can use those area-based monster encounters to attack the town in waves, or (if you think the PCs are up for it) to attack from two different directions. The PCs don’t need to know that the encounter with the orc monster tamer and his worg pet was supposed to be area 4 of the orc lair, and perhaps the increased mobility of an open area brings an interesting twist to what may have been an otherwise routine encounter.

Nonlinear adventures require you to plan ahead for what the PCs may do, and think on your feet in case they come up with something you weren’t expecting. For example, if the PCs are intimidated by your description of the damage from the orc raid and ask about finding better weapons to help deal with the orcs, you may be momentarily caught offguard because this sort of action wasn’t in the original idea of the lair-based adventure. However, developing a stable of secondary characters and side treks lets you quickly insert an appropriate NPC for this purpose, such as the aforementioned old ranger with the +1 orc bane arrows—who no longer needs help with a dire wolf, and is now willing to trade the arrows for a favor to be named later (which you can use as a plot hook for the next adventure). If you’re stuck for ideas when the PCs make an unexpected shift, don’t be afraid to ask the players what their characters are looking for; if they ask about orc bane arrows, that may inspire you about a hermit ranger, but if they ask for potions or scrolls, it may inspire the idea of a lonely, half-mad cleric living at a ruined shrine, and the players don’t need to know that their suggestion as to what they’re looking for helped define the course of the adventure.

Running Smooth Combats

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 39
Combat is the slowest and most complex part of the game, with issues of timing, multiple creatures acting at once, and many, many dice rolls. Here are some tips for speeding up combat—things you can do and things your players can do to help.

Be Prepared: This sounds like a no-brainer, but the greatest source of combat slowdowns is not knowing what a creature can do or how its special ability functions. It’s hard enough for the players to keep track of what their PCs can do, but as a GM you’re usually running multiple creatures at once and have to keep in mind how the results of this combat affect other events in the session. Read over the stat blocks for all creatures you’re using that session; if any of them have special abilities or use a universal monster rule, be sure you’re familiar with those as well. If a creature has a complex spell or spelllike ability, note its page number or print out the ability to save time referencing it.

Display the Combat Order: See page 35 for descriptions of initiative trackers such as Paizo’s GameMastery Combat Pad and initiative cards. If a PC knows what the current tick of the initiative clock is and knows when the participants get to act, he knows when his turn is coming up and can plan for what he wants to do. This means instead of hemming and hawing for a minute at the start of his turn, he can hem and haw during the previous player’s turn and be ready when it’s his turn. It also lets the PCs coordinate their actions together—while stingy GMs may see this as cheating or metagaming, remember that the turn-based initiative system is just a tool to simulate real-time combat in a way that doesn’t take forever, and in a real combat, people on the same side wouldn’t be locked into only acting in a specific order without awareness of each others’ intent.

Five Second Rule: If the players can see who’s up next in the initiative order, they have no excuse for not knowing what’s going on or what their characters want to do. If a PC’s turn comes up and the player takes more than a few seconds to announce his character’s action, skip him as if he had chosen to delay his action and move on to the next creature’s turn—after all, combat is hectic, and sometimes in the thick of battle you need a second or two to focus. This doesn’t cost the PC any actions, so they’re only penalized their position in the initiative, and it hopefully encourages them to pay more attention to what’s happening. Note that speeding up combat in general means players get to act more often and are less likely to get distracted between their turns, so the rest of these tips should make this one less necessary. Note also that you should let players know in advance that you’re going to do this, as springing it on them unexpectedly can seem vindictive.

Plan and Combine Dice Rolls: Rolling attacks and damage separately takes twice as long as rolling them all together. Save time by coordinating your attack roll dice with your damage roll dice so you can roll them at the same time, and encourage players to do the same. For example, if the PCs are fighting four orcs, each with a falchion, get four different-colored d20s and a pair of matching d4s for each orc, then roll all 12 dice at the same time; if the red d20 and green d20 are hits, you know to look at the red d4s and the green d4s and ignore the blue d4s and purple d4s. If the PCs are fighting a dire lion, you can color-coordinate the bite’s d8 die with one d20 and two claw d6 dice with two other d20s, and roll all the dice at once.

Be aware, however, that while rolling attack and damage at the same time is always a good idea, rolling all your attacks at once can be problematic if you (or your players) want to split the attacks between multiple opponents—if you don’t carefully assign each attack before you roll, it’s tempting to say that two of those three attacks which would have missed the main villain were actually directed at his weaker henchmen, whether or not that was your original intention.

Tokens: There are dozens of conditions in the game that can affect a creature’s behavior, possible actions, or combat stats, and it’s easy to lose track of them during gameplay. One way to help with this is using tokens next to or underneath a creature on the battlefield or the displayed initiative tracker. The simplest tokens are torn pieces of paper with the condition written on them. Alternatively, you can use glass beads, colored plastic disks (possibly even magnetic ones for easy stacking), flat wooden squares, or even fancier tools. Several companies make variants of these, allowing you to customize them to your needs, such as a yellow marker for panicked, green for nauseated, red for enraged, and so on. Tokens also let you single out unusual creatures when unique miniatures are unavailable (“the orc with the purple marker has tentacles instead of arms”) and help the players identify targets in combat without having to ask which opponent is which (“I attack the panicked orc before he runs away and alerts anyone to our presence”).

Building Encounters

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 40
One of the ironies of being a GM is that it’s not your job to create a fair fight between the PCs and monsters—if it were a fair fight, the PCs would lose half the time, and that makes for a very short adventuring career. Consider a “fair” fight between four 6th-level PCs and four 6th-level NPCs; the NPCs are a CR 9 encounter, which has a good chance of killing one of the PCs, but the PCs are likely to kill all the NPCs. This is how it should be—your job is to create encounters that are challenging, which means the PCs are expected to win, but should have to work for it. The following section gives advice on building encounters that are challenging, memorable, effective, and interesting.

Play to the PCs' Strengths

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 40
As a GM, you should know your players and their PCs, and create encounters that suit their play style and show off what their characters can do. If the fighter’s player likes to jump into the middle of groups of monsters and hack away, be sure to include such encounters every so often so that player gets to do what he likes best. If he has the Cleave feat, set up situations where he can cleave an adjacent foe; if he has Great Cleave, make sure every now and then he can go cleave-crazy on a horde of weak opponents. If the sorcerer’s player is a tactician and likes to use ranged spells and enchantments, put her against charm-vulnerable opponents using ranged attacks so she has perfect targets for her style of play. If the monk’s player is a fan of Wuxia films and likes the extreme-cinematic style of combat, put opponents on ledges so he can use high jump, or enemies at the bottoms of cliffs so he can get there quickly using slow fall, and make sure some enemies aren’t immune to stunning fist.

This means you should keep an eye on what feats and spells your players select as their PCs level up, and on what magic items you award them or they create. If the fighter takes Great Cleave at level 5 and only gets to use it once by the time he’s reached level 10, it’s as if he wasted that feat choice, and that’s not fun. You want the players to use the abilities that make them excited about the game. Reward them for playing well by letting their characters flex their muscles.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t challenge the players to try different tactics. Put the fighter who likes being surrounded in a situation where he has to guard a narrow bridge and can’t let anyone get past him, or have him fight monsters that get flanking bonuses or sneak attacks that make him rely on terrain or the other PCs to avoid getting killed. Let the tactician-sorcerer take control of a minion. The trick is to teach other styles of play (or at least present them as options) without them feeling forced.

High- and Low-CR Encounters

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 41
The game expects that for about half of the encounters the PCs face, the CR of the encounter is equal to the average party level (APL). Obviously the rest of the encounters are higher or lower than the average party level, but what is too low or too high?

Table 12–1: Encounter Design only covers encounters from APL –1 to APL +3, so that CR range is the usual limit for most encounters. After all, for a party of four 6th-level PCs, an “easy” encounter (APL –1) is a “rival” group of four 2ndlevel NPCs (CR 1 each, +4 for 4 creatures = CR 5); if beating up NPCs one-third your level is easy, beating up even weaker creatures is more like bullying than adventuring. The risk of using very easy encounters is that the players may grow bored—they know their characters can deal with the monsters, but have to go through the motions of making attack and damage rolls without the excitement or risk from a “real” encounter. (Much like a “god mode” setting in a video game, the novelty of easily destroying all opponents gets old after a few encounters.) In some cases it’s acceptable or even a good idea to lead off an adventure with a very easy encounter—for example, if the players need a morale boost or have power-boosting abilities that require some kills to start functioning—but in most cases you don’t want to create encounters below APL –1.

The value of APL +3 should be a fairly hard limit for difficult encounters unless you want there to be a considerable risk of PC death. Once you’re beyond APL +3, the PCs’ ability to pose a threat to a monster dwindles, especially if the encounter is a single powerful creature rather than multiple ones on par with the APL. In most cases, this is because using a higher-CR monster may cross one of the invisible “break points” in monster design where the creature’s defenses and abilities assume the PCs are a certain level and have access to certain spells or gear, such as magic weapons, spells to remove ability damage, items neutralizing poisons or disease, or even simple things like being able to hit the monster’s AC or meet its saving throw DCs. If the PCs lack a critical spell or piece of gear, a difficult encounter may be nearly impossible.

For example, a succubus is a CR 7 encounter, and is an “epic” encounter for a group of four 4th-level PCs. Most PCs at that level lack cold iron or good weapons, and thus have to deal with the demon’s DR for every attack. The PCs may have difficulty overcoming her SR 18, energy resistances, and immunities, thus spellcasters will be frustrated. The PCs have even odds at best of resisting her at-will charm monster and suggestion (usually taking one PC out of the fight), and have to work very hard to make up for the temporary hit points from her at-will 6d6 vampiric touch.

It’s entirely possible to have an exciting and challenging fight (CR equal to APL +1 or +2) without overwhelming the PCs. An “epic” fight may last two or three hours of real time—a memorable fight if the PCs win, but a depressing slog if they can’t. It’s generally better to keep combat encounters to about an hour—that way you can get two or three encounters into one night of gaming, and make more progress in the adventure or campaign than a single, longer fight. If the fight you’ve given the PCs ends up too tough for them, don’t forget to remind them that they can run away, or you can cheat a little bit and suddenly treat the monster as if it had the young creature template (–2 on all rolls), which might be enough to turn the tide in the PCs’ favor—after all, you want the PCs to win, because that means everyone gets to keep playing. Killing them with an accidentally-too-hard encounter is no fun for anyone.

Solo Monsters vs. Groups of Monsters

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 41
Sometimes there’s the temptation to use one powerful monster instead of multiple weaker monsters. The main drawback to this encounter-designing tactic is that the PCs outnumber the monster; even in the optimal situation where the monster attacks first, a group of four PCs gets to attack four times before the monster gets another turn, and with good planning it’s entirely possible for the PCs to kill the monster in one round. Using multiple monsters forces the PCs to either focus their attention on one opponent (giving the remaining opponents more opportunities to attack) or engage all of the opponents (preventing an immediate slaughter). Using multiple monsters also lets you set up special abilities like sneak attack that are difficult to implement with a single monster, and means you can distribute the monsters’ actions throughout the round (whether by rolling separate initiatives or using the delay or ready actions) and react more than once per round to what the PCs do.

Remember that, as a GM, you have tricks up your sleeve, and if the PCs are having an easy time dealing with a solitary monster, it’s all right to send in reinforcements. An intelligent NPC may have bodyguards en route. A brutish monster may have a handler or trainer within earshot of its cries for help. Even an unintelligent creature like an ooze or big zombie may benefit from the arrival of wandering monsters.

Winning Monster Combos

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 42
Some monsters are best used in groups or with other creatures that complement or augment their abilities. A single derro probably has a hard time using its sneak attack, but a group of them can easily set up flanking situations. Tieflings have fire resistance 5, making them handy allies for a fire priest with burning hands or a fire mephit; alternatively, a tiefling cleric controlling a gang of burning skeletons is all but immune to their area damage. Creatures with spell-like abilities can cast them on minions or on a leader. For example, a dark naga or spirit naga can cast cat’s grace, invisibility, or displacement on its allies; a spirit naga can even turn itself invisible and cast cure spells on its allies. Given time, a succubus’s profane gift ability can bolster every single guard, priest, and lieutenant in an evil fortress.

Monster abilities can also complement hazards or traps; a flying monster ignores difficult terrain, floor pits, or patches of green slime. Monsters with damage reduction are immune to arrow traps and most spear traps; those immune to poison can ignore the danger of poisonous traps or even rooms with inherently toxic air, such as a sulfurous volcanic vent. Using monsters intelligently like this helps create fun and memorable encounters, as well as challenges PCs to try new tactics.

Don't Stymie the PCs

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 42
This is another way of saying “play to the PCs’ strengths,” but is worth reiterating. Part of the fun of playing is leveling a character and gaining new abilities. If you create encounters that circumvent the PCs’ newest abilities, it takes away some of the fun of the game because it’s like they didn’t gain all the benefits of their level. For example, if the PC wizard just reached level 5 and learned the fireball spell, you may be tempted to throw some fire-resistant or fire-immune encounters at the PCs to compensate for this ability—which makes the 5th-level wizard feel like a 4th-level wizard. However, thousands of RPG campaigns have survived PCs who can cast fireball; it’s better for a GM to embrace the new ability than fear it. Give the wizard a cluster of minions to blast so he feels powerful—or set up an encounter where he has to choose between blasting a bunch of minions or using the spell on just the boss.

Some monsters are designed to be more challenging to certain character classes. Golems are immune to almost all magic, some outsiders have very high damage reduction, oozes are immune to critical hits and sneak attacks, and so on. If the PCs end up facing these kinds of creatures over and over again (especially in a short amount of time), the stymied players can easily get frustrated—after the third encounter with stone golems, the sorcerer and wizard are likely to give up and want to stop playing. If you’re going to use a lot of these creatures (say, in a themed dungeon), you have two options to prevent player frustration.

Give the Character a Tool: There are dozens of limited-use items in the game, plus consumables like potions and scrolls. If you know one PC is going to have a problem with an upcoming encounter, drop a helpful item into an earlier encounter or even an earlier adventure—an item that lets the character be useful in the battle despite the monster’s resistances. If a PC druid has no magic weapons and you’re planning an iron golem encounter, give her a golembane scarab so she can better attack it in wild shape. If a PC rogue has no bludgeoning weapons to use against a black pudding, let her find a low-level wand of magic missile and blast away using Use Magic Device. Many items and spells in the game are designed to deal with unusual encounters, but don’t see play very much because PCs prefer general-utility magic; introducing a cheap or expendable item like this gives smart players something to fall back on if their primary strategy isn’t effective or if they run into an encounter where the unusual tool is exactly what they need.

Present Other Options: Just because the encounter involves a monster doesn’t mean that all the PCs have to focus on defeating that monster. Create another task that helps overcome the monster, prepares for the next encounter, or disables a parallel threat during the fight. For example, in a fight against a bunch of black puddings, rather than having the rogue frustrated by not being able to use sneak attack, add a spiked wall trap that the rogue can disable while the other characters deal with the oozes. If the encounter has an iron golem and the wizard has no electricity attacks to slow it, put a magical puzzle-crystal in the room that unlocks a secret room if the wizard makes a Knowledge (arcana) check. If the party cleric channels negative energy and the other PCs are fighting undead (meaning the cleric would heal enemies if she tried to channel), include a door made of fused bone that only opens from a focused blast of negative energy. If the opponent is resistant to physical attacks, put a chained prisoner in the room that the barbarian, fighter, or paladin can rescue while the spellcasters deal with the threat.

Unusual Campaigns

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 43
Most GMs eventually toy with the idea of running a theme campaign, such as an all-dwarf or all-elf campaign. While most of these have no game effect, below are several variant campaigns that require special consideration when building encounters.

No Healers

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 43
Whether you’re running a low-magic campaign or just have a group of players uninterested in playing healers, a lack of curative magic in the party is a big deviation from the norm. Without a healer, monsters that deal high damage have a greater risk of killing a PC—there’s no healer to step in and compensate for a critical hit— so you should rely on weaker monsters that don’t deal damage in large increments. If there is magic in the campaign, the PCs can at least rely on potions (and scrolls and wands, given an adequate Use Magic Device bonus), but this forces them to decide between attacking and healing each round. Without reliable access to any healing magic (such as in a historical campaign), the PCs must resort to nonmagical methods like the Heal skill, or perhaps limited-use legendary items or quasi-magical items derived from unusual monster parts. They should also consider using more defensive tactics, such as taking the Dodge and Combat Expertise feats, in order to raise their Armor Classes and reduce the number of successful attacks against them. Keep in mind that without healing, PCs generally have no way to deal with curses, diseases, poisons, and other afflictions, so use creatures with those abilities sparingly or make mundane methods of overcoming such dangers a more significant and readily available part of your campaign.

No Spellcasters

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 43
Though technically a broader example of the “no healers” variant, a campaign with no spellcasters at all has an entirely different set of problems. Most adventures assume that a typical party has one arcane caster and one divine caster; without any magic at their disposal, the PCs may have a hard time dealing with monsters that are resistant to physical damage but vulnerable to magic. Even something as simple as a swarm (immune to weapons but vulnerable to area attacks) becomes a significant challenge when the PCs don’t have magic. Conversely, an otherwise challenge-appropriate monster that has a high spell resistance may actually end up weaker than a “normal” creature because its CR assumes the PC spellcasters are going to have trouble—a hindrance a no-spellcaster party completely ignores. Keep an eye out for monsters with high DR, high SR, or vulnerabilities to magical attacks (including cold and fire vulnerability); these are likely to be more or less difficult than expected.

All Spellcasters

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 43
This section is more about a party with no melee classes, rather than a party where every PC is a spellcaster—a group of four clerics or paladins is technically an allspellcaster party, but they don’t have the sort of problems that four sorcerers, wizards, or even bards face. Such a party is the opposite of the no-spellcasters group; DR is less important, SR and resistances are more important, and creatures with nearly universal magic immunity are a serious problem. Golems, for example, can’t be damaged by most direct-attack spells, and even though a stone golem is CR 11, it may be able to eliminate an entire party of 12th-level wizards, especially given a wizard’s low AC and hit points compared to a melee class. The golem is an “easy” challenge on paper, but more dangerous in execution. Of course, smart players will use summoned monsters and charmed enemies to take the brunt of physical attacks, and a smart GM can stave off a lot of player frustration by providing such things to the PCs (even in the form of scrolls or wands) if the players don’t think of it themselves; even a few summoned orcs at the start of an adventure can help an all-caster party survive.

Small Party

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 43
Sometimes you have a player who can’t make it to this week’s session; sometimes you only know two other gamers in your area. Either way, having a small party presents you with some unique challenges. With fewer characters, a battle can shift against them very quickly— one unconscious, charmed, or held PC in a group of three is a loss of 33% of the party’s resources compared to 25% in a standard party. Often, one or more PCs may have to take on multiple roles (melee character, skill character, arcane damage-dealer, or divine healer), and as the game rewards specialization, this means these hybrid characters are slightly less effective at either task than two focused characters would be. Fewer characters means it’s more likely they’re clustered together, and thus are more vulnerable to area attacks. When dealing with a small party, temperance is the key—start with smaller, weaker encounters, and give the players time to get the feel of their group’s vulnerabilities. Once the players have an idea about their party dynamics, test them with encounters closer to their average party level, and eventually you’ll find a good CR range that suits their abilities and is still challenging.

Large Party

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 43
A party of eight PCs is a much different “problem” for a GM: they’re able to handle more difficult encounters and more of them per day, often by expending disproportionately fewer resources than a four-person party. It would be easy to make the assumption that because doubling the number of monsters in an encounter adds +2 to the CR, a party of double the normal number of PCs can routinely handle encounters where the CR is equal to the APL +2. This isn’t always true, however, mainly because higher- CR monsters tend to have built-in assumptions about party gear (see High- and Low-CR Encounters on page 41). These differences are especially evident with a large number of weaker PCs.

A good low-level example of this is the barghest; it’s only CR 4, and in theory, if four 2nd-level PCs can handle a CR 2 encounter, eight 2nd-level PCs should be able to kill a CR 4 monster. However, most 2nd-level characters aren’t going to have a magic weapon, and therefore the barghest’s DR 5/magic absorbs a lot of incoming damage. Also, a barghest’s average damage per round is 20.5, assuming it hits with all three attacks (and with a +10 attack bonus for all three, that’s a safe bet against 2ndlevel PCs); while that’s dangerous for 4th-level PCs (where a typical fighter has about 40 hit points), it’s murder for 2nd-level PCs (where a typical fighter has about 22 hit points). In this case, the battle becomes a race to wear down the monster as soon as possible because it’s killing a PC almost every round.

It’s perfectly fine for a large group of PCs to have an easier time dealing with challenges where the CR is equal to the APL. In general, it’s better to use multiple weak monsters than one powerful monster. This gives each PC multiple opponents to choose from, gives you more creatures to play with, and keeps PC mortality low.

Variant Play Experiences

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 44
Not every game session involves half a dozen people sitting around a table, with dice and character sheets in hand. Other popular play experiences include solo campaigns, convention play, and online games.

Solo Campaigns

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 44
A solo campaign—sometimes called a duet campaign— consists of one GM and one player. Such an arrangement is often perfect for spouses, roommates, siblings, and any other situation where players are scarce. In addition, a solo campaign is ideal for pursuing the kind of plotline that excludes other players—for example, an in-character romance, or a character who wants to build a business or carry out nefarious activities.

For better or worse, a solo campaign centers on the player’s character. Thus, it’s best to start with the character concept and build a storyline around that. For example, if your player wants a seafaring character, your campaign should focus on the ocean. You and the player should agree on the basics, then you can design adventures accordingly.

While this kind of campaign obligates you to cater to the tastes of your player, it also frees you from worrying about whether the other players are having fun—if your player’s enjoying it, you’re 100% successful. Still, this doesn’t mean you need to focus exclusively on things you know your player likes, as that can rob you of the chance to find new things he or she might enjoy. Lay your campaign’s foundation on known tastes, but feel free to explore.

Having only one PC poses some difficulties with standard adventures. A solo PC is incredibly vulnerable, not just to combat encounters, but to simple problems like falling into a pit—if the PC can’t make the required Climb check or get out of the pit with magic, he’s basically stuck. Likewise, a party of four PCs can deal with a monster that casts charm person on one party member, but a solo PC who fails that save is done for (unless you have a plan for dealing with the charmed PC shaking off the effect later and escaping). A good example to follow is a movie where there’s just one protagonist; combat encounters are usually either multiple weak opponents that are only a threat to the hero in numbers (and the hero often controls the battlefield so he can deal with them one or two at a time) or a single, more difficult opponent such as a lieutenant or the main villain.

One way to compensate for the lack of other party members is to expand the character’s range of abilities beyond what the game normally allows. As long as the character won’t ever be played in a “normal” campaign, there’s really nothing wrong with this tactic. Another option is to introduce one or more NPCs with the appropriate abilities, friends or sidekicks of the hero which can be played by either you or the player. You could also use magic items to help fill the gap. At some point, however, you may still need to adjust your adventure to eliminate challenges that the player simply cannot meet.

Stealth, skill, and roleplaying encounters are much more common in solo play. Just remember to have a backup plan should the PC fail to accomplish a goal, such as an alternate route around a trap, a quick combat resolution to a failed stealth situation, or a temporary way to neutralize or contain a dangerous opponent.

Convention Play

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 44
Conventions are hotbeds of gaming opportunity. While many RPG events available at game conventions are single-session adventures, timed dungeon runs, or tournaments, others are run through organized play groups like the Pathfinder Society which allow players to keep the same character over the course of several games (or conventions!), accumulating experience, gear, and notoriety. Campaigns that operate via game conventions and other public events lose a great deal of the camaraderie of a standard campaign due to the infrequency of sessions and the variable player mix, but such events can be perfect for players without a lot of free time or other players nearby. For more information on Pathfinder Society, the official organized play group for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, visit paizo.com/pathfindersociety.

Online Games

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 45
Since the birth of the Internet, GMs have been successfully taking their campaigns online. With an online campaign, you can play with people from anywhere in the world without leaving your own home. You can once again game with friends who have moved away, or make new friends from faraway places.

The two most common formats for online campaigns are messageboard games (which can also be conducted over email, if less conveniently) and live chat. In a messageboard game, the GM posts a description of events and asks for actions, and players post their replies. Though this method is slower, it carries no scheduling problems—players simply log on when they can and add their responses.

Live chat brings the play experience closer to that of a tabletop game. Everyone logs into the same chat channel at the same time. A live chat game moves slower than a tabletop one, but much faster than a messageboard game. Chat-based games require scheduling, however, and can be a significant headache when you have players from different time zones. Furthermore, absences may be more frequent until you get a solid group, as players are often less committed to an Internet game than an in-person engagement, but logs of missed game sessions allow absentees to quickly catch up on the action.

Fixing a 'Broken' Game

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 45
Roleplaying games require flexibility and must be open to interpretation. Sometimes this means one element of a campaign can overshadow the rest of it, or a simple mistake can grow over time until it’s too big to ignore. Fortunately, there are ways to fix these problems and get your game back on track. Remember that while this section is about things you can to do fix a broken game, you and the players are partners in the storytelling, and talking to the players about the problem can give you solutions you may not have thought of yourself.

Too Much Treasure: This trap is the easiest for a GM to fall into, but fortunately is also the easiest to correct. A few too many encounters with treasure-rich opponents such as NPCs with classes can mean that the PCs end up with significantly more wealth than the suggested value for their level. Too much wealth means they can afford to buy or craft multiple magic items to enhance their characters beyond the expected power level, allowing them to more easily defeat other opponents and collect even more treasure. See Chapter 5: Rewards for more information on how to solve this problem.

Gamebreaker Element: Maybe the druid’s spell-enhanced animal companion is more deadly than the party fighter, or the wizard’s new staff allows the PCs to easily bypass or decimate encounters. Maybe the bard’s new feat is letting him use his astronomical Diplomacy score to talk NPCs and enemies into almost anything. This sort of thing can either make the game boring because there’s no challenge, or else make it too risky for other PCs because you have to make encounters engaging for the most powerful character. For tips on how to handle this, see Overpowered PCs on pages 50–51.

No Motivation to Adventure: If the PCs all have good alignments, it’s easy to motivate them to go on an adventure; just dangle an evil overlord, undead army, or threatened village in front of them and let nature take its course. However, without altruistic motivations, sometimes PCs have to be prodded into action. Greed is always a powerful motivator; the lure of incredible wealth is a draw for many PCs, and throwing out a few plot hooks relating to a fabulous treasure should get them started. Other PCs want power; a frontier castle that’s been taken over by monsters, a strange cult, or an enemy nation is a nice prize, especially if the local ruler is willing to grant land and title to those who reclaim it. Other PCs want fame; give them the opportunity to slay a fell beast that has been murdering folk for generations, or break the back of the thieves’ guild. Look to history, fiction, television, and movies for other motivations—love, jealousy, vengeance, and fear are all common story elements that drive characters to their destinies. If you’re not sure what would motivate the PCs, ask the players what their characters want and find a way to incorporate that into the campaign.

When PCs Miss a Clue: Any time you leave the course of an adventure to a die roll, you risk PCs—and thus players—missing something important, whether it’s a secret door, a hidden panel in a treasure chest, or a failed Knowledge roll. Fortunately, you control the entire game world, and it’s easy to point the PCs at the clue again. If the PCs missed a secret door, let them find a rough treasure map of the dungeon with the door clearly marked (on the back of a scroll they found earlier is a nice trick), or they can hear about it from another group of adventurers. Cohorts are good for spotting overlooked secret compartments in treasure chests, as is a sharpeyed town merchant. A forgotten reference to an ancient king, priest, or wizard can turn up in an old prayer book or during spell research. While the PCs may be the focus of the campaign world, there are countless secondary characters and events that can put them back on the right track if they get lost.

Archives of Nethys

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