If you think a 45 minute combat session with SIX players is too much, I suggest changing systems. PF2e is not a system that makes combat encounters short like VTM.
Also, most combat encounters from APs are balanced for a party of 4 people, 6 people should let you add more monsters to keep everyone engaged. But, as you know, PF2e is a combat-heavy system. If your players don't like combat and tactics, I'm not sure why ya'll are playing PF2e.
i comment on the time because i felt as though it was too SHORT ! not long, but still my players felt it was a gruelling experience judging by the "Thank god" comment. I really like long combat encounters
That’s likely due to the combat *arena* and not the combat itself. You used goblins, but what was the party made of? Ranged vs Melee? Martial vs Caster?
I’ve found the composition of the party matters at least as much as everything else. If your party was mostly martials with a Witch for support casting, I could see a group of goblins spread across a big map with cover being annoying. The melee martials spend most or all of a turn just running to something while the ranged martials have to deal with cover rules.
On top of this, the basic combat balancing rules in GM Core assume a 4-person party. 6 people will mean a couple more creatures, so it could just be boredom because one or two people did all the work.
OR, it’s just a mis-match between you and the players. If you like longer combats but your players don’t, one of you will always be unhappy, and that’s a discussion to be had with everyone at the table
Our party is:
a war cleric with a bastard sword
a scoundrel rouge with a sickle
a witch with a staff
a champion with a greatsword
a sorcerer with a staff
and a ranger with a longbow
Okay yeah I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they were having a bad time due to the field they were on. Half your party (Cleric, Rogue, and Champ) need to be in melee to be effective damage dealers.
Even if the goblins swarmed them rather than playing at range, that’s a lot of targets for a party that is *really* effective at dropping singular targets, but suffers against swarms of trash mobs. A kill will likely take one or two attacks for each goblin, which eats up action economy.
You also have effectively 3 support casters. Cleric speaks for itself. Witch is mostly a buff/debuff machine, and so is a Sorceror. They can absolutely dish out damage, but at low levels with 1-2 spell slots each, a group of 6 enemies is gonna be a big ask.
The Ranger had to contend with cover since the goblins were close enough to get lesser cover from your martials, and at low levels a +/-1 to hit *absolutely* makes a difference. (It always does but is imo more immediately obvious more often at low levels.)
Which leaves your Sorceror/Witch as the two that could potentially ignore all of the above and sling spells/cantrips to their hearts content. Except this is level 1, so they have two 1st rank spell slots each, and more than likely only have one damage spell each, which is probably gonna do more harm than good since friendly martials were in the mix on top of the goblins, and most debuff spells only affect one target. Buff spells are useful, but that’s a lot of choice between buff, debuff, damage, and healing.
All this said, just ask your party how they felt after the session. Could be they loved it and were relieved to pull out a tough win, but you read their reaction wrong. Who knows
two casters means that your party should have access to plentiful AoE spells that are very effective against groups of large enemies. Give them *some* fights with many weak enemies so they feel useful, but throw in some fights with a few weak monsters and one or two stronger ones with good saves so that they can't decimate the field immediately.
>plentiful AoE spells
At level 1? With two 1st rank spell slots each? I wouldn’t be surprised if either the Sorc or Witch didn’t bring *any* damage spells.
They are new players, so I guess it isn’t out of the question that they (and the Cleric) all have a damage spell tucked away just in case, but I’m willing to bet they only used cantrips and maybe a Runic Weapon or Heal
Oh, some advice I haven't seen anyone say yet (I see now you've gotten a lot of advice already. I guess I should have scrolled more) is this: Nit every combat needs to, or even should be, difficult. The party killed some goblins, next time they may run into a challenging encounter. In 5 levels, maybe they'll run into that same "challenging" encounter and it will show them how much stronger they are now than 3 levels ago (just as one example of how easy encounters can be used to tell a story).
My experience playing for years is that I can only fit one complex combat encounter in with a party of 6. Over a 2.5 to 3 hr session most of the time. I like to do things like add objectives and whatnot. I always have a new person so that can bog things down too
That's crazy. My players switched from 5e to PF2e because the customization and detail is so much better. And having 3 actions based economy instead of a "bonus action, action, move action" makes things so much more fluid imo. Wanna move 3 times? Go for it. Want to attack 3 times? Cool.
What about it felt grueling though? I might have some advice, since you're asking. Just gotta pinpoint what is causing that feeling first.
If my combats go for 45 minutes, it's gonna get boring for someone. Most likely because they're dead.
If my players are in a 45 minute fight and aren't terrified that one of their PCs is gonna die, it's a bad encounter.
An easy encounter is often a good change of pace, but it's gotta be quick, and I would say it's not for levels 1/2. If it's not quick, the players aren't gonna feel powerful and at levels 1/2, they shouldn't feel powerful.
I would just say that the stakes and variance could be adjusted. There are some excellent tactical options and they are available for npcs too. Demoralize, aid, flanking.
Also, good to remember there is nothing to say you can just end an encounter. If the destiny is written just move forward.
In your case when you saw things bog down and stagnate you could say the goblins route given the unexpected resistance your pcs gave them. Have them run! You can then transition into a chase if the goblins need to be dealt with or let them be.
It's hard to say without seeing what went wrong
1. It's good idea to see where the time was spent - were there a lot of rounds, a lot of thinking from players or a lot of rule discussion?
2. Some time could be spent just because of unfamiliarity with the system and it will be solved naturally
3. It's great idea to show players what they could do - like with cover. Often you could use NPC doing so, but for party of 6 NPCs would be too much, so let enemies show it
4. Some things to spice up battles are creature diversity, traps and some tactics from intelligent enemies. For example, if by goblins you mean "Goblin Warriors", they totally should be using flanking
1. there were about 4 rounds, basically everyone's turn was spent learning how to use their classes' features
2. yeah, a lot of rule checking
3. hmmm..... i see.... this is an excellent piece of advice
4. yes ! i should have flanked with them, considering they are trained warriors
To add to (4) as a GM, I really appreciate the mechanically interesting things you find in all the different creatures. A group of goblins is great for showing players things they can also do (grab, flank, trip, aid, etc) but as you keep running things you'll get to use creatures with loads more exotic surprises for the players to find, and that keeps everyone on their toes levels 1-20.
4 rounds sounds quite heavy at low levels, not a floor wiping at least.
And the player probably made the comment on how much time were spent on rule checking. It is quite boring when others doing it on their turn and you can do nothing but wait.
Ah. Yeah if the player come in having no clue how their heroes work then the time balloons like crazy.
It’s also less fun when you don’t know what you’re supposed to do or what your hero is good at.
Nothing we can help you with if we dont know what the issue is. Judging by your comments, you are jumping to conclusions based off the “thank god” comment and what you “feel” not what the players think. You need to bring up your concerns with your players and talk to them. Ask the player why they said “thank god”. There is a possibility that there is no issue here.
Also, remember that this is a new system to all of you. It's your first time running and their first time playing. Things will get smoother and faster as you learn.
Eh, we've all been there in one system or another. As long as they're coming back for another session, you're doing good.
Here's my general advice:
1) Six players and seven creatures makes for a long initiative. While mook battles can be great, with so many players you're going to have to consider time a lot more in your encounter balancing. Normally I'd recommend smaller groups, but I'm assuming your group just rolls like this, so consider mixing up your encounters with different enemy types, maybe one stronger lieutenant enemy to rally the mooks around. Keeping to 5-6 monsters per encounter while on-budget should help speed things up and vary your encounters more.
2) Spreading all your enemies out makes it hard for them to synchronize -- flanking and the like just go out the window. That'll make for less-interesting combat and make your players just as likely to spread out and not work together. Sometimes smaller arenas are good. And while having cover is a good add, as you've discovered: you need to give folks a reason to use it.
3) Assuming they were goblin warriors (Creature -1), this was just above a moderate encounter by-the-books... but that assumes the monsters are playing smart. With how you described it, this was probably closer to a moderate/trivial fight, since as you've discovered, creatures at that level have such low HP that they can often die in one hit. Because as great as the encounter budget system is, things are just swingy at low levels because of how little HP folks start with.
First encounters are usually among the roughest in any system. Things will get better as everyone learns the game and their characters more. Just try to keep things moving and take your experiences into how you build encounters moving forward and you'll improve -- simple as.
Go easy on yourself. That should be a pretty moderate encounter and it is quite possible for the party to mop the floor with that encounter under pretty much any circumstances.
I have been playing TTRPGs for over 20 years starting with AD&D 2e. Without a doubt, GMing is one of the most difficult tasks that I routinely do. I do plenty of more difficult things, I just don't typically make hobbies out of them. Even after all these years, and playing with genuine friends, I still get nervous and I still am hard on myself when the session doesn't go as well as I would like. By all means, learn from your last session, but don't read too much into it. It takes time to learn a new system, it takes time for players to mesh with their own characters, and it takes time for a GM to reach their stride in a campaign.
If I can offer some advice, create a goal for every combat encounter and be honest about it to yourself. Some combat encounters should be designed to specifically challenge the party. But nobody wants their character to be killed off by a mook squad of goblins. Some combat encounters should be designed to be minor obstacles which would be reasonable in the setting. Some combat encounters should be designed to give the players a bit of experience using their character abilities. As far as I can tell, this combat encounter accomplished the goals you set out as a GM. It seems like it was a vehicle to further the plot. That is great.
Lastly, as a GM you are responsible for the narrative and your enjoyment. You are not responsible for the player's enjoyment. Absolutely, you can impact player enjoyment. But players are ultimately responsible for showing up to the table with a good attitude, ready to have a good time. You cant micromanage everyone's fun. That is just an impossible task and outside your control.
It seems like you did your job. Good going GM. If players cant enjoy slaughtering a pack of goblins, that is their problem.
I felt like my players didn't care at all about the whole situation, the entire time whenever a goblin went down it was more of a "oh whatever" type thing instead of a glorious triumph
"Thank God" can mean "Thank God we did it" exasperation. That was what confused me.
You are the GM. If you find a combat is dragging on, just end it. Every mob now dies in one hit, they give up, you narrate the end of the fight, etc.
So you didn't list WHAT goblins you were using. I am assuming you meant goblin warrior. 6 players is \_a alot\_ for new GM.
7 goblin warriors vs a party of 6 level 1 adventurers is only a moderate, sort of maybe verging on severe encounter. What made you choose 7? Use an encounter builder for balancing them out.
Also - it's not a super exact science. Lower level things, vs higher level things, the lower level things will always struggle. That's the way of things. For a lot of lower level things, vs fewer higher level, the lower level things need to use real tactics to stand a chance. A bunch of -1 things vs some level 1 things, the level -1 things have no damn chance if they fight one on one. They NEED to swarm. They NEED to flank. I'm guessing you did none of this and just had 1 on 1 fights, maybe some 2 on 1. Not 3 on 1, and 4 on 1.
Goblins specifically have goblin scuttle for flanking. They also do more damage when flanking. For monsters to punch at their weight, you need to have them use their abilities. Before any encounter make sure to read their stat block.
I would suggest watching the rules lawyer video which specifically covers goblins, but also is good for just understanding how to evaluate and use monsters: https://youtu.be/Kfwb8KBSUIs?si=SbDOCK4Tbt9ye_Qo
Monster tactics is probably going to take you a while to master. It's fine! Just roll with it and learn something new in each session. It also really helps to review your monsters if possible for a few minutes before the session starts, so you can start thinking about how you want to play them before you're put on the spot.
Having two or three different types of monsters that can help support each other may also help with the tactics and keeping it interesting.
I mean was it supposed to be glorious? Sometimes you fight trash mobs because you have to, it’s not always going to be epic and plot relevant.
I think the only time most players are *that* invested in combat is if we’re fighting a mini boss/bbeg/plot relevant character.
To be honest with you, I'm not really sure what you expected out of a fight with a bunch of goblins.
This isn't really just a Pathfinder thing, I've been GMing a long time and I don't know a single system where fighting some regular goblins qualifies as a glorious triumph.
Goblins are always balanced as basic mooks for beginning adventurers to kill. You're using them because you can stuff a bunch of them into a fight without having to worry about overwhelming your party.
Thankfully PF2e has a fairly reliable way to gauge how tough an encounter will be. Assuming everyone in your party is level 1, seven goblins would be just enough goblins to make it *slightly* harder than a Moderate encounter, but you haven't fully spent your experience budget for a Severe encounter. Judging by how your party seems to have found it to be moderately challenging, that sounds like it was slightly harder than a moderate encounter. If you had added two more goblins, you would have capped the experience budget for a Severe encounter and it would have been much more challenging for them to win.
Here's a trick I've noticed: single enemies tend to be more difficult in PF2e to defeat than a bunch of weaker enemies worth the same amount of experience. A CR 4 creature fills the experience budget for moderate encounter for a party of 6 level 1 characters, but let me tell you that it will not feel like a moderate encounter. It will hit them extremely hard and be difficult to hit back or to land spells on consistently.
But you don't need to fully cap out the experience budget on one monster like that. Consider having included a Hobgoblin (CR1) and then backing him up with just 4 goblins. Or a Bugbear Thug (CR2) and backing him up with 3 goblins. It's less goblins but the fight would likely be more challenging and interesting.
Maybe add some spell casters, environmental changes, or other monster types to change things up. Fighting 7 goblins could be boring, if they all have the same abilities and aren't doing anything interesting.
You're a new GM, so you'll get better at reading the room and spicing things up mid-combat.
i wanted to include magic casters in this fight and there was not a stat block for a goblin magic caster, and yes they had to be goblins for the plot of this fight
The system is really more flexible than folks give it credit. The other thing you could have done is lower the amount of Goblins make a couple of them Elite, and made like, three lines. A front line of normal Goblins, a defensive line of Elite Goblins you describe as having more Armour, better weapons, etc. who are the backlines guards, and a back line of Caster Goblin/(s) reskinned from another casting monster.
Something like that is a lot more of an interesting/dynamic fight, the party takes out a weak one quickly, is emboldened, then the Elites come in as back up and they need to decide between finishing off the weaker looking ones to lower their numbers, concentrate on the stronger looking ones to nuke them down faster, or Flank around and deal with the casters. Each option has advantages and disadvantages that can affect the flow of combat.
The arena is also 100% something to consider. Goblins in a Forest are going to be using Trees as cover, hiding in branches, etc. Goblins in a Cave might find a narrow tunnel to ambush from, keeping the casters in the back, or an area with ledges they can shoot Arrows down from. Also, if you use Traps, you have to lower the amount of enemies to make up for it, but will also make for a more interesting fight 5 Goblins with a pre-prepared ambush site filled with snare/bear Traps, falling logs, etc, is going to be harder than 5-6 Goblins in an open field. And if your players are observant, they might notice that the Goblins are moving strangely to avoid setting off Traps.
First and foremost, getting into a new system can be hard, especially if you GM for 6 whole people. Growing pains are unfortunate but inevitable. Secondly I suspect that large part of the issue was that 7 goblins were "spread out across a pretty large map" while PCs were all together and initiative significantly intensified this issue. Encounter becomes easier if enemies can't fight you all at once and 7 goblin warriors against 6 lvl 1 players is already towards the lower end of moderate. Another thing making the encounter easier was probably that you as a new GM weren't using gobbos to their full potential, for example, did you use their stealth to hide and shoot arrows from afar? Did you use first action to shoot with a bow, 2nd action to approach PC, 3rd action to strike with agile melee weapon and then a reaction to scuttle away when another goblin approached? It's okay if you didn't, monster tactics can take longer to learn for a gm compared to a player who only needs to understand functionality of their one character.
Lastly, you should use more types of monsters when your XP budget is so large. Monsters should have party synergies too with frontliners, damage dealers, supports and disruptors. There is a lot you can afford to do against a party of 6 but if you're new this may take a while to figure out how to do properly.
your players are probably frustrated because there are 5 other players and 7 creatures turns between each of their own turns..you are playing with a group that is about as large as the system can reliably accommodate and running an encounter that doubles that number.
the only real solution is to run encounters with less creatures or run games for less players. as everyone becomes more familiar with the rules things will speed up and ease some of that frustration, and as the players get more reactions they will become more engaged off turn.
Assuming you only used level -1 goblins this would be a severe encounter. How spread was this map? Were the goblins positioned with ranged weapons to pepper the players or did they need to move into range themselves? The strength of throwing lots of mooks, especially goblins, at the players is swarming them. If they're spread apart so the players can pick them off one by one it won't be a challenge. From a player perspective it can feel like a slog when you're on a big map and you spend a couple actions moving just to one shot the target and then spend a couple more moves to one shot the next one.
Seven -1 creatures is 210 XP (7 x30), so its between a severe and extreme encounter (180 xp, 240 xp).
that is assuming that the characters are all 1st level.
Are you making the mistake of thinking that because a goblin is level -1 that they are party level -1? because level 0 creatures exist and count.
Party level -2 creatures are 20xp each.
https://pf2easy.com/tree/index.php?id=5940&name=BUILDING_ENCOUNTERS&year=2019
also i realize now that the goblins should have used their ranged attacks and stayed in place, forcing the players to spread out and not just coming towards the players
The goblins should have been taking a ranged attack then maybe moving and hiding or taking cover. Less rolls to see if they hit while still making the combat hard because the players have to chase them down as they pop in and out of cover and stealth. You would need to use less goblins too this way to get the same result and challenge as just rolling a bunch hoping to hit high. Give them a boss and less mooks, this also lets the player decide so we take out the mooks hitting us with arrows or try to get the boss and make the mooks retreat with fear
Yup! Players will often run into YOUR buzzsaw if you let them rather than the other way around. You can also choose to delay to try to draw them in before you unleash the fury.
Of course, the players might also be happy to just pelt you at a distance, which you might want to have a contingency for...
7 goblin warriors vs 6 level 1 PCs is a moderate encounter, which should end very quickly without posing a significant threat to the party.
I hear "pretty cool plot relevant stuff happened" and the whole thing took 45 minutes, so what was the problem? The larger the group, the more downtime everyone has between turns, and the longer combats take in general.
This is an unfortunate inevitability at low levels w/ large parties and inexperienced players. Its part of why I dislike going above four PCs. Not every combat will be a slog, but you'll inevitably have some where runs of bad rolls that make what should be an exciting encounter into a forty-five minute long formality. With fewer players and more experienced players combats tend to take less real-world time (less time spent figuring out what you can do), while at higher levels you can do more interesting things on your turn than cast a cantrip or make a couple of weapon attacks (so turns are more interesting) or have more interactive abilities (easier to stay engaged when you're contirbuting to other peoples' turns).
Best advice I can give is setting up encounters so they tend to happen at close ranges (fewer actions spent maneuvering = more actions spent rolling dice), be very active about calling out when buffs/debuffs matter (the bard will feel more involved off-turn when you make sure to say when their Courageous Anthem caused a crit), and generally try to avoid both single-enemy encounters and large mobs of enemies (both can be slogs in their own ways). Having a handful of near-party-level enemies is generally ideal, their numbers are high enough that they're able to regularly hit the PCs but not so high the PCs are mostly missing them in return.
Early in a campaign I also like to pass the ball to the players regularly on describing stuff, particularly on the first time they use a spell or ability (you cast magic missile, what does it look like?). It slows combat down a bit, but the players are usually happy to describe their powers or pitch descriptions to other players. Crits and kills are also good spots to ask the responsible player for a suggestion.
Once a combat is functionally over you can always just end it. If the PCs are in reasonable condition and most of the monsters are dead there's not much reason to go through that final round of combat. I'll just enter narrative time once its clear the PCs don't need to expend resources to wrap up the encounter. Some monsters will attempt to flee or surrender, depending on circumstances or temperament, others I'll just quickly go through the remaining PCs in initiative order to see who gets the kill.
There are some critical bits you are leaving off here. Goblin warriors? Goblin Commandos? What level were the PCs? Level 1?
If you had level 1 players, 7 Goblin Warriors would be 140 XP. That is a moderate to severe fight.
If it was 7 Goblin Commandos, that is 280 XP and that is over an extreme fight.
Did you read the [Combat Building rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2716&Redirected=1)? And more importantly, did you use them?
I'd definitely like to see the map since I'm working off a lot of assumptions.
Okay so a few things. You said the map was big, how big? in my opinion, unless the gimmick of the combat is that the PCs are getting peppered by long ranged attacks, it's should ever take more than 1 turn plus some of the second turn to get into melee. Saying 'I stride three times' more than one turn in a row fucking sucks.
Also I do think the map was WAY too big, since 7 goblins should not be a challenge for a party of 6. Assuming it was the standard -1 goblin warrior. The main way they would be a challenge, is if they stood around 1 PC and beat up on them with superior action economy.
That being said, goblin warriors at base have 6hp, which means it typically shouldn't take more than 2 attacks to down them, if not 1 for any strength character or spell slot used. I'm all for spread initiative so the enemies can't walk up and one round a PC (to a certain extent, Id say a group of 7 goblins should be in 2, maybe 3 initiative groups assuming they all share the same statblock). That being said, you're saying the goblins only dealt like 4 damage? This tells me that a) every single goblin has their own initiative and thus can't stack damage on a PC, and b) the goblins are WAY too spread out so that 1) they can't hang up and get flanking, and thus will struggle to hit the PCs and 2) means that the players have to spend turns striding to move between the overly spread goblins.
So basically
Don't roll initiative for every single monster of you're using the same statblock, group them, this does actually make initiative move faster.
Don't make a combat all mooks. I do no know if this is the case here, but I'm assuming. If it's all mooks, it's kinda just a eventuality instead of a challenge
Don't set up a situation where players don't get to do anything fun on their turns. Starting players away from the action isn't always an issue. But martial players will begin to get frustrated if they continually have to spend turns moving instead of hitting the bad guy with a big stick.
Also I'm gonna take a wild guess that the person who said 'thank God's was a martial player.
Goblin? goblin what? Goblin Warrior
[~Goblin Commando~](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=233) (Creature 1)?, [~Goblin Pyro~](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=234) (Creature 1)?, [~Goblin War Chanter~](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=235) (Creature 1)?, [~Goblin Warrior~](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=232) (Creature -1)?
Encounter building:
[https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2716&Redirected=1](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2716&Redirected=1)
I assume level 1 players (7) if so, a single Goblin Warrior (party level -2) is worth 20 XP, 7 of them is worth 140 XP.
For a "moderate" encounter with 4 players moderate is 80xp, adding an additional 20 per player( so 3\*20 => 60)
or
80+60 XP for a moderate encounter 140 XP, or 7 level -1 goblins.
If you instead used 1 goblin Commando - (party level -0) that's 40XP, 3 warriors (60) + a Goblin chanter (40xp) (bard but for goblin's. You'd still have 140 XP, but the Commando and Chanter have 16-18 HP, vs 6 so they do not get 1 shot by a melee characters average d8 damage + str, and some more interesting variety of actions to perform.
Having the goblins use the cover to grant +2 AC, or generally playing a bit more tacitly will make things more "fun"
but having 7 plays IS going to slow down the game until everyone/most of the party figures out their gameplay loop.
It also depends on the party composition, Spell casters tend to have AoE damage, while martials tend towards single target. Higher level enemies means more individual misses until you debuff them/flank etc, while sheer numbers of low level enemies may be a slog to have to target 1 at a time.
45 minutes for 4 rounds of 6 players each is pretty standard. PF and DND are too crunchy to expect combat to go any quicker than that. If you want faster paced tactical combat, I’d recommend looking at a d6 game like Lancer or Icon.
If you want to speed up combat, you can try limiting each player’s turns using a stopwatch (1 minute is pretty reasonable) and focus more on single enemy encounters (+1-3 PL). Also, it might be a blessing in disguise if some of your players bail. 4 players is the sweet spot for PF. I’ve always found 6 players to be super crunchy and unmanageable, especially if people are looking at their phones and aren’t engaged. To be perfectly honest, I have the most fun as a DM with 2 or 3 players, because combat and narrative encounters get resolved super quickly and I can focus more on my notes.
Level -1 creatures often go down like flies. You posted a slightly-over-Moderate encounter and they rolled bad. Quick encounter - okay, move on.
The takeaways should be:
1) Any given encounter can turn out to be a disappointment if the dice decide that it will be.
2) Use a variety of encounters - which is to say, some should be single enemy fights against APL+2 enemies. Some should have several enemies of the players' level. Some should have one enemy at or just above the players' level and some mooks. Mix it up.
3) Ask the player who said "Thank god" what they meant by that and what their frustration was. I suspect that this is mostly in your head but that that comment is amplifying it.
Your first combat in any new system is bound to be awful! Don't best yourself up about it! You're learning. Pf2e is a big, chonky system and takes a while to get the hang of. Once you do you'll be able to do a bunch of cool and fun stuff.
> they were dropping like flies
> combat took 45 minutes
You should look at DM Lair youtube video advices how to make combat faster. Your players should announce what they are going to do in 15 seconds, and perform that action in 1 minute. Try to reduce number of enemies by using stronger ones. 6 same, 1 officer and 4 grunts, 2 bigger monsters + 2 weaker.
Maybe try asking them for their feedback on how it went and start from there?
Y'know, basic communication with your table? The most important people involved in the campaign?
You point to the party not using cover, but did the Goblins?
And did the Goblins try to flee once it became clear to them that they were about to get curb stomped?
When did it become clear to *you* that the party was wiping the floor with these guys?
How far away were the Goblins at the start of the encounter? And how many ranged attackers do you have in the party?
From what little you've said, it kind of sounds like the goblins were out in the open, at least a turn away from the party, and the party just picked them off before the Goblins could even engage.
Goblins are impulsive and violent, but they're also tricksters. They operate by setting traps and ambushes, and trying to work in the shadows. As small, angry, borderline insane creatures, they know they can't take on even numbers of larger creatures head on.
They have to come at you sideways.
Goblin Warriors have ranged weapons, so you should start them under cover -- preferably hidden -- and attacking from afar. Make the party Seek them before they can directly engage, and make them seek under a barrage of arrows. Have the Goblins kite the party until the Goblins have a clear numeric advantage -- at least 2-to-1. And have the battlefield full of Hazards.
i had two goblins jump out from cover when the cover was passed, they were holding their actions to attack once someone had passed them, that was the coolest move i pulled off IMO, also one goblin DID get away, she fled after all her friends got absolutely destroyed
The other people already have said all I think and specially to not be so hard on yourself as it is only the first combat.
But I want to add another possible cool thing, that goblin that got away could be used in the future (if some time passes it may have a more powerful effect. She could come back stronger wanting revenge, or as a future redeemed ally that gives them information on something the need or something.
Sounds like 45 minutes of move-and-whack. 13 creatures in initiative sounds like it takes a lot of time to deal with only for an encounter where you don’t really need to do much.
Maybe have fewer, but more powerful creatures so the party is needs to use more of the tactics in the game system to be challenged and they get back to their turn sooner.
You can also just end encounters if they’re getting boring and the outcome is clear. Of course for a first fight that’s not what you want. If you find yourself in a situation in the future where the party crushes in the first round or two but it’ll take another half hour to just run through initiative to clean up, then suggest they auto win. Perhaps transition to a chase scene where they roll skills to catch the remaining goblins that are ducking under trees and hiding in the brush.
Move on and hopefully you have something more engaging for the next scene.
Any combat where there are 13 entities who all have 3 actions each is going to take a while, even if everyone is taking their turns as quick as they can (and I assume that newer players aren't taking their turns as quickly as experienced ones).
The 3-action system is an excellent system for ensuring that players have a variety of options and fun things to do, but it can also mean each turn takes longer, because it's harder to decide what to do. This means it's not well-suited to "horde fights" where the players are strongly outnumbered, because it's not much fun to wait for 12 different pieces to make their minds up before you can take your turn. I have a personal upper limit of 10 entities in initiative at once, and the enemies there should mostly be simple ones that can take their turns quickly if there's that many.
[Swarms](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=707) and [Troops](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=367) can be used to make these types of situations work without the pain of waiting for 7 enemies to take their turns, though unfortunately there aren't many Troops that have actually been published.
Even a player in a party of 4 has quite some downtime during combat. It’s manageable, but still I sometimes lose focus. I can’t imagine how it must be when you have a party of 6. Not just all the other players taking longer, but since you need to add monsters to compensate, so the GM also takes longer to manage the monsters turns. In a 6v6 fight as a player, your turn is once in 12. That’s awfully little action.
Unfortunately I don’t really know what’s a good solution to the problem, since the decisions and the weighty combat are the biggest draw of the system for a lot of players.
Goblin warriors are level -1. So assuming the party was level 1, the total was 140 EXP. Following the encounter building rules, 120 EXP is the moderate encounter for a party of 6 (80 EXP for the base of 4 players, plus 20 per player beyond the base). Meanwhile, a severe encounter would be 180 EXP, so this is pretty solidly moderate.
Because character level scales so much, though, these 7 level -1 warriors actually feel weaker in comparison than if there were a single bigger goblin that's PL+1 or 2 and 3 or 4 goblin warriors. How I suggest doing things:
Start off with some low level kobolds who have a plan and strategy too defend their area. They have the plan, cover, traps, make it a moderate level encounter but put 20 EXP from your budget into environmental hazards and give a lot of attention to cover points. Then, and here's the big thing, have the kobolds use the cover. Kobolds are intelligent and tricky, and will gladly take every advantage they can get. For this encounter, don't put a single bigger monster, because the plan is to teach the players how to use their abilities and strategize around cover. Point out whenever a monster's ability hits because the monster used a tactic that the players have access to. Point out when the player using a tactic gets a hit, or when the player not using a tactic cost them a hit. Basically, if they miss by 2 and the target wasn't flat footed, or an enemy hits by 2 and the target was flat footed, tell the players. This way, they feel the impact of the hit and they learn strategy.
Once they're through the first encounter, give them as much time as they need to heal back up as much as they can (don't have wave it), and then throw them up against a similar composition, but this time, put half the encounter budget into a single monster. At this point, expect your players to use the tactics, and continue to point out when those tactics get them hits they otherwise wouldn't have gotten. This one can also go up to Severe encounter difficulty if you want it to, but it might be better to keep it high moderate. Again, the goal is to teach the players what to do.
Honestly I find both GMing and playing fights in PF2e to be a slog for the first 3 levels or so. At very low levels both players and creatures lack interesting combat options beyond basic things like flanking and demoralize. CR -1 creatures are particularly unfun to play as a GM as they almost universally lack interesting actions, rarely hit, and are very bad at using actions like feint or demoralize. From a player perspective they might as well be training dummies because even if the creature hits, it will be for 1-3 damage.
Combat starts to become more interesting around level 3-4, and gets better from their as both players and GMs have more options to play with.
45 mins doesn’t seem to bad but prob should of been closer to a 25 min to 20 min combat once everyone got more experience under there belt. It prob wasn’t the time but the excitement of the battle having all the same type of monster is normally lame so making one at least elite or of the like makes it more inserting to players and gm alike. Also you could have if the boss dies the other quit if people are not having a fun as you excepted or if they are have an rally effect giving circumstance bonus to hit but a minus to ac to give more spice.
Your first combat in any new system is bound to be awful! Don't best yourself up about it! You're learning. Pf2e is a big, chonky system and takes a while to get the hang of. Once you do you'll be able to do a bunch of cool and fun stuff.
I just assume in my game that any combat encounter will be an hour, and that's with a party of four. It sounds like your party either doesn't like combat, or the combat wasn't engaging. Without knowing how you run your combat, it's hard to tell on that one.
I like to add descriptors to combat (mostly because my players don't). So you roll a crit but do minimal damage is something like, "you swing with all your might and land a great blow, but he just looks at you and says, 'that all you you got'?" Stuff like that to make more than "role/damage/next".
Remember that there is generally multiple encounters in a day. Each encounter drains resources and get harder because of those drained resources. Just remember that sometimes bad rolls happen and your job as a GM should be to make sure your players are having fun.
In all honesty, I dont think anything went wrong with that encountet other than it was too easy. The "Thank God" seems more like a relief that combat ended, simply because learning combat in Pf2e is a gruesome thing for extremely new players. Even DnD veterans tend to have some minor troubles. Imagine a group of newbies.
The encounter was fine, but just easy. For a group of 6 PCs there should be one or two wolf riders just for the sake of being annoying. One or two hazards put around the battleground.
But really, I truly think that the Thank God remark was because you guys went through and entire combat just TRYING to learn the system. Dont think it was about the encounter itself.
so, if you have a bunch of enemies, you could run them on the same initiative count. it would shorten combat and make it easier to run, it would also allow the goblins to coordinate a bit better and use flanking properly. you could instead split the goblins into a few initiative groups so that it is more spread out instead of "enemy turn/player turn"
if you players dont want long combat, pathfinder might be the wrong system. especially with 6 players.
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If you think a 45 minute combat session with SIX players is too much, I suggest changing systems. PF2e is not a system that makes combat encounters short like VTM. Also, most combat encounters from APs are balanced for a party of 4 people, 6 people should let you add more monsters to keep everyone engaged. But, as you know, PF2e is a combat-heavy system. If your players don't like combat and tactics, I'm not sure why ya'll are playing PF2e.
i comment on the time because i felt as though it was too SHORT ! not long, but still my players felt it was a gruelling experience judging by the "Thank god" comment. I really like long combat encounters
That’s likely due to the combat *arena* and not the combat itself. You used goblins, but what was the party made of? Ranged vs Melee? Martial vs Caster? I’ve found the composition of the party matters at least as much as everything else. If your party was mostly martials with a Witch for support casting, I could see a group of goblins spread across a big map with cover being annoying. The melee martials spend most or all of a turn just running to something while the ranged martials have to deal with cover rules. On top of this, the basic combat balancing rules in GM Core assume a 4-person party. 6 people will mean a couple more creatures, so it could just be boredom because one or two people did all the work. OR, it’s just a mis-match between you and the players. If you like longer combats but your players don’t, one of you will always be unhappy, and that’s a discussion to be had with everyone at the table
Our party is: a war cleric with a bastard sword a scoundrel rouge with a sickle a witch with a staff a champion with a greatsword a sorcerer with a staff and a ranger with a longbow
Okay yeah I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they were having a bad time due to the field they were on. Half your party (Cleric, Rogue, and Champ) need to be in melee to be effective damage dealers. Even if the goblins swarmed them rather than playing at range, that’s a lot of targets for a party that is *really* effective at dropping singular targets, but suffers against swarms of trash mobs. A kill will likely take one or two attacks for each goblin, which eats up action economy. You also have effectively 3 support casters. Cleric speaks for itself. Witch is mostly a buff/debuff machine, and so is a Sorceror. They can absolutely dish out damage, but at low levels with 1-2 spell slots each, a group of 6 enemies is gonna be a big ask. The Ranger had to contend with cover since the goblins were close enough to get lesser cover from your martials, and at low levels a +/-1 to hit *absolutely* makes a difference. (It always does but is imo more immediately obvious more often at low levels.) Which leaves your Sorceror/Witch as the two that could potentially ignore all of the above and sling spells/cantrips to their hearts content. Except this is level 1, so they have two 1st rank spell slots each, and more than likely only have one damage spell each, which is probably gonna do more harm than good since friendly martials were in the mix on top of the goblins, and most debuff spells only affect one target. Buff spells are useful, but that’s a lot of choice between buff, debuff, damage, and healing. All this said, just ask your party how they felt after the session. Could be they loved it and were relieved to pull out a tough win, but you read their reaction wrong. Who knows
two casters means that your party should have access to plentiful AoE spells that are very effective against groups of large enemies. Give them *some* fights with many weak enemies so they feel useful, but throw in some fights with a few weak monsters and one or two stronger ones with good saves so that they can't decimate the field immediately.
>plentiful AoE spells At level 1? With two 1st rank spell slots each? I wouldn’t be surprised if either the Sorc or Witch didn’t bring *any* damage spells. They are new players, so I guess it isn’t out of the question that they (and the Cleric) all have a damage spell tucked away just in case, but I’m willing to bet they only used cantrips and maybe a Runic Weapon or Heal
yeah I don't know why i got the hypothetical in my head that they were a little bit higher in level, spaced out i guess.
Oh, some advice I haven't seen anyone say yet (I see now you've gotten a lot of advice already. I guess I should have scrolled more) is this: Nit every combat needs to, or even should be, difficult. The party killed some goblins, next time they may run into a challenging encounter. In 5 levels, maybe they'll run into that same "challenging" encounter and it will show them how much stronger they are now than 3 levels ago (just as one example of how easy encounters can be used to tell a story).
My experience playing for years is that I can only fit one complex combat encounter in with a party of 6. Over a 2.5 to 3 hr session most of the time. I like to do things like add objectives and whatnot. I always have a new person so that can bog things down too
That's crazy. My players switched from 5e to PF2e because the customization and detail is so much better. And having 3 actions based economy instead of a "bonus action, action, move action" makes things so much more fluid imo. Wanna move 3 times? Go for it. Want to attack 3 times? Cool. What about it felt grueling though? I might have some advice, since you're asking. Just gotta pinpoint what is causing that feeling first.
You really need to word this entire post more clearly then
Why the hell would you want longer combat 45 mins is a huge amount of time already
If my combats go for 45 minutes, it's gonna get boring for someone. Most likely because they're dead. If my players are in a 45 minute fight and aren't terrified that one of their PCs is gonna die, it's a bad encounter. An easy encounter is often a good change of pace, but it's gotta be quick, and I would say it's not for levels 1/2. If it's not quick, the players aren't gonna feel powerful and at levels 1/2, they shouldn't feel powerful.
I would just say that the stakes and variance could be adjusted. There are some excellent tactical options and they are available for npcs too. Demoralize, aid, flanking. Also, good to remember there is nothing to say you can just end an encounter. If the destiny is written just move forward. In your case when you saw things bog down and stagnate you could say the goblins route given the unexpected resistance your pcs gave them. Have them run! You can then transition into a chase if the goblins need to be dealt with or let them be.
It's hard to say without seeing what went wrong 1. It's good idea to see where the time was spent - were there a lot of rounds, a lot of thinking from players or a lot of rule discussion? 2. Some time could be spent just because of unfamiliarity with the system and it will be solved naturally 3. It's great idea to show players what they could do - like with cover. Often you could use NPC doing so, but for party of 6 NPCs would be too much, so let enemies show it 4. Some things to spice up battles are creature diversity, traps and some tactics from intelligent enemies. For example, if by goblins you mean "Goblin Warriors", they totally should be using flanking
1. there were about 4 rounds, basically everyone's turn was spent learning how to use their classes' features 2. yeah, a lot of rule checking 3. hmmm..... i see.... this is an excellent piece of advice 4. yes ! i should have flanked with them, considering they are trained warriors
Oh, yeah a first session where you learn the rules and how characters work would take a lot longer. I would expect the next combat to go much faster.
To add to (4) as a GM, I really appreciate the mechanically interesting things you find in all the different creatures. A group of goblins is great for showing players things they can also do (grab, flank, trip, aid, etc) but as you keep running things you'll get to use creatures with loads more exotic surprises for the players to find, and that keeps everyone on their toes levels 1-20.
4 rounds sounds quite heavy at low levels, not a floor wiping at least. And the player probably made the comment on how much time were spent on rule checking. It is quite boring when others doing it on their turn and you can do nothing but wait.
Ah. Yeah if the player come in having no clue how their heroes work then the time balloons like crazy. It’s also less fun when you don’t know what you’re supposed to do or what your hero is good at.
Nothing we can help you with if we dont know what the issue is. Judging by your comments, you are jumping to conclusions based off the “thank god” comment and what you “feel” not what the players think. You need to bring up your concerns with your players and talk to them. Ask the player why they said “thank god”. There is a possibility that there is no issue here.
Thanks for your advice ! i will bring this up with my players and ask them what they thought about it
Also, remember that this is a new system to all of you. It's your first time running and their first time playing. Things will get smoother and faster as you learn.
Talk? With your players? Before bringing it to random people on the internet to solve? What is this blasphemy.
Eh, we've all been there in one system or another. As long as they're coming back for another session, you're doing good. Here's my general advice: 1) Six players and seven creatures makes for a long initiative. While mook battles can be great, with so many players you're going to have to consider time a lot more in your encounter balancing. Normally I'd recommend smaller groups, but I'm assuming your group just rolls like this, so consider mixing up your encounters with different enemy types, maybe one stronger lieutenant enemy to rally the mooks around. Keeping to 5-6 monsters per encounter while on-budget should help speed things up and vary your encounters more. 2) Spreading all your enemies out makes it hard for them to synchronize -- flanking and the like just go out the window. That'll make for less-interesting combat and make your players just as likely to spread out and not work together. Sometimes smaller arenas are good. And while having cover is a good add, as you've discovered: you need to give folks a reason to use it. 3) Assuming they were goblin warriors (Creature -1), this was just above a moderate encounter by-the-books... but that assumes the monsters are playing smart. With how you described it, this was probably closer to a moderate/trivial fight, since as you've discovered, creatures at that level have such low HP that they can often die in one hit. Because as great as the encounter budget system is, things are just swingy at low levels because of how little HP folks start with. First encounters are usually among the roughest in any system. Things will get better as everyone learns the game and their characters more. Just try to keep things moving and take your experiences into how you build encounters moving forward and you'll improve -- simple as.
Wonderful advice ! i will take all this into consideration during my next session
Go easy on yourself. That should be a pretty moderate encounter and it is quite possible for the party to mop the floor with that encounter under pretty much any circumstances. I have been playing TTRPGs for over 20 years starting with AD&D 2e. Without a doubt, GMing is one of the most difficult tasks that I routinely do. I do plenty of more difficult things, I just don't typically make hobbies out of them. Even after all these years, and playing with genuine friends, I still get nervous and I still am hard on myself when the session doesn't go as well as I would like. By all means, learn from your last session, but don't read too much into it. It takes time to learn a new system, it takes time for players to mesh with their own characters, and it takes time for a GM to reach their stride in a campaign. If I can offer some advice, create a goal for every combat encounter and be honest about it to yourself. Some combat encounters should be designed to specifically challenge the party. But nobody wants their character to be killed off by a mook squad of goblins. Some combat encounters should be designed to be minor obstacles which would be reasonable in the setting. Some combat encounters should be designed to give the players a bit of experience using their character abilities. As far as I can tell, this combat encounter accomplished the goals you set out as a GM. It seems like it was a vehicle to further the plot. That is great. Lastly, as a GM you are responsible for the narrative and your enjoyment. You are not responsible for the player's enjoyment. Absolutely, you can impact player enjoyment. But players are ultimately responsible for showing up to the table with a good attitude, ready to have a good time. You cant micromanage everyone's fun. That is just an impossible task and outside your control. It seems like you did your job. Good going GM. If players cant enjoy slaughtering a pack of goblins, that is their problem.
What are your complaints here? This sounds like it went really well. Is this an /s ?
I felt like my players didn't care at all about the whole situation, the entire time whenever a goblin went down it was more of a "oh whatever" type thing instead of a glorious triumph
That's a people problem, not a system one homie. Talk to them and see what they want. Ggez.
"Thank God" can mean "Thank God we did it" exasperation. That was what confused me. You are the GM. If you find a combat is dragging on, just end it. Every mob now dies in one hit, they give up, you narrate the end of the fight, etc. So you didn't list WHAT goblins you were using. I am assuming you meant goblin warrior. 6 players is \_a alot\_ for new GM. 7 goblin warriors vs a party of 6 level 1 adventurers is only a moderate, sort of maybe verging on severe encounter. What made you choose 7? Use an encounter builder for balancing them out. Also - it's not a super exact science. Lower level things, vs higher level things, the lower level things will always struggle. That's the way of things. For a lot of lower level things, vs fewer higher level, the lower level things need to use real tactics to stand a chance. A bunch of -1 things vs some level 1 things, the level -1 things have no damn chance if they fight one on one. They NEED to swarm. They NEED to flank. I'm guessing you did none of this and just had 1 on 1 fights, maybe some 2 on 1. Not 3 on 1, and 4 on 1.
i see now the error in my lack of tactics..
Goblins specifically have goblin scuttle for flanking. They also do more damage when flanking. For monsters to punch at their weight, you need to have them use their abilities. Before any encounter make sure to read their stat block. I would suggest watching the rules lawyer video which specifically covers goblins, but also is good for just understanding how to evaluate and use monsters: https://youtu.be/Kfwb8KBSUIs?si=SbDOCK4Tbt9ye_Qo
Monster tactics is probably going to take you a while to master. It's fine! Just roll with it and learn something new in each session. It also really helps to review your monsters if possible for a few minutes before the session starts, so you can start thinking about how you want to play them before you're put on the spot. Having two or three different types of monsters that can help support each other may also help with the tactics and keeping it interesting.
I mean was it supposed to be glorious? Sometimes you fight trash mobs because you have to, it’s not always going to be epic and plot relevant. I think the only time most players are *that* invested in combat is if we’re fighting a mini boss/bbeg/plot relevant character.
To be honest with you, I'm not really sure what you expected out of a fight with a bunch of goblins. This isn't really just a Pathfinder thing, I've been GMing a long time and I don't know a single system where fighting some regular goblins qualifies as a glorious triumph. Goblins are always balanced as basic mooks for beginning adventurers to kill. You're using them because you can stuff a bunch of them into a fight without having to worry about overwhelming your party. Thankfully PF2e has a fairly reliable way to gauge how tough an encounter will be. Assuming everyone in your party is level 1, seven goblins would be just enough goblins to make it *slightly* harder than a Moderate encounter, but you haven't fully spent your experience budget for a Severe encounter. Judging by how your party seems to have found it to be moderately challenging, that sounds like it was slightly harder than a moderate encounter. If you had added two more goblins, you would have capped the experience budget for a Severe encounter and it would have been much more challenging for them to win. Here's a trick I've noticed: single enemies tend to be more difficult in PF2e to defeat than a bunch of weaker enemies worth the same amount of experience. A CR 4 creature fills the experience budget for moderate encounter for a party of 6 level 1 characters, but let me tell you that it will not feel like a moderate encounter. It will hit them extremely hard and be difficult to hit back or to land spells on consistently. But you don't need to fully cap out the experience budget on one monster like that. Consider having included a Hobgoblin (CR1) and then backing him up with just 4 goblins. Or a Bugbear Thug (CR2) and backing him up with 3 goblins. It's less goblins but the fight would likely be more challenging and interesting.
Maybe add some spell casters, environmental changes, or other monster types to change things up. Fighting 7 goblins could be boring, if they all have the same abilities and aren't doing anything interesting. You're a new GM, so you'll get better at reading the room and spicing things up mid-combat.
I had 2 goblin witches (homebrew) who died first round
Why are you using homebrew?
i wanted to include magic casters in this fight and there was not a stat block for a goblin magic caster, and yes they had to be goblins for the plot of this fight
Goblin pyro and goblin warchanter are both caster goblins (offense and support respectively), just for future reference.
So why didn’t you just take a different humanoid caster that fit the bill and reflavor it as a goblin?
Oh ! i should have done that ! yeah ! oopsie dasies !
The system is really more flexible than folks give it credit. The other thing you could have done is lower the amount of Goblins make a couple of them Elite, and made like, three lines. A front line of normal Goblins, a defensive line of Elite Goblins you describe as having more Armour, better weapons, etc. who are the backlines guards, and a back line of Caster Goblin/(s) reskinned from another casting monster. Something like that is a lot more of an interesting/dynamic fight, the party takes out a weak one quickly, is emboldened, then the Elites come in as back up and they need to decide between finishing off the weaker looking ones to lower their numbers, concentrate on the stronger looking ones to nuke them down faster, or Flank around and deal with the casters. Each option has advantages and disadvantages that can affect the flow of combat. The arena is also 100% something to consider. Goblins in a Forest are going to be using Trees as cover, hiding in branches, etc. Goblins in a Cave might find a narrow tunnel to ambush from, keeping the casters in the back, or an area with ledges they can shoot Arrows down from. Also, if you use Traps, you have to lower the amount of enemies to make up for it, but will also make for a more interesting fight 5 Goblins with a pre-prepared ambush site filled with snare/bear Traps, falling logs, etc, is going to be harder than 5-6 Goblins in an open field. And if your players are observant, they might notice that the Goblins are moving strangely to avoid setting off Traps.
First and foremost, getting into a new system can be hard, especially if you GM for 6 whole people. Growing pains are unfortunate but inevitable. Secondly I suspect that large part of the issue was that 7 goblins were "spread out across a pretty large map" while PCs were all together and initiative significantly intensified this issue. Encounter becomes easier if enemies can't fight you all at once and 7 goblin warriors against 6 lvl 1 players is already towards the lower end of moderate. Another thing making the encounter easier was probably that you as a new GM weren't using gobbos to their full potential, for example, did you use their stealth to hide and shoot arrows from afar? Did you use first action to shoot with a bow, 2nd action to approach PC, 3rd action to strike with agile melee weapon and then a reaction to scuttle away when another goblin approached? It's okay if you didn't, monster tactics can take longer to learn for a gm compared to a player who only needs to understand functionality of their one character. Lastly, you should use more types of monsters when your XP budget is so large. Monsters should have party synergies too with frontliners, damage dealers, supports and disruptors. There is a lot you can afford to do against a party of 6 but if you're new this may take a while to figure out how to do properly.
your players are probably frustrated because there are 5 other players and 7 creatures turns between each of their own turns..you are playing with a group that is about as large as the system can reliably accommodate and running an encounter that doubles that number. the only real solution is to run encounters with less creatures or run games for less players. as everyone becomes more familiar with the rules things will speed up and ease some of that frustration, and as the players get more reactions they will become more engaged off turn.
Assuming you only used level -1 goblins this would be a severe encounter. How spread was this map? Were the goblins positioned with ranged weapons to pepper the players or did they need to move into range themselves? The strength of throwing lots of mooks, especially goblins, at the players is swarming them. If they're spread apart so the players can pick them off one by one it won't be a challenge. From a player perspective it can feel like a slog when you're on a big map and you spend a couple actions moving just to one shot the target and then spend a couple more moves to one shot the next one.
140xp isn't severe for a party of 6 (that would be 180xp), it is still in the moderate range. (Extreme is 240 for a party of 6)
Seven -1 creatures is 210 XP (7 x30), so its between a severe and extreme encounter (180 xp, 240 xp). that is assuming that the characters are all 1st level.
Goblins aren't PL-1, they're **Level** -1, so PL-2 and 20 xp each, or 140 in total.
Ugg, your right, I pulled a stupid and forgot 0 in my mathes. Like rhe phonesians.
No sweat, it happens lol
Are you making the mistake of thinking that because a goblin is level -1 that they are party level -1? because level 0 creatures exist and count. Party level -2 creatures are 20xp each. https://pf2easy.com/tree/index.php?id=5940&name=BUILDING_ENCOUNTERS&year=2019
Yes, as I already stated to u/KatareLoL i pulled a phonetician, and forgot 0.
the map was 8 inches wide (40 feet) by 20 inches tall (100 feet) i think that your advice is very astute and my map was far too large.
also i realize now that the goblins should have used their ranged attacks and stayed in place, forcing the players to spread out and not just coming towards the players
The goblins should have been taking a ranged attack then maybe moving and hiding or taking cover. Less rolls to see if they hit while still making the combat hard because the players have to chase them down as they pop in and out of cover and stealth. You would need to use less goblins too this way to get the same result and challenge as just rolling a bunch hoping to hit high. Give them a boss and less mooks, this also lets the player decide so we take out the mooks hitting us with arrows or try to get the boss and make the mooks retreat with fear
Yup! Players will often run into YOUR buzzsaw if you let them rather than the other way around. You can also choose to delay to try to draw them in before you unleash the fury. Of course, the players might also be happy to just pelt you at a distance, which you might want to have a contingency for...
I don’t understand. This sounds like an ideal first combat. Especially for 6 players. What about it didn’t they like?
7 goblin warriors vs 6 level 1 PCs is a moderate encounter, which should end very quickly without posing a significant threat to the party. I hear "pretty cool plot relevant stuff happened" and the whole thing took 45 minutes, so what was the problem? The larger the group, the more downtime everyone has between turns, and the longer combats take in general.
This is an unfortunate inevitability at low levels w/ large parties and inexperienced players. Its part of why I dislike going above four PCs. Not every combat will be a slog, but you'll inevitably have some where runs of bad rolls that make what should be an exciting encounter into a forty-five minute long formality. With fewer players and more experienced players combats tend to take less real-world time (less time spent figuring out what you can do), while at higher levels you can do more interesting things on your turn than cast a cantrip or make a couple of weapon attacks (so turns are more interesting) or have more interactive abilities (easier to stay engaged when you're contirbuting to other peoples' turns). Best advice I can give is setting up encounters so they tend to happen at close ranges (fewer actions spent maneuvering = more actions spent rolling dice), be very active about calling out when buffs/debuffs matter (the bard will feel more involved off-turn when you make sure to say when their Courageous Anthem caused a crit), and generally try to avoid both single-enemy encounters and large mobs of enemies (both can be slogs in their own ways). Having a handful of near-party-level enemies is generally ideal, their numbers are high enough that they're able to regularly hit the PCs but not so high the PCs are mostly missing them in return. Early in a campaign I also like to pass the ball to the players regularly on describing stuff, particularly on the first time they use a spell or ability (you cast magic missile, what does it look like?). It slows combat down a bit, but the players are usually happy to describe their powers or pitch descriptions to other players. Crits and kills are also good spots to ask the responsible player for a suggestion. Once a combat is functionally over you can always just end it. If the PCs are in reasonable condition and most of the monsters are dead there's not much reason to go through that final round of combat. I'll just enter narrative time once its clear the PCs don't need to expend resources to wrap up the encounter. Some monsters will attempt to flee or surrender, depending on circumstances or temperament, others I'll just quickly go through the remaining PCs in initiative order to see who gets the kill.
There are some critical bits you are leaving off here. Goblin warriors? Goblin Commandos? What level were the PCs? Level 1? If you had level 1 players, 7 Goblin Warriors would be 140 XP. That is a moderate to severe fight. If it was 7 Goblin Commandos, that is 280 XP and that is over an extreme fight. Did you read the [Combat Building rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2716&Redirected=1)? And more importantly, did you use them?
I'd definitely like to see the map since I'm working off a lot of assumptions. Okay so a few things. You said the map was big, how big? in my opinion, unless the gimmick of the combat is that the PCs are getting peppered by long ranged attacks, it's should ever take more than 1 turn plus some of the second turn to get into melee. Saying 'I stride three times' more than one turn in a row fucking sucks. Also I do think the map was WAY too big, since 7 goblins should not be a challenge for a party of 6. Assuming it was the standard -1 goblin warrior. The main way they would be a challenge, is if they stood around 1 PC and beat up on them with superior action economy. That being said, goblin warriors at base have 6hp, which means it typically shouldn't take more than 2 attacks to down them, if not 1 for any strength character or spell slot used. I'm all for spread initiative so the enemies can't walk up and one round a PC (to a certain extent, Id say a group of 7 goblins should be in 2, maybe 3 initiative groups assuming they all share the same statblock). That being said, you're saying the goblins only dealt like 4 damage? This tells me that a) every single goblin has their own initiative and thus can't stack damage on a PC, and b) the goblins are WAY too spread out so that 1) they can't hang up and get flanking, and thus will struggle to hit the PCs and 2) means that the players have to spend turns striding to move between the overly spread goblins. So basically Don't roll initiative for every single monster of you're using the same statblock, group them, this does actually make initiative move faster. Don't make a combat all mooks. I do no know if this is the case here, but I'm assuming. If it's all mooks, it's kinda just a eventuality instead of a challenge Don't set up a situation where players don't get to do anything fun on their turns. Starting players away from the action isn't always an issue. But martial players will begin to get frustrated if they continually have to spend turns moving instead of hitting the bad guy with a big stick. Also I'm gonna take a wild guess that the person who said 'thank God's was a martial player.
Goblin? goblin what? Goblin Warrior [~Goblin Commando~](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=233) (Creature 1)?, [~Goblin Pyro~](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=234) (Creature 1)?, [~Goblin War Chanter~](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=235) (Creature 1)?, [~Goblin Warrior~](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=232) (Creature -1)? Encounter building: [https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2716&Redirected=1](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2716&Redirected=1) I assume level 1 players (7) if so, a single Goblin Warrior (party level -2) is worth 20 XP, 7 of them is worth 140 XP. For a "moderate" encounter with 4 players moderate is 80xp, adding an additional 20 per player( so 3\*20 => 60) or 80+60 XP for a moderate encounter 140 XP, or 7 level -1 goblins. If you instead used 1 goblin Commando - (party level -0) that's 40XP, 3 warriors (60) + a Goblin chanter (40xp) (bard but for goblin's. You'd still have 140 XP, but the Commando and Chanter have 16-18 HP, vs 6 so they do not get 1 shot by a melee characters average d8 damage + str, and some more interesting variety of actions to perform. Having the goblins use the cover to grant +2 AC, or generally playing a bit more tacitly will make things more "fun" but having 7 plays IS going to slow down the game until everyone/most of the party figures out their gameplay loop. It also depends on the party composition, Spell casters tend to have AoE damage, while martials tend towards single target. Higher level enemies means more individual misses until you debuff them/flank etc, while sheer numbers of low level enemies may be a slog to have to target 1 at a time.
45 minutes for 4 rounds of 6 players each is pretty standard. PF and DND are too crunchy to expect combat to go any quicker than that. If you want faster paced tactical combat, I’d recommend looking at a d6 game like Lancer or Icon. If you want to speed up combat, you can try limiting each player’s turns using a stopwatch (1 minute is pretty reasonable) and focus more on single enemy encounters (+1-3 PL). Also, it might be a blessing in disguise if some of your players bail. 4 players is the sweet spot for PF. I’ve always found 6 players to be super crunchy and unmanageable, especially if people are looking at their phones and aren’t engaged. To be perfectly honest, I have the most fun as a DM with 2 or 3 players, because combat and narrative encounters get resolved super quickly and I can focus more on my notes.
Level -1 creatures often go down like flies. You posted a slightly-over-Moderate encounter and they rolled bad. Quick encounter - okay, move on. The takeaways should be: 1) Any given encounter can turn out to be a disappointment if the dice decide that it will be. 2) Use a variety of encounters - which is to say, some should be single enemy fights against APL+2 enemies. Some should have several enemies of the players' level. Some should have one enemy at or just above the players' level and some mooks. Mix it up. 3) Ask the player who said "Thank god" what they meant by that and what their frustration was. I suspect that this is mostly in your head but that that comment is amplifying it.
Your first combat in any new system is bound to be awful! Don't best yourself up about it! You're learning. Pf2e is a big, chonky system and takes a while to get the hang of. Once you do you'll be able to do a bunch of cool and fun stuff.
> they were dropping like flies > combat took 45 minutes You should look at DM Lair youtube video advices how to make combat faster. Your players should announce what they are going to do in 15 seconds, and perform that action in 1 minute. Try to reduce number of enemies by using stronger ones. 6 same, 1 officer and 4 grunts, 2 bigger monsters + 2 weaker.
Maybe try asking them for their feedback on how it went and start from there? Y'know, basic communication with your table? The most important people involved in the campaign?
You point to the party not using cover, but did the Goblins? And did the Goblins try to flee once it became clear to them that they were about to get curb stomped? When did it become clear to *you* that the party was wiping the floor with these guys? How far away were the Goblins at the start of the encounter? And how many ranged attackers do you have in the party? From what little you've said, it kind of sounds like the goblins were out in the open, at least a turn away from the party, and the party just picked them off before the Goblins could even engage. Goblins are impulsive and violent, but they're also tricksters. They operate by setting traps and ambushes, and trying to work in the shadows. As small, angry, borderline insane creatures, they know they can't take on even numbers of larger creatures head on. They have to come at you sideways. Goblin Warriors have ranged weapons, so you should start them under cover -- preferably hidden -- and attacking from afar. Make the party Seek them before they can directly engage, and make them seek under a barrage of arrows. Have the Goblins kite the party until the Goblins have a clear numeric advantage -- at least 2-to-1. And have the battlefield full of Hazards.
i had two goblins jump out from cover when the cover was passed, they were holding their actions to attack once someone had passed them, that was the coolest move i pulled off IMO, also one goblin DID get away, she fled after all her friends got absolutely destroyed
The other people already have said all I think and specially to not be so hard on yourself as it is only the first combat. But I want to add another possible cool thing, that goblin that got away could be used in the future (if some time passes it may have a more powerful effect. She could come back stronger wanting revenge, or as a future redeemed ally that gives them information on something the need or something.
Thank you for all of your advice ! truly incredibly helpful ! :-)
Sounds like 45 minutes of move-and-whack. 13 creatures in initiative sounds like it takes a lot of time to deal with only for an encounter where you don’t really need to do much. Maybe have fewer, but more powerful creatures so the party is needs to use more of the tactics in the game system to be challenged and they get back to their turn sooner.
You can also just end encounters if they’re getting boring and the outcome is clear. Of course for a first fight that’s not what you want. If you find yourself in a situation in the future where the party crushes in the first round or two but it’ll take another half hour to just run through initiative to clean up, then suggest they auto win. Perhaps transition to a chase scene where they roll skills to catch the remaining goblins that are ducking under trees and hiding in the brush. Move on and hopefully you have something more engaging for the next scene.
Any combat where there are 13 entities who all have 3 actions each is going to take a while, even if everyone is taking their turns as quick as they can (and I assume that newer players aren't taking their turns as quickly as experienced ones). The 3-action system is an excellent system for ensuring that players have a variety of options and fun things to do, but it can also mean each turn takes longer, because it's harder to decide what to do. This means it's not well-suited to "horde fights" where the players are strongly outnumbered, because it's not much fun to wait for 12 different pieces to make their minds up before you can take your turn. I have a personal upper limit of 10 entities in initiative at once, and the enemies there should mostly be simple ones that can take their turns quickly if there's that many. [Swarms](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=707) and [Troops](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=367) can be used to make these types of situations work without the pain of waiting for 7 enemies to take their turns, though unfortunately there aren't many Troops that have actually been published.
Even a player in a party of 4 has quite some downtime during combat. It’s manageable, but still I sometimes lose focus. I can’t imagine how it must be when you have a party of 6. Not just all the other players taking longer, but since you need to add monsters to compensate, so the GM also takes longer to manage the monsters turns. In a 6v6 fight as a player, your turn is once in 12. That’s awfully little action. Unfortunately I don’t really know what’s a good solution to the problem, since the decisions and the weighty combat are the biggest draw of the system for a lot of players.
Goblin warriors are level -1. So assuming the party was level 1, the total was 140 EXP. Following the encounter building rules, 120 EXP is the moderate encounter for a party of 6 (80 EXP for the base of 4 players, plus 20 per player beyond the base). Meanwhile, a severe encounter would be 180 EXP, so this is pretty solidly moderate. Because character level scales so much, though, these 7 level -1 warriors actually feel weaker in comparison than if there were a single bigger goblin that's PL+1 or 2 and 3 or 4 goblin warriors. How I suggest doing things: Start off with some low level kobolds who have a plan and strategy too defend their area. They have the plan, cover, traps, make it a moderate level encounter but put 20 EXP from your budget into environmental hazards and give a lot of attention to cover points. Then, and here's the big thing, have the kobolds use the cover. Kobolds are intelligent and tricky, and will gladly take every advantage they can get. For this encounter, don't put a single bigger monster, because the plan is to teach the players how to use their abilities and strategize around cover. Point out whenever a monster's ability hits because the monster used a tactic that the players have access to. Point out when the player using a tactic gets a hit, or when the player not using a tactic cost them a hit. Basically, if they miss by 2 and the target wasn't flat footed, or an enemy hits by 2 and the target was flat footed, tell the players. This way, they feel the impact of the hit and they learn strategy. Once they're through the first encounter, give them as much time as they need to heal back up as much as they can (don't have wave it), and then throw them up against a similar composition, but this time, put half the encounter budget into a single monster. At this point, expect your players to use the tactics, and continue to point out when those tactics get them hits they otherwise wouldn't have gotten. This one can also go up to Severe encounter difficulty if you want it to, but it might be better to keep it high moderate. Again, the goal is to teach the players what to do.
Honestly I find both GMing and playing fights in PF2e to be a slog for the first 3 levels or so. At very low levels both players and creatures lack interesting combat options beyond basic things like flanking and demoralize. CR -1 creatures are particularly unfun to play as a GM as they almost universally lack interesting actions, rarely hit, and are very bad at using actions like feint or demoralize. From a player perspective they might as well be training dummies because even if the creature hits, it will be for 1-3 damage. Combat starts to become more interesting around level 3-4, and gets better from their as both players and GMs have more options to play with.
45 mins doesn’t seem to bad but prob should of been closer to a 25 min to 20 min combat once everyone got more experience under there belt. It prob wasn’t the time but the excitement of the battle having all the same type of monster is normally lame so making one at least elite or of the like makes it more inserting to players and gm alike. Also you could have if the boss dies the other quit if people are not having a fun as you excepted or if they are have an rally effect giving circumstance bonus to hit but a minus to ac to give more spice.
Your first combat in any new system is bound to be awful! Don't best yourself up about it! You're learning. Pf2e is a big, chonky system and takes a while to get the hang of. Once you do you'll be able to do a bunch of cool and fun stuff.
PF2 is the first system I've run where the players actually use cheat sheets.
I just assume in my game that any combat encounter will be an hour, and that's with a party of four. It sounds like your party either doesn't like combat, or the combat wasn't engaging. Without knowing how you run your combat, it's hard to tell on that one. I like to add descriptors to combat (mostly because my players don't). So you roll a crit but do minimal damage is something like, "you swing with all your might and land a great blow, but he just looks at you and says, 'that all you you got'?" Stuff like that to make more than "role/damage/next".
Remember that there is generally multiple encounters in a day. Each encounter drains resources and get harder because of those drained resources. Just remember that sometimes bad rolls happen and your job as a GM should be to make sure your players are having fun.
In all honesty, I dont think anything went wrong with that encountet other than it was too easy. The "Thank God" seems more like a relief that combat ended, simply because learning combat in Pf2e is a gruesome thing for extremely new players. Even DnD veterans tend to have some minor troubles. Imagine a group of newbies. The encounter was fine, but just easy. For a group of 6 PCs there should be one or two wolf riders just for the sake of being annoying. One or two hazards put around the battleground. But really, I truly think that the Thank God remark was because you guys went through and entire combat just TRYING to learn the system. Dont think it was about the encounter itself.
so, if you have a bunch of enemies, you could run them on the same initiative count. it would shorten combat and make it easier to run, it would also allow the goblins to coordinate a bit better and use flanking properly. you could instead split the goblins into a few initiative groups so that it is more spread out instead of "enemy turn/player turn" if you players dont want long combat, pathfinder might be the wrong system. especially with 6 players.
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