Forums: Advice: Players vs GM made character (2024)

I have a group of 4 players (lv2) that will be fighting a witch I made.
I am not sure what level the witch should be and I haven't found any advice in the rules as to what would be optimal, or how to calculate the threat level in this case
My dilemma is beteeen lv4 and lv5
At lv4 the witch has an AC19 and 26HP I fear she may be too fragile and will be taken out pretty quickly.
At lv5 she has AC21 and 36HP but also access to 3rd level spells, I'm afraid the PC's will drop like flies.
In this case it doesn't matter who wins as I have plans for either scenario.

But even as a GM I like creating characters of my own, and my players will be facing a lot of my made characters.
Does anyone have any advice as to how I could easily determine what level a character should be to be good fight for my players
Thanks :)

I agree with the others. The game writers use those tables for creating the creatures in the bestiaries - even ones that look like they have PC classes like Champion or Cleric.

As for setting the creature level, that is handled by the rules for Building Encounters. And it depends on how many other creatures the Witch will have as independent allies in the fight.

For some examples, if the party is level 6 and there are 4 players:

If the Witch fights alone (well, along side their familiar, of course), then a Boss level fight (Severe-Threat, don't use Extreme Threat level for anything other than a TPK invitation) would be a xp rating 120 - which is a single creature of level +3 or level 9. This would include any summoned creatures that the Witch has to control as Minions (meaning that the Witch has to spend actions in order to get the Minions to do anything).

If the Witch has two lackeys that join the fight as independent creatures, then the same Severe-Threat encounter would have the 120 xp budget split across the enemies. So one configuration could be 60 xp for the Witch and 30 xp each for the two lackeys. Which converts to a Witch at level 7 and the two lackeys at level 5.

Finoan wrote:

For some examples, if the party is level 6 and there are 4 players:

Not disagreeing with your example, just trying to make it more relevant. The OP states that the party is 4xL2. So:

1. A solo boss fight witch should be a L5 (built using the monster rules).

2. A boss with two lackeys would be a L3 witch and 2x L1 lackeys (again, all built using the monster rules).

Also note this is for a severe encounter, so these level antagonists would be appropriate for a fight where you think the party will have most or all of their resources avaliable to start and will be able to rest a bit before their next one after this. If the encounter you are designing is one combat in a running no-break series, I might consider going with something less difficult.

Easl wrote:

The OP states that the party is 4xL2.

Good call. I missed that detail.

Easl wrote:

Finoan wrote:

For some examples, if the party is level 6 and there are 4 players:

Not disagreeing with your example, just trying to make it more relevant. The OP states that the party is 4xL2. So:

1. A solo boss fight witch should be a L5 (built using the monster rules).

2. A boss with two lackeys would be a L3 witch and 2x L1 lackeys (again, all built using the monster rules).

Also note this is for a severe encounter, so these level antagonists would be appropriate for a fight where you think the party will have most or all of their resources avaliable to start and will be able to rest a bit before their next one after this. If the encounter you are designing is one combat in a running no-break series, I might consider going with something less difficult.

So to make my life easier I could just have them fight an elite green hag (lv5) or a regular lv4 green hag + lv1 lackey

I converted the PF1 Ironfang Invasion adventure path to PF2 rules and had to learn the intricacies of building enemy NPCs and ally NPCs in PF2. A tough example is at Balancing a Seventeenth-Level Medusa, where I asked for help.

Paizo Creative Director James Jacobs once described the creatures in the Bestiaries as a snapshot in the life of the creature. That is good guidance for designing an enemy NPC. The enemy exists only for one battle, and that battle will last only two or three rounds. Plan around how you want the battle to go. Do you want the witch to cast a few powerful spells? Then build the witch so that their tactics are spellcasting.

In contrast, an allied NPC that travels with the party, such as a guide or an escorted noble, will face many different situations with the party. They are best created with the player-character rules, because player characters are designed to handle many different situations.

Ordinarily for enemies I recommend the Building Creatures rules in the GM Core or the Gamemastery Guide. That gives numbers that work. Then pick a few special abilities that define the tactics of the creature. I love how Paizo handled the crocodile with Deep Breath, Aquatic Ambush, a jaws melee attack that grabs, and Death Roll. Those abilities outline a strategy: hide in the water until prey draws near, rush out and grab the prey in its jaws, and then death roll to kill the prey. It is a great strategy with one fatal weakness when used against an adventuring party: the other three party members are unhindered and will kill the crocodile.

However, the Buinding Creatures rules are weak for designing spellcasters. The rules have Table 2–11: Spell DC and Spell Attack Bonus, but they have no recommendations on the spells themselves. Thus, the GM has to plan the spellcaster's tactics and chose spells accordingly.

A properly built 4th-level creature would be a Moderate Threat against a 2nd-level 4-member party. Moderate Threat means that the players will feel that they were in a serious fight, but the threat is weak enough that they will win and use so few resources that they can handle a few more Moderate-Threat encounters. On the other hand, a 5th-level creature would be a Severe Threat. Severe Threats are boss battles. The party has a chance of losing if they use bad tactics or the dice roll very badly. Such a fight usually exhausts the party for the day, so typically the party retreats and rests after such a fight, praying to their gods that they do not encounter any Moderate Threats as they retreat.

Is the witch a boss? If not, then they ought to be a 4th-level Moderate Threat. That leaves the problem of enabling the witch to survive for at least two rounds and make the NPCs feel challenged by the witch's magical attacks. The False Vitality spell is the typical way to accomplish this. That uses up one of the witch's 2nd-rank spell slots, but it leaves 2 top-rank slots, enough for most of the battle. Since the witch is on home ground, the character could also have some kind of terrain advantage to keep the party out of melee range for a turn, even if it is simply a table in the middle of the room that they have to circle around.

If the witch is a boss, then go with 5th level. That does give two 3rd-rank spell slots, but the slots don't have to be fatal to the party. For example, the witch could start by casting 2nd-rank Illusionary Creature to buy time to plan. Illusionary creatures deal nonlethal damage. 3rd-rank Paralyze on a daunting martial PC could give the illusionary creature more time, yet not actually threaten that PC's life. The witch does not have to toss a pair of Fireballs at the party to burn way their 30 hp (a 3rd-rank Fireball's full damage averages 21 fire damage). Fireballs might not even be on the witch's spell list.

Rinki23 wrote:

So to make my life easier I could just have them fight an elite green hag (lv5) or a regular lv4 green hag + lv1 lackey

The elite template is a shortcut to approximate the strength of the next level, but it lacks finesse. For example, if you press the Elite button on the Green Hag in Archives of Nethys, the cantrip ranks remain at 2nd rank instead of going up to 3rd level. I would rather start with the 4th-level Green Hag and carefully level them up to 5th level by hand.

A 4th-level Green Hag with a 1st-level lackey has a total of 80 xp + 30 xp = 110 xp. That is slightly easier than a 120 xp Severe Threat. But what lackey? A Giant Frog would look like an oversized familiar to make the hag seem more witchy, but it would be an independent creature that the hag does not have to command.

Rinki23 wrote:

So to make my life easier I could just have them fight an elite green hag (lv5) or a regular lv4 green hag + lv1 lackey

I would caution against using elite or weak templates on opponents that are already near the edge of the encounter level range if it moves them farther from the middle of the level range.

TL;DR: I recommend only using the Elite template on creatures lower than or equal to the party's level, and using the Weak template on creatures higher than or equal to the party's level. These templates can bring enemies to the middle of the threat range, but they are very bad at moving enemies to extremes.

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The templates change the stat values by 2. The impact of that is hard to describe, but I'll make an attempt at it.

There are two scales to measure an enemy's strength against the player's. One is the party vs the collection of enemies - or team vs team (TvT) balance. The other is the PC vs the enemy that they are interacting with for a particular attack - or character vs character (CvC) balance.

The table for threat level that maps a named difficulty like 'Moderate threat' or 'Extreme threat' to an xp budget value is defining the TvT balance. The table for creature level that maps a creature's comparative level to the party to the cost of the xp budget that it takes is describing the CvC balance.

If your TvT balance is wrong on the low end, then you can end up with a battle that is over practically as soon as it starts as the party massacres the entire enemy team in a round or two. If the TvT balance is wrong on the high end, it will likely lead to TPK.

If the CvC balance is wrong on the low end, the creatures that are too low of level are not going to have any meaningful impact on the combat. The party can just ignore them while they deal with the actual threats and then mop up the trivial threats afterwards. If the CvC balance is wrong on the high end, then there is a creature in the combat that is frustratingly hard for the PCs to do anything to (damage or status effects or combat maneuvers) and that is also wrecking PCs with every action that they take.

It is possible for the balance to be fine on one of these scales, but bad on the other. Common scenarios that result in this are:

A big pile of really low level mooks. The TvT balance looks right, but the CvC balance is too low - each individual creature is wiped out quickly by anything that a PC does and the PCs are maybe taking one hit per round that causes a negligible amount of damage.

One same level creature. The CvC balance is fine, but the TvT balance is too low - the number of attacks that the entire party dishes out to this creature each round will take it out in short order.

One creature of very high level. The TvT balance looks right, but the CvC balance is too high. The party will likely eventually win, but the players will be frustrated that they spend several rounds doing effectively nothing as all of their attacks for the round miss. Meanwhile, the enemy is nearly one-round-KOing PCs. It results in a frustrating battle of attrition where even if the party wins, it may be at the cost of a permanent party member death or two.

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So, with the meta creature and encounter design discussion out of the way, the elite and weak templates...

They change the stat values by 2 and change the HP value slightly. This has the effect on the stats of a 2 level change in the creature, but a much less noticeable effect on the time that the creature will stay alive.

If you take a low level creature and apply the Elite template, it will move the stats towards the middle of the stat range expected for enemies, but the creature will still die after the same number of hits that it would have if it was still low level - it just gets hit a bit less often.

If you take a high level creature and apply the Elite template, it will move the stats even farther away from the stat range expected for enemies, and it will still live for as long as it would have as a high level enemy.

So a level 5 Witch built by hand is going to have the stats for a level 5 creature and the HP of a level 5 creature and will behave like a level 5 creature against a level 2 party.

A level 4 creature with the Elite template will have the stats for a level 6 creature and the HP of a level 4.5 creature. Against a level 2 party, it will attack and defend like a level 6 creature and be incredibly accurate with its attacks (critting almost constantly) while being incredibly difficult for the party to do anything to. And it will die after about the same number of hits as a level 4 creature would - which is to say it will live for at least 3 rounds even if it only had the stats of a level 4 creature instead of the defensive stats of a level 6 creature. With the defensive stats of a level 6 creature, I expect that it will live for at least 6 rounds.

Rinki23 wrote:

So to make my life easier I could just have them fight an elite green hag (lv5) or a regular lv4 green hag + lv1 lackey

There are tons of combinations. Just sticking with the "witch as Hag" theme, here's some more. I'll also stick to the Finoan/Mathmuse "don't upgrade higher level critters or downgrade lower level ones" advice.

Storm Hag
Weak Annis Hag or weak Iron Hag
Two Sea Hags
Three weak sea Hags...Coven! That gives bonuses.
Green Hag and L2 beast 'familiar' (or as Mathmuse noted, a L1 beast 'familiar' for 110 xp budget)
Sea Hag and L3 beast 'familiar'...or two L1 beasts.

Ooh, how about Sea Hag plus a L1 beast 'familiar' and L1 'enchanted' humanoid? Adding a tasty subplot of 'will they try to knock out and later free the enchanted enemy, or just kill her? What MagGuffin or plot hook might she give them if she lives?'

You might also want to look at Paizo's freebie encounter "An Eye for an Eye." It gives you a mini map and a storyline to go along with a L3 Hag encounter. Which could easily be upgraded by adding another adversary for your party.

Rinki23 wrote:

Easl wrote:

Finoan wrote:

For some examples, if the party is level 6 and there are 4 players:

Not disagreeing with your example, just trying to make it more relevant. The OP states that the party is 4xL2. So:

1. A solo boss fight witch should be a L5 (built using the monster rules).

2. A boss with two lackeys would be a L3 witch and 2x L1 lackeys (again, all built using the monster rules).

Also note this is for a severe encounter, so these level antagonists would be appropriate for a fight where you think the party will have most or all of their resources avaliable to start and will be able to rest a bit before their next one after this. If the encounter you are designing is one combat in a running no-break series, I might consider going with something less difficult.

So to make my life easier I could just have them fight an elite green hag (lv5) or a regular lv4 green hag + lv1 lackey

If you are considering a green hag and a lacky I think you could really do some cool things with the lead up to the encounter.

Green hags use deception and disguise to fool those they go after.
The lacky could be someone forced or tricked into service or even someone bound by ritual into serving the hags designs.
maybe the lacky is a strong fighter type that believes the hag is a beautiful woman and has been fooled into protecting her/unwittingly serving her.

Instead of changing the hag to elite use the stat block for a level 1 orc warrior (reskin into any ancestry you want) and make that warrior elite. That will make for a more interesting encounter i think.
Let the hag stay back initially buffing the warrior (will need to give her 1 cast) casting magic to make the parties life more difficult (those coven spells look like they will do the trick) letting him do the dirty work. and after the party deals with him the hag can say something "oh, I liked that one. you'll pay for ruining my toy in blood" and now the fight gets serious.

One thing to keep in mind here is that for a party of level 2 players, a level 5 creature will feel REALLY hard, and may not be that fun. At that level you just don't have many resources to deal with something this difficult. It will hit like a truck and be hard to hit back.

Something closer to their level with minions, while a similarly difficult encounter, will feel better since they'll be able to defeat the minions relatively easily to help swing the fight their way.

I don't like to use +3 creatures until the PCs have gained several levels. From experience, at level 2 it just isn't a fun encounter.