How to run Pathfinder monsters, using classic monsters from D&D (Rules Lawyer)

hi it's Ronald the rules lawyer I'm going to go over how to run some Pathfinder 2E monsters starting with some classic simple low-level monsters today why first to highlight what I think is an underappreciated part of Pathfinder 2E which is its monster design many people hear about character customization in the three action economy but it's running monsters within that three action economy where the design sings also I thought it would be helpful to help new GMS in the system know how to approach stat Block in light of the Pathfinder 2 e system this will also give some insight to players on how to fight these monsters and I get to Showcase Pathfinder 2's monster design and now's a good time given that the new monster core remaster book comes out this spring also I've done some high effort videos lately and I thought I'd give myself a little break this is relatively low effort I take obvious inspiration from a well-known book that supports dndd fifth edition the monsters know what they're doing combat tactics for Dungeon Masters by Keith amen which by the way while it assumes 5e still has a lot of useful ideas for game Masters here I want to focus on low-level monsters specifically level minus one monsters classic d andd monsters often seen in first level Adventures because it doesn't seem like there's much to running them but in Pathfinder 2E the rules design means that there is an ideal way to run each monster while there is still room for some flexibility and interesting choices while running them this is part of my ongoing law school series I was going to do a chapter on building Encounters in Pathfinder 2 E's monster design though I realized there might be interest in me doing more videos of this nature with other monsters in higher levels so if you enjoy this video or have feedback on the video please leave a comment first to introduce myself I'm Ronald the rules lawyer I am a lawyer who has been running tabletop role playing games since 2010 I mostly run Pathfinder 2E now and I ran an after school middle school class for tabletop role playing games so teaching is a passion of mine if you haven't yet support my patreon I don't make money as a loyer if that doesn't make sense look at the video that is previewed on the screen and supporting means you get early access to many of my videos and exclusive content so all right let's begin well I initially thought this video would include a whole thing on encounter building when I realized well it's kind of straightforward in Pathfinder 2E this chart kind of tells you what you need to know it is much easier than in dndd fifth edition and also it is more effective it is more reliable and it stays reliable and accurate up through level 20 if people have questions on this leave a comment maybe I can answer them there or in another video one piece of advice I would add though is that creatures that are higher level than the party feel more difficult than their XP amount would suggest and it's kind of written right here monsters that add up to 80 XP present a moderate encounter however a single creature that does a party level plus two creature that is 80 XP is a moderate or severe thread boss in fact for low-level parties the first few levels I would avoid any creature that's more than two levels above the party taking on higher level creatures takes more coordination and teamwork and debuffing and buffing that people new to Pathfinder 2E may not know yet and also low-level parties are more fragile and have fewer tools TOS so our first monsters today will be the classic lowl threats Cobalts and goblins here is the Cobalt Warrior yes they are very cute in Pathfinder and I'll just share now my three-step Approach on running a Pathfinder to e monster sometimes you don't have time to prepare for running a monster and I find that in Pathfinder 2E especially compared to Third Edition and Pathfinder first edition it is relatively quick and easy the first step is to scan the monster for special abilities keeping in mind the next step step which is to come up with a what I call a plan of attack an ideal set of actions a routine if you will that that monster will do and then just a reminder to look at their skills because there are defined skill actions in Pathfinder that can be very useful in combat so first special abilities first I want to mention that the usual format of stat blocks and Pathfinder has this first section that deals with what happens before an encounter such as what determines its initiative in other things that often come up before an encounter the second section involves its defenses and the last section involves its active abilities that it uses on its turn for both our Cobalt and Goblin they both have dark vision this actually doesn't matter much in Pathfinder 2 e play unless you plan to pair these with some higher level Caster that can create magical darkness that the party has trouble countering most parties have access to the light cantrip next nearly every monster in Pathfinder 2 e even level minus one monsters will have some unique ability in their stat block here it is hurried Retreat it's one action and when the Cobalt Warrior is adjacent to an enemy it can stride up to its speed plus five and gain a defensive bonus against reactions based on movement most creatures do not have opportunity attacks in Pathfinder 2E but this is there for when it tries to move away from say a fighter who has the reactive strike reaction and when you're scanning for special abilities you want to be looking for what is the style or flavor of this monster and here the name hurry to retreat and the mechanic tell you that this is a monster that wants to be at range or to Dart in and out of melee it also has sneak attack so it wants to catch enemies off guard it's opportunistic and wants to gain an advantage so step two is a plan of attack and see if you can find a ideal routine for them when coming up with a plan of attack you of course want to look at its attacks and here we notice right away that its ranged attacks are actually more accurate than its melee attack they have a higher bonus of plus five compared to plus three this reinforces our initial impression that they don't want to be in close quarters With the Enemy however we also notice that the slings damage is terrible 1 D4 bludgeoning damage the spear does more damage 1 D6 + one piercing however it only has one spear here and that's also its melee weapon it probably will not want to let go of it to boost its ranged damage it will want to Target enemies who are off guard formerly known as flat-footed against the Cobalt to get plus 1 D4 sneak attack damage there's actually at least two ways to do this from range the first uses the stealth skill we're going to kind of jump ahead to step three and look at its skill modifiers it has a stealth of plus five hide uses one action and if if you benefit from cover such as from a tree trunk or a barricade or if you benefit from concealment say that you're in dim light or fog then the Cobalt can try to hide from enemies using stealth it makes a stealth check it does not know the result of the check and this gets compared to the perception DCS of all enemies in 5e this would be called passive perception everyone the Cobalt succeeds against is now off guard to it and gets a minus two circumstance penalty to Armor class in Pathfinder this not only makes it easier to hit but also easier to critically hit that enemy and of course if it's off guard to the Cobalt because it has sneak attack it does an extra 1 D4 Precision damage hiding also gives the Cobalt a defensive bonus it becomes hidden and that's defined in Pathfinder 2E as the monster is knowing what Square you're in but they have trouble targeting you they essentially have a 50 50 chance of targeting you with a targeted effect and on top of that if the Cobalt has cover it will have at least a plus two bonus to its armor class so the ideal routine for a Cobalt at range is to be behind cover in the first place fire their sling reload their sling as their second action and then hide as their third action so that they're hidden until their next turn now by default cover also protects the Cobalt's Target against it but but in some situations it doesn't I'll put the rule on the screen for people to look at the other way for them to make enemies off guard from range is to create a diversion however that uses the deception skill and the Cobalt isn't very good at it it's not trained in it and it has a Charisma of minus one so what does this mean for Designing encounters with the Cobalt well it's better ranged accuracy means that you want Cobalts to plan ambushes where where they have a fair distance between themselves and the enemy and can benefit from cover or dim light or even Darkness because after all the sling has a great range increment of 50 ft and most torches and the low-level light cantrip are not able to illuminate that far you may want to have them attacking from a raised platform for example however I would warn new Pathfinder GMS that Pathfinder has definite rules for climbing how many actions and free hands at costs which can be frustrating to new players but also makes terrain more impactful despite the encounter math being usually accurate you are making the fight more difficult by including terrain and want to keep that in mind in most situations however the party will close in to melee and for melee fighting the Cobalt has two abilities that are actually at odds with each other on the one hand they get extra damage with sneak attack the easiest way to do do that is to surround the enemy and flank it however their hurried Retreat ability favors them disengaging from the enemy and because they only have eight hit points they kind of want to do that the way I run the Cobalt I tend to favor the skirmisher role many GMS new to Pathfinder don't realize the power of disengaging because other systems usually punish you for walking away however in Pathfinder most monsters and most player characters do not have that ability plus the Cobalt gets plus 5 ft of movement when it uses hurried Retreat that means because every stride action costs an action that if the Cobalt is facing another foe who also has a 25 ft speed that Cobalt can action one walk in action two thrust its Spear and action three move 30 ft away and that player character now has to spend two actions walking up to it ideally forcing that enemy by the way to walk into a situation where they are now surrounded by Cobalt who are sneak attacking them and we see they have an average intelligence of plus Z so they likely have come up with this tactic Megan stop attacking my arm ow oh are you playing with me oh ow ow but this skirmishing style almost never leads to flanking foes and getting that sweet sneak attack damage if they do want to surround foes how however consider as the GM having a Cobalt walk up to an enemy and then to spend two actions to ready a strike as a reaction the trigger of it being one of its allies provides flanking this allows the Cobalt to make one more accurate attack and possibly get sneak attack damage from it after all the Cobalt making a second attack at a minus5 penalty is probably not going to hit anyway step three in assessing a monster SA block is to make sure to look at its skills here we see they are good at making traps so consider giving them snares to create an interesting layer encounter and also they are trained in acrobatics which in Pathfinder usually means using the tumble through action when they need to walk through foes they make an acrobatics check against the foes reflex DC reflex is one of the saving throws in Pathfinder 2E you add 10 to your bonus and that's your reflex DC Pathfinder lets you roll skills for initiative also and its stealth of plus five is higher than its perception of plus three also when you're hiding to prepare to Spring an ambush you can get a circumstance bonus to your stealth check from cover or other situations we know that the Cobalt can use stealth to hide in combat and also sneak toward foes and sneak away Now tips on fighting Cobalts well besides obvious go in and kill them and they like being far away way recall knowledge is generally your friend in this system one of the questions you can ask is what is one of its lower defenses here the Cobalt reflex save of plus seven is much higher than its fortitude save of plus four and its will save of plus three if you're a spellcaster you may have and you probably want to have Spells at Target different defenses if you have the athletic skill you can usually choose between fortitude and reflex to Target if you avoid a high defense in this case you can give yourself an effect of plus three or plus4 on your attack also most monsters in this system have a saving throw that is significantly weaker than its armor class so it's usually good to recall knowledge and with some GMS like me it's a good rule of thumb that whenever you feel at a loss of what to do recall knowledge okay we've spent a lot of time on the Cobalt warrior in order to demonstrate this approach I recommend to monster stat blocks now let's look at the goblin Warrior so number one remember is to scan for special abilities here we see that it has Goblin Scuttle it is a reaction hence the symbol the trigger is that one of its allies ends a move action adjacent to this Goblin Warrior then the goblin steps it moves 5 ft without triggering reactions again it's very typical of Pathfinder 2 e to give a monster even a lowl monster some signature ability at least one to make it feel unique Goblin cuttle has two uses that I can think of one is to set up a flank one of your allies does not have to walk all the way around an enemy they just have to be next to you and next to that enemy and then you can step and create a flank on opposite sides of the enemy the other use is maybe you want to step away because you are preserving yourself you only have six hit points after all this already suggests to us that they are in melee Shifty little buggers all right step two is to come up with a plan of attack let's look at their attacks and here we notice that they have a much higher attack bonus than the Cobalt they have plus eight however they have low damage they have no sneak attack ability and they only do one D6 and there's no numerical bonus on top of that however remember that in Pathfinder you can critically hit if you exceed your enemy Arma class by 10 and their short bow has the deadly d10 trait the deadly trait means that when you score a critical hit not only do you double all the damage from the hit you add another d10 to that damage here that means between three and four times as much damage as it would score with its dog slicer or its short bow it also has a range increment of 60 ft so this tells us they kind of want to use the same Ambush method of the the Cobalt Warrior they want to by any means necessary make enemies off guard and that's usually by hiding because we see they have a stealth of plus five first level characters have an armor class usually between 14 and 19 if they can lower the Wizard's Armor class from 14 to 12 then their plus eight attack will critically hit the wizard on a roll of a 14 or higher this also means by the way that they are much better off firing arrows at squishier low AC Targets this big advantage to its short bow attack probably means they want to be at range however they will of course be forced into melee at some point and when they are they have their dog slicer now it has the agile trait which means that the multiple attack penalty is lowered to four instead of five and because they have high accuracy to begin with of plus eight they can get away with making a second attack against low-level characters it also has the backstabber trait which adds one damage when they attack a offguard foe so they have their own sneak attack light let's call it so compared to the Cobalt Warrior the goblin is more open to making multiple attacks while stepping and swarming around you with its buddies next we look at its skills it also has acrobatic skill and a stealth skill so they want to hide and also avoid notice before combat to roll stealth for initiative they also have a low Athletics bone which they may want to use to Grapple or trip a foe to debuff them and make them easier to hit or crit if you're a party facing goblins they have high reflex saves and a low will save and their relatively High attack bonus and their measly six hit points usually means that I run up and attack the goblin is actually a pretty good strategy the last two monsters we'll cover today will be the classic skeleton and zombie so let's use our three-step method again let's look at its special abilities and figure out what its flavor is well for our level one minus one skeleton guard we don't see a special action it can use there's nothing jumping out at you however it its hit points and defenses are very interesting it has only four hit points and it has a bunch of immunities and resistances resistances work differently in Pathfinder 2E than dndd fifth edition it's a flat modifier you subtract a number from the incoming damage this is actually how DND d4e did it so your wizard slashing away at it with a dagger will have almost no effect but your Barbarian hitting it with a great Axe will probably still kill it it also has what's called here negative healing which is being renamed void healing in the Pathfinder remaster basically healing magic in Pathfinder 2E comes from what used to be called the positive energy plane now creation Forge and is directly counterposed against the energy the void energy that animates undeath so whatever heals a living creature will harm an undead creature and vice versa that's what negative healing now called void healing represents and finally don't forget that most skeletons have a special skeleton ability the bestier lists these abilities and they're pretty cool here are the ones that work for a level minus one skeleton guard the collapse ability means that as a reaction whenever the skeleton is critically hit it can collapse into the floor it is immobilized and offg guard explosive death means that when the skeleton is destroyed its bones shatter and explode doing slashing damage to everyone within 5 ft of it screaming skull is amazing it removes its skull and throws it at a foe within 20 ft making a Jaws attack which has a chance of demoralizing every enemy within 10 ft of it the head bounces and returns to its frame at the start start of its next turn and in the meantime the skeleton is blinded so off guard so what is this skeleton's plan of attack let's look at its attacks well they present as a stat block that has both a scimitar and a short bow though I think many GM should feel free to replace these weapons with others from the rule book they do have that short bow which we know is deadly in the hands of a goblin Warrior that is hiding however skeleton guards are Mindless and so I usually don't have them do much in the way of tactics if any when they get into melee they have one of the more interesting weapons the simitar it does a decent amount of damage and it has the force F trate that means if you attack with this simitar earlier in the turn which also means you have the multiple attack penalty your citar will do more damage because it does one di of damage it will do plus one damage and if it has the minus 10 multiple attack penalty that doubles it basically gains momentum the more it swings also the citar is a one-handed weapon it can use its claw as a follow-up attack and maybe it wants to do so because it has the agile trait the multiple attack penalty is smaller on the claw however the simitar also has the sweep trait what that means is that when you attack with this and you previously attacked a different foe this turn you get a plus one circumstance bonus to your attack so let's say skeleton is in front of enemy a and enemy B it swings at enemy a then it can swing at enemy B at the same accuracy that its claw would have done anyway and the citar does more damage than the claw and it's forceful so this all suggests a style of kind of being very aggressive and it makes sense for a skeleton which is Mindless and has no sense of self-preservation by the way when I GM skeleton guards even though they're mindless I tend to have them go for flanks because a lot of skeletons in DND and Pathfinder Adventures are raised versions of soldiers so I thought that instinct of using that basic tactic would live on in them but that's just me next we look at their skills and we see that they have acrobatics so they can tumble through enemies and they have Athletics if that should be necessary they have that claw if they need to shove or do something else that again it would probably be instinctual given they're mindless when you're player characters facing this foe if your GM does not let you use meta knowledge recall knowledge definitely is your friend because they are resistance to two of the three main physical damage types you will want to use bludgeoning damage against it to have much greater effect and also if you have a two-handed great sword in your hand you can still kick them with your foot and it counts as using your fist attack in the Pathfinder rules also non-lethal damage can destroy the undead in Pathfinder 2E that old rule from Third Edition D and and first edition Pathfinder did not carry over also Vitality or positive as it used to be called damage bypasses these resistances as well if you have a cleric in the party who has free heal spells per day you're golden other people can prepare a heal spell and the heal spell if you use the three action version can heal all living creatures within 30 ft including yourself assuming you're alive and harm all Undead creatures and it has no resistance against Vitality damage also it has a low fortitude save of only plus two so it's going to be particularly vulnerable to the heal spell if you're a GM and you ever want to make your cleric player feel super cool put some Undead in your adventure last but not least is our zombie and our level minus one zombie is the zombie shambler looking at its special abilities we see that it is slow it is permanently slowed one and cannot use reactions that means instead of having three actions per turn like the rest of us it has only two also it cannot use reactions like grapping an edge so you can push it off a cliff pretty funny then we see that it does have void healing also and a lot of the undead immunities and it has weaknesses you always want to look for resistances and weaknesses when checking out a new stat block because you want to not forget it if it gets triggered because it's a flat modifier we see that whenever it takes positive now called Vitality damage or slashing damage it takes an extra five damage that means that same wizard using a dagger doing one point of damage will actually do six damage on a successful strike this is like the opposite of the skeleton which had few hit points and resistances this one has weaknesses and it has 20 hit points which is a lot for a level minus one creature it's just asking you to hit it and exploit its weaknesses especially given that it has an armor class of 12 which is one of the lowest at this level in the game although they are slowed one they hit relatively hard for their level they have a plus seven attack bonus and do 1d6 + three damage and they have this special grab ability when they hit someone with their fist attack they can then on the same turn use their next action to try to Grapple the foe under the new remaster rule they get to do that grapple check without the multiple attack penalty this can make a foe grabbed or even worse restrained on a critical success grabbed makes the enemy off guard immobilized and doing any manipulate action including casting most spells has a 20% chance of failure being restrained is worse you can't do any attack or manipulate actions at all but to escape this also sets up their Jaws attack which does more damage 1d8 + three however the zombie needs to already be grabbing or restraining the target to try this we'll return to the zombie optional abilities later so step two is their plan of attack and we're already here looking at their attacks this here tells a story they want to walk up and grab something and then try to eat it they are hungry zombies that is their motivation also grabbing foes debuffs them against everybody zombies are about swarming and overwhelming their opponents their big problem is that they are slow they only have two actions they're mindless so they probably just want to walk up and attack to do their fist and grab combo they need to start their turn already adjacent to a foe a GM should consider if there are multiple zombies to have the first one walk up to somebody and just try to Grapple them use the basic Athletics skill action with their plus five Athletics bonus to grab that foe which makes it easier to hit and overwhelm for all of the other zombies step three is to look at its skills and it only has that athletic skill it just wants to grab and eat their chicken nugget so let's look at these zombie special abilities I'm only highlighting the ones that make sense for level minus one creatures disgusting pules is cool it's covered in pules and whenever anyone does piering damage or does a critical hit against it some of those pules burst covering adjacent creatures with a vile fluid making them sicken sicken gives a numerical penalty to all of their attacks checks defenses D's and they have to wret to get rid of it with uh an action to wretch and a fortitude save plague ridden gives it a disease that it can impart to others and rotting Aura is nasty it has a 10-ft aura of rot and disease that causes wounds to fester and turn sour any enemy that is not at full health within this Aura takes 1 D6 damage zombies that critically hit inflict this damage immediately if you're a party facing zombie shamblers know that their main weakness is their mindlessness they're stupid and they are slow they only have two actions to walk up to you don't let them overwhelm you use the right damage types that low AC means you may want to go for second even third attacks against it with the full multiple attack penalty and they have a really low reflex save so Target that with your spells and tripping zombies is great because it makes them even easier to hit and because they're slowed they would have to spend one action to stand end up and have only one action left so that's the main part of this video and I wanted to do this video because I think most people who hear you should try Pathfinder here about the character customization and the three action economy but I think where Pathfinder really hits home and Nails The Landing is when you actually get into combat and see what the monsters are like they almost always have signature abilities and the three action economy creates a More Design space to have more varied interesting actions and some of them that are more powerful that use two or three actions and also they're not confined to doing just a routine the three action economy skill actions the importance of just movement and moving away from things hiding behind cover all of these things make running monsters more interesting varied and fun for the game master too so if you like the video do the usual like and subscribe and also leave a comment let me know if you want more videos of this kind and also I think the comment section of this video is a great place for you all to share your favorite stat blocks with links uh and monsters that you think are cool or advice on how to run them if there's interest maybe I can do more of these and ride through the levels covering classic d and d monsters along the way now my outro I have been Ronald the rules lawyer support my patreon to get early access to many videos and exclusive content and also if you haven't yet join the Discord where we talk Pathfinder 2E and other gaming we also if you want to play Pathfinder 2E have a drop in Dropout organized play system as well that's it I've been Ronald the rules lawyer I'll see you next time

Channel: The Rules Lawyer

Views: 9,808

Keywords: rules lawyer, rpg, dnd, d&d, pathfinder, pathfinder 2e, pf2, pf2e

Id: Kfwb8KBSUIs

Length: 30min 33sec (1833 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 20 2024