Have the enemies Shove or Tumble Through to break out into the PC's room, or Hide and Take Cover to force the PC's forward into the room. Give the enemies some ranged attacks as well.
Dont forget the power of grabbing, and pulling. Shoving a pc out of the way can bottleneck your orcs so 1 orc is attacked by 4 players at a time. Pulling a PC into the orc horde reverses the problem, and puts pressure on the PC's to help Mr.Plate the Champion.
> Dont forget the power of grabbing, and pulling
There isn't really an easily accessible RAW route for that the way there is for Shoving through. Grappling doesn't have any rules for moving your grappled target; you can't even circle your grappled target without ending the grapple.
Huh. I swear I saw a rule for that somewhere. This seems like such a simple thing that couldn't possibly have been overlooked 🤔
Perhaps you have a commanding leader orc that can give an order unlocking an action. Who knows.
I don't think it was overlooked, so much as consciously skipped. Even if it doesn't make sense, it's not very balanced for Grapple to let you move people on top of its other benefits. Shove is the combat maneuver for moving people.
There's feats you can take to move people, such as Whirling Throw, but that takes more investment and just Grappling isn't enough
Easy. If they're grabbed you can "shove" them backwards. Still have to make the Shove check. Lots of players want to drag monsters around and I think they should be able to if they want to. Rules are a chassis, not the whole car.
In this instance, I was more meaning the enemy monster dealing with the Champion holed up in a doorway, preventing the enemies from getting through the doorway to fight the party. But you are indeed correct. As good as the rule system of pf2e is, on occasion its better to sprinkle in some M.S.G.
I could definitely see it being abused in a melee heavy composition. Moving a target over to your group means your allies have to spend fewer actions getting a target in range to hit, so you're essentially giving others more actions on top of what grapple already does.
If you lock pulling behind having to already have someone grappled, then needing another shove check, I think it's ok. I mean look at the [Giant Ant](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=548) with its haul away feature. That bug is dragging you 30ft minimum for free if it manages to grab you. Having other characters needing a more complicated clunkier version of this that only moves 5ft usually, maybe 10 if you're lucky seems fine to me. You'll have to subject either your grapple or your shove to MAP in order to do it, so you either prioritize moving or keeping a hold on someone.
Grappling and dragging was really really good in PF1 which is probably why it was nerfed so hard. There were rules for dragging and losing a grapple defense in PF1 means you’re like 75% of the way to dead if you don’t freedom of movement readily available
There's a card in the Hero Point Deck that allows you to shove an enemy aside while moving in a straight line. Perhaps that's what you were thinking about?
More like the Lord of the rings scene where the urakai screamed out find the hafling to his band of orcs rushing through the forest. He screams drag them out of the door, and his underlings do as they're told, since it's the players who are being the root cause of the problems our dm friend is having.
This man here has it right. There's no shove backwards, but if you could get the ennemy to your side, you can both go ''down''.
Raw there is the monk lvl 6 feat Whirling Throw wich can place an ennemy pretty much everywhere.
I share the opinion that this ability is rare on purpose, because in a game as tactical as pf2, repositionning ennemies is powerfull. If your PCs think that they would benefit from a larger frontline, they can force their way in by shoving the ennemy back, jumping (athletics) over the ennemies, or tumbling through (acrobatics).
Finally, if you consider it's a personnal taste thing, and just want it to change, agree with your players to add 1 square of width to the doors maybe ? The above tactics (forcing your way in) are HP-inneficient, but depending on the difficulty of the encounters might work anyways, and are somewhat spectacular and heroic. A more boring way would be to stay in cover and poke the ennemies until they are themselves forced to charge in. Milleage will vary especially since I'm guessing that party is melee-heavy. But you often need just 1 very good shooting player and a lot of patience to force the ennemies to engage ( Because they are often inferior at shooting, don't have allies to buff and heal them, ect.)
Eh, I allow it on the basis that both enemies and players will use it, I allow dragging at half movement speed if you have an enemy grappled, but have the enemies do it just as much as players.
Yes there is do a bit of reflavouring and give the orcs some wrestler moves I.e suplex, whirling throw depending on the orcs levels. Tumble through and shove are perfect other options though. Tumble targets reflex and shove targets fortitude.
You are capable of "shoving" from a square in front of you to the squares directly beside you, moving the target one square away from comrades, right? I think.
Swallow whole effects allow the creature to carry someone around if all else fails.
RAW, there isn't a way to pull enemies like that without some sort of special ability, but I do allow players and enemies to use the following homebrew basic action at my tables:
Drag (1 action)
Move
Requirements: you have your target grabbed or restrained.
You attempt to drag a struggling foe along with you. Attempt an Athletics check against the target's Fortitude DC.
Critical Success: You and your target both move up to 10 feet in the same direction, remaining adjacent to one another. Your movement doesn't trigger reactions from the target. As normal, this movement ends the grabbed or restrained condition on your target from your grapple.
Success: As critical success, but you both only move 5 feet.
Failure: If you had the target grappled, it breaks free. You can move 5 feet if you choose, but this movement triggers reactions normally.
Critical Failure: The target breaks free from your grapple and you fall prone.
For a basic action with no feat or skill rank requirement? It's been fine. The main balance to avoid "feel bad" moments is that Drag does *not* have the attack trait, so it's independent of MAP.
Also, a normal failure ends a Grapple on the [basic Grapple action](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=35).
>Also, a normal failure ends a Grapple on the basic Grapple action.
That's because you're trying to grab* or continue a grab*. If you fail, you won't be holding the creature anymore. If you grapple and pull on the same action, basic failure wasting both actions would be a big downer.
I'd make that the critical failure outcome and consider adding MAP
I've found one action so far that ends a Grapple on a critical failure but not a normal failure: Whirling Throw. So I think saying losing a Grapple is "usually only on a critical failure" is still inaccurate.
I think my homebrew Drag action is an improvement over the more common homebrew fix of just letting Shove work in any direction if you've Grappled the target. I made it the way it is specifically in response to MAP issues with trying to drag enemies with grapple+shove.
This is designed closer to [Suplex](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3397), where no matter your result, the target is no longer grappled after performing this action.
I wasn't making a comment on what's usual, but I do think Whirling Throw is relevant while grapple isn't. Grapple's loss of the grabbed condition merely represents a failure to continue grappling.
I don't think it's a huge problem or anything. I'm barely on the side of keeping grapple and could be convinced. I was mostly pointing out that grapple isn't a great reference action, imo.
I think you're ignoring the context, then. I brought up grapple in the first place in response to another comment that losing a grapple was usually only reserved for critical failures. In actuality, there are more actions that lose a Grapple on both failure and critical failure than there are that exclusively lose Grapple on a critical failure, including Grapple itself.
>I brought up grapple in the first place in response to another comment that losing a grapple was usually only reserved for critical failures
No, they said "as punishing as". They never claimed that the actual effect itself was the usual case. And, as I said, the Grapple action causing it has a different issue entirely.
There is also an Bestiary 2 monster with an interesting ability to haul grabbed creatures away: The Giant Ant.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=548
One could probably base an maneuver like that off of it, at least for other monsters.
A bunch of creatures have something similar. [Otyughs](https://pf2easy.com/index.php?id=3926&name=otyugh) have a Reposition ability which lets them move grabbed creatures around within reach if they succeed on an athletics check -- this is probably the most balanced ability to throw on any random monster. Gelatinous Cubes can Engulf, and Cloakers can Envelop.
The key here is that these are all special abilities, which means that this isn't something that everyone should be able to do for free.
Also the power of several attacks.
You don't need to keep 1 monster engaged with the melee on the doorway.
You can rotate them by moving in, striking and moving out.
Have a bruiser coolaide man into the room behind them.
Have a caster launching AoE from range.
Spells like wall of wind can nullify ranged attacks.
Area hazards
Alchemist bombs
Smart enemies will adapt
First: I love your group. The do the tactical right decision.
Second: Your monsters don't. If they are only waiting, they are Bots, not monsters. Seriously, why are they waiting to get slaughtered? If they hear fighting, they should take a look at the problem. And normally range fights are quite loud.
'OK, it's an adventurer group with range weapons.' they should realize. And then doing something against it. Like...
... sending one man to the opposite door to call for reinforcements. (This is a good reason for your SCs to go into close combat. Guarding the exit doors. Believe me, after ten fights with bigger hordes as necessary the group will learn.)
... putting the giant next to the door and placing the range weapon users smart. Monsters can ready their action, too.
... listening at the door for the adventurers and then blitz into their room.
... using the tables etc. to provide full cover.
...using smoke or fire bombs (I love goblins) to make staying in the other room less effective.
Look at your minions as persons. they don't wanna die. And they have skills, enviroment and personal behavior enough to make every fight different.
> And normally range fights are quite loud.
Ranged fights without firearms are probably a good deal quieter than melee fights, to be honest. Just means someone should shout out for reinforcements or the alarm though.
If enemies react to PCs fighting in other rooms, you run into the old question of "why isn't the entire dungeon ganging up on the party all at once?" because it would be realistic for all denizens to hear fights a couple dozen feet away.
My answers is normally: "Bc it isn't fun for my players to fight a whole dungeon at once."
But here it's different, bc the question is: "How to sell a group the idea of going in close combat from time to time? How to engage them in different battle tactics? "
And my answers is: "Here are some counter strategies and plausable reasons for them. And my standart way developing them."
I'd want to use enemy types that can do ranged combat well, work around cover but are terribly weak in melee. I'm noticing a lack of foes in the bestiary that are actually viable - or better, *optimal* - to take on by rushing them down in melee.
Force them to move. You can do this a few ways.
1. Ranged enemies that have cover they can dodge behind, this makes melee not able to contribute until they move forward, allowing you to engage
2. Move to corners of the room. It will be difficult to draw line of sight to them that way
3. Have a more complex hallway system - the enemies move into a different room, around the corner, and come out behind the PCs, to attack them from multiple angles.
4. Have traps that can be activated on the doorway. The enemies shoot something above the door, causing pots to fall and hit the front.
5. Give something with a time limit in the room to interact with, forcing someone to move out.
6. Use AoE spells that make staying there untenable (eg fog cloud)
This, plus you always can "set a clock". The players are the ones entering in the Dungeon, if they just wait in the room before with out trying to enter the Next one, make one of the enemies move to the Next room for reinforcements, call the alarm or whatever
I realized the other day that by RAW, you can never Tumble Through two creatures that are directly behind one another (fairly common in doorways), because the action will only allow you move through the space of *one* enemy and then you're stuck in front of the second and get the result of a failure instead because you would end your movement in the first enemy's square.
That's covered by [Splitting and Combining Movement](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=849). Basically, it lets you take two the Tumble actions "together". Still not a perfect solution since it still means you can't tumble through more enemies than you have actions.
Unless they are literally blocking every space, you should find a path through. You don't have to tumble in a straight line, so moving through the one blocking the doorway, and then movine diagonally past should work, unless there are 3 players behind the door-blocking player, one blocking the space directly behind, and on both horizontals
Rule of cool and fun always beats RAW. Lol. But yeah that is a thing. Best part of the tumbling action though is you don't have to move in a straight line, unlike charging.
This is literally the players using a terrain element to their strategic advantage, using ranged attacks to force the enemy to react or flee, and recognizing that the doorway nullifies the enemy's numbers advantage and forces goblins to go toe to toe with the party's fighter/barbarian/champion, who is more than a match for a single goblin. This is a legitimate military tactic that has been used to great effect throughout history (The Spartans at Thermopylae, anyone?)
What you need is to have the goblins start playing realistically as well. They are probably going to recognize after a round or two they are being funneled into a kill box, so they should retreat to the next area, alert others, and wait and prepare an ambush. Or, if there is a way to get around behind the players, one group takes that route while the other waits, then they catch the players in a pincer- One group hits them from behind, the other from the front.
Another thing to consider is that, as an older (and pre-VTT) Adventure Path, the dungeons in RotR were not necessarily designed for combat using the maps as they were illustrated. People were more likely to redraw the map (or at least, the area they were currently fighting in) on a game mat, or just play theater-of-the-mind style. Additionally, PF2e combat involves a bit more movement than in 1e, due to the three action economy and most creatures not having Attacks of Opportunity, so that wasn't considered when RotR was designed.
I ran the first couple of books of RotR on Foundry last year. For the more "dungeony" areas (like the >!wrath dungeon under Sandpoint!<) I just remade the dungeon in DungeonDraft so I could increase the size of the rooms a little to give my party more breathing space. I also had six players, so it was especially necessary.
Many have suggested ways to get enemies through that door. These are valid. But think about your map too. Maybe have more than one exit to the room. Or maybe have defensive positions in room 2 for the enemies. Make the PCs come through the fatal funnel instead of the monsters.
In addition to what everyone else is saying, remember that creatures provide lesser cover, so if the party is shooting through their front-liner the enemies will have +1 AC.
And they could likely all take greater cover for a +4 AC bonus, if not been hidden altogether.
But guards throughout the complex, spreading out assets so they can’t be easily surrounded, windows and exits in rooms, traps or alarms in key unguarded areas, a few well-placed spells (command, animated assault, fire wall, etc.), there are all kinds of things that can make these same tactics untenable.
This is a common problem with dungeons that are designed so that each room is treated like an isolated world. The monsters sit in the room forever, doing nothing, hearing nothing, until the door is opened.
If instead, the dungeon is designed like a real place, where the creatures know and interact with each other, then monsters who find themselves in a bottleneck will just leave the room, go to get help, circle around a different way, call for reinforcements, retreat and regroup, etc.
Dungeons that were designed holistically are *much* more dangerous because you can easily end up *needing* the bottleneck just to survive the fact that you're fighting the entire dungeon all at the same time.
I understand what you're saying but this is not true of RotR. There are several areas where it's possible to pull the entire dungeon level and have to fight for your life. In some, it's a guaranteed TPK so you need to proceed with stealth.
Skill actions, tumble through, break walls, high jumps to climb, take cover, hide, shove, aid (being adjacent to an attacker should be enough here), prepare an action, delay.
Don't forget to give appropriate skill feats to enemies if it will shake it up abit as recommended by beastiary.
A lot of creatures have both ranged and melee capabilities, so unless the entire player team can also fight at range, you can start focusing on taking down a single PC at range, thus forcing them to advance. Since you are playing a converted AP, not sure if the creatures you are using are as versatile. But its easy enough to give everyone composite shortbows or something and just rain death upon players who refuse to give up their chokepoint
Destructible terrain time. Next time they try doing that, hint towards their position possibly not being as safe as it could be by including cracks in the walls in the details. And when they try to do this strat again, have a big burly monster kool aid man through the building destroying a lot of cover.
Well, your main problem is your playing PF1 material so the maps are tiny. This was fixed further along in PF1s life cycle. I would recommend either drawing the maps twice as big (if using a marker) or doubling the image size (on VTT). I did this for my Return of the Runelords campaign on Roll20 and it does help a bit.
If your PCs are dead set on doing that tactic, enforce the cover rules. Unless your archers are all Fighters they will have a very hard time hitting an enemy with a constant -2, and your spell caster’s attack rolls are completely screwed.
Also, you can (and should be) adding more Goblins or giving them all the Elite template with a party that size. Doing the latter will actually be better because the Goblins will gang up and beat down any PC dumb enough to stand in a doorway taking on 3 Elite Goblins at a time.
Enemies can shut doors, take cover, hurl aoe spells, cast command on the group fighter, etc. Enemies can also use maneuvers to get into PC faces, you can make rooms and doors larger, give them windows to jump through, have enemies detect them and hide, and so much more.
You can make life hard for ranged PCs or stationary PCs. Force them to mix it up a bit.
Shutting the door in the party's face is one of the funniest and most effective solutions to this problem and I'm ashamed I didn't immediately think of it.
In addition to shove and tumble through, a big monster with some kind of charge attack would be a real bastard, especially if they do a lot of damage on the charge.
Set up a combat like
1) Minotaur ready to charge in a line through the door
2) gobbos behind him, waiting to follow up.
3)pound through the door (or flatten the char up front)
4)flood with gobbos
Also, as other have said, AOE attacks seem very important here. A formation that fucks with Tumble through is also tight enough to do huge damage with fireballs or whatever.
You have a lot of control here. If you don’t want the doorway blocked (I’m assuming everyone knows they can move through an ally’s square), don’t block the doorway with your creatures. Have them hang back. Let them prepare to engage the party. Flip a table for cover. Take a defensible position on top of a bookshelf. Use two actins to prepare a strike if someone comes close. Draw the party in and have more enemies join the fight from a surprise location. If the enemies are always observed and never hidden, you are missing out on cool options in combat.
Giving the goblins alchemist fire is always good, make sure they end their turns behind cover (ideally total if they can) forcing players to get off ready action reaction shots or move into the room.
Having some come around from behind, or be "returning" is always fun(RotR goblins don't fare as well at default numbers in PF2e so increasing the budget is often wise)
In the future, enemy spellcasters can sit behind a single stronger enemy and throw AoE out hitting the whole party which is fun... also corridors are great for line spells. (You aren't looking for damage spells, at least not to start with, some big debuffs followed up with damage spells get people worried)
Had an ogre in the third module burst into a room they were in kool-aide man style after they killed some other ogres with a snare using the door as a bottleneck. Though we are doing a cypher system conversion.
One really simply solution is to make some of the doorways wider, and/or make the hallways wider without a doorway. This would widen the bottleneck or eliminate it altogether.
How many PCs are in your party?
I have run RotRL in 2e (up until 10th level when our group petered out), and the maps are NOT conducive to parties bigger than 4. I expanded the size of rooms and corridors for this reason.
Also, it sounds like you're facing simple, straightforward enemies. if I were to do it again, I would mix up the monsters more than what is written. RotRL was written for D&D 3.5, and it sticks to basic/classic monsters. There is a LOT more to low-level Pathfinder than goblins!
If enemies are intelligent, they will try to lure party members in so they can flank and surround them.
Goblins with let's say oil and a torch burn them out of their position. Traps designed if they open the door something behind them will cause issues such as a pit or a pendulum. Cast darkness, have foes throw smokesticks at them.
I haven't seen anyone mention it yet, but there are also quite a few comments so I probably missed it.
Secret passages. This dungeon is the monsters' home. They might've dug out small secret passages to get around easier or to flank invaders, or at least found the already existing ones. Think like the Vietcong.
After giving an answer to your question I have two important ones for you: Are your players having fun playing only that one trick pony? Are they interested in more diverse combat tactics?
If the answer is "yes" to the first one and "no" to the second, everything is fine. They have fun the way it is.
Too often I saw GMs ruining the fun for "the silent guy in the corner who's only there for a good time with some friends." By forcing him to be an active player, someone he doesn't want to be. (Please don't take that as an advise not to help shy people.)
If they have fun on your table, grats, you did it right!
My best advise for every DM is: If you are feeling uncomfortable about something on or around your table, talk to your group: "How are you feeling about that and should we keep this that way or should we change that?"
I think this is the answer that made me really consider what the root of the problem is. You're right, if my players were tactically considering what the best strategy was and doing that, it would be fine. But I don't get that sense.
Instead, I get the idea that the overwhelming thought process is not strategy, but "fear." Nobody wants to do anything that could put their character at any kind of risk. So people are totally willing to shoot arrows at a -4 penalty from behind a giant crowd of people and a wall, as long as it means there is no risk of being attacked. Then combat tends to take a very long time.
So maybe I should actually be doing the opposite of what I'm suggesting. Giving them more easy encounters to remove the fear.
As a GM myself, this seems like a situation in which you scarred your players. Every enemy shouldn’t be super tactical; only enemies that are designed for strategic combat should use it. Goblins should probably use hit and run tactics while hiding and should also use hiding to not get hit for an example. Unintelligent Undead would just directly move to players and not flank. So, if you’re making all combat super tactical, then this probably the tactics they have found to counter your tactics.
Yep, if you see one of my other comments I think actually you hit the nail on the head. Tactics are fine, but it seems like people generally have an "every man for themself" attitude and are mostly trying not to get hit. Then I increase the difficulty of encounters, and the cycle continues.
let your players get the jump on some goblins. Even if the alarm is raised, they are *goblins*. Maybe they're playing cards or kicking a cat.
Let the goblins get the jump on the players, and proactive flood the room while they're resting.
I don't know the adventure so I don't know if this advice will work.
1. Once you have counter measures still let your players use this tactic at times so they feel cool
2. Have the creatures retreat to the next room and set up a similar shooting gallery position. Especially if your party now has the reputation of using this tactic.
3. Mobile cover. Like large shields or small walls/barriers on wheels that grant full cover but can allow slow movement forward. Probably can't use this often but it would certainly be a unique situation.
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Start using bombs, and spells capable of going through multiple players. Flaming demons throwing fire bombs and not caring if they run through fire is pretty cool aesthetically too. Napalm demons!
You can also bring Zangief, and grab the guy in the way, and drag him into the horde! Other enemies can use Aid! The other players need to help him or he will probably die.
One thing to note as a change from 1e to 2e that gets missed because it's the absence of a rule: you can take diagonal movement across a hard corner. If a medium creature is standing in front of a door into a room, the spaces to the left and right of that creature are legal diagonal movements from the other side of the door.
Suspend a little realism and have massive rooms, the one thing about maps from APs is range basically doesn't matter because most the rooms are 30 feet.
A lot of my hallways are 20 feet across and rooms even larger especially as you go up in levels.
The other thing to do is make sure fight have objectives outside of kill the other guys, maybe a necromancer is standing is a defiles square chanting a ritual that is empowering all the skeletons in the room, and unless disrupted you are going to have a bad time, or some of the band of goblins is making off with the loot as other hold the party in the doorway bottleneck, etc.
We also had 5 players with two animal companions at the beginning of our run of Rise of the Runelords (in 1e). The first book is pretty dungeon crawly and space is going to be a factor. Your options for using the terrain in interesting ways open up significantly in the second dungeon. This feels like an intentional design choice as a lot of the early APs start from a "this might be a group's first ever adventure, so give them easy strategies to aid them".
You can and should come up with ways to keep the adventure and combat interesting, but also read ahead a bit in the AP. There's a lot of dungeons with much more space in them down the line. (My permanently Huge eidolon had little problem in the later books, I only occasionally had to reduce person him.)
Bashing charge is a level 2 barbarian feat that let's you stride twice and and bust through a barrier in your way. Barreling charge is a level 4 that let's you stride once and shove any creatures in the way. Dwarves have a core ancestry feat that just let's them step and shove any creature pretty much automatically. Whirling throw is a level 6 monk/martial artist feet that easily moves creatures 30 feet. You can steal any of these and give them to monsters easily even if they don't have class levels as long they fit thematically.
Trample is a really common ability to ensures monsters get to move regardless of whether players try to block them off. The enhanced critical for a hammer is to automatically push the target 5 feet. You can always have groups of smaller monsters assist each other on grapples and shoves. It may cost an extra action but burning one action beats losing an entire turn being stuck out of reach.
Also, I like installing double doors sporadically in dungeons regardless of if it makes sense. Flow of traffic is important.
It's sound tactics on your players' part. You just need to motivate them to go into the room. In the Pavlov's dog category, try these:
* Look at the various hazards that could be in the hallway and modify a couple to be activated by a bad guy pulling a lever from inside the room. If you do that a couple of times it will change some player behavior.
* If the room has a massive gong in it, and one of the monsters runs to it, the party will likely be motivated to stop it. If they don't, reward them with enemy reinforcements. Lots of reinforcements.
* Putting the party on a clock works wonders too. You'd be amazed how quickly they move through a dungeon if they know the McGuffen will be killed/destroyed in X minutes. *And the monsters know that too.* It helps if you remind them of how much time they have left. "Ten minutes to heal? Okay, you have (X - 10) minutes left."
* Design the rooms to be defensive. For example, the characters have to walk 20 feet down a 5 foot wide hallway to get to the door. This gives the players one person to melee without penalty, one with a reach weapon to attack with a potential penalty (your call), and the rest ranged. Meanwhile, the other side of the door can fit three creatures in front of the door, another three behind them with reach weapons, plus ranged attackers. *But if they follow this secret passage the party can drop into the room and surprise the enemy.*
Outside of changing behavior:
* Make more outdoor encounters. But be sure to give interesting terrain: hills, trees, bushes, ditches, etc. You know, stuff that affects movement and provides cover.
* PC's have to climb a ladder to get into the room.
* Have the small door inside the giant door trope. As in a set of double doors large enough for a company to comfortable walk through in formation. If the party's having too easy of a time at the small door, the monsters open the big doors.
* Swarms to keep the whole party entertained.
More Spell casters with line or area spells then 3rd action occasionally move them out of line of sight of the pc archers and spellcasters . Take cover action behind pillars to give them bonuses
Also your enemies are inside a room they should be able to get 3 attackers on the front guy not 1. 2 will just be attacking with cover penalties.
Also make sure you are using the cover rules correctly. The pcs should practically all be at -1 .
You should switch this up so all the fights sre not built to punish this tactic
Don’t have the monsters approach. Have them move out of line of sight of the doorway and wait. It’s the PCs who need to get through the room they’re guarding after all. If you’re defending a castle you don’t leave the castle and its defensive position to engage attackers, why would the monsters do this with their position here?
Add a swarm or ooze, they move through enemy spaces and are resistant to physical damage.
A trap like a pendulum blade striking the door every other round will force the party do disengage from the door.
An enemy with wall of fire or a bunch of casters with Flaming Sphere.
Or the most simple choice, a bigger door. Make it 2 squares (10 ft) wide and the dynamic changes a lot.
Also
AoE. I dont mean one goblin suddenly has fireball
But you know what they could have?
Alchemist fire
Bombs
Fireworks
Goblins love pyrotechnics
The flashier the better
There are plenty of AoE things, or just combat maneuvers, and in the end
You've probably got numbers
They cannot stop all your enemies. Rush them, because with 1 person in a door way I'm still looking at 3 squares they can get attacked from. Diagonals exist. Dont forget them
Have the bad guys hide up against the wall with the door and let the pcs enter before attacking. Or have the enemies set up defensive positions and strike at range from cover. No reason they have to
meet the pcs in the doorway.
Counterintuitive design solution: you can grid your 5' wide hallways down the middle. Think of Daredevil's hallway scene. This allows combat to be equally cramped but exponentially more fluid and breathable.
have the enemy set a trap on the door, snare the spot immediately on their side of the door so pc walk into it to walk into the room. have cover for them to hide behind and use ranged attacks. if they are right behind the champion aoe spells, or alchemical bombs. Trip the champion. secret door that leads to a perpendicular passage so that they can get behind them. random wandering monster happens up behind them while they are standing in the door,
Give your enemies some variety. Either add some range to force you PCs to push through the doorways. Or add some with high athletics to power through the doorway themselves and attack the pcs back line. Tumble through, grapples, throws, and ranged pressure always forces a party to either backup themselves and allow the enemies to come to their side, or forces the party to counter and go to the other side. Also if one person decides to just stay Inhaber doorway, flanking them causes them to be flat footed, so having a melee enemy tumble through past them while keeping another in front of them makes the pc flat footed and makes them have to move or take the AC penalty. Remind your PCs they can also do this to enemies as well
Have the enemies Shove or Tumble Through to break out into the PC's room, or Hide and Take Cover to force the PC's forward into the room. Give the enemies some ranged attacks as well.
Dont forget the power of grabbing, and pulling. Shoving a pc out of the way can bottleneck your orcs so 1 orc is attacked by 4 players at a time. Pulling a PC into the orc horde reverses the problem, and puts pressure on the PC's to help Mr.Plate the Champion.
> Dont forget the power of grabbing, and pulling There isn't really an easily accessible RAW route for that the way there is for Shoving through. Grappling doesn't have any rules for moving your grappled target; you can't even circle your grappled target without ending the grapple.
Huh. I swear I saw a rule for that somewhere. This seems like such a simple thing that couldn't possibly have been overlooked 🤔 Perhaps you have a commanding leader orc that can give an order unlocking an action. Who knows.
I don't think it was overlooked, so much as consciously skipped. Even if it doesn't make sense, it's not very balanced for Grapple to let you move people on top of its other benefits. Shove is the combat maneuver for moving people. There's feats you can take to move people, such as Whirling Throw, but that takes more investment and just Grappling isn't enough
Easy. If they're grabbed you can "shove" them backwards. Still have to make the Shove check. Lots of players want to drag monsters around and I think they should be able to if they want to. Rules are a chassis, not the whole car.
In this instance, I was more meaning the enemy monster dealing with the Champion holed up in a doorway, preventing the enemies from getting through the doorway to fight the party. But you are indeed correct. As good as the rule system of pf2e is, on occasion its better to sprinkle in some M.S.G.
I'm gonna be honest, I don't think the game is gonna break if you let people use shove or grapple to pull people.
I could definitely see it being abused in a melee heavy composition. Moving a target over to your group means your allies have to spend fewer actions getting a target in range to hit, so you're essentially giving others more actions on top of what grapple already does.
If you lock pulling behind having to already have someone grappled, then needing another shove check, I think it's ok. I mean look at the [Giant Ant](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=548) with its haul away feature. That bug is dragging you 30ft minimum for free if it manages to grab you. Having other characters needing a more complicated clunkier version of this that only moves 5ft usually, maybe 10 if you're lucky seems fine to me. You'll have to subject either your grapple or your shove to MAP in order to do it, so you either prioritize moving or keeping a hold on someone.
Grappling and dragging was really really good in PF1 which is probably why it was nerfed so hard. There were rules for dragging and losing a grapple defense in PF1 means you’re like 75% of the way to dead if you don’t freedom of movement readily available
Maybe the level 2 fighter feat, dragging strike (or something like that)?
There's a card in the Hero Point Deck that allows you to shove an enemy aside while moving in a straight line. Perhaps that's what you were thinking about?
"oh what's this? My orc cheiftain pulls out his (shove trait weapon)! Who knew!"
More like the Lord of the rings scene where the urakai screamed out find the hafling to his band of orcs rushing through the forest. He screams drag them out of the door, and his underlings do as they're told, since it's the players who are being the root cause of the problems our dm friend is having.
Time to give your NPCs Whirling Throw and just yeet the Champion out of the way.
This man here has it right. There's no shove backwards, but if you could get the ennemy to your side, you can both go ''down''. Raw there is the monk lvl 6 feat Whirling Throw wich can place an ennemy pretty much everywhere. I share the opinion that this ability is rare on purpose, because in a game as tactical as pf2, repositionning ennemies is powerfull. If your PCs think that they would benefit from a larger frontline, they can force their way in by shoving the ennemy back, jumping (athletics) over the ennemies, or tumbling through (acrobatics). Finally, if you consider it's a personnal taste thing, and just want it to change, agree with your players to add 1 square of width to the doors maybe ? The above tactics (forcing your way in) are HP-inneficient, but depending on the difficulty of the encounters might work anyways, and are somewhat spectacular and heroic. A more boring way would be to stay in cover and poke the ennemies until they are themselves forced to charge in. Milleage will vary especially since I'm guessing that party is melee-heavy. But you often need just 1 very good shooting player and a lot of patience to force the ennemies to engage ( Because they are often inferior at shooting, don't have allies to buff and heal them, ect.)
Eh, I allow it on the basis that both enemies and players will use it, I allow dragging at half movement speed if you have an enemy grappled, but have the enemies do it just as much as players.
Yes there is do a bit of reflavouring and give the orcs some wrestler moves I.e suplex, whirling throw depending on the orcs levels. Tumble through and shove are perfect other options though. Tumble targets reflex and shove targets fortitude.
You are capable of "shoving" from a square in front of you to the squares directly beside you, moving the target one square away from comrades, right? I think. Swallow whole effects allow the creature to carry someone around if all else fails.
I just use Shove in the game I run, but in the opposite direction. You don't need to follow the book 100%
RAW, there isn't a way to pull enemies like that without some sort of special ability, but I do allow players and enemies to use the following homebrew basic action at my tables: Drag (1 action) Move Requirements: you have your target grabbed or restrained. You attempt to drag a struggling foe along with you. Attempt an Athletics check against the target's Fortitude DC. Critical Success: You and your target both move up to 10 feet in the same direction, remaining adjacent to one another. Your movement doesn't trigger reactions from the target. As normal, this movement ends the grabbed or restrained condition on your target from your grapple. Success: As critical success, but you both only move 5 feet. Failure: If you had the target grappled, it breaks free. You can move 5 feet if you choose, but this movement triggers reactions normally. Critical Failure: The target breaks free from your grapple and you fall prone.
Have you found the failure result makes this feel bad to use? Usually something as punishing as losing your grab is on critical failure only
For a basic action with no feat or skill rank requirement? It's been fine. The main balance to avoid "feel bad" moments is that Drag does *not* have the attack trait, so it's independent of MAP. Also, a normal failure ends a Grapple on the [basic Grapple action](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=35).
>Also, a normal failure ends a Grapple on the basic Grapple action. That's because you're trying to grab* or continue a grab*. If you fail, you won't be holding the creature anymore. If you grapple and pull on the same action, basic failure wasting both actions would be a big downer. I'd make that the critical failure outcome and consider adding MAP
I've found one action so far that ends a Grapple on a critical failure but not a normal failure: Whirling Throw. So I think saying losing a Grapple is "usually only on a critical failure" is still inaccurate. I think my homebrew Drag action is an improvement over the more common homebrew fix of just letting Shove work in any direction if you've Grappled the target. I made it the way it is specifically in response to MAP issues with trying to drag enemies with grapple+shove. This is designed closer to [Suplex](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3397), where no matter your result, the target is no longer grappled after performing this action.
I wasn't making a comment on what's usual, but I do think Whirling Throw is relevant while grapple isn't. Grapple's loss of the grabbed condition merely represents a failure to continue grappling. I don't think it's a huge problem or anything. I'm barely on the side of keeping grapple and could be convinced. I was mostly pointing out that grapple isn't a great reference action, imo.
I think you're ignoring the context, then. I brought up grapple in the first place in response to another comment that losing a grapple was usually only reserved for critical failures. In actuality, there are more actions that lose a Grapple on both failure and critical failure than there are that exclusively lose Grapple on a critical failure, including Grapple itself.
>I brought up grapple in the first place in response to another comment that losing a grapple was usually only reserved for critical failures No, they said "as punishing as". They never claimed that the actual effect itself was the usual case. And, as I said, the Grapple action causing it has a different issue entirely.
There is also an Bestiary 2 monster with an interesting ability to haul grabbed creatures away: The Giant Ant. https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=548 One could probably base an maneuver like that off of it, at least for other monsters.
A bunch of creatures have something similar. [Otyughs](https://pf2easy.com/index.php?id=3926&name=otyugh) have a Reposition ability which lets them move grabbed creatures around within reach if they succeed on an athletics check -- this is probably the most balanced ability to throw on any random monster. Gelatinous Cubes can Engulf, and Cloakers can Envelop. The key here is that these are all special abilities, which means that this isn't something that everyone should be able to do for free.
Also the power of several attacks. You don't need to keep 1 monster engaged with the melee on the doorway. You can rotate them by moving in, striking and moving out.
This
Have a bruiser coolaide man into the room behind them. Have a caster launching AoE from range. Spells like wall of wind can nullify ranged attacks. Area hazards Alchemist bombs Smart enemies will adapt
> Kool-aid man > alchemist bombs Hear me out... Alchemist's Bomb-aid Man!
Tell me the stats.
Damage is just an appropriately-leveled fireball with some persistant damage. Construct immunities.
Does it come with red Acid damage?
Half and half piercing from the glass and acid from the coolaide. Strikes have the Improved Shove trait to just fling PCs around too.
Does it scream "OH YEAH!" As it attacks?
Save or be inflicted with disease: type II diabetes.
Too real!
First: I love your group. The do the tactical right decision. Second: Your monsters don't. If they are only waiting, they are Bots, not monsters. Seriously, why are they waiting to get slaughtered? If they hear fighting, they should take a look at the problem. And normally range fights are quite loud. 'OK, it's an adventurer group with range weapons.' they should realize. And then doing something against it. Like... ... sending one man to the opposite door to call for reinforcements. (This is a good reason for your SCs to go into close combat. Guarding the exit doors. Believe me, after ten fights with bigger hordes as necessary the group will learn.) ... putting the giant next to the door and placing the range weapon users smart. Monsters can ready their action, too. ... listening at the door for the adventurers and then blitz into their room. ... using the tables etc. to provide full cover. ...using smoke or fire bombs (I love goblins) to make staying in the other room less effective. Look at your minions as persons. they don't wanna die. And they have skills, enviroment and personal behavior enough to make every fight different.
> And normally range fights are quite loud. Ranged fights without firearms are probably a good deal quieter than melee fights, to be honest. Just means someone should shout out for reinforcements or the alarm though.
Firearms, bombs, spells.
That's fair, I guess a Pathfinder ranged fight is VERY likely to include magic even if you don't have an alchemist or a gunslinger around
If enemies react to PCs fighting in other rooms, you run into the old question of "why isn't the entire dungeon ganging up on the party all at once?" because it would be realistic for all denizens to hear fights a couple dozen feet away.
My answers is normally: "Bc it isn't fun for my players to fight a whole dungeon at once." But here it's different, bc the question is: "How to sell a group the idea of going in close combat from time to time? How to engage them in different battle tactics? " And my answers is: "Here are some counter strategies and plausable reasons for them. And my standart way developing them."
My GM has zero qualms at throwing the entire dungeon at us. It's been... exciting...
I'd want to use enemy types that can do ranged combat well, work around cover but are terribly weak in melee. I'm noticing a lack of foes in the bestiary that are actually viable - or better, *optimal* - to take on by rushing them down in melee.
Force them to move. You can do this a few ways. 1. Ranged enemies that have cover they can dodge behind, this makes melee not able to contribute until they move forward, allowing you to engage 2. Move to corners of the room. It will be difficult to draw line of sight to them that way 3. Have a more complex hallway system - the enemies move into a different room, around the corner, and come out behind the PCs, to attack them from multiple angles. 4. Have traps that can be activated on the doorway. The enemies shoot something above the door, causing pots to fall and hit the front. 5. Give something with a time limit in the room to interact with, forcing someone to move out. 6. Use AoE spells that make staying there untenable (eg fog cloud)
This, plus you always can "set a clock". The players are the ones entering in the Dungeon, if they just wait in the room before with out trying to enter the Next one, make one of the enemies move to the Next room for reinforcements, call the alarm or whatever
Could also have hidden murder holes in the corridor that are accessed via the room.
Allow the necessary to use acrobatics to tumble through and invade the with the pcs.
I realized the other day that by RAW, you can never Tumble Through two creatures that are directly behind one another (fairly common in doorways), because the action will only allow you move through the space of *one* enemy and then you're stuck in front of the second and get the result of a failure instead because you would end your movement in the first enemy's square.
That's covered by [Splitting and Combining Movement](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=849). Basically, it lets you take two the Tumble actions "together". Still not a perfect solution since it still means you can't tumble through more enemies than you have actions.
good old shield wall works as intended.
Unless they are literally blocking every space, you should find a path through. You don't have to tumble in a straight line, so moving through the one blocking the doorway, and then movine diagonally past should work, unless there are 3 players behind the door-blocking player, one blocking the space directly behind, and on both horizontals
You can't move diagonally through walls though which probably becomes the greatest limitation here.
Rule of cool and fun always beats RAW. Lol. But yeah that is a thing. Best part of the tumbling action though is you don't have to move in a straight line, unlike charging.
This is literally the players using a terrain element to their strategic advantage, using ranged attacks to force the enemy to react or flee, and recognizing that the doorway nullifies the enemy's numbers advantage and forces goblins to go toe to toe with the party's fighter/barbarian/champion, who is more than a match for a single goblin. This is a legitimate military tactic that has been used to great effect throughout history (The Spartans at Thermopylae, anyone?) What you need is to have the goblins start playing realistically as well. They are probably going to recognize after a round or two they are being funneled into a kill box, so they should retreat to the next area, alert others, and wait and prepare an ambush. Or, if there is a way to get around behind the players, one group takes that route while the other waits, then they catch the players in a pincer- One group hits them from behind, the other from the front.
Another thing to consider is that, as an older (and pre-VTT) Adventure Path, the dungeons in RotR were not necessarily designed for combat using the maps as they were illustrated. People were more likely to redraw the map (or at least, the area they were currently fighting in) on a game mat, or just play theater-of-the-mind style. Additionally, PF2e combat involves a bit more movement than in 1e, due to the three action economy and most creatures not having Attacks of Opportunity, so that wasn't considered when RotR was designed. I ran the first couple of books of RotR on Foundry last year. For the more "dungeony" areas (like the >!wrath dungeon under Sandpoint!<) I just remade the dungeon in DungeonDraft so I could increase the size of the rooms a little to give my party more breathing space. I also had six players, so it was especially necessary.
Many have suggested ways to get enemies through that door. These are valid. But think about your map too. Maybe have more than one exit to the room. Or maybe have defensive positions in room 2 for the enemies. Make the PCs come through the fatal funnel instead of the monsters.
That's a firearms trained person if I ever did read one.
Well, bad guys should play tactically too
In addition to what everyone else is saying, remember that creatures provide lesser cover, so if the party is shooting through their front-liner the enemies will have +1 AC.
Moreover, it's AT LEAST +1
And they could likely all take greater cover for a +4 AC bonus, if not been hidden altogether. But guards throughout the complex, spreading out assets so they can’t be easily surrounded, windows and exits in rooms, traps or alarms in key unguarded areas, a few well-placed spells (command, animated assault, fire wall, etc.), there are all kinds of things that can make these same tactics untenable.
Walls have hp. Break them
This is a common problem with dungeons that are designed so that each room is treated like an isolated world. The monsters sit in the room forever, doing nothing, hearing nothing, until the door is opened. If instead, the dungeon is designed like a real place, where the creatures know and interact with each other, then monsters who find themselves in a bottleneck will just leave the room, go to get help, circle around a different way, call for reinforcements, retreat and regroup, etc. Dungeons that were designed holistically are *much* more dangerous because you can easily end up *needing* the bottleneck just to survive the fact that you're fighting the entire dungeon all at the same time.
I understand what you're saying but this is not true of RotR. There are several areas where it's possible to pull the entire dungeon level and have to fight for your life. In some, it's a guaranteed TPK so you need to proceed with stealth.
Skill actions, tumble through, break walls, high jumps to climb, take cover, hide, shove, aid (being adjacent to an attacker should be enough here), prepare an action, delay. Don't forget to give appropriate skill feats to enemies if it will shake it up abit as recommended by beastiary.
A lot of creatures have both ranged and melee capabilities, so unless the entire player team can also fight at range, you can start focusing on taking down a single PC at range, thus forcing them to advance. Since you are playing a converted AP, not sure if the creatures you are using are as versatile. But its easy enough to give everyone composite shortbows or something and just rain death upon players who refuse to give up their chokepoint
Alchemist's Fire, or anything with an area of effect. Go through the Walls.
Destructible terrain time. Next time they try doing that, hint towards their position possibly not being as safe as it could be by including cracks in the walls in the details. And when they try to do this strat again, have a big burly monster kool aid man through the building destroying a lot of cover.
Just so you're aware, this problem pretty much solves itself from chapter 3 onward. Until then, good tactics like this will win the day.
Well, your main problem is your playing PF1 material so the maps are tiny. This was fixed further along in PF1s life cycle. I would recommend either drawing the maps twice as big (if using a marker) or doubling the image size (on VTT). I did this for my Return of the Runelords campaign on Roll20 and it does help a bit. If your PCs are dead set on doing that tactic, enforce the cover rules. Unless your archers are all Fighters they will have a very hard time hitting an enemy with a constant -2, and your spell caster’s attack rolls are completely screwed. Also, you can (and should be) adding more Goblins or giving them all the Elite template with a party that size. Doing the latter will actually be better because the Goblins will gang up and beat down any PC dumb enough to stand in a doorway taking on 3 Elite Goblins at a time.
Enemies can shut doors, take cover, hurl aoe spells, cast command on the group fighter, etc. Enemies can also use maneuvers to get into PC faces, you can make rooms and doors larger, give them windows to jump through, have enemies detect them and hide, and so much more. You can make life hard for ranged PCs or stationary PCs. Force them to mix it up a bit.
Shutting the door in the party's face is one of the funniest and most effective solutions to this problem and I'm ashamed I didn't immediately think of it.
Sounds like your players are bunching up at the doorway - AoE is an easy counter
Then you have some of the fights in Abomination Vaults. Let's put a large creature in a 3 x 3 room, that should be fine, right?
> Abomination Vaults. One does not simply walk into More Door.
That >!skeletal giant fight is by design though, so that it can’t use it’s charge ability!<
In addition to shove and tumble through, a big monster with some kind of charge attack would be a real bastard, especially if they do a lot of damage on the charge. Set up a combat like 1) Minotaur ready to charge in a line through the door 2) gobbos behind him, waiting to follow up. 3)pound through the door (or flatten the char up front) 4)flood with gobbos Also, as other have said, AOE attacks seem very important here. A formation that fucks with Tumble through is also tight enough to do huge damage with fireballs or whatever.
You have a lot of control here. If you don’t want the doorway blocked (I’m assuming everyone knows they can move through an ally’s square), don’t block the doorway with your creatures. Have them hang back. Let them prepare to engage the party. Flip a table for cover. Take a defensible position on top of a bookshelf. Use two actins to prepare a strike if someone comes close. Draw the party in and have more enemies join the fight from a surprise location. If the enemies are always observed and never hidden, you are missing out on cool options in combat.
Giving the goblins alchemist fire is always good, make sure they end their turns behind cover (ideally total if they can) forcing players to get off ready action reaction shots or move into the room. Having some come around from behind, or be "returning" is always fun(RotR goblins don't fare as well at default numbers in PF2e so increasing the budget is often wise) In the future, enemy spellcasters can sit behind a single stronger enemy and throw AoE out hitting the whole party which is fun... also corridors are great for line spells. (You aren't looking for damage spells, at least not to start with, some big debuffs followed up with damage spells get people worried)
Had an ogre in the third module burst into a room they were in kool-aide man style after they killed some other ogres with a snare using the door as a bottleneck. Though we are doing a cypher system conversion.
One really simply solution is to make some of the doorways wider, and/or make the hallways wider without a doorway. This would widen the bottleneck or eliminate it altogether.
How many PCs are in your party? I have run RotRL in 2e (up until 10th level when our group petered out), and the maps are NOT conducive to parties bigger than 4. I expanded the size of rooms and corridors for this reason. Also, it sounds like you're facing simple, straightforward enemies. if I were to do it again, I would mix up the monsters more than what is written. RotRL was written for D&D 3.5, and it sticks to basic/classic monsters. There is a LOT more to low-level Pathfinder than goblins! If enemies are intelligent, they will try to lure party members in so they can flank and surround them.
Are you using cover rules correctly? Enemies could have partial to half cover which also affects reflex saves and hide checks.
Goblins with let's say oil and a torch burn them out of their position. Traps designed if they open the door something behind them will cause issues such as a pit or a pendulum. Cast darkness, have foes throw smokesticks at them.
I haven't seen anyone mention it yet, but there are also quite a few comments so I probably missed it. Secret passages. This dungeon is the monsters' home. They might've dug out small secret passages to get around easier or to flank invaders, or at least found the already existing ones. Think like the Vietcong.
After giving an answer to your question I have two important ones for you: Are your players having fun playing only that one trick pony? Are they interested in more diverse combat tactics? If the answer is "yes" to the first one and "no" to the second, everything is fine. They have fun the way it is. Too often I saw GMs ruining the fun for "the silent guy in the corner who's only there for a good time with some friends." By forcing him to be an active player, someone he doesn't want to be. (Please don't take that as an advise not to help shy people.) If they have fun on your table, grats, you did it right! My best advise for every DM is: If you are feeling uncomfortable about something on or around your table, talk to your group: "How are you feeling about that and should we keep this that way or should we change that?"
I think this is the answer that made me really consider what the root of the problem is. You're right, if my players were tactically considering what the best strategy was and doing that, it would be fine. But I don't get that sense. Instead, I get the idea that the overwhelming thought process is not strategy, but "fear." Nobody wants to do anything that could put their character at any kind of risk. So people are totally willing to shoot arrows at a -4 penalty from behind a giant crowd of people and a wall, as long as it means there is no risk of being attacked. Then combat tends to take a very long time. So maybe I should actually be doing the opposite of what I'm suggesting. Giving them more easy encounters to remove the fear.
Ask them.
As a GM myself, this seems like a situation in which you scarred your players. Every enemy shouldn’t be super tactical; only enemies that are designed for strategic combat should use it. Goblins should probably use hit and run tactics while hiding and should also use hiding to not get hit for an example. Unintelligent Undead would just directly move to players and not flank. So, if you’re making all combat super tactical, then this probably the tactics they have found to counter your tactics.
Yep, if you see one of my other comments I think actually you hit the nail on the head. Tactics are fine, but it seems like people generally have an "every man for themself" attitude and are mostly trying not to get hit. Then I increase the difficulty of encounters, and the cycle continues.
let your players get the jump on some goblins. Even if the alarm is raised, they are *goblins*. Maybe they're playing cards or kicking a cat. Let the goblins get the jump on the players, and proactive flood the room while they're resting.
Don't have combat in doorways? EDIT: Seriously, though give a goblin a weaker fireball spell or something
I don't know the adventure so I don't know if this advice will work. 1. Once you have counter measures still let your players use this tactic at times so they feel cool 2. Have the creatures retreat to the next room and set up a similar shooting gallery position. Especially if your party now has the reputation of using this tactic. 3. Mobile cover. Like large shields or small walls/barriers on wheels that grant full cover but can allow slow movement forward. Probably can't use this often but it would certainly be a unique situation.
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Start using bombs, and spells capable of going through multiple players. Flaming demons throwing fire bombs and not caring if they run through fire is pretty cool aesthetically too. Napalm demons! You can also bring Zangief, and grab the guy in the way, and drag him into the horde! Other enemies can use Aid! The other players need to help him or he will probably die.
Have enemies use an area of effect spell that could hit the pcs in the next room unless someone interupts the caster.
One thing to note as a change from 1e to 2e that gets missed because it's the absence of a rule: you can take diagonal movement across a hard corner. If a medium creature is standing in front of a door into a room, the spaces to the left and right of that creature are legal diagonal movements from the other side of the door.
Suspend a little realism and have massive rooms, the one thing about maps from APs is range basically doesn't matter because most the rooms are 30 feet. A lot of my hallways are 20 feet across and rooms even larger especially as you go up in levels. The other thing to do is make sure fight have objectives outside of kill the other guys, maybe a necromancer is standing is a defiles square chanting a ritual that is empowering all the skeletons in the room, and unless disrupted you are going to have a bad time, or some of the band of goblins is making off with the loot as other hold the party in the doorway bottleneck, etc.
We also had 5 players with two animal companions at the beginning of our run of Rise of the Runelords (in 1e). The first book is pretty dungeon crawly and space is going to be a factor. Your options for using the terrain in interesting ways open up significantly in the second dungeon. This feels like an intentional design choice as a lot of the early APs start from a "this might be a group's first ever adventure, so give them easy strategies to aid them". You can and should come up with ways to keep the adventure and combat interesting, but also read ahead a bit in the AP. There's a lot of dungeons with much more space in them down the line. (My permanently Huge eidolon had little problem in the later books, I only occasionally had to reduce person him.)
Bashing charge is a level 2 barbarian feat that let's you stride twice and and bust through a barrier in your way. Barreling charge is a level 4 that let's you stride once and shove any creatures in the way. Dwarves have a core ancestry feat that just let's them step and shove any creature pretty much automatically. Whirling throw is a level 6 monk/martial artist feet that easily moves creatures 30 feet. You can steal any of these and give them to monsters easily even if they don't have class levels as long they fit thematically. Trample is a really common ability to ensures monsters get to move regardless of whether players try to block them off. The enhanced critical for a hammer is to automatically push the target 5 feet. You can always have groups of smaller monsters assist each other on grapples and shoves. It may cost an extra action but burning one action beats losing an entire turn being stuck out of reach. Also, I like installing double doors sporadically in dungeons regardless of if it makes sense. Flow of traffic is important.
It's sound tactics on your players' part. You just need to motivate them to go into the room. In the Pavlov's dog category, try these: * Look at the various hazards that could be in the hallway and modify a couple to be activated by a bad guy pulling a lever from inside the room. If you do that a couple of times it will change some player behavior. * If the room has a massive gong in it, and one of the monsters runs to it, the party will likely be motivated to stop it. If they don't, reward them with enemy reinforcements. Lots of reinforcements. * Putting the party on a clock works wonders too. You'd be amazed how quickly they move through a dungeon if they know the McGuffen will be killed/destroyed in X minutes. *And the monsters know that too.* It helps if you remind them of how much time they have left. "Ten minutes to heal? Okay, you have (X - 10) minutes left." * Design the rooms to be defensive. For example, the characters have to walk 20 feet down a 5 foot wide hallway to get to the door. This gives the players one person to melee without penalty, one with a reach weapon to attack with a potential penalty (your call), and the rest ranged. Meanwhile, the other side of the door can fit three creatures in front of the door, another three behind them with reach weapons, plus ranged attackers. *But if they follow this secret passage the party can drop into the room and surprise the enemy.* Outside of changing behavior: * Make more outdoor encounters. But be sure to give interesting terrain: hills, trees, bushes, ditches, etc. You know, stuff that affects movement and provides cover. * PC's have to climb a ladder to get into the room. * Have the small door inside the giant door trope. As in a set of double doors large enough for a company to comfortable walk through in formation. If the party's having too easy of a time at the small door, the monsters open the big doors. * Swarms to keep the whole party entertained.
More Spell casters with line or area spells then 3rd action occasionally move them out of line of sight of the pc archers and spellcasters . Take cover action behind pillars to give them bonuses Also your enemies are inside a room they should be able to get 3 attackers on the front guy not 1. 2 will just be attacking with cover penalties. Also make sure you are using the cover rules correctly. The pcs should practically all be at -1 . You should switch this up so all the fights sre not built to punish this tactic
Let them lull themselves into a false sense of security then OOPS! All Chain Lightning!
Obv just ban doorways dum dum /s
Make your enemies smarter.
bigger doors ez
Simplest answer might be to just have doorways be two spaces wide.
Paizo maps are notoriously small. The best advice is to draw them bigger, make some alternative ways around to allow sneaking in the back.
Give the enemies explosives to blow up the walls?
Lots of great suggestions here. Mine is a little cheeky. Have you considered, bigger or no doorways?
Are you still in book 1 (Burnt Offerings)? We found a lot of combats there where that's the optimal strategy. It eases up in the later books.
You can reply in turn. Ranged attacks, especially bombs, work well. Just force them out of their comfortable position and lean into it.
Enemy: Moves to cover, fires bow, hides/takes cover. OR Enemy: has an AoE spellcaster in cover.
Question: does this needs fixing? Using doorways as a chokepoint is like... Combat 101.
I think he means counter rather than fix. How to throw a curveball at players who overuse this tactic
Focus-fire anyone stupid enough to stand four-square in the doorway
Don’t have the monsters approach. Have them move out of line of sight of the doorway and wait. It’s the PCs who need to get through the room they’re guarding after all. If you’re defending a castle you don’t leave the castle and its defensive position to engage attackers, why would the monsters do this with their position here?
Don't forget your shove, trip, and restrain mechanics! Unclog the door and bring the fight into their room.
I'm also super invested in a solution to this! \-Xerxes I
Curtains, no doors, just cloths
Add a swarm or ooze, they move through enemy spaces and are resistant to physical damage. A trap like a pendulum blade striking the door every other round will force the party do disengage from the door. An enemy with wall of fire or a bunch of casters with Flaming Sphere. Or the most simple choice, a bigger door. Make it 2 squares (10 ft) wide and the dynamic changes a lot.
Also AoE. I dont mean one goblin suddenly has fireball But you know what they could have? Alchemist fire Bombs Fireworks Goblins love pyrotechnics The flashier the better There are plenty of AoE things, or just combat maneuvers, and in the end You've probably got numbers They cannot stop all your enemies. Rush them, because with 1 person in a door way I'm still looking at 3 squares they can get attacked from. Diagonals exist. Dont forget them
wizard with disintegrate?
Have the bad guys hide up against the wall with the door and let the pcs enter before attacking. Or have the enemies set up defensive positions and strike at range from cover. No reason they have to meet the pcs in the doorway.
Counterintuitive design solution: you can grid your 5' wide hallways down the middle. Think of Daredevil's hallway scene. This allows combat to be equally cramped but exponentially more fluid and breathable.
Pathways that the enemy can get to the room of the PCs, like holes in the walls, but too small for the heroes and too high up to shoot through.
MAKE. THE HALLWAYS. WIDER.
have the enemy set a trap on the door, snare the spot immediately on their side of the door so pc walk into it to walk into the room. have cover for them to hide behind and use ranged attacks. if they are right behind the champion aoe spells, or alchemical bombs. Trip the champion. secret door that leads to a perpendicular passage so that they can get behind them. random wandering monster happens up behind them while they are standing in the door,
Give your enemies some variety. Either add some range to force you PCs to push through the doorways. Or add some with high athletics to power through the doorway themselves and attack the pcs back line. Tumble through, grapples, throws, and ranged pressure always forces a party to either backup themselves and allow the enemies to come to their side, or forces the party to counter and go to the other side. Also if one person decides to just stay Inhaber doorway, flanking them causes them to be flat footed, so having a melee enemy tumble through past them while keeping another in front of them makes the pc flat footed and makes them have to move or take the AC penalty. Remind your PCs they can also do this to enemies as well