First, anyone in my campaign, dont bother reading further....some things were not meant for your eyes.....
Alright, here is the question:
How do you get the Picts to be effective in combat ? Even when ambushing players in armor, the Picts cant do much of anything. The lack of armor and the low AP weapons make it really difficult for the Picts to be effective in combat. The low level of the majority of the picts also makes it difficult to land a finesse hit with the hatchets.
Engaging in missle combat is even less fruitful due to the lack of finesse. The 1D8 hunting bows on average wont cut even light armor and helmits. Players are also usually better equipped with exotic bows.
An engagement the players fought (to my surprise - I thought they would run) slaughtered the Picts. In a meeting engagement starting at 90 feet, 20 Pict Barbarian-1 and 1 Barbarian-4 fought five 2nd level PCs. 10 of the Picts went down before a single Pc went down. This when the Pcs borked a lot of die rolls and used poor tactical choices. I was having the Picts flank, using the multiple opponents advantage and it did help some.
I suppose if some Picts had improved grapple, the numerical advantage would help. but none of them do (note: it would seem more logical to give the alligator tribe or bear tribe this...).
While you could even things up with the Picts luring players into traps, that is going to be pretty rare, at best.
You could use even more Picts, but that gets kind of silly. I suspect against armor using foes, the Picts should always finesse.
Mad Dog
Alright, here is the question:
How do you get the Picts to be effective in combat ? Even when ambushing players in armor, the Picts cant do much of anything. The lack of armor and the low AP weapons make it really difficult for the Picts to be effective in combat. The low level of the majority of the picts also makes it difficult to land a finesse hit with the hatchets.
Engaging in missle combat is even less fruitful due to the lack of finesse. The 1D8 hunting bows on average wont cut even light armor and helmits. Players are also usually better equipped with exotic bows.
An engagement the players fought (to my surprise - I thought they would run) slaughtered the Picts. In a meeting engagement starting at 90 feet, 20 Pict Barbarian-1 and 1 Barbarian-4 fought five 2nd level PCs. 10 of the Picts went down before a single Pc went down. This when the Pcs borked a lot of die rolls and used poor tactical choices. I was having the Picts flank, using the multiple opponents advantage and it did help some.
I suppose if some Picts had improved grapple, the numerical advantage would help. but none of them do (note: it would seem more logical to give the alligator tribe or bear tribe this...).
While you could even things up with the Picts luring players into traps, that is going to be pretty rare, at best.
You could use even more Picts, but that gets kind of silly. I suspect against armor using foes, the Picts should always finesse.
Mad Dog