Wise Turtle Publishing

I've run my persona 4 story once before and noted that the players could tear through practically any enemy i threw at them. As a result I think my TVs were majorly off.

The players were using Shou, Auren, Daisuke and a custom made character whose TV was about 15. So the party had a TV of 62.

So i understand why they tore through Saspar (whom i threw in last minute) and my own created "World Balance", but without making them insurmountable walls how can i make combat tough but fun? as in order to make it "challenging" I'd need total threat values of 46, and making a single entity higher than 24 seems difficult to make plausible.

Also when making boss or Heroic NPCs, do i need to worry about weaknesses as much? as not many of the weaknesses seem applicable to the "World Balance" as it's not really a person, more a thing without personality. So the most it seems to get is -3 in both Bizarre Appearance and Awkward Size

How would you deal with this kind of situation?

Well, first, it's pretty easy to jump above 24 if you tack on a couple of the boss abilities, and Shadowman is already a TV 24 on his own.

Secondly, in a game like this, if you're interested in having singular, powerful foes at some point, you're pretty much going to have to buckle down and toss in a few damage mitigation Abilities somewhere or another- Armor, resistances, whatever.

If you’re set on making single villains being the sole entity of an encounter, you’re going to definitely need to pick up the Health Reserve and Extra Actions boss Abilities, and as R-90-2 said, it’s probably a good idea to be generous with damage mitigating Abilities like Armored.

But keep in mind you can throw in some minions to round out the fight. If Shadowman had four 5 TV bots accompanying him in battle, that’s already a 20 TV bonus to the encounter.

Also, don’t be afraid to tweak the villains on the fly. If Saspar gets toasted in one hit, there’s no reason not to activate the Health Reserve boss ability. You could even throw in some story bit where Acacia embraces him and gives him a passionate kiss, awakening some dark power and bringing him “back to life.” *cue “Bring Me to Life” anime music video.*

Clay wrote:*cue “Bring Me to Life” anime music video.*

I want my money back

*tosses his two cents at Joe Mello* That’s the going rate for an idea.