Just my 2 cents but the main problems i found was that at levels 1-5 the dice roll completely over shadowed the character modifier. Then at 13+ the problem became the reverse where the dice roll became increasing irrelevant.
I went with the rather brutal hack of adding a level dependent value to the DC where needed to try and keep the lvl 6-12 balance between modifier and dice roll.
While not wanting to be sound like I'm minimizing your concerns: your personal choice to not use monsters as written is a choice you (and others) make; with the consequence of having to do more work. It would be unfair to blame the game for this. Pragmatically speaking - the work was alreayd done for you - you opted to change it. The game designers did put in handy tools to help you know what and how often things scale as you change them (a BIG advantage over trying to advance creatures in 2nd edition) but you still have to do the math. Simply opting to use the monster as written would mitigate much of the hassle I'm thinking. Its like people who choose to buy an SUV and then complain about how much money they're spending on gas....
While I don't like being compared to an SUV owner ;) I take no umbrage with your statements - since they are correct! It is my choice to stat up more powerful versions of familiar monsters. I do like doing it but it got to be quite a headache remembering the BAB progression for outsiders vs. giants and what good saves undead & monsterous humanoids have. Dragons were always the easiest - they're awesome at everything!
I think one of the things game designers/publisher can do - is provide three columns of stat blocks for most scaleable creatures. Say for instance the Winter Wolf: Have the standard CR 4 version, but include a CR2 and a CR6 version as well. That provides an exponential amount of other options for DMs easily. Also, if someone need the wolf to be CR8, they can just look at the difference between the CR4 and the CR6 and double the differences.
That wouldn't be a terrible idea (I actually liked it in MM4 & 5 with the extra classed drow, hobgoblin etc entries) but, imo, would be better off in a 'Rogue's Gallery' style book where that is all it was - re-CR'ed versions of monsters already in the MM.
Robert,
How can we convince you to share your Excel monster advancing tool? :D
Thanks,
Sigil
Yeah! I'd love to see that too!
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At levels 1-2, a wizard spends too much time firing a crossbow and not enough time using magic.
Though there are those of us out here who like this aspect, limited magic is a challenge, you grow to power, it makes the wait worthwhile. Why do we have to have a world where you get it all now? Less challenge is less a sense of achievement.
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I agree, Minions are a great addition. But I figured that most DMs had already figured out that adding tons of dangerous cannon fodder really livens an otherwise dull encounter. Say your party has 6 PCs and is fighting a single bad guy 4 or more levels higher thatn the party's level. Given the asymetry of the numbers, and unless the bad guy has an encounter ending ability (Cloud Kill on 1st level charaters, Gating in a Balor, etc.), it's really easy for the party to gang up. But adding other threats, even easily defeatable ones, gives the main bad guy a few unmolested rounds to do his worst before the PCs waste him.
True - but a common problem was always that either you a) added fodder that could just easily be ignored (attaks, saves etc were never high enough to really be concerned with, OR you up with a TPK because in order to make the fodder actually be somewhat of a threat - their hps and such are good enough to let them hang around too long to be easily dispatched. not to mention all those extra rolls etc seeemed to drag on combat.
For me, it took me actually watching a play session of the 4E to ever fully "get it" for the minions. I wondered how I could make it 3.5 compaible so I designed a creature template - like those you see in the MM (i figured templates are a common practice in D&D and so this would fit nicely and be backwards compatible) that allows for creatures to still be a thorn and be dangerous - but not deadly, not hang around more than a couple rounds, and eliminate a lot of the dice rolling by setting a fixed amount of damage etc to speed things up - for creatures that aren't suppose to survive anyways.
I'll be playtesting the template for the first time in an actual game at my next game i'm running Sat 28th. A Stone Giant Barbarian warlord and 8 Stone Giant minions. (for 6 12th level PCs.)
Robert
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Though there are those of us out here who like this aspect, limited magic is a challenge, you grow to power, it makes the wait worthwhile. Why do we have to have a world where you get it all now? Less challenge is less a sense of achievement.
Are you kidding? I wont pretend to know what country you live in, but here in America - EVERYTHING is "must have it now"
Instant Coffee, Instant Credit, Minute Rice, On demand television and movies, Satellite Radio, TiVO, StripMalls, FastTrax Bridge-toll passes, hell even instant marriage and divorce in Reno!
On a more serious note: there are games for that style, too. Midnight, and Ravenloft come to mind.
Me, personally, I love both of those settings for the challenges and the flavor. But generally when I game, I do it to have fun - if I wanted grueling tasks and challengs, i'd pick up a second job. I want to play, to have fun, and I want to do fun things, not sit and wait. Otherwise people are just going to turn on the nintendo or latest MMO fad.
Robert
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Yeah! I'd love to see that too!Robert,
How can we convince you to share your Excel monster advancing tool? :D
Thanks,
Sigil
I don't have it with me here at work. I do have it at home. When I get there, I can email it you if you want it.
Send me an email at
SirKicley(at)yahoo(dot)com
to request it, and I'll respond and send that to you.
Robert
Lisa, what was frustrating you so much? The number of options available? The adjudication of complicated rules? spells? Astronomical numbers?...Hey y'all:
My biggest beef with 3.5 is high level play also. I ran my Shackled City campaign until 16th level and it actually had me in tears at one point I was so frustrated.
-LisaI have to second this.
Can't work up a solution without knowing exactly what the problem is.
Is it:
1) Creating high-level NPCs?
2) Creating engaging scenarios that are immune to high-level game-breakers? (Scry-Buff-Teleport, Find the Path, Commune, Resurrection)?
3) High level combat? (Save or die? Buffs and debuffs?)
And finally-- is it safe to say that most of the problems with high level play are on the DM side of the screen?
Can't speak for Lisa, but I have not enjoyed play past 12th as either player or GM (player in SCAP, GM in AoW). We abandoned SCAP at 15th and AoW at 17th. RotRL was a little better (I was the GM) but still became less and less enjoyable past 12th.
Reasons:
The preparation time burden is very high. Also, the modules suffer (this was painfully clear in RotRL #6) because each stat block is so huge, you don't have room for much else.
Play bogs down horribly, with battles routinely, in our hands, taking 10 hours or more (over several sessions). And they are not entertaining in proportion to the time they take. Also, both player and GM felt obliged to do inordinate amounts of pre-combat bookkeeping. For the battle which caused us to abandon SCAP, the PC pre-battle took me (single player, 6 PCs) 1.5 hours, and took the GM 2 hours. The game was *nothing* like fun enough to justify that. Note that this wasn't NPC design time or PC level-up time: it was making tables of bonuses!
Combat often seems to resemble rock/scissors/paper. Either you guessed the specific attack or defense correctly in advance, in which case the fight is an anticlimax, or you didn't, in which case it's a TPK. There seems to be increasingly little room for in-combat cleverness.
Too many combats are settled by the initiative rolls. This was killer in our RttToEE campaign and also in City of the Spider Queen, and was also a problem in all of the Paizo APs. It was quite common for some PCs to have *no* meaningful actions in a fight; either they were already dead or the fight was already over before their initiative count.
Broken spells increase in number and become more and more dominant in play. I have the impression that the v3.5 spells were vetted fairly carefully through 5th but not beyond. There are high-level spells where I'm not even clear how they *work*, much less convinced that they are balanced.
The power curve of optimized and non-optimized characters (particularly, splatbook and Core characters) diverges more and more until having both in the same game is an exercise in frustration. And the modules suffer from this, too, because if they are correct for one they are wrong for the other, and the discrepancy becomes huge by 12th level.
Mary
I enjoy most campaigns up to 15th level or so. At 12th, you've finally hit your stride as a truly competent professional; a few levels' worth of that is nice to have, especially when following a PrC that took you 11 levels just to get into. After 15th, there are too many options, too many buff spells, and everything gets a bit comic book-y for my taste; the characters are like gods compared to everyone around them, so you have to challenge them with really horrific monsters, which then either wipe them out or die...
So my biggest issue is this: past 15th level or so, all you're doing at that point is rolling dice and slogging it out. The seemingly divine powers most characters of 16th+ level wield means that environmental factors are no longer noticeable, terrain is a joke because they're all flying, and traps are a waste of your time. The PCs don't have to get along in a society, because they can destroy whole cities. Pretty much ALL you can do is just throw more and bigger monsters at them. And that gets really boring, really quickly, because the RP aspect of the game drops in direct proportion. And THAT's what I hate the most about high-level play: it's generally BORING.
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...After 15th, there are too many options, too many buff spells, and everything gets a bit comic book-y for my taste; the characters are like gods compared to everyone around them, so you have to challenge them with really horrific monsters, which then either wipe them out or die...
This lines up pretty well with my own experience, although just before 3.5 came out I did run a game that started at 15 and ran through 19 or 20 that was tons of fun. That was before most of the 3.5 splatbooks, however, which made a lot of difference because the min-max options were more limited. It helped that the spell-casters were selfish with their buffs, but things ran remarkably smoothly (except for when the cleric figured out the old harm-hasted attack trick, which 3.5 thankfully nerfed). I'm actually really interested to see how some of the Alpha changes - fly skill, wildshape, fewer save-or-die - affect this.
Maybe I'll do a recreation of that group as a little playtest ...
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EDIT 1: To give just one example of one thing I think could be done to make high-level play less onerous: Limit the number of "buff spells" a person can have on him to 3 or 4. Makes it easier to track, makes it easier to handle dispel magic attempts, and I suspect it'll add an interesting tactical element to combat preparation.
We taken to using homemade Buff Cards in our group. Individual buff cards (eg Cat's Grace) are held by the players who received them, and party buff cards (eg Elation) are displayed on stands around the battlemap that everyone can read. I'm redoing the cards to colorcode the buff bonus types (enhancement, luck, morale, etc).
This makes it pretty easy to quickly add up all the applicable buffs to any attack, damage, save or skill rolls.
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i must be an exception.
I've run high-level adventures and my PCs have loved them. I never was totally put out and we even ran an epic battle (actually pre-epic, ~levels 17-19) at the gates of a Shade-controlled Iriaebor, complete with land, air, and even underground battles.
And....the PCs then fought a Slaad Lord near Silverymoon.
And...they did a scry an fry on a chosen of the yuan-ti god.
And...they survived a highlevel assassination attempt by githyanki as a prelude to the Githyanki wars.
Then one of them got deployed and another moved away...the game is in deep freeze.
However, I do like what I see so far to be able to extend play at both low and high-levels. My personal beefs are the cheat spells (teleport, find the path, scry, etc) that can ruin a plot or story. Hopefully, those will be addressed.
There are two main areas of combat slow-down that increase with character level:
1)- The number of checks per combatant per round.
2)- The amount of booking needed per combatant.
Since the eyes will roll back in my head if I try to break down the booking-keeping, I'll instead project the number of checks needed per round.
AVERAGE NUMBER of CHECKS per ROUND:
Assumptions:
- 4-character party with a fighter, cleric, wizard and rogue up against another such group.
- On average, each character is making 1 skill check per round: Acrobatics, Stealth or Perception, Concentration/Discipline/Spellcraft. This shouldn't really increase too much with level.
- Characters will use Full Attacks (or whatever their most damaging specialty is) each round. Casters can cause anywhere from 1 to all 4 enemies require a saving throw.
Levels 1-5: 16 to 32+ checks per round
- Combatants can make only a single attack (two with the TWF or Rapid Shot).
- Spells that can target multiple creatures are soon exhausted.
- Summoned creatures are weak and don't stick around long.
Levels 6 & 7: 20 to 36+
- The fighters gain an extra attacks.
- Summoned creatures stick around longer and there is a good chance either the rogue or fighter is dual-wielding by now.
Level 8 - 10: 28 to 44+
- The clerics and rogues gain their 2nd attacks.
- Casters can force all enemies to save with regularity.
- Summoned creatures have 2nd attacks (if not multiple natural attacks), and its reasonable to expect each side has at least one such creature present for the entire encounter (some of which may require caster-level checks to penetrate spell resistance).
- Improved critical becomes available to the fighters and characters are high enough level to afford +1 keen weapons. While not requiring extra checks, increased chances of criticals slow down damage resolution.
Level 11-14: 38 to 54+
- The fighters gain their 3rd attacks and even the Wizard gets 2 (though they'll still stick to spells).
- By now, its safe to assume each side has either two TWF characters or someone with Improved TWF.
- Casters can easily go an entire encounter without running out of spells that force the entire enemy party to make saving throws.
- Two summoned creatures per side (each with multiple attacks) is a very real possibility and Spell Resistance is becoming more common. There's an increasing chance of spell-like abilities on their part but not enough to affect the average yet.
- Maybe a couple times per encounter, casters on each side cast 2 spells per round using Quicken Spell, but those much weaker spells and the infrequency isn't enough to increase the average checks per round noticably.
- The cleric and rogue can take Improved Critical now.
15th: 48 to 64+
- Everyone but the wizard now has 3 attacks per round.
- Casters are high enough level now to use quickened spell fairly frequently.
- Summoned creatures have 3 attacks and spell-like abilities that can force everyone in the enemy party to save at least a couple times during combat.
- Let's say either one caster uses a Quickened spell or one summon uses an SLA that forces the enemy party to save each round.
16th+: 52 to 68+
- All characters now have the maximum number of attacks per round.
- If multiple characters don't have TWF then it's safe to say the mix of characters with varying investments in the TWF tree has given another additional attack to at least one character per side.
- The chance that Spell Resistance will have to be checked, that one or more casters use quickened spells or have summons use SLAs (that force all enemies to save) keeps increasing the upper threshold of the number of checks that are required each round.
Observations:
- At lower levels the number of checks will trend towards the lower end of the above ranges.
- As levels increase, the more saves and caster level checks that need to be made increases the likelihood of the average trending higher in each range.
- Summoned creatures greatly increase this factor since they effectively inflate the number of combatants.
- As level increases, the number of die rolls needed after a spell or attack succeeds increases: sneak attacks, energy enchantments on multiple weapon attacks, spell damage dice based on caster level.
- While a mass-damage spell may require only rolling damage once, iterative attacks require that step to be taken multiple times.
- As level increases, the size of the numbers people are adding and subtracting grow increasingly larger which is a problem for the mathematically challenge (not to mention the increased chance of multiplication due to criticals).
- At low levels, less book-keeping is needed before action can move on to the next player.
- By higher levels, multiplying increased book-keeping by the number of checks that are required, it can take many times longer than an entire round of lower-level combat before it is Your turn again.
- It hurt my brain even trying to consider all the possible checks that are likley to be needed each round. :P
Honestly, for speeding up the game play, a lot of it can be traced to character sheets. I've been in a game from 1 through 34 over 9 years. Several years ago, I sat down and designed a character sheet that had entries for every possible modifier for that feature (i.e. a listing for my typical will save but also a ____ space for morale, sacred, enhancement, etc.) For every weapon, for every save, for every attack maneuver... I wrote out how each rule worked in the place I needed it, rather than just listing the page number.
The sheet was 17 pages and it took me a day to create it.
But it's served me well for years. It's instantly comprehensible. And anyone can use my epic level character.
And I play a raging, frenzied, buffing caster/fighter with power attack FAST.
I think that a lot of players play with ad hoc sheets with things scribbled in the margins or without crystal clear info on where bonuses come from and how commonly-used tactics work in the rules.
Those are the players who take forever.
Edit: For example, I can't believe it when the players of clerics have to look up turning in the PhB. Put it on your character sheet, man!
There are two main areas of combat slow-down that increase with character level:
1)- The number of checks per combatant per round.
2)- The amount of booking needed per combatant.
Etc....
I like your analysis.
Maybe my conclusions are wrong, but the Savings Throws as Defense and limiting attacks iterative would solve most of these issues. Each player's turn you make one skill check , one move and one attack. Somehow the rules should give you more choices, and presumably a bigger damage/effect, as to you go up in level. But still one skill chekc, one move and one attack ( or just one full round action).
Maybe not make it mandatory, but the rules should make it possible to play that way. Instead, the 3.5 rules seem to make it that you have to play with a lot of dice rolling.
I'm not experienced enough with high level game play, but considering the extreme differences in experience I'm seeing in this thread I hope we can get some hard transparent data out on the table.
CEO
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I have a few questions for the contributors of this thread: (the answers to them may help generate feedback and ideas to resolving various pieces of the whole)
Lisa, what was frustrating you so much? The number of options available? The adjudication of complicated rules? spells? Astronomical numbers?
Psychotic Warrior (and others); what is so time-consuming about the game planning that you're speaking about? Was it NPC design? Scaling monsters to APL? LOOKING for the right creature? Was it all due to combat prep - or just stroy-writing?
Lisa, is this the reason that the new Pathfinder APs are geared towards about 15th level - where-as the previous three APs went to 20?
Hey Robert:
Part of my problem is that I don't have a lot of high level experience. As a matter of fact, 16th level is the highest level of PC that I have ever had. So a lot of the rules, spells, feats, etc. were really new to me. Couple that with having the audacity to run a large mass combat with over 20 high-level NPCs as my campaign finale, and I was probably doomed from the beginning. :)
But to be more precise in my answer, one of the problems was the astronomical numbers. I had a ranger archer who could hit pretty much any of my NPCs by not rolling a 1. And he got like 5 or 6 shots a round, more if he used the Many Shot feat. And of course he had the holy flaming wounding strength bow of super awesomeness. Oh and don't forget some feat from some splatbook that allowed him to avoid cover penalties or things like displacement.
And that was just one super powered PC. And I actually LIMIT magic in my campaign. My magic shops only have a small number of constantly churning items available at any time, so it isn't like my PCs are able to just buy anything from any WotC book that they want. And they still were almost impossible to challenge.
Another thing was trying to think strategically for the NPCs. I kept running into scenarios where I thought I had thought through all the variables, only to have the PCs pull some spell or magic item out that made my whole strategy moot, or worse, remind me of some obscure rule. And of course, that makes my NPCs look really stupid when they do dumb stuff like that. Running a high level PC is hard enough, but running a whole cadre of high level NPCs is almost a nightmare because they have so many options, but usually aren't as optimized as the PCs are, so many times they seem like pushovers.
The whole buff, dispel, recalculate and repeat problem also is a huge problem. We had PCs that had 15 to 20 spells running on them at any time. Sometimes they even threw multiples of some spells in case the dispels got one of them. And of course, some of the players didn't have a complete list, so they are sitting there, "Oh yeah, you threw barkskin on me, right?" and then somebody would yell out "Don't forget the Prayer I cast three rooms ago" or whatever. It was just a bloody mess.
I really don't have a problem with the NPCs and monsters because I use our Adventure Paths and all that work is already done for me. I have always been a DM who almost exclusively uses and modifies published modules for my game.
Btw, combat prep for that final mass battle took me an entire weekend and I still felt underprepared for that final battle, with notes and index cards flying everywhere during the game!
As for why our APs are going to 15 or so now, the problems with high level are part of the reason. James also wanted the story to dictate what level we go to and not some artificial number that was preset before the story was figured out. We also heard from our customers that many of them loved the APs but were dropping the stories before their conclusion because of high level frustrations.
So there are a few of my thoughts. It probably isn't conclusive, but it is a start.
-Lisa
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Lisa,
I can't address all of your concerns with high level play, but I think I have a couple bits of advice that have helped me even in the morass of epic games.
First: Occasionally do "character audits" for the PC's If nothing else, it allows you to become more familiar with what your PCs are packing in terms of fire power. The bit about your ranger PC getting 5-6 attacks per round and hitting with many of them sets off warning bells for me. People often make mistakes with regards to high level characters and the system usually corrects itself once the PC's are corrected. Some people may balk or get offended, but when you point out to them that it's to enhance their gameplay few press the point.
Second: Occasionally ask for copies of the character sheets just so you know target numbers. Don't assume monster x will be able to grapple the fighter, clearing the way for NPC Y to target the caster, until you see how the fighter is built. Also, you may think this monster's ST's are good enough to resist the casters spells and may be dead wrong. Etc
Third: Avoid large numbers of high level NPC's at all costs (unless Paizo stated them out for you :-)) as figuring the various tactics each would employ is devilishly tricky. Remeber, the PC's have a lot more free time to engineer tactics for their characters than you have for monsters/npcs. Less is more.
Sincerely not trying to come across as prideful DM,
FP
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CEO
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Lisa,
I can't address all of your concerns with high level play, but I think I have a couple bits of advice that have helped me even in the morass of epic games.
First: Occasionally do "character audits" for the PC's If nothing else, it allows you to become more familiar with what your PCs are packing in terms of fire power. The bit about your ranger PC getting 5-6 attacks per round and hitting with many of them sets off warning bells for me. People often make mistakes with regards to high level characters and the system usually corrects itself once the PC's are corrected. Some people may balk or get offended, but when you point out to them that it's to enhance their gameplay few press the point.
Second: Occasionally ask for copies of the character sheets just so you know target numbers. Don't assume monster x will be able to grapple the fighter, clearing the way for NPC Y to target the caster, until you see how the fighter is built. Also, you may think this monster's ST's are good enough to resist the casters spells and may be dead wrong. Etc
Third: Avoid large numbers of high level NPC's at all costs (unless Paizo stated them out for you :-)) as figuring the various tactics each would employ is devilishly tricky. Remeber, the PC's have a lot more free time to engineer tactics for their characters than you have for monsters/npcs. Less is more.
Sincerely not trying to come across as prideful DM,
FP
Hey Forgottenprince:
Thanks for your thoughts and advice. I have actually done audits (there was one player in particular in my last campaign who almost always made his characters more powerful than they should be).
I have asked for copies of character sheets also, but since I mostly used published adventures, it is less useful than if I was making an adventure from scratch. I do buff up the NPCs to make them more of a challenge as needed and am not hesitant to replace spells on the fly to make the game more fun.
As for large numbers of high level NPCs in a fight, that will NEVER happen again. We had THREE combat pads going to keep track of all the initiatives! Yikes! I really wanted a second DM for that fight, but couldn't find anybody to step in for a couple of weeks.
-Lisa
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Not sure where the idea saves as defense is faster comes from, but either one is a die roll vs. a DC. I don't find rolling to hit faster than rolling a save.
I'd hope Pathfinder keeps saves as they are - it puts avoiding the effects of a power in the PCs hands, which makes the player feel more in control of what happens to them.
Part of my problem is that...
Lisa has described my pain well.
To summarize as a point list-1- In combat, it is hard to challenge MinMaxed PC's.
2- Out of combat, it is hard to challenge PC's because of powerful spells that subvert the plot.
3- In combat, magic items adds another level of swingyness.
4- In combat, buff spells add tracking requirements.
5- In combat, iterative attacks slow play and make combat swingy. (Last rd 50 hp dmg, this rd no damage.)
6- In combat, hard for DM to run several NPC's well since NPC's are 'complex' at high level.
7- Most (is that word too strong?) DM's have less experience with high level play so all other high level problems become worse.
And I add:
8- In combat, powerful spells are save-or-die.
9- Few companies beside Paizo seem to make strong high level adventures. (I am a shameless, brown noser)
As I write this list it occurs to me that Jason is adressing these to one degree or another. Second, I understand the 4e design team temptation to completely revamp combat. This revamp has probably caused a lot of angst that 4e is all about combat. But I know the PfRPG is going to find a better reverse compatible solution. (Did I mention I am shameless?)
First: Occasionally do "character audits" for the PC's If nothing else, it allows you to become more familiar with what your PCs are packing in terms of fire power. FP
I highly second. While running AoW, I made use of the the initiative cards from the Game Mechanics. They were great for quick reference to important PC stats. Periodically updating the cards allowed to mentally update myself on the PCs and ask questions about anything that did not seem right.
Now, for my input into high level games, I have run two games recently into the 20+ range. Prep time can be a pain, but the only real problem I ran into is the slow down in combat. I try to avoid using more opponents than double the number of PCs, just because it drastically slows the game down. I will will break this rule if the opponents are simple to run or meant to be used as a speed bump and not major opposition (such as a horde of skeletons).
Even with any tweaks made to the system, it might be worth while to include a sidebar in the final book to offer some helpful advice in running a high level encounter for new DMs.
I've been thinking about why I enjoyed GMing RotRL more than AoW, even though we went to nearly the same level.
One problem (someone else mentioned this too) with AoW at high level was that so many things didn't matter because the PCs were all flying all the time, and always (unless dispelled) immune to fear, poison, disease, death magic, and illusions. A lot of the monster abilities, traps, and terrain were irrelevant.
There is a beautiful underground waterfall in _A Gathering of Winds_ with detailed rules for climbing down it, but of course the PCs didn't do that. There are rooms with compex terrain and interesting traps, but the PCs whooshed through. My player ended up blah and unengaged by a module which had read fairly well. He just wasn't interacting with the interesting stuff.
Astral/etherial scouting, a necessity at high levels, messes with the dramatic pacing. You get all the room descriptions at once, with no events; then all the events at once, with no room descriptions. It isn't as much fun as regular exploration. Long-range teleport and similar spells destroy, for us, the sense of place. Longshadow wasn't at an exotic distant local, it was a hop, skip and a jump from home base. Without travel, you never get much feel for the area.
But most of all, the timing of the buffs meant that the player (to avoid having to come back day after day to the same dungeon, which strains our suspension of disbelief) worked out tactics for moving through encounters very, very fast. He also didn't like to be interrupted once the buffs were up, because the memory burden, even with heavy notes, was so high. So in our hands, high-level play was a mad scramble between one encounter (known in advance due to scouting) and the next, with no real space for description, negotiation, roleplay, looting (he'd loot everything after the foes were all dead), or anything else.
It was *boring* to run compared to the lower levels, where I could get in-character reactions from him.
Basically, a lot of the color bled out of the game.
In RotRL we banned spells right and left. In particular we banned all movement magic above expeditious retreat and spider climb: no levitate, fly, teleport. We banned all extraplanar travel, too, so no astral or etherial scouting or shadow walk. (This was negotiated between player and GM, not imposed by the GM; the player was sick of them too.)
This made high level play a *lot* more interesting. I was still seeing some roleplay all the way up to (though not, alas, including) the final attack on Upper Xin-Shalast. We might best have stopped there--the fight against the BBG was an anticlimax which took far longer to prep than to run--but it's the first time we've reached the end of an AP with a still-playable game.
For CotCT the GM (player of the previous game) put back some heavily weakened movement magic, but the PCs have none. We are also capping play at 12th. One thing I'm noticing is that the pseudodragons really shine, as they can naturally fly; druidic shapeshift is also a much bigger deal than before. The Sable Company shines, too. You have to be more careful as GM with flying monsters, though.
Much as I squirm to admit it, this is one thing I think 4th got exactly right. The game's more interesting when it has terrain. Fly destroys much of the impact of local terrain, and Teleport, the impact of large-scale terrain.
Mary
Not sure where the idea saves as defense is faster comes from, but either one is a die roll vs. a DC. I don't find rolling to hit faster than rolling a save.
As players, everyone makes a separate savings throw. Admittedly hopefully they are doing it simultaneously but someone is always slow to react. (Chris, I said make a Saving Throw!) Add to that the, 'Did you remember the buff spell conversations?' As a DM I now have to make five savings throws for five orcs. (This is part of why I like my computer, one click, three orcs are dead.)
I am not saying all weaknesses must be removed. But we should understand the strengths and weakness of what we decide on. And if we always decide on the side of 'slow rules' because we like them individually, we should expect a slower game.
I also like the current Savings Throw rules. But I am considering house ruling it out because I want the game to flow. I also like a stick shift in my car. But I understand it makes it harder to eat at the drive through.
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Even with any tweaks made to the system, it might be worth while to include a sidebar in the final book to offer some helpful advice in running a high level encounter for new DMs.
Seconded, but I'd say even as a DM who runs epic on a regular basis I would like to get some of Paizo's staff's tips and tricks for high level play.
To Lisa:
The assistent DM you've mentioned is another wonderful idea, it helps alot to have someone looking up rules, answering easy question etc. I just can't imagine running that combat scenrio without one. If we have an Iron DM contest, you're getting one vote.
As for rewriting encounters, I would recommend it for the BBEG if your PC's are regularly surpising you. I just completed the Skinsaw murders using PRPG Alpha 3 (after the bar exam I'll be picking back up and hope to regularly make reports for Beta) and I altered both the Skinsaw man (trying to avoid spoilers here) as well as the last BBEG in that adventure to really challenge the 6 PC's. The Combat Maneuver system really made the Skinsaw fight more interesting and the fact my PC's actually provoked an ambush while trying to lure the BBEG out. Had I not rewritten them (a little before and a little on the spot) I don't think they would have enjoyed it as much.
FP
At the higher levels we use a lot of GMing aids: a detailed initiative chart, detailed PC-buff charts, and the GM converts each monster into a summary form for maximum speed of reference.
That doesn't, in our hands, make high-level play fun. It just makes it possible.
I think of the next-to-last fight in SCAP here. The enemy had gotten tired of the PCs' wasp stings and sprung a scry/buff/teleport on them. They didn't bring enough people, and they lost. But the fight moved like molasses, even with careful charting. To start with, as I wasn't expecting the attack, we had to stop play and work out that day's long-duration buff chart, then modify it each round for the short-duration buffs. Then we put a Black Tentacles into a mass of foes, so were rolling grapple checks for many targets every round, plus more grapple checks on the foes' initiatives. The enemy summoned some grappling creatures, leading to more grapple checks. Both sides cast dispel magic, with the usual slowdown consequences--the foes were fully buffed, so that took 10+ rolls per NPC per dispel.
It took two sessions. It wasn't anything like interesting enough, tactically, to take two sessions. But we have not found any GM or player aid that gets high-level combat down to a reasonable length.
The campaign-abandoning fight went 14 hours and left me in tears. It was a busy time in my life and I'd hacked and scrabbled to make time for roleplaying, but instead it was a gruelling exercise in bookkeeping, and it was decided by bookkeeping errors on my part. I blew 14 precious hours for zero enjoyment. My PCs finally confronted their father, and I was so burned out by the mechanics that I had no sense at all of their emotional reactions--he was just another monster to kill. Part of this was due to playing too-long sessions (two seven hour sessions)--I'm too old to keep alert for that long. But having the fight take four or five sessions, yucch.
You wouldn't want a fight like that to take four or five chapters in a novel--it destroys the pacing.
Both sides could have reached a gentleman's agreement not to buff, but it really cuts into my sense that the PCs and NPCs are real people doing their best to win--why are they avoiding an obviously essential tactic?
For our group, fudging the rules at high level just leads rapidly to player disengagement, for similar reasons--it just doesn't feel real. We'd actually do better to abstract away all the fights. (We talked about doing that for SCAP, but just gave up instead.)
Mary
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Not sure where the idea saves as defense is faster comes from, but either one is a die roll vs. a DC. I don't find rolling to hit faster than rolling a save.As players, everyone makes a separate savings throw. Admittedly hopefully they are doing it simultaneously but someone is always slow to react. (Chris, I said make a Saving Throw!) Add to that the, 'Did you remember the buff spell conversations?' As a DM I now have to make five savings throws for five orcs. (This is part of why I like my computer, one click, three orcs are dead.)
Turning that around, as a DM you make 5 saves for 5 orcs, fast. The player would need to make 5 attacks against the 5 orcs, slower (more communication needed to resolve the sequence).
I don't think you'll find a significant speed-up from saves as defense - and that's from running a lot of 4E. It wouldn't shock me if trying to pay attention to it made it seem subjectively faster or slower, though.
I never had a problem with the whole ' sweet spot' idea. In my mind each level area had its strengths and weaknesses. Also, I did not see the magic/psi wielding classes as overpowered considering the philosophy behind them IMO. They are weak in the beginning where the brute strength/skill of other classes made those classes stand out. At higher levels the mystic classes rev up the power and become more versatile and that is ok. Why? well in our species was it not our minds and technology that set us apart from the faster, stronger, tougher animals on the planet? So it goes with magic. The balance for that in a game world ought to be that not everyone has the ability to gather to such great heights of magic For example, how many game world people have 14+ intelligence, and how many of them become mages? The answer should be not very many, and definitely not all at the same time.
I think what it really comes down to is game balance and how much detail the DM wishes to give the players in terms of combat abilities etc?
To throw PCs into a melee at 20+ level the same way they did at first level is just a mistake in my mind, and it creates problems that many people have commented on for years. Such battles should be few and far between on a campaign world such that they are indeed 'epic' or worthy of legend. It may be more fitting to face such characters with other non-combat oriented challenges more often.
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I've run two games that went to 15th level and 17th level, respectively. Here are my thoughts on how we can make the system better.
1) High level NPCs are hard to build, and last very little time. And in that time, the DM needs to know what to do with them. Either in the Bestiary Book, or as a Web resource, offer templates like 'Fighter 5' that can be added to a race or existing monster or character, complete with pre-chosen feats, skills, spells, etc., and tactics laid out. This would also be useful for players who want to play a pre-generated character without making choices over skills, feats, or other minutae.
2) See if you can romance Janik at DMGenie (www.dmgenie.com) to support Pathfinder. I cannot stress enough how simple his program is for referencing spells, feats, and monsters on the fly. And his program is open enough that users can code new monsters, npcs, spells, magic items, conditions, etc.
3) Put tactics for more monsters in your Bestiary Book. These are very helpful paragraphs in your Adventure Path stats.
Turning that around, as a DM you make 5 saves for 5 orcs, fast. The player would need to make 5 attacks against the 5 orcs, slower (more communication needed to resolve the sequence).
I don't think you'll find a significant speed-up from saves as defense - and that's from running a lot of 4E. It wouldn't shock me if trying to pay attention to it made it seem subjectively faster or slower, though.
Maybe I have not read the rules right. I thought the player made one attack, say rolling a modified 17. Then anything in the areas of effect with a defense of 17 or lower takes damage. So he rolls five times against the five orcs? Likewise the enemy would attack the party once and the players are told, he hits anybody with AC 17 or lower.
I thought the 4e idea was one roll resolves the effect? For example in a related area, one roll determines critical without a critical confirmation and no extra rolling of damage dice. You just maximize damage. I am not advocating this rule either, but I thought that was the 4e design philosophy.
And I am not advocating that exact design philosphy, I am just saying it would be nice to speed things up in PfRPG.
EDIT: I just read the rule in 4e. It says multiple attack rolls but one damage roll. I guess I took the concept too far. And you are right it would be swingy. But I still think that five attack rolls by one person is faster than five different people making five Savings Throws. Faster but probably not worth it. And you beat me to the post anyways. Enough thread jacking.
I'm afraid that I am probably gonna be horribly mistaken on this one. Let me preface my point by saying the last adventure I gm'd was in 1998 and it was the culmination of a three year Birthright campaign. I have never played 3.0, 3.5, or 4e. My players were never well versed on the rules (thankfully!) and I never made use of any of the available splat books. I have in ten years of being a gm never run a published module. I've always developed my own plots in games from Dragonlance, to Rifts, to Dark Sun, to Shatterzone. Recently I discovered Pathfinder and I am planning my first campaign in ten years. I've been hedging on what rule system to use so I'm on the fence until Beta hits the shelves. I refuse to read a PDF. Now to my point.... maybe I was a stingy jerk who barely dribbled out experience points but I remember PCs undergoing a multitude of sessions before ever raising levels. It was nigh impossible for one of my players to crest 10th level. I'm amazed when I read....oh this adventure will bring your character from level 1-3. Leveling was always a sacred rare moment in any of my campaigns. I guess my point is if there is some sweet spot between levels 6-12 where the game is much more enjoyable why not boost the amount of experience needed to achieve advancement. Keep players longer in the fun range. I know the likely argument is that players want to advance and need to advance rapidly to feel rewarded for playing. I read someone’s argument on here that we (America) is a "need it now" society but maybe instead of rewarding players with ridiculous feats where they can skip they're way through every obstacle maybe they can be rewarded with more fluff driven bonuses. My players were much more concerned with the success of their caravan venture across the desert, or the opening of their own inn, or the day to day operations of their border keep then they were concerned with +2 bonuses.
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A couple of suggestions, more or less off the top of my head:
1) Dispel magic: buff/debuff/buff cycles are a repeated theme on the list of high-level play problems. Is it worth thinking about changing how dispelling works to speed up this element? For instance, rather than taking down, more or less at random, a whole slew of spells, what if dispel magic allowed you to specifically target one spell and cancel it, guaranteed? That way, everybody keeps most of their buffs up, which produces the same general effect as the way things were before, but with much less round-by-round bookkeeping, while simultaneously giving some tactical considerations to the dispelling caster.
2) Spell durations: To simplify calculation, I'd suggest that buff spells should have durations calculated in minutes, at least, and I might even go as high as 10 min/level on them. Make it so a single casting will last through several encounters in a row, so recalculations aren't necessary at the beginning of every fight.
3) Stacking: This is only a numbers thing, and I'm already seeing some movement in this direction in the Alpha (thinking specifically of divine power here), but rather than limiting total numbers of buffs, why not consolidate bonus types, so they don't stack as well? We've got enhancement, size, morale, luck, haste, sacred, profane, and who knows what else, plus of course untyped bonuses as well - couldn't some limiting be achieved just by making these bonuses share more types, and thus unstackable?
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Just wrapped up a 15th level campaign. We're moving to 4E at the request of the players, all of whom are DnD players from 1E. It's primarily because of the reasons listed in this thread. And btw, most of them are familiar with the "yucks" of 4e and are still interested to at least try it. Nothing they saw in the PFrpg "fixes" these issues from what we could tell.
Off the top of my head let me list the general stuff that made the game less enjoyable. Many of these I'm sure are covered above -- I just jumped to the end of the thread:
1) We'd get maybe 2 combats in a night. Sometimes just 1.
2) Buffing prior to any "big" battle typically took 10+ minutes of discussion.
3) I'd normally ignore anything that wasn't the "1/day" ability for a monster - they'd normally not get a chance to use other things so may as well blow their big guns.
4) At least 1 PC would be taken completely out of a combat in some fashion every other game. Whether it was from SoD, Power Words, Reverse Gravity (one of my favorites) or some other condition. Off to the 360!
5) I would routinely modify monster hit points on the fly up or down depending upon how swingy the combat was going.
6) I would routinely modify the spells used depending upon how swingy the combat was going.
7) I completely ignored %% rolls for demon's summoning assistance and just did it based upon dramatic effect and to help with swingyness.
7) I would routinely up the AC and defenses of foes to make them actually have a chance. I often doubled HP. I fould that the CR guides were often too low.
8) Our TWF character usually started re-rolling his dice after his previous turn. He'd usually ask me up front what the AC was of the creature he was attacking, and I'd usually just tell him to make it easier. He'd do all his rolls, confirm whatever crits, draw his crit hit or crit fumble cards, and have it all figured out for the next time his turn came. He'd tell me the results, I'd figure out if he killed the critter, then he'd start rolling again. Repeat ad nauseum.
9) Concentration checks are really no fun. Either they're completely worthless (as I always had max concentration on everything) or they make the game completely swingy.
10) Skills - Typically you were really, really, really good at a few things, awful at the rest. It was hard for me to set DC's because if the person with the max'd skill tried it, it was easy. If someone else did, it was impossible. so heaven forbid the thief gets turned to stone - we're going home as soon as we get to the next locked door - no way we'll try that without her.
Now, after awhile, I started just, well, just cheating. I'd be changing multiple numbers on the fly, fudging rolls, avoiding SoD effects. Primarily in the interest of *everyone* having fun. That's the point of the game and my job as the DM. *Everyone* should have fun.
A bit of a ramble, but things just off the top of my head.
Is this whole thread mote? Should we all be playtesting the beta at high level and commenting on what still needs more tweeking? I would but I am retired from gaming for a few months.
Take the scene from PotC where everyone is fighting on Jack Sparrow's ship that's careening back and forth. Perfect place for balance checks, but even at levels 5-6, I'm leery about setting a DC that everyone could take part in.
I suspect this is the same reason why Paizo and other 3.x adventure writers so rarely put in skill check scenarios past level 5.
We killed the class/cross class skill distinction a long time ago. It's not the greatest thing for niche protection, but it makes setting DCs a lot more possible.
The particular problem skills for us have been Perception, Balance, Stealth, Diplomacy and Bluff. All of these are reasonable things for a non-expert to attempt, but the rules make it rapidly stupid to do so. I particularly dislike this effect with Perception. I like to play observant characters, but past mid-level you just can't be observant if it's not a class skill for you. (Or else the GM sets target numbers such that the characters for whom it's a class skill automatically succeed all the time, which is not satisfying.)
My experience with the Paizo modules is that the skill checks are generally set for experts, and non-experts try to avoid using skills whenever possible. I think this detracts from the game.
Mary
A couple of suggestions, more or less off the top of my head:
1) Dispel magic: buff/debuff/buff cycles are a repeated theme on the list of high-level play problems. Is it worth thinking about changing how dispelling works to speed up this element? For instance, rather than taking down, more or less at random, a whole slew of spells, what if dispel magic allowed you to specifically target one spell and cancel it, guaranteed? That way, everybody keeps most of their buffs up, which produces the same general effect as the way things were before, but with much less round-by-round bookkeeping, while simultaneously giving some tactical considerations to the dispelling caster.
I'd go for this. It fits my general desire to reduce the randomness of the system. Every random component means a slowdown in play, and many of them don't offer anything much to compensate.
2) Spell durations: To simplify calculation, I'd suggest that buff spells should have durations calculated in minutes, at least, and I might even go as high as 10 min/level on them. Make it so a single casting will last through several encounters in a row, so recalculations aren't necessary at the beginning of every fight.
v3.0 tried this. In practice I don't think it helped much. In my hands, the main effect of having multiple-fight buffs is to encourage the PCs to zoom through the dungeon without pauses, so as to maximize the usefulness of each buff. This means they ignore roleplaying and description opportunities. Most dungeons are handled by a two-phase process: scrying or extraplanar scouting to find everything, followed by a hellride to kill everything.
I'm not sure this is an improvement.
3) Stacking: This is only a numbers thing, and I'm already seeing some movement in this direction in the Alpha (thinking specifically of divine power here), but rather than limiting total numbers of buffs, why not consolidate bonus types, so they don't stack as well? We've got enhancement, size, morale, luck, haste, sacred, profane, and who knows what else, plus of course untyped bonuses as well - couldn't some limiting be achieved just by making these bonuses share more types, and thus unstackable?
I'd love this. One problem I have (as GM and player) with v3.5 is that there are so many bonus types, and their logic is so arbitrary, that I can't keep track. Part of that heavy pre-fight prep is looking up bonus types for everything. I'd love to cut it down to about 4-6 types.
Backwards compatibility will be a problem, though, because if you halve stacking, an adventure that was previously possible for high-level PCs may now be a TPK.
Mary
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There are already new feats that let you roll one less iterative attack, and gives you double dice damage.
Another posibility could be, to make only one roll for the iterative attack. For every 5 points above AC you score, add one damage.
Your post was so small and short thrown in here amidst so many big posts, that somehow I missed it.
I stumbled upon it just now - wondering if others failed to notice it too!
The reason I mention this - is that it SOUNDS like a great idea, and certainly pragmatic.
I wonder if anyone has actually tried this method out. Roll one attack roll for all three attacks with that weapon this round! Since BAB is -5 for each iterative attack, you can reverse logic that to say if you hit the AC by 5 or more - two attacks hit - and 10 or more - all three attacks hit.
Of course the only downside to this would be if you roll a critical threat - ALL attacks are critical threat, and if you roll a 20 ALL attacks automatically hit!
So I wonder if anyone else has tried this method and curious to their experiences with it.
Robert
To throw PCs into a melee at 20+ level the same way they did at first level is just a mistake in my mind, and it creates problems that many people have commented on for years. Such battles should be few and far between on a campaign world such that they are indeed 'epic' or worthy of legend. It may be more fitting to face such characters with other non-combat oriented challenges more often.
Would that I could, but that's exactly my gripe with high-level play: it seems like the monsters scale, but nothing else does. Almost no trap is even a slight challenge for 17th level characters. Terrain and natural hazards are all easily ignored. Exploration is completed in minutes using greater prying eyes and wind walk. There's just not any support for anything except combat at those levels.
Re the buffs: someone commented:
>>I actually dislike putting a cap on the number of buffs a PC can have active at one time. My issue with buffs isn't the number, it's the book-keeping of tracking durations and recalculating bonuses in a short period of time. A cap is just going to make that more common as PC's are forced to sub out buffs for new ones on the fly.
I would like to suggest sticking a little box in the character creation page for players to easily add in different types of buffs. On my current character sheet, I modified the AC box to have more than just the basic (10+ARMOR/SHIELD+DEX+MISC) because I had trouble keeping track of all the numbers. Instead I have space for (10+ARMOR/SHIELD+DEX+DEFLECT+NATURAL+INSIGHT+TEMP) and then write the rounds/days that the temporary AC lasts. I also have a small Temporary HP section. With pathfinder's decreased amount of skills, this can all fit on one page quite easily if there are only 2 weapon slots listed on the first page.
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ACTION POINTS
Also, are Action Points copyrighted? Because I believe it would be a great idea to add them to Pathfinder-- but perhaps you could make them dependent not on character levels, but based on the Races or the Classes.
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RE: High Level = Too Powerful
What about changing the recommended gold limits for characters at high levels; since Pathfinder increases the options and power for characters -- there is arguably less need for super-powerful weapons to augment them.
Either that, or require all items currently priced over 5,000 gp to have an additional 10% cost.
This might solve some of the problem.
Abolishing "Save or Die" spells in return for massive damage would be a good change.
Backward compatibility could be assured by creating a construct for converting "save or die" spells.
For example:
A 4th level save or die spell (IE Phantasmal Killer and any others) could be converted so that all 4th Level SoD spells instead cause [4d6 damage+paralysis+disease] or something of the nature.
The key to making this work would be creating a system of standardization.
~LD
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Lisa,
I can't address all of your concerns with high level play, but I think I have a couple bits of advice that have helped me even in the morass of epic games.
First: Occasionally do "character audits" for the PC's If nothing else, it allows you to become more familiar with what your PCs are packing in terms of fire power. The bit about your ranger PC getting 5-6 attacks per round and hitting with many of them sets off warning bells for me. People often make mistakes with regards to high level characters and the system usually corrects itself once the PC's are corrected. Some people may balk or get offended, but when you point out to them that it's to enhance their gameplay few press the point.
Second: Occasionally ask for copies of the character sheets just so you know target numbers. Don't assume monster x will be able to grapple the fighter, clearing the way for NPC Y to target the caster, until you see how the fighter is built. Also, you may think this monster's ST's are good enough to resist the casters spells and may be dead wrong. Etc
Third: Avoid large numbers of high level NPC's at all costs (unless Paizo stated them out for you :-)) as figuring the various tactics each would employ is devilishly tricky. Remeber, the PC's have a lot more free time to engineer tactics for their characters than you have for monsters/npcs. Less is more.
Sincerely not trying to come across as prideful DM,
FPHey Forgottenprince:
Thanks for your thoughts and advice. I have actually done audits (there was one player in particular in my last campaign who almost always made his characters more powerful than they should be).
I have asked for copies of character sheets also, but since I mostly used published adventures, it is less useful than if I was making an adventure from scratch. I do buff up the NPCs to make them more of a challenge as needed and am not hesitant to replace spells on the fly to make the game more fun.
As for large numbers of high...
I don't see why such an encounter can't happen again, but it needs to be ran by a computer program that actually can run an NPC for at least the first three rounds of combat. It is highly mathematical, I agree. I think it is interesting to run that many heavies, but you need an assistant to do it....human, computer or otherwise. It would be nice if someone could make such a beast.
A computer program can crunch and display what the DM needs.
Cheers,
Zux
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I don't see why such an encounter can't happen again, but it needs to be ran by a computer program that actually can run an NPC for at least the first three rounds of combat. It is highly mathematical, I agree. I think it is interesting to run that many heavies, but you need an assistant to do it....human, computer or otherwise. It would be nice if someone could make such a beast.
A computer program can crunch and display what the DM needs.
Cheers,
Zux
Try DMs Familiar.
I've been using it for years. you can order it online as a download.
It's awesome and does exactly this. Plus customize dice randoms - so you could just click a button for 10d6 etc.
Codex Tree that keeps all of your notes etc in an out line format.
Click on the ROOM. It gives you the descritption text. You click on the creature in the room - it opens the creatures statblock. The creature casts this spell, click on the spell, it opens that spell. The creature ahs a magical item, click on the magic item.
Same goes for traps, NPCs, treasure - etc.
Creature wasnt to grapple and you can't remember the rules: Click on RULES - type grapple viola!
Robert
ACTION POINTS
Also, are Action Points copyrighted? Because I believe it would be a great idea to add them to Pathfinder-- but perhaps you could make them dependent not on character levels, but based on the Races or the Classes.
Action points are Open Game Content in Unearthed Arcana.