In a completely unrelated discussion on another forum, we were discussing the problems with high level D&D, specifically as they related to PbP gaming. One of the users (Joshua Randall), posted some rules he used in his RL game that help curb the excessive delays caused by high level play.
I wanted to share some of these here to help give the developers ideas about some of the areas that really bog down high level play. I think Pathfinder is working towards fixing many of these, but I wanted to share the list just the same.
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I've never run a PbP, but I have run two high-ish level D&D games. One of them was a game with 7 players, which caused me to introduce some rules intended to reduce complexity. I ended up liking those rules so much, they are now my default 3.5 house rules.
Reading these over, they sound rather draconion, but in practice everyone was fine with these rules.
* No player may have an animal companion, mount, cohort (via Leadership), nor any other "pet" type of creature/person. Each player controls one and only one PC. (This rule alone drastically reduced complexity and sped up combat.)
* For classes that normally rely on those things, there are plenty of extant variants. (Lots in PH2 -- companion-less Ranger, mount-less Paladin, etc.)
* You may not change shape, polymorph, alter self, etc. Period. (I rather like shapechanging, but it's just a horrible mess in 3.5, and rather than try to patch it, I just excised it.)
* Druids may use the PH2 shapeshift variant (grants Str/Dex/movement bonuses) or may swap out wildshape for another ability.
* If you play a summoner, you may summon one and only one creature off each level's summoning list. You must have the creature pre-statted, or your summon spell/ability fizzles with no effect.
* If playing a spellcaster, you are strongly, strongly encouraged to play a spontaneous spellcaster. If you play a prepared caster, you should prepare your spells off-screen, NOT AT THE TABLE. I suggest you maintain several lists (In Town, In the Dungeon, Info Gathering, Recon, etc.).
* Exception: if there's a specific named villain the party is about to face, and you want to craft your prepared spells specifically for that villain, I will allow this as part of the party's general prep time.
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Some of these seem excessively strict. While there are game delaying aspects to each of these, a good group of players should be able to handle them without much problem. Taking away any an all animal companions, familiars, mounts, etc reduces huge parts of those classes, and in almost every case variant CF's presented in PHBII etc are not as powerful or universally attractive. I'm not saying house rules shouldn't be instituted, but if you pulled some of those (especially the early ones) I'd find a new DM.
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I think it would be a lot more fair to simply require lots of those extras be pre-statted - i.e. if you want to polymorph or summon lots of different creatures, have the stats right there any ready at all times - if you don't have the stats on hand, you can't polymorph or summon that kind of creature.
Personally, I find that high level play is slower mainly because there's more going on - it's not just simple fights vs MM orcs anymore - everything, PC and monster alike has more options and details to keep track of - even fighters have to track all of their feats and choose which to use each round. I try to have an informal 5 second rule or you've auto-delayed.
Also, as an aside, I think the PHII ranger comanionless option is VERY powerful - it made it a ton easier for the rogue to sneak attack, not to mention gave the whole party the +2 flanking bonus to attack - where a companion could help set up a flank only if tactically able to, and/or use aid another to give 1 character a +2 to attack. This option let the ranger do it at range with their bow.
Some of these seem excessively strict. While there are game delaying aspects to each of these, a good group of players should be able to handle them without much problem. Taking away any an all animal companions, familiars, mounts, etc reduces huge parts of those classes, and in almost every case variant CF's presented in PHBII etc are not as powerful or universally attractive. I'm not saying house rules shouldn't be instituted, but if you pulled some of those (especially the early ones) I'd find a new DM.
I wasn't really suggested that we remove all the slow aspects, but to A) identify those areas which really bog the game down, and B) improve upon them.
Whenever I played a shape-changer I always kept a small number of prestated monsters handy(like in a note book). I found it was much simpler, and faster then making things on the fly. As for summoning, I can see the same thing applied.
As for animal companions/familiars, I have as of yet to run into someone who doesn't keep a record of their onterage.
Finally as for henchmen, my view has been, unless you're planing on fighting a war, there is no reason to bring your personal armies with you. For one thing most countries would object to some forener trapezing though their countryside with a small army, no matter how well intentioned. And secondly such companions are of little to no value in an actual adventure. Except maybe as cannon fodder. Even then they'd likely rebel, or desert.
While I agree with others that the Op's High level rules are very harsh, and more then a little restrictive. Still, asking the characters to pregenerate information on the more common summons/shapes on their owen time wouldn't hurt.
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I ran a campaign that went to 17th level, and the game only bogged down in a few areas. We allowed feats and magic items from any WOTC book, we had cohorts, animal companions, familiars, and the like.
The things that helped were:
1) The players had played their characters from 1st level, which made them very familiar with their abilities
2) When we had a new player join, who was relatively new to D&D, and decided to play a 16th level sorcerer, the party helped as a group to choose the player's spells and feats, to keep it simple and effective, and coached her through the game.
3) Characters that could summon creatures, wild shape, or the like were prepared in advance.
4) The only area we were draconian in was insisting the players understand their own abilities, and the rules that applied to them.
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Makes me wonder if there's a well organized "summoned creatures stat" page that one could just print out so we don't have to look up the SRD because the DM is using the monster manual.
As for cohorts and such, I agree that they take a long time even in the mid-levels, but they're awesome for the NPC interactions and character development they can provide, especially for traveling groups.
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I wasn't really suggested that we remove all the slow aspects, but to A) identify those areas which really bog the game down, and B) improve upon them.
Although I agree with you on speeding up high level play, but your suggestions seemed less like improving the slow parts and more like banning the slow parts. The more I look at your OP, it seems more like a "Druids slow down the game" post. Each of your list bullets touch upon some facet of the Druid (animal companions, shapeshifting, prepared spellcasting, and summoning).
With the exception of rolling dice for summoned creatures, I don't really see anything on the list that a prepared player shouldn't be able to handle relatively quickly.
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Just off the top of my head, if you're starting with a party of seven, then add animal companions, familiars, cohorts, summoned creatures, buffs, then start throwing in the shapeshifting, and "where are those stats", and then double all that for the bad guys run by the DM, its understandable how a DM might want to houserule some limitations just to keep the horde under control and the adventure moving. I have yet to come up with a reasonable solution that doesn't make someone unhappy. I'm really hoping that some bright people on these boards or at Paizo can make some suggestions that end up in PFRG. The fact that Paizo caps off the adventure paths around 15th level makes me suspect they've been mulling this issue over for a while.
Edit: Hands up everyone whose gone nuts spending three gaming sessions just to complete one combat encounter?
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Makes me wonder if there's a well organized "summoned creatures stat" page that one could just print out so we don't have to look up the SRD because the DM is using the monster manual.
Go here and grab MonsterForge. It's great for summoned creatures... you can apply templates, tack on the Augment Summoning feat, etc... and it stats it all out. Great tool for planning ahead, especially since you know your summoning lists ahead of time.
I've found that high level play is slowed mostly because of dice.
Some people really do want to roll the 25d6 for their Empowered and Lightning Admixtured fireball, and then count the dice.(Surprise! Surprise! Its within 4-5 points of average!)
Between Rogue dice, four or five attacks per warrior character, spellcasters rolling all their dice, sometimes dozens of saves per spell cast, and loads of monsters with the same problems, a single round of DnD can be an hour long.
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I've found that high level play is slowed mostly because of dice.
Some people really do want to roll the 25d6 for their Empowered and Lightning Admixtured fireball, and then count the dice.(Surprise! Surprise! Its within 4-5 points of average!)
Between Rogue dice, four or five attacks per warrior character, spellcasters rolling all their dice, sometimes dozens of saves per spell cast, and loads of monsters with the same problems, a single round of DnD can be an hour long.
That's why as a DM I've been using the advice given in the WotC's dungeon delve from two GenCons ago. Average out 2/3rd's of the dice and roll 1/3. Works for sneak attack as well as spells.
So you have a 10th level fireball (empowered)
Roll 4d6+21, then multiply by 1.5.
Or a 10th level Fireball (maximized + empowered)
60 + (4d6+21/2)
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* No player may have an animal companion, mount, cohort (via Leadership), nor any other "pet" type of creature/person. Each player controls one and only one PC.
This seems unfair, to many players the animal companion/mount is often the strongest attracting factor for choosing a class. But I do concede it would speed up combat slightly. My rule is usually that your companion goes on your turn.
* You may not change shape, polymorph, alter self, etc. Period. (I rather like shapechanging, but it's just a horrible mess in 3.5, and rather than try to patch it, I just excised it.)
It works, but it also limits magic in a wierd way. To me, polymorph is an iconic spell. I usually rule that when learning the polymorph spell, that character picks a creature type and may only change into creatures of that type (for a more extreme version, one creature only, this is a little more fair for druids, whom I give one creature for every daily use of wildshape).
* If you play a summoner, you may summon one and only one creature off each level's summoning list. You must have the creature pre-statted, or your summon spell/ability fizzles with no effect.
I have always done this, and I agree it works wonders. Plus, it makes summoning more meaningful. For example, a players sorcerer named his Fire Beetle.
* If playing a spellcaster, you are strongly, strongly encouraged to play a spontaneous spellcaster. If you play a prepared caster, you should prepare your spells, etc.
I find the best solution is to just print out the complete spell lists, available in many places, and then they can check off the spells they want without referencing the PHB. Things do get complicated when using splatbooks.
I agree that, at high levels, the real drag on time is all the dice-rolling. This is one of the things I am looking forward to in 4th ed., as they have hinted that iterative attacks will be reduced somewhat, and damage per attack will be slightly increased.
I encourage my players to roll all their attack rolls and damage at the same time, with color-coded dice, but it still sometimes takes full minutes for the hasted 12th level duskblade to roll his four attacks, confirm criticals, roll damage, include the flaming ability from his axe, include the bard's and dragon shaman's bonuses, roll additional damage from an crits he confirmed, and then add the shocking grasp that he channeled into his axe as he swung. God forbid there's a miss chance!
I haven't yet figured out any way to speed this process up, but if anyone has any suggestions, please let 'em flY!
O
[EDIT] And, of course, 12th level isn't even all that high!
Unfortunately, the above rules that were posted would not have been useful to my game. In fact, removing summonables & polymorphism is one of my major gripes with 4E.
Every one of the PCs in my last campaign save one had a cohort or companion of some sort, and as we were playing a pirate campaign, it was encouraged for the group to have a small army with them at certain times.
I am in favor of having polymorphed forms, spell lists and companion stats all ready to go beforehand, but that's simple good bookkeeping tactics. Disallowing such stuff will quickly make walk away from a "tweaked" version of the game.
Unfortunately, the above rules that were posted would not have been useful to my game. In fact, removing summonables & polymorphism is one of my major gripes with 4E.
Every one of the PCs in my last campaign save one had a cohort or companion of some sort, and as we were playing a pirate campaign, it was encouraged for the group to have a small army with them at certain times.
I am in favor of having polymorphed forms, spell lists and companion stats all ready to go beforehand, but that's simple good bookkeeping tactics. Disallowing such stuff will quickly make walk away from a "tweaked" version of the game.
Could you elaborate a bit about that last campaign? How large did the group get? How many encounters would you tend to get through in how much time? It'd be interesting to see if there is an "average" speed of play or if it varies considerably by play style.
Flavour alone dictates that some form of polymorph remains. Personally, my goal is to use a combination of polymorph subschool spells (like trollform) for combat options. If you want utility/deception, make a seperate spell that basically gives the character the Change Shape ability from the MM.
4) The only area we were draconian in was insisting the players understand their own abilities, and the rules that applied to them.
This is the key to high-level play, in my experience. The preparing spells in advance (via set lists for various activities or just handing the DM a list at the beginning of the session), having stats for alternate forms/cohorts/companions/mounts/summoned creatures, etc. are all parts of the players knowing their own abilities.
High-level play puts a premium on player preparation, in addition to the normal DM preparation, to avoid bogging down.
Makes me wonder if there's a well organized "summoned creatures stat" page that one could just print out so we don't have to look up the SRD because the DM is using the monster manual.
As for cohorts and such, I agree that they take a long time even in the mid-levels, but they're awesome for the NPC interactions and character development they can provide, especially for traveling groups.
I have word documents for just this, both summon monster and nature's ally. They're fully statted including the celestial and fiendish templates for all OGL creature of all levels of the spells. And they're proper OGL licsensed.
I'm not really internet savvy, so I don't know how to upload this kind of thing. Or I could e-mail them.
The easiest houserule for Polymorph and shapechanging is:
-Complete character replacement. You open up the MM and play that monster, and not your character. Subtract monster abilities based on the spell or effect you are using.
-Monsters that can be picked based on CR-2 of your level.
-The only stat that follows over is HPs. Those neither increase or decrease in a new form. Ability damage also follows.
-If you don't know what you want to turn into before open an MM, then you can't turn into it.
-Monster abilities work just like summoned monster abilities (i.e. effects vanish when you turn back).
Its quick, balanced, and lets you keep an iconic part of the game in the game.