I've arrived at a similar spot to you - 4E and PF are both too complicated and too high-powered-by-default for my tastes.
If enough of your group feel the same, why isn't "try a different game" the kind of advice you want? If its just you then I guess you have a problem. Personally, I'd suggest swords and wizardry - the whole Rulebook is 130ish pages (including monsters, magic items, character generation and everything) so giving it a go is minimal investment.
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Its never been easier to swim through the sea of endless system bloat. All the answers are just a click away. Its the age of the internet bro. You could dig up your old books and go play em....online!! In all seriousness though, I dont think Next will be what you are looking for. Sure you can show up with your 1E fighting man but the guy next to you will be a Dragonman with lazer breath so there is that.
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Yup it bogs the speed of the game down. I'm GMing Runelords now, and trying to keep up with all the options is maddening. Sometimes all I want is the players to hack, slash maim and kill and they want to have a philosophical discussion about the new alchemist potion they created. I have a rule, each player has to remember all the modifiers relevant to their PC. If the player forgets then that modifier doesn't apply. As GM I have to prepare what the NPCs are doing before the game so I expect the players to have done the same for the PCs for their attacks, spells or special abilities. About D&D Next fixing the speed issue I wouldn't hold my breath because publishers are always making new material to sell, but your group always has the option of not using it. Hope your group finds a resolution.
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I have heard good things in this respect from D&D Next play tests. Combat is faster and class progression is flattened. I also heard a party of 2nd level characters got killed by a white dragon in a single breath attack (granted they were all clustered together in tight formation.)
There are still a lot of situational modifiers and rules, but reports I've heard are that they don't slow down combat (relatively speaking).
Also, it is possible to play old school type games on Google +. There are a lot of OSR blogs with links on how to get a session together, and then you have the whole intarwebs to play with, rather than just your local gang. It's real time, not play by email.
Streamlining combat can be done - but people have to be organized and know their rules (often knowledge of too many rule sets complicates things, that's one of the problems with having so many versions of D&D in existence).
A melee character should know his combat modifiers - heck, draw up a chart of his favorite attack routines. Spellcasters should know their spells - small cards can help in this regard with the important info readily at hand. A nearby whiteboard can be used to post active buffs/debuffs as they happen so people don't forget them.
At a minimum, try to keep it moving without rulebook diving. Players often have 'dead time' when it's not their turn, they can look up stuff THEN (as they are surely planning their next action in dead time), not while everyone else is waiting.
Pathfinder isn't IMO bad for combat length. There are plenty of other games with monster charts, huge die rolls (and combinations thereof) and endless combat modifiers. Pathfinder is a game of exceptions, however; most character abilities, spells and items allow you to bend/sidestep/break the regular rules, so requires looking up.
Our groups don't go nearly that slow... then again, I only ever play with friends online and we have the computer run all our numbers for us.
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I'd say that what you're looking at are two separate issues:
1 - Players who aren't bothering to take the responsibility to handle their own characters (know their rolls/bonuses/etc). In that case, a player should not be getting bonuses to their roll that they forgot to apply themselves. Pretty soon after instituting that rule, everyone always remembers their own bonuses and things move more smoothly.
(Remember that 1E and 2E could also get very complicated if you wanted -- including charts for bonuses/penalties of each weapon against each different type of armor).
2 - The 'fantasy' level of DnD/Pathfinder 3E+ is huge. It is. You can try to pair it down, but it's naturally a very super-fantasy game. I remember, before Pathfinder was released, our group actually created our version of Medium and Slow advancement charts because the 3E advancement was insanely fast.
In my gaming group, those of us who are the more 'serious' players would very much like to switch systems/games, but the more 'lazy' players just don't want to bother learning a whole new rule set. So ... we stick with Pathfinder and just do the best we can. It's not terrible ... but I really do miss 1E and 2E sometimes.
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<*Sigh*>
Helic pretty much nailed it. The issue isn't so much the system, but the lack of preparation on the group's part bogging down play.
Also, read Calibrating Your Expectations and The Many Games Inside the World's Most Popular RPG. If you prefer a specific style/"power level" of play, then target that character level range when setting up the campaign and use the slow advancement on Tables 3-1 and 12-5 to extend the amount of time spent in those levels.
One of the main strengths of D&D/AD&D/3.x/Pathfinder is that it can be used for gritty/"realistic" fantasy, heroic/"high" fantasy, mythic/"wild" fantasy, and superheroic/"demigod" fantasy within the same ruleset. It is not designed to replicate a "flat" playstyle as characters advance, with the only difference being "bigger numbers" or marginal gains, but rather that characters migrate from one playstyle to another as their power improves.
Also, don't misrepresent the "simplicity" of older versions. Those rules were often quite complex (weapon speed and weapon vs. armor type modifiers, anyone? Or weapon mastery, perhaps?) and, even worse, the mechanics were usually completely different from/unrelated to other parts of the rules (instead of the unified mechanics that 3.x brought to the table). What you are probably remembering is that in earlier versions it was less common for characters to reach/continue play at higher levels; characters would often reach "name level" (9th-11th level) after about 1.5 to 2 years of play, at which point they would "retire" from adventuring to become a baron, guildmaster, temple matriarch/patriarch, etc.
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The 1st edition nostalgia is understandable but people misremember how complex that game was. It was so complicated that groups very rarely actually played by the rules. Most of the time when i see people describing the simplicity of 1st edition they are referring to those groups that played by their own rules. 3rd edition was a huge simplification of the system and Pathfinder has streamlined it even further.
If you need it simpler then do what we did back in the day. Ignore half the rulebook.
One trick I learned when dealing with too many modifiers from too many directions is this:
1- Create a separate line on your character sheet for each kind of attack you can make complete with fully calculated bonuses for that attack fully broken down. Situational bonuses should be on the next line and each one clearly broken down. This places it all on one place on your sheet so you don't have to search around to find all the modifiers.
2- Make a note card with a line for each situational modifier your allies can grant you. Then keep a bag of those life beads we used to use to track our life in magic the gathering. And when the bard inspires you, place a bead next to his ability on your note card... same for the haste spell and protection spell your allies buffed you with.
Now finding that total modifier is as simple as looking at your attack line and adding the modifiers from the beaded buffs. No need to debate or search for bonuses ever again.
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You're exactly right; Pathfinder out-of-the-box is a super-powered fantasy game.
Solution: Play Pathfinder only when you want to play a super-powered fantasy game. :)
Those rulesets you are hearkening back to never vanished. You can still play them! Life is too short to waste any of it trying to game a system that doesn't match your style. I myself am planning a long hiatus from Pathfinder after my current campaign, but I will surely return to it if the order of the day is high stakes and super powers.
Helic pretty much nailed it. The issue isn't so much the system, but the lack of preparation on the group's part bogging down play.
I think you guys are glossing over the OP's issue with the high-powered content, not merely the high-powered paperwork.
It can be very hard to achieve the ambiance of anything other than a super-hero comic book in Pathfinder without serious revisions.
Now, I think that's just fine. It's a great game for what it is! But the OP's grievance is a legitimate one. The solution is to make sure you're using the right tool for the right campaign.
One of the main strengths of D&D/AD&D/3.x/Pathfinder is that it can be used for gritty/"realistic" fantasy, heroic/"high" fantasy, mythic/"wild" fantasy, and superheroic/"demigod" fantasy within the same ruleset. It is not designed to replicate a "flat" playstyle as characters advance, with the only difference being "bigger numbers" or marginal gains, but rather that characters migrate from one playstyle to another as their power improves.
What we have here is a "Ship of Theseus" scenario. At what point have I replaced so much of the ruleset that it is no longer the same game? If you try to use Pathfinder to run a "gritty/realistic" fantasy, you're going to have to scrap virtually everything but the basic skill mechanics (and even a good number of those) and maybe the very basic combat rules (although HP and AC provide major obstacles for "gritty realism"). All of the class progressions have to go, with the possible exception of the Fighter and Rogue, and even they're pushing it because they've been tweaked for competition with outright supers.
Nobody would benefit, I think, from hauling around the CRB and trying to play a game that uses only 50 pages therein, and lacks most of the tools you would want or need for a gritty campaign.
The 1st edition nostalgia is understandable but people misremember how complex that game was. It was so complicated that groups very rarely actually played by the rules. Most of the time when i see people describing the simplicity of 1st edition they are referring to those groups that played by their own rules. 3rd edition was a huge simplification of the system and Pathfinder has streamlined it even further.If you need it simpler then do what we did back in the day. Ignore half the rulebook.
I've played pretty much every edition except 4E and Basic (OE, 1E. 2E, 3E, 3.5E. and PF) and I've read them over. I play in a 1E game occasionally (my brother has revived his old game and runs it periodically). 3.x is much more complex than 1E. 1E does not have a unified mechanic, but in almost every other sense it is simpler. Fewer claases, no prestige classes / archtypes, no feats, very limited skill system, simpler combat (has facing but no Feats, no iterative attacks, or pile of modifiers to deal with). The rules aren't that hard or complex. 2E was more complicated, especially in the late Player's Option phase, but not that much. 3E started out simplifying elements and unifying mechanics but has ended up adding complexity in other areas (skills, feats, classes, prestige classes, archtypes, etc.). All that player choice and flexibility comes at a price.
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I mean seriously guys… when did playing a “fantasy” game stop being enough? Why is it that we need to have giant databases on archetypes and prestige classes, mile long lists of hundreds of talents or special abilities, rules for creation of your own magic items, spells, and constructs…
This happened when the meta-game, the min-maxing became the game itself. I'm absolutely convinced that actual immersive gameplay using the imagination is a rarity.
Add in the video-game mentality and all the information age tech, and you've got guys doing nothing but competing with one another for the most effective "build".
I've got a general rule: everything you do, everything about your character has to MAKE SENSE in the context of the world around you. You don't exist in a vacuum, so if you're too weird, the villagers will likely burn you at the stake. Kings will throw you in their dungeons. Merchants will refuse to sell to you. You're playing a PERSON not a list of stats.
If you try to use Pathfinder to run a "gritty/realistic" fantasy, you're going to have to scrap virtually everything but the basic skill mechanics (and even a good number of those) and maybe the very basic combat rules (although HP and AC provide major obstacles for "gritty realism"). All of the class progressions have to go, with the possible exception of the Fighter and Rogue, and even they're pushing it because they've been tweaked for competition with outright supers.
Or you can just say "10-point buy characters only, slow progression, the campaign ends at 5th or 6th level." Wow, how easy.
If you want a a little more "fantastic" play, then 15-point buy, slow progression, and a level cap at 8th-10th brings the campaign roughly in line with most "high fantasy" settings (the characters are pushing past "real world" limits, but aren't too outrageous and can still be threatened by "ordinary" circumstances). This is also a good template for a campaign that has the PCs becoming "heroes of myth and legend" and is appropriate for most wide-ranging "epic" plotlines.
Once you get above 10th level, characters start getting to the point where they can't be challenged by normal events (unless you move the goal-posts, which gets silly as they run into 8th level town guards and the like). They transcend being "heroes of myth and legend" and start becoming demigods. Trying to run a "gritty/realistic" fantasy game with 8th, 10th, or higher level characters in D&D/AD&D/3.x/Pathfinder is like using a sledgehammer to drive a thumbtack into a wall.
However, you can use the same ruleset when you do want to run a demigod/superhero campaign, by taking the way the rules actually work into account.
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The 1st edition nostalgia is understandable but people misremember how complex that game was. It was so complicated that groups very rarely actually played by the rules.
[SNIP]
If you need it simpler then do what we did back in the day. Ignore half the rulebook.
That's my take on it as well. The charts of weapon vs. armor type modifiers, weapons doing different damage based on the size of the creature you were hitting, the mechanics for subduing dragons or whacking off beholder eyestalks, calculating facing for various creatures, adjudicating illusions, the initiative bonus by weapon type mechanic, the whacked out characters that ended up with seven attacks every two rounds, every cleric having some special powers or restrictions or unique spells, based on what god they worshipped, 1st edition only got turtle-ier as you went further down.
And 2nd edition, with the kits and weapon proficiencies and Advanced Options books with design-your-own races and whatnot, yikes. I miss a lot of that stuff (Al-Qadim! Kara-Tur!), but 3rd edition vastly streamlined things, IMO.
That's my take on it as well. The charts of weapon vs. armor type modifiers, weapons doing different damage based on the size of the creature you were hitting, the mechanics for subduing dragons or whacking off beholder eyestalks, calculating facing for various creatures, adjudicating illusions, the initiative bonus by weapon type mechanic, the whacked out characters that ended up with seven attacks every two rounds, every cleric having some special powers or restrictions or unique spells, based on what god they worshipped, 1st edition only got turtle-ier as you went further down.And 2nd edition, with the kits and weapon proficiencies and Advanced Options books with design-your-own races and whatnot, yikes. I miss a lot of that stuff (Al-Qadim! Kara-Tur!), but 3rd edition vastly streamlined things, IMO.
It's not that hard Set :)
Weapons vs. armor you had written down right in front of you. It only applied to actual armor (suits of) which meant it was often ignored for monsters. Subduing dragons and Beholder's eyestocks didn't exactly come up often. Dragon subdual took some basic math, but eyestocks were simple. Facing was obvious. Miniatures faced one way, so you had front, side and rear. Simple and fairly easy to understand / visualize. Illusions simple. Weapon length and speed was something you had written down in front of you along with armor type modifiers and damage (vs. Small and medium or Large). If you didn't want to write it down they made cards with all this information on it. Clerics were all the same in 1E, different priests with different abilities was 2E (Complete Priests Handbook). 2E began to get more complicated with the Players Option books and Complete Handbook series, but, as the title suggests, that was optional material for those who wanted to get deeper into combat.
In 1E there was less to keep track of, it was easy to have in front of you, and a lot of it was easy to visualize / understand. Of course I came out of a background of playing historical miniatures (Chainmail) and fantasy miniatures before D&D came out so my views may be skewed.
I love 3.x but for everything it has simplified or streamlined it has complicated a couple of others. My 2 cp, of course.
Dotting.
May bother to respond if the OP returns and this is not a drive-by trolling.
That's an interesting take - part of the primary appeal of 4th Ed for me was that the characters were most decidedly under-powered. 15th and 20th level characters in Pathfinder can do things that 4th ed characters of a similar level couldn't do in their wildest dream, and the foes were much tougher relatively speaking.
Sure, at 1st level you can actually DO things rather than walking around prarying that a single bad roll doesn't snuff you out before you ever get going, but I never thought of 4th ed characters as over-powered, just a bit more dynamic.
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Speaking as a Grognard myself, you're looking through the lens of nostalgia for 1st ed. I've played D&D since 1980, and that includes all of the editions up to 4, and I stuck with Pathfinder given the huge amount of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd ed material I have sitting at home (and still use) Let's look at some presentation and rules sets that 1st ed used for some pointers.
1. The combat rules were spread out over two books, rather then one. Once your went through Gary's incredibly long-winded speeches about establishing proper play, then you could find your actual chance to hit a target with a single attack. While backstabbing was easy to moderate for a rogue, they only were ever able to use it once in a combat, and they had the fastest advancement rate of any character. Rangers gained magic user spells, bronze dragon companions, and then we had the multiple level charts for race a, b, c, d, etc. Wait, I'm a halfling, and I get these awesome saving throw bonuses, but I can only be a cleric of up to 8th level? But I can be a tallfellow, and be a 10th level cleric, but only if I worship the god of halfing thunderbolters on a Tuesday.
Cavaliers-I must immediately charge the most powerful enemy on the field, no questions asked, even if I have no chance of defeating it, in the name of BRAVERY. Oh, I can take 3 levels of cavalier as a paladin, but then I have to go back to being a paladin, and use my 1 set of magic items that I might throw out because I might get to greedy. Mages-I have 3 hit points, potentially 0 at 1st level due to poor con rolls, so I fall unconscious and have to be carried around until I get to 2nd level. And so on.
What Pathfinder offers is a unified rules set without silly limits on hit points, the lack of a consistent skill set (non-weapon proficiencies, I roll low on my skill but high on my save), and cements the feel of classes being different. High fantasy today is far different from the random Tolkien clones and rebellious Law/Chaos dichotomies that dominated 70s to 80s fantasy, but instead incorporates well defined magic systems, historical dramas where morality is relative, and non-human heroes. That's the new paradigm we live in. Your 1st level fighter still hits for the same damage with his 1d8 battle axe, and attacks 1 time. However, now the way he swings that axe matters. Your rogue still can steal, pick pockets, but now he might be able more focused on stealth, rather then just having a name or a small racial bonus to separate him from his peers. Your mage actually has more then 1 spell to harm or slow down an enemy, rather then acting as a one shot sleep spell. A priest doesn't have to memorize cure light wounds three times (provided he had a good wisdom, and all you need is an 11 to get one spell), but his spell access gives him low grade powers that he can repeatedly use.
The key piece is to play with what you like. If you and the DM feel overwhelmed by all of the options, play piece by piece until you get more used to them. That's the key for all games, no matter what system.
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Great rant!
After another hour of this, I look up at one of the other grogs at the table and ask… “Do you remember when we used to play D&D… this is my fighter’s round… “I roll to hit with my battle axe” and roll a d20, then roll a D8, and say “with strength and magic that’s 12 points… next” he guffaws and says “yup, and he was considered a total bad ass….especially if he was getting (zomg) two (!!!) attacks a round.”
Later we started talking about other differences… the level dipping, trait and talent min-maxed characters of the new games… about how soon two of our players were going to start new “dragonkin” characters…
The 3.X combat system is a pain, to be true. But some players love all the fiddly bits, and a common complaint is that "just swinging a weapon each round is boring" - I don't share that view, but it explains why the game has gone in that direction. It used to be about why you were swinging the sword, not how you did it.
I mentioned about how one of the things I truly hated about 4e was characters flying, teleporting, and turning invisible at 1st level, about how characters were not just fighters and thieves anymore, they were class 5 superheroes wearing chain mail… to accentuate this I mentioned how I think my next character should be a shape shifting ninja, with a Technic League cyber arm, firing a gatling gun, from his T-Rex special mount… (woot!)
Yep! As much as I loved that Pathfinder kept more of the D&D spirit than 4e, I lost interest when it codified a lot of the previously optional power expansions. When I think back to when 3e first came out, it felt pretty "gritty", especially at low levels. All the splatbooks and 3.5 opened things up, but at least most of that was optional. You didn't have core rules with variant sorcerers (itself basically a variant wizard) with bloodlines (with variant familiars) and variant spells plus variant feats...which is basically what Pathfinder has become.
Here's a bit of Pathfinder logic that engenders this mindset: players want to play LA +1 races at first level, so lets allow that but to keep the core races interesting we'll make them more powerful. Without stopping to think that part of the enticement of a LA race is the exotic nature coupled with increased power. But in the end, the game must "add, not remove; bestow, not penalize". Thus the endless cycle of inflation continues!
I mean seriously guys… when did playing a “fantasy” game stop being enough? Why is it that we need to have giant databases on archetypes and prestige classes, mile long lists of hundreds of talents or special abilities, rules for creation of your own magic items, spells, and constructs… It used to be if you wanted to run a different sort of character, you appealed to the DM and he said yea or nay and made up the rules on the spot, now we gotta have piles of books and internet search engines to look up all the options… 50 page class optimization threads on forums…
UNLIMITED POWER!!!
Seriously, it's basic human nature to always want more, and to feel like your choices are "official" or "validated". For some players, myself included, it's enough for the DM to say "Okay, you can play a half-dragon this time", but that's too arbitrary for some mindsets.
I just got through making an 8th-level cohort and 8 1st-Level FOLLOWERS for a new PC fighter. Even with a random NPC generator, it took me 2-3 hours to finish, and that was without calculating CMB/CMD!
Agh… I don’t know if D&D Next will solve all these issues but I sure hope something does and soon…
And PS- I don’t need to hear “well dig up your old books and go play em” I live in a small town with a small gamer circle, we play what the other 8 or so gamers in town want to play, and I’m not a DM (player only) and have no desire to try and find younger new players/DMs to “go retro”
The best advice I can give is to just ignore things. As long as the whole group is okay with the DM fudging some rules, ignoring others, and generally just running the game smoothly rather than "correctly" it shouldn't be a problem.
I also think things seem less complex when you have played the system a while and are used to it. I wonder how much pathfinder the op played.
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I'm probably way off base here, but I think hit point limits (silly or otherwise) are what I miss most from the older iterations of the game, and may be one of the reasons everything accelerated along the particular poer curve it has followed.
"Back in the day," if I played a fighter, I had a maximum of 90 hit points at 10th level. If I had a superstar constitution, maybe I had 108 or 117. That ws my practical limit. More likely, I would have about 60 hp, plus my constitution bonus (though, yes, the different bonuses for fighters vs. other classes seemed odd, and we disregarded them).
What did that mean? It meant an ancient red dragon could roast me to a cinder with its fiery breath. It meant I couldn't fall off a 100-foot cliff, catch myself on the first bounce, and charge right into battle. It meant a bunch of kobolds (kobolds, for crying out loud!) that had poisoned daggers doing an extra 1d4 damage gave pause. (Not a lot of pause, as I may well have been able to attack nine of them evey round, but more than they do currently.)
At 20th level, I went skyrocketing from a maximum of, say, 108 hit points to...141 hit points. Which meant an ancient red dragon or a hundred foot fall could still seriously mess me up, and at an "average" total of about 100 hit points, a few doses of "Type B" poison still made me nervous (especially with my lousy luck rolling saving throws). Spells amd traps and poisons did not need to scale with us, because once you reached "name" level, the scaling tapered off and what was lethal then was still nearly as lethal at level 20.
Maybe my friends and I played the game wrong, but we were never, ever going to do a hundred points of damage per round. Fighting that dragon? We rolled a d12 for damage with our longsword. We got +4 for our percentile strength, a +3 for our magic longsword (which we had to find, dang it...no shopping for items or makng them in our downtime for us!), and...not much else. We were lucky enough to have a DM who house-ruled that a natural 20 was a critical hit, so we could roll 2d12 + 7 instead of 1d12 + 7. Sure, we were probably going hit the dragon with one of our whopping TWO attacks every round, and that meant that between our two fighters, we could have probaby bashed the thing to pieces in four rounds.
Except that one of us got singed with fiery breath to open the combat, and was one good chomp away from death, so he'd fallen back to bow range and was hitting for 1d6 + 2 instead of 1d12 + 7. The DM had read those pesky Dragon Magazine articles on making dragons more lethal, so the other fighter was getting tail-slapped, wing-buffeted, and head-butted to perdition. Our wizard and rouge were occupied with the three hatchlings that we hadn't counted on circling back behind us, and our cleric...well, he got killed by the two fire giants guarding the lair. Sure, we had plenty of extra-healing potions, but drinking one of those meant foregoing an attack or two to fish it out and drink it.
I get the different arguments about which system was simpler. I think each had its merits in that regard. But 3.x and beyond (including Pathfinder) is a completely different game. I'm not saying it's a worse game (or a better game), but it is definitely different. "Back in the day" you could play a 20th level party and still have the "edgy" feel of not knowing you were going to survive the combat with the same red dragon that used to tool you at 10th level. We didn't have to say "we're going to stop at Level X because after that, there's no challenge" because the power curve rose, maybe quickly, then drastically leveled off, for a long, long time.
So...yeah. When I want to play gritty campaigns, even at high level with lots of magic and spells and fantastic elements, I go back to (admittedly house-ruled) 2E. When I play Pathfinder or 3.X (or if I played 4E), I anticipate a tabletop video game of power-ups and power curves that increase parabolically. Which isn't a bad thing. It's just a different thing.
If you try to use Pathfinder to run a "gritty/realistic" fantasy, you're going to have to scrap virtually everything but the basic skill mechanics (and even a good number of those) and maybe the very basic combat rules (although HP and AC provide major obstacles for "gritty realism"). All of the class progressions have to go, with the possible exception of the Fighter and Rogue, and even they're pushing it because they've been tweaked for competition with outright supers.Or you can just say "10-point buy characters only, slow progression, the campaign ends at 5th or 6th level." Wow, how easy.
Agreed, mostly.
I happen to feel that that approach will create a very narrow, short campaign. It will work, but the experience will not be nearly as robust as another system that was designed to support the play style in question. It certainly doesn't measure up to the "zero-to-hero" style I consider the default for Pathfinder — that style of play completely subsumes the other entire campaign arc within it!
You're not wrong, and I am a big fan of Pathfinder's flexibility in that regard. I'll thank you to accept that I am not wrong in saying there are tools for playing full campaigns in that mode, and they are better for that than Pathfinder is.
As a tool, PF will get the job done. But for grit/low-magic, it's using a drill press when you need a power drill.
Honesty, I think your bigger problems are two:
Players are not really ready to play
GM looks up rules during, and not after.
I run a lot of games, and usually decide on the fly "that hit you". If you think you should have cover, then YOU look up how it works, I'm busy. If I was wrong, I'll retract it, but meanwhile the game goes on.
In a similar vein, the usual rule for something vague is 1-3, it works, 4-6, it doesn't. We'll look it up afterward, and find the official rule later.
And if you're not ready to go you're on delay, and I'll move to the next player who is paying attention. Result: more fun for all.
The OP's thread sounds like new players trying to run a high level game. At the very least there was a lack of preparation and rules knowledge.
The combat rules were spread out over two books, rather then one. Once your went through Gary's incredibly long-winded speeches about establishing proper play, then you could find your actual chance to hit a target with a single attack....
Or you could calculate what AC you hit based on your attack roll and tell the DM. Sort of like how Pathfinder works.
The combat rules were spread out over two books, rather then one. Once your went through Gary's incredibly long-winded speeches about establishing proper play, then you could find your actual chance to hit a target with a single attack....Or you could calculate what AC you hit based on your attack roll and tell the DM. Sort of like how Pathfinder works.
And you could make a DM screen with all the relevant charts posted on it. I used an old Guadalcanal Avalon Hill war game board myself. It was about 17" wide (height) by 44" long with 4 (11") panels so you could stand it up. I have always found the commercial variety (then and now) too small to keep all my junk behind as DM and lacking in space for all the charts etc. needed...
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I've always found the newer systems 3.0/3.5/pf easy. Of course I played a lot of Palladium and such. Whenever anyone mentions playing an older system, someone spit spits out Thaco like it's a curse and that idea is shut down
Compared to the complexity of 3.X, THAC0 is pretty damned easy. It's just subtraction. Between only TWO numbers, where it's increasingly hard to find ANY roll in d20 that doesn't have at least a half-dozen modifiers slapped on, esepecially as leave the ultra-low levels.
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I think the game is pretty gritty anywhere between 1st to 6th level. After that, yeah it starts moving out of "rough and tumble adventurers in a sword & sorcery universe" to "heroes in a world of high magic".
Last week I ran a fight on top of a tower with a Frozen Roc as the terrain centerpiece, against an Elder Ice Elemental and about 25 medium elementals for my 9th Level PCs. I threw the Barbarian off a 100 ft. tall tower and it just made her mad. The Grippli Druid was running around as a Fire Elemental melting the Roc's ice casing away. The Wizard casting fireball on the countless minions and the Gunslinger/Bard terribly tanking the Elder Elemental. Keeping it distracted from the Witch who was busy hexing and cursing it in order to turn it into a newt.
It did not get better (because the Roc ate it).
That fight was pretty great, but there was a lot to keep track of (Communal Protection from Elements is ablative, so those that took cold damage had to keep track of how much they were losing, on top of how much normal hp they were losing from the physical damage), bonuses from buffs, bard song, flanking, higher ground, penalties for high winds, miss chances for snow. It took a little while for us to get the hang of the fight.
I really, really love the lower levels though.
See, the complexity is why I play this game. If I wanted a coin-flipping game "you hit, or you don't hit", I'd play one. I'm looking for a complex system that has a lot of options I can use to make combat more interesting.
The scenario described is fantastic. You've got a table full of engaged, interested players who are pulling together to get something done, both in-game and in the books. That's awesome. While yes, storytelling takes longer because of lengthy combat, it's also true that combat takes longer, delaying pesky storytelling. <Grin>
Where I'm really going with this is that to me there's a lot of retread ground, where stories are cliche and iconic. "Oh, rescue another princess. Got it." Combat that doesn't involve pulling a bunch of teamwork together is the mechanical equivalent to me. Bland storytelling, bland combat... it's all bad. We all work toward convoluted, realistic, interesting and unique stories, so why shouldn't we dedicate as much effort (or more) to convoluted, realistic, interesting, and unique combat? Because the fights ARE part of the story.
THAC0 is just BAB standing on its head. :)
If you're tired of rules-heavy games, play something rules-light. I've been eyeballing Risus lately.
Agreed with much of what the OP stated. PF/3.5 works fine at low to mid levels but really once into the teens things start to drag under the weight of modifiers, penalties, buffs, debuffs etc.
Even with a fairly experienced group that is adept in streamlining combat high level encounters often drag out and significant time is lost in putting your nose into a book. I am fairly good at making ad hoc rulings to speed things along but I certainly remember when I finished my last AP I really savoured a rules-lite system such as Savage Worlds as a break from high level PF.
I wish I had a group interested in 1E/2E it would be interesting to run it again and compare the experience.
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characters were not just fighters and thieves anymore, they were class 5 superheroes wearing chain mail… to accentuate this I mentioned how I think my next character should be a shape shifting ninja, with a Technic League cyber arm, firing a gatling gun, from his T-Rex special mount… (woot!)
Yeah, so it's 1985, and the 1e Oriental Adventures has come out, and we're using the psionics rules in the 1e Player's Handbook, and we play through Isle of Dread (Expert) and Barrier Peaks (1e). Guess what? We pretty much have that exact scenario you just described... even back in the "good ol' days." If you want less stuff, just ban stuff; don't blame edition wars when DM permissiveness is the root cause.
3.x has a lot of legitimate problems that 1e didn't -- the move/full attack and casting defensively rules are prime examples of where Monte got some things very, very wrong -- but complexity and options are not things I'd add to that list.
I can't defend the part of 3.5/Pathfinder that involves adding up a dozen different modifiers that change from round to round (those always trip me up too), but the idea of magic being able to do weird and wonderful things starting from level 1 has been in every edition I've ever played.
[..] characters flying, teleporting, and turning invisible at 1st level [..]
I take it you never used the 1E psionics system then? :-)
I can't sympathize, mostly because I like all the extra rules and options. The biggest turnoff for 4E for me, other than the game feeling more like a chessboard than what I expected of D&D, was the lack of options - something I was told would be solved once new expansions came out in time, but made the prospect of playing the game between now and when those expansions came unappetizing.
That said, in my normal games we play with pretty much everything from 3.5 and PF available, in a hybrid system that uses mostly PF rules. So it's all in what your group is looking for in a game. It's more about the story and characters, personally.
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characters were not just fighters and thieves anymore, they were class 5 superheroes wearing chain mail… to accentuate this I mentioned how I think my next character should be a shape shifting ninja, with a Technic League cyber arm, firing a gatling gun, from his T-Rex special mount… (woot!)Yeah, so it's 1985, and the 1e Oriental Adventures has come out, and we're using the psionics rules in the 1e Player's Handbook, and we play through Isle of Dread (Expert) and Barrier Peaks (1e). Guess what? We pretty much have that exact scenario you just described... even back in the "good ol' days." If you want less stuff, just ban stuff; don't blame edition wars when DM permissiveness is the root cause.
3.x has a lot of legitimate problems that 1e didn't -- the move/full attack and casting defensively rules are prime examples of where Monte got some things very, very wrong -- but complexity and options are not things I'd add to that list.
Interesting choice in the "class 5 superhero" wording, since the original fighting man "fought as 4 men", I guess one more level goes from Hero to Superhero. ;)
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Speaking as a Grognard myself, you're looking through the lens of nostalgia for 1st ed.
I have to disagree...
I too am an old grognard (of the "You kids get off my lawn" variety). I currently run a weekly 2nd edition game and find the rules far less complicated than Pathfinder (and 2nd edition is more complicated than 1st edition) even with the weapon speed modifiers to initiative, weapon vs. armor modifiers, and the other assorted rules...
One can roll up a character in far less time, combat takes place at light speed compared to Pathfinder, and DM prep time in general is considerably less (mechanically speaking of course)...
Rules complexity is one of the reasons why I went back to 2nd edition (though I have not totally abandoned Pathfinder)...