| Destinar Orion 3 |
So I have been playing 3.5 for a while and wanted pathfinder to do some sort of epic level play. Then mythic was announced and while some friends liked it, and others were unsure about it, I loved it. Honestly I still do and I think that Paizo did a terrific job with mythic tiers.
The main problem we have here is that pathfinder is an improvement on 3.5, which around 13th level CR goes out the window when you have experienced players who as part of their rpg experience love to min/max out their characters. It is human nature that some people do not want to play sub par characters, and optimize the heck out of them. Around 14-15th level all my PC's are doing on average 300 points of damage per swing (non mythic). So when I the DM and thrown against them, i can only do so much when my monsters get one shotted, even with superior tactics. One thing I have learned is you never want to penalize the player for having fun and building a strong character, but you feel bad when almost every monster in the bestiary has a hard time standing up to the pc's. So I want to share a few house rules with you guys and see what you think. Most of these changes come into play at around 13th level or so when the HP of the monsters no longer scales with pc damage output.
Double the hp of regular (non summoned via spell casting) the enemies if there are 5 or less of them. No point on doing it on weenies who may are designed to get one shotted either way. Bosses should have three to four times their HP and Dual initiative at all times. Bosses battles should be iconic for the story, hey does a pcs roll a few nice crits and one shot the boss. Yes it happens, but rolling high damage should be a reward in its own right, such as bringing the boss that much closer to death rather than just flat out destroying him. A PC should feel accomplished after a tough boss battle rather than steam roll through an adventure and easily pluck out the boss in 2 seconds. In mythic I am hearing about PC'S destroying demonlords in a few seconds, when a cr 20 party can destroy a cr 30 monster no problem then the system has a problem, but if the party knows that the big bad guy can last a while it can encourage them to use different tactics and make their buffs really count rather than being monster destroyers.
Secondly I have created a system called Dramatic Rolling. Once every battle a PC can describe what they are doing to gain a static +1 bonus/per 4 levels on any roll they wish so as long as they describe in vivid detail what and how they are doing before they roll. I find sometimes players forget the story and focus more on combat, and while some appreciate the story, number crunching is always in the back of their minds, so why not encourage role playing and helping create the story while grabbing a few extra bonuses to your role.
Crafting combos, buying gear and outlandish combos. Magical gear is always what adventures want, and if they can't what they want on the material plane, then they will planeshift to some city that has it, be it the celestial plane, fire plane ect.... they will be creative in such regards. Even if you the dm makes it hard for them they will come up with things like, well my character wants to research this ect....I say hey let them have a shot at it. Have them roll percentage dice, have give them a 20% chance to find any item above 25,000 gp in value if they fail, all their searching has been for naught. If they succeed then they can find that item and purchase it.
For crafting make the crafter meet all the prerequisites. If he does not have all of them, create a side quest for the party to go on to retrieve the rest or create an alternative way to craft the item. For a crafter who does not have the resources to craft a holy avenger, perhaps they can descend into the abyss to saves a corrupted angel from dark magic and as they purge his body of the darkness his soul is absorbed into a special alchemical sword which was part of the ritual which only the crafter could assist with.
Errata spells and feats that cause wide concern. I understand paizo is pretty good at this, but there is still more work to be done. 2400 damage dealing vital strikes, 100 explosive runes written on toilet paper, clustershot weapon master archers which essentially negates dr and 4 armed level 2 alchemists, and summoner synthesists with 60 acs. I understand that many pcs actually enjoy breaking the game or saying "well its in the core rules" but that doesn't mean the system is perfect it is a constant work in progress. It should be more about the story than combat, but sometimes the two go hand in hand and it should be everyone the pcs and the dm who are having fun in combat and not just being a well im going to throw this monster at them fully aware that its going to die, or have the pcs think im cheating after they did 400 points of damage to it. Because many players get stuck on the rules sometimes the rules need to change so they can accept that the system is not perfect and should just have fun with it.
Let me know what you think of my changes?