Ffordesoon's page

I'm into this, provided the rest of the system supports it. It's a nice middle ground between the relative simplicity of 5e's mechanics and the nigh-GURPSian crunch Pathfinder is famous (some might say infamous) for. It also does a better job of supporting the kind of fiction Pathfinder is designed to support, which is very good.

I'm still leery of the potential for modifier bloat which seemingly remains a feature of the system. Proficiency bonus + level + attribute mod is already a bit math-y for my tastes, and the idea of ladling a whole host of minor bonuses and penalties on top of that just as I would do in Pathfinder 1e is wildly unappealing. Modifier bloat is the biggest problem with Pathfinder 1e, and it's the one that needs to be addressed above all others in 2e. If it's not addressed, every single other great design decision in 2e will not matter to new players.

5e is hardly perfect or an ideal model for Pathfinder 2e, but I would argue that advantage/disadvantage (and, to a lesser extent, bounded accuracy) is what made that game the juggernaut it is. It's not a perfect mechanic, but the math was the biggest barrier to entry for new audiences, and creating a mechanic which replicated the effect of the math while cutting out all the dumb little +1s and -2s was a masterstroke.

Pathfinder 2e doesn't need to use the same mechanic - the core audience is obviously willing to tolerate a higher degree of crunch, and I realize Paizo can only do so much to the system before that audience revolts. That said, there has to be some limit to the amount of situational modifiers added to rolls if Paizo is to have any hope of attracting new players and/or bringing former players like myself back into the fold.

I'm crossing my fingers that you guys have something up your sleeve here. Maybe only the highest bonus and/or most severe situational penalty apply to a given roll? I don't know; you guys are the game designers, not me. But I'm begging you, do something to elminate the possibility of "1d20 + 1 + 2 + 3 - 1 + 2 + 4 - 3 + 6 - 2 + etc etc" being an actual roll.

I wasn't trolling with my last post, but I do find it amusing that it seemed to provoke a reaction. Is that trollish of me? :)

Someone (Vidmaster7, maybe?) asked what my definition of a trap feat is, and how that differs from situational/suboptimal feats. The answer is a question: will I be able to use this feat multiple times over the course of an average campaign without the GM going out of her way to create opportunities for me to use it? If so, it's not a valueless feat. If not, it is a trap option and might as well not exist - or shouldn't be officially supported, at any rate.

If I'm playing in the one campaign in all the world where being a skilled erotic baker matters, the GM can write some feats to boost my Profession (erotic baker) and Craft (fondant) skill checks. Writing feats is only slightly more difficult than writing custom moves for Dungeon World, and only because the mechanical bonus is separate from the fiction. If my GM is really serious about running The Great Erotic Bakery Caper in Pathfinder (which would be a colossally terrible idea since Pathfinder's not built for it, but that's a separate issue), she'll put in the work to customize the game to suit that premise.

Ranishe asked if "gimme" feats like Power Attack shouldn't just be folded into the natural course of character progression. I agree with that idea, actually. Gimme feats are the flip side of trap feats, and in their own way just as bad. I should have mentioned them in my first post.

The way they do in 5e. :P

Okay, okay, I'll be more constructive.

1) About twenty-five percent of the PF feats are inarguable trap options. Those all go in the garbage.

2) About fifty percent of the PF feats aren't trap options, but are highly situational. Those can either go in the garbage with the trap options or get folded into better feats as additional bonuses.

3) Only level and ability score restrictions on feats. No tax feats whatsoever, no class restrictions, none of that crap. Yes, this means the "Improved" feat chains are folded into the original feats. GMs who don't like their players getting all that power in one go can play another game. Pathfinder is fantasy superheroes, and it's time we all admitted that.

4) A ritual casting feat (hey, I told you I liked the way 5e does 'em).

Steal the recovery mechanic from 13th Age or the Healing Surge mechanic from 4E.

Alternately, just play 13th Age. It's better at being Pathfinder than Pathfinder, IMHO.

I think the real answer to the original question is that the vast majority of people in real life are True Neutral and think they are Good. They extrapolate their real-life morality to their character, hence the use of "ends justify the means" without understanding that's not a "Good" (Capital G) way of thinking; it's Neutral at best.

I think that may be a small part of it; certainly, a not-insignificant portion of players despise having their morality called into question by a game.

However, the bigger problem is one of game design. As written, there is literally no moral drawback to the use of infernal healing, for example. The GM might make one up, but it's not in the description of the spell, and most people will play RAW if they can help it. So we have a spell that is completely neutral in terms of what it does - everybody needs healing, yeah? The only difference between infernal healing and celestial healing is that infernal healing has a little "[Evil]" tag attached to it.

Which, with all due respect to Paizo, is about the crappiest possible way to signal that a spell is evil. It's the D&D-spell equivalent of that thing bad movies about unbelievably skilled protagonists do, where everyone around the protagonist talks about their brilliance and expertise, but all we see them doing is stuff anyone of average intelligence could do easily. If the description of infernal healing stipulated that the spell would only activate after the blood sacrifice of a fluffy bunny, the "[Evil]" tag would make intuitive sense. Right now, it doesn't, hence the outcry.

Was speaking to the concept, not the execution, which is kinda dumb. Though I would recommend taking a second look at the Player's Guide. The proclamations (and it's not just the mint thing that's arbitrary and bizarre) are a really small part of why Thrune is hated. He's also closed down all non-Asmodean places of worship, is suspected of capturing/killing prominent and beloved citizens (including the previous mayor of the town), and he closes the world-famous opera house so he can live there and watch operas by himself.

I have problems with the setup of Hell's Rebels myself, but let's be fair.

EDIT: Also, what Rysky said. As cartoonishly evil BBEGs go, Thrune is a pretty good one. The way the opening encounters are designed is what kinda drives me nuts.

Didn't Paizo just release an entire AP predicated on the premise that good-aligned PCs must break the law if the law is corrupt or unjust (Hell's Rebels)?

That seems relevant.

A few reasons:

1) It prevents players from doing what they want to do.

2) It limits character concepts.

3) It forces players to abide by Paizo's idiosyncratic interpretations of Good and Evil as concepts, which often conflict with GM and player interpretations of those concepts. This is to say nothing of the inherent weirdness of D&D morality, which is predicated on the notion that disreputable tomb robbers who slaughter thousands of living creatures over their adventuring career are fundamentally good, and that downtrodden creatures attempting to eke out an existence in a hostile world the only way they know how are fundamentally evil. Within such a bizarre moral universe, it's no surprise players are confused by the arbitrary restrictions the alignment system imposes.

4) Going against one's alignment is actively discouraged by RAW, even though "going against one's alignment" would often be the most interesting thing to happen in the campaign at that moment and make for a better story.

5) Absolute morality doesn't exist, and pretending that it does is, ironically, the most common justification for evil acts.

Whoops, sorry, I was on vacation. Do you still have a spot open?

^What ElterAgo said.

Another idea: caster's have to physically wrestle with nature in order to memorise new spells. This limits how many spells casters get back per day to 1d4 plus their strength bonus. It will have no effect at low levels, a moderate effect at mid-levels and a profound effect at high levels (where full casters break the game).

I dunno. That sounds like exactly the kind of player-punishing AD&D-style limitation on casters I was attempting to get away from with my ideas. What's the player getting out of it?

(Yes, I realize you could ask the same thing of the Doomsday Clock. That's one of the flaws in the idea I'm hoping to correct.)

@Milo v3:

Huh. That could be a really good way of doing it, actually.

@Milo v3:

1. All fair points. I think there's a great idea here, but it needs refining for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

2. I own both books, but haven't read through either yet. Will check them out.

@Boomerang Nebula:

Thanks! Though I will say that I think these folks are correct to point out that both ideas are underdeveloped. I started this thread because I thought the ideas were good raw material that needed molding, not because I thought they could be slotted into every game as is. I would think very carefully about introducing the Doomsday Clock into a preexisting game, as it's best if everyone knows the score ahead of time. I would also caution you against not enforcing the rule once it's been agreed upon - I think it's important to follow through on promises made to your players, especially if they're as punitive as this. But you're welcome to do as you like.

@Cyrad:

I, too, must ask "How so?" Not because I think you're wrong, necessarily, but because I want to know how the idea can be improved.

Thanks for commenting!

@DM_Blake:

First of all, I will say upfront that I don't believe the disparity can be solved in 3.x/PF without altering the way the game plays on a fundamental level. Caster dominance is baked into the system, and published adventures assume the presence of a caster from first level. You'd have a very hard time running any of the PF APs as written under these systems, because the APs aren't designed to take alterations on this scale into account.

The second idea is better in an F20* game of its own, I'll cop to that. Perhaps they both are, but I think the first one could be ported into Pathfinder with a fair amount of work. Or 5e/13th Age, both of which I personally like more than Pathfinder. Any F20 game could theoretically harbor the first idea, though some are better fits than others. The caster-martial disparity extends to most of them, so I suppose it's wise to treat these ideas as system-neutral.

I will say, however, that if I were running a PF game and planning on using the first idea, I would restrict the countdown to the really high-level spells - Level 6 or Level 7 through Level 9. I'd also probably have Level 8 spells make the tally go up by three, and Level 9 spells would add somewhere around five. That's assuming that we're counting to one hundred, mind. If the number were 1000, I'd add 30 for Level 8 and 50 for Level 9. One must be consistent with these things.

I'd also rule that wish could only be used once, full stop, and that wishing for more wishes would result in a death both immediate and as ignominious as I could make it. But then, I'd houserule that into any F20 game with wish in it. :)

Oh, and Scribe Scroll wouldn't be a thing. Perhaps not wands, either. I forgot to mention those in my first post.

In any case, don't get stuck on the number in the first idea. The point is the psychological effect of the number, not the number itself.

@Milo v3:

1. Discounting the obvious mistake I apparently made in choosing the number 100, it adds an interesting narrative wrinkle (to me, anyway), a reason for martial PCs to be there beyond "We're also in the party," a risk associated with casting spells that currently isn't there, a character arc for casters that mirrors character arcs in fantasy literature, and a blanket reduction in the narrative power of casters. Among other things. If you don't believe it adds to the game, though, that's fair enough.

2. D20 Modern did that? Huh. I own the core rulebook for that system, but I haven't read it yet. I'll have to give it a look.

Thank you both for your input! :D

Anyone else?

* - F20 is Robin Laws' elegant abbreviation for "fantasy RPGs where you roll a d20 to resolve tasks and fight dudes and generally do D&D-y things," if you've never heard the term before.

This was originally written as a post in this thread, but, well, look at it. No way were these ideas going to be considered seriously when there's arguing to be done. Which would be a shame, as I think these are interesting suggestions which are worthy of consideration and critique.

If you're tired of hearing about the caster-martial disparity, join the club. But it is a real problem, and fixing them without turning the game into 4e presents some fascinating design challenges worth discussing.

A couple of reasonably elegant ways to limit the narrative power of casters without making them annoying to play have occurred to me. I doubt the first one originated with me, so feel free to tell me from whence I accidentally swiped it. The second one is also a swipe, but I'll acknowledge it when we get to it.

----

1. A "doomsday clock" system. Basically, caster PCs have a certain number of spels they can cast in their life - let's say a hundred. The player or the GM keeps a running tally of all the spells cast (excluding cantrips - that's just mean), and the PC functions as normal until they hit the magic (tee hee) number. When they're done casting the hundredth spell, they keel over dead. And no, nothing can bring you back once it happens - the caster dies permanently.

There are, of course, dials one can adjust here - it could be five hundred spells instead of one hundred, the GM could wind the clock back a smidge for every spell cast that's useful to the whole party, or it might be that only high-level or especially powerful spells count toward the total. A GM who's a great bookkeeper could say you age with every spell you cast, but how much you age is dependent on the level of the spell - a Level 1 spell ages you a day, a Level 2 spell ages you a week, and so on. A fiendish GM might crank up the nastiness - maybe every spell ages you a year, and you take the attendant age penalties, or you get fifty spells a life, or whatever.

The effect here is chiefly psychological - spider climb doesn't seem as immediately attractive as letting the martials carry you when it moves you one step closer to permanent death, does it? At the same time, the concept in its vanilla form doesn't impede the fun one can have playing a caster while they're alive. For me, it also makes casters more narratively interesting, hews more closely to spellcasting as it's commonly portrayed in fantasy fiction (dangerous, limited, rare), and avoids the "Reed Richards Is Useless" logic problem 3.x casters inadvertently embody.

2. This is, perhaps, a more fundamental shift, since it challenges an assumption going back to the very first incarnation of D&D. At the same time, it makes so much sense that I'm shocked I haven't seen any games try it before (and I might have; my memory is far from perfect).

The idea? Every class starts out as a martial. All classes can choose to gain Level 1 spells at Level 11 (or 10, but there are nine spell levels) and every level thereafter. Or maybe Magic-User is just a prestige class.

Weird, right? But it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. In fact, I'll explain just how much sense it makes by outright telling you where I stole the idea from - Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic. If you've played KOTOR, you know that the design masterstroke of the game was in denying you the ability to start as a Jedi. You had to hustle for that Jedi merit badge. And when you finally got your lightsaber, you felt like a Jedi. Jedi = Space Wizard.

(Yes, yes, Jedi are technically the ultimate level dippers, but in terms of the narrative role they occupy? Space Wizards.)

Casters dominate at high levels anyway, new players tend to find casters intimidating, and there's really no narrative reason why Joe Palooka should have access to any magic more powerful than cantrips (and I hasten to add the proviso that cantrips should be buffed to at least 5e levels, 'cause they are straight-up useless in 3.x/PF). So gate Joe Palooka's initiation into wizardry until he can really appreciate it.

----

Any thoughts?

@thejeff:

Ah, thanks, that makes sense. Hopefully the second edition is less fragile. I'm really interested in playing it.

@thejeff:

If I may juke away from the topic for a moment, I'd like to ask you a question.

To me, "broken" used in a gaming context usually implies gaming a system to produce unintended results which subvert the spirit of the game. So, for example, summoners in Pathfinder tend to trivialize encounters intended to be difficult in a way that's not very fun for anyone, the summoner's player included. The intent of the game is to be fun for all the players. Ergo, Pathfinder summoners are broken.

By contrast, every Level 70 character in Diablo III has unfettered access to the entire vast suite of abilities granted by their class, which might seem broken from the perspective of a Diablo II player. But, while you can certainly argue it's a poor design choice for a sequel to Diablo II, you can't argue that it's a broken system, because the system works as intended.

Now, admittedly, I've never managed to play a game of Feng Shui, but I do own the rulebook for the second edition, and it seems to me that Feng Shui is quite explicitly a game where the PCs are supposed to win most fights and do impossible stuff and show off like crazy, just as in the HK action cinema which inspired the game. The intro to the second edition uses a character dashing across the tops of oncoming bullets as an example of something you are supposed to be able to do in the course of play. From a Pathfinder player's perspective, that is crazy, but I wouldn't say it's broken, because it's wholly within the spirit of the game.

All of which is to ask: What about Feng Shui is "broken" within the context I just described? I've never played it, remember, so this really is meant as an honest question.

I'd like to sign up as a reserve player.

Dotting.

@Rub-Eta:

Oh, I know. My post certainly wasn't an attempt to solve the disparity entirely. But, you know, the game runs on math. The characters with the most math-affecting agency tend to be full or partial casters. Thkse characters tend, not coincidentally, to have the most agency in and out of combat. Making the math more equitable by giving martials more agency to affect it is step one in solving the disparity.

I've looked at a bunch of these caster/martial disparity threads over the past couple of weeks, and I keep finding it odd that nobody mentions something that seems to me self-evident - why does no one talk about buffs to saves?

I mean, as someone who plays a lot of martials, I find that the vast majority of the gear I can buy buffs my AC. You know, the stat that casters do not give a crippled crab's crutch about? If my weaksauce Will save can't meet the DC, and it usually can't, I become that caster's buttmonkey until they decide otherwise. Never mind eating AoOs - if I'm a melee martial, I'm built to withstand those, and if I'm a ranged martial, I should never be in a threatened square to begin with. But if I've got a low Will save, my 100 AC means diddly-squat.

Meanwhile, guess who's got a killer Will save? Bocephus Bootylicious III, the wizard who's softer than Swiss Miss pudding. This is made worse by the fact that old Bocephus, should he manage to fail his save, is still a more efficient party-slaughtering machine than yours truly. A reasonably well-optimized PC can stand up to a few whacks from my greatsword, but Bocephus can shoot a couple of fireballs out his ass and inflict a TPK. Or he can just cast dominate person on another martial PC and watch us eviscerate the rest of the party, at which point the original caster can dump us both in a pit of acid while casually perusing his copy of Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Supreme Overlords.

So why can I buy items and gear that temporarily buff ability scores and stuff, but not my actual saves? Yes, I realize ability scores tie into saves, but that just forces me to waste a fortune on gear that shores up ability scores which have no bearing on my class or character concept, and I'm still not going to have the Will saves Bocephus gets just for drawing breath.

Maybe I'm missing some loophole in the rules or whatever - wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last. But it seems to me that solving the disparity starts with giving martials the ability to directly affect the math that actually matters to them in play.

EDIT: Oh, and I think that should also include being able to debuff casters' saves. A dude with a big sword should make casters sweat no matter what their saves are.

Dotting, veeeeeeeery interested.

Oh, okay.

Sorry if this is obvious to everyone but me, but what does "VMC" stand for?

@OP:

This seems like something you should decide for yourself. Instead of worrying about what the rules say, figure out how granular you want to get with searches in general. If you want to tax your players' brains and/or want to run a more immersive campaign, houserule that taking 20 on Perception checks gives players a general overview of the room, but doesn't give them everything in the room. They still have to act out the search manually if they want to find everything.

If the idea of your players spending a long time in one room bores you, on the other hand, you should rule that taking 20 (assuming the room is free of hazards and there is no time pressure and so on) allows them to find everything in a given room.

A good middle-ground option would be to say that they search the room long and hard enough to highlight all "points of interest," and then leave it up to the players to examIne those points and figure out what the deal with each of them is. I think that could be the best way to do it if they're in an environment with a lot of traps and puzzles and stuff, but I'm not one of your players, so.

Remember the Most Important Rule:

The Most Important Rule

The rules in this book are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of “house rules” that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, the Pathfinder RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contribute their thoughts when the rules are in doubt.

So sit down with your players outside of the game (in-game rules arguments are death, minus the "sweet release" part), hash out what precisely taking twenty on Perception does in said game until both sides are satisfied, and move on.

Or just do what James Jacobs said, since he's James Jacobs and I'm not. ;)

After much consideration, I've decided to bow out. I was looking forward to playing this, but I simply don't have the time to devote to it. I may, however, read along - this sounds too awesome not to at least do that.

Congratulations those who have been and will be selected. I'll keep my character in reserve if someone chooses to drop out.

Thanks for your consideration!

The other people in your group sound like dicks.

@Jiggy:

You're arguing against a straw Ffordesoon, I'm afraid. Which is fair enough, as I seem to have argued against a straw Jiggy.

I'm not saying the character sheet is unimportant. It is, vitally so. I wholeheartedly agree that if I've got a +12 to Stealth, I'm not roleplaying well if I waltz into every encounter banging a miniature gong (unless I'm roleplaying a moron who gets PCs killed, anyway - and with some character concepts, it's wise to tamp down the method acting a smidge, lest the other players conveniently forget that you're mortal).

No, my point was that unless you're playing an explicitly narrativist game like Apocalypse World or Feng Shui, there is often a measurable distinction between the character in the backstory you wrote before the game (which, as thejeff correctly surmised, was the only part of the sheet I was talking about) and the character you play at the table. If my backstory says I'm fighting to avenge the murder of my parents, and the group dynamic is such that an angsty backstory like that doesn't feel right at the table, I'm going to ignore the backstory I wrote and play the character differently.

After the session, sure, I'll rewrite the backstory. But what I thought you were arguing is that you always and forever must play the character on the sheet or you're having badwrongfun, which seemed, well, mildly insane to me. If you're okay with the sheet itself being mutable, I have no issue with anything you've said.

Well, I suppose I will beg to differ slightly on the subject of "crunch" versus "fluff." While I agree that the dichotomy is false and somewhat problematic, I would argue that segregating the two can occasionally be useful on a purely semantic level even if you know the distinction is false.

@Jiggy:

Your definition seems overly prescriptive. I've created characters before that ended up behaving very differently at the table than the character I'd imagined, but none of the players in those games would argue that I wasn't roleplaying well. Sometimes, I was integrating bad rolls into my character's story. Other times, I was adjusting the character to fit in with the group. Still other times, I realized that something on the sheet just wasn't that interesting in practice.

As far as I'm concerned, if you're the creator of the character, whatever you do at the table "counts" more than anything on the sheet. Playing a pregen might be different, I suppose, but if the character comes from my head, and I'm consistent with my portrayal of that character from session to session, I would argue that I'm roleplaying as well as someone who hews to the sheet. I'm roleplaying differently, sure, but not badly. The sheet has a character concept on it, but the character only comes to life in play.

@Kullen:

Because it's usually not presented within the fiction as "Ooh! A goblin tribe! Let's slaughter them and steal their stuff!" That may be the players' motivation, and that's fine, but that's metagaming. Even in the most murderhobo-y game of all time, the story/RP bits are there to make you feel okay about goblin murder by contextualizing it with "An evil goblin tribe is raiding our village! Help us, brave heroes!"

Which is absolutely simplistic and problematic and rife with troubling assumptions, if you examine it closely. But none of that matters if your group has fun.

If, however, one person at the table decided it'd be fun to build a character who's basically a Nazi toward the "monster" races, and their character spent the whole journey to the goblin village espousing the potential benefits of rounding up all the goblins and putting them in magical furnaces or performing horrific experiments on them or whatever, it's likely that there would be a point at which the rest of the group would get very uncomfortable. The one player would be having fun at the expense of the group's fun.

And that is the only way you actually can "play the game wrong."

I'll try to post my character sometime tomorrow. Some unfortunate news kind of took the wind out of my sails for a day or two. If punctuality factors into your decision, be aware that once I'm in a game, I'm in it. These past few days have just been crazy. Sorry for the wait.

UPDATE:

Got an idea. Tiefling bard, maybe headed toward the College of Valor. Statting up now...

Rolling:

4d6 ⇒ (4, 4, 5, 2) = 15 = 13

4d6 ⇒ (1, 6, 5, 6) = 18 Reroll 1s: 1d6 ⇒ 3 = 17

4d6 ⇒ (6, 4, 6, 3) = 19 = 16

4d6 ⇒ (5, 2, 1, 2) = 10 Reroll 1s: 1d6 ⇒ 4 = 13

4d6 ⇒ (2, 2, 4, 2) = 10 = 8

4d6 ⇒ (6, 4, 3, 1) = 14 Reroll 1s: 1d6 ⇒ 2 = 14

Dang. Pretty nice stats!

Now to see what I want to build... *rubs hands together happily*

Dotted.

Some people want a list of everything they are allowed to do, and believe anything not on that list is necessarily disallowed. If you're coming to 5e with that mindset, I can see how it would seem limiting and shallow. Because, you know, it's a game about what happens at the table, not what's in the rulebook.

Dotting. I've wanted to play Savage Worlds for a while, and this premise sounds awesome.

That said, I need to read about how to make a character before I make one, so give me a little bit.

Thanks for the answers, folks. Very thoughtful and informative responses to a clumsily phrased post.

I realize now that the question I should have asked is one that's much easier to answer: "Are beholders a D&D creation, and if so, why are they covered by Product Identity while some creatures that seem equally original and iconic, such as owlbears [Thanks for the link and the much better example, Lorathorn!], aren't?" The desire for that knowledge was the impetus for my original question. Asking the wrong question got me more comprehensive and interesting answers than asking the right one would have, and several of y'all managed to answer the right question in answering the wrong one.

Funny how that works, no? :)

So here's a question: what goes into deciding what is and isn't covered under the aegis of Product Identity? In other words, what makes beholders copyrightable that doesn't also make Worgs copyrightable?

I have a feeling I know some of the answer, but humor me.

Ffordesoon wrote:

If they don't know the rules, they won't notice you fudging them for more interesting play. ;)

And if they ever notice anyway, they won't trust you for a long, long time.

True, true. Best to be upfront about what you're doing and why. I retract my previous statement.

If they don't know the rules, they won't notice you fudging them for more interesting play. ;)

EDIT: And yes, not keeping track of XP and simply leveling the PCs when you think they're ready is a wiser course of action than per-kill XP. Keeps things moving and it's one less fiddly bit to worry about.

In addition to all the good previous advice (especially Ascalaphus', who beat me to posting most of what I was going to post and said it better than I could), it's important to remember that you can give the PCs a secondary win/loss condition orthogonal to the boss' survival. That way, you divide the party's attention and give your players a reason to have a better plan than "hit until dead."

The classic example is the rescue of an NPC before they're executed by the boss or the boss' minions. The obvious plausibility hump here is the question of why the baddies wouldn't just kill the NPC immediately and unceremoniously, but there are common fantasy scenarios you can use to your advantage here, like "[name of Big Bad] tells us that [name of NPC] must be sacrificed at the precise moment the heavenly spheres align," or perhaps that trusty standby, "The prophecy foretells..." Or you could just straight-up tell the players they have a time limit (five rounds, say). Really depends on how game-y you want your game to be.

Another possibility is to create a "puzzle boss" by making the Big Bad immune to everything except, you know, a beam of sunlight (or whatever) as refracted through the Gem of Plot Contrivance. Again, pretty game-y, but there's a precedent for it in enough fantasy fiction (and mythology, for that matter) that it's easy to buy. You run the risk of a TPK if you don't give them any hints, of course, but that's why you follow the Three Clue Rule.

Finally, unless it's one of those immobile tentacled jerks Paizo loves so much, you can always have the Big Bad attempt to fall back to a fortified position, or simply have them try to escape. Or you could make it so that simply thwacking the Big Bad triggers PC-injuring/condition-inflicting badness. Or you could have the Big Bad ask to parley before the fight even starts, then offer the PCs some swank-ass stuff if they agree to leave said Big Bad alone. There are plenty of ways to make a single-foe fight memorable while keeping it between the PCs and the Big Bad.

One thing I think it's wise to reiterate is that an interesting and memorable encounter doesn't need to be artificially elongated by giving the boss squillions of HP or whatever. An interesting encounter is interesting even if it's only three rounds. In some cases, the level of player interest is actually inversely proportional to the time the encounter takes. I think it's wise to avoid creating damage-sponge baddies in most cases; combat in Pathfinder takes long enough without the GM's help. Unless the PCs are fighting a gargantuan creature of legend (e.g. a dragon), damage-sponge encounter design tends to frustrate and exhaust players, not challenge them.

IMHO, YMMV, etc. etc.

Well, dang. Even with the odd omissions, this here is a pret-ty big deal. Nice job, WotC.

And here, slightly delayed, is the fluff.

Yes, I realize that is an insane amount of money in Golarion terms, but she's obviously never going to get it, so.

I submit for your consideration one Vinchenza Derren.

Fluff coming soon.

Is recruitment still going for this? I'm interested.

Interested. Will be watching this thread.

Sunshadow:

I would argue that giving new players too much control - and a bevy of trap options, in the case of 3.x - is far more likely to put them off a system than a bad DM. Players know pretty quickly, when someone else is screwing them, but they're reluctant to believe they've screwed themselves, especially when the options they picked are all designed to sound attractive. A new player would always rather blame Drew the crappy DM for their problems than feel like the game lied to them.

I also think that it's much worse for a session - especially a player's first session - to be boring than it is for their session to be badly run. At least a badly run session is memorable and gives you a story to tell. A boring session is, well, boring, and a boring first session with a system can give the player the impression that the system itself is boring. Hence, the idea that a single session of 3.x can be made dull as dishwater for everyone involved does not seem to me an improvement over other negative outcomes.

Finally, I would think the alleged safety net 3.x gives the inexperienced DM would be more of a problem than anything, because it gives the DM more stuff to keep track of that isn't the story. How is the DM supposed to keep details consistent if she can't focus totally on the story she's telling? Also, more player control means the DM might have to deal with the pressure of players constantly on the lookout for mistakes on her part. An inexperienced DM can make a ton of mistakes and still end the game on a satisfying note for everyone, but distrustful players can make her paranoid, which can then turn the game into an escalating struggle for control rather than the exercise in collaborative storytelling it's supposed to be.

Oh, and it's worth noting that 5e does have a fairly robust set of rules for common play scenarios, not to mention a table that lists common DCs for all skill checks. It might be simpler than 3.x, but the safety net you speak of is still pretty generous in comparison to a true rules-light system like Swords & Wizardry or Numenera.

Sunshadow:

That's what I thought.

Well, I can't help you find the right group, but I can tell you from experience that playing is believing. It's a LOT more fun than it seems when you just read it. I was mildly impressed with it when I first glanced at the rules, but nothing jumped out at me as being particularly cool.

After I played my first session (with a DM I'd never met before that day, BTW), I was practically vibrating with excitement, and I spent the next week or two jabbering about it to anyone who made the mistake of allowing me to talk at them. I've been a steadfast evangelist for the system ever since.

I can't guarantee you'll feel the same way, of course, but it seems like plenty of other people in this thread have had a similar experience.

Have you played 5e yet, sunshadow? Honest question.

I'm not sure I understand your point. Surely a system that's easier to teach and to run is more portable, not less?