Hi fellows DM and players,
I've played pathfinder for a lot now, and in time , I've came to notice something that really bothers me, and I hope that some more experienced than me can prove me wrong .
In my experience I've played lots of different class and campaign, fanmade, officials, housemade, i've gone through all and I've noticed a central point on all of them
Combat.
But it's not the presence of combat itself that bother me, it's the fact that is so important in the overall mechanic of the system that all that doesn't impact directly in it became useless.
Now , It's true that not all the encounter you can have in a campaign are combats , since even exploring a cave, or crossing a raging river have a CR and therefore provides XP , but if you are planning to level up a characters doing only exploration and social interactions , you find that you'll have a veeeeeery long task in front of you .
and that explain why in all the prefab and fanmade campaign, just in the middle of nowhere the players are called to fight unusual collection of random monster that are just passing by, that hates you and are strangely of a level slightly less than your so that you can defeat them.
and since climbing the everest gives the same xp than killing a cr 7 encounter (just saying) it's much faster to level up doing combats than doing skill checks for finding herbs, or exploring caves.
that means that willing or not in a campaign the player will fight , this is assured.
and since the player must level up to let the campaign continue, all the player choices when building the characters will always ends to the problems of combat effectiveness ( because if there are some slightly chance that you will use your Profession skill, you are completely sure that your Armor Class will be tested )
speaking of combat effectiveness All my thinking start from a simple concept: all that is destroyed, cannot affect you in any way.
and doing my homeworks I've came to notice that destroying the enemy is waaaaaaay much simple than defending yourself, and that is caused by one simple fact: if you plan to defend youself you must find a way to have an adequate protection for each kind of ability , attack, special effect, condition, or technique that the enemy can throw at you ,
if you plan to attack instead , you worry basically only to hit, and how much damage you can give,
now , i've noticed that in order to keep the combat fast and the enemy balanced the hit point of a creature can be easily reached in even one single round of attack of a damage dealer player,
and there isn't really a single way to avoid that , the only way seems not give a chance to the enemy to come in line of sight of your character .
I've come to realize also that the Ambush is almost unbeatable if the master don't cheat, allowing npc to do perception check even when they don't have any clue that they could be in danger.
and even so, often only the boss can spot the danger leaving lots of minion on the field before the start of the combat.
In one campaign I've found myself mastering a group of 5 player ( 4 damage dealer, and one healer ) to survive the system they basically ovebuilded a couple of skill, like perception and stealth and ambushed every enemies if possible, the result was often a double attack when they won the initiative, that always killed everything before first round.
in most cases bosses or minions need 3 or 4 round to unleash all the worst on the players, or to have an effective dangerous strategy, and all of that require one important condition, be alive.
so there isn't a need to build defence if the enemy is dead in the first round .... always.
ambush ( for a splitted party that kills a great elemental of air in 3/4 of round ) is simply wrong, and after that I think that nothing can beat that strategy,
the only way i can think of is simply luring player in situation where they cannot roll any dice that have a dc lower than 42 , and that instakill them without option of surviving.
and what's worse is that this strategy of doing damages isn't nerfed even a bit, i mean , i'd love to play other characters than a dual wielding barbarian , or a dual wielding paladin, or a blaster caster, or a ranger turret,
let's make some examples:
i can think of the illusionism, or the charm that are simply the worst choice you can make if you are a player.
3/4 of the creature types are immune to them,and the other still have to lose their will save to be affected, and since we love charm, let the people more possibility to free themself, without losing actions. aaaand also you must speak the language of your victim ..... aaaand since you aren't technically dominating them , let's make sure that they won't do everything you say , ...... aaaaand oh , give also some HD and creature type limit , just because
doing a desna paladin ? ok here we have an archetype for you , let's only takes away your useless medium armor and here your uber weapon, a knife , bikker, heavyier, that requires strenght and dexterity, and makes half of the damage of a longsword, oh and check out our specific feat for it, you only need to build even wisdom and charisma, so you can choose to use strenght, dexterity, wisdom, or charisma , to hit ! what ? you would like to build only one so you can actually hit ? why ??? don't you prefer to be a level 22 paladin with the same effectiveness of a level 1 warrior ???
and the list goes on , there are hundreds of cool ideas , feats, and spells that cannot de used because they're not effective in combat, and if a character bravely ignore this and take one utility spell and keep it prepared, even the campaign penalizes them for doing so .
once i had locate object in a campaign where we had to find a sword, that was the only times that i thought hey maybe i can do that !
and then , no since you haven't seen the object and even so the city where you are is so big that to scan it all would require a MONTH !
so why again one wizard , that have only 2 spell at level would sacrifice space and going around with a locate object spell prepared ?
when he could prepare fireballs ?
and resolve even social interaction with terrorism act ?
for this I've came to realize that all of this various spells and feats, are not for the players, they're for the DM, wich is the only one at the table that can build a character for each necessity,
a player cannot do that since if you build a pg, he will do good only a couple of things, and for the other, it will rely on other party members, or die , and since the combats are soo deeply inserted into the mechanics every characters must be builded to survive . and thats a big limitation .
think in the real world , how many people would survive in a fight ? not many , but they survive anyway ,just because they avoid fighting, a thing that in a campaign you cannot do.
once we played a prefab campaign ( I'll not say wich one for sake of spoilers ).
i played a witch that was an archivist , literally the young shy girl that work to the town hall and keep organized the records.
after the first week i survived a monster invasion that almost destroyed all, ( even us )
after the second week i was parachuted beyond enemy lines, with a strike team in a castle full of enemies, wihout escape route, to kill the whole group of enemy generals in one all out attack....
I've looked at the DM at the first stealth check and I sad .... i keep organized paperworks you know ? why again am I here ?
the point is why in all the gdr there must be so much extensive use of combat ? why can't the adventure be more different and less lethal ?
do you think that could be a negative idea ?
