But there are lots of things in the game that you don't know how powerful it is. For example, undead range from less than CR 1 human skeletons to death knights, and until you see some special effects you have no idea how powerful it is (a description of "its a skeleton in a suit of armor" is not going to work). Crazy outsiders, aberrations, constructs, oozes...the list goes on. None of those have an easy "oh, it's a CR2 monster because it doesn't have a masterwork sword" tag on it, and skill checks won't tell you the number of HPs, saves, or other truly important details of a monster. I tend to be a conservative player with a huge knowledge of DnD stats, but I can't fault players who blast anything unfamiliar.Knowledge skill checks let you "identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.
For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information."
- Knowledge (Nature) for animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, vermin)
- Knowledge (Religion) for undead
- Knowledge (Arcana) for constructs, dragons, magical beasts
- Knowledge (Dungeoneering) for aberrations and oozes
- Knowledge (The planes) for outsiders and elementalsFrom the D20 srd.org
My players usually ask to make the check. When they don't, and I know that they may underestimate or overestimate the challenge, I make the check in secret for them and drop a gentle hint. If they fail the check and then the mystery monster shows the distinctive SFX, they get another roll. But I may be too nice.
I think you give them more than the SRD would. Considering the sheer number of monsters, I can't tell you exactly what CR a monster is based on a few hints about their powers unless its a Core monster (and even then, not 100%). For example, I expect most players can tell you exactly what a beholder can do, but there are like a half a dozen other kinds of beholders and I can't tell you difference between a spectator, a gauth, and an eye of the deep.
K:
Realising that sometimes its easier to crush a badguy under his own temple that attack him directly is hardly cheating. This is not a game with winners and losers, and i doubt you'll find many here who feel that it is.
The only person you cheat in a game like this, is your self.
The more and more you talk on this subject, the more i wonder if you wouldn't be happier playing a table-top war game.
High challenge adventures that assume weird resting tactics or hoards of scrolls means that giving parties something comparable is necessary give players a chance of beating the adventure.
No, they mean that the things that are assumed can be used to beat the adventure. Unless it's a horrid deathtrap adventure, there's plenty of ways to beat it without anything extra. And if it is a horrid deathtrap, or something with a very strict time limit, then you're just removing the challenge that the author put into it.. and by changing the core rules, you're removing that challenge for everyone. And the module designers will simply add it back into new modules, and you'll be back to complaining that they're all to hard. There's a reason they're hard, and giving the players even more power isn't going to stop designers from making modules that take that power into account to make an even more challenging module.
Saying that every published adventure is impossible is not a reason to change core rules, because the rules do not dictate the difficulty. The module designer and the DM dictate the difficulty.
Its perfect backwards compatibility, and it eliminates the need for resting so the 15-Minute Adventuring Day problem is solved too.
You're still not understanding the problem of the 15-minute adventuring day. It isn't that the players need to rest, and it is only tangentially related to the module challenge. It is that the players only want to do the absolute best the characters can do, and stop to rest the moment they're not able to, even if they have lesser resources that would work for them or if the other players in the group are still going strong.
To quote the original poster of the earlier thread about this, 'The bigger part of the problem is "Guys, I've cast all my highest-level spells today, time to go home!" after a small handful of encounters.' They've still got resources.. they just don't want to use them.
Its also worth i think pointing out.
It is for the very reason that paizo started writing AP's that interested me, based around storys rather than, 'nova, loot, rest, repeat.' that i came back to D'n'D at all. I am not alone in this, there are numerous people here who have said as much. Making changes which push Pathfinder more towards the optimisation and 'nova, loot, rest, repeat.'will likely drive many people whom paizo have attracted back, finally and perminantly away form D'n'D.
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To quote the original poster of the earlier thread about this, 'The bigger part of the problem is "Guys, I've cast all my highest-level spells today, time to go home!" after a small handful of encounters.' They've still got resources.. they just don't want to use them.
Exactly. It is the whole edge of death argument (the less resources you have, the more dramatic the swings in resources), some players love it, but others want to avoid it like the plague (which seems to be the majority, as Wizards has changed low-level play for the new edition). Personally, I love not knowing if my character will live or die. It is why my characters adventure.
If I wanted to be guaranteed a "win" I can play a computer game or sports.
K:
Realising that sometimes its easier to crush a badguy under his own temple that attack him directly is hardly cheating. This is not a game with winners and losers, and i doubt you'll find many here who feel that it is.
The only person you cheat in a game like this, is your self.
The more and more you talk on this subject, the more i wonder if you wouldn't be happier playing a table-top war game.
It feels like cheating when I play a published adventure and I can't win without a crazy plan. Basically, its my cheating vs. their unfair challenge.
My suggestion is to play in the RPGA for a while. Its incredibly deadly simply because its a preset adventure with no room for customization.
Its basically the best laboratory for vetting rules and options because you very quickly see how good certain tactics are compared to others.
To quote the original poster of the earlier thread about this, 'The bigger part of the problem is "Guys, I've cast all my highest-level spells today, time to go home!" after a small handful of encounters.' They've still got resources.. they just don't want to use them.
This strikes me as extremely self-centered. You assumed that the casters stop adventuring because they they want to nova all their encounters.
Maybe they don't have the adventure in front of them and don't know that after four encounters that need a level 12 party, the rest of the adventure can be beaten by a level 6 party (which is what you are after your best spells have been used). Maybe they know that the Fighter and the Ranger are crap without a Wizard tossing down tactical control spells. Maybe had to use their best spells because the DM thinks the party is better than it is and has tossed in too many encounters for ANY party to beat.
Basically, I'm angry at the CR system. It assumes that your first encounter is equally difficult as your second encounter (assuming same EL), and thats not true. Losing resources means that you can't beat things that you could if you were at full strength.
I've made my case as eloquently as possible. I'll drop it.
PS. As a DM, I've playtested my idea. It works really well, and leads to more heroic adventures. I also only award XP for story goals and personal character-driven goals, which is less work and tends to keep people out of fights (because players are always suspicious that you'll gip them of XP if they just bypass a threat)
This strikes me as extremely self-centered. You assumed that the casters stop adventuring because they they want to nova all their encounters.
I didn't make that assumption, it's what the original stated problem was.
Maybe they don't have the adventure in front of them and don't know that after four encounters that need a level 12 party, the rest of the adventure can be beaten by a level 6 party (which is what you are after your best spells have been used).
Pretty nearly every adventure I've played has started out with smaller stuff and gotten progressively harder. It just makes tactical and logical sense. If you're blowing your best spells at the beginning, you're just throwing away resources.
Maybe they know that the Fighter and the Ranger are crap without a Wizard tossing down tactical control spells.
At no point is swinging a sword something which is weak.
And yet now the sword swingers are crap without the all-powerful wizard throwing down. If that's the problem, either the wizard has an inflated opinion of their worth or the party is already pretty dysfunctional.
Maybe had to use their best spells because the DM thinks the party is better than it is and has tossed in too many encounters for ANY party to beat.
This is something that cannot be stopped by changing the rules, it will always be possible. Your "solution" doesn't touch it, and it isn't what people are complaining about. Once again, the rules do not dictate difficulty.
Maybe they know that the Fighter and the Ranger are crap without a Wizard tossing down tactical control spells.At no point is swinging a sword something which is weak.And yet now the sword swingers are crap without the all-powerful wizard throwing down. If that's the problem, either the wizard has an inflated opinion of their worth or the party is already pretty dysfunctional.
Good job taking things out of context.
Here's what I said:
"I'm sorry, but have you met the Rogue?
At no point is swinging a sword something which is weak. Maybe for a Fighter it is, but for the real characters it is not."
Rogues are good at sword-slinging. Rangers and Fighters are pathetic.
Maybe had to use their best spells because the DM thinks the party is better than it is and has tossed in too many encounters for ANY party to beat.This is something that cannot be stopped by changing the rules, it will always be possible. Your "solution" doesn't touch it, and it isn't what people are complaining about. Once again, the rules do not dictate difficulty.
Yes, they do. Rules where you lose abilities through use means that things get harder the more abilities you lose, even if they are exavtly the same as everything you did before. It may not happen after one encounter, or four, but after a threshold number of abilities are lost the next encounter is more difficult. Thats how it works. Soon, an encounter that would be easy will kill you.
The rules I'm proposing gives people baseline abilities so that later encounters are not harder, but are at their base difficulty instead.
Rogues are good at sword-slinging. Rangers and Fighters are pathetic.
You've been playing with the wrong rangers and fighters. But you know what? Even if I grant that those classes are pathetic, they're still part of the party. If the wizard is using that as an excuse to blow through resources far faster than the rest of the party, then as I said: either the wizard has an inflated opinion of their worth or the party is already pretty dysfunctional. You're supposed to be playing a group.
And, yes, I'm assuming that the wizard is blowing big resources indiscriminately... because that is the stated problem. If the group, as a whole, is needing to rest because the module difficulty has sapped their resources despite conservative playing, then that's not part of the 15-minute adventure day problem.
The rules I'm proposing gives people baseline abilities so that later encounters are not harder, but are at their base difficulty instead.
...until the module designers compensate for it. Because, in the end, no matter what shenanigans you pull with the rules, it is the module designer and the DM who dictate the difficulty. The only thing the rules dictate is the methods the designer and DM will use to manipulate the difficulty. There is absolutely no way that you can modify the rules that will prevent modules being designed that are more difficult than you would like.
Actually, I think I see why we're talking past each other here. You're talking about a rule change you've made in your personal games, which has made modules easier to play for your players. That's great, that's what you're free to do if players aren't having fun. And since the modules aren't made with your personal rules in mind, it looks to you as though you've "fixed" module difficulty with a rules change.
The problem happens when you try to make your house rule into a core rule. Now, everyone who uses these core rules has lots of extra free resources. And now, the modules will be made with this rule in mind. If the module designer wants a difficult module, they will be making it difficult in the context of your "baseline"... which means they now need to bump up the difficulty of the module's progression. It'll take a lot of playtesting, and some modules will go overboard in the difficulty, and eventually you'll end up with the same situation as currently.
The only way you can dictate how difficult the designers make their modules is by making the rules you play by have a different difficulty than the rules the modules designers play by. You can't do that if you're using core rules.
The problem happens when you try to make your house rule into a core rule. Now, everyone who uses these core rules has lots of extra free resources. And now, the modules will be made with this rule in mind. If the module designer wants a difficult module, they will be making it difficult in the context of your "baseline"... which means they now need to bump up the difficulty of the module's progression. It'll take a lot of playtesting, and some modules will go overboard in the difficulty, and eventually you'll end up with the same situation as currently.
I don't think that adventures can be made more difficult if my proposal is adopted.
Either you:
-Add more encounters, which is fine because my proposal actually takes care of this. Since more encounters = more XP and more time in combat per adventure, I doubt this will happen.
-make individual encounters more difficult, which will just kill parties because my proposal doesn't make it easier to beat any individual encounter.
Unless there is some other option I'm missing, I don't think you have a valid point.
This strikes me as extremely self-centered. You assumed that the casters stop adventuring because they they want to nova all their encounters.
Some casters do just that and the rules greatly reward that play style. I don't think you really understand the 15 minute adventuring day problem, because you're talking about something different than the rest of us.
Now some groups may not have that problem, but a lot of groups do. Even in groups that players don't actively try to super abuse the infinite ammo code, it's still a constant question of when a party should rest. And parties that rest more often get more of a benefit than parties that don't, so the guys who cheese out the game and try to nova everything get more benefits than the people who don't.
And that just shouldn't happen. The rules shouldn't reward people for trying to space out the combats in a non-heroic fashion by resting after each fight.
I see people resting for two reasons:
1. The cleric is out of healing. Even fighting characters demand a rest when that happens (especially so, actually).
2. The arcane spellcaster is out of level-appropriate things to do. He may have spells left, but when a 10th level Wizard is casting 1st and 2nd level spells he might as well be a 3rd level apprentice he got with Leadership.
I see my proposal fixing both those problems. Is there something I'm missing? I don't really see anyone demanding a rest when they are mid level and have only cast three or four spells. I can easily see my proposal fixing even that.
I don't think that adventures can be made more difficult if my proposal is adopted.
Either you:
-Add more encounters, which is fine because my proposal actually takes care of this. Since more encounters = more XP and more time in combat per adventure, I doubt this will happen.
-make individual encounters more difficult, which will just kill parties because my proposal doesn't make it easier to beat any individual encounter.
Unless there is some other option I'm missing, I don't think you have a valid point.
If the free resources you're giving the characters are lower than the best spells they can cast, further encounters become more difficult after they waste their best spells.
If the free resources you're giving the characters are equal to the best they can cast, you may as well simply allow spellcasters unlimited castings of everything. You also are making individual encounters easier to defeat, because they cannot run low on resources inside of a battle.
Either way, I'm just going to say that you're flat out wrong that all modules are too difficult or impossible for a group playing by the current rules to beat. And, yet again, module difficulty is only tangentially related to the "15-minute adventure day" problem, so you're "fixing" the wrong problem.
If this was the case, then the 15 minute adventuring day wouldn't be a problem.The problem comes that some wizards will simply rest after casting *any* of their spells. Literally after each and every encounter so they always go in with full spells. This lets them basically nova every monster, and if they blow their best spells, it doesn't matter because they can rest.
It's also a popular tactic for psionic characters too, so if they get to 3/4 or half PP, they're going to rest.
There isn't anything that can be done for that version of the 15-Minute Adventuring Day (especially for psionics, which allows a character to lose most of their PP in one encounter).
Heck, if thats what we've been arguing about, then its a waste of time. I assumed that we were talking about the fact that you can tap out of good spells after the first few rooms of a dungeon and be forced to rest.
I don't think that adventures can be made more difficult if my proposal is adopted.
Either you:
-Add more encounters, which is fine because my proposal actually takes care of this. Since more encounters = more XP and more time in combat per adventure, I doubt this will happen.
-make individual encounters more difficult, which will just kill parties because my proposal doesn't make it easier to beat any individual encounter.
Unless there is some other option I'm missing, I don't think you have a valid point.
If the free resources you're giving the characters are lower than the best spells they can cast, further encounters become more difficult after they waste their best spells.
If the free resources you're giving the characters are equal to the best they can cast, you may as well simply allow spellcasters unlimited castings of everything. You also are making individual encounters easier to defeat, because they cannot run low on resources inside of a battle.
I've never seen that happen. Battles just don't last long enough for people to run out of spells in them except at very low levels.
Either way, I'm just going to say that you're flat out wrong that all modules are too difficult or impossible for a group playing by the current rules to beat. And, yet again, module difficulty is only tangentially related to the "15-minute adventure day" problem, so you're "fixing" the wrong problem.
Again, you are taking things out of context, as well as overstating my position. Reread my posts, and if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer.
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No matter what you do, someone will always abuse the rules and go home and rest. As long as spellcasters have some form of unlimited use magic it works. At that point, it falls to the DM to prevent the PCs from running back to town after the first encounter.
Unless you're playing in a Basic Game dungeon crawl, the bad guy should always be doing something. Whether it's investigate the recent deaths of his minions or send out assassins to kill the PCs and their allies there have to be consequences for packing it in and packing it up, and sneaking away and buggering up, and chickening out and pissing off home oh so bravely throwing in the sponge.
If nothing gets the point across, make the dungeon recharge. Every time the PCs run away, have all of the monsters magically reappear, only with 10 extra Hit dice. That includes the boss at the end of the level who they only managed to beat with a natural 20. Also, refrain from giving treasure on these "bonus" levels.
If your Wizard uses up his magic missiles up too quickly, give him a really good crossbow or sling. Another option to consider is having the spell-caster take a level in warlock or warmage to ensure that they have more uses of spells and invocations. Instead of making a cleric, maybe try Favored Souls.
My players often forget to sleep as they consist of a Warmage, a troll barbarian, a Dusk Blade, and a Shugenja.
All in all, the problem is based off of how much your players are willing to role-play.
If nothing gets the point across, make the dungeon recharge. Every time the PCs run away, have all of the monsters magically reappear, only with 10 extra Hit dice. That includes the boss at the end of the level who they only managed to beat with a natural 20. Also, refrain from giving treasure on these "bonus" levels.
Then the PCs don't do the adventure. Not an option.
If your Wizard uses up his magic missiles up too quickly, give him a really good crossbow or sling. Another option to consider is having the spell-caster take a level in warlock or warmage to ensure that they have more uses of spells and invocations. Instead of making a cleric, maybe try Favored Souls.
That works fine at level 3, but not higher levels.
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That works fine at level 3, but higher levels.If your Wizard uses up his magic missiles up too quickly, give him a really good crossbow or sling. Another option to consider is having the spell-caster take a level in warlock or warmage to ensure that they have more uses of spells and invocations. Instead of making a cleric, maybe try Favored Souls.
Then use the varient spellcasting system in Unearthed Arcana. It's complex, but it's a decent recharge option.
And yeah if your PCs yell "OH LOOK A RAT!!!" and blow a bunch of spells because it could be some kind of vorpal paragon pseudonatural rat of doom (or maybe an epic druid in wildshape with natural spell). Then yeah, they deserve to get punished for poor resource management. Players have fought giant spiders and scorpions before. It's a pretty reasonable assumption to go by difficulty = size until proven otherwise.
I assure you, there are many, many DMs with whom this is a very reasonable tactic. I've got a great story about a pseudonatural dire squid, for example.
"More than meets the eye" is a very popular element of monster design. There is no such thing as overkill; there is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".
This thread simultaneously amuses and depresses me. It seems like there's a lot of people who feel that the petulant DM who crafts unreasonable challenges is doing it right, and I'm guessing that these are the people who wonder why people play World of Warcraft instead of Dungeons and Dragons. Here's a tip: you are the reason. If you were developing encounters that would kill your players instead of developing encounters that play to their strengths, you're doing it wrong.
Here's a quiz. Your players all rolled up the characters they wanted to play, and there's a cleric, a fighter, a warlock, and a wizard. Should the dungeon have traps? If you answered "yes, because they should have known better than to not have a rogue", please relinquish your DM screen. If nobody wants to play a rogue, make sure your party isn't punished for that. If your party feels the need to rest frequently because, for whatever reason, they don't feel comfortable with adventuring at half strength, make sure they aren't punished for that.
The problem with the 15 minute adventuring day isn't that it exists; the problem is that some people think it's a problem, instead of recognizing it as a way people like to play the game.
No matter what you do, someone will always abuse the rules and go home and rest. As long as spellcasters have some form of unlimited use magic it works. At that point, it falls to the DM to prevent the PCs from running back to town after the first encounter.
Unless you're playing in a Basic Game dungeon crawl, the bad guy should always be doing something. Whether it's investigate the recent deaths of his minions or send out assassins to kill the PCs and their allies there have to be consequences for packing it in and packing it up, and sneaking away and buggering up, and chickening out and pissing off home oh so bravely throwing in the sponge.
If nothing gets the point across, make the dungeon recharge. Every time the PCs run away, have all of the monsters magically reappear, only with 10 extra Hit dice. That includes the boss at the end of the level who they only managed to beat with a natural 20. Also, refrain from giving treasure on these "bonus" levels.
If your Wizard uses up his magic missiles up too quickly, give him a really good crossbow or sling. Another option to consider is having the spell-caster take a level in warlock or warmage to ensure that they have more uses of spells and invocations. Instead of making a cleric, maybe try Favored Souls.
My players often forget to sleep as they consist of a Warmage, a troll barbarian, a Dusk Blade, and a Shugenja.
All in all, the problem is based off of how much your players are willing to role-play.
... what? The problem isn't roleplaying, or the lack of it. It isn't even tangentially related to roleplaying. In fact... it's more likely that a party would go rest if they're in danger of dying due to lack of resources. Unless they're role-playing complete morons, they aren't going to continue marching into the jaws of death with half hit points and no useful spells.
Magically respawning dungeons to punish them for not playing your way isn't much of a solution either. Its merely a sign they should get a new DM.
a level in warlock or warmage? Hurrah. Now they suck, because they've jumped off the level appropriate train in favor of a pair of crutches. An infinite amount of attacks that deal almost no damage is worth exactly nothing at any level but first. Its barely level-appropriate at first. Hurrah, a ranged-touch attack club. You can kill any given basic kobold in a one on one fight. So can a first level commoner.
Warmages, favored souls and shuenja aren't a solution either. All of them are worse than a wizard or cleric. The extra spell slot or two isn't worth the loss of versatility, and barely get an extra encounter out of it.
I assure you, there are many, many DMs with whom this is a very reasonable tactic. I've got a great story about a pseudonatural dire squid, for example.
"More than meets the eye" is a very popular element of monster design. There is no such thing as overkill; there is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".
Personally, I'd think that would be exactly the sort of DM who wouldn't care about the "15-minute adventure day". Unless he's the sort who actively tries to kill off characters, in which case there's no hope for the players no matter what is done.
But sometimes the gazebo is just a gazebo. If the DM isn't trying to slaughter the players, then there can be such a thing as overkill.
Here's a quiz. Your players all rolled up the characters they wanted to play, and there's a cleric, a fighter, a warlock, and a wizard. Should the dungeon have traps? If you answered "yes, because they should have known better than to not have a rogue", please relinquish your DM screen. If nobody wants to play a rogue, make sure your party isn't punished for that.
Or, at the very least, tone down the punishment for it. There's nothing wrong with making the players deal with the fact that they don't have a rogue, so long as you give them ways to deal with it. No undetectable, instantaneous death.. but pulling every trap out is a little overboard unless they just have no idea how to work with the problem.
The problem with the 15 minute adventuring day isn't that it exists; the problem is that some people think it's a problem, instead of recognizing it as a way people like to play the game.
The problem is that it is quite easy to end up with one person in the group who likes to play that way, while the rest of the group is grumbling about needing to stop yet again. It's more problematic when the group tends to play on the more realistic side (setting up watches, making sure they're defended, etc).
There are playstyles that can be a disruptive problem in some environments.
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No matter what you do, someone will always abuse the rules and go home and rest. As long as spellcasters have some form of unlimited use magic it works. At that point, it falls to the DM to prevent the PCs from running back to town after the first encounter.
Unless you're playing in a Basic Game dungeon crawl, the bad guy should always be doing something. Whether it's investigate the recent deaths of his minions or send out assassins to kill the PCs and their allies there have to be consequences for packing it in and packing it up, and sneaking away and buggering up, and chickening out and pissing off home oh so bravely throwing in the sponge.
If nothing gets the point across, make the dungeon recharge. Every time the PCs run away, have all of the monsters magically reappear, only with 10 extra Hit dice. That includes the boss at the end of the level who they only managed to beat with a natural 20. Also, refrain from giving treasure on these "bonus" levels.
If your Wizard uses up his magic missiles up too quickly, give him a really good crossbow or sling. Another option to consider is having the spell-caster take a level in warlock or warmage to ensure that they have more uses of spells and invocations. Instead of making a cleric, maybe try Favored Souls.
My players often forget to sleep as they consist of a Warmage, a troll barbarian, a Dusk Blade, and a Shugenja.
All in all, the problem is based off of how much your players are willing to role-play.
... what? The problem isn't roleplaying, or the lack of it. It isn't even tangentially related to roleplaying. In fact... it's more likely that a party would go rest if they're in danger of dying due to lack of resources. Unless they're role-playing complete morons, they aren't going to continue marching into the jaws of death with half hit points and no useful spells.
Magically respawning dungeons to punish them for not playing your way isn't much of a solution either. Its merely a sign they should get a...
While you are correct, The way people handle their characters is the problem with Wizards/ Sorcerers. The way they are now in the Pathfinder RPG, Wizards are perfect. The problems are the players who use up all of their spells int he first 5 rooms. Mechanics can't fix bad strategy (or stupidity, as you say). There are lots of cantrips that can be used very effectively.
Re-spawning dungeons are quite obviously, not the way to go. It's like saying: "Frank, because you're talking, Billious gets struck by lightning and dies." I was being sarcastic.
You have a good point the matter of Hit points. What if they regain hit points equal to 1/2 the CR of the monster they defeated? It's not that helpful at high levels, but by then you have wands and periapts up the wazoo.
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Here's a quiz. Your players all rolled up the characters they wanted to play, and there's a cleric, a fighter, a warlock, and a wizard. Should the dungeon have traps? If you answered "yes, because they should have known better than to not have a rogue", please relinquish your DM screen. If nobody wants to play a rogue, make sure your party isn't punished for that. If your party feels the need to rest frequently because, for whatever reason, they don't feel comfortable with adventuring at half strength, make sure they aren't punished for that.
I agree with your assessment of the 15 minute day. But a statement like this makes some players unable to suspend disbelief. Again, it is a matter of each DM and group to figure out how they like to play. In my groups, when the players raid the wizards lab, if there are no traps they start getting worried. They expect verisimilitude: a 20 Intelligence villain will use more than monsters to protect their base.
How are wizards perfect with the pathfinder changes? Seriously, other than perhaps black tentacles they haven't fixed any of the problems with the wizard, just added a random whack of new ones.
And resting after 5 rooms isn't stupidity, or poor strategy. Its a reflection of the way the 3rd edition was intentionally designed. Check the DMG- encounters are supposed to use up roughly 20% of the party's resources. So resting after 5 encounters is whats expected with the default assumptions of the game.
I'm also really curious as to what cantrips would be at all useful in an encounter involving a pit trap, an iron golem, or a pod of black puddings.
Regaining hit points- what, are they PCs vampires now? How does that even work? And 1/2 the monsters' CR is a pitifully small amount of hit points, no matter what level this is happening.
Why not just increase the rest time to recover spells to something like 1 week instead of 8 hours. If we throw in some of K's ideas about giving wizards a weaker wand, that mostly fixes the problem then.
Just tripling the rest time would in many cases mean the party is pretty much limited to one round through the spellcaster's spells and whatever is in his wands for an adventure. It'd also favor melee classes and (to a lesser extent) sorcerers. I can't imagine putting spellcasters out of action for a week to recover spells.
I do somewhat like Jal Dorak's idea to have a chance of casting spells over the limit with a failure penalty. The questions I could see would be 1) whether the limitations are high enough to prevent it from being overused by the people who are managing their resources well, and 2) whether the "ok, I've cast my best spells, let's rest" crowd would risk the limitations to push a bit further when the rest of the party doesn't want to rest.
The problem happens when you try to make your house rule into a core rule. Now, everyone who uses these core rules has lots of extra free resources. And now, the modules will be made with this rule in mind. If the module designer wants a difficult module, they will be making it difficult in the context of your "baseline"... which means they now need to bump up the difficulty of the module's progression. It'll take a lot of playtesting, and some modules will go overboard in the difficulty, and eventually you'll end up with the same situation as currently.
I don't think that adventures can be made more difficult if my proposal is adopted.
Either you:
-Add more encounters, which is fine because my proposal actually takes care of this. Since more encounters = more XP and more time in combat per adventure, I doubt this will happen.
-make individual encounters more difficult, which will just kill parties because my proposal doesn't make it easier to beat any individual encounter.
Unless there is some other option I'm missing, I don't think you have a valid point.
- Encounters that attack your resources and your ability to use them. Creature, magics and traps designed to remove or destroy your infinate ammo wands.
If nothing gets the point across, make the dungeon recharge. Every time the PCs run away, have all of the monsters magically reappear, only with 10 extra Hit dice. That includes the boss at the end of the level who they only managed to beat with a natural 20. Also, refrain from giving treasure on these "bonus" levels.Then the PCs don't do the adventure. Not an option.
Shenanigans to that.
There are workable encounter/adventure designs up to atleast 10th level where the use of basic ranged weapons and low level spells are still useful.
While your statement holds some truth to you, it is not the case at all tables.
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I think you give them more than the SRD would. Considering the sheer number of monsters, I can't tell you exactly what CR a monster is based on a few hints about their powers unless its a Core monster (and even...
Well, the thing is that from a character's perspective, concepts like CR have no meaning. What a character should probably learn from a successful Knowledge skill check is the monster's identity ("It's a Gauth!") and a couple of distinctive characteristics, i.e. what makes Gauths special in relation to other beholders. Based on this info, the players can make the decision whether to fight conservatively (using normal weapons and low-level buffs) or to pull all the stops and unleash the mightiest spells and effects.
I don't understand your concern with the number of monsters out there or your distinction of Core and non-Core monsters. Every monster is part of the game's ecology and if the characters have studied hard (invested skill points), they should get a shot at figuring out what makes it tick.
Of course, if in your games, player's knowledge (covering everything you learned as a player from other adventures and from the many monster manuals out there) replaces character's knowledge (which is a valid way to play), nothing I wrote above is relevant to your games.
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How are wizards perfect with the pathfinder changes? Seriously, other than perhaps black tentacles they haven't fixed any of the problems with the wizard, just added a random whack of new ones.
And resting after 5 rooms isn't stupidity, or poor strategy. Its a reflection of the way the 3rd edition was intentionally designed. Check the DMG- encounters are supposed to use up roughly 20% of the party's resources. So resting after 5 encounters is whats expected with the default assumptions of the game.
I'm also really curious as to what cantrips would be at all useful in an encounter involving a pit trap, an iron golem, or a pod of black puddings.
Regaining hit points- what, are they PCs vampires now? How does that even work? And 1/2 the monsters' CR is a pitifully small amount of hit points, no matter what level this is happening.
Okay, now you seem to be getting away from the issue here. We're trying to put a stop to the 5 rooms and you're done style of play. The way I see it, the only way to change that is regenerating Hit Points, giving PCs more hit points, Making healing spells cheaper and more readily available, etc.
Two words: Spell Compendium.
You're right, but what other alternative is there? I certainly don't see you responding to these with coherent ideas of your own. If you give the players too much, they regain too much. Too little, and they go back after 5 rooms. This idea was meant to be a filler in addition to clerical magic.
Yeah, the idea is that you get one go through your spells and resting isn't an option in the middle of an adventure. This would be combined with something similar to K's idea where you get a wand or two of decent spells (about 2 less than your highest spell level seems about right).
Sort of turns the spellcasters into hedge wizards by making them depend on items for most of their resources, though, doesn't it? It also removes any chance of changing out a poor choice in spells.
It won't make a difference. So long as there is no penalty for resting, then people are going to do it after every battle.
And some folks here certainly think penalties for resting are "crap".
Another problem for generalized solutions is that it's not always the spellcaster's fault. If the melee players are munchkins to the point that the spellcaster is trying to keep up, or if there's a competitive, "look, I did the most damage, I'm the best" feel to the game, it can easily lead to the same playstyles.
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Will the Int 20 Monster use more than monsters to protect his lair?
Wouldn't the int 20 mastermind use whatever was the most effective tactic to protect his lair, maybe he simple has duplicate lairs and a good insurance policy. Maybe the cost of traps are prohibitive and he feels he would get more bang for his buck in monsters.
It is a pretty reasonable tactic for the DM to include traps in a monster/villains lair when the villain is intelligent/resourceful. ESPECIALLY if there is no rogue in the party.
BBEG: "Well, what do you have to report, henchman?"
Henchman: "I barely escaped with my life. They are definitely coming for us. One of them appears to be a holy man, two others wield a sword and an axe as good as any warrior, and the last is a powerful mage."
BBEG: "I see. Well, too bad I invested all this money in traps. Looks like they don't have a thief to disarm any of them. Well, better remove them from my dungeon, because that wouldn't be fair!"
I'm all for not punishing the party for their class selections, but the party should also realize that things that realistically might be trapped (like important doors/halls/etc) will probably be trapped.
In my view, this argument is like saying: Well, the party chose to play 4 wizards. I better take all the Giants out of my adventure, because they do too much damage.
As far as wand dependency, keep in mind that spellcasters still get the spell slots they always had. They just can't refill them anymore. That probably means that the structure of the adventure determines if you need to be wand happy or not.
When the encounter consists of string after string of trivial encounters, then yeah, mages are going to be digging to their wand of magic missiles all the time if they're smart.
But you shouldn't really be going to your wands in most 3-4 encounter adventures, not unless you totally blew your resource management.
I see what you're saying, but this may be the one time I'd agree with K.. the players aren't usually going to know the structure, at least not until they're a few encounters in. It'd certainly change the spellcaster's role quite a bit.
If nothing gets the point across, make the dungeon recharge. Every time the PCs run away, have all of the monsters magically reappear, only with 10 extra Hit dice. That includes the boss at the end of the level who they only managed to beat with a natural 20. Also, refrain from giving treasure on these "bonus" levels.Then the PCs don't do the adventure. Not an option.
Shenanigans to that.
There are workable encounter/adventure designs up to atleast 10th level where the use of basic ranged weapons and low level spells are still useful.
While your statement holds some truth to you, it is not the case at all tables.
I don't think you get the point.
If the players go through a dungeon and get some treasure,and then decide to retreat and rest, and then you restore all the monsters and increase their HD by 10 and remove any treasure, the players will quit the adventure. After the first encounter where the monster has 100HP extra and they get no treasure, they will realize that you are being a jerk and they'll say something like "guess the princess is going to have to rescue herself". Then they ask the DM to find them another adventure. If the DM says something like "but the campaign world hinges on you completing this adventure!", the players will reply "let's go play Shadowrun."
Jerk moves by DM means that players don't complete adventures. They may still want to go on other adventures with the same characters, but they will cut their losses in an adventure with no profit or fun.
Well the only way of solving the 15MAD is to somehow increase the healing and spell abilities of the group.
The cantrips and orisons are a good way.
I don't know what "combat" spells are under the cantrips, but maybe cure minor wounds should be reused again.
Maybe with a restriction of no more then... uhh... I don't know 5 or 10 hitpoints per character.
And making frost ray into something like:
Energy Ray (Evocation)
Short Range Touch attack, 1d4 damage of chosen energy.
Oh... Jabber. When will you read the post that said I was being SARCASTIC!!! No, I don't think that it's good DMing to do something like that. NO,NO,NO! GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD!!!
I was addressing Zombieneighbors' comment to my comment, using something you said as an example. Your reaction is as puzzling as it is inappropriate.
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I was addressing Zombieneighbors' comment to my comment, using something you said as an example. Your reaction is as puzzling as it is inappropriate.
Oh... Jabber. When will you read the post that said I was being SARCASTIC!!! No, I don't think that it's good DMing to do something like that. NO,NO,NO! GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD!!!
I apologize. I mis-read your post. So, what exactly are the problems people have had with the 15 minute adventuring day? I have never experienced them.
If nothing gets the point across, make the dungeon recharge. Every time the PCs run away, have all of the monsters magically reappear, only with 10 extra Hit dice. That includes the boss at the end of the level who they only managed to beat with a natural 20. Also, refrain from giving treasure on these "bonus" levels.Then the PCs don't do the adventure. Not an option.
Shenanigans to that.
There are workable encounter/adventure designs up to atleast 10th level where the use of basic ranged weapons and low level spells are still useful.
While your statement holds some truth to you, it is not the case at all tables.
I don't think you get the point.
If the players go through a dungeon and get some treasure,and then decide to retreat and rest, and then you restore all the monsters and increase their HD by 10 and remove any treasure, the players will quit the adventure. After the first encounter where the monster has 100HP extra and they get no treasure, they will realize that you are being a jerk and they'll say something like "guess the princess is going to have to rescue herself". Then they ask the DM to find them another adventure. If the DM says something like "but the campaign world hinges on you completing this adventure!", the players will reply "let's go play Shadowrun."
Jerk moves by DM means that players don't complete adventures. They may still want to go on other adventures with the same characters, but they will cut their losses in an adventure with no profit or fun.
Oddness....That comment was ment to be preceeded by this quote, not the one i used....stupid sleep deprived state.
That works fine at level 3, but not higher levels.If your Wizard uses up his magic missiles up too quickly, give him a really good crossbow or sling. Another option to consider is having the spell-caster take a level in warlock or warmage to ensure that they have more uses of spells and invocations. Instead of making a cleric, maybe try Favored Souls.
Play through Red Hand of Doom, or Undermountain, or any of the other big published adventures and try to survive without a lot of resting. You'll die.
Red Hand of Doom takes place over 65 days. It takes the PCs from L6 to L12. It would be an unusual game where the PCs did not rest.
Is my group the only one thats tried Recharge Magic from UA? It's OK if we are. I'm just surprised.
That being said, it was nice at first but I'm glad that paizo has offered a revision of the original rules that are meant to stretch resources out. The Recharge system has made for a lot more encounters, larger experience awards, and thus faster leveling within a smaller time span. At the time it was instituted this was exactly what I was looking for, but now not so much.
Where does cheating come into it?
Any adventure where I have to come up with a crazy plan counts as cheating to me. I've had many adventures where the opposition was CRed badly and the only way to survive was by some elaborate plan (which sometimes literally involved ropes and pulleys).
Basically, if you are successfully fighting well outside of your character level and EL, then on some level you are cheating.
Here is an example I strongly disagree with. One of the most memorable fights I have ever had in D&D, came during 2.0 when our group of 2-3rd level characters found out about a den with trolls marked on a map.
After a lot of discussion, the party decided to try and go after the trolls... we prepared greek oil flasks, and fire trapped bags with rabbits inside after casting invisibility and silence on the thief to scout, we found the area we elected to do the ambush, and then setup the ambush for the following day.
It was an extremely fun fight, and was cool to see a well thought out plan come to fruition, fighting much stronger foes that we shouldnt have been able to tackle.
There have been other cases where my players have surprised me by going to great lengths to make sure that they knew what was coming up ahead, and several times that saved my players lives while they went through the return to the temple of elemental evil. Where they probably would have suffered multiple deaths, through a use of a rogue and silence spells the party was able to ambush foes that would normally be ambushing them.
It gets assumed too frequently that every encounter in a dungeon is always meant to be 100% winnable, 100% of the time, and many groups of players seem to expect this. After getting their teeth kicked in because they barge into an encounter unprepared a couple times, my party in my RTTOEE game surprised the hell out of me and began to handle extremely difficult encounters with far less hassles than I had expected.
And yeah if your PCs yell "OH LOOK A RAT!!!" and blow a bunch of spells because it could be some kind of vorpal paragon pseudonatural rat of doom (or maybe an epic druid in wildshape with natural spell). Then yeah, they deserve to get punished for poor resource management. Players have fought giant spiders and scorpions before. It's a pretty reasonable assumption to go by difficulty = size until proven otherwise.Here's a quiz. Your players all rolled up the characters they wanted to play, and there's a cleric, a fighter, a warlock, and a wizard. Should the dungeon have traps? If you answered "yes, because they should have known better than to not have a rogue", please relinquish your DM screen. If nobody wants to play a rogue, make sure your party isn't punished for that. If your party feels the need to rest frequently because, for whatever reason, they don't feel comfortable with adventuring at half strength, make sure they aren't punished for that.
The problem with the 15 minute adventuring day isn't that it exists; the problem is that some people think it's a problem, instead of recognizing it as a way people like to play the game.
I see no real reason to differ that much because the party elected to not have a rogue. In my most recent game that I actually got to play (I usually am the DM) my party consisted of a Swashbuckling-Fighter, Wizard and myself as a Druid.
The wizard and I got rid of traps typically with low level summon spells, mage hand, etc. Locked doors were bypassed with Knock. Because we didn't have the ability to search very well we ended up using summon-I spells as both search and triggering traps. And those traps that we missed I healed up afterwards.
Because we had no cleric, our party decided that full offense (not healing the tank during the battle) was the best way to overcome the opposition.
We still averaged 3 encounters a day, if not 4. Both the wizard and druid focused on taking out the same opponent, the druid pet, and summon spells and the fighter held off other foes from getting to the spell casting squishies. It worked very well, but both the wizard and myself usually made sure to keep some of our high level resources (spells) in reserve rather than wasting them.
Our small party devised our group around a core of tactics we knew we had to use to stay alive. If we played like I was the cleric, and the low armor swashbuckler was a fighter, we would lose. I couldn't heal him enough in combat and his AC blew snot. Instead we focused on inflicting more damage quickly to single foes than our opponents could dish out. But we still never squandered our resources on the first fight unless we got really unlucky or the fight was extremely tough.
The DM didn't need to dumb down the game because our group didn't have all 4 of the main classes, and I would have been offended if he had. Frankly, I really enjoyed the challenge and I miss playing in that game quite abit.