For the modest experience I have with high level campaigns, the games seemed to be slowed down by:
1) The amount of options a character has COMBINED with the feeling that selecting the wrong option will result in failure for him or his party (a feeling often well founded) which causes delays in the decision making during a player’s turn.
2) The crushing amount of math’s involved, especially concerning buffing (what stacks and what doesn’t) and penalties (from a certain circumstance, from a condition, spell or stat loss).
There are other issues, but these seem to be the two main ones.
Problem 1) can be solved by knowing your character inside-out, its options and their associated success probabilities. Yet, we can’t expect everybody to be a geek with that much dedication to the game (I know that most players on this forum do know their character inside-out and upside-down, but this may not be a representative sample of the gaming community). This by the way was not a sly way to say that most people on this forum are geeks :)
Problem 2) can be solved with software assistance (TOS+ from Richard Talion springs to my mind…) Then again; can we expect every player to sit with its laptop around the table? It may be the way of the future, yet for many players it doesn’t feel right…
As a direction toward fixing high-level play, I would suggest that:
1) less options at level 10+ (perhaps adopt a non-linear progression curve to leave more of less the same amount of options at level 5-9) AND making the choice between different options less restrictive.
2) Bringing all penalties under a dozen conditions, period. Perhaps create another dozen beneficial conditions that would either give bonuses or cancel-out other conditions. (i.e. heartened: +2 moral bonus to attacks, damage and saving throws. Negates and is negated by shaken etc.) Basically, bring all buffs and penalties under a check list and apply all their effects…
This is not intended to be a solution to high level play, but a guideline toward what direction should be taken in attempt to fix it. Any comments on that, or other issues you feel were left out?
I guess if you want less options later in the game, don't play at high levels. That excludes some of the Monster Manual creatures from the list of stuff you might encounter, but besides that, more options are the point of high level play.
For the modest experience I have with high level campaigns, the games seemed to be slowed down by:
1) The amount of options a character has COMBINED with the feeling that selecting the wrong option will result in failure for him or his party (a feeling often well founded) which causes delays in the decision making during a player’s turn.
Well, you could always just play less deadly games. The DM could make it clear from the outset that he will fudge for the players as long as they make decisions quickly and with an eye towards fun (so they'll try stuff that might normally be a bad idea because it's awesome). If you wanted something less metagamey, another option would be to give each player a list totaling all possible options they have for combat, divided into "Basic" (attacks, feats like TWF or Power Attack), "Advanced" (more complicated feats, combat-y spells, maneuvers), and "Uncommon" (spells like Purify Water or Tiny Hut), along with a handy-dandy table of 'em. This way, they can tell what they can do at a glance.
2) The crushing amount of math’s involved, especially concerning buffing (what stacks and what doesn’t) and penalties (from a certain circumstance, from a condition, spell or stat loss).
I've honestly never had this problem. Most of the time, there isn't any math at all from these things, and if there is, it's one, maybe two, and it's just simple addition/subtraction. If you had a buff-heavy character, they should do all the math beforehand and have their alternate stats written out and ready to go before initiative is rolled.
I've just found that combat tends to go more just fine as long as you put a little prep into your characters.
I guess if you want less options later in the game, don't play at high levels.
Well, that is more or less what I do, and because I know we are quite a few out there doing the same thing, I seek to find a way to enjoy the game all the way up to 20th level.
besides that, more options are the point of high level play.
I think the key word to high level play should be BETTER options rather than simply MORE options. Sometimes, it comes up to the same thing. In some other times, it adds to the headache of choosing what to do...