General Musings - Improving High level play??

[Beonin]

All,

Apologies if this is posted in a completely inappropriate area of the message board but I am new here and still finding my feet.

Apologies also if this has been discussed before.

A little background first i feel. I have been playing D&D over all of its iterations for over 20 years and over the past 3-4 months I have been running both a 4e game session AND a 3.5 game session using the progressive pathfinder (alpha & beta) rule set. I enjoy both games for my sins. (Although i am not here to argue or discuss the relative strengths of either system over the other).

Here is my little quandary and I hope someone more educated or enlightened than I can assist me.

I have read much of the Beta rules and from my understanding one of the design goals of Pathfinder is to improve and streamline higher level play (12+).

However whilst I adore some/nay most of the changes to the 3.5 rule set I cannot find any specific evidence that this is currently the case.

The game I am running under the Pathfinder rules is a well-established game (18th level) that I have been running for the same group over the past 4 years. All of the players were happy to experiment and convert to the new rules. However, none of the implementations / changes have from my own perception (as DM) sped up or streamlined play. My players seem to agree with me also.

In fact the opposite is evident if you ask my players: many of them comment that they have even more abilities, even more options at there disposal which they say, whilst is satisfying on a character level is an added distraction at the tabletop, when they are under pressure.

Therefore I would like to ask the question:

What rules do you think have the potential to speed up and streamline play?

I have one caveat to add to this:

I personally feel there is one gem of a rule in the Beta, which could speed up play. It is currently set as a feat:

Vital strike and Improved Vital Strike. I think these rules are elegant and from 1st hand experience know how these interact with play.

However the characters who have these feats use them all the time, without exception (under a full round attack option) and therefore I find myself asking myself why these are feats and not actually how iterative attacks are set out. I have though about using the following as standard as a test

Base attacks 1-5 1 attack / 1 set of damage dice (e.g. long sword 1d8 / spiked chain 2d4)
Base attacks 6-10 1 attack / 2 sets of damage dice (e.g. long sword 2d8 / spiked chain 4d4)
Base attacks 11-15 2 attack / 2 sets of damage dice (e.g. long sword 2d8 / spiked chain 4d4)
Base attacks 16+ 2 attack / 3 sets of damage dice (e.g. long sword 3d8 / spiked chain 6d4)

Thanks for this rather extended virgin post!

p.s. what happened to careful & expert targeting in the beta. I may be blind but i cannot find the write-ups in the Beta.

[A T]

A list of high level problems:
1. Magic Item Christmas tree: too many items
2. Magic Item dependent: certain items are a must
3. Iterative attacks: too many attacks that take too long to resolve every round
4. Save or Die/Save or Suck spells: Their existence
5. Spell DC's outstripping Saves: Even with magic items
6. Multi-classing - saves: saves can become too good
7. Multi-classing - class/PrC combos: Some combos are killer (1300 damage/round, etc)
8. Multi-classing - too many classes: 10 classes on 1 character?

I am sure there are more.
Here are my opinions:
1. feature
2. bug
3. bug
4. addressed somewhat
5. bug
6. bug
7. bug
8. bug

[LackLusterLife]

im new here myself and have only a few years under my belt and havent seen any game +9? (not toooo sure been awhile).
while i havent seen the high end lvl games theres been many closer to the mid lvl games. while i cant see why any melee based class wouldnt get vital strike and improved im ok with them being feats. and let me just say right now, im a fan of TWF, have been for the longest time and pathfinder made it even more viable. but even with all the extra attacks my turn is still over faster then any spell caster i happen to be with. i mean an extra attack swing takes what? 10 extra seconds if theres a crit and confirmation along with whatever special effect the monster has?

what really slows combat down is spells, the guys at paizo should be looking into making spells quicker.

depending on the spell ive seen several minutes spent on getting all the saves rolled, who gets what effects, and how long it last for each person. theres just something wrong there. in fact ive avoided taking any pure caster class on several occasions because of the sheer amount of paper work involved in getting prepared and during battle. thats the time waster not the fighter having a few extra swings of whatever he is swingin around. i just cannot understand why everyone is hollering about the BaB. make spells simpler and faster is what needs to be done.

well my 2Cents

ps. much <3 to paizo on the new fighter

[nomadicc]

From what I've experienced, high level play in 3.5 is all about option management. I've had the fortunate fate to play with a group of attentive and experienced players - during combat they were ready and resolved their actions quickly.

As the DM, by far the most time in combat was spent on my turns, dealing with the foes' actions. A player has one character with 6-9 options, a DM has several actors with as many combat options... and they get exponentially worse at higher levels.

As is well documented, powers/attacks don't scale well at high levels. I think the AC / BAB bonus is fine, but damage output is lopsided to casters. Save vs Die/Suck spells get deadlier/suckier (I like the 4e solution to these).

Fighters are feat monsters, but feats don't scale very well currently. Feat trees help here, but there aren't many options - PF is working on this. I like the Book of Nine Swords system (though its not perfect).

Reliance on magic items is a problem also. Magic items should enhance abilities, not be a requirement for survival/progression.

[nomadicc]

Also, preparation time at high levels is sick... designing meaningful encounters to challenge/entertain and be ready for the game session is too time consuming. Not sure how to speed this up, really.

Basically, being ready for running combat comes down to stat blocks - having the numbers handy, and especially having the spells/powers chosen and planned. For monsters, this is pretty easy unless you're scaling for advancement. For NPCs or classed monsters, this prep is painful IMO.

Murphy's Law, sort of... but the NPC foe I spend 2 hours statting out will last 1 round due to a Save vs Die or critical hit, while the trash monster with DR/unavailable that I pulled from the MM will last forever and nearly wipe the party.

[Kyrinn S. Eis]

So, what are your proposed fixes for all the points you brought up? :)

[LackLusterLife]

ill just throw this out there, make the vital strike feat an optional rule in combat. if you have extra attacks you can automatically give them up for a bonus damage dice. i mean your skipping on crit chances and whatever extra damage your weapon can do for the attacks that have the most likely chance of hitting to do more.

and i took a good hard look at some random spells, combined with my knowledge of spell casting trying to find a way to shorten the casters turn. now im almost never a primary caster so forgive me if this is horribly wrong.

instead of rolling the saves why not roll the chance of overcoming? if the spellcaster rolls for his spell it *should* be easier to just look at the save and pass or fail the spell. thats versus the everyone gets to roll idea that we have now

say your doing mass suggestion against a group of creatures with +5will and +3will. add something like 10 or 15 to that save and then the caster rolls and if he beats the +3's but not +5 you automatically know an entire group failed and the other half didnt. as for what the caster rolls maybe its a d20 + spell level or something, like i said not really a spell guy here. so 1 roll versus many is all. sorry if this just breaks magic or something