How much "impossible" is it really to Master the game at High Level?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Scarab Sages

Josh M. wrote:
Static bonuses should already be factored into the stats, so you don't need to remember every single one of those.

Until it gets hit with a dispel....

I turn the statblock into a Word doc, then I can fiddle with it, add an extra line, showing baseline stats, and special cases like raging, Power Attack, etc.

Lantern Lodge

I have more than a few words of knowledge to toss ur way from my 35 years of playing and DMing games from levels 1-20 and even a couple games that went past that in2 the epic range past level 20.

Stick to the rules as close as possible and house rule only when truly needed. There is many books out there for D&D that has mechanics that are not covered in Pathfinder like Kingdom building, Poison gathering and application for mid to high levels, army combat systems, and obscure rules of clarification from WoTC them selves to name a few.

Reasonable restrictions on both player and DM is a big one. Tell ur players that any thing they can do u can as well. If u allow one thing for the players then the same thing is allowed for u to use as a DM.
With that said some restrictions i implement into my games is the old 2.0 class chart for multiclassing, that i expanded on slightly to fit the newer version of play. Classes back then were categorized in 4 sections being Martial, Divine, Arcane, and Rogue. With that i stated that u can freely multiclass any character combination that u want that does not conflict. Example of this is a player wants to play a Fighter/Barbarian and i tell them no because both fall under the Martial catagory and nothing else. Now if same person decided to play a Fighter/Paladin then that is fine even though both fall under the Martial category the Paladin also falls under the Divine category. So the player in question now can not multiclass any more Martial or Divine classes but is till free to pick an Arcane and/or Rogue class. I also set a restriction of all characters are allowed 3 classes max other than Human which is allowed to have 4 classes simply because of how the game favored multiclassing back then were every1 got the shaft but humans to an extent. Btw this will limit the midmaxing that a player can do by combining classes that should not really go together like fighter/barbarians, cleric/druids, or my personal favorite sorcerer/wizards.

Keep the players hungry. Do not make them rich but dont make them poor. Wealth can seriously make or break a game. If there to wealthy then y are they bothering to adventure. If they are to poor then simple encounters can be very difficult and will have a great chance of TPKing.

Tailor the gear around the monster(s) that use it not for the party. Give the players gear they cant use and are forced to sell and disenchant for mats. After all the Ogre is not gonna be caring an Agile Scimitar for that Dervish Dancing Snowflake. Its gonna be caring a Mighty-Cleave Large size Greatclub to smash faces. The Dwarven Full Plate is not gonna fit on some skimpy elf either even though both are medium creatures. So tailor the items u give out, for those items u do give out, for the creature that wares them.

Also when designing encounters dont entirely go off CR because different groups are at different levels of play. Instead there is a simple equation to calculate encounters that ive been using since 2e. Monster AC = the sum of all party member's to hit divided by the number of party members. Using the number u just obtained can then be decreased or increased to make a fight more difficult for the non caster classes. Same equation for determining the monster's to hit except u use the part's AC. This will allow u to fluctuate the difficulty of encounters to challenge the party accordingly to how difficult u wish it to be for melee at least. When dealing with casters thats a slightly different story. For casters its the same concept but with primarily save/suck spells. Figure the average DC of the spells they use and give the monsters the appropriate save range for how often u envision there spells to do something.

Now the most important advice i can ever give u other than just have fun is play the NPCs in question to there actual intelligence. U would not see a horde of Goblins using aid another to bolster there offensive but u would with a group of bandits. The mindless undead or wild beast is not gonna target the party caster, there gonna go after the closest living target.

Well use the advice i have given u or not it is up to u. But thanks for taking the time to read it and i hope that what little advice i have stated from my experiences over the years will aid u and any others that read this.

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