I remember TORG---unfortunately it was an excellent source of ideas but lacked a lot as a game system as it had a lot of forcefully metagame mechanics in practice. Still the notion that different worlds can have different magical, spiritual, technological, and social maximums with a system that reasonably enforces same is pretty compelling. I've stolen it for a number of my D&D/PF games. Experience points (possibilities) being used for die modifiers though was a bad mechanic, as was the ability to drain (and steal) same through reality storm. I had a character back then that specialized in relieving NPC opponents of their possibilities as quickly as possible (very high reality skill, 13 spirit if I recall). I deliberately took less drama cards and the like to keep the effective xp in balance in the party, but I shouldn't have had to metagame to keep game balance and peace between the other competitive players. XP for spells and items back in 3/3.5 was a similarly bad mechanic, unless you allowed such costs to be shared among a party.
TORG does have some interesting elements to it. Using cards to modify events and inject narrative elements was reasonably fun. But the way you ended up having to churn through so many cards, necessitating a party balance between card generators and actual attackers in combat was an irritation. Plus, the ability of major NPCs to negate attacks so there's no sense of real progress until the final end left the combat system feeling pretty grindy. So, I'm not a big fan of the game system as a whole.
If it's a continuum between grind and rocket tag, I'll take options closer to rocket tag than grind.
So what are the good rules-light(er) d20 or PF based systems? I'm curious.
Check out Castles & Crusades.
Great core mechanic. Easy to GM. Easy to build encounters. You can port over most rules from other D20 systems with minimal fuss. For instance there are some class powers and feats from Pathfinder that I am bringing into my game.
One of the things that I see a lot of people post is "how complicated Pathfinder is". To me it's one of the more stream lined and easy systems out there.
Try creating 3 fighters, 1 cleric and 1 mage all level 5 as enemies in an encounter using Core rulebook. Then tell me how streamlined pathfinder is.
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And I think thats what I'm finally realizing. I don't mind most of my fights going quickly. But I don't want the fight that seems like it should be epic to end quickly either. Even if I planned for it perfectly.
A lot of 'dissatisfaction' I hear on these boards is classic escalation-fu... 'the players are too powerful' because they're optimizers or powergamers... So how do I make combats harder... You increase the statblock... Oh but that quickly becomes partywipe... oh but without it the players aren't ever truly challenged....
Then it gets worse...
- Players should never bother healing in combat because during combat everyone should be combatting... healing comes after... I hate the 15 minute workday... how can I challenge my players when they are addicted to alphastrike and 15 minute workdays? how can we play a game that doesn't have a 15 minute workday... Take away their high level spells... e6!
- How can I create a martial who doesnt suck compared to casters? How can you think your martial sucks when it takes literally no effort on your part to do 100 damage per swing. I hate it when characters do 100 damage per swing so i'd like a campaign that has no magic items... I hate campaigns with no magic items because it makes casters even more poewrful and martials even weaker...
- Fighters need to have more options because outside of combat fighters are useless. Fighters have plenty of options and should only be really good at just fighting... well then i'm only useful for 12 seconds out of any game day. And I don't FEEL useful at all even for those 12 seconds. I don't feel like I was in a fight and that I enjoyed the fight... I FEEL like I filled my calculator pokemon full of fancy equations and HE had an epic battle with someone else's calculator pokemon. [next player] Why are you complaining unless its just lol-u-mad about not being able to beat my supercool super optimized calculator pokemon? (rolls eyes)...
So many complaints in so many different ways with so many different contexts to fix one problem. The fights are all over too quickly roundwise, because of too much damage and not enough hit points on both sides of the table..., and the only solution seems to be to make a bigger badder monster, and doing so could wipe the party just as fast as the problems you're trying to fix. Suddenly then on the opposite side of the coin people say fights take too long because certain classes have a single action that can take 10 minutes to resolve.... So in reality the fights take too long and in game terms they're over faster than you have time to even think about tactics. So there rarely are any tactics. Unless they all happen before combat even starts... And then its a 15 minute workday. Then gms are miffed and not having fun anymore... then blah blah blah...
If healing is something the fight's too short to do until after, I'm starting to feel that tactics are the thing that the fight is too short to do until before... And fights are over so fast either way that there's practically no tactic at all... The fight is won by stat optimization... By tactical manipulation of the metrics. not by creativity or ingenuity or imagination on the field.... It's a meta win or a meta loss. FIghts aren't interesting, and the game is at least 40% about fights for some people, and 95% about the fights for others.
It's not that these conversations were never had about 2e because 'we didn't have an internet back then'.... It's because we didn't HAVE this problem back then.... Granted we had other problems... And these games were built to try and fix those problems...
But the new problems that have been created seem like bigger problems than the one's I used to have... and it all boils down to one single problem... Somewhere between 25 and 95% of this game is about combat... and we're not getting satisfaction out of that combat.
A fight is never long enough to make you feel like you've 'turned the tide'... or even had the opportunity to have made a difference at all... A critical ROLL might make you feel like it turned the tide, but that wasn't truly something you did... never that one critical decision made during the fight was the difference between winning and losing. Either your numbers win for you or your numbers lose for you, and if you have a 15 minute workday then you alphastrike and your numbers win for you and suddenly either you're munchkining or the gm is having no fun. And why would anyone ever lengthen a fight when some player actions take so long to resolve that it takes 2 hourse to resolve 12 seconds of combat? The only people who seem to GET any satisfaction out of combat are the people who still love programming their number crunching calculator pokemons to send them into battle.
So instead we bring all the fight and all the battle glory we should have been having at the table to the forums instead. In a hundred different flavors... To fix one problem.
We arrived on scene, and without a single spell cast and ostensibly meathead tactics, dropped that venerable superdragon in about 18 seconds...
O.o
I...uhh...what? >__>
I wish I knew more about what was going on this case because honestly my group tends to play pretty optimized and this sort of thing is nigh unheard of. I can't imagine this dragon actually acting like a dragon and being killed like this. Did it allow the party to casually waltz up? Did it not use its fog-abilities (especially freezing fog)? Did it make no use of its CL 7th spellcasting? Was this dragon's lair not filled with ice and frozen walls and ceilings allowing it to prance about using its icewalking? How did the party even find the dragon before it was ready to unleash hell on them (at-will fog clouds that it can see through but last more than an hour at a time, high Stealth modifiers, before factoring in any sort of spellcasting buffs).
Where are the dragon's traps? His tactics? His ferocity and predatory cunning? I'm just dumbfounded.
If healing is something the fight's too short to do until after, I'm starting to feel that tactics are the thing that the fight is too short to do until before... And fights are over so fast either way that there's practically no tactic at all... The fight is won by stat optimization... By tactical manipulation of the metrics. not by creativity or ingenuity or imagination on the field.... It's a meta win or a meta loss. FIghts aren't interesting, and the game is at least 40% about fights for some people, and 95% about the fights for others.
I've come to the conclusion that you are not playing the wrong game, you are playing the game wrong for your desires.
A fight is never long enough to make you feel like you've 'turned the tide'... or even had the opportunity to have made a difference at all... A critical ROLL might make you feel like it turned the tide, but that wasn't truly something you did... never that one critical decision made during the fight was the difference between winning and losing. Either your numbers win for you or your numbers lose for you, and if you have a 15 minute workday then you alphastrike and your numbers win for you and suddenly either you're munchkining or the gm is having no fun. And why would anyone ever lengthen a fight when some player actions take so long to resolve that it takes 2 hourse to resolve 12 seconds of combat? The only people who seem to GET any satisfaction out of combat are the people who still love programming their number crunching calculator pokemons to send them into battle.
Yeah, you can have a very solid and classic feeling game using Pathfinder. I recommend more NPCs, fewer single-enemy battles (these rarely turn out well because due to being outnumbered either the enemy is so powerful as to one-shot party members or they jump all over him), and having enemies who are "living, breathing".
And for the record, healing is very viable at high levels. The problem is that healing at low levels does not scale well. If all healing worked similar to the heal spell with X healing * caster level and was relevant to the damage being dealt, then healing would be fine. The problem is that when an orc is dealing 10.5 average damage to you on a hit and you're healing 5 average damage for expending resources you are not getting anywhere healing, which makes it a more desperate affair until you can do something to improve healing. At high levels this is very do-able, but at low levels it is not. It's a problem with the spells because they do not scale very well.
However most of the combats in my games tend to last at minimum 5 rounds and don't take long to resolve most of the time. I've had some epic battles that lasted several in-game minutes (and didn't take hours and hours to resolve).
Any chance you could film some of your games and put the highlights on youtube or something?
Also stuff like attacks of opportunity, unless PF has vastly reduced the number of actions which provoke. AoOs are simple enough as a mechanism -- turn your back on an enemy, or wiggle your fingers within swinging distance, and he gets a free attack! But remembering all those other actions that provoke is a headache.
Do I ever have a video for you:
AoOsWhile there are several special situations, I just find this a great video.
Personally I think Palladium screwed the pooch when they failed to jump on the d20 bandwagon in the early 2ks. It would have been a great excuse to clean up the rules into something coherent, and pump more interest into what is really a very cool setting.
A big problem with that is that they prided themselves on NOT being D&D when they started. Their biggest flaw is that there is no consistency or sense of game balance. Many of the classes could be considered "NPC Classes", and even what we would consider to be a "Prestige Class" can be taken at level 1. The level progression is also random.
One issue that I had with their books was that portions would literally be copy-pasted from other books -- errors and all. Also in some cases you would find details, such as weapons and armor statistics, that outright contradicted one another.
The world is worth using. The system is garbage. I tried, I really did, to make their system work. I had a lot of fun with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but one thing that was really odd is that they did not use their own system to actually create the characters in their books. The author would just make the stats up. I tried to recreate some of the characters that were in the books, just to test, and they must have rolled negative values on their 3d6 when rolling their stats up. That made me think that perhaps they do not use their own system that they print for us to use. If even the designers use a whole slew of house rules, perhaps those house rules could be made into official rules.
Also stuff like attacks of opportunity, unless PF has vastly reduced the number of actions which provoke. AoOs are simple enough as a mechanism -- turn your back on an enemy, or wiggle your fingers within swinging distance, and he gets a free attack! But remembering all those other actions that provoke is a headache.
Do I ever have a video for you:
AoOsWhile there are several special situations, I just find this a great video.
lmao, that kinda made my day. :)
Though with the exception of picking items up in combat, I didn't have problems remembering any of the provoker actions in that video. The problem is that many actions that provoke are intuitive -- knock your head back and expose your throat to drink a potion, provoke an AoO! -- but some of them aren't so intuitive.
For example I'm looking at my 3.5 PHB right now, and am again reminded that casting a spell from a wand/staff or casting a quickened spell doesn't provoke, which are odd exceptions to the usual 'casting provokes' rule. I can see the reasoning...but it's not the conclusion that my brain immediately leaps to. Essentially there are enough oddities that I can never be sure what provokes and what doesn't.
I think the gm said he had well into the 200s for hit points to start with, but we essentially spent 2 days scoping out his lair and were able to teleport straight to the ground level where his piles of loot were. He knew by the third day that we were there and what we were after so he was right where we expected him to be guarding his treasure... We popped in on the ground floor with boots to keep from slipping... Won initiative... Dwarven fighter hits a critical and two more times for 160ish damage in the first 6 seconds.. dragon replies with frost breath. We're all resistant to the first 30 points of cold damage. Everyone shrugs it off. Second round more swinging from everyone and poof... Kill it with dice... not even a chance for him to get in any tactics... He could have used his cold cloud to save himself from getting creamed so fast, but I honestly don't think it would have made much difference...
So much concentrated damage... It felt alpha strikey, but all that happened was the dwarf and theif double teamed him, and they hit hard enough that it went down... I think I got in a good hit for 30 myself but it was chump change compared to our front line dwarven warrior and thief. I think I took an attack of opportunity bite to close range, but with no combat reflexes... Everyone gets to get into position. I didnt even get a chance to haste the buggers.
We scouted for the tactical advantage, got to arrive on our timetable so that he'd have no time to prepare for our arrival... Set our defensive buffs up for the long haul expecting this dragon to be able to take a lickin and keep on tickin... It did not keep on tickin. It got licked. I know a lot of preparation and a little luck is supposed to make a fight easier... But not that easy.
One of the things that I see a lot of people post is "how complicated Pathfinder is". To me it's one of the more stream lined and easy systems out there.Try creating 3 fighters, 1 cleric and 1 mage all level 5 as enemies in an encounter using Core rulebook. Then tell me how streamlined pathfinder is.
I use Hero Lab so it would be quite easy;) But seriously, I feel frustrated with most systems when it comes to making a bunch of NPCs (I hate it). That's why I like published material or using programs like Herolab to help take the work out of GMing. But my comment was aimed at game play. There are several games that have somewhat detailed character creation rules but once the game starts it's pretty quick.
I think the gm said he had well into the 200s for hit points to start with, but we essentially spent 2 days scoping out his lair and were able to teleport straight to the ground level where his piles of loot were. He knew by the third day that we were there and what we were after so he was right where we expected him to be guarding his treasure... We popped in on the ground floor with boots to keep from slipping... Won initiative... Dwarven fighter hits a critical and two more times for 160ish damage in the first 6 seconds.. dragon replies with frost breath. We're all resistant to the first 30 points of cold damage. Everyone shrugs it off. Second round more swinging from everyone and poof... Kill it with dice... not even a chance for him to get in any tactics... He could have used his cold cloud to save himself from getting creamed so fast, but I honestly don't think it would have made much difference...
So much concentrated damage... It felt alpha strikey, but all that happened was the dwarf and theif double teamed him, and they hit hard enough that it went down... I think I got in a good hit for 30 myself but it was chump change compared to our front line dwarven warrior and thief. I think I took an attack of opportunity bite to close range, but with no combat reflexes... Everyone gets to get into position. I didnt even get a chance to haste the buggers.
We scouted for the tactical advantage, got to arrive on our timetable so that he'd have no time to prepare for our arrival... Set our defensive buffs up for the long haul expecting this dragon to be able to take a lickin and keep on tickin... It did not keep on tickin. It got licked. I know a lot of preparation and a little luck is supposed to make a fight easier... But not that easy.
Why not? You're a bunch of high level characters that had everything planned out. The problem I see is the setting not the rules. How would the dragon have fared if it wasn't going up against a group with high powered magic? Take the magical arsenal out of the equation and the fight would have been way different. But even then, remember that Bard the Bowman took out Smaug with one black arrow, David took out Goliath with one stone. It might not be a satisfying thought, but it illustrates that the outcome is not unrealistic, given the circumstances.
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Why not? You're a bunch of high level characters that had everything planned out. The problem I see is the setting not the rules. How would the dragon have fared if it wasn't going up against a group with high powered magic?...I think the gm said he had well into the 200s for hit points to start with, but we essentially spent 2 days scoping out his lair and were able to teleport straight to the ground level where his piles of loot were. He knew by the third day that we were there and what we were after so he was right where we expected him to be guarding his treasure... We popped in on the ground floor with boots to keep from slipping... Won initiative... Dwarven fighter hits a critical and two more times for 160ish damage in the first 6 seconds.. dragon replies with frost breath. We're all resistant to the first 30 points of cold damage. Everyone shrugs it off. Second round more swinging from everyone and poof... Kill it with dice... not even a chance for him to get in any tactics... He could have used his cold cloud to save himself from getting creamed so fast, but I honestly don't think it would have made much difference...
So much concentrated damage... It felt alpha strikey, but all that happened was the dwarf and theif double teamed him, and they hit hard enough that it went down... I think I got in a good hit for 30 myself but it was chump change compared to our front line dwarven warrior and thief. I think I took an attack of opportunity bite to close range, but with no combat reflexes... Everyone gets to get into position. I didnt even get a chance to haste the buggers.
We scouted for the tactical advantage, got to arrive on our timetable so that he'd have no time to prepare for our arrival... Set our defensive buffs up for the long haul expecting this dragon to be able to take a lickin and keep on tickin... It did not keep on tickin. It got licked. I know a lot of preparation and a little luck is supposed to make a fight easier... But not that easy.
The real problem here is that, as written in the adventure, the dragon is supposed to ambush the PCs.
The PCs would have to do a lot of secret scouting or ask exactly the right questions to find out he existed. He's not even specifically guarding the Runeforge so asking if it is guarded will get you other stuff but not Freezemaw. He's a Shoanti legend but the point when you get to make your knowledge (local) check comes when he starts trying to eat everyone.
He has 283 hit points and is supposed to have time to cast resist energy (fire), displacement, bull's strength, see invisiblity, shield and invisibility when he swoops in to attack.
The party should be investigating some mysterious magical stone heads to try and enter a magical dungeon when the foe swoops in. The first thing the party knows about him is freezing breath weapon and fear effects. The second thing is him snatching a foe into the air, flying up and out (this is on a mountainside) and dropping them 200 ft: the foe not only takes damage but needs travel magic to get back to the fight before it is over.
The PCs should be a group of 4 level 13 characters, originally built with a 15-point buy.
The problem with that battles is not the rules: it is that you found out that Freezemaw existed. If you want to play with ultra-cautious, super-scrying PCs then that is your choice. That you could even teleport safely into the lair suggests that your playstyle is not the type anticipated by the adenture material and is more than a little metagamey (taking your time because everyone knows that the world-destroying BBEG's plot will move at the speed of plot).
Your GM made this a boring combat, not the rules. He should have adapted to your playstyle. Honestly, you can GM for that playstyle using PFRPG but none of the adventure paths are really designed for it. You need homebrew.
Didn't see the thread earlier... to the original post...
Yeah, I'm one of those people who really wouldn't go back. I mean, if someone I knew was a good GM wanted to invite me to play any version of D&D, I'd probably join in, but more because I'd trust the GM to run something fun than because I like the system.
I remember I had been playing a hybrid game of AD&D 1st/2nd when 3.0 came out, and as soon as I tried it, I said, "Nope, don't wanna go back." I've felt the same for 3.5 and now Pathfinder.
Yes, the game of Pathfinder is complex, but the complexity has come out of trying to resolve intrinsic rules issues and questions that frequently stymied play and caused arguments when we played older editions (which of course is not to say there are not rules arguments now, but at least speaking as a GM, I feel like I have a much better toolbox to make reasoned rules calls, rather than feeling like I have to make something completely up on the fly which may end up being completely unbalanced or unfair). I think on one hand it would be nice to streamline and simplify, and on the other, it may reinvent the wheel in terms of creating gaps that some GMs would prefer to have filled (although certainly some do prefer.
I think down the line if Paizo was capable, and the time came to do a new edition of Pathfinder, I'd love to have something conceptually similar to the "Box" versus the "Advanced" system (but with a less complex history/distinction ;) ).
Two different systems, similar in engine, but one "Beginner's Box" like with a simplified, streamlined rules system that focuses on faster learning and gameplay; and one that is the more complex and more focused on in-depth tactical gameplay.
I don't know how practical this would be (there doesn't seem to be a lot of support for the Beginner's Box ruleset besides some things you can download) and I realize it may be really impossible to manage. But it's just a thought, as I think there are some people who really like Pathfinder's flexibility and complexity, but also many who feel overwhelmed by the same thing.
(The reason my thoughts are on this lately is I've got a player who in terms of tabletop RPGs has only played the BECMI system. He likes the options Pathfinder provides as well as clear rules on various mechanics, but he frequently feels very overwhelmed by what he has to learn and track.)
As for other d20 systems to look at/learn from, I do like a lot of what True20 and Mutants and Masterminds have to offer, and particularly love its Toughness system which does away with hit points and damage rolls and replaces it with a "save" similar to other saving throws, where if you fail you take damage-related conditions, the severity of which depends on how badly you fail the save and/or how many such conditions you have already taken. I'd love to see something like that in other d20-based games, as it takes a lot of fiddling about with out of the combat equation and saves a lot of time.
My preferred system is GURPS (no surprise there given that my website is a homebrew GURPS sourcebook) but my group mainly plays Pathfinder. It is, to my mind, a huge and fundamental improvement on 2e AD&D. I turned my back on AD&D when I realised how I hated the narrow character options and Kewl New Klasses power creep, D&D3.0 and 3.5 were the games that brought me back to D&D once more, and D&D4 was the game that once more turned me away.
My original love, however, was Runequest (2nd Edition, the Chaosium Glorantha one before they sold out to Avalon Hill). I used to think that game was the dog's whatsits. I resurrected it a year or so back, and played a small campaign with my regular gaming group, and it was really really creaky. I had to houserule quite a few aspects of the game just to avoid attacks of eye-twitching at the table. Playing Apple Lane was more entertaining finding mistakes and inconsistencies than in playing out the actual scenarios.*
I suppose GURPS is like a 'grown up' version of RQ in that it is classless, but GURPS wins over RQ (and Pathfinder) by being both satisfyingly 'crunchy' and easy to improvise on the fly. Ambush by bandits? Give them DX11, 2-point armour, 12 HPs and Sword-12 and you're good to go. Anything more than that is probably unnecessary detail for NPCs that exist only to be brutally slaughtered.
*> The Runepriest and his uber-skilled assistant hide in the cellar while their property is attacked, leaving the (starting) PCs to sort it all out.
> The place is surrounded by orchards but the inn doesn't sell cider.
> The pawnshop owner has a snooker table in a Bronze-Age world.
> The nearby caves have never been explored by the village authorities, despite being only a mile or two up the road and noted on the maps as a place of local interest!
> ...and so on and so forth.
In a pre-industrial, pre-refrigeration society, cider is a product with a very narrow window of opportunity. Like, a week or two.
In a pre-industrial, pre-refrigeration society, cider is a product with a very narrow window of opportunity. Like, a week or two.
Cold-based spell + Craft Wondrous Item = Refrigerator.
Innkeeper promises wizard lifetime supply of cider in return.
And I think if we're talking hard cider, it lasts longer than that, at least if you store it in a cool dry place (not a fridge, just a good dry storage cellar).
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And I think rocket tag is it... My party last night spent about 6 hours planning an attack on the fortress of a single ancient white dragon in RotRL.... I mean I think ancient white dragon and I think man... This thing is going to clean our clocks. We better bring everything we have to bear on this. It won't be a welcome wagon jolly splatfest... This won't be a win unless it's both a power and strategy win. We set ourselves up so that this epic battle was going to end up a victory for us no matter how bad this thing thinks it is...
We arrived on scene, and without a single spell cast and ostensibly meathead tactics, dropped that venerable superdragon in about 18 seconds...
If the dragon had twice the hit points it would have lasted longer... but in doing so would have lasted long enough to kill someone in the party outright.... so I think "Well I'd never want that, so just chalk it up to a smashing success of our well thought out tactics and call it a day!"
But then for the most part our tactics and planning didn't really play into the fight much at all. Not really a substantive effect in any way... 12 seconds of standing toe to toe with a dwarven fighter is just about all a venerable superdragon can take... And suddenly the fight felt... Lame.
Your DM needs, needs needs to read this guide.
TL;DR - 1 strong boss monster is almost never the right way to make a memorable encounter. Either it will get ripped to shreds by the party (as happened in your example) or it will be a brutal mess and likely a TPK. Minions, minions, minions are the magic word.
RQ 2nd didn't have wizards but everyone has access to Battle Magic, low-level magic that is universally used (assuming they are bright enough to learn and have the required cash).
However, that aside, I grew up on the edge of a large cider-producing area (Somerset, Dorset and Hereford) and the farms produced farmhouse cider (i.e. without preservatives so it couldn't be sold by supermarket chains who demand long shelf-lives) throughout the summer and autumn months. The local pubs and clubs very often had a barrel of local farmhouse cider on tap.
I'm sure that the Apple Lane locals would have been able to do the same thing, given the apple's ability to stay usable for long periods (six months if properly stored in cool dark conditions).
I like Pathfinder better than every prior edition of the game. Doesn't mean that it has no faults. Alpha strikes being tactically the best you can do, lots of possible rules abuses and high level play not really being built to challenge the characters (if they play it smart) at the CR's they are supposed to combat. And the 15 minute workday is here to stay, especially looking at the design of the Pathfinder-exclusive classes (APG and forward).
But a lot of these things can be worked around with GM work. Doesn't mean that this is a good state of things and AP's especially suffer in their later levels from the the high-level PC/monster disparity. But that's why I don't look with so much dread to a possible Pathfinder 2.0 in half a decade as many others do. If the developers listen and incorporate feedback for it, that is.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I have a nostalgic desire to return to 2e from time to time, but it doesn't last all that long when exposed to the harsh light of day. I played in a Hackmaster/1e style campaign in the not so distant past, and it's mismash of rules quickly moved from cute and quirky to DIE IN A FIRE!
In particular, I was playing a monk who had an insanely small percentage chance of killing a foe with a single attack (I think - it's been a while). At one point the dice gods smiled upon me, and I actually rolled a 20 and confirmed the killing blow on percentile dice (chance of success was in the low teens), only to have the DM decide that my character (a dwarf) couldn't actually reach the vital nerve of his hobgoblin opponent. Sure, that could happen in Pathfinder (e.g., a critical hit against a golem), but it's a lot less DM-fiaty when it happens.
I tried grappling in the same game (we were fighting a spellcaster), and discovered that, as much criticized as grapple rules are, they're way better than not having any such rules at all.
In a pre-industrial, pre-refrigeration society, cider is a product with a very narrow window of opportunity. Like, a week or two.Cold-based spell + Craft Wondrous Item = Refrigerator.
Innkeeper promises wizard lifetime supply of cider in return.
And I think if we're talking hard cider, it lasts longer than that, at least if you store it in a cool dry place (not a fridge, just a good dry storage cellar).
Even better:
gentle repose + large box with a door + create wondrous item. alternately purify food and drink.
Sure, that could happen in Pathfinder (e.g., a critical hit against a golem), but it's a lot less DM-fiaty when it happens.
Nah, you can crit Golems now. Say oozes or elementals, and you'd be correct.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Sure, that could happen in Pathfinder (e.g., a critical hit against a golem), but it's a lot less DM-fiaty when it happens.Nah, you can crit Golems now. Say oozes or elementals, and you'd be correct.
D'oh! I always think that being a construct grants immunity to criticals given that it grants immunity to so many other things.
So, is it just oozes and elementals that are categorically immune to crits in Pathfinder? I always remember that undead are no longer immune and elementals still are immune, but get mixed up on the others.
I tried grappling in the same game (we were fighting a spellcaster), and discovered that, as much criticized as grapple rules are, they're way better than not having any such rules at all.
To be fair, 2e does have unarmed combat rules. I have, however, always found them pretty bad.
D'oh! I always think that being a construct grants immunity to criticals given that it grants immunity to so many other things.
So, is it just oozes and elementals that are categorically immune to crits in Pathfinder? I always remember that undead are no longer immune and elementals still are immune, but get mixed up on the others.
Also there's incorporeal undead unless you have a ghost touch weapon. There are also, of course, special instances which are immune (gibbering mouther for example).
I think the gm said he had well into the 200s for hit points to start with, but we essentially spent 2 days scoping out his lair and were able to teleport straight to the ground level where his piles of loot were. He knew by the third day that we were there and what we were after so he was right where we expected him to be guarding his treasure... We popped in on the ground floor with boots to keep from slipping... Won initiative... Dwarven fighter hits a critical and two more times for 160ish damage in the first 6 seconds.. dragon replies with frost breath. We're all resistant to the first 30 points of cold damage. Everyone shrugs it off. Second round more swinging from everyone and poof... Kill it with dice... not even a chance for him to get in any tactics... He could have used his cold cloud to save himself from getting creamed so fast, but I honestly don't think it would have made much difference...
I still can't understand why this dragon would default to just trying to breathe on a party that was apparently so badass as to teleport right into his unguarded den. I mean, how stupid is this dragon? They can cast greater teleport (because if it wasn't greater, the dragon has failed in an even more epic fashion), one might think (what with their +27 Know(Arcana)/Spellcraft that they might have access to resist energy. O.o
I mean, where was the dimension door, or the greater invisibility, or even the wall of ice? Or it could have used gaseous form and turned into a fog-thingy itself to escape while still using its Freezing Fog ability unhindered.
Heck, it could have just withdrew into the ground (white dragons have a BURROW speed) where it buffs up and ambushes the party after their initial shock-trooper attempt. It never used any of its consumables, and it's lair was completely unguarded / trapped (and I don't mean the hallway/stuff on the way to it's bedding, I mean it's lair where all its treasure is, since dragon's can easily trap their lairs with things that can never meaningfully harm them)
So much concentrated damage... It felt alpha strikey, but all that happened was the dwarf and theif double teamed him, and they hit hard enough that it went down... I think I got in a good hit for 30 myself but it was chump change compared to our front line dwarven warrior and thief. I think I took an attack of opportunity bite to close range, but with no combat reflexes... Everyone gets to get into position. I didnt even get a chance to haste the buggers.
We scouted for the tactical advantage, got to arrive on our timetable so that he'd have no time to prepare for our arrival... Set our defensive buffs up for the long haul expecting this dragon to be able to take a lickin and keep on tickin... It did not keep on tickin. It got licked. I know a lot of preparation and a little luck is supposed to make a fight easier... But not that easy.
I dunno man. It sounds like the fight was handed to you. The dragon made only a paltry attempt to protect itself. It's a wonder if made it to ancient age without some kobolds taking its treasure and mounting its juvanile skull over their king's throne. This dragon seems completely inept at knowing what magic and/or incredibly powerful people are capable of (despite having incredible knowledge of almost everything). The dragon never makes a defensive move, even when outnumbered and ambushed. The dragon doesn't even make use of his home field advantage (an icy cave filled with fog which he can burrow through at his convenience).
A real dragon dungeon would have had that dragon make the party rue the day they attempted to screw with him. Once they entered the lair, resetting traps should have been activating every round on the round (ideally, intelligent ones that purposefully ignore the dragon since those are only +500gp), or alternatively just lots of minor resetting traps that won't affect the dragon in any way (such as traps spamming hold person every round on the round). The dragon, upon being ambushed (assuming that said dragon didn't have access to detect scrying or permanent private sanctum which should come standard with the lair) should have bothered to show an ounce of survival instinct after suffering more than half its life in damage during the ambush and flee to buff. Once it's burrowed, greater invisible, it can then re-emerge to drop the freezing fogs around while using hit and run. Possibly using it's extra-long neck and true strike to snatch up spellcasters from its Stealth before burrowing into the ground with a grapple-move maneuver.
All of this assuming that the dragon's lair isn't also filled with near-freezing water (or even resting atop a frozen underground lake or something) since it has no trouble walking on ice, can burrow, and has a swim speed. Intentionally shattering the floor to drop everyone into the frigid waters where casting fire spells is difficult (but not impossible), moving is almost impossible (without a swim speed, even if your Swim check is awesome you are going to be so very sloth-like), and the dragon is perfectly at home at and can use all of it's spell-like abilities on you.
The Reason You Are Unhappy With the Encounter...
Is because you got exactly what you wanted. Your answer to making the encounter more difficult was giving it more HP. That means you just wanted each side to beat on each other until one fell down. Congratulations, you got that. :P
This isn't an edition thing. The dragon's in Baldur's Gate II (which is 2E based) are more interesting than the battle you mentioned (they use fire shield, greater invisibility, spell turning, lower spell resistance, stoneskin, and more). The dragon's in Pathfinder have even more cool tricks to bring to bare, and yet not a single trick was given. Not a single tactic used. Not a spell uttered. Not a homefield advantage taken.
It's not the game's fault when it gives the GM everything they could ever want to make an encounter that is both epic, dynamic, challenging, and exciting, and the GM refuses to use any of those things.
@Ashiel.
It's from Rise of the Runelords. I explained the problems with the GM's delivery of the encounter up above.
Ah, I missed your post. I shall try to locate it. Thank you. :)
Having read Geraint's post, I concur whole-heartedly. I will also say that facing said dragon in his lair should have been harder than facing him out in the open on that mountainside.
@ Ashiel and others,
I think you're being too black-and-white about VT's experience. Sure, we can blame the DM for not knowing PF well enough to make a dragon encounter sufficiently epic, but we can also blame the adventure and PF itself for failing to provide all the advice that goes into such an exciting encounter. The fact is, mid- to high-level 3.x is all about this semi-elaborate game of spells and counter-spells -- unless everyone intentionally avoids tactics like scry-and-die -- and if the DM doesn't realize this, doesn't have the necessary experience, or just isn't into it, then his group is up the creek without a paddle because the books don't help much at all.
Of course there's plenty of useful advice written by fellow DMs, and there are house rules like E6, but that all demonstrates how high-maintenance 3.x can be. (I mean really, when "Screw the later three-quarters of this game, just throw 'em out!" is one of the game's most popular house rules, that makes a big statement.)
So it sounds like VT and/or his DM aren't playing the ideal game for their purposes.
@ Ashiel and others,
I think you're being too black-and-white about VT's experience. Sure, we can blame the DM for not knowing PF well enough to make a dragon encounter sufficiently epic, but we can also blame the adventure and PF itself for failing to provide all the advice that goes into such an exciting encounter. The fact is, mid- to high-level 3.x is all about this semi-elaborate game of spells and counter-spells -- unless everyone intentionally avoids tactics like scry-and-die -- and if the DM doesn't realize this, doesn't have the necessary experience, or just isn't into it, then his group is up the creek without a paddle because the books don't help much at all.
Of course there's plenty of useful advice written by fellow DMs, and there are house rules like E6, but that all demonstrates how high-maintenance 3.x can be. (I mean really, when "Screw the later three-quarters of this game, just throw 'em out!" is one of the game's most popular house rules, that makes a big statement.)
So it sounds like VT and/or his DM aren't playing the ideal game for their purposes.
Hmmm, I'm not sure how to put this eloquently, so I'll be blunt. If you ignore huge amounts of the game, then you can not complain when you do not use those portions of the game. All the spells are organized in such a way so that they become available at certain tiers of play (so you don't have to familiarize yourself with what they do all at once). Most spells and such are pretty self-explanatory as to their purpose. Scry spells tell you what they do. Private Sanctum tells you what it does and even gives a catchy name to draw your attention to its purpose.
It's not a matter of not being given the goods in nice neat little packages. The GM obviously must have a grasp on things like movement, environments, and traps, because you're playing a 13th level game, and you should have picked up all that stuff by 8th level at least.
Traps and such are incredibly easy to manage these days with CRs, and the encounter building rules being streamlined to the point where building encounters can literally take minutes instead of hours.
The 3.x DMG actually discussed this sort of thing, but people are too damn lazy to read their books that tell them how to GM (seriously, the 3.x DMG is the finest how-to-GM book I've read for any system to date). It discusses characters advancing in power, and it discusses the changes from low to high, and it even mentions things like scrying spells and such and suggests taking these spells into account when making your adventures.
Again, you cannot justifiably complain about a system when you are ignoring the system and making the problems you are complaining about.
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@ Ashiel and others,
I think you're being too black-and-white about VT's experience. Sure, we can blame the DM for not knowing PF well enough to make a dragon encounter sufficiently epic, but we can also blame the adventure and PF itself for failing to provide all the advice that goes into such an exciting encounter. The fact is, mid- to high-level 3.x is all about this semi-elaborate game of spells and counter-spells -- unless everyone intentionally avoids tactics like scry-and-die -- and if the DM doesn't realize this, doesn't have the necessary experience, or just isn't into it, then his group is up the creek without a paddle because the books don't help much at all.
Of course there's plenty of useful advice written by fellow DMs, and there are house rules like E6, but that all demonstrates how high-maintenance 3.x can be. (I mean really, when "Screw the later three-quarters of this game, just throw 'em out!" is one of the game's most popular house rules, that makes a big statement.)
So it sounds like VT and/or his DM aren't playing the ideal game for their purposes.
The adventure is well-written and I have no idea how scry-and-die got them into the lair. They have no right to know the dragon exists unless they ask exactly the right question of a commune spell or somesuch.
And at this point they are meant to be racing against the clock...
I think you're right that this isn't the game for VT. I just think 'this isn't the game for me' is different to 'this game is fundamentally flawed' and when the example of a flawed game is an encounter undermined by poor GMing and lucky (or metagamey) players then it should be subjected to scrutiny.
To be honest, I've not played beyond level 10 for ages because I'm of an age where groups don't stay together for long enough or play regularly enough.
I wonder though, is this a fair comparison?
Do other game systems have sweet-spots? Do other systems with some kind of levelling stay equally playable at all levels?
As for the original idea. My favourite low-complexity system is probably Advanced Heroquest.
Hmmm, I'm not sure how to put this eloquently, so I'll be blunt. If you ignore huge amounts of the game, then you can not complain when you do not use those portions of the game. All the spells are organized in such a way so that they become available at certain tiers of play (so you don't have to familiarize yourself with what they do all at once). Most spells and such are pretty self-explanatory as to their purpose. Scry spells tell you what they do. Private Sanctum tells you what it does and even gives a catchy name to draw your attention to its purpose.It's not a matter of not being given the goods in nice neat little packages. The GM obviously must have a grasp on things like movement, environments, and traps, because you're playing a 13th level game, and you should have picked up all that stuff by 8th level at least.
Traps and such are incredibly easy to manage these days with CRs, and the encounter building rules being streamlined to the point where building encounters can literally take minutes instead of hours.
The 3.x DMG actually discussed this sort of thing, but people are too damn lazy to read their books that tell them how to GM (seriously, the 3.x DMG is the finest how-to-GM book I've read for any system to date). It discusses characters advancing in power, and it discusses the changes from low to high, and it even mentions things like scrying spells and such and suggests taking these spells into account when making your adventures.
Again, you cannot justifiably complain about a system when you are ignoring the system and making the problems you are complaining about.
Of course, many people run APs and modules because they aren't interested in/good at that kind of work. Since this was apparently an AP encounter, is it the GM's fault or the module writer's that the dragon's lair was defended to your standards?
1) Since we now have a better understanding of what's going on, the question is even how the dragon's lair came into question.
2) Building a single encounter (dragon's treasure room) is not the equivalent to making and dressing a whole campaign. Anytime that you are using an AP but go off the rails as it were, you will need to add a little extra content.
3) You get out what you put in. The GM put no effort into the encounter (despite Pathfinder making encounter design a cakewalk compared to 3.x), so nobody got anything out of it. And when I say no effort, I mean didn't even bother to look at the dragon's abilities and make an effort to think about how its environment would be suited for those abilities.
It is the equivalent of running a Pit Fiend and never using your SLAs, greater teleport at will, fiendshaping, and so forth, and instead attempting to melee everything to death with your claws and poisonous bite, and then complaining about how the party's warriors messed up your day because...rocket tag!
...No. Just no.
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In fact, going further, I was running the Curse of the Crimson Throne and had to improvise a few scenes throughout the first AP or so. Adventure paths make a good basis for a campaign and can save you a lot of work (or make more work as you have to fix errors in them yourself, because god knows there are plenty of errors like things charging through snow or enemies covered in broken armor with no effects or anything), but it doesn't mean that you don't have to do anything.
Sometimes you may need to improvise an encounter (fortunately this is super easy with Pathfinder's "XP budget" system where you buy enemies based on their XP value). Sometimes you need to make a slight adjustment to the story if the PCs do something unexpected (maybe they zigged when they should have zagged). Maybe a character that was supposed to be a minor one-off is given more attention by the PCs than expected and you have to improvise a little more depth to the character.
Advice I'd give to the GM the next time something like this happens...
1) Read the statblock of the creature.
2) Visualize how the creature would defend itself in its lair or otherwise slant it to its own advantages.
3) Think of any window dressings that you want to decorate the encounter with to make it stand out (such as the dragon shattering an ice floor and taking the battle into a frozen lake below, as mentioned before, or playing a cat and mouse game as the dragon scurried around the party with it's icewalk ability in massive open caverns).
Since you've already got the statblocks (no time spent making NPCs), it's really just a matter of figuring out the XP value for the encounter (monster + traps + exceedingly unfair situational modifiers = XP value). You may have to scribble out a map on a piece of paper (because the lair apparently isn't in the AP). The end.
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I don't know, Ashiel, I think you give monsters a bit too much credit. Sure, some of them got the necessary variety of spell-like abilities and/or spells to ward off the many, many ways player characters can outmaneuver them (ancient white dragons are okay in that regard), but at the end of the day, the action economy is so skewed towards the PC's and the roll of the initiative die can be so important to the outcome of an encounter, that those two factors can destroy the best laid out plans.
Your reaction of "how could this have happened?!?" seems to disregard that alpha strikes and the ridiculous damage player characters can dish out at high levels easily can catch even well prepared monsters on the wrong foot. And that's all she wrote in many of those cases, especially when those monsters don't have sources of healing available to them. The only question remaining then is if those opponents would flee or not (which many of them never do, according to the AP morale sections, but that is another gripe for another day).
I don't know, Ashiel, I think you give monsters a bit too much credit. Sure, some of them got the necessary variety of spell-like abilities and/or spells to ward off the many, many ways player characters can outmaneuver them (ancient white dragons are okay in that regard), but at the end of the day, the action economy is so skewed towards the PC's and the roll of the initiative die can be so important to the outcome of an encounter, that those two factors can destroy the best laid out plans.
Your reaction of "how could this have happened?!?" seems to disregard that alpha strikes and the ridiculous damage player characters can dish out at high levels easily can catch even well prepared monsters on the wrong foot. And that's all she wrote in many of those cases, especially when those monsters don't have sources of healing available to them. The only question remaining then is if those opponents would flee or not (which many of them never do, according to the AP morale sections, but that is another gripe for another day).
The biggest problem I know of is purely one of encounter design, which doesn't lay so much with the system usually as the people using it. I tend to have combats that are big with lots of stuff involved. Rarely is action economy not even or even against the PCs (the first rule that GMs should learn is no single-opponents unless those opponents have something special to bring to the table to tilt action economy back in their favor).
I will say that a lot of APs do drop these solo-encounters or have NPCs who are written to be little more than skid-marks. That can cause some of it's own problems. More frequently I've seen encounters in APs range from mind-numbingly effortless to TPK deathtraps seemingly at random sometimes. :P
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The biggest problem I know of is purely one of encounter design, which doesn't lay so much with the system usually as the people using it. I tend to have combats that are big with lots of stuff involved. Rarely is action economy not even or even against the PCs (the first rule that GMs should learn is no single-opponents unless those opponents have something special to bring to the table to tilt action economy back in their favor).
This is the kind of info that new and even somewhat-experienced DMs need from their DMG. Admittedly I haven't read the PF version of it so maybe it's an improvement on the 3.5 DMG. Does it explain things like action economy, or mention 'Oh and fyi, the best way to increase encounter difficulty is with more enemies, not one stronger enemy'? Are the encounter guidelines any more decipherable than 3.5's?
Does it give DMs the list of Spells Your Dungeon and BBEG Need to Counter PC Spells? 'Cause at mid- to high-levels, 3.x turns into a Wheel of Time kind of world, where the existence of teleportation and other setting-changing magic demands countermeasures. And unless you enjoy reading through the spells chapter for fun, it's not particularly obvious where those countermeasures are.
(I'm not bashing WoT, btw. I enjoyed all fourteen books, but it's not the kind of setting everyone wants to DM.)
If you're intent on assigning blame, there's plenty to go around: the game for creating legwork for the DM and failing to mention the relevant details, the module for showcasing a high-level foe without X, Y, and Z protections just in case, and the DM for not having the time/energy/experience/patience to make up for the details which the game and module lack.
Hmmm, I'm not sure how to put this eloquently, so I'll be blunt.
Don't sweat it. Based on your previous posts, nobody expects you to be eloquent. ;)
I don't know, Ashiel, I think you give monsters a bit too much credit. Sure, some of them got the necessary variety of spell-like abilities and/or spells to ward off the many, many ways player characters can outmaneuver them (ancient white dragons are okay in that regard), but at the end of the day, the action economy is so skewed towards the PC's and the roll of the initiative die can be so important to the outcome of an encounter, that those two factors can destroy the best laid out plans.
Your reaction of "how could this have happened?!?" seems to disregard that alpha strikes and the ridiculous damage player characters can dish out at high levels easily can catch even well prepared monsters on the wrong foot. And that's all she wrote in many of those cases, especially when those monsters don't have sources of healing available to them. The only question remaining then is if those opponents would flee or not (which many of them never do, according to the AP morale sections, but that is another gripe for another day).
The biggest problem I know of is purely one of encounter design, which doesn't lay so much with the system usually as the people using it. I tend to have combats that are big with lots of stuff involved. Rarely is action economy not even or even against the PCs (the first rule that GMs should learn is no single-opponents unless those opponents have something special to bring to the table to tilt action economy back in their favor).
I will say that a lot of APs do drop these solo-encounters or have NPCs who are written to be little more than skid-marks. That can cause some of it's own problems. More frequently I've seen encounters in APs range from mind-numbingly effortless to TPK deathtraps seemingly at random sometimes. :P
you should write an encounter design guide for DMs
I think you're right that this isn't the game for VT. I just think 'this isn't the game for me' is different to 'this game is fundamentally flawed' and when the example of a flawed game is an encounter undermined by poor GMing and lucky (or metagamey) players then it should be subjected to scrutiny.
I think we fundamentally agree; clearly VT's DM is in need of PF advice and/or more experience. Or perhaps just a different game/edition. I just don't see any reason to shield the system and module from equal scrutiny.
Do other game systems have sweet-spots? Do other systems with some kind of levelling stay equally playable at all levels?
I've never played a game that was equally playable at all levels, but my favorite one certainly has more of an even keel than 3.x.
Encounter design does get more difficult as levels get higher, that's for sure. I'm just trying to "pre-play" the final battle of an AP, to know if I need to tune it more, and just prepping the 12 characters involved with all their buffs took me three+ hours of prep time. The character with the most buff spells has 15 buffs on him and even the character (an Oni) with the least amount of buffs has 7 of them.
I'm seriously thinking about introducing the "buff slot" idea which developers bandied about during the playtest for the next campaign. Should make things more manageable.
I always have liked 3e more than I've liked Pathfinder. That fact probably won't change any time soon, either.
As time has passed, I've also grown to like GURPS. I was disappointed with 4e, and my opinion of it got worse with time.
The biggest problem I know of is purely one of encounter design, which doesn't lay so much with the system usually as the people using it. I tend to have combats that are big with lots of stuff involved. Rarely is action economy not even or even against the PCs (the first rule that GMs should learn is no single-opponents unless those opponents have something special to bring to the table to tilt action economy back in their favor).This is the kind of info that new and even somewhat-experienced DMs need from their DMG. Admittedly I haven't read the PF version of it so maybe it's an improvement on the 3.5 DMG. Does it explain things like action economy, or mention 'Oh and fyi, the best way to increase encounter difficulty is with more enemies, not one stronger enemy'? Are the encounter guidelines any more decipherable than 3.5's?
Does it give DMs the list of Spells Your Dungeon and BBEG Need to Counter PC Spells? 'Cause at mid- to high-levels, 3.x turns into a Wheel of Time kind of world, where the existence of teleportation and other setting-changing magic demands countermeasures. And unless you enjoy reading through the spells chapter for fun, it's not particularly obvious where those countermeasures are.
Um...
Looking through the spell lists we see Scrying at level 4. Just next to that? Detect scrying. Science! O_OThough perhaps what you mean is having something that discusses the use of these spells. Unfortunately I can't say it discusses specifically what methods to use to counter specific tactics. That sort of thing could go on for a while because it honestly varies greatly from situation to situation.
For example, in the white dragon example, using the terrain to the dragon's advantage is both part of being a dragon and highly useful, but pretty much irrelevant past the corner case of "this dragon, this home". Most of the normal methods are obvious. Private sanctum is pretty strait-forward for example (wards an area from scrying and more for 24 hours and can be made permanent) but might not be suitable for every situation.
But we do have internet forums, blogs, and other methods for asking for advice in case we're not sure about something.
If you're intent on assigning blame, there's plenty to go around: the game for creating legwork for the DM and failing to mention the relevant details
To be fair, the 3.x DMGs actually DO cover relevant details, such as how to deal with divination spells and explaining that the game changes radically from low to high levels (if it did not, there would be no reason to play over so many levels, because you'd just be doing the exact same things with different numbers). Now how much of that useful advice was ported to Pathfinder I cannot say.
the module for showcasing a high-level foe without X, Y, and Z protections just in case,
I can agree here. I don't always write adventures ahead of time for others, but when I do, I noted rule nuances or explain or warn about certain things.
and the DM for not having the time/energy/experience/patience to make up for the details which the game and module lack.
As I said, you reap what you sow. If it wasn't worth the effort, then it's better to just let the side-encounter get over and go back to running the game (possibly with attempts at trying to rebound the lackluster combat with something more impressive later).
Hmmm, I'm not sure how to put this eloquently, so I'll be blunt.Don't sweat it. Based on your previous posts, nobody expects you to be eloquent. ;)
Yay! No pressure! ^_^
you should write an encounter design guide for DMsI don't know, Ashiel, I think you give monsters a bit too much credit. Sure, some of them got the necessary variety of spell-like abilities and/or spells to ward off the many, many ways player characters can outmaneuver them (ancient white dragons are okay in that regard), but at the end of the day, the action economy is so skewed towards the PC's and the roll of the initiative die can be so important to the outcome of an encounter, that those two factors can destroy the best laid out plans.
Your reaction of "how could this have happened?!?" seems to disregard that alpha strikes and the ridiculous damage player characters can dish out at high levels easily can catch even well prepared monsters on the wrong foot. And that's all she wrote in many of those cases, especially when those monsters don't have sources of healing available to them. The only question remaining then is if those opponents would flee or not (which many of them never do, according to the AP morale sections, but that is another gripe for another day).
The biggest problem I know of is purely one of encounter design, which doesn't lay so much with the system usually as the people using it. I tend to have combats that are big with lots of stuff involved. Rarely is action economy not even or even against the PCs (the first rule that GMs should learn is no single-opponents unless those opponents have something special to bring to the table to tilt action economy back in their favor).
I will say that a lot of APs do drop these solo-encounters or have NPCs who are written to be little more than skid-marks. That can cause some of it's own problems. More frequently I've seen encounters in APs range from mind-numbingly effortless to TPK deathtraps seemingly at random sometimes. :P
Thank you Umbriere. You may have just decided the next several posts for my blog. :)
I'd like to see that. Ashiel always struck me as someone who knows her stuff when it comes to the design of the game.
I'd like to see that. Ashiel always struck me as someone who knows her stuff when it comes to the design of the game.
Thank you Magnuskn! I really appreciate that. ^_^
I'm surprised that a certain someone hasn't shown up to ruin the party yet.
And yeah, I second the opinions of Umbri and Magnus, Ashiel should get in on that.