Where is this stated?
Page 108 and 110 in the Bestiary. It's at the bottom of the age categories tables.
And since I just checked, in the first Bestiary, gold and silver dragons are the only ones who can do this.
Where is this stated?Page 108 and 110 in the Bestiary. It's at the bottom of the age categories tables.
And since I just checked, in the first Bestiary, gold and silver dragons are the only ones who can do this.
Neat. Also, great. I really don't wanna think about a Dragon casting Heal on itself halfway through a fight @_@
I really don't wanna think about a Dragon casting Heal on itself halfway through a fight @_@
The stats for the ancient gold dragon and the ancient silver dragon both include heal as a spell. I guess the lesson is don't anger gold or silver dragons...
What I personally find upsetting is that neither of them have righteous might so they can grow a size category for extra damage and reach...
If you mean the players choosing to play the system in any way other then rather sub-optimally as the system not enforcing rocket tag, then sure I guess.
But if your players are making basic optimization choices, then the system will lead to rocket tag. That isn't the players fault, its the system. Don't hate the player man, hate the game.
My poll indicated that the average encounter is five+ rounds, even in the Devs own games.
I think that hyper-optimization will end AP encounters early, as they weren't designed for that. But any decent DM can boost the bad guys so that a combat takes many rounds.
The average encounter might be, at levels 12+ though 3-4 rounds should be the norm, with anything 5 or more rounds being a very odd exception (They've happened even in my games, but its always an oddity when they do.)
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Thank you very much for that break down Jiggy (+1), it pretty much highlights exactly what I was talking about. And to me that Fighter is just a basic no-frills fighter. Not really optimized, but certainly not sub-optimal, but definitely something even a new player with virtually no experience could put together without a lot of thought. And even that is going to make quick work of an ancient Blue Dragon.
No, but you see- that's at least a 5 round combat, as it takes at least a round for the fighter to get up to the dragon. And actually more, since generally I found it takes a round for the Wizard to cast Fly on the fighter, as only a idiot flying creature would crouch on the ground being Full Attacked.
Meanwhile- how many rounds doe it take the dragon- after getting in two rounds of breath- to kill the fighter?
Sure, if the Foes are all played like morons, then yes, combats will be short. Also if you give the characters a 25 pt build, high WBL, and the ability to choose from every supplement (while the foes pick from Core only), then yes- combats will be short.
No, really, thats just not it... at all. Jiggy's Fighter was perfectly core. Jiggy's fighter could just switch to a bow and use deadly aim for similar results. A pair of core only casters could similarly just nuke the dragon in a single round with each dropping two spells on it. And again, and I'm going to bold for clarity here, the dragon being able to kill the fighter in 1-2 rounds is also rocket tag. (shock gasp awe)
Believe me, foes played intelligently will make just as short work of PCs as the PCs will of them at this level of play, which is again why its rocket tag.
(Also your high WBL comment is just... out of nowhere since I would never suspect anything over WBL, as is the 25 point buy comment. 25 point buy actually lessens rocket tag somewhat as people are less of glass cannons with more stats, so really your above post makes a very weak argument.)
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And actually more, since generally I found it takes a round for the Wizard to cast Fly on the fighter,
Why doesn't the fighter have her own way to fly? Winged boots are pretty affordable at these levels. The wizard has better uses of that standard action.
And actually more, since generally I found it takes a round for the Wizard to cast Fly on the fighter,Why doesn't the fighter have her own way to fly? Winged boots are pretty affordable at these levels. The wizard has better uses of that standard action.
That round also doesn't increase the time it takes for the Fighter to kill the dragon. Fighter delays to just after the Wizard's turn.
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The above example with the blue dragon involves power word kill, meaning a party of at least 18th level.
I don't remember all the details, but it was APL 18 against a CR 25 blue dragon. I don't have the writeup I used, but the pre-Pathfinder notes I have indicate a blue great wyrm with maximum hit points carrying a ring of elemental command (air) and a staff of healing.
So with average rolls, you're hitting twice a round for about 100 damage. You need 7 hits to kill the dragon. That means the first hit of round 4 drops him, but a couple of lucky hits could reduce it to round 3 or even round 2 with a crit in there.That's without so much as a haste spell to help you out, no gloves of dueling, no accounting for a 15-20 threat range, etc.
Your math there looks good to me. You've left several important considerations out, however. First, "hitting twice per round" implies repeated full attacks. On a flying dragon with the casting ability of a 15th level sorcerer. Second, you're ignoring miss chances. Third, take a look at the blue dragon's mirage ability and think what that's going to do to your little full attack hula.
That's just the fighter. If anyone else is dealing damage at all, or providing buffs or whatever, we're looking at 2 rounds or less.Is that "rocket tag"? I dunno; I'm not sure what qualifies.
But it's very different from the stated 30-rounds-to-a-PWK. PWK means the dragon had as much as 100 HP left, so he'd only taken 250 damage in 30 rounds. That's 8.33 damage per round.
That is 8.33 damage per round. From the entire party.
I don't know what the verdict is on "rocket tag", but I think it's safe to say that RJGrady's game is not the norm.
Let me tell you what round one was like. The wizard cast glitterdust so the paladin could see to hit, triggering the dragon's ready action to cast cone of cold. Needless to say, the wizard failed his concentration check. The party was, understandably, much more prepared for electricity damage than for cold damage. If you were picturing a two round slugfest between a hasted fighter and a big dumb dragon, this was pretty much the opposite of that.
I've read enough message boards to know my game is probably not the norm. I suspect many players would be flabbergasted by the tactics I give to my NPCs. I don't play cunning spellcasters as though they were dumb bricks or artillery turrets. I am not above dirty, dirty moves, and any time you can knock a PC down into the single digit hit points, that's an action denial move, because they are going to want to get healed.
No, really, thats just not it... at all. Jiggy's Fighter was perfectly core. Jiggy's fighter could just switch to a bow and use deadly aim for similar results. A pair of core only casters could similarly just nuke the dragon in a single round with each dropping two spells on it. And again, and I'm going to bold for clarity here, the dragon being able to kill the fighter in 1-2 rounds is also rocket tag. (shock gasp awe)
It's also insane. Why would a dragon sit still for 1-2 rounds to kill one fighter, when it knows by doing so, it opens itself up to the same kind of punishment?
And for serious, at minutes per level and being only a 3rd level slot with the wizard using overland flight (that they cast yesterday!) there's no reason that people should be going into the fight without fly (unless the dragon snuck up on you, presumably outside its lair, since you would hope that if you were going to the lair you'd have handled that...)
Edit @ RJGrady: Um... no offense, but I'm expecting the dragon played at least that competently. Flying + spell use is the dragon power level floor. Ask my players how fights against Half-Fiend Red Dragons with delusions (or not since he succeeded) of godhood go. End result 2 party members dead (temporarily this is a high level game after all) and 2 eventually betraying the party joining the dragon during the climatic fight against the actual big bad (a really really scary psionic racist).
Honestly if anything your underplaying the dragon, Cone of Cold is kind of a weak opener and no Quicken. Really your Fighter should have just switched to a bow and full attacked it (And he really should have had true seeing).
And for serious, at minutes per level and being only a 3rd level slot with the wizard using overland flight (that they cast yesterday!) there's no reason that people should be going into the fight without fly (unless the dragon snuck up on you, presumably outside its lair, since you would hope that if you were going to the lair you'd have handled that...)
There were a number of fights that started with the whole party using overland flight, and also wearing rings of featherfall, in preference to almost any other sort of ring. For reasons that, if you think about them for very long, should be obvious.
And for serious, at minutes per level and being only a 3rd level slot with the wizard using overland flight (that they cast yesterday!) there's no reason that people should be going into the fight without fly (unless the dragon snuck up on you, presumably outside its lair, since you would hope that if you were going to the lair you'd have handled that...)There were a number of fights that started with the whole party using overland flight, and also wearing rings of featherfall, in preference to almost any other sort of ring. For reasons that, if you think about them for very long, should be obvious.
Actually... no they aren't. If the opponent wants to waste a turn dispelling the Fighter Fly... well that's 1 out of their 3-4 possible turns gone. To maybe deal 20d6 damage... while still getting shot at or cast at. I can live with that. (Also Dispelling in PF is just terrible unless you use Disjunction).
Actually... no they aren't. If the opponent wants to waste a turn dispelling the Fighter Fly... well that's 1 out of their 3-4 possible turns gone. To maybe deal 20d6 damage... while still getting shot at or cast at. I can live with that. (Also Dispelling in PF is just terrible unless you use Disjunction).And for serious, at minutes per level and being only a 3rd level slot with the wizard using overland flight (that they cast yesterday!) there's no reason that people should be going into the fight without fly (unless the dragon snuck up on you, presumably outside its lair, since you would hope that if you were going to the lair you'd have handled that...)There were a number of fights that started with the whole party using overland flight, and also wearing rings of featherfall, in preference to almost any other sort of ring. For reasons that, if you think about them for very long, should be obvious.
Ok, so I guess it wasn't as obvious as I thought. But think about it a little bit more. You'll get it. :) It can be a long, long walk back to the fight...
Eh, they'll be just in time to see the dragons corpse. And they've probably already done their portion of the damage. Also if your having a fight extremely high up... just bring some summons... seriously..
I'm not even talking about theorycrafting. I'm just telling you what the players in my group considered good prophylactics. Obviously, my game never existed and my players were just voices in my head, but I'll just have to learn to be happy with my delusions. Thank you for taking the time and patience to prove that what happened, could not possibly have happened.
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Casters can render enemies useless whether they save or not. SR is relatively meaningless. Their damage capabilities range from meh to WMD levels.
You don't even need to reach epic levels for that to happen. There are level 8 sorcerers roaming around that can drop 11d6+22 fireballs with a DC so high that it isn't worth having the enemies roll. Don't even ask what happens when they can put both intensified and empowered on it. By level 12 you're pretty much replacing enemies with mushroom clouds at the drop of a hat.
Your game clearly happened, but because the playstyle involved is so... unique, it is best discarded as an outlier, as it is far from representative of the average game.
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Your game clearly happened, but because the playstyle involved is so... unique, it is best discarded as an outlier, as it is far from representative of the average game.
Or, it could be upheld as a reason and example to think about ways to improve higher level games, sensibly taking into account the parameters of such games. Definitely one or the other.
How does your example provide a way to improve high level games? Genuinely curious, since as an outlier, it does fall within the expectations created by the math of the system. Such outliers exist as you've demonstrated. That just means that outliers exist though, which I never doubted. I mean can you imagine a party of 4 rogues...
Edit @ TriOmegaZero - From what I've seen around the forums the average fight is 3-4 rounds. So... yes a 30 round fight is an outlier... a significant one at that.
Your game clearly happened, but because the playstyle involved is so... unique, it is best discarded as an outlier, as it is far from representative of the average game.
To be honest most groups I've been in have no idea how to deal with anything, don't know how to use scrolls/UMD, and are shocked at how much control I have when I play a spell caster. My average would more than likely just get eaten... The disparity between you and the guy to the right of you can be pretty crazy sometimes.
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The disparity between you and the guy to the right of you can be pretty crazy sometimes.
That is the truth.
Edit @ TriOmegaZero - From what I've seen around the forums the average fight is 3-4 rounds. So... yes a 30 round fight is an outlier... a significant one at that.
Ah, I was speaking more to the idea of 'not all games are rocket tag', not 'length of fights'.
Your game clearly happened, but because the playstyle involved is so... unique, it is best discarded as an outlier, as it is far from representative of the average game.To be honest most groups I've been in have no idea how to deal with anything, don't know how to use scrolls/UMD, and are shocked at how much control I have when I play a spell caster. My average would more than likely just get eaten... The disparity between you and the guy to the right of you can be pretty crazy sometimes.
Oh right, forums are inherently skewed since the people on them care enough about the topic to actually read a forum about it. Fair point, that's concerning though that there are people who don't know how to use UMD, or *gasp and horror* don't put ranks into it...
I think I'm feeling faint... back to my private demiplane.
Dotting. I'm somewhere on page 2.
Edit @ TriOmegaZero - From what I've seen around the forums the average fight is 3-4 rounds. So... yes a 30 round fight is an outlier... a significant one at that.
It is an outlier in the sense that it was a longish fight, one of five major boss fights in the campaign. It is not an outlier in the sense that it was an unpredictable and irreproducible event. While such a fight could end in 3-4 rounds, I don't think it's weird for it to turn into a drag-out. I think the 1-2 round scenarios being posited ("rocket tag") would be unusual in a well-planned game.
I don't have a problem with a normal, everyday even-CR fight taking two rounds. On to bigger and better things! But deep in a long campaign, I don't use a lot of filler encounters. It's more plausible, more efficient, and more fun, to run fewer, tougher fights, even with higher stakes.
I'll also note that proper NPC design isn't an "outlier" scenario, it's just better preparation. If you want to challenge a 17th level party with a demigodlike solo opponent, start with high CR, maximum hit points, and a couple of immunities. I thought this was well known, even before Mythic Adventures came along, which set out some decent baselines for designing really tough NPCs. Is your base creature low in the Will department? Give him a couple of Hit Dice or class levels, and take Iron Will and Improved Iron Will. That reroll vastly reduces the chances your heavyweight will go down in the third round.
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RJGrady, I would like to play in one of your games it sounds like you are a fun DM and have a fun group.
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Been playing Carrion Crown lately. Our GM is throwing things at the party significantly above APL. Even at that, he's been buffing things that are several CR above us into things even further above us. In any case, the party is level 7-8 right now. Accounting for the extra HP, DR, or mechanics that should prevent us from ending fights in 2-3 rounds, it's still happening. The party is optimized to a point that even I, as a person that will spend ages making minor character adjustments in my head until I've got a satisfactory final product in mind, am forced to just laugh at it. Trust me, this is with a GM that is blatantly trying to kill the party at our every fatal turn. It is not working. There have been zero deaths, and these fights SHOULD by all rights have wiped the floor with us. Oh, and I figure he might read this post at some point, soo... :P He's doing this because it is the only way to provide a challenge. It's not some GM versus players nonsense. We really don't have fun unless our characters are in constant mortal danger. Problem is.. it's just really hard to do that to us.
Suffice to say I'd call this a pretty good example of optimization getting to a point where it does force the GM to homebrew, and even then some parties will continue to curbstomp their way through everything. The party literally has just about every angle covered. Situations do arise where a GM cannot find a happy medium. A party that is hyper-optimized and has all roles covered by people that are very skilled... yeah, I think I'd have an aneurysm trying to come up with a proper challenge. On the one and, you could drop a great wyrm. Instant TPK. On the other? You want to provide the party with a challenge that while seemingly quite dangerous is not insurmountable. What do you do when a party of level 8s is able to obliterate things a group of level 12s would have difficulty with? Yeah, we've had some close calls, but no deaths yet. It's quite shocking.
... And in spite of it all? I still support both optimization and min-maxing. Shameless min-maxers, join with me in celebration of game breaking numbers!
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I can't really say much about the role-play without spoiling Carrion Crown but I'll say it has quite a bit of role-play. Our GM is also pretty big on that one. While I don't know if he has added a lot of the role-play to it or not (I'm only reading the Carrion Crown books after we've completed them), I do know we've had a good bit of it.
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Sounds like a lot of work, but something I'd do for key battles in my campaigns. Just curious -- would you aim for a 50/50 chance for things to "hit" on average? And what do you shoot for, with attacks that the PCs have decided to specialize in? Good saves vs. bad saves, and so on?As much as I think the high level game could use more testing and limitations, I generally do the math myself to make it work. No one knows better than the DM what the players are capable of. If you want to make the math work out to a challenging encounter, you have to do it yourself.
I spend the time to plan out the percentages for hits, save DCs, and the like even with full buffs. It takes a lot of work. I can't stand easy encounters, especially at high level. Two round fights against enemies that are supposed to be the equivalent of Smaug or Sauron for lvl 20 characters isn't very interesting to run as a DM.
I want my players to feel like they accomplished something when they reach the pinnacle level. The rules aren't going to stop me from making that happen. If I have to add 10 strength and con to the Great Wyrm I do. If I have to give the ancient Balor levels and artifact sword, I do it. Anything to make the fight challenging.
Usually lower. I have a group of players that like to play physical damage dealers. I usually have to deal with two or three optimized physical damage dealers. I usually key off the best chance to hit and have it at 20 to 30% chance to hit with their highest iterative attack.
You figure each player at high level will have between 5 and 8 attacks per round. Two to four of those will be at the highest base attack (archer usually has more).
If I have 3 guys launching roughly 6 to 8 attacks at the highest base attack bonus, 20 to 30% means 1 or 3 will hit each round. An occasional crit will works it way in which you can't account for and skews damage potential quite a bit. 1 to 3 hits at 30 to 50 points of damage works out to 90 to 150 points a round not including crits. Not very many creatures can withstand that kind of punishment, so I usually boost hit points if the PCs aren't in a one on one fight. I've been known to give dragons two to three times their starting hit points.
Then there is the damage returned calculation. You figure you have five PCs with hit points and healing. If the opponent isn't dishing out enough damage to dent a PC, you have no real fear factor. I tend to adjust damage accordingly. The average monster out of the various bestiaries doesn't do enough damage to threaten a high level party. I have to modify up damage quite a bit. Moreso for smaller creatures like demons and less so for big creatures like dragons.
Let's use a Balor as an example.
A balor deals 2d6+13 damage for an average of 20 points a hit. If he's using Power Attack, he's doing 2d6+25 or 33 a hit. This is pretty weak damage.
Your average buffed two-hander at lvl 16 is doing:
26 str +12 PA +15 +4 enh for 2d6+31
This doesn't include things like holy, bane, specialization, raging, spells, and the like. So your average two-hander is exceeding the damage of the Balor and there are usually multiple players engaging the Balor. He's going to lose that fight and lose it quickly.
Some DMs recommend putting helpers in to deal with action economy and numbers. You can do this. But casters will often take weaker opponents and decimate them leaving the Balor to fight alone. If the physical damage dealers are making short work of the Balor, they're going to make even shorter work out of the minions. One round or less of combat with a crit ends a minion. That doesn't even take into account the casters unloading on the minion or the balor.
Standard five person group for me is: 3 physical damage dealers, arcane caster, and divine caster. Some of the physical damage dealers mix things up being a Magus.
So I'll calculate my groups damage output. Decide how long I want the fight to last without crits. I'll determine how much damage the Balor needs to do to put a player in peril once a round. Then adjust hit points and damage accordingly.
I shoot for a certain feel. I want the players to feel like they fought a fearsome, deadly, epic battle against one of the lords of the Abyss. I feel using those baselines gives the battle that field.
If the cleric has to work to keep people alive, I feel I've done my job. I don't necessarily like to kill people, though I won't hold back. They gotta feel threatened. I don't want them feeling like they squared off against an orc when fighting a creature like a Balor.
The enemies don't always have haste and all the other buffs a party has. You figure to survive as long as they have, they have to be tough enough to stand up to a fully buffed party coming after them. And I'm sorry to say Paizo does not design creatures that are tough enough to do that as the levels get higher. So it's up we DMs to do the work.
It takes a very dedicated, proficient DM to make high level play work. I see why so many players don't experience the high level game or avoid it. It's hard work and not always worth the pay off. Those times the pay off is good, it's big time fun. Nothing quite like fighting a powerful enemy in a hard fought battle you're not sure you're going to win to give you the feeling of playing an extraordinary hero of legendary ability.
As the old saying goes in storytelling, heroes are measured by the villains they face. The more dangerous the villain, the more extraordinary will seem the deeds of the hero.
Aren't nearly all high level games outliers? They are easily the least played games thanks to lack of high level adventure paths/modules, scheduling conflicts and other real life elements prematurely crushing adventuring careers, etc.
Very true, Kermit. I have been fortunate to have the same group give or take a guy for roughly 20 years. That makes things a lot easier because all of them are very familiar with the system and share a similar play-style. One of them isn't a hardcore optimizer, but he builds very effective characters that can hold their own.
Reaching high levels usually requires a consistent party that plays for a year or more. Hopefully by that time most of the players have built effective characters, but I imagine that is not always the case. Trying to run a high level campaign as a short campaign with people that lack any familiarity with the system would be difficult at best.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I don't remember all the details, but it was APL 18 against a CR 25 blue dragon. I don't have the writeup I used, but the pre-Pathfinder notes I have indicate a blue great wyrm with maximum hit points carrying a ring of elemental command (air) and a staff of healing.
Hm, sounds a bit different than what I was looking at then.
Your game sounds fun! :D
It's also worth noting that before the addition of splatbooks there were very few 'save and lose' spells available, and even now I can count such spells on my fingers. I have no doubt that some splatbook bloat has changed encounters at many tables (and not just with spells).
I'd agree that the biggest problem at high levels lies not with the game itself, but with how different levels of optimization by players. If everyone is playing the game like the designers (e.g. low point buy, not always the most ideal choices - examples in the back pages of Pathfinder Chronicles NPC Guide where several PCs belonging to designers are featured) the math doesn't 'break down' in quite the same way.
Similarly, as noted, if everyone is on the same page in terms of optimization across the board (regardless of level, from myself to Anzyr's extreme) things can be ramped up as needed.
At low levels as a rule the math shifts are smaller, while at high levels the differences are more pronounced.
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he party was, understandably, much more prepared for electricity damage than for cold damage. If you were picturing a two round slugfest between a hasted fighter and a big dumb dragon, this was pretty much the opposite of that.
I've read enough message boards to know my game is probably not the norm. I suspect many players would be flabbergasted by the tactics I give to my NPCs. I don't play cunning spellcasters as though they were dumb bricks or artillery turrets. I am not above dirty, dirty moves, and any time you can knock a PC down into the single digit hit points, that's an action denial move, because they are going to want to get healed.
It's also insane. Why would a dragon sit still for 1-2 rounds to kill one fighter, when it knows by doing so, it opens itself up to the same kind of punishment?
No, your game sounds pretty standard to me. A good DM, up to actually challenging his players- that's the way the game should go- and in my experience- does go.
And I held a poll on these boards a little while ago and I just asked here a couple pages back- altho many TALK about "Rocket Tag" few games seem to be actually played that way. True, it does take a DM willing to put in some work to challenge the PCs.
Mind you- some players LIKE blowing thru the encounters like so much tissues paper. If that's what all the players like and want, and the DM is fine with playing that way- well, D&D is a game, and since they are all having fun, great!
But just because some players and DM enjoy rocket tag, that doesn't mean the game breaks down at high levels.
And for serious, at minutes per level and being only a 3rd level slot with the wizard using overland flight (that they cast yesterday!) there's no reason that people should be going into the fight without fly (unless the dragon snuck up on you, presumably outside its lair, since you would hope that if you were going to the lair you'd have handled that...)There were a number of fights that started with the whole party using overland flight, and also wearing rings of featherfall, in preference to almost any other sort of ring. For reasons that, if you think about them for very long, should be obvious.
Overland Flight
School transmutation; Level sorcerer/wizard 5
Components: V, S
Range personal
It's also worth noting that before the addition of splatbooks there were very few 'save and lose' spells available, and even now I can count such spells on my fingers.
Are you doing the thing where you count on fingers using binary so that you can count up to 1023 with both hands? Because that's the only way it makes sense with the following in the CRB:
grease, charm person, sleep, color spray, cause fear, glitterdust, web, hideous laughter, blindness/deafness, scare, stinking cloud, deep slumber, hold person, suggestion, halt undead, charm monster, confusion, wall of ice, phantasmal killer, rainbow pattern, fear, cloudkill, wall of stone, dominate person, feeblemind, hold monster, magic jar, baleful polymorph, geas, mass suggestion, circle of death, eyebite, flesh to stone, banishment, plane shift, mass hold person, insanity, forcecage, control undead, reverse gravity, maze, trap the soul, mass charm monster, irresistible dance, power word stun, scintillating pattern, imprisonment, dominate monster, mass hold monster, and weird.
Overland Flight
School transmutation; Level sorcerer/wizard 5
Components: V, S
Range personal
I assume your point in quoting this is that overland flight is a personal spell. This is a reason alchemists are pretty cool. The day before adventuring, the alchemist hands out infusions of overland flight to everyone. They drink them, sleep, prepare new spells/extracts in the morning, then go adventure. By the time you're high enough level, it'll last long enough for this to work.
Alternatively, maybe everyone in RJ Grady's party was able to cast overland flight. That's possible with, say, a party of a bard, magus, oracle, and witch.
Edit @ TriOmegaZero - From what I've seen around the forums the average fight is 3-4 rounds. So... yes a 30 round fight is an outlier... a significant one at that.It is an outlier in the sense that it was a longish fight, one of five major boss fights in the campaign. It is not an outlier in the sense that it was an unpredictable and irreproducible event. While such a fight could end in 3-4 rounds, I don't think it's weird for it to turn into a drag-out. I think the 1-2 round scenarios being posited ("rocket tag") would be unusual in a well-planned game.
I don't have a problem with a normal, everyday even-CR fight taking two rounds. On to bigger and better things! But deep in a long campaign, I don't use a lot of filler encounters. It's more plausible, more efficient, and more fun, to run fewer, tougher fights, even with higher stakes.
I'll also note that proper NPC design isn't an "outlier" scenario, it's just better preparation. If you want to challenge a 17th level party with a demigodlike solo opponent, start with high CR, maximum hit points, and a couple of immunities. I thought this was well known, even before Mythic Adventures came along, which set out some decent baselines for designing really tough NPCs. Is your base creature low in the Will department? Give him a couple of Hit Dice or class levels, and take Iron Will and Improved Iron Will. That reroll vastly reduces the chances your heavyweight will go down in the third round.
Again, a CR 25 Dragon should be able to kill a target in 1-2 rounds and such a scenario is also rocket tag. Also, your preferred scenario of "a few tough fights" is literally the optimum circumstances for rocket tag at high levels as casters can blow their strongest abilities and even fighters can use limited daily use items. I'm very curious how your dragon never managed to down an opponent in 1-2 rounds.
Again rocket tag being a symptom of high level has very little to do with encounter design. Even if maximum hp is used in your example, Jiggy's pretty basic fighter would easily chunk through that (even if it was using smart tactics), and further a more a similarly optimized group with 3 others is still going to go through in 3-4 rounds of successful attacks.
It's also worth noting that before the addition of splatbooks there were very few 'save and lose' spells available, and even now I can count such spells on my fingers.Are you doing the thing where you count on fingers using binary so that you can count up to 1023 with both hands? Because that's the only way it makes sense with the following in the CRB:
grease, charm person, sleep, color spray, cause fear, glitterdust, web, hideous laughter, blindness/deafness, scare, stinking cloud, deep slumber, hold person, suggestion, halt undead, charm monster, confusion, wall of ice, phantasmal killer, rainbow pattern, fear, cloudkill, wall of stone, dominate person, feeblemind, hold monster, magic jar, baleful polymorph, geas, mass suggestion, circle of death, eyebite, flesh to stone, banishment, plane shift, mass hold person, insanity, forcecage, control undead, reverse gravity, maze, trap the soul, mass charm monster, irresistible dance, power word stun, scintillating pattern, imprisonment, dominate monster, mass hold monster, and weird.
Please reread my original statement and recompute.
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he party was, understandably, much more prepared for electricity damage than for cold damage. If you were picturing a two round slugfest between a hasted fighter and a big dumb dragon, this was pretty much the opposite of that.
I've read enough message boards to know my game is probably not the norm. I suspect many players would be flabbergasted by the tactics I give to my NPCs. I don't play cunning spellcasters as though they were dumb bricks or artillery turrets. I am not above dirty, dirty moves, and any time you can knock a PC down into the single digit hit points, that's an action denial move, because they are going to want to get healed.
It's also insane. Why would a dragon sit still for 1-2 rounds to kill one fighter, when it knows by doing so, it opens itself up to the same kind of punishment?
No, your game sounds pretty standard to me. A good DM, up to actually challenging his players- that's the way the game should go- and in my experience- does go.
And I held a poll on these boards a little while ago and I just asked here a couple pages back- altho many TALK about "Rocket Tag" few games seem to be actually played that way. True, it does take a DM willing to put in some work to challenge the PCs.
Mind you- some players LIKE blowing thru the encounters like so much tissues paper. If that's what all the players like and want, and the DM is fine with playing that way- well, D&D is a game, and since they are all having fun, great!
But just because some players and DM enjoy rocket tag, that doesn't mean the game breaks down at high levels.
You're doing that thing where you try to redefine commonly used terms to fit your preconceptions and make your argument stronger again.
As multiple people have tried to explain, "Rocket Tag" is not playing the game on easy mode with stupid enemies. It's a consequence of martial and monster full attack damage being so high, and spellcasters (again, casters both within and outside of the party) having more and more options to effectively end an encounter with the right spell. Even leaving out the spells that don't allow a save or still hurt on a successful save, any remotely intelligent caster is going to have spells that target all three saves, and most monsters have at least one weak one.
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A dragon being able to kill someone in 1-2 rounds should not equate to "rocket tag"; do you not have healers or healing resources? Even death is barely a speedbump at that level. Just because you can dish out large amounts of damage doesn't mean that all participants in a fight should be standing still doing nothing but trading blows. High level fights should be dynamic and usually involve full use of action economy and movement modes, etc.
A dragon being able to kill someone in 1-2 rounds should not equate to "rocket tag"; do you not have healers or healing resources? Even death is barely a speedbump at that level. Just because you can dish out large amounts of damage doesn't mean that all participants in a fight should be standing still doing nothing but trading blows. High level fights should be dynamic and usually involve full use of action economy and movement modes, etc.
In fight Healing is criminally action inefficient (though on some rare occasions required), because that action could have spend dealing enough damage to drop whatever your fighting (a consequence of again, things being able to kill things in one or two rounds). You may not be just trading blows, but nonetheless full use of the action economy will lead to these 1-2 round kills, especially if the PCs outnumber an opponent. In the standard group that means 2 sets of attacks and 4 spells directed at a single opponent.
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I can't even comment on rocket tag; I have no idea if our games involved it or not. I keep seeing people talking about "intentionally making sub-optimal choices," as if there's some Grand Unified Law of optimization.
How about optimizing for fun? How about optimizing for character concept, or backstory or any of a giant pile of other choices you can make besides DPR or "I win" combinations? Sure, I could have made every single opponent they faced perfectly crafted to TPK the party, easily. It's not that hard to do.
Would that have been an optimal game? Would anyone have even believed that such a world was a real place? Heck, would they play more than a half-dozen times before concluding I was an ass? Hell, no.
Instead, I optimized for a world where the world made sense. Not every creature on the planet took an optimal set of feats. To be honest, I don't even know what optimal choices for feats are, because I just don't care.
Sure, on occasion they one-shotted something I thought would be an epic encounter. So what? We played for 6 years. On other occasions things that I expected to be a cakewalk weren't, because one player wasn't there, or because they made an unexpected bad choice, or just because I didn't anticipate how good a certain combination would be.
That's not important. What's important is that we played for six years. Heck, the real reason we finished the campaign was because I wanted to move to straight Pathfinder rules once the mythic rules were announced. So now we're preparing for another campaign, and I expect it to go the same way - crazy levels, crazy plotlines, and lots of pizza and beer on Friday nights.
But no, I don't intend to say anything about the actual plot because I know there's at least one lurker out there :)
P.S. That oft touted level "cap" in Pathfinder? It's actually a Golarion level cap. I support it whole-heartedly, for how else can you create a sane campaign setting? On the other hand, there's nothing that says a non-Golarion campaign setting has to pay any attention to any such thing...
I can't even comment on rocket tag; I have no idea if our games involved it or not. I keep seeing people talking about "intentionally making sub-optimal choices," as if there's some Grand Unified Law of optimization.
How about optimizing for fun? How about optimizing for character concept, or backstory or any of a giant pile of other choices you can make besides DPR or "I win" combinations? Sure, I could have made every single opponent they faced perfectly crafted to TPK the party, easily. It's not that hard to do.
Would that have been an optimal game? Would anyone have even believed that such a world was a real place? Heck, would they play more than a half-dozen times before concluding I was an ass? Hell, no.
Instead, I optimized for a world where the world made sense. Not every creature on the planet took an optimal set of feats. To be honest, I don't even know what optimal choices for feats are, because I just don't care.
Sure, on occasion they one-shotted something I thought would be an epic encounter. So what? We played for 6 years. On other occasions things that I expected to be a cakewalk weren't, because one player wasn't there, or because they made an unexpected bad choice, or just because I didn't anticipate how good a certain combination would be.
That's not important. What's important is that we played for six years. Heck, the real reason we finished the campaign was because I wanted to move to straight Pathfinder rules once the mythic rules were announced. So now we're preparing for another campaign, and I expect it to go the same way - crazy levels, crazy plotlines, and lots of pizza and beer on Friday nights.
But no, I don't intend to say anything about the actual plot because I know there's at least one lurker out there :)
P.S. That oft touted level "cap" in Pathfinder? It's actually a Golarion level cap. I support it whole-heartedly, for how else can you create a sane campaign setting? On the other hand, there's nothing that says a non-Golarion...
I'm not really sure what point your trying to make here other then you evidently feel that rocket tag requires optimization? Let me assure when most people talk about Pathfinder becoming rocket tag at higher levels we are not talking "If you brought DPR olympic builds", we are talking "If you invested in your main stat and took 1 or 2 no-brainer feats and followed your item treadmill" level optimization. Now, if you go beneath that basic optimization floor of investing your main stat by say making a fighter who focuses on INT, sure fights will take longer, but that is a sub-optimal choice, when what we are looking it is the basic level of system usage.
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Your game clearly happened, but because the playstyle involved is so... unique, it is best discarded as an outlier, as it is far from representative of the average game.
I think this very thing every time I read your posts. Perhaps one day I'll get to play in a game where these assumptions I can only read about hold true.