I hated the AP, poor story and the kingdom managing aspect was boring, tedious and unbalanced.
Ironically enough, it was the AP which started me having an AP suscription, which I only let lapse for Mummy's Mask (due to disinterest in Osirion and money problems).
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I've found the APs are awesome when played with 4 players at 15 points, as they recommended.
Adding even one extra player can swing some encounters dramatically. More points also makes players dramatically more powerful in terms how they swing their stats.
My group would find the kingdom making boring as well Magnuskn. If I ever ran that one, the kingdom growing would happen in the background and I'd focus on the politics side of things instead. My players would get into that.
Personally, I've found that the difference between 15 and 20 point is negligible, if you use giving 20 points as a stick to get your players to not min-max, which is what I did with my current RotRL campaign. The players get 20 points to buy their character, but no natural attribute (before racial and other modifiers) can be bought over 16 and only one attribute can go below 10, with 8 being the maximum allowed to buy down.
Using 20 points in that way results in more rounded characters and it also has the psychological effect of players choosing more MAD-prone classes.
Yeah, I find that the big difference between 15 point characters and 20 point ones is fewer dump stats.
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I find the difference between all point buy values is number of dumps and class selection. You get a lot more boring characters (mechanically) with lower point buy and the actual power level is basically the same, since people dump stats into the dirt to get their 16-18s anyway.
Low point buy also helps casters and hurts martials, which is the last thing that needs to be done. Martials require at least two stats (str or dex and con) plus probably a mental if they want to contribute outside of combat. Casters like dex/con, but can easily do with only their casting stat.
With low point buy, casters still get their 18s and high dcs, but nobody can afford to shore up three saves to defend against those same casters. With stats all around, saves are higher and magic loses power.
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I wouldn't suggest going down in point buy if your players believe they need high stats to have fun. Most of the perceptions about dump stats and so forth are based on playstyle.
You can finish an AP just fine with no one in the party having any initial stat bonus greater than +2. A 15 at character creation is just fine for your best stat, and once you demonstrate that to yourself, no low amount of point buy is really much of an issue. Try it out for a short mini-campaign and see if it works for you. I did and now 15 point buy feels like an extravagant feast of points.
Obviously YMMV but in my experience playing standard(15) point buy does not have to lead to dumping of stats. heck I've been thinking about seeing if my group is up for a game using the default heroic NPC array of 15 14 13 12 10 8.
Obviously YMMV but in my experience playing standard(15) point buy does not have to lead to dumping of stats. heck I've been thinking about seeing if my group is up for a game using the default heroic NPC array of 15 14 13 12 10 8.
The standard Elite array of 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, is 15 point buy. I can't imagine many combinations more satisfying for anything other than an arcane caster. But, if your goal is to eliminate the min/max Wizard, that'd do it.
Incidentally, my group (myself included) prefer high stats and so we use 25 point buy. After reading a lot of postings about Ability Scores, I imagine that sounds excessive to most. We don't dump stat though; I can think of only a couple PC's since we started using point buy that have less than a 10. And pretty much only prime casters get to have an 18 at 1st level. We like to spread our characters around. Also, we are allergic to sub-10 Charisma, and kinda don't get the whole "dump stat" approach.
Last few campaigns I've been in have used that array with either +1 or +2 to all stats, depending on how high power the DM wanted it to be. It ends up being a ridiculous number of points if you were to make it a point buy, but since the stats are forced to be spread out rather than just taking 2 18s and dumping the rest, it ends up pretty well balanced and gives MAD heavy characters like Monks a leg up that they tend to need anyway. I've also noticed it resulting in an uptick in Gishes and Theurge builds, which I consider a plus personally.I wouldn't suggest going down in point buy if your players believe they need high stats to have fun. Most of the perceptions about dump stats and so forth are based on playstyle.
You can finish an AP just fine with no one in the party having any initial stat bonus greater than +2. A 15 at character creation is just fine for your best stat, and once you demonstrate that to yourself, no low amount of point buy is really much of an issue. Try it out for a short mini-campaign and see if it works for you. I did and now 15 point buy feels like an extravagant feast of points.
Obviously YMMV but in my experience playing standard(15) point buy does not have to lead to dumping of stats. heck I've been thinking about seeing if my group is up for a game using the default heroic NPC array of 15 14 13 12 10 8.
Hah. Reminds me, a long while back (in D&D 3.5) I conceived of the "Heroic Array", which was 10 12 14 15 16 17. It equaled an obscene 43 points in D&D point buy (it would be less in PF), whereas the "Epic" set was 32 points. I used to consider them equal (points and array), but reading your post I realized it works as the set numbers but not as the points....
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My group isn't allowed a stat less than 8 before racial mods and only one stat less than 10 in total. With 15 point buy spread across stats it makes them play better and think more. We call it hard mode since they're reliant more on sound tactics and risk mitigation than they are on pumping stats to the point of near auto success.
It's worked for us, especially in our last two APs.
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I find the difference between all point buy values is number of dumps and class selection. You get a lot more boring characters (mechanically) with lower point buy and the actual power level is basically the same, since people dump stats into the dirt to get their 16-18s anyway.
Low point buy also helps casters and hurts martials, which is the last thing that needs to be done. Martials require at least two stats (str or dex and con) plus probably a mental if they want to contribute outside of combat. Casters like dex/con, but can easily do with only their casting stat.
With low point buy, casters still get their 18s and high dcs, but nobody can afford to shore up three saves to defend against those same casters. With stats all around, saves are higher and magic loses power.
Agreed, and MAD characters like Monks become nearly unplayable with a low point buy. Poor monks they have a hard life.
I think there is a significant difference between a low point buy system and extreme min maxing.
And well rounded scores ( as a positive thing) has the stench of the Stormwind Fallacy about it. Well rounded scores is great if that's the type of character you want to play, but if you want to play a stupid half-orc brute (Str 20, Int 7) well rounded scores is pretty unsatisfactory as a design concept.
My group isn't allowed a stat less than 8 before racial mods and only one stat less than 10 in total. With 15 point buy spread across stats it makes them play better and think more. We call it hard mode since they're reliant more on sound tactics and risk mitigation than they are on pumping stats to the point of near auto success.
It's worked for us, especially in our last two APs.
I like that idea.
Do you think it would work for those who roll their stats as well (which I suppose if one rolled under an 8, it would auto become 8, and then after that if under 10, it became a 10)...or do you think that would be too broken?
I would be interested to know how people cope with making/preparing high level NPCs without their heads exploding every week. Are there some resources I am missing?
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Herolab speeds up my production considerably. (Mostly countering my obsessive-compulsive desire to prepare every aspect of the NPC.) It's not for everyone, though, as a full Herolab package-set is a big investment.
Other than that, I'd say just good old-fashioned system familiarity. I know most of the available options and how best to accomplish my design goals.
I would be interested to know how people cope with making/preparing high level NPCs without their heads exploding every week. Are there some resources I am missing?Paizo released an NPC book that has things all the way to level 20. Just add names.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/npcCodex/core/index.html
This NPC codex? It is a good help, indeed. I would hope for one including all core books and a couple with more advanced tactics (i.e. use of style feats).I would also really enjoy a book that has all the NPC stat blocks from all the APs collected.
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I would be interested to know how people cope with making/preparing high level NPCs without their heads exploding every week. Are there some resources I am missing?Paizo released an NPC book that has things all the way to level 20. Just add names.http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/npcCodex/core/index.html
This NPC codex? It is a good help, indeed. I would hope for one including all core books and a couple with more advanced tactics (i.e. use of style feats).I would also really enjoy a book that has all the NPC stat blocks from all the APs collected.
D20PFSRD has quite an extensive collection, including those from APs. You won't get names or personality write ups due to copyright though. They will cite where the NPC comes from, so if you wanted to reference the AP book for the name, personality, and artwork you could.
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I would be interested to know how people cope with making/preparing high level NPCs without their heads exploding every week. Are there some resources I am missing?
I ...don't? I write up important plot bad guys, but they are intended to last for several sessions, they have allies who will bring them back to life, or contingencies, or clones, and so forth. Generic foe #351 doesn't get a full write-up. I have tons of Bestiaries, 3.5 Monster Manuals, 3.0 ELH, the NPC codex, and AP adventure #6s with lots of prewritten high level foes.
One of my principles of high level play is player agency, so I often have no idea what my PCs will end up doing. Writing up high level NPCs that may not even come into play seems like a waste of time(although if I do write one up they avoid it can go into a keeper file to be reused/reflavored later).
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I would be interested to know how people cope with making/preparing high level NPCs without their heads exploding every week. Are there some resources I am missing?I ...don't? I write up important plot bad guys, but they are intended to last for several sessions, they have allies who will bring them back to life, or contingencies, or clones, and so forth. Generic foe #351 doesn't get a full write-up. I have tons of Bestiaries, 3.5 Monster Manuals, 3.0 ELH, the NPC codex, and AP adventure #6s with lots of prewritten high level foes.
I think the last sentence is the most important. It's not the background and personality that take a long time to write up for high-level NPCs, but the raw stats-and-powers. A 15th level cleric will have thirty spells that need to be picked (plus domain spells), and if the party isn't supposed to just roflstomp that cleric into the dust, you need to pick them intelligently. Similarly, tracking all the various pluses that go into AM BARBARIAN's +90 damage bonus almost requires a spreadsheet, but if you need to make him challenging, then you can't really waste feats on things like Skill Focus (prep cook).
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If you played 3.5/pathfinder enaugh, you can eyeball the stats for a level 15 character withing a +or - 1 accuracy without any preps. In any case, excluding spell list, it takes me around 3 minute to set up a level 15 single classed npc, 5 for a multiclass one. For spell list, you just need to set up the most common ones unless there is some special contingency, but that mean at worst having 2-3 specific spells to prep.
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I think the biggest reason, cited above, is group break up. Density of combat grounds / chances for TPKs off a few bad rolls also seems to go up. Finally, a vast number of GMs are simply not up to the challenge of dealing with the options available to high level characters.
As for math breaking down - eh... sort of. If you are all on the same page in terms of optimization it isn't a big deal. When you aren't it gets choppy at any level, but can be more noticable.
Personally I love high level play because...
High level play is boring and swingy.Meh. Only if you spend all your time in combat. (Which if you get into combat, it will take up all your time.) If you instead spend your time exploring exotic locales that require your new powers to reach and traverse, and dealing with planes spanning plots and politics, where your attack bonuses don't matter as much as what you can do for your allies and enemies, it can be pretty fun.Suddenly I have a great deal more respect for ToZ, as he stole the words out of my mouth.
In my current 15th level game combat is a sideshow for me (personally) to what I can accomplish hanging around at the higher levels of power. Interacting with major players as an equal, having the ear of powerful figures, leading or founding organizations, building those organizations and taking on the role of quest giver at times is hugely rewarding. Even more so when you've seen the growth of a character from the guy who was standing in line before, to the guy who now literally owns the place.
Heck, our last two months of adventuring have mostly been to get our hands on swag to fund side projects we have going. Founding schools, marrying into the nobility, building shipyards, and so forth.
I'm going to go descenting opinion on all of that. Not experiencing combat at high levels is a kin to eliminating role playing at low levels. You are removing a significant portion of the game and making irrelevant all the shiny baubles your character has accumulated getting to that high level. The reason folks tend towards game play like what you have described is because the problem with high level play is the combat. As other have said it can be swingy and lethal, or, if you've miracled up an encounter that is interesting and novel that doesn't push over round one, you can spend an entire evening mechanically rolling dice to grind through it. Moreover each persons turn (and especially for classes with special abilities like spell casting and summoning) gets longer and longer, so that you can spend 4-6 hours on one encounter, with people waiting an age between turns (especially bad with large groups of players.)
Simply put high level play that actually involves high level combat is just not as fun, or exhilarating as the lower level combat, but eliminating it leaves the game incomplete. So most APs and home campaigns wrap up satisfyingly around the time the game gets less fun.
Mythic exasperates high level play, and 4th edition homogenized it, but if I will grant that Mythic does allow you to bring typical high level encounters down to lower levels where they can feel more intense, but you never really correct for the swingyness.
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I once played a 3rd edition game up to level 29, and I've played pathfinder up to level 20 many times. That hardly makes me an expert on anything regarding high/epic level game-play, but it was a fun time all around.
The fun of high levels is everything becomes do or die, characters start to overspecialize in their roles, and gain immense power, but everything becomes strangely swingy at the same time. This is seen as a weakness, but it's kind of a strength in disguise. Don't over think it, and don't try to make it like a low level game, just go for it. Change your strategies accordingly, and most important don't over think it. You'll want to put in endless hours designing appropriate challenges for the PC's, and they'll just wreak it in a few minutes anyway. Think less about a small number of really hard battles, and instead concentrate on larger numbers of specialized foes, just waiting to die, but also taking up precious resources at the same time.
Well like I said I'm not an expert or anything, but high levels can be fun. You just have to play to the strengths of the system, instead of against it. Of course some people will never like high levels because of the arms race kind of feel, but it can be exhilarating in it's own way.
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I would be interested to know how people cope with making/preparing high level NPCs without their heads exploding every week. Are there some resources I am missing?Paizo released an NPC book that has things all the way to level 20. Just add names.http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/npcCodex/core/index.html
This NPC codex? It is a good help, indeed. I would hope for one including all core books and a couple with more advanced tactics (i.e. use of style feats).I would also really enjoy a book that has all the NPC stat blocks from all the APs collected.
Get all of the following and stick it in a handy folder on your tablet/laptop - high level play will speed up considerably:
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Rival Guide (10 complete four-member NPC parties; CR7 to CR23 - Golarion-specific)
Pathfinder RPG Gamemastery Guide (Chap 9 - good for minions / mooks)
Pathfinder RPG NPC Codex (Core-only NPCs)
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: NPC Guide (Crunch: Core-only - Lore: Golarion-specific)
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea NPC Codex (Crunch: Golarion-specific PrCs - Lore: Golarion-specific)
Pathfinder RPG: Monster Codex (Awesome Sauce)
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Well, no.
You have to remember the mindset of children. What was important yesterday and is so IMPORTANT for TODAY are vastly different things. I WANT I WANT I WANT I HAVE oh, there's something else I WANT I WANT.
You're not giving enough credit to children. While the last part is generally true, the first part doesn't necessarily follow from it.
Being young means its hard to control your desires and wants, and to fall back on self-control, patience, and lessons learned.
For practical purposes, this means you tend to plan for things on the spur of the moment, focus on them above all else, and then promptly forget about them once something better/more fun/interesting comes along.
{. . .}
Depends upon what your desires are. If your desires are very focused, even if you have no self-control you still won't be forgetting about what you wanted just because something else came along (although you might well try to get both).
Some children (granted, a small fraction of the total) can be VERY focused -- although these days, I would worry that they would be diagnosed as "obsessive-compulsive" and it would be medicated out of them.
Now, whether such children are suitable candidates for the Enhanced Life Form program will require further research . . . .
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My group isn't allowed a stat less than 8 before racial mods and only one stat less than 10 in total. With 15 point buy spread across stats it makes them play better and think more. We call it hard mode since they're reliant more on sound tactics and risk mitigation than they are on pumping stats to the point of near auto success.
It's worked for us, especially in our last two APs.
I like that idea.
Do you think it would work for those who roll their stats as well (which I suppose if one rolled under an 8, it would auto become 8, and then after that if under 10, it became a 10)...or do you think that would be too broken?
Possibly, but dice are fickle.
The idea for our group is to build classes we want with limitations so it's our game play and intelligence that gets us through more than boosting stat numbers.
It makes low level a bit tougher, makes mid level challenge extend longer and has little effect at very high levels where dice rolls are making less impact than class progression.
We noticed in particular it stopped our casters having auto success spell casting and therefore made them much more thoughtful in what they did and didn't try.
It also made our team work much more cohesive.
And the APs are designed for it.
You may get the same result using dice rolls, but chances are you'll end up with higher power pcs if all you do is restrict the lower end of the spread.
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http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/npcCodex/core/index.html
This NPC codex? It is a good help, indeed. I would hope for one including all core books and a couple with more advanced tactics (i.e. use of style feats).I would also really enjoy a book that has all the NPC stat blocks from all the APs collected.
Get all of the following and stick it in a handy folder on your tablet/laptop - high level play will speed up considerably:
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Rival Guide (10 complete four-member NPC parties; CR7 to CR23 - Golarion-specific)
Pathfinder RPG Gamemastery Guide (Chap 9 - good for minions / mooks)
Pathfinder RPG NPC Codex (Core-only NPCs)
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: NPC Guide (Crunch: Core-only - Lore: Golarion-specific)
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea NPC Codex (Crunch: Golarion-specific PrCs - Lore: Golarion-specific)
Pathfinder RPG: Monster Codex (Awesome Sauce)There is a hidden problem with using humanoid types with class levels as opponents at higher levels, as opposed to using dragons or some sort of monster that is formidable on its own.
Namely you have to give gear to humanoids to make them any sort of viable foe.
And unless you go into some kind of abstraction like the +5 armor, the +5 cloak of resistance, and +3 keen two handed sword aren't lootable...
Well your players will be swimming in a sea of loot. They'll have to build warehouses for all the items they get. Well unless that podunk town they still call home can inexplicably handle all those items.
Might be interesting, a minor town in the hinterlands that is the epicenter of world magic item trade.
Three words: Automatic Bonus Progression.
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Or your PCS will just be swimming in loot, and you roll with it.
Anecdote time: in my post Carrion Crown game, I had a little bit of a shock when, after my PCs successfully repelled an entire skum army (which involved fighting a large number of elite skum with both lots of class levels and increased physical size, including a gargantuan L20 cleric of Cthulhu (a.k.a. Skum Pope)), and the player doing the bookkeeping announced their haul was well over 1 million gold. I'd been equipping skum without really thinking about it, and the sheer number the party had to deal with (skum rangers with merciful mancatchers are surprisingly nasty!) meant the party got a LOT of stuff.
But at the level they were at (17ish), that amount actually come out to about right.
For reason I capped how much gold they were actually able to take in per day though - like 200,000 a day? I think I was misremembering a city rule? They were selling the stuff in Axis, but selling takes time, and clocks were ticking. They eventually got all their money, but staggering it out like that worked surprisingly well.
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Or your PCS will just be swimming in loot, and you roll with it.
This. At level 17+, it's not about how expensive you are, it's about how much you can do in one round. It matters little if they have a million gold piece item in each slot: they can only use one of those per round as the activation is usually standard action. And those magic items need to compete with level 17+ class abilities.
If the DM wants to control his game, loot is not the way: the true way is to prevent the stacking of magic items in the same slot (i.e. do not allow someone with a cloak of displacement to also stack a +5 resistance bonus on all saves in that slot)
Leadership becomes almost essential at high levels (almost everyone benefits from a decked out cohort that can, say, buff the main PC or act as a transport via dim door or carpet of flying etc.)
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Three words: Automatic Bonus Progression.
One word: Potions.
Seriously. Do you know how annoying it is to find enemies that drank the loot? Common scene in my main game "You guys find his masterwork weapons and armor, some poison, and twelve empty potion vials."
At least we swapped off of XP and onto campaign mandated level ups. Back in the day he'd game encounter design to produce low XP high challenge encounters.
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Or worse - when multiple alchemists are all sharing the same potion.
(Maiden, Mother, Crone goes there. Yay Reign of Winter =D)
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If you mean levels 14ish + i've been in 4 campaigns 3.0 forward that got to that level.
Gm's start using monsters with class levels, and opposing adventuring party style encounters.
Adventures need more investigation/intrigue or fragile thing you need to keep from being destroyed aspects.
High levels can be a lot of fun actually.
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Casting Raise Thread.
Missed this when it was a thing.
Yes to a bunch of comments:
- It is a minority of people that enjoy high level play.
- It takes years to get there so less people make it.
- Most games end for outside reasons before you get there.
- Teleport and Plane Shift make terrain and bad lands irrelevant.
- High level can punish mistakes more than low level can.
I personally only enjoy high level play. If I can start a game at 10th level, and never have to deal with the mind numbing progress from 1st to 10th I will always pick that path.
In PFS, I only have two types of characters:
1) Characters I'm leveling to 12th and retiring so I can enjoy 9th to 12th progression.
2) Characters I play when I committed to play a game with people but discovered they don't want to play high level, so I burn the modules on worthless junk characters I don't intend to get past 5th level ever.
In short, the absolutely only reasons I sit down to play a character 1st to 9th is to make my friends happy at the table or to hurry up and level that guy to a level that I can enjoy.
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High level play is only viable through the GM enforcement of the 6 second rule: when it's your turn, do not take more than 6 seconds to decide what to do. This keeps combat fast-paced, cinematic, primal, and imperfect. Not everyone makes the right decisions in combat. You might forget that this critter has reach, etc. Your first choice should always be your last. Preroll all dice if you have time, and do not cheat. If the GM catches someone 'prerolling' more than once, the GM should roll all d20s for that player until the end of the game.
