My gaming group and I just finished a campaign where I was GM and everybody finished around level 18. We had a blast, but the amount of work I had to do to challenge a party that had such high level resources was sometimes daunting especially since I work full time. I had promised to 'go to L 20' but they honestly conquered every foe both in the published material and the ones I came up with, including two gods. A party with high level non-detection, clever hideouts and the ability to teleport multiple times is a tough nut to crack. When prepared, they're damn near immune or close to it to everything. High ACs, saves, healing output and condition mitigation. Of course we have a number of house rules outlawing certain archetypes, spells, Feats, etc.; too many to list here. I have some time before I'm up
to GM again and I'm toying with an idea-to limit the number of magical buffs on a target. Magic is an unstable, disruptive force that cannot exist in the same spot for any length of time before dissipating. Rules wise it would mean that except for spells and effects that are permanent or instantaneous, a target can only hold one same-duration spell of each school of magic at the same time. Magic items would be unaffected, being permanent; except for potions which would stack once because they make anyone a caster. Scrolls would count as spells. Class abilities that aren't spells would be an exception for players and would stack for the individual only. So your own spell-like and supernatural abilities would stack on you. These rules would not pertain to extraordinary abilities at all. Yes, this means that spells that effect a target would also dispel a similar-duration spell of the same school on a failed save. I'm thinking emanations 'centered on you' would also stack once per school. Hmmm, there is much to ponder.
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As a GM with a group that fluctuates between 4 and 7 and one whose run several campaigns to 15+ in 3.5 and PF, both Epic and currently Mythic I understand your frustrations. That being said as a GM who also works full time you're going to have to learn you aren't exactly beholden to the RAW. You can and should break them now and again to adequately challenge your group. Now I'll make some assumptions seeing as you have a laundry list of houserules, that your players are experienced with not only the rules, but with playing with each other. Nothing wrong with that at all, but it does mean the core assumption (15 pt buy, 4 player, 4-5 APL encounters per day) isn't going to be a good fit for your table.
So here are just a few tips I use to challenge my group. In a given encoutner for every factor of point buy above 15 I add +1 CR. For groups of 6 or 7 I also add +1 CR. Larger groups also face 50% more minions and Named NPCs with max hp. Past 10th level I add double max hp to named NPCs and max hp for minions. I use the Advanced simple template liberally.
High level play is an area where few groups regularly congregate so there has not been the rules guidance or support from either Paizo or 3PPs (that I know of) that specifically address High Level encounter design. The abilities you mention like nondetection/mind blank, access to teleportation, flight, scrying are things that you not only have to be mindful of... you have to actively include them as assumptions in your encounter design. Make it so your players have to teleport several times in order to even come face to face with the villain. This game is all about resource management so you have to force them to drain power. If you can use more encoutners per day, 5-6 is a better number. Don't allow them the 15 minute adventuring day. Force them to continue moving when low on resources.
BBEGs should have defenses against common high level tactics because villains shouldn't be stupid. As PCs get more powerful their abilities should become more common knowledge and you can use your GM metagame knowledge to gameplan for your group's common tactics and abilities. Now I'm not saying to constantly use this to ignore your players strengths and/or exploit their weaknesses, but do so in key moments of the story. No one enjoys having the main villain one-shotted before they can act.
Limiting buffs is a common houserule, one I know my players would object to. But it does take some of the math out of Mathfinder! My players routinely forget bonuses they have up, so limiting them make it easier on both sides of the screen. Don't make it too complex. You can handwave the school interactions as "that's just how the magic works."
--Vrock & Awe
I'm not sure that it would work. I've only played to 16th (when most adventure paths end, and I think that level is a fun place to stop) but generally you use a variety of different buff spells with varying durations.
I played a very buffing focused summoner and I really don't think it would have limited me to "only hold one same-duration spell of each school of magic at the same time". It might make things slightly different but it just adds more to keep track of, and you can always just drop the low level spells and keep the really good ones.
Thanks for the response! I think that the players should already be keeping track of everything that is needed for the system to work. Durations, when spells were cast, what school they are. And there should be less bookkeeping because for instance, you couldn't have Haste and Fly at the same time unless one was a class ability that's not spellcasting. You couldn't have Haste, Fly, Bull's Strength and Enlarge person at all, which would be a pretty common 9th L Fighter setup.
Mathfinder! Love it. I'm also going to make some simple houserules so Detect Magic doesn't ruin a whole school of magic: Illusion.
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My Concern with the limiting buffs approach, is the enemies should have a similar number of appropriate buffs, so while you are lowering the ceiling, you aren't neccisarily making your enemies any more competitive. If your party is next to immune to everything because of buffs, your Villian probably is as well. i think the real problem is the preparedness of your PCs, and capping buffs isn't going to fix that core problem.
You said they fought 2 gods? I'm going to guess seperately in one on one encouters? Gods are stated to be above level 20/mythic 10 characters in power, to such a degree that giving them stats would be meaningless. I can't imagine your party fought two such beings at the same time and won. If they did, you understated your gods.
I'd just add more volume to the encounters. Fighting an army's not going to be a walk in the park.
Alternately, start adding enemies who have strategized around foiling the strategies the party often employs. Have a few dedicated counterspellers and such.
My Concern with the limiting buffs approach, is the enemies should have a similar number of appropriate buffs, so while you are lowering the ceiling, you aren't neccisarily making your enemies any more competitive. If your party is next to immune to everything because of buffs, your Villian probably is as well. i think the real problem is the preparedness of your PCs, and capping buffs isn't going to fix that core problem.
You said they fought 2 gods? I'm going to guess seperately in one on one encouters? Gods are stated to be above level 20/mythic 10 characters in power, to such a degree that giving them stats would be meaningless. I can't imagine your party fought two such beings at the same time and won. If they did, you understated your gods.
No they fought them at different times; difficult combats and they lost some party members. Under this system a party could certainly be ready for an Dragon's breath weapon, but not also his Cone of Cold, Chain Lightning, etc.
I'd just add more volume to the encounters. Fighting an army's not going to be a walk in the park.
Alternately, start adding enemies who have strategized around foiling the strategies the party often employs. Have a few dedicated counterspellers and such.
I took your advice several times. As I said, it was a blast and we had some interesting, challenging combats. By the end they were stacking useless buffs to soak up Greater Dispel Magic and were immune to the high level spells that had been used against them in prior encounters.
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Some of the challenges as the PCs gain in power is who is who gains the initiative and not just rolling for it. At low levels PCs are generally reactionary, but once they have the resources to gather information from extraplanar beings or even worse call in favors from said beings they start to become the hunters. By design we give them the information they need to know to disrupt the villains well-laid plans. They are the heroes afterall!
So what it comes down to is not the overall plot of a campaign, but the building blocks where the most memorable elements of the campaign happen. The Encounter.
Its here that GMs need to focus in order to create dynamic, exciting, and challenging foes. Like a Lich Lord facing off against a party all sporting death ward and undead bane, disrupting weapons, going against a Fey Enchanter with mind blank up, or a Kraken with freedom of movement on everyone the party is ready for all the creature's bag of tricks. Flipping that script is where you have to catch them by surprise by coming at them sideways. That's where more help by designers should focus.
--Vrock, Paper, Scissors
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I seem to challenge my level 16s just fine by...
1. Up the number of monsters in the encounters. At high levels, the best ways to deal damage tend to be single-target focused (martials, spells like destruction, etc) as hit point totals get too much for staple AoEs. High levels also give you much more room to have larger amounts of monsters.
2. Use monsters with varied tactics. My group is currently dealing with an army of Shaitan. Even a high level party finds it challenging to fight military veterans with the power to launch ambush attacks from underground and split off the party with wall of stone.
3. Create challenges that can't efficiently be solved with violence. Create high stakes political intrigue where reputations are on the line.
4. Create dungeons and environments that require the "gamebreaking" spells that would ruin low level dungeons. Got a teleport-happy wizard? Create a dungeon that can only be traveled to or navigated by teleportation magic. Or create adventures where the party has to rapidly travel from one city to another.
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I took your advice several times. As I said, it was a blast and we had some interesting, challenging combats. By the end they were stacking useless buffs to soak up Greater Dispel Magic and were immune tpo the high level spells that had been used against them in prior encounters.I'd just add more volume to the encounters. Fighting an army's not going to be a walk in the park.
Alternately, start adding enemies who have strategized around foiling the strategies the party often employs. Have a few dedicated counterspellers and such.
At that level your villians should be using Mage's Disjunction, in conjunction with greater dispel magic. It ends all buffs, and has a chance of supressing any magical items in the area. (except those on the caster). Wall of suppression is also good for this.
What spells are they immune to? How are they immune to Maze? or an Adamantine Rain of Arrows? Clashing Rocks (Touch AC to inflict 20d6)?
though, my questions might be pointless. Your problem isnt in creating a challenge if im reading your responces right, its how to speed up creating challenges. and really, your looking more for the homebrew section than the rules section.
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Something that might work is to switch the PCs to NPCs, and specifically the uber villain team for your ongoing campaign.
The players then make new characters seeking to right the wrongs their former high-level characters (perhaps inadvertently) wrought upon the realm. Some players would love that challenge or even seeing their own work coming to be the epic threat to the world.
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Don't mind me, just poking into yet another "high level Pathfinder is frustrating" thread to suggest switching to E6. Every problem you discussed vanishes. Seriously, give it a shot.
E6 isn't high level pathfinder though.
That's right!
So it doesn't fix the problem at all, it just ignores it.
Sure it does. Listen, these message boards are filled with posts just like this one: people complaining about how awkward, broken, and tedious high-level Pathfinder is. Iterative attacks take forever to calculate, high-end pet/summoning classes have turns that take way too long, high-level arcane spellcasting makes challenges trivial and high-level divine spellcasting makes consequences trivial. Sure, it's fun to feel like a super-powered demigod, but doesn't it get boring when the only challenge the DM has left is to throw pit fiends, ancient red dragons, and liches at you by the dozen?
So yeah, you could say E6 doesn't fix high-level Pathfinder, but I say it does. There's a whole world of possibilities in the E6 realm that most players race through just so they can get to the super-duper-powered level 15+ nonsense that ends up being a letdown.
Seriously, try an E6 campaign and you'll see what I mean. :)
I'm toying with an idea-to limit the number of magical buffs on a target.
I was thinking of doing the same thing but limiting them to 2 buffs, 3 with a feat.
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Don't mind me, just poking into yet another "high level Pathfinder is frustrating" thread to suggest switching to E6. Every problem you discussed vanishes. Seriously, give it a shot.E6 isn't high level pathfinder though.That's right!
So it doesn't fix the problem at all, it just ignores it.Sure it does. Listen, these message boards are filled with posts just like this one: people complaining about how awkward, broken, and tedious high-level Pathfinder is. Iterative attacks take forever to calculate, high-end pet/summoning classes have turns that take way too long, high-level arcane spellcasting makes challenges trivial and high-level divine spellcasting makes consequences trivial. Sure, it's fun to feel like a super-powered demigod, but doesn't it get boring when the only challenge the DM has left is to throw pit fiends, ancient red dragons, and liches at you by the dozen?
So yeah, you could say E6 doesn't fix high-level Pathfinder, but I say it does. There's a whole world of possibilities in the E6 realm that most players race through just so they can get to the super-duper-powered level 15+ nonsense that ends up being a letdown.
Seriously, try an E6 campaign and you'll see what I mean. :)
Don't be a jerk, Headfirst. Swoosh has a point. There's a lot of people who love high level play, but hate all the broken math, the rocket tag, the lack of ways for martials to contribute beyond stabbing and shooting things. At high levels, you can do a lot of fun stuff that isn't possible with low level play. You can have adventures that E6 could never do.
So saying "don't play high level PF, play E6" is like saying "don't play PF, play 5E" to someone who complains about the math of CMD.
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How is he being a jerk?
Thanks, but don't sweat it, RDM42. This is pretty much how every thread I'm involved in goes: Someone has a problem or idea, I reply with a suggestion or opinion, someone accuses me of being a jerk, I defend myself, then Chris Lambertz rolls in and deletes all my posts and/or bans me. ;)
But seriously (and back on topic), I'm aware that E6 does not technically "fix" high-level Pathfinder, but it would solve the root problem OP has (which I see happening A LOT on these forums). Yeah, you could comb through the entire product line and try to address each issue with a band-aid fix or errata tweak, but that's a never-ending and quite honestly tedious endeavor.
Trust me on this one. I'm in a 3-year-long E6 campaign and it's awesome. We have epic battles, we fight dragons, visit other planes, and have the same globe-spanning, save-the-world style adventures. The only difference is we do it with less math, fewer game-breaking spells, and a vastly reduced dependency on bookkeeping and accounting.
You realize if buffs are giving you a headache you can simply make debuffing magic common in their encounters. Those overlapping layers of intricate buffs they took minutes casting can be undone in seconds. And if the characters aren't ready for debuffing it could lead to a very one sided battle in the bad guys favor.
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You realize if buffs are giving you a headache you can simply make debuffing magic common in their encounters. Those overlapping layers of intricate buffs they took minutes casting can be undone in seconds. And if the characters aren't ready for debuffing it could lead to a very one sided battle in the bad guys favor.
He has stated that the bad guys used Greater Dispel Magic. So debuffing magic is something that happens. He just failed to note that Mage's Disjunction is universally better for the purpose, not being limited on the number of spells it gets rid of.
I took your advice several times. As I said, it was a blast and we had some interesting, challenging combats. By the end they were stacking useless buffs to soak up Greater Dispel Magic and were immune tpo the high level spells that had been used against them in prior encounters.I'd just add more volume to the encounters. Fighting an army's not going to be a walk in the park.
Alternately, start adding enemies who have strategized around foiling the strategies the party often employs. Have a few dedicated counterspellers and such.
At that level your villians should be using Mage's Disjunction, in conjunction with greater dispel magic. It ends all buffs, and has a chance of supressing any magical items in the area. (except those on the caster). Wall of suppression is also good for this.
What spells are they immune to? How are they immune to Maze? or an Adamantine Rain of Arrows? Clashing Rocks (Touch AC to inflict 20d6)?
though, my questions might be pointless. Your problem isnt in creating a challenge if im reading your responces right, its how to speed up creating challenges. and really, your looking more for the homebrew section than the rules section.
Spell Immunity, Greater; L8. Once they've identified these spells they choose a suite of high level spells that just don't work. So, Maze, Implosion, etc. were good for an encounter or two. I used Clash of Rocks to great effect on one of the end bosses. I guess I didn't get across that we did have challenging encounters and a lot of fun-it was just a second job to do it because running most published adventures? They'll just walk thru 'em. I had the 'army of minions' encounter, The Teleportation Trap, chases, blindsight, dispelling auras, resource-soaking run up encounters. I didn't say my campaign was a failure; it was great. I hope no one is suggesting that you can set up fights where "oh, this just doesn't work" too often and keep players interested.
You realize if buffs are giving you a headache you can simply make debuffing magic common in their encounters. Those overlapping layers of intricate buffs they took minutes casting can be undone in seconds. And if the characters aren't ready for debuffing it could lead to a very one sided battle in the bad guys favor.
You can choose Dispel Magic as a spell to be immune to. I had an encounter where the minions were a group of dispelling casters that was fun. Some high level creatures have dispelling auras or you can give it to them. But a good chance to remove 6 spells is not as powerful at high levels because as a gentleman pointed out earlier, characters will have over 20 buffs.
One particular issue about monster design is the fact that a Great Wyrm Red Dragon, say, as part of it's increase in power gets 24d10 fire for it's breath weapon. Wow! Of course, the party has been essentially immune to fire since L11. By the time they face a CR22 they are also protected from the most likely energy types of her spells. Under this system you would have to choose one energy protection and could not also have Freedom of Movement. And party actions in combat would be taken up by some damage mitigation during the fight and not just adding to the offensive total.
I hope the villains are using their time to buff the heck out of themselves, and not waiting until after the fight starts to try and get better. XD
Oh, don't worry, my villains ALSO had 20+ buffs by the end. Dios Mio!
How is he being a jerk?Thanks, but don't sweat it, RDM42. This is pretty much how every thread I'm involved in goes: Someone has a problem or idea, I reply with a suggestion or opinion, someone accuses me of being a jerk, I defend myself, then Chris Lambertz rolls in and deletes all my posts and/or bans me. ;)
But seriously (and back on topic), I'm aware that E6 does not technically "fix" high-level Pathfinder, but it would solve the root problem OP has (which I see happening A LOT on these forums). Yeah, you could comb through the entire product line and try to address each issue with a band-aid fix or errata tweak, but that's a never-ending and quite honestly tedious endeavor.
Trust me on this one. I'm in a 3-year-long E6 campaign and it's awesome. We have epic battles, we fight dragons, visit other planes, and have the same globe-spanning, save-the-world style adventures. The only difference is we do it with less math, fewer game-breaking spells, and a vastly reduced dependency on bookkeeping and accounting.
The thread is about making Pathfinder more tenable at high levels but I like Headfirst's comments. I looked up E6. Maybe not my cup of tea. Maybe some usable ideas.
High level games can become very challenging to run, both for the GM and the players. Have you asked your players how they feel about this? It helps if everybody is on the same page. It took me a while to realize that my players didn't expect me to put that much energy in the creation of complex and challenging encounters. They enjoyed steamrolling encounters which I thought were boring - for a relaxed after-work game, it was just the right thing.
Also, it isn't necessary to play out every fight. (I noticed that published adventures have a lot of filler-encounters that do not help to develop or advance the story. They are simply there to balance the PCs' XP-budget, which is really lame). If the PCs are clearly superior and the players look bored, there is no need to roll the dice. Instead, sum up how awesome the PCs are in defeating their opponents (or better yet, let the players do it) and go on with the story. Then you can focus your efforts on a few combats that are fun, challenging, and vital to the story you want to tell.
If the PC's are that high of level then they are well known, what they are, what they do and their tactics. If the bad guy has a day's notice that the PC's are on their way have the high level baddies sell some of their treasure to buy scrolls specifically designed to fight off the party.
The party being ultra buffed would be well known and everyone bad guy who has access to a city can have several scrolls of Mage's Dis-junction.
So it depends on the encounter situation but if the baddie has access to major cities via couriers, teleport, etc. have the bad guys spend their treasure on anti-party stuff. And even leave a log about recent purchases. Scrolls are awesome because they are used and the party simply doesn't get the treasure. It could stop the parties that adventure only when their 1 minute buffs are up and then stop for the day. Because that would mean they are losing out on loot.
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Spell Immunity, Greater; L8. Once they've identified these spells they choose a suite of high level spells that just don't work. So, Maze, Implosion, etc. were good for an encounter or two. I used Clash of Rocks to great effect on one of the end bosses. I guess I didn't get across that we did have challenging encounters and a lot of fun-it was just a second job to do it because running most published adventures? They'll just walk thru 'em. I had the 'army of minions' encounter, The Teleportation Trap, chases, blindsight, dispelling auras, resource-soaking run up encounters. I didn't say my campaign was a failure; it was great. I hope no one is suggesting that you can set up fights where "oh, this just doesn't work" too often and keep players interested.
Interesting. I counter with Mage's Disjunction. 9th Level Wizard Spell. No spell resistance so You can't be immune to it, and it eliminates all spell immunity buffs. It should start coming into play around 14-15 with bosses, and by the time level 17 comes around for the PCs, Pre-cast buffs should not, in general, be a thing. Thats just a factor in high level play. this is a CRB spell which came from 3.5. Dont repeatedly cast it, but make use of it to prevent the players from pre-buffing. It nicely handles the absurd number of buffs players can get, without needing a house rule.
a reread of your OP as well as further posts did indicate the problem was with the speed of building challenging encounters rather than the act of building challenging encounters. Which is why i noted my inquiries into the exact nature of your problems is probably moot. I disagree with your buff plan. I dont think it will solve underlying problems related to challenging your players. But if it speeds things up, I guess it couldn't hurt.
Spell Immunity, Greater; L8. Once they've identified these spells they choose a suite of high level spells that just don't work. So, Maze, Implosion, etc. were good for an encounter or two. I used Clash of Rocks to great effect on one of the end bosses. I guess I didn't get across that we did have challenging encounters and a lot of fun-it was just a second job to do it because running most published adventures? They'll just walk thru 'em. I had the 'army of minions' encounter, The Teleportation Trap, chases, blindsight, dispelling auras, resource-soaking run up encounters. I didn't say my campaign was a failure; it was great. I hope no one is suggesting that you can set up fights where "oh, this just doesn't work" too often and keep players interested.Interesting. I counter with Mage's Disjunction. 9th Level Wizard Spell. No spell resistance so You can't be immune to it, and it eliminates all spell immunity buffs. It should start coming into play around 14-15 with bosses, and by the time level 17 comes around for the PCs, Pre-cast buffs should not, in general, be a thing. Thats just a factor in high level play. this is a CRB spell which came from 3.5. Dont repeatedly cast it, but make use of it to prevent the players from pre-buffing. It nicely handles the absurd number of buffs players can get, without needing a house rule.
a reread of your OP as well as further posts did indicate the problem was with the speed of building challenging encounters rather than the act of building challenging encounters. Which is why i noted my inquiries into the exact nature of your problems is probably moot. I disagree with your buff plan. I dont think it will solve underlying problems related to challenging your players. But if it speeds things up, I guess it couldn't hurt.
I could have introduced Mage's Disjunction earlier, especially for bosses. I did use it though, especially at the end. But if that spell was somehow ubiquitous at the end game we don't need to have a 'making high level campaigns tenable' discussion, it's true. The party could just retire.
That's an interesting idea. The next time I run a super high level campaign I think I might limit that a caster can only have running a number of buffs = to his spell casting stat modifier. Yeah some casters get their stats up to 28 or so and that would be 9 buffs they can have running at any given time. I'm familiar with the group the OP is talking about and they have 15 or 20 buffs running on each person.
Another way to possibly limit it is. Is house rule all buffs have a spell component cost similar to stoneskin. So, yeah they can still do it but it will cost money. So, it will make the party think twice about putting up buffs for the hell of it.
You can choose Dispel Magic as a spell to be immune to.You realize if buffs are giving you a headache you can simply make debuffing magic common in their encounters. Those overlapping layers of intricate buffs they took minutes casting can be undone in seconds. And if the characters aren't ready for debuffing it could lead to a very one sided battle in the bad guys favor.
No, no you can't.
Dispel Magic does not allow spell resistance. Spell Immunity clearly states:
The warded creature effectively has unbeatable spell resistance regarding the specified spell or spells. Naturally, that immunity doesn't protect a creature from spells for which spell resistance doesn't apply.
Edit: So the very first thing an enemy spellcaster would do is dispel the PCs' spell immunity... and then cast big scary spells at them to his heart's content.
Edit #2: Or, of course, an enemy caster can just use one of the many non-SR-allowing spells out there in the first place, and spell immunity will be of no help there either.
Spell Immunity, Greater; L8. Once they've identified these spells they choose a suite of high level spells that just don't work. So, Maze, Implosion, etc. were good for an encounter or two.What spells are they immune to? How are they immune to Maze? or an Adamantine Rain of Arrows? Clashing Rocks (Touch AC to inflict 20d6)?
Follow-up to my above post — the following spells do not allow spell resistance and thus are not permissible selections for spell immunity (greater or otherwise):
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Spell Immunity, Greater; L8. Once they've identified these spells they choose a suite of high level spells that just don't work. So, Maze, Implosion, etc. were good for an encounter or two.What spells are they immune to? How are they immune to Maze? or an Adamantine Rain of Arrows? Clashing Rocks (Touch AC to inflict 20d6)?
Follow-up to my above post — the following spells do not allow spell resistance and thus are not permissible selections for spell immunity (greater or otherwise):
Technically speaking, crushing rocks is also level 9, and therefore not subject to greater spell immunity.
One thing you could try is no fullcasters. It takes some plwerful options out of the hands of the PCs, and delys some others.
You can choose Dispel Magic as a spell to be immune to.You realize if buffs are giving you a headache you can simply make debuffing magic common in their encounters. Those overlapping layers of intricate buffs they took minutes casting can be undone in seconds. And if the characters aren't ready for debuffing it could lead to a very one sided battle in the bad guys favor.
No, no you can't.
Dispel Magic does not allow spell resistance. Spell Immunity clearly states:
The warded creature effectively has unbeatable spell resistance regarding the specified spell or spells. Naturally, that immunity doesn't protect a creature from spells for which spell resistance doesn't apply.Edit: So the very first thing an enemy spellcaster would do is dispel the PCs' spell immunity... and then cast big scary spells at them to his heart's content.
Edit #2: Or, of course, an enemy caster can just use one of the many non-SR-allowing spells out there in the first place, and spell immunity will be of no help there either.
You're right-they did also put on superfluous buffs to soak up Greater Dispel Magic. The more I look thru the hardcovers the more I like this idea-it limits buffs without going too far.
A while back I thought about limiting the number of buffs PCs can have just to avoid math delays, but there actually seems to be a weird sort of fun which forms around trying to remember all the bonuses in play and squeeze out that last plus which turns a miss into a hit.
Even if you don't decide to limit the number of buffs a PC can have in play I guess you could consider limiting the duration of more of them to a round per level so that the value of the buff has to be weighed against the cost in action economy. This could particularly cut into the effectiveness of spells like Communal Resist Energy, especially if smart monsters would be likely to know that the resistance won't last long.
I’ve been running a few sessions for level 15-16 PCs lately, and I don't find their buffs nearly as bothersome as the debuffs some of them apply to the monsters. It is really tough tracking the math for Str damage. Since all 3 of my current PCs use debuffs too I probably deserve it though.