Questions about rules and their design intent (long)

[WTG TGreen]

Hi everyone,

I’m a veteran role-player with 37 years of GMing experience, a professional game designer, produce an RPG podcast, and blah blah blah. I’m excited to run Starfinder for my group’s next campaign. The classes, races, and rules all look right up our alley. However, there are a few issues with the rules where I’m not sure what is the intent behind the design, how it impacts actual play, or what the impact of possible house rules may have if I implement them.

I’m hoping some of you here might be able to shed some light on these questions below so that our game can hit the ground running. I am completely new to Starfinder, so let me know if any of my assumptions are off base. Please don’t take any of this as an attack on Starfinder. It looks to be a great system. I’m not trying to make Starfinder into GURPS or D&D, but I do bring up other systems that have working (and sometimes elegant) solutions to issues that I’m seeing with a few of the rules in Starfinder.

Here are some questions I have and possible solutions to the issues.

1) DC’s, To Scale or Not to Scale

In many RPG systems, difficulties may not directly scale as characters grow, such as in the Genesys RPG, D&D 5E, GURPS, etc. There may be indirect scaling as you face tougher enemies with more abilities and slightly stronger stats, but a Hard task that’s -8 to your roll at first level is pretty much still a Hard task with a -8 to your roll at tenth level. Other systems, such as Pathfinder, D&D 3.5, and Starfinder, have a huge difference in results a character can roll as they level up. You roll your d20 and add a +3 skill modifier at first level, and at the end of your character’s career your adding +20 or higher to the roll. This is countered by scaling of your target numbers such as an increase in enemy ACs or saving throws.

So, I’m looking forward to seeing the wide open scaling that Starfinder offers. The players may get a sense of character growth mechanically when they’re adding +10 to a roll versus the +3 at first level. They will be going up against enemies with stronger armor and saving throw rolls. It all sounds pretty fun. There’s even a scaling DC difficulty setup on page 392 that works really nicely with all of this. I like it.

And then we run into DC’s in the Starfinder system that are fixed numbers, which I’m having a hard time reconciling in a system that scales heavily over time. There is such a huge variance in modifiers from a first level character compared to a high-level character that fixed DCs don’t make sense for me. For example, you have Long-Term Care (page 143) that lets you use a medical lab or bay on a starship to help heal HP with a fixed DC of 30. This means that a level 1 character is way out of their depth trying to use this feature and requires a character to have many levels under their belt before they even have a 50/50 chance of pulling this off. I’ve seen this type of fixed DC described by others as “Well, your starting character is not a real doctor yet. They just know the basics of first-aid. So they won’t know how to use challenging equipment.” Which makes a certain sense until I think about all the cool stuff you CAN do as a low-level character, such as blasting an enemy with energy weapons, zipping around in a starship while being shot by missiles, hacking into computers, tumbling out of a moving car acrobatically, and lots of cool stuff out of the gate. Yet because a skill has a fixed DC, we are to assume the character is a neophyte for this particular task?

At what level are these DCs designed for an expected success rate? Clearly it’s not level 1. Level 10’s? Level 5s? 15s? Because my average first level character is going to have a bad day thinking they can pull off rolls of 30 or higher let alone with any consistency. You can end up with situations where a new character has no chance of success at something that they really should be able to at least try, and a high-level character needing to roll a 3 or higher to succeed at the same task...a task which might read that you cannot take 20, so we still have to go through the motion of rolling the dice each time.

You have enemies that scale wide open with characters that scale wide open with a system of scaling difficulties nicely described on page 392. It all works beautifully together until I start finding these fixed DCs

In short, why have fixed DCs for characters in a system with such a wide numerical range when you already have a method to scale difficulties described on page 392?

Solution: Remove fixed DC’s and have them fall within the framework of easy, normal, or difficult from page 392. A difficult task of using a medbay for Long-Term Care could simply be defined as a “difficult task” and use 15 + (1-1/2 APL/CR) + 5? That would make much more sense to me than mixing scaling and fixed DCs together.

2) Why Won’t My Spells Land

Sticking with DCs, I’ve been reading from multiple posts and a campaign wrapup that described spell DCs as far too challenging as enemies scale up. A few folks have explained this away by writing that if everyone in the party pulls together and gets off different maneuvers and such, you can make an ally’s spell a bit easier to land. However, the feedback still seems to me that there is much more effort required from a party to help get a spell to land successfully on an enemy at higher levels, and much more likely, that the simple formula used for Spells DCs \ Saves might be off. What has been your experience with players trying to get spells to stick? I want to avoid what I’ve been reading from some Starfinder players that spells get frustrating at higher levels.

Solution: I’ve been thinking of building a chart of expected Spell DCs over a character’s level progression, compare it to the average enemy saves, and seeing if a scaling bonus might need to be given to the PCs. I’d speculate something like a +1 spell DC every 3 or 4 levels based on whatever the math shows.

3) Tiny Spells

And then there’s the spell DC being affected by the spell level instead of something else (such as the max spell level they can cast or a scale that rises with character level). Again, I’ve never played Starfinder before, but let’s say I am playing as a spellcasting character, having a blast pew-pewing with my guns and casting my high-level spells. Once my high-level spells are burned, it would seem unsatisfying as a player to look down and see only low-level spells left that have a harder chance to stick to the enemy. Why bother casting those level 1’s if they will never land?

What’ the logic behind this? Is there a balancing mechanism behind low-level spells having a lower DC? It seems to me the low-level spells already have their limitations such as only affecting creatures up to a certain CR or doing smaller amounts of damage. Why compound this with a lower spell DC and less player satisfaction?

Solution: All spells have a spell DC based on the maximum spell level a player can cast. I’m really not seeing the con to this. Some minor spells will land a bit more often and the player won’t feel that their magic is frivolous. Are there low-level spells that are simply broken if they are not limited to their spell-level modifying the DC?

4) Maneuvers Sitting on the Bench

Reading lots of posts and reviews, there’s an element that comes up multiple times, and that’s combat maneuvers being too difficult to pull off successfully. There was a great campaign breakdown of Starfinder where the GM wrote that the entire group, over the span of a year, used combat maneuvers only a handful of times because they just were not worth the effort versus the failure rate. There are all these cool maneuvers offering up fun tactical options with their own special difficulty (8 + KAC?) but not many folks seem to be using them. This to me is a red flag in game design that something’s not quite right.

What’s your experience with combat maneuvers? Have they been fun to use? Are they worth the action expenditure versus how easy/difficult they are to pull off?

Solution: If combat maneuvers are being left by the wayside, as my readings suggest, then to bring them back into the game I’m thinking of reducing the difficulty by 2 or 4 to help them succeed more often.

5) We Come Running!

When looking at all actions a player can take, Starfinder has plenty of them. While this system may not be setup as elegantly as others (PF2e looks to be a cleaner iteration of the actions one can do), there are definitely some fun things a character can do. However, two actions made me raise my eyebrows when I came across them: Run and Withdraw.

For running, I don’t see the purpose of the addition of this to the game. Why was it necessary to allow players to run 4 times their speed? Why not 3x their speed? Or 6x? What is being able to move 4x your speed an important enough part of a tactical game that it warranted its own rule designed around it? Or better yet, why not stick with the tried-and-true tactical gaming method of the Move-Move actions (i.e. moving 2x your speed as seen in multiple versions of D&D, Descent and its many variant board games, and even these very Starfinder rules)?

Even with the limitations they put on the run action (straight line, flat-footed, no difficult terrain), why would I want my players running a possible 120’? That’s a huge distance of 24 squares covered on my battlemap for a typical level 1 character. Add some +10 move bonuses here and there and that speed gets way out of hand. Characters would be running across the battlemap and off the table with ease. And don’t’ get me started with [characters souped up to insane speeds where someone can conservatively cover 700+ feet in a single turn](https://www.reddit.com/r/starfinder_rpg/comments/7r2e7y/whats_the_maximum_ speed_you_can_get_a_character/).

If the intent is to make running an uncommon event by having difficult or non-straight terrain in most encounters then why include Run as a common action? If the Run action is really only to be used as an indicator of speed moving flat out when not in combat, why have it listed alongside the combat (moment-by-moment) actions and not simply referenced in some sort of chase rules?

In short, why have a rule with multiple limitations to remember that allows players to speed across the entire battlefield? How has Run been used in your games? Is it really worth remembering or having to look up on rule cheat sheets?

Solution: Remove the Run action. Players can race around all they want with the standard Move-Move. That seems plenty fast for character movement. Unless of course there is some tactical necessity behind characters running so fast across a limited encounter space that I’m not anticipating.

6) Withdraw the Withdraw Action

There are a few games out there with a tactical system that allow you to gain a version of opportunity attacks on an enemy if they are being reckless around you. Distinctly labelled “zone of controls” have been with us since the wargames from the 70’s. I’m excited about Starfinder’s take on what triggers an opportunity attack. Having melee folks threaten ranged shooters and spell casters adds a new dimension to combat that looks quite fun.

While lots of systems handle opportunity attacks in their own way, the general theme is that if you turn tail and run away from your enemy, then they get a chance to smack you in the butt as you go. The way to protect yourself from being stabbed in the back as you ran away was that you had to reduce your movement (multiple versions of D&D and some war games come to mind). Some modern RPGs have the concept of taking a 5ft step back and then making your ranged attack, casting a spell, or taking your other move action. And I was glad to see this tradition carry over into Starfinder in the form of the Guarded Step action. I don’t want to get hit when I shoot my gun, so I pay the price by using up my move action to take a Guarded Step. I don’t want to get hit when I cast a spell? Same thing: pay the price by taking the Guarded Step action. You didn’t get away from them as much as you’d like, but at least you didn’t get hit while doing it.

And then comes along the Withdraw action, which allows you to Move-Move away from an enemy at your normal speed and still not take opportunity attacks. There is not much of a downside. I don’t get this action’s inclusion and keep reading it again to make sure I’m not missing something here. If I’m a melee attacker and rushing in at full speed just to get up to my target, only to have them Withdraw away at full speed with no downside, repeating this over and over...that seems frustrating. Now we are in a stalemate where they can just keep leading me away. I essentially have no zone of control around me if they want to move directly away. And thematically, it makes little sense to me that I must be careful when stepping away from an enemy to cast my spell or shoot, yet if I turn around and run, there is no penalty at all.

What issue is the Withdraw action designed to solve? I just don’t see it. It doesn’t fit thematically nor does line up with the other opportunity attack solutions. Threatened and want to shoot: Guarded Step and attack. Threatened and want to cast a spell: Guarded Step and cast. Threatened and want to run away: simply Withdraw and you get your full move and a full move.

Solution: Remove the Withdraw action, thereby needing a Guarded Step + Move combination if you want to move safely.

So those are some of the issues I’ve been struggling with as I’ve read (and re-read) the rules. Thanks for taking the time to read all of this. I'll cross post to this to the Starfinder reddit as well.

Thanks again,

Tom

[Lost In Limbo]

Alright, I'm going to try and work my way through at least some of these, and of course this is just one guy’s thoughts and opinions on the matter so... do with these answers what you will.

1) DC’s, To Scale or Not to Scale
So the whole point of having a scaling system is that you have the option to scale or not scale, as opposed to a fixed system where you're pretty much stuck at fixed. Now why would you want to have both and not just make everything match all nicely down the line?
First, evident progression. When everything scales, and scales at the same rate, it can feel like you aren't making any progress. When I have the chance now and again to do something that was once very difficult, and is now very easy for my character, I can really feel the difference.
Second, removal of systems. In a game that spans power levels like Starfinder does, the focus and scope of the game will naturally change as characters level. At early levels, the party might be barely scraping by, and they lack many of the resources that they will when they hit the later levels. Flat DCs allow things to be scarce and difficult (and therefore important) at lower levels but be phased out as something to worry about later. To use your own example of the medical bay, at early levels the sort of basic medical care provided at that facility is relatively costly, and gives the game a grittier feel. At higher levels, through the power of both magic and money healing becomes much easier as the game takes on a wider scope and becomes more about the clash of monumental forces than how to deal with a simple illness.

2) Why Won’t My Spells Land
I don’t have much for this one. I would go with your idea of making a graph of expected DCs vs Expected saves before I fiddled with anything. Just double check your math on the boards, It’s really easy to miss something if you are new to the system.

3) Tiny Spells
You probably won’t break anything too bad if you go with your solution of bumping DCs.
You are missing a few parts of the equation of spell levels, however.
First, DCs only matter for offensive spells. The classic tactic in both Starfinder and Pathfinder is to focus your offense in the upper few levels of your spells and use your lower level slots for utility, buff, area control spells, etc.
Second, even if you increase the DC of a spell that does nothing for it’s damage. It doesn’t matter how much you increase the DC of Overheat, 2d8 damage is just not going to cut it once you hit level 17.
Third, having DCs fall off limits the magical offensive output of spellcasters. The number of effective offensive spells a spellcaster has hits an equilibrium in the early-mid levels and doesn’t really increase again until the highest levels.
One of the design goals in Starfinder seems to be to limit spellcasting significantly as compared to Pathfinder. Prepared 9th level spellcasters are considered (by many) to be some of the absolute most powerful classes in Pathfinder. Many arguments have broken out over whether or not they are broken, and if they are, what should be done about it. The fact that the only spellcasters in Starfinder are 6th level, spontaneous casters is telling.

4)Maneuvers Sitting on the Bench
I agree that maneuvers could use some love. I don’t know if just decreasing the difficulty will be enough for them to become more popular, but try a few things out and let us know if something works well.

5) We Come Running!
I’ll agree that the run action doesn’t come up often, but it’s nice to have it when you really, really, need to be somewhere else. It also comes up more often when I play on a virtual tabletop that allows for arbitrarily large maps.
Ultimately, I don’t see the point in removing it. It’s one little corner case option that only takes up one little paragraph in the rulebook. If you don’t draw your player’s attention to it, I doubt they’ll even know it’s there.
Of course as a GM I tend to avoid banning things if at all possible. Even if someone is abusing some part of the rules I’d rather just talk to them about it than take the toy away from everybody.

6) Withdraw the Withdraw Action
It’s never been a problem for me or my group. The problem with your hypothetical scenario is that it requires someone to keep running around and not taking any other actions or attacking anyone. That’s a delaying tactic at best until they get cornered or someone with a ranged weapon just shoots them.
As for your frustrated melee user, the answer to a withdraw action is a charge action. Once the withdrawer finds that despite retreating they are still getting hit they should change their tactics.
The withdraw action is simply the option you take when you are in such a bad position you are willing to give up your entire turn to get out of it. Given that offense is so important in this game, taking a purely defensive action is a last resort.

Alright. That’s my longest response I’ve ever written on these boards.
My one last piece of advice is to be careful about fiddling with the core mechanics of the game. I’m not telling you not to mess with things, but make sure you get some play with the base rules before you decide to throw out half of them and rewrite everything from the ground up. Often things that look troublesome on paper aren’t actually so bad once you sit down at the table.

[Nefreet]

Starfinder Rules Questions Guidelines wrote:

What this subforum is NOT for:

Lengthy threads about the way the rules have been written.

I went ahead and flagged this for the General Discussion Forum, but you can actually find all of these answers in the Paizo Blog from when Starfinder was being playtested, and from when it was new.

But I can comfortably summarize Starfinder as a "cleaned up" version of Pathfinder. A lot of your concerns were fixed.

[Lost In Limbo]

Yeah, probably could have saved myself some work by linking things.
Starfinder Blogs.
Scroll to the bottom and work your way up looking for relevant titles.

[WTG TGreen]

Thanks for taking the time to respond, Lost In Limbo. I appreciate it.

[SuperBidi]

WTG TGreen wrote:

1) DC’s, To Scale or Not to Scale

2 answers to that:

- In the case of the medical lab, it's a piece of equipment you are not supposed to have access to at low level and you are supposed to use at high level. It's just part of the power curve.
- Fixed DCs and scaling DCs are a necessity for the player to feel their progression. If you just give scaling DCs, players have the feeling that everything is always perfectly at their level. For everything that is not dependent on an enemy or a challenge, just give a fix DC.

WTG TGreen wrote:

2) Why Won’t My Spells Land

If you maximize your spellcasting ability, spell DC don't increase at levels 5, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18 and 19 (but twice at level 10). And enemy low saves don't increase at levels 2, 14, 19. If you mix it, the difficulty of your spells saves is reduced at level 5, 8, 11, 12, 15 and 18 and increased at level 2 and 10. It pretty much scales properly.

Also, spells effect increase with level. So, in my opinion, unless you get to very high levels, it scales quite well.

WTG TGreen wrote:

3) Tiny Spells

It's not much of a difference. Casting a spell with one or two levels under your highest spell level will give 10-20% chance to the enemy to evade it. But if, for example, you target his lowest save with this spell, you'll have still more chances to land it than a higher level spell targetting his high saves.

Also, as a DM, I strongly encourage you to give access to Spell Gems at your casters. It will allow them to expand their spell list in times of need, and not rely on lower level spells.
In fact, most of your low level spells are used for utility.

WTG TGreen wrote:

4)Maneuvers Sitting on the Bench

I really dislike maneuvers. They are not scaling like the rest of the system, and work only against certain type of enemies (sunder only works against armed enemies, and can basically one shot them if they don't have spare weapons).

In my opinion, it should only be a tool for opponents.

I have not much point of view for the last two points. The only character I have ever run with was my gnome paladin with 15ft of movement. In Starfinder, it is useful if you face snipers.
For Withdraw, it's fine the way it is. You can remove it for simplicity, but I think it's not much of a big deal.

[Ascalaphus]

This topic is technically in the wrong place, because the goal of this particular subforum is to get clear and concise answers to "how do the rules work". That said, they're very interesting places and this thread certainly deserves a place in the general discussion or homebrew subforums. Also, welcome to Starfinder :)

WTG TGreen wrote:

1) DC’s, To Scale or Not to Scale

I think Starfinder is actually fairly close to an ideal setup here. Both fixed and scaling DCs have an essential role to play in the game system.

On the one hand, fixed DCs are important for immersion ("doing the same thing didn't get harder because we went up a level"), and a feeling of progress ("this used to be hard but now I can do it easily; stuff that used to be impossible is coming within my reach").

On the other hand, scaling DCs are needed to challenge PCs. Confronting PCs with tasks way below their level is not exciting. Thus, you can use the formula as a diagnostic tool ("I'm thinking of putting such and such a task in my scenario, will that be too hard?"), or even as a way of searching for tasks ("I need a task of DC X to challenge them, what tasks have DC X?").

If anything, the formula is a little on the steep side. Some classes (operatives) can keep up, but for other classes (soldiers), even if they try their hardest, their skill level will start to fall behind the curve. It's a sobering moment when you realize that with maximum ranks in Perception and Take 20 you still can't find a trap.

WTG TGreen wrote:

2) Why Won’t My Spells Land

I'm not convinced this is the case, but I don't have extensive evidence either way. What I have noticed however is that the DC math in Starfinder is pretty good overall, and that when you look at things such as AC/To Hit, success rates remain fairly stable. You'll also notice that to be a succesful party you need a bit of help from each other (Get 'Em, or making enemies Flat-Footed with Debilitating Trick) to get your numbers high enough, but that there's also a fairly strong upper bound on how much help you can stack. The idea seems to be that you can get by with a bit of help but that you shouldn't be spending all your time trying to figure out how to stack everything.

WTG TGreen wrote:

3) Tiny Spells

This was carried over from Pathfinder/D&D 3.x where it's worked fairly well for 20 years, so it's not a policy they just plucked out of thin air. It encourages spellcasters to use their higher level slots for attacks (where DC matters) and to retrain lower level attack spells into different utility spells. Making low level attack spells ensures that spellcasters don't get more and more and more blasts per day.

Your proposal wouldn't work all that well I think. On the one hand, the damage of some low level spells just doesn't make it worth it (2d8 is nothing at level 8). On the other hand, Command with the save DC of a 5th level spell is nothing to sneeze at. You can often make an enemy waste his entire turn while provoking attacks from your friends. If you allow that, you're not rehabilitating low-level spell slots, you're giving someone a lot of almost-high level spell slots.

WTG TGreen wrote:

4) Maneuvers Sitting on the Bench

Maneuvers in Pathfinder were rather poorly balanced. They resolved against a DC that was calculated quite differently than normal attacks, which made big monsters nearly invulnerable to maneuvers and small ones quite easy prey. A typical maneuver was also devastating: a tripped enemy has worse AC and to-hit, is less mobile, and can't use the most common ranged weapon (bows). Standing up would provoke attacks of opportunity. Disarming and Sundering weapons turned out to be rather cheesy when employed against enemies that for word count reasons didn't have a backup weapon. Grappling a caster could shut them down completely.

Starfinder has gone quite far in the opposite direction. Recovering from a maneuver is not as punishing (standing up doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity, nor does picking up a disarmed weapon). Meanwhile, maneuvers are also harder. Altogether, maneuvers are no longer a #1 battle plan. I'm not sad about that because it often was a very strong battle plan unless the GM specifically selects monsters that won't be hamstrung by it. Compared to just attacking for damage, maneuvers used to be too high impact.

Because the "standard" impact of maneuvers is lower because you can recover more easily, it's really more about reacting to set-piece encounters. Big fight with the emperor in the Death Star? Bull Rush becomes relevant. Maniac with a bomb trigger that can destroy the planetary defense shields? Disarm. That's very different from using Trip every fight on every enemy.

WTG TGreen wrote:

5) We Come Running!

Starfinder actually has much more cause for the Run action than Pathfinder where it inherited it from. Spaceships can be BIG. Especially when they're designed for aliens larger than the party. Also, guns tend to have long ranges (lasers, sniper rifles), so having specific rules for how far you can run if you're trying to sprint across an exposed area are quite relevant.

WTG TGreen wrote:

6) Withdraw the Withdraw Action

This is another thing from Pathfinder/3.x that's worked well for decades. Those had a hard split between either 5ft step OR move, and Withdraw was the only way to safely get away from an enemy. Rememer, you provoke an attack of opportunity when you LEAVE a threatened square. Starfinder has cleaned up the types of action a bit and gotten rid of the not-an-action-action 5ft step as a separate category, so theoretically you could now Guarded Step+Move. But it would be pretty easy for an enemy to just follow after you and keep attacking. Withdraw still has a role to play if you really really need to get away and are willing to spend your entire turn on them.

---

In conclusion:
#1 is the way it is for good reason (world immersion and character progress vs. challenging encounters). A good GM is adept at using both.
#2 needs more evidence/numerical analysis.
#3 is fine the way it is, time-tested and clearly intended to not make casters overly powerful. Starfinder is designed with the idea that nobody is a "pure" caster that won't use other weapons like guns. Use your high level spells to shape the situation, then your gun to conserve high-level spells because you need some for the rest of the day.
#4 is IMO an overcorrection compared to Pathfinder. I like that maneuvers aren't win buttons anymore, they're more dependent on the situation to be valuable. But I think they should be slightly easier to carry out, especially since you can't rely on one single maneuver that you took feats for to always be the maneuver you need in all those situation.
#5 and #6 are solutions to things that aren't a problem.

[Pantshandshake]

1) DC’s, To Scale or Not to Scale
DC’s actually feel fine to me. The classes meant to be skill monkeys can generally do their jobs perfectly well, especially with a handy aid from another player.

2) Why Won’t My Spells Land
Starfinder is basically based on your average (and by average I mean with a character who is not super optimized, with no help from your friends) rate of success for most actions being around 50/50. Specialized characters have an easier time, specialized characters with help from friends are easier still. This tends to keep the balance of ‘whatever you attack with, be the best at it.’ By which I mean, if you’re shooting, hitting in melee, or landing spells (with or without attack rolls,) you need to actually take care to make your character good at it.

3) Tiny Spells
Other people have explained this in the same way that I would, honestly. Why should level 1 spells be as potent as higher level spells? A soldier can’t buy a level one rifle and then have the damage on that rifle suddenly be as good as a level 5 rifle just because things are harder to kill now.

4) Maneuvers Sitting on the Bench
With the improved maneuver feat and a weapon with the type of maneuver you like, you get a +6 to your maneuver roll. Much like spells, or skills, or regular attacks: You have to specialize in what you want to do. I would *NOT* lower the threshold for making a maneuver roll, because NPCS will literally never miss your characters if you do that.

5) We Come Running!
Starfinder isn’t D&D, or Pathfinder. The world is heavily based on ranged combat being the norm. What do you do if you’re standing in the street and suddenly you’re being shot at? You run. What do you do if someone is shooting at you from 600 feet away? You run. Especially if you’re a melee character that didn’t get their move speed up. If you’re 100 feet from an enemy and the best you can do is close 60 feet a round, you’re going to get kited like crazy before you can get to said enemy. It’s literally why my soldier has a low damage Entangle weapon on his power armor.

6) Withdraw the Withdraw Action
I personally have not used this or seen it used in Starfinder, honestly. Probably because I’m not involved in any games that have a melee character, and my group of friends aren’t, shall we say, particularly tactically minded.

Honestly, you have some good questions/points, and all the explanations in the world probably won’t sway you one way or the other. My wholehearted advice, however, is this: Play the game first. See what works and what doesn’t. Don’t start throwing around house rules based on theorycrafting.

[BigNorseWolf]

For tiny spells

If the DCs didn't scale at all you would be able to throw 3 maxed DC hold monsters AND 5 maxed DC hold persons. You wouldn't have to conserve spells at all (or low level spells would have to be designed without any oomf)

manuevers on the bench

The vanguard class is coming out, one of the design intents seems to be making combat maneuvers more possible/relevant.

Running

There is a vast difference between the careful moving in combat and the full out sprint that a run represents. And yes, I have seen this action used on a sniper map. It would be silly if the max movement speed of a human were 7 miles per hour.