3.5 breakdown at high levels?

[Fenes]

Unfortunately, I've had 15th level parties fight CR 17s that they didn't even take damage from. They challenged them close to as much as a CR 5 would have. I've had CR 13s that nearly killed everyone.

If I start with a weaker opponent I can always fudge it a bit to provide more of a challenge, but when my NPCs end up not doing any damage because the PC in question uses a nice martial technique or combo I didn't anticipate, then that's an acceptable outcome.

But that is part of the appeal for me - the surprises. Sometimes plans and combos should make a fight easy.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

High-level dragons are the worst of the worst, as far as generating stat blocks go.

That's one of the reasons to get rid of draconic spellcasting.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

If I start with a weaker opponent I can always fudge it a bit to provide more of a challenge, but when my NPCs end up not doing any damage because the PC in question uses a nice martial technique or combo I didn't anticipate, then that's an acceptable outcome.

But that is part of the appeal for me - the surprises. Sometimes plans and combos should make a fight easy.

Well, I won't fudge monsters except for tactics. If I'm killing people monsters will suddenly make a little bit worse choices, but that's it. Their stats are their stats. I don't want to deprive the players of their joy from defeating a monster fair and square. And they know I run it like that.

But it's not about surprises. It's about straightforward power levels. For instance, I was running an adventure from Dungeon Magazine. There was a Lich on one level of the dungeon. It was a mega-dungeon and the PCs were slowly making their way downward. They had run into books, inscriptions, NPCs, legends and so on that all said "This guy is one of the most powerful wizards on the planet, he has lived for a thousand years and he has had all that time to come up with plans and powerful spells."

The fight was set up to be hard. It had a CR of 4 higher than the average party level. I knew going into this that the party might all die or have to run because of the nasty things the adventure had written for the Lich.

Then, they walked into the room he was located in. They spotted him in the back of the room. The Wizard of the party won init. He then used a spell followed by a quickened spell(can't remember which ones, but I believe they were both Reciprocal Gyre and the Lich had around 10 spells up...he was able to do both due to Metamagic Rods). It did a total of a 150 damage. The Lich had around 145 hitpoints.

It was a surprise, but it made for a bad game. When you are working up to an encounter like that, it should feel hard. Obviously, the goal is always to let the PCs win so the game can continue, but they should feel like they were brought to the brink of death and that they barely pulled it off due to teamwork, strategy, and possibly pure luck. Not simply because they cast 2 spells in the same round.

I, personally, hate when battles end that easily against anything that isn't a nameless guard or easy to kill orc. I'd prefer them to go on 5-6 rounds and feel like I came to the brink of death.

 

[S'mon]

I eventually decided that the 3e monster manual was (for me) pretty much a big steaming pile of crap, and the PHB, while good for PCs, was pretty worthless for NPCs. Now my monsters are by Frank Mentzer, 1983 Red Box BECM D&D. NPCs, too. CR is mostly hd/2.

So a high level NPC warrior looks something like this:
HD 9d8 HP 45 AC 20 (+3 platemail armour, +1 ring) BAB +9 STR+2 wpn: +2 greatsword ATT +13/+8 dam: 2d6+5 Saves: good - Fort+6 bad - Ref/Will +3 CR: 5

An ogre looks like this: HD 4d8+1 HP 19 AC 15 STR 17 ATT+5 dam: 1d10+4 (maul) CR: 2
Saves: Fort +4 Ref/Will +1

 

[Dausuul]

Plus, my players can spot fudging a mile away and I've been yelled at for it the couple of times I've tried it. Once I came up with an AC on the fly for an NPC I fudged and when one of the players couldn't hit it with a high number he kept wondering very loudly about how the NPC could have an AC that high. The rest of the players agreed. Until, in order to make them get back to the game, I decided to recite out the math I had worked out in my head. Turns out I was 1 or 2 points too high. Not a HUGE deal, but it would have caused 2 attacks that missed to hit instead. But they insisted on rolling damage and adding it to the NPC immediately since I was cheating.

Wow, you put up with a lot more crap from your players than I would. If my players wondered how an NPC had such high AC, I'd just shrug and say, "Good question." If they insisted on breaking it down and trying to prove that his AC couldn't be that high, I'd say, "Look, that's what his AC is. He's just that good. You missed. He's attacking you now."

In 3.X I routinely messed around with monster stats. Sometimes I used the template system, but a lot of the time I just winged it.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Wow, you put up with a lot more crap from your players than I would. If my players wondered how an NPC had such high AC, I'd just shrug and say, "Good question." If they insisted on breaking it down and trying to prove that his AC couldn't be that high, I'd say, "Look, that's what his AC is. He's just that good. You missed. He's attacking you now."

Yeah, my friends and I all like to know we're playing fair. We feel cheated when things are "just made up". Most of us like the idea that if we have a 30 strength, took Weapon Focus and got a +5 Sword, that we are now REALLY good at fighting. We should hit most of the time and it should be rare that we miss. When we run into creatures that are either obviously unbalanced or fudged somehow, we feel like our choices were not of value.

 

[Fenes]

Yeah, my friends and I all like to know we're playing fair. We feel cheated when things are "just made up". Most of us like the idea that if we have a 30 strength, took Weapon Focus and got a +5 Sword, that we are now REALLY good at fighting. We should hit most of the time and it should be rare that we miss. When we run into creatures that are either obviously unbalanced or fudged somehow, we feel like our choices were not of value.

Nothing like a frenzied berserker to mix things up. "How many hps does that thing have? It's still not dead?"

 

[billd91]

That's the crux of the issue. They promised a balanced system where things that come out in every book would be about the same power. So it didn't matter if someone took Skill Focus or Improved Toughness at their 12th level feat, they should be about the same power.

About the same power overall as a balanced character? Perhaps. But I disagree that the power a character can bring to bear is going to be the same in all situations. Power is a highly situational characteristic. The same feat might not be applicable equally in all situations. And that's fine. It's one reason D&D works best as a refereed game, with the DM capable of responding to the PCs and how they are played in a multitude of ways.
It's also why in the machinery of D&D, just like the machinery of democracy, there's always a little play in the joints.

 

[billd91]

Wow, you put up with a lot more crap from your players than I would. If my players wondered how an NPC had such high AC, I'd just shrug and say, "Good question."

I do that to my players a lot too. I usually have a reason for it (though I wouldn't sweat a minor calculation error) but don't tell them the reason, at least not until the chapter is well over and the information no longer relevant. They're usually forgeting plenty of alternative explanations for why an opponent has an AC 2 points higher than expected (fighting defensively, combat expertise, and a higher Dex than the average specimen being typically overlooked as explanations).

 

[Dragon Mage]

I realize I am coming in late on the discussion, but I have to say I have never encountered any of these issues. I have run several campaigns from 1st to 30th levels with few to no problems.

I have used a few house rules (no Mord's Disjuction) and I do not allow every book ever published (just the 1st 4 complete books). It does require some judicial placement of magic items and not allowing any magic items to be purchased. There needs to be some new items to be gained at higher levels.