Pathfinder 1E This is why pathfinder has been successful.

[TheAuldGrump]

I think the important thing here is that for most encounters it should be obvious that 3 fireballs is massive overkill. If the PCs meet CR 5 trolls who can rip PCs apart in a single full-round attack, the Wizard-6 will unleash everything he's got. But he won't unleash the heavy artillery vs the war-2 bandits when there's any possibility at all that the group might be meeting CR 5 trolls later.

That's what creates good play balance, and fun tension in the game for the casters - "Do I fireball now, or let the Fighters handle it?" - should be a common question.

Of course at very high level you get scry-and-fry and this breaks down, but I don't think 3e/PF is playable* at those levels. The main thing is to make it fun at what should be the 'sweet spot' levels around 5-10 or 5-12.

*Maybe if you got rid of combat casting, allowed move+full attack, got rid of all the Buff spells...

Though it is important to note that at those same high levels the foes often either have access to those same abilities or the mans to circumvent them. Sometimes both.... (The Pathfinder APs tend to be pretty creative as to how to handle high level scenarios and foes. As did the Dungeon APs also by Paizo.)

I typically have fun from 1-15, though 1-6 remains my favorite.

The Auld Grump

 

[Rogue Agent]

And again it is a playstyle thing. In my game, I would never have the NPCs kill the hostages offscreen in circumstances in which the players are committed to having their PCs rescue them.

You're right. It is a playstyle thing. If your style of play is to have the NPCs always and consistently do absolutely nothing if the PCs attack them and then withdraw, then you're going to have 15MAD.

Allow me to repeat myself: You don't have to hammer the PCs every single day and with every single NPC. The 15MAD only becomes a problem when the world is never proactive (or even strategically reactive).

In short, I completely agree with you: If your preferred style of play is a sequence of static, non-responsive encounters with no meaningful impact on the game world or its inhabitants... then, yeah, the 15MAD is a problem for you and you shouldn't play a game that has any sort of strategic play to it.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I wouldn't say that at all. Different systems for different people. I have no issues that 3.x or Pathfinder is not your preferred game or as enjoyable to you as a 4e game might be. To say the game one doesn't like though is broken is where I take exception.

I am not a huge fan of 4e, but I certainly wouldn't ever say it is broken or the people playing 4e are doing it wrong. It just isn't my game of choice when 3.x/Pathfinder better fits my style.

Both games are good systems and different enough that people are going to be drawn to one over the other as their preference. That choice does not mean the other is inferior or broken.

Exactly - I cannot say that 4e is a terrible, awful, no-ice-cream-for-you game, just that it is not the game for me.

I honestly think that WotC could have done better with it without changing the core of the game. That the roll out and presentation was bungled, and may have killed the game, not the rules, much as they may not be my cuppa.

I actually had fun playing the Ravenloft board game.

The Auld Grump

 

[pemerton]

But if the world already is as you describe here, then the plot is already controlling the pace at a level that matches the 15MAD "problem", so 15MAD becomes moot on that.
And if the world is already as you describe here, then the key encounters should anticipate a full strength party. So again the issue of 15MAD is moot.

Not entirely moot, because there may be issues of PC-balance which presuppose a non-15 MAD.

The solution in my first Rolemaster campaign was that, above 10th level, everyone played a spellcaster of some sort. The solution in my second Rolemaster campaign was that we changed the suite of options and interpretations in play (Rolemaster is very much a toolkit style of game) in order to strengthen warriors relative to spellusers.

I'm sure other solutions are possible, too, that don't rely particularly on timeline scenarios.

You're right. It is a playstyle thing. If your style of play is to have the NPCs always and consistently do absolutely nothing if the PCs attack them and then withdraw, then you're going to have 15MAD.

Who said anything about "attacing and then withdrawing"? You may be projecting your own conceptions of scenario design here.

Suppose that the PCs are trying to rescue some prisoners. And they know that the NPCs are going, in due course (ie sooner than weeks, not necessarily tomorrow) going to sacrifice those NPCs in a demonic ritual.

And suppose that, en route to rescuing the prisoners, the PCs find a cat stuck in a tree. Do the players have their PCs stop to rescue the cat, or not? And if they do, and if it takes longer than they thought, and uses up more of their resources - so they have to rest a bit, or go back to town to reequip, or whatever. Ought the GM to kill the prisoner's offstage, or not? My strong preference is not to - because it is anticlimactic, and subordinates thematic concerns to operational concerns.

Other play groups (and probably Lewis Pulsipher) might think the GM ought to kill the prisones if that's what the timeline says, because doing so emphasises the importance of operational concerns. This is a question of playstyle preference.

And this is all orthogonal to a reactive world. You can play a game with highly reactive NPCs, in which failure will only happen onscreen. The simplest example of this would be the contrast between the NPCs killing the hostages offscreen, and the NPCs sending assassins to kill the PCs who are pursuing them. Both are forms of NPC reactions. Either might be suitable to reinforce the importance of operational play, in an operationally-oriented game. The second, but not the first, would be a suitable sort of NPC reaction in a "no failure offscreen" game.

If your preferred style of play is a sequence of static, non-responsive encounters with no meaningful impact on the game world or its inhabitants... then, yeah, the 15MAD is a problem for you and you shouldn't play a game that has any sort of strategic play to it.

There's no need to be insulting. It's a fairly narrow approach to play to assume that "meaningful impact" is confined to "events happening in a timeline predetermined by the GM", or that unless failure can't happen offscreen, there can be no meaningful impact. That is to narrow "meaningfulness" to operational or strategic matters. For some RPGers (perhaps many?) these aren't the most interesting dimensions of possible significance. The question of whether the PCs live up to their ideals, for example, may be more significant, and that is often better determined by making sure that climaxes occur onscreen.

One thing I've noticed is the time it takes to resolve combats in 3e/Pathfinder/4e offers a powerful disincentive to using random encounters. They simply took too long. The resource attrition wasn't worth the session play time-attrition.

Agreed. For me this is not a problem, because I don't particularly care for random encounters, or "filler"/attrition encounters, in my game. But it does mean that 4e (I won't comment on 3E/PF) is not well-suited to a certain sort of D&D game.

 

[Rogue Agent]

There's no need to be insulting. It's a fairly narrow approach to play to assume that "meaningful impact" is confined to "events happening in a timeline predetermined by the GM", or that unless failure can't happen offscreen, there can be no meaningful impact.

This is really typical of these conversations: I list a dozen different methods of having an active campaign world which will prevent the 15MAD and you are completely obsessed with the one you don't personally like.

Then pick a different (set of) methods.

The point is that there are dozens of ways to have an active, interactive, and dynamic campaign. There's only one way to have a campaign structured around static, non-reactive combat encounters that never interact with each other.

If you don't have problems with the 15MAD, feel free to continue using your static, non-reactive combat encounters that never interact with each other and will always be waiting patiently for whenever the PCs decide to show up. More power to you.

But if you do have a problem with the 15MAD -- either from an aesthetic sense or due to mechanical balance -- then there's a vast panoply of techniques you can use to have a campaign that isn't static, non-reactive, and (IMO) boring.

 

[pemerton]

Then pick a different (set of) methods.

Don't worry, I have. I mentioned some of them in my previous post.

If you don't have problems with the 15MAD, feel free to continue using your static, non-reactive combat encounters that never interact with each other and will always be waiting patiently for whenever the PCs decide to show up. More power to you.

Whose game do you think you're describing here?

And what do combat encounters have to do with it? The actual scenario I described was exploration of an ancient, uninhabited, magically warded ruin. That is not a combat scenario. It can still produce a 15-minute day - I know, from the experience of having GMed it. (This is true, at least, in Rolemaster, in which there is no particular correlation beteen magic use and combat.)

This is really typical of these conversations

What I regard as typical of some of these conversations is that some people produce solutions for the 15-minute day that depend upon a range of assumptions - including the importance of operational/strategic play, and a somewhat narrow range of scenarios - and then when other say those particular solutions don't work for them - because they run a game that is not operationally/strategically focused, perhaps - they are insulted, or told they don't know hot to GM.

 

[Hussar]

I look at it this way.

I could choose a system that forces me to deal with a problem by constraining how I run my games, or I could choose a system where that problem is not inherent to the mechanics of that game.

I choose the latter. 15 MAD isn't an issue in AD&D because AD&D strongly de-emphasizes the effect of any given encounter. It's very unlikely that a single encounter will eat up that much of your resources that you have to stop - at least after very low level. 4e gets around the problem by removing the reliance on renewable resources.

I prefer 4e because I like the options that 4e gives me. But, telling me that the problem is entirely on my end, while straight up admitting that you've adopted a playstyle which avoids the problem leaves me pretty confused. If there was no problem then why should you choose a specific playstyle?

 

[BryonD]

I look at it this way.

I could choose a system that forces me to deal with a problem by constraining how I run my games, or I could choose a system where that problem is not inherent to the mechanics of that game.

I choose the latter. 15 MAD isn't an issue in AD&D because AD&D strongly de-emphasizes the effect of any given encounter. It's very unlikely that a single encounter will eat up that much of your resources that you have to stop - at least after very low level. 4e gets around the problem by removing the reliance on renewable resources.

I prefer 4e because I like the options that 4e gives me. But, telling me that the problem is entirely on my end, while straight up admitting that you've adopted a playstyle which avoids the problem leaves me pretty confused. If there was no problem then why should you choose a specific playstyle?

That sounds like a really strong endorsement for a whole lot of people not avoiding 4E. Obviously the specific issues differ. But the playstyle argument applies perfectly.

That said, speaking for myself, I have not adapted any play style to accommodate the "problem". As I said before, I do agree that the problem can occur. But for me the playstyle that avoids it and my natural playstyle of preference are one and the same.

I've also said before that the system I like doesn't have training wheels. It absolutely will let you screw up. I don't challenge that.

But I've yet to find a game that both prevents you from possibly screwing up and at the same time provides for the same tier of quality of game experience. So that is why I play it. I get the best possible quality and all I have to do is not screw up.

 

[Hussar]

That sounds like a really strong endorsement for a whole lot of people not avoiding 4E. Obviously the specific issues differ. But the playstyle argument applies perfectly.

That said, speaking for myself, I have not adapted any play style to accommodate the "problem". As I said before, I do agree that the problem can occur. But for me the playstyle that avoids it and my natural playstyle of preference are one and the same.

But, that's mostly irrelevant. Just because you like that playstyle doesn't change the fact that everyone who plays that system is forced into the same playstyle. That you like it is fantastic, for you. For anyone else, it becomes a serious problem.

I've also said before that the system I like doesn't have training wheels. It absolutely will let you screw up. I don't challenge that.

But I've yet to find a game that both prevents you from possibly screwing up and at the same time provides for the same tier of quality of game experience. So that is why I play it. I get the best possible quality and all I have to do is not screw up.

But, and this is the crux of the issue, I will only get that quality of game if I like the same playstyle as you. I don't. I really, honestly don't. I have constantly chafed in 3e being forced into that playstyle. The groups I've played with have larged worked around the issue by adopting certain playstyles which mitigate things - the aforementioned wands of healing and non-Vancian classes.

So, how does that give me a better quality game experience?

You're basically saying that you recognize the problem, but, since it's not a problem for you, everyone who does have a problem with it should just shut up and play the way you like to play.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

But, that's mostly irrelevant. Just because you like that playstyle doesn't change the fact that everyone who plays that system is forced into the same playstyle. That you like it is fantastic, for you. For anyone else, it becomes a serious problem.



But, and this is the crux of the issue, I will only get that quality of game if I like the same playstyle as you. I don't. I really, honestly don't. I have constantly chafed in 3e being forced into that playstyle. The groups I've played with have larged worked around the issue by adopting certain playstyles which mitigate things - the aforementioned wands of healing and non-Vancian classes.

So, how does that give me a better quality game experience?

You're basically saying that you recognize the problem, but, since it's not a problem for you, everyone who does have a problem with it should just shut up and play the way you like to play.

Whereas other people choked on the fact that 4e forced a different playstyle, and did so, if anything, in a more direct fashion.

And for us 4e sucks because of it.

I am not saying that you don't have a right to enjoy 4e, or even to enjoy it more than Pathfinder, but that there is a reason why others prefer Pathfinder.

I also very much do feel that the problems with the 15 MAD is a problem with the GM more than the system, but then my style of play, dating back to before 2e was a glimmer, does not have the problem, so hearing people whinge about it annoy me, especially when they try to say that I am the one playing it wrong.

If folks have a problem with Pathfinder then they should go play 4e, Fantasy Craft, or any of dpzens of other games, I'd rather hear folks going on about a game that they like, even if it is a game that I don't like, than to hear whinging about problems that really should not be problems if the GM is doing their job, followed by disbelief that it is not a problem for everybody.

It is not a problem for me, except for that one game, and I handled it in that one game by running the game exactly the same way that I always do. (And have heard one of the players in that game describe it as the best campaign that they have ever been in.)

If you don't want to change your style then find a game that supports that style, don't complain that every game does not cater to your style. Play the ones that do - there are plenty of excellent games that aren't 3.X/Pathfinder.

The Auld Grump