well it sounds like you did a lot of things we didn't... no minis were used until the last 6 months of 3.5... so no battle map no minis, just DM describe and say Roll intiative... then I would lay my D20's out with the modified number (at higher level 2d10 for numbers of 20) then I would say "Anyone before my XX" and if so we would jot down (sometimes me sometimes another PC doing it) then they would tak there action... set up and roll less then a minute most of the time...
There's no way my players would stand for that. After all, how do you know which squares are threatened? How can you place yourselves in a way that prevents the enemies from running past you without provoking opportunity attacks? How do you know if you hit 3 or 4 orcs with that burning hands? Ask the DM? What if they screw you out of one of your free attacks by forgetting the exact location of all the enemies and PCs? What if you say "I'm moving beside the barrel" and the DM assumes the wrong side of the barrel?
The rules clearly stated which squares people had to be in to be threatened and where they could move to without provoking. These things were important to my players. Failing to follow the rules precisely could mean life or death if an extra enemy could be included in an AOE or an opportunity attack could take place.
Minis were needed for these situations to make everything fair.
One of our DMs used to just say "Anyone higher than <the highest initiative rolled by an enemy>?" Until someone pointed out that knowing the highest initiative of the enemies could give the players an unfair advantage since they'd know how many of them get to act before the enemies do and change their tactics accordingly. This resulted in the "DM writes down everyone's initiative and calls them in order" method.
we used to throw CR 15's at single digget level parties... we almost never did low EL...
I'm not entirely sure how they survived that. Though, CR being a really poor judge of difficulty, I can understand some of this being possible. However, it was my experience that using an encounter with EL more than 5 above the Average Party Level was instant death for all but the most min-maxed group.
wow our devish normaly was more of I roll X +y hit Z didthat hit? yes, ok my damage was XXX, I move and tumble past and made the DC, then rolled X +y hit z did that hit? way under tne minets... did you guys really call every bonus every time? Most times we just called I hit an X....
Have the time we had to because of all the bonuses that were temporary. We didn't necessarily say them out loud but we certainly spent the time to calculate them.
My cleric that I played in Living Greyhawk who ended at 15th level literally had a chart on his character sheet that said:
Unbuffed: +14, 2d4+4
Divine Favor: +17, 2d4+10
Divine Favor and Bless: +18, 2d4+10
Greater Magic Weapon: +18, 2d4+8
Greater Magic Weapon and Divine Favor: ....
You get the point, it went on that way for some time.
It didn't include any bonuses that might be given to me by other characters(and since it was Living Greyhawk, the entire makeup of the party was almost always different from one adventure to the next, so I couldn't predict what anyone would cast on me) or temporary bonuses given by things like Flanking or Power Attack, which I had.
I was fairly fast, most of my turns took less than 2 minutes. However, the Dervish had to check and double check the path he was walking on the board to see how many tumble checks he needed to make since each one became more difficult. He needed to plan a path on the board that would cause the least number of tumble checks. He'd often be part way through his turn and say "Wait...I should have moved here instead of here, it didn't make any difference yet, but it will allow me to move 5-ft closer to the enemy I want to attack, so I'm going to back up and change that. That way my 5th attack can be made on the guy way over here." He'd have to check on each one of his attacks if he had flanking or not, because god forbid he miss out on +2. Since he didn't know which square he was going to move into until he resolved the attack for the square he was in, the numbers always had to be decided on the fly.
Also, you need to check if you are in range of the Bard Song and Prayer spells each movement you make, because you might be moving in and out of range.
And some people are MUCH better at doing math than other people. Trust me, I had at least a couple of friends that if you told them to roll a dice then add +12 then minus 3 from it, it would take them 30 seconds to figure it out. If you told them just to add 12, it would take them 2 seconds. Each modifier made the calculation exponentially larger.
In all my years role playing I've only found a few dozen unavoidable encounters...ever
It definitely sounds like you play entirely different games that I do or were written for Living Forgotten Realms or Living Greyhawk before it.
Rough example:
The PCs were told that someone is missing, captured by goblins. They are asked to save them. They travel on their way to the goblin stronghold. Along the way, they are ambushed by goblins patrolling their home and the goblins fight to the death to protect their home and can't be reasoned with. Then you can get to their village where you need to fight more goblins who are protecting their home. They likewise are evil, vicious and need to be killed or you'll never save the person you are supposed to rescue. You find out that the boy you are looking for is already dead and bring back proof of his death. End of Adventure.
That's the average adventure we play in: Get something. There are monsters in the way that must be killed to do so. OR Stop something from happening. Bad guys are willing to give up their life to make sure it happens.
if all that is there is treasure, most of the time you could either curb stomp them or trick them or negotiate with them or sneak past them or anything else... if it is only money do those monsters really want to throw there lives away? DO the PCs?
The monsters are often mindless and don't fear death. They are golems told to guard a spot and kill anyone who approaches. They are undead who hunger for the flesh of the living with no thought to their own safety. They are evil creatures fighting for what they believe in above all else(their god, their family, their ideals, or something else). They are hungry and the PCs look tasty and are too dumb to know better.
The PCs are never afraid of throwing their lives away, they are heroes who have overcome every single challenge put in front of them up until this point, there is no reason to believe that the 256th fight will kill them when the previous 255 didn't. They constantly show that their fighting skills and mettle are way better than the average person and they keep getting better the more they adventure. They are the heroes of the story. And more than that, they know the game only continues as long as one of them stays alive so the DM has good reason to refrain from killing ALL of them.
I've so very rarely heard someone say that... I mean you get XP or not, do you guys go looking for fights just for money and XP??? that sounds like the worst Murder hobo jokes???
I'd argue that the entire profession of "adventurer" is looking for fights for XP and money. The PCs likely don't know about XP, so maybe it's more fair to say "looking for fights for money".
The typical PC in a D&D game is basically a murderer for hire. People pay them to rescue people from dangerous creatures, to defeat monsters that have been terrorizing a town, to recover an object that normal people couldn't recover because of the dangerous creatures guarding it, to solve a mystery that requires vast magical resources and time(and is likely protected by a mysterious cult who will stop at nothing to make sure the mystery stays unsolved).
The entire point is that they are people who fight monsters for money, fame, satisfaction of killing things, or for the benefit of others.
But, I'd say they don't go LOOKING for fights just for this purpose. They instead just happen to be assigned missions where fighting things are a virtual guarantee. The players also want to get cool new powers and advance in levels. So they do everything in their power to make sure they get there as soon as possible.
