3.5 breakdown at high levels?

[Wulf Ratbane]

(Again, my games tend to strongly favor classed NPCs as antagonists -- like 4:1 or more -- so YMMV.)

That makes a huge difference and amplifies any suckage you may be experiencing.

I tend towards monsters or, at best, monsters with templates, class levels, or spell-like abilities pasted on.

 

[Caliber]

I don't know how anyone else reads this, but this sounds like you don't like to DM. Being a DM you need to be aware of your parties capabilities (AC, Damage Range, Typical Buffs). This is how the game has been from day one. A system no matter how it is written won't allow you to know exactly the mind of your player. It cannot always cover any and all situations. It does not provide a contigency for all the possibilities that your players can come up with. It gives you guidelines and it is up to you to adapt those guidelines to any and all situations as you see fit. Beyond that if you cannot adapt those guidelines based on said situations then I suggest don't DM. It isn't for everyone.

As long as we're slinging anecdotes here, the only time I've ever kept any kind of information on my player character's stats was during a brief stretch of a 3E game I ran, where I tracked the one Elf's Spot score for when she walked by a secret door. Otherwise, I never kept any record of their AC/Stats/Saves, whatever, either in 2E or 3E (and I don't expect I will in 4E as well). Similarly, I've never had a DM keep stats on me (although I have played with DMs where I would leave my sheet at their house ... perhaps they looked at it while I was gone? That seems strange)

At least where I live, keeping your player's stats doesn't really seem to have ever been part of the game. I love DMing, but 3E does get pretty rough to handle at high levels, for many of the reasons outlined in this thread. Some people groove to it, I didn't. Even with modules, I felt the prep time got pretty high if I had to calculate out buffs/plan out tactics.

 

[Rechan]

It's nothing revolutionary with 4e. I almost exclusively improvised in 1e/2e. In fact, I'm pretty sure I could still do 1e cold -- and easier than 4e.

For 4e, I am completely going the lazy approach. Even if I didn't use monsters, I could re-skin many of them as NPC foes. Need a paragon level shadowy assassin? Re-skinned Displacer Beast. A high level ascetic Disciple of a god? Eidolon will do. And so on.

(Incidentally I'm doing this backwards, reskinning several humanoids as monsters. The Rat Master kobold from Dragon has become a low-level demon surrounded by whirling shards of bone and poisonous blood).

 

[Spatula]

How long would it take you to work out a CR 17 dragon? That's not obscure, that's core. Even purely core, that dragon's going to take a while to do.

As long as it takes me to look up a CR 17 dragon in the 3.5 MM or Draconomicon? Yes, making a custom dragon (a spellcaster with lots of different attacks and special rules) takes a long time. But there are stock dragons available, and in any case I didn't make any distinction about "core" rules.

That's ignoring the rules because the rules say that you should be designing your monsters down to the last skill point.

The rules are not a straightjacket. They don't force you to do anything.

 

[Obryn]

As long as it takes me to look up a CR 17 dragon in the 3.5 MM or Draconomicon? Yes, making a custom dragon (a spellcaster with lots of different attacks and special rules) takes a long time. But there are stock dragons available, and in any case I didn't make any distinction about "core" rules.

The rules are not a straightjacket. They don't force you to do anything.

From the Draconomicon, yes.

From the 3.5 MM? There are no true dragons statted out completely. What you have are construct-a-dragon kits.

-O

 

[Spatula]

From the 3.5 MM? There are no true dragons statted out completely. What you have are construct-a-dragon kits.

Check your copy again, and make sure you're not looking at the 3.0 MM.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't know how anyone else reads this, but this sounds like you don't like to DM. Being a DM you need to be aware of your parties capabilities (AC, Damage Range, Typical Buffs). This is how the game has been from day one. A system no matter how it is written won't allow you to know exactly the mind of your player. It cannot always cover any and all situations. It does not provide a contigency for all the possibilities that your players can come up with. It gives you guidelines and it is up to you to adapt those guidelines to any and all situations as you see fit.

I definitely disagree. What are these levels for, if not a guideline to gauge power levels? Why can't I just look at levels and classes and get "Okay, they should have an attack bonus of +20, an AC of 32, and the Wizard theoretically has access to Teleport, but I might want to check that again." Why do I have to go through the spells and buffs going on to determine the baseline?

Heck, even games without levels get that right. I've seen it in Torg - we're playing published modules, and are playing characters as we see fit. And Torg doesn't only lack levels, it also has a far wider range of archetypes - you can have a Living Lands lizard armed with crude hide armor but casting to his gods, a French Mercenary with a cybereye and a laserpistol, an Elven Wizard, a Nile Empire pulp hero with the ability to run faster then a car, and a Core Earth computer hacker, all in the same party.

And what is a module designer supposed to do? What guidelines does he use? Is he to create twelve parties and try to play-test his adventure through with it, to see if it works?
Anyone with experience with 3E modules will know that there is a... a spectrum of quality and difficulty. The Dungeon adventure paths were usually on the very challenging side, requiring character and party optimization...

Beyond that if you cannot adapt those guidelines based on said situations then I suggest don't DM. It isn't for everyone.

Thanks for the tip.

Spoiler

Kakalubsendampfschifffahrtsreeder

 

[Obryn]

Check your copy again, and make sure you're not looking at the 3.0 MM.

Um... I am?

Apart from the sample dragons (one of a single age category per color type), none of them are really ready to go, right out of the MM. In addition to needing to calculate the damage (which varies from attack to attack from half strength to 1.5 strength), and the stats for each individual dragon type being spread onto multiple pages, I'd also need to look into choosing spells and feats - some of which, like Hover, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus, Cleave, and metamagic can make a pretty big difference.

-O

 

[Spatula]

Apart from the sample dragons (one of a single age category per color type)

You just said there were no dragons statted out completely in the MM?

none of them are really ready to go, right out of the MM. In addition to needing to calculate the damage (which varies from attack to attack from half strength to 1.5 strength), and the stats for each individual dragon type being spread onto multiple pages, I'd also need to look into choosing spells and feats - some of which, like Hover, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus, Cleave, and metamagic can make a pretty big difference.

Yes I agree, custom dragons are a lot of work, just like I said upthread.

 

[Obryn]

You just said there were no dragons statted out completely in the MM?

Um... what? No, I didn't. You might have read that into what I was saying, but that's not what I was saying. If I want a dragon, X color of Y age category, I have all those options pre-made in the Draconomicon. Thank goodness. Otherwise, I'm statting up a fairly complex NPC. If I want to be limited to the five chromatic dragons they statted out in the MM, I suppose I'm fine...

-O