3.5 high level woes and Paizo's hand in it.

[thecasualoblivion]

Of course, it's entirely possible that all of that goofing off and not paying attention contributed somewhat to those 30 combat rounds.

Not really. 30 minute(minimum) combat rounds would have happened with or without the distractions. The distractions were the response to things taking that long in the first place.

Well if the system itself did not work to hold the attention or capture imagination while in combat, you can hardly blame the players ( which I hear statistically 80% have ADD).

Its hard to keep attention when you aren't personally involved in the game for 15-30+ minutes at a time. Watching other people add up numbers on dice or paging through books and character sheets isn't very interesting, and that was where most of the time gets lost.

If you and your group just want to play, without worrying about character optimisation then... why not just play and not worry about character optimisation? The game rules don't actually require you to painstakingly search all those books in order to eke out every possible +1 bonus, you know.

And if you're concerned that your PCs will now be unable to face off against the challenges in published adventures, I have to solution for that too: if the DM gives out 125% of the XP he 'should' give out, the party will rise in levels faster, which will naturally compensate for the 'optimisation gap' as the level of the adventures goes up.

Because its the real world, and in the real world sh^$ happens. Maybe you get lucky and get a great group. For the rest of us, we get at least one person who optimizes more than the others, and the game goes to crap. As for the second paragraph, why should this have to happen? If I am buying a published adventure, it is to save myself preparation. What you describe is preparation. Is it so wrong to want a game that works correctly out of the box? 4E does. While most people used heavy housefules, 1E and 2E still worked just fine as written. 3E is the exception in terms of D&D.

There was talk of grindiness. How's this different from 4e grind? 4e high level monsters have like, 800-2000 HP. While high-level damage output is...4-6[W] + Strength mod. Difference?

3E grind came from the players, not from the monsters. A 3E Rogue could easily attack 4-6 time per turn, with different modifiers on different attacks, rolling 8d6+modifiers and up for each hit. Unless you're a math whiz, it takes time to add up all those dice. Power attack, summons, buff stacking, and other things similarly could slow things down to a crawl. Add to this monsters with heavy immunities, ability drain, and other things and you get grind.

As for 4E, I've got a campaign going at level 16, and its the fastest 4E game I've ever run. We have some incredibly powergamed characters, but killing Elites in one round and winning combats in 2-3 rounds is still impressive, not to mention fast. Hundreds of hp is commonplace, but we have the firepower to chew through that in incredible fashion. Thanks to the Warlords obscene initiative bonus to the entire party, the battle is often over before the monsters get a turn. We did a test game at level 30, and people would be amazed how fast a level 30 Ancient Red Dragon dies, thousands of hp and all.

 

[billd91]

No, it falls under, "I thought buying adventures was supposed to help me, but I just spent an hour adjusting this encounter down from a certain TPK to a likely TPK. Why am I paying for this again?"

I would expect the adventure itself to help the DM do this, at least by offering advice on how to scale the encounter down... or preferably, given a choice, up. I don't recall whether the Dungeon-era AP's did this, but it's patently unfair to blame anything except the adventure (and to some extent the system) for this problem.

Are you using the plot? The maps? The NPC ideas? The hooks? The treasure caches?

So you had to adjust an encounter or three by adding or subtracting creatures or levels or hit dice. Did you save time overall doing those adjustment compared to writing the whole thing or the whole thing you would have otherwised used? If yes, then that's why you are paying for it.

I don't know too many adventures I've run right out of the book with no modification. That's simply par for the course.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Are you using the plot? The maps? The NPC ideas? The hooks? The treasure caches?

So you had to adjust an encounter or three by adding or subtracting creatures or levels or hit dice. Did you save time overall doing those adjustment compared to writing the whole thing or the whole thing you would have otherwised used? If yes, then that's why you are paying for it.

I don't know too many adventures I've run right out of the book with no modification. That's simply par for the course.

Not being able to run adventures without modification is a feature of 3E D&D. The wild variations in power level the game possesses creates this problem. I have, in the past 12 months, run both 4E and 2E published modules without modification. It was never a serious problem in AD&D, and its not an issue with 4E.

 

[Saracenus]

As a player, 3e is fun to play. I only have one character to take care of and I can pre-stat out any commonly used abilities and buffs.

As a DM 3e becomes an exponential nightmare. Its only made worse when you start adding players after the 4th.

My current 3.5 campaign has 8 players and it is becoming unmanageable. The combat rounds are long and people are having trouble staying focused on the game during the wait for their turns. This is at 6th level where only one PC has iterative attacks. Yes, the gulf between optimized and non-optimized players is already evident and wide.

Worse, my prep time is too damn long. I am using pre-published adventures that I have to modify heavily. I don't enjoy this and I don't have the time for it. My game will probably die soon. I am going to loose some people when I switch to 4e.

I have been playing and DMing since the early 80s and I was a Living Greyhawk junkie so I am very familiar with the good and the bad with 3e.

Any system that requires the DM to patch over its faults to make it playable is flawed. 3e is bloated with choices that make it nearly impossible to provide a balanced encounter without hurculean effort.

Anyway, I don't blame Piazo for the problem but their encounter design doesn't help it.

 

[billd91]

Not being able to run adventures without modification is a feature of 3E D&D. The wild variations in power level the game possesses creates this problem. I have, in the past 12 months, run both 4E and 2E published modules without modification. It was never a serious problem in AD&D, and its not an issue with 4E.

For the most part, it was a feature of the game dating back to 1e and basic. How many names did the denizens of the Keep on the Borderlands have? DMs have been adding names to those NPCs since the dawn of that module.

I've been adjusting adventure hooks and monsters in modules ever since 1e because, invariably, there are things my players do differently from the core concept of how the mods were written. It is expected that DMs may well need to do so. I've also run 3e modules unedited when the module design and hooks have coincided with the way my game has been running. But that's always been dependent on the specifics of the module, it's placement, and a host of other detail-based features not limited to stat blocks.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Heh... You just exactly described our high level 3.5 games.

Thankfully, we all play 4e now.

So you broke your game.

What will you move to after you break your new toy?

 

[Storminator]

So you broke your game.

Do you think those two character examples are not representative of 3e? Because they seem pretty ordinary to me. A TWF and one of the main casters... it's not like I even gave them Leadership.

What will you move to after you break your new toy?

The new toy seems a lot more robust to me.

PS

 

[thecasualoblivion]

For the most part, it was a feature of the game dating back to 1e and basic. How many names did the denizens of the Keep on the Borderlands have? DMs have been adding names to those NPCs since the dawn of that module.

I've been adjusting adventure hooks and monsters in modules ever since 1e because, invariably, there are things my players do differently from the core concept of how the mods were written. It is expected that DMs may well need to do so. I've also run 3e modules unedited when the module design and hooks have coincided with the way my game has been running. But that's always been dependent on the specifics of the module, it's placement, and a host of other detail-based features not limited to stat blocks.

Giving NPCs names and adding/altering plot is a far cry then having to adjust the difficulty of 3E monsters. The two are not comparable

So you broke your game.

What will you move to after you break your new toy?

Some games are less breakable than others. I've played Rolemaster, Champions, AD&D 2E, D&D 3E, 4E, Exalted, new and old World of Darkness, Amber Diceless, d20 Modern, SWSE, and a few others on smaller occasions. With the possible exception of Exalted(which while it breaks down a lot, tends to break down at launch and the game dies before it really starts), 3E D&D is by far the most breakable RPG. I played AD&D for years, and it was never as fragile as 3E is.

Games break all the time from group burnout and logistics. 3E can break down from the system itself though more than any other game(aside from, again, Exalted crashing and burning before getting off the ground in the first place).

 

[DM_Jeff]

Many of these observations are completely valid for some groups.

Two important factors to managing high level play are having a DM very on top of the flow of the game and never running anything exactly as written (it must be tailored for your group, because no one knows it but you).

Second is a good group of friends who knew the rules and worked together not against each other.

No, my answer is not just "the right DM and the right players", but it's a titanic factor, in my opinion.

I ran Shackled City up to 20th level with 6 characters, and even wrote a sequel bringing the players to 21st level. It was fun. Obviously different from the levels of the 5-15 level range to be sure, and some combats ran longer or shorter than others, but it was all fun. I wouldn't want all encounters perfectly balanced, in fact. That's just me.

I've run Rise of the Runelords to conclusion at 15th level and Crimson Throne to 14th and the only grind came at the very final encounters in both campaigns. And, looking back, I realise I no doubt should have taken a few extra minutes to study up on their resources and modify for my group. Were they still fun? My group and I had a blast each time. No kidding.

I eagerly await some of the changes Paizo says it will bring to the Pathfinder RPG for high level play. Mostly because, as so many have pointed out, they clearly see the problem from the perspective of those who designed the most adventures for it. And if it smooths out some more problems as it goes, each game can be better for it.

-DM Jeff

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So you broke your game.

What will you move to after you break your new toy?

What will people do after something they use breaks down? They get something to replace it, at least if that is cheaper/easier than trying to repair it. If possible, something better, something that will last them longer, or fits their requirements better.

I wouldn't be surprised if I, in 5 to 15 years, will play D&D 5E. Or Shadowrun 5E. Or Exalted 3E. Or (oh, please please please) Torg 2.0.