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

[cangrejoide]

-Edited due to red post.-

 

[cangrejoide]

-Edited due to red post.-

 

[joethelawyer]

A fair amount of Jason's time has been spent on this issue post-Beta, and we just completed the high level portion of the playtest, which resulted in numerous changes and modifications. These are, to some extent, patches rather than complete rewrites, however, as the game is meant to update 3.5, not tear it down to the ground and start from the beginning.

I'm very eager to see how the high-level changes in Pathfinder affect the perception that high level play is "broken". I am sure they will satisfy some people, and disappoint others. But I like what I have seen so far, and I think a lot of other people will too.

--Erik

Thx for the response Erik. Think you can give us a basic overview of the patches? I tried to follow the discussions on Paizo's board as best I could, and was especially interested in the high level aspect of it, but could not really glean anything concrete as to the steps PF would take to address these issues.

 

[Treebore]

Wow look at Erick with the snarK!!

So you actually GMed for 28 people? You the man!

Are you trying to get banned over your own thread? Take a chill pill. Plus if you think Erik is being snarky your waaay too sensitive. Besides, it doesn't change the facts, he is right in what he says.

 

[cangrejoide]

I don't know what pages 2 through 8 of this thread says, but high level 3E play sucks, period. Its the rules, not the adventures, that are the problem. Its also why I am not even going to look at Pathfinder yet. The 3E rules set needs some serious rewriting to make high level play work. When Paizo gets around to doing that with PAthfinder, then I will get excited.

One of the reasons I am not interested in 4E is that I see very similar problems to why high level play won't work in 4E either. Streamlined monsters will help things a bit and definitely lesson the stress, but the mechanics are still going to cause overload.

So I'll stay with C&C because it allows me to run high level games like I did in 2E, and I learned to run successful high level games in 2E.

Can you explain a little more why do you think 4E will have the same pitfalls 3e had?

 

[cangrejoide]

-Edited due to red post.-

 

[cangrejoide]

Are you trying to get banned over your own thread? Take a chill pill. Plus if you think Erik is being snarky your waaay too sensitive. Besides, it doesn't change the facts, he is right in what he says.

Heh well I posted without actually reading those red posts. I'll go back and delete them.

-Edit: There any material that maybe considered against red post is gone.

 

[Treebore]

Can you explain a little more why do you think 4E will have the same pitfalls 3e had?

Sure, they haven't changed the power scale issues. High level games are still going to be long drawn out head aches because of the multitude of special powers, resistances, and immunities are going to pile up and overwhelm the game very much like they do in 3E.

The only hope I have for further improvement in 4E is the fact that they capped the levels in 4E at 30th level. So they might actually keep things scaled nicely, but considering how powerful the game starts at just 1st level, I am not holding my breathe. I will keep an eye on it though.

 

[Primal]

Hmm, so Paizo is to "blame" only for being unable to provide suitable adventure paths for a lot of DM or their groups?

Just as much as WoTC is to blame for the same with their 4E products, i.e. that parties with 3 or 4 players are struggling when those adventures are "optimized" for 5 players. In the end, every DM needs to "tailor-fit" adventures to suit the party; I don't hold any illusions over what would happen if I ran KoTS without any modifications for 2 players.

At the moment, we're playing AoW with 3 (non-optimized) players, and doing just fine, because the DM has heavy-handedly modified every adventure.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

A fair amount of Jason's time has been spent on this issue post-Beta, and we just completed the high level portion of the playtest, which resulted in numerous changes and modifications. These are, to some extent, patches rather than complete rewrites, however, as the game is meant to update 3.5, not tear it down to the ground and start from the beginning.

I'm very eager to see how the high-level changes in Pathfinder affect the perception that high level play is "broken". I am sure they will satisfy some people, and disappoint others. But I like what I have seen so far, and I think a lot of other people will too.

--Erik

I'm more concerned with the reality than the perception. More often than not, people who say they are fans of what Pathfinder is doing are the same people that say that 3E isn't "broken", at high levels or otherwise. That being said, I don't think it can be done within the constraints you are working under. The problems with high level play are fundamental to the system itself. Summoning, buff stacking, rolling insane amounts of dice plus iterative attacks either by themselves or in combination, spellcaster/nonspellcaster balance issues, save or die mathematics, et cetera can't be solved without tearing the system down to the ground and starting over.

I'm in full support of you guys trying to keep the flame alive for 3.5E, regardless of my own feelings for that system. I'm just uncomfortable with advertising something that in my opinion can't be delivered, at least outside of preaching to the choir.