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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No offense to anyone, but I wouldn't blame Paizo for this...I'd blame the DM's.

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

 

[hexgrid]

No offense to anyone, but I wouldn't blame Paizo for this...I'd blame the DM's. As a DM you have to know what your players can handle, and what constitutes a balanced or tough encounter for them. (and when to recognize an impossible encounter).

Those over the top, very maximized, near impossible end battles can be easily toned down to a more appropriate level of difficulty.

This logic makes it impossible to evaluate a published adventure at all, doesn't it? The DM can theoretically adjust any shortcoming of a module.

But I don't blame Paizo, either. The fault is with the rules system. It's no surprise that the Pathfinder adventure paths all stop at 15th or 16th level (IIRC).

 

[TerraDave]

High level problems that made me glad to go 4E: Yes.

Paizo AP: No.

 

[DwarvenDog]

What are the non-paizo, high-level adventures that we can compare these to? Can we say that "company X" does high-level 3.5 really well? Does Whiterock or World's Largest Dungeon fix the high-level burnout problem?

I ran a high-level 3.5 game from first through 21st level or so, drawing on the original 3rd edition modules from Sunless Citadel through Bastion of Broken Souls. I hit some massive burnout points there as well. High-level is a beast to run, and your players need to be on their game, all the time, to run their characters effectively. Preparing for it takes a lot of work as well, and not everyone wants to devote that kind of time to mind-numbing number-crunching.

 

[Drkfathr1]

This logic makes it impossible to evaluate a published adventure at all, doesn't it? The DM can theoretically adjust any shortcoming of a module.

Pretty much yeah, but that's the nature of an RPG, its all in the hands of individual DM's. That's what a DM is supposed to do. Not every published adventure (of any level, in any form) will work with every gaming group or mix of PC's.

Which leads to the main point, Paizo wasn't the problem, the High Level rules were the problem. Paizo could only work with what they had.

 

[Drkfathr1]

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

Thanks for trying to twist my words, but I think I made my point.

Paizo could only work with the rules they had.

 

[dmccoy1693]

No offense to anyone, but I wouldn't blame Paizo for this...I'd blame the DM's.

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

I have to agree with Drkfathr1. Paizo followed the rules and made (and still makes) adventurers that fit the rules. They do not know every last individual DM. If every member of your group multiclassed with the bard because they wanted to also be a travelling group of musicians and write songs about their adventurers, Paizo cannot account for that. The adventure needs modified (toned down) to fit the group. If the group has no one that can find a trap and no one to turn undead, the DM has to compensate with fewer traps and less undead. The adventure needs modified. If the whole group prefers role playing to combat (maybe they should try a white wolf game) and build their character's sub-'optimal' (oh, do I hate that word when referring to RPGs), than the adventure needs modified.

If Paizo provided adventures that were to easy, than they'd be boring and no one would get excited about playing them. They wouldn't be memorable. No, I have to agree. The DM needs to modify every adventure to the specifics of his or her group.

 

[cangrejoide]

Pretty much yeah, but that's the nature of an RPG, its all in the hands of individual DM's. That's what a DM is supposed to do. Not every published adventure (of any level, in any form) will work with every gaming group or mix of PC's.

Which leads to the main point, Paizo wasn't the problem, the High Level rules were the problem. Paizo could only work with what they had.

I agree that every adventure/module needs to be modified by the individual GM, but when is enough? One thing is to modify an encounter, another is to rewrite the full encounter completely. If I am gooing to buy a module I should not be forced to spend too much time modifying it. If I need to rewrite it, I might as well stop buying modules and write them myself.

As for the rules, well yeah Paizo did not write them. They are not at fault for bad rules.

But on their encounter design , did they not exacerbate the 3.5 high level problem?

At the very least they made it very obvious and plain to see for my group, to a point we all decided to stop playing D&D. It actually made us loathe the rule system and made us gravitate toward simpler systems.

 

[cangrejoide]

If Paizo provided adventures that were to easy, than they'd be boring and no one would get excited about playing them. They wouldn't be memorable. No, I have to agree. The DM needs to modify every adventure to the specifics of his or her group.

Easy does not mean boring. The one thing that makes me go back to Paizo adventures are the plots and rich settings. Even now I run AOW under 4E, and yes I have to make full conversion to 4E ( but they only take me like 1/10 of the time I spent doing it under 3.5).

 

[RangerWickett]

What are the non-paizo, high-level adventures that we can compare these to? Can we say that "company X" does high-level 3.5 really well? Does Whiterock or World's Largest Dungeon fix the high-level burnout problem?

For the later adventures in the War of the Burning Sky campaign saga, I tried my best to keep things easy to run. Stat blocks for spellcasting villains included "buff suites" so that it was easy to see what their adjusted stats would be if they had a chance to buff themselves vs. if the PCs caught them by surprise. I polished off the hard edges of a few high-level outsiders, both to make them unique individuals, and to make them easier to run.

Eventually, I clued into making a new creature sub-type, "Unit," which was like a swarm, but for large (25-person) military units. Dealing with four units in a combat is a heck of a lot easier than having 100 individual warriors on a battlefield.

I won't deny, the main villains of the final 6 adventures are all pretty complex foes. I also think they're pretty cool, with interesting set-piece encounters to make them stand out from your typical "fight a dude in a room" combats that left me disappointed with the Savage Tide, no offense to Paizo. When the final fight of a whole campaign, against

Spoiler

the demon lord Demogorgon

takes place in such a dramatic location as

Spoiler

a house on a lake

, I think you're kinda missing out on the potential of high-level gameplay.

For Burning Sky, we had:

Adventure 7 - Ari Marmell wrote this amazing Predator-esque forest battle with a shadowdancer who uses hit and run tactics, ambushes, and huge traps (like using his pet shadow to trick you into going into a field of poisonous flowers, where ghouls hide in the pollen mist). The fight takes you across a half dozen locations as the party tries to outwit an enemy on his home turf.

Adventure 8 - In a magical research facility, your goal is more to wreck the enemy's experiment than to just kill the main villain. The sorcerer running the experiment is safe behind a wall of force, and you've got to survive his minions and break key components of an eldritch machine to get to him. Author Jeremy Anderson was inspired by some of the best elements of WoW raid bosses.

Adventure 9 - You have to stab the heart of a 90-ft. tall animated colossus. Yes, God of War II did it first, but if you're going to steal, steal from the best.

Adventure 10 - The villain has the metaphysical keys necessary to unlock an imprisoned ally, but you fight her in a Labyrinth-esque mansion that follows irrational logic.

Adventure 11 - You take an army onto a mile-long living airship.

Adventure 12 - I'm not sure if anyone noticed this, but the vast cavern where you encounter the final villain is a small scale replica of the map of the entire region where the campaign takes place. The combat has a minor objective in each of the nations you've traveled to so far.