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

[Erik Mona]

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.

Jason would be a better person to answer this, but from what I have read and played so far I'd say that the biggest changes come from additional combat options for warrior types (usually accessed through feats) that allow them to stay "competitive" with their spellcasting brethren and a LOT of subtly changed spells. Someone above mentioned disjunction, and dispel magic/greater dispel is another example. This type of spell requires a ton of additional die rolls that grind the game to a halt, so those have been simplified somewhat. Also, most (if not all) "save or die" spells are gone.

There are a lot more changes along these lines, but an overview will have to wait until I'm a little more familiar with them. Jason only finished his primary design on Monday, after all!

 

[Krensky]

Ever seen 6 epic PCs caught in a Disjunction?

End of the session right there. 45 minutes of rolling saves, and another hour of recalculating sheets... Surprise round plus half a round of combat - and time to go home.

Brutal.

PS

Well, eight. Took an hour (with a fudge of checking magical ammo in 5 shot units), and resulted in two explosions (artifacts of the villian) and three PCs up to their eyebrows in arrows from disjuncted quivers.

Of course this was in 2e, so I'm not really sure how this is an issue with 3e. Disjunction's always been a great idea on paper and in character, but a bad idea at the table. We still kid the DM for making us 'waste' an hour in the climactic fight of the game for it.

Granted, this was also the game that featured a weaponized Instant Fortress (twice), so he probably had some frustration to unload on us.

 

[Erik Mona]

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.

Well, as long as we're painting with broad brushes, I'll say that the people who seem most critical of what we're doing are the ones who think the entire system must be destroyed in order to make it any fun at all.

Obviously, both "camps" (are they camps?) are a little strung out on hyperbole and often don't attempt very hard to see the other point of view.

All of the things you listed in your list of irreparably broken items are things that Jason has addressed in one form or another in the Pathfinder rules. Granted some of these changes didn't happen until the playtest and thus are not public yet, but they have been addressed.

Have they been addressed to your satisfaction? Reading your posts I'd have to say "probably not," but then I strongly suspect you are not in the target audience of Pathfinder anyway, since you obviously hated 3.5. Lots of us didn't, but that doesn't mean that we're immune to its flaws.

Contrary to your sweeping generalization, I think the most commonly heard criticism from people who _are_ excited about Pathfinder is that they're worried about the unbalanced nature of high-level play. "Fixing" these issues while remaining true to our compatibility goals will of course be the real trick.

Will we push things too far from the 3.5 core to appeal to the 3.5 die-hards? Will our changes be enough to get people who have given up on 3.5 to give Pathfinder a look?

We won't know that until this upcoming August, at the earliest. All I can do as a publisher is put the very best people on the job and trust that they will do excellent work. I can prod them on one direction or the other, but I've got to trust them.

And I do. I'm enormously pleased with what Jason and the thousands of playtesters have been able to bring us, and I am now looking forward to high-level play in a way that I never did in the era of "straight" 3.0 or 3.5.

 

[ProfessorPain]

Well, as long as we're painting with broad brushes, I'll say that the people who seem most critical of what we're doing are the ones who think the entire system must be destroyed in order to make it any fun at all.

Obviously, both "camps" (are they camps?) are a little strung out on hyperbole and often don't attempt very hard to see the other point of view.

All of the things you listed in your list of irreparably broken items are things that Jason has addressed in one form or another in the Pathfinder rules. Granted some of these changes didn't happen until the playtest and thus are not public yet, but they have been addressed.

Have they been addressed to your satisfaction? Reading your posts I'd have to say "probably not," but then I strongly suspect you are not in the target audience of Pathfinder anyway, since you obviously hated 3.5. Lots of us didn't, but that doesn't mean that we're immune to its flaws.

Contrary to your sweeping generalization, I think the most commonly heard criticism from people who _are_ excited about Pathfinder is that they're worried about the unbalanced nature of high-level play. "Fixing" these issues while remaining true to our compatibility goals will of course be the real trick.

Will we push things too far from the 3.5 core to appeal to the 3.5 die-hards? Will our changes be enough to get people who have given up on 3.5 to give Pathfinder a look?

We won't know that until this upcoming August, at the earliest. All I can do as a publisher is put the very best people on the job and trust that they will do excellent work. I can prod them on one direction or the other, but I've got to trust them.

And I do. I'm enormously pleased with what Jason and the thousands of playtesters have been able to bring us, and I am now looking forward to high-level play in a way that I never did in the era of "straight" 3.0 or 3.5.

Here are the key things to my enjoyment of 3E:

1) Flexible Mutliclassing System- For me, this is what 3E was all about. Being able to take a level of fighter here, a level of rogue there, etc; without too much difficulty.

2) Skill Ranks and plenty of Skills- I like to play rogues, and I couldn't stand the changes to the skill system that first appeared in Star Wars Saga. I like being able to take ranks in skills, and having a large number of skills to choose from.

3) Impressive magic- Sometimes it became unbalanced, but I much prefer impressive magic over nurfed but balanced magic. But I was always one of those players who felt starting out weak, and slowly becoming powerful was a tradeoff that made the class balanced.

Things I don't like about 3E

1) Stacking rules. These got pretty ridiculous by 3.5, and really became a headache for everyone. Plus there were just too many parenthetical types of everything

2) Broken feats and prestige class abilities. I wouldn't mind if 3pp publishers released feats and prestige classes that broke the game, but the majority of them came from Wizards. This made it hard as a GM to dissallow classes, feats or spells that were clearly broken when combined with existing classes, feats or spells. This doesn't mean I want everyone to be the same exact power level. Its okay to have some builds that are better than others. That was one of the things that made character design so exciting. But if a build exists that can dish out 120 points of damage by 3rd level in a single round, something is wrong.

3) Not enough modules or DM support. There just weren't enough modules being released by Wizards for 3E. Back in the 80s with AD&D, my favorite thing to do at the book store was browse the modules and campaign settings for something cool to purchase. As a DM this really fired up my imagination. Also books like the guide to Villains and Campaign Cartographer were great. And who didn't love reading the Van Richten Guides. Stuff like that was missing, until the final year or so of 3E. I know there are more players than DMs in any group, so it makes sense to put out more material for players to buy. But if you help the DM make a kick ass campaign world or a superb adventure, you keep people in the game. Sure put out some splat stuff; but I really think things like the Van Richten guides are better models for what both DMs and Players would buy. You could have a whole line of monster hunting books (Guide to Dragons, Guide to Greenskins, Guide to Demons), that give players character ideas and hunting strategies and give DMs material to use in an adventure and interesting twists.

 

[Elodan]

Jason would be a better person to answer this, but from what I have read and played so far I'd say that the biggest changes come from additional combat options for warrior types (usually accessed through feats) that allow them to stay "competitive" with their spellcasting brethren and a LOT of subtly changed spells. Someone above mentioned disjunction, and dispel magic/greater dispel is another example. This type of spell requires a ton of additional die rolls that grind the game to a halt, so those have been simplified somewhat. Also, most (if not all) "save or die" spells are gone.

There are a lot more changes along these lines, but an overview will have to wait until I'm a little more familiar with them. Jason only finished his primary design on Monday, after all!

Sorry to derail this thread slightly. I haven't been to the Paizo boards in a while (overwhelmed by the design forums). Do you have plans to do some previews to highlight some of the changes before it's final release?

Thanks.

 

[Primal]

Sorry to derail this thread slightly. I haven't been to the Paizo boards in a while (overwhelmed by the design forums). Do you have plans to do some previews to highlight some of the changes before it's final release?

Thanks.

Well, I'm not Erik, but I think Jason mentioned that some of the changes will be featured as previews in the Paizo Blog.

 

[joethelawyer]

Jason would be a better person to answer this, but from what I have read and played so far I'd say that the biggest changes come from additional combat options for warrior types (usually accessed through feats) that allow them to stay "competitive" with their spellcasting brethren and a LOT of subtly changed spells. Someone above mentioned disjunction, and dispel magic/greater dispel is another example. This type of spell requires a ton of additional die rolls that grind the game to a halt, so those have been simplified somewhat. Also, most (if not all) "save or die" spells are gone.

There are a lot more changes along these lines, but an overview will have to wait until I'm a little more familiar with them. Jason only finished his primary design on Monday, after all!

Thanks for taking the time to respond, Erik. I look forward to hearing more about it as we get closer.

 

[Primal]

I'm saying that there are issues with 3E, but some people like the system enough that those issues don't matter. Pathfinder from what we've seen is not dealing with those issues, saying that they are, and people to whom these issues don't matter rejoice about the "fixed" system.

Well, as Erik has said, a lot has changed from the Beta rules. As it has been a fairly common subject on the playtest boards, I'm sure that Jason and the others have thought really hard about how to improve playability at high levels.

In my group, we've really embraced the Beta rules, and it feels like a breath of fresh air. Not only that, but Paizo is putting out so many quality "must-have" products this year (e.g. Cities of Golarion, Classic Horrors Revisited, Dwarves of Golarion, Legacy of Fire AP, Council of Thieves AP, etc.) that I'm going to be a very happy DM (although financially I'll be deeply in debt).

 

[Mercule]

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

Paizo AP: No.

This. I home-brewed my campaign through 15-16th level and got burned out. An AP might actually have kept me going.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Try to deal with this a bit at a time.

Well, as long as we're painting with broad brushes, I'll say that the people who seem most critical of what we're doing are the ones who think the entire system must be destroyed in order to make it any fun at all.

Obviously, both "camps" (are they camps?) are a little strung out on hyperbole and often don't attempt very hard to see the other point of view.

Fair enough, though I consider myself a more educated 3.5E player than you might give me credit for. I was a 3.5E player exclusively during the lifetime of that edition(I missed most of 3.0E), was the DM 80% of the time, and I was the guy in our group who, either as player or DM, knew how the system ticked and how to make it dance.

All of the things you listed in your list of irreparably broken items are things that Jason has addressed in one form or another in the Pathfinder rules. Granted some of these changes didn't happen until the playtest and thus are not public yet, but they have been addressed.

I don't think I ever used the words irreparably broken. My meaning was to introduce a number of things that bog down the game. I would use the phrase more hassle then they're worth in place of irreparably broken.

Have they been addressed to your satisfaction? Reading your posts I'd have to say "probably not," but then I strongly suspect you are not in the target audience of Pathfinder anyway, since you obviously hated 3.5. Lots of us didn't, but that doesn't mean that we're immune to its flaws.

I'm not in the target audience of Pathfinder, but I wouldn't say I hate 3.5E. Frustrated maybe, and preferring alternatives(4E and 2E) definitely. I certainly didn't hate it when I was playing it three times a week. As for being immune to flaws, its more of a case of forgiving flaws. People who are 3.5E junkies regularly forgive its flaws. I'm a 4E junkie, and I forgive the fact that the game is nowhere near as fast as I want it to be. Forgiving flaws doesn't lessen them or make them not exist. 3.5Es and 4Es flaws are still flaws.

Contrary to your sweeping generalization, I think the most commonly heard criticism from people who _are_ excited about Pathfinder is that they're worried about the unbalanced nature of high-level play. "Fixing" these issues while remaining true to our compatibility goals will of course be the real trick.

Will we push things too far from the 3.5 core to appeal to the 3.5 die-hards? Will our changes be enough to get people who have given up on 3.5 to give Pathfinder a look?

We won't know that until this upcoming August, at the earliest. All I can do as a publisher is put the very best people on the job and trust that they will do excellent work. I can prod them on one direction or the other, but I've got to trust them.

And I do. I'm enormously pleased with what Jason and the thousands of playtesters have been able to bring us, and I am now looking forward to high-level play in a way that I never did in the era of "straight" 3.0 or 3.5.

It is the real trick, isn't it. My issues would be this:

1. I don't hate 3.5E, and would be interested to look at a fix I could believe in.

2. I had enough bad experiences with the system as it is that I'm not impressed by minor tweaks.

3. I am a systems guy, somebody who lurked on the CharOp boards, and not only knew the tricks, I understood how and why they were tricks. Any new system or fix is viewed through these eyes, which are by definition a lot more critical.

4. Knowing the exploits of 3.5E, when I was playing/DMing it, the specter of the game breaking always hung over my gaming experience. I knew the game could be broken, I knew personally how to break it, and I gamed with people who were more than willing to break it. I witnessed the game being broken on many occasions. I broke it myself in some of those instances, as the competitive spirit in me demanded that if one of the other players was going to break the game, I was going to break it harder. I game with people who played to be spotlight hogs and to "beat" the DM. Personally, I play the game to kick ass, and other players using CharOp to break the game raises the bar for kicking ass.

5. Backwards compatibility--When I played 3.5E, we used a good deal of books. To me, 3.5e just isn't 3.5e without the pile of splats, and I can't imagine playing the game without the Warlock, PHBII, Tome of Battle, or Psionics. Combine this with my systems guru mentality, and the little differences bother me, as would having to tweak books I would plan on using.

6. If we were to start up a new game of OGL/3.5E without the Spell Compendium, our group would experience World War III. Fixing spells kind of loses its luster when you have to limit yourself to the PHB/Pathfinder book, or tweak/limit the Spell Compendium. Its been a while since I've looked at the Beta, but while you say you've toned down save or dies, what about save or suck? Save or Suck spells were usually worse offenders then the killing ones.