D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 Scaling Issues - What are your thoughts?

[Brute]

Hi there, hope this is the right place to post this. I've been playing 3.5 for about a decade, becoming interested in picking up Pathfinder but wanted to run a few concerns I have (not with Pathfinder specifically, but 3.5 generally) before I spent more money!

So my concern is with the changing play of 3.5 as PCs increase in level. It seems to me that:

1 - As PCs level up the game becomes less "realistic" (if I can use that term to describe a fantasy game!). A 100ft fall becomes less and less of a problem to a Fighter as he approaches double level digits despite not having a way of mitigating falls (like a Monk's slow fall). I guess it's just hard for me to justify a PC falling that far and just picking himself up. Fire as well (RAW) becomes laughable.

2 - Skill ranks rise so high that PCs can accomplish incredible feats with ease - and worse, when setting DCs I have to expect that either A) one player will instantly succeed, or B) only one player will have a shot at success.

3 - The characters drift further and further apart, both in terms of low level characters being unable to adventure with higher level characters.

Now of course there are a few obvious answers. To #1 I could just go the 4e route and dynamically level everything (players don't roll balance on grease anymore, but super-fey-grease) but several of my players prefer a more static levelled world (like the sandboxes of yore). #3 is easily solved by simply not having mixed-level parties. I'm not sure about #2!

Anyways, perhaps I'm having a crisis of faith, I don't know - just some thoughts I've been having. As a disclaimer - I own and enjoy books from 3rd right up to 4e Essentials and enjoy all of 'em.

What are your thoughts on these scaling issues? Oh - it occurs to me I should mention I have heard about (and played) E6, but for the purpose of this discussion let's assume I want to play 1-20. Thanks!

 

[Dandu]

High level 3.5 games are for superheroes.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

1 - As PCs level up the game becomes less "realistic" (if I can use that term to describe a fantasy game!). A 100ft fall becomes less and less of a problem to a Fighter as he approaches double level digits despite not having a way of mitigating falls (like a Monk's slow fall). I guess it's just hard for me to justify a PC falling that far and just picking himself up. Fire as well (RAW) becomes laughable.

Stuff like this is why I don't buy the Hit Points Are Abstract philosophy. In my mind, HPs represent a kind of magical trauma absorber. If a character survives a mile-high fall, it's because he's so magically bad[MENTION=40136]SS[/MENTION] that no bones were broken, no organs liquified, etc.

D&D is a magical world, so it follows that the heroes who live there are magical too. Want to play a realistic character? Be a dirt farmer, and watch the magic action heroes go on adventures.

2 - Skill ranks rise so high that PCs can accomplish incredible feats with ease - and worse, when setting DCs I have to expect that either A) one player will instantly succeed, or B) only one player will have a shot at success.

There's no fix for this, without some kind of universal skill bonus like 4e has. You could institute a house rule to that effect for 3.x.

 

[Greenfield]

3 - The characters drift further and further apart, both in terms of low level characters being unable to adventure with higher level characters.

We have a couple of solutions for this.

First, new characters join the game one level lower than the current lowest in the party.

Second, we use an EXP system recommended by Monte Cook:

Say you have 5 characters, leveled at 9, 10, 11, 11, and 14.

When calculating Exp, calculate as if everyone were 9th level, (which is to say, as if there were 5 9th level PCs facing the challenges. Total up the numbers and divide by 5). Award the result to the 9th level PC.

Now do it again as if everyone were 10th level, and award the result to the 10th level PC.

Do it again as if everyone were 11th, and give each of the 11th levels their share.

And finally, do it as if they were all 14th level, and give the 14th their share.

The 9th will end up getting almost twice the Exp of the 11th levels, and almost five times as much as the 14th level PC. Look at the Exp awards table in the DMG, and you'll see what I mean.

The net effect is that it will tend to close up the level difference, in a way that makes sense: An encounter that's a walk-over for the 14th level type can be tough for the 11th levels, seriously challenging for the 10th level, and downright death-defying for the 9th level character.

Regarding Skill Ranks: They're still limited to Level +3 as the maximum. The difference is that more and more Synergy bonuses will begin to come into play, and ability scores will rise.

So common locks will become easier for your master thie..., er, "locksmith", and stealthy opponents will find it harder and harder to escape the Ranger's watchful eye.

Over all, you can effectively level the world up, in a way that makes logical sense, by having the campaign's base of operations shift over time. They leave The Shire (low level farming community) as they outgrow the local challenges, and find that there are unexpected dangers as they move farther afield. Wraiths might spring up at the Prancing Pony, for example, and they could have a terrifying night encounter while camping in the hills.

So it's not that the world gets to be higher level as they do, they just discover that it's bigger than they realized, and that it always was higher level than they are.

 

[Visigani]

There's a relatively easy fix for this (the whole HP thing).

Trained and Untrained HP damage.

Trained HP damage is damage the fighter, barbarian, whatever is trained to handle. This is the overwhelming majority of damage,...from weapons, magic, etc etc... but then there's untrained damage such as a critical hit or falling from X number of feat. Untrained HP is based on your con bonus x level. A level 4 barbarian with +3 to con score would have 12 of these points.

Here's how it works in game. If your hero takes untrained HP damage sufficient to push him to -1 then he's effectively at -1 as applies normally and drops.

Untrained HP is for things such as sneak attacks, critical hits, falling damage, environmental damage (like how the hell are you going to walk out of molten lava with zero protection?), and so forth. Standard combat damage is trained.

You may wish to adjust the damage values of things such as the sneak attack to keep it in line with the realities of the con score.

 

[Tovec]

Stuff like this is why I don't buy the Hit Points Are Abstract philosophy. In my mind, HPs represent a kind of magical trauma absorber. If a character survives a mile-high fall, it's because he's so magically bad @SS that no bones were broken, no organs liquified, etc.

D&D is a magical world, so it follows that the heroes who live there are magical too. Want to play a realistic character? Be a dirt farmer, and watch the magic action heroes go on adventures.

See Dandu's "High level 3.5 games are for superheroes."

There's no fix for this, without some kind of universal skill bonus like 4e has. You could institute a house rule to that effect for 3.x.

Since the OP did mention it, Pathfinder does do a better job of balancing skills but I do feel there is more work to be done. That's true about most things from 3.5 vs PF but I digress. In PF you simply get less skill ranks, but similar bonuses. While you may encounter the "one person will automatically get this" syndrome, the chances of it are a little more limited due to the new skill ranks. What also occurs is more people may have a higher bonus on off (cross-classed) skills than in 3.5 which means it means you can effectively make it challenging to everyone, not just one person.

 

[Duke Arioch]

The way I see it, D&D characters are extraordinary persons. While NPCs usually have stats ranging from 8-11, we have silly barbarians starting with STR/CON 20. In terms of IRL power, said barbarian could easily flip over a bus. So, why not survive and shrug off puny damage he would get from a 100ft fall? Not to mention uber-genius wizard with starting INT 20, who can consume their enemies "with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse" XD
Approaching double digits, our heroes would get 2 stat increases. Now, add a magic item for another +2, stat enhancing spells (mind that they might not stack), and the aforementioned bus becomes a ship.
And, then, ask yourself, how many hits with a greatsword would kill you, or me, or anyone else. I would say one would be pretty effective. And, here we have heroes prancing around with 135 arrows stuck in their ass, a longsword imbedded in their hearts and/or livers and an ax stuck in their skull.
The point is, 1st level D&D character MIGHT actually be realistic. Maybe second. After that, they are heroes, and damn well on the way to becoming gods.

P.S. Skill system in SW saga edition is good. Skills in general in 3.5 were tedious thing, and any change to that system is a welcome one IMO. What I do in my games is, merging similar skills into a group skill (hide+move silently=stealth, listen+spot=perception, jump+tumble=acrobatics, etc.). In some cases (acrobatics) players use different ability bonus for different tasks (STR for jump, DEX for tumble). Players find this a good houserule, as it cuts rolls in half in most cases.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I would say it's not an artifact of D&D even, that if you have characters with levels, those at high level should be able to influence the world much more than those at low level. That's not a flaw.

If you want to play a (non-4e) game to 20th level, you can accept that the characters will achieve godly power and play that out. Another way of handling things is to move the characters to the godly realms; extraplanar adventures are a common feature of high-level play and you can change the scale of dice rolls accordingly.

1 - As PCs level up the game becomes less "realistic" (if I can use that term to describe a fantasy game!). A 100ft fall becomes less and less of a problem to a Fighter as he approaches double level digits despite not having a way of mitigating falls (like a Monk's slow fall). I guess it's just hard for me to justify a PC falling that far and just picking himself up. Fire as well (RAW) becomes laughable.

I've found vitality/wound solves these kinds of issues fairly well. If you say that falling damage goes straight to wound (and that wound is not level-based), a 100 ft. fall will at least severely injure even a high level fighter. Unless of course he has feather fall in some form. The same goes for starvation, as high-level characters being able to go months without food is equally ridiculous, albeit unlikely to actually happen.

2 - Skill ranks rise so high that PCs can accomplish incredible feats with ease - and worse, when setting DCs I have to expect that either A) one player will instantly succeed, or B) only one player will have a shot at success.

You could give high-level PCs a small generic bonus on all skill checks (say starting at level 11, give a bonus equal to character level - 10). Or you could accept that this is the case. Or you could loosen up the class skill rules, award more skill points, and let anyone be at least decent at anything they care to be.

3 - The characters drift further and further apart, both in terms of low level characters being unable to adventure with higher level characters.

Aragorn adventuring with hobbits can be fun. If you don't want that, you're right that you should just avoid mixed-level parties. The system is robust enough to handle significant differences between characters, but more than a couple of levels is pushing it.

 

[kitcik]

If these things bother you, I suggest an E6 game.

After 6th level, you only gain feats and don't advance any more levels.

 

[Buugipopuu]

we have silly barbarians starting with STR/CON 20. In terms of IRL power, said barbarian could easily flip over a bus.

No. A Str 20 character has a carrying capacity of 400 lbs, and can lift double that over his head. A London Routemaster weighs 14,000 lbs, and to lift one over one's head, you'd need 41 Str. Easily flipping one needs several points more than that.

D&D characters are strong, but even ones based on the Elite array (or 4d6 drop lowest) and with PC class levels don't really get superhuman without magical assistance until level 5 at the earliest.

P.S. Skill system in SW saga edition is good. Skills in general in 3.5 were tedious thing, and any change to that system is a welcome one IMO. What I do in my games is, merging similar skills into a group skill (hide+move silently=stealth, listen+spot=perception, jump+tumble=acrobatics, etc.). In some cases (acrobatics) players use different ability bonus for different tasks (STR for jump, DEX for tumble). Players find this a good houserule, as it cuts rolls in half in most cases.

Merging similar skills is nice in theory, but what it tends to do is make the best skills better and leave the bad skills as still bad. Hide, move silently, listen, spot, jump and tumble were already some of the best skills (mainly due to them applying in combat), so the last thing you need to do to them is make them cost half as much. If you want to cut down on skill types, roll things that people rarely take into each other, like Appraise or Forgery.

Merging Jump and Tumble doesn't even reduce the amount of bloat on your character sheet, as you still need to record two modifiers due to the different ability scores being applied.