Advice - Fixing the Escalating Numbers

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Using the Beginner Box rules hugely speeds up combat IME. Taking out attacks of opportunity alone roughly doubles combat speed.

Hmm perhaps I'll have to talk to the GM about removing AoOs to speed up the game and see what he thinks about that. It would suck for my character and the monk in my group as we kind of built up some strategies to take advantage of teamwork abilities and the AoOs. It would make it more "every man for himself" in terms of trying to get a lot of damage output and much less tactical.

 

[kitsune9]

I'm looking for some advice as to how to maybe fix/house-rule things in our PF game.

Current Situation:

Our current game we are all level 4's and we all got together last night to talk about the state of the game and what we wanted to do going forward. The GM is a huge fan of GURPS (which I've never played before) and after we had discussed everything, it was decided that we'd try out that system in the PF setting with the GM converting our characters over to the GURPS characters.

A few other options where thrown out that a couple others could GM games, but then the current GM doesn't really like to play, he loves to GM.

Has anyone else experienced the long combats in D&D 3.x/PF and do they have any advice to give as to how to perhaps shorten the combats so that they don't take most of the night for one encounter? Have you ever switched up systems in the middle of a game that most everyone is enjoying to make things a bit more fun and streamlined? Any advice would be appreciated and sorry for the wall of text!

Trav

I had long combats at high level because of all the options and abilities available. My group and I don't mind it because we like it a lot. However, it's not for everyone and here's some suggestions on making combat shorter:

1. Lower the HD threshold. All classes get the next lower HD. Drop monsters from their current hp to 2/3 or 3/4. Not having to wade through hp will resolve combats significantly quicker. Want to make your combats lightning fast? Increase the damage die to the next step. A greatsword does 2d8 instead of 2d6. A longsword does 1d10 instead of 1d8. Monsters get the same with their natural attacks. With a lower HD threshold and a higher damage output, you'll notice combat speeding up rather quickly.

2. Iterative attacks are capped at 2. At +6 BAB, you get 2 attacks with -2 penalty. This becomes -1 penalty at +11 BAB, and no penalty at +16 BAB.

3. Cap your magic buffing to just three spells. At high levels, parties can easily add on quite a few spells before going into combat. Cap it. Want to make it a lot tougher? Cap it with magic items.

4. Cap saves and HP progression at 10th level. As you gain 11th level or beyond, you no longer gain new hp and your saves no longer increase. This will make the last two modules of any AP very deadly business.

Now you may look at this and feel, "Why bother?" You'd be right if you feel that way by capping everything, but it's one solution to making combat go faster with minimal work. After all, D&D and all its iterations and clones is really about whoever gets to -1 hp first loses the fight. If you lower the HP threshold and increase the damage output that speeds that race up. Also some fights can be anticlimactic because they may end too quick and can usually be decided by which side wins initiative (something that at high level, 3.0 was good at determining).

Though I'm not sure about your GM wanting to trade one complex system for another complex system. GURPS can be really complex if the GM uses a lot of the optional rule sets. I personally like them as it simulates a lot interesting combats, but they are complex. Also, he has a lot of work to convert the AP into GURPS and how to figure out on balancing the encounters. I love to GM, but I don't want to put in that kind of work.

If the GM really doesn't like scaling. He should probably pick up E6 or something like that or convert the AP to C&C or one of the retro clones that emulates BECM.

 

[Tharian]

Having run some high-level one-shot games in the past for systems I wasn't completely fluent in at the time, I would recommend your GM not try that again until a later time. Once a group has gone through the various levels to get to the high level combats, things do more a bit more smoothly as everyone in the group tends to be a lot more familiar with their characters or with the rules in general.

Additionally, I would point out that SS only goes up to around level 15. If the GM was running a level 20 one shot, there's a lot more options that may have been factors in that game than might be available to lower level characters.

Finally, I'd recommend running something homebrew with an eye towards heavier interaction and less focus on combat if the GM isn't pleased with an AP. An AP can only do so much with interaction before combat comes into focus since that will be the most likely (and easily implementable) means of getting characters to level.

Oh, one more thing (Yes, I know I already said finally earlier). If the GM likes slower leveling, switch to the slow advancement track. The AP assumes the use of the medium track, but if a homebrew adventure is being run, nothing prevents the GM from making use of the slow advancement track to keep characters in a given level for a longer period of time.

Best of luck to you. I hope your gaming goes well.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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[blargney the second]

Rather than switching rulesets completely, which is massively disruptive to a campaign, just slam an E6-style hard cap on highest possible level for PCs. It's a remarkably elegant and svelte solution to the sheer gonzoness of high-level D&D.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Great advice from everyone, but it's all for naught now. The GM decided last night to quit after some discussion with the group. One of the members doesn't care for GURPS at all and I was reluctant to go to the conversion. We are now trying to figure out who will take over as the new GM, where to play, and if we want to add another player or two. We have 4 of us who have prior experience at GM'ing so I'm not worried on that front nor about who is going to host since there are at least two of us that would be willing to do so, it just sucks that our GM didn't like the PF system and we are losing him.

 

[Rogue Agent]

I think this all stemmed from when we did a 1-shot with some high level characters and it took us like 2+ hours to resolve a combat encounter.

First: That's not being caused by the escalating numbers. That's being caused by dropping players into a scenario where they aren't familiar with a panoply of options possessed by their characters. This will slow down their decision-making process, which will slow down combat resolution.

Now, the slow accumulation of options as characters level up may cause some people to experience longer "analysis times" at higher levels no matter what. But it still won't be as bad as those same people having all of those options and not being familiar with what they are.

To put it another way: Playing high-level characters you're not familiar with is a lot like learning the rules for a board game you've never played before. That first session with the game/character will be bogged down while you're trying to figure things out.

Has anyone else experienced the long combats in D&D 3.x/PF and do they have any advice to give as to how to perhaps shorten the combats so that they don't take most of the night for one encounter?

The advice at Revisiting Encounter Design is pretty solid.

Another option would be to implement an E6-style solution at whatever level the DM's interest/comfort tops out.

I ran a 4E game last year and ran into the same issues with regards to combat rounds taking longer and longer as the character leveled up. It was like levels 1-10 took an hour per combat, 11-20 took two hours per combat, and 21-30 took three hours per combat.

That sounds like you have a group that, unfortunately, gets bogged down in having lots of different options to choose between. And they're being allowed to dither away the time.

A good way to solve this problem is to literally put an egg-timer on the table: If someone hasn't made a decision about what they're doing when the egg-timer runs out, their action gets delayed and the DM moves on to the next player.

If you're convinced it's the iterative attacks causing the problems, teach your players to use different colored dice to roll all their attacks at once.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

First: That's not being caused by the escalating numbers. That's being caused by dropping players into a scenario where they aren't familiar with a panoply of options possessed by their characters. This will slow down their decision-making process, which will slow down combat resolution.

Now, the slow accumulation of options as characters level up may cause some people to experience longer "analysis times" at higher levels no matter what. But it still won't be as bad as those same people having all of those options and not being familiar with what they are.

To put it another way: Playing high-level characters you're not familiar with is a lot like learning the rules for a board game you've never played before. That first session with the game/character will be bogged down while you're trying to figure things out.

I totally agree with you here and we talked it over after the game, and it was agreed upon that was most of the issue. I think it just made the DM think more about the game in general and the mechanics of this system. It wasn't too hard for me with my character in the combat because I could only really cast a spell and my turn was over. For the other two, they had more attacks and one of the guys had a mount with a bunch of attacks as well, so that just slowed us way down when trying to resolve their attacks every round.

The advice at Revisiting Encounter Design is pretty solid.

Another option would be to implement an E6-style solution at whatever level the DM's interest/comfort tops out.

Solid advice.

That sounds like you have a group that, unfortunately, gets bogged down in having lots of different options to choose between. And they're being allowed to dither away the time.

A good way to solve this problem is to literally put an egg-timer on the table: If someone hasn't made a decision about what they're doing when the egg-timer runs out, their action gets delayed and the DM moves on to the next player.

If you're convinced it's the iterative attacks causing the problems, teach your players to use different colored dice to roll all their attacks at once.

When I DM'd that 4E game, it wasn't them being bogged down by all the options. It was all the conditions that go flying around, especially at higher levels. I don't know if you've ever DM'd or played in 4E, but that's my biggest problem with the system. Everything scales well, but when you have to track 18 different conditions on multiple PCs and NPCs, that's when things start to get hairy and when combat slows down. Then there are the interrupts that players can do the if/then scenarios that happen such as when BBEG #1 moves into PC #2's face to attack, PC #3 says "Wait, I get to do this now...." and that has to be resolved. I'm not knocking systems here, just giving my observations and I did enjoy 4E immensely, I just had to get used to it.

 

[TreChriron]

Hi, I'm Trent the GM of the Game T is talking about. I wanted to pop in and share a couple things.

I was not having fun running the PF game. Not because of my players, they all rock on on toast. But because as a 30+ year veteran I've grown tired of D&D (clones, derivatives) and all the baggage I perceive comes with it. For many, it's NOT baggage, it's features. We had an awesome discussion via Google+ Hangouts and talked over stuff. One player (let's call him S) felt that a) switching systems is not ideal and would kill the game and b) GURPS was not his cup of tea. Then T (OP) also expressed his concern about GURPS. T likes PF and has a serious investment into it, why change systems?!?! (good point, huh?)

With the real possibility of S leaving the game, and the switch ruining the game, I did some soul searching. All the players in the game like PF. One of the players has a degree in it for crying out loud! I didn't want to lose this awesome group but in many ways I didn't deserve them. I don't like PF but everyone else does! Why blow up a whole group for one person? It didn't make sense to me. In essence I pulled a bait and switch. It was not my intention; I really wanted to run PF because of it's popularity. But It wasn't fair to these awesome players. It only made sense for me to start something new and have these guys form their own PF group and keep playing.

The new GM is a creative and savvy guy, I'm sure the game is in good hands, and I'm sure they are going to have fun. They have a couple new players on the hook, and I donated all my PF books and some supplemental aids to the cause. It was the least I could do.

I'm going to play some GURPS and then work on creating a group that focuses on non-D&D non-"indie story" games. It may take me longer to form a group, but I have to be honest from here on out. I know what I like now, what I want, and I won't compromise that anymore.

PF is a great game. The quality of the books is superb. It's not my thing, but it's not bad by any stretch. I think this is win-win for everyone and I'm very glad I made this decision. I already miss these guys tremendously, but I'm satisfied knowing they have an awesome game to play in.

Wow. He doesn't like the number crunching in PF and wants to go to GURPS instead? I would guess the real problem is he prefers a certain kind of number crunching and combat grind than another kind...
...

Yeah. It's not number crunching that bothers me, it's escalating numbers and complexity. With GURPS it starts at the complexity level I design and stays there unless I add in more options. It's not really combat or number crunching. It's style. PF is not my preferred style of system or play. I am more a simulationist sandbox-ish character-centric GM. GURPS supports the style of game I prefer to run. Again, not saying PF is a bad game. It's just a bad game for me.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Hey @TreChriron! See you decided to pop up and add your feelings about the PF stuff. I came on here to see what advice prior to when we decided to split the group off and see what others thought of the ideas that we had bandied back and forth. I thought it was a dead thread until I got noticed today that someone else had replied to me.

I also have to say that Trent is a great GM (actually one of the best I've had the privilege to play with) and I understand his frustrations with the system we were running. I actually have to thank him for introducing me to the group (a great bunch of guys) and to Pathfinder. I hadn't played this system until I joined the group and grew to love it the more I played it and the more I got into the crunch and fluff. So I don't feel like he pulled a bait and switch on us, I feel he just figured out what he really wanted in a system and went with his heart. I cannot fault him for that. Once you get to a certain point in your life it's about having fun and not wasting time doing something that isn't fun to you and I respect that Trent decided that the game wasn't for him and decided to move on from it to something that he did want to do and play.

It was also totally awesome of Trent to donate the stuff he had to the group and the current GM is putting it to great use, we've been having a lot of conversations on the game in general and I'm helping out wherever I can to make the transition from player to GM easier for him.

I wish Trent only the best as he moves forward with his own game system which he is developing and his quest to find a GURPS group.

Some more good news on the part of my current group. We found two other guys who we've invited into the group. I found them off penandpapergames.com and three of the group members met up with them on Saturday at a local Starbucks. They seemed really cool and like they'd be a good fit. Unfortunately they won't be joining us for a couple of weeks as one of them is moving this weekend and the other is helping him out (they are good friends). This Saturday, we'll have to play with our current 5 people and just add them in the next time which shouldn't be too much of a problem. It also gives them a bit more time to get their characters together and get them to the new GM.