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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 5332620" data-attributes="member: 20741">Is there a problem with high level play in Pathfinder? Yes, I think there is. At about 13th-14th level, the game becomes increasingly unplayable. This is not so much a reflection of so called play-balance in the game in and of itself. Instead, this is a reflection of EVERY VERSION of D&D ever released prior to Pathfinder, whereby by the time the PCs get to cast 6th level spells (and definitely by the time they can cast 7th level spells), the power curve renders the whole game into an unplayable state.Pathfinder, like 3.5, is designed for play from levels 1st through 12th. You can carry on past that for a few levels but at 15th, the game turns into full out Four Color Superheroes that no longer bears any resemblance to the fantasy literature which gave rise to D&D in the first place. It has ever been thus; it is not unique to Pathfinder.While 4E is more balanced between characters inter-se at high-levels, I still find the overall power curve suffers from the same inherent defect.  At high levels, D&D is no longer simulating fantasy literature and it does not pretend to. The game becomes a genre unto itself.  I have always hated this aspect of high level pay and I always will, no matter the version of the game under discussion. Pathfinder is no different in this regard than any other version of the game.Healing surges, roles, tabletop movement control, encounter powers and significantly powerful "magical abilities" of non-spell using classes. Put this all together, it has a play style which is more evocative of WoW and CRPGs than previous incarnations of D&D are. To be fair, it's a relative thing, more than an absolutist assessment. People use this analogy in the pejorative more than as a real assessment of the actual game play, imo.The odd player races in the game also are evocative of something other than Tolkien. That does not make the races "like Wow" -- it simply serves to emphasize that the fluff in 4E had the effect of diverging the game from its roots.Both Pathfinder and 4E require the use of a Battlemat and minis. They are no different from 3.xx in this regard, which also assumes the use of a Battlemat and minis. *shrug*Could you? Sure. Like you could in 1E, 2E, 3.xx and 4E, too. As in the case with Pathfinder and ALL of the above examples -- it's a plainly bad idea and is to be avoided. Third printing now, actually. And yes, the errata is cumulative and in the third edition as well. There isn't much of it though and if you want -- ignore it. Your game won't break as a result.The APG has a few issues, but nothing huge at this point. Please appreciate that errata isn't so much a matter of an "error" in the text as much as it is a clarification of language and -- in a few cases -- a reconsideration of the effect of a rule and a deliberate choice made to change it. I would say that your focus seems to be paying too much attention to high level play. There is no reason at all why your Pathfinder campaign cannot be played at the medium experience point track progression for 1 to 1.5 years of weekly gaming before the power curve hits 15th level and it's time to bring the campaign to an end.</blockquote>

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