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Message: <blockquote data-quote="brehobit" data-source="post: 5181229" data-attributes="member: 12032">Lots of issues here IMO.When we first started it got really grindy really fast.  Partly due to poor encounter planning, partly due to the elites and solos being a mess, partly due to poor character optimization, and partly due to everyone being slow.As we've learned the system it mostly goes better, but it can still get grindy.  We aren't _that_ experienced (we jump around to different game systems and play a lot of board games so maybe 100 hours total) so some of the same problems exist.But there are problems inherent in the game's design too.  For one, the "mopping up" part just doesn't matter 90% of the time.  In previous editions hit point count and the end of the fight mattered (though with healing sticks, much less so in 3.5).  This leads to people tuning out once the fight is obviously over.  It also means that "easy" fights are fairly boring from the git-go.  Secondly, I find status effects to be tricky to follow.  That said, I found it hard to run any game over 7th level in 3.5 and hard to play above about 13th level: again the status stuff got too hard for me.  As others have noted this is both easier (fewer statuses to worry about for example) and harder (effects tend to come and go rapidly)Thirdly, encounter design is hard.  Not only do you need to create encounters that are challenging and interesting, but you need to watch your grind level.  The early modules did a moderate job at this on the whole (though some were truly outstanding) so at the least the professionals struggle with this too.  Avoiding grind while managing everything else is a bit tricky and it's easy to trade off one thing (interesting encounter that fits in with the plot) vs. grind.  Neither trade is good...</blockquote>

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