D&D 4E Is Pathfinder Combat As Slow as 4e?

[Celtavian]

re

So just wading into this from the perspective of a long time DM on both editions (less with PF, but it's combat is similar enough to 3e). PF has some great resolutions for minor encounters, one hit and that skeleton is dead...well re-dead (or whatever ), where in 4e it usually takes 3-4 hits to drop the same regular foe. One thing I like in 4e is minions, they add a bunch of easy to take out bad guys, but they're mostly trivial to deal with (so many area effect powers). Now... at a higher level I find 4e to be much smoother as in 3.5e once you got to 12th or 13th level before every battle (especially in a Paizo AP, those damn meat grinders) the PC's would spend forever buffing themselves and we all had to sit around while the mage/priest figured out their new stats. Oh and I hate save or die.

That's just me but I hate it as a DM because players could insta-kill the BBEG and you get a nice anti-climax, or if I use it on a PC and they die because of one low roll, they more than a bit annoyed that their two year played PC is gone, especially the genasi PC I had for my longest campaign...

So I find that PF is nice and for many encounters can be completed in 2-3 rounds, in 4e I find most fights are down to 4-6 rounds. Larger encounters are another story, but yeah.

Are there any one round save or die spells in Pathfinder still? They eliminated most of them I believe.

Power Word Kill still works for under 100 hit points. I know that.

Most spells are hit point damage now I believe.

To counter some of the save or die abilities I took an idea from 4E and applied it to Pathfinder for BBEG encounters. Some of the monster design ideas in 4E were very intelligent. I give the BBEG a huge number of hit points. Like way beyond what they could have if I built them with the rules.

I feel that 4E's monster design when it came to BBEGs hit points took into account that the battle is often 4 or 5 on one. With five possible sources of damage directed at one source. Though 4E did fail to make BBEGs damage lethal enough to threaten parties with healing from healers and healing surges as well as multiple abilities that acted as healing surges. Damage output has to be high enough to make an encounter challenging as well as the ability to take damage.

But back to the original subject.

I now give BBEGs obscene hit points to make them a sufficient challenge to a party buffed up and capable of dealing massive damage. Like ancient dragons I give 1000 plus hit points. BBEG evil liches we're talking 300 to 400 hit points. Huge legendary beasts 300 to 400 hit points even at CR 6 or 7. I really beef up hit points.

Pathfinder does a better job than 4E of ensuring BBEGs can deal out lethal damage at a rate equal to or higher than the PCs. But they do a poor job of ensuring their BBEGs can take the damage coming against them from four or five possible sources.

So combining 4Es hit point design for BBEGs and Pathfinder's damage design for BBEG, I now have BBEGs that make my players frightened. That's what I was shooting for. I want them to feel like they had a knock down, drag out, edge of death fight on their hands when they fight a BBEG. I don't want some lucky crits or simple death spells taking the BBEG out too quickly. Since they converted almost every death spell to damage, this BBEG design works even better.

I think I've found the best possible design idea for BBEGs by combining 4E and Pathfinder BBEG design.

 

[IronWolf]

One thing I like in 4e is minions, they add a bunch of easy to take out bad guys, but they're mostly trivial to deal with (so many area effect powers).

I think a minion-type aspect is pretty easy to drop into a Pathfinder game as well. Drop in a critter, lower its hit points a bit and you are getting close. Especially if we are talking higher levels where a higher level party encounters some standard orcs they need to wade through. They should clear through those quite quickly.

In 3.x games our DM has had us facing numerous undead before and when the wizard starting throwing fireballs he would just X off a bunch off his sheet assuming that even a failed save would not have kept them from falling.

Minions is one of those things I think can be reproduced pretty easily under either the 3.x or Pathfinder rulesets.

Now... at a higher level I find 4e to be much smoother as in 3.5e once you got to 12th or 13th level before every battle (especially in a Paizo AP, those damn meat grinders) the PC's would spend forever buffing themselves and we all had to sit around while the mage/priest figured out their new stats.

This certainly can be a problem. For my characters I nearly always have a second page of stats done in Word that reflect the typical buffs he receives. A cleric I used to run had several combinations of buffs listed. So at the beginning of a combat I just had to find the right heading that had the typical buffs and I immediately knew what my saves, attacks and damage were at a glance because I had done the work at home not at the game table.

Oh and I hate save or die.

That's just me but I hate it as a DM because players could insta-kill the BBEG and you get a nice anti-climax, or if I use it on a PC and they die because of one low roll, they more than a bit annoyed that their two year played PC is gone, especially the genasi PC I had for my longest campaign...

Are there any one round save or die spells in Pathfinder still? They eliminated most of them I believe.

Power Word Kill still works for under 100 hit points. I know that.

Most spells are hit point damage now I believe.

Yeah - I think most of the save or die spells have been replaced with large hit point damage spells. Power Word Kill only works on targets that have less than 100hp as you noted. So one would have had to wear down most opponents, not open the fight with that spell.

 

[renau1g]

I think a minion-type aspect is pretty easy to drop into a Pathfinder game as well. Drop in a critter, lower its hit points a bit and you are getting close. Especially if we are talking higher levels where a higher level party encounters some standard orcs they need to wade through. They should clear through those quite quickly.

In 3.x games our DM has had us facing numerous undead before and when the wizard starting throwing fireballs he would just X off a bunch off his sheet assuming that even a failed save would not have kept them from falling.

Minions is one of those things I think can be reproduced pretty easily under either the 3.x or Pathfinder rulesets.

Yeah, minion types in PF/3.5 is easy, heck at first level most enemies seem that way

I was more commenting that they're an excellent way to have more enemies without increasing the length of combat. Now, re: PF combat vs 4e combat length I find that PF encounters tend to be more on the smaller side, i.e. a fight with a Dire Boar or a trio of goblins may be normal for PF, where 4e tends to have fewer but larger battles. Again, this is my experience playing through a couple of the PF AP's and reading through a few of them. (I love Kingmaker, I converted it to 4e for certain players here) Neither is better IMO, just different. 4e embraces tactical combat and the war-gaming roots a bit more than PF, which I find has better character customization rules and a very developed rules-set. CMB/CMD was a great addition IMO also. So...if you like the tactical combat nature of 4e, then you will likely not have an issue with the combat length (which on average will be longer than PF). Personally that's a big thing for me, I just love that aspect of 4e, just like I love Shining Force and FF tactics (my favourite video games).

Now, one thing that I love about PF is Paizo. They are far, far superior to WotC when it comes to fluff, story-writing, and interesting NPCs. I maintain a sub for their AP's just to have access to that.

From a DM perspective I find 4e to be much easier at higher levels to DM, similar to the PC buffs, higher level enemy NPC's had the same, so I needed to work out all the bonuses, etc. for the enemies and then hope a dispel magic spell wasn't cast. The monster builder helps a lot for 4e also as I have all the monsters at my finger tips. So anyways... not sure where I was going, but I don't find either one to be too long, YMMV of course.

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

I personally don't have a problem with anything and everything being slow, in either PF or 4E. That is to say, it's fine with me if it is slow. I pretty well love every aspect of RPGs, so if things move a little slower that's just more time for me to savor it.

Admittedly, my view on this has changed significantly since I started playing online almost exclusively. Since there's not an actual 'session' in PbP, there's no hurry to get through the encounters so one can finish up the adventure in a given session. If I'd been able to get this perspective back when I was gaming face to face on a regular basis - the recognition that we could always finish up the adventure next session or the one after - I might have enjoyed those sessions even more than I already did. The game's about how you get to the end, about the story, after all. If it was just about getting there we'd simply skip to that part of it.

Now I get to play in a face to face game about once a year, when some friends and I get together for a solid weekend of gaming. We try to run one (maybe two) short adventures so that we can keep the focus on socializing with each other, just hanging out and having a good time. Though I didn't recognize it when I was younger, that's really what gaming has always been about for me.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I think a minion-type aspect is pretty easy to drop into a Pathfinder game as well.

I'm also a fan of minions, and have been since SR2 introduced the concept of "Professional Rating" (i.e., at what wound level an opponent will pass out, surrender, or flee).

In Pathfinder (Beta), toward the end of my campaign, I was giving "minions" minimum HP based on HD, and the most significant combat foes maximum HP based on HD. The "based on HD part" my expression of minor OCD; there's certainly nothing wrong with going lower or higher than technically allowed by HD.

 

[Ace Cipher Zero]

Well, in my experience, 4e is a good deal slower than 3.5 because everyone's trying to do one action after another action, and the more mechanics-based combat system takes a bit more thinking to work things through.

And with its simplifications of all the complex stuff like grappling from 3.5, I find pathfinder to be faster than 3.5. By logical relation, Pathfinder is faster than 4e.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I didn't like minions in 4E. I prefer to build varying levels of even minion level NPCs. Like the idea of Giant or demon minions being killed in one hit even by a strong fighter is absurd. When a kobold is splattered in one hit, it is something I can comprehend and accept. So I much prefer how minions are handled in Pathfinder and previous editions of AD&D versus the one size fits all hit points of 4E minions.

Alot more flexibility in minion level monster design in Pathfinder. I rarely used minions in 4E when I ran it. I do understand you don't have to use minions even in 4E. I much prefered to put in some monsters with hit points over that strange mechanical device 4E used for minions.

 

[DaveMage]

I'm not a fan of minions either.

Makes things a bit more "superhero comic-book-like" to me, which I don't enjoy in D&D. (Not that there's anything wrong with superhero comics themselves. )

 

[renau1g]

I like them for low level monsters. Just re-watching LOTR, they slew goblins and orcs by the boatloads, but only really stabbed/arrowed them once (excepting for certain foes, like the bow-wielder who killed Boromir). It actually fits very well. Once you get past the heroic tier though they become a bit silly. Heck even Drizzt can't take down a giant in one hit

 

[Shazman]

Well, in my experience, 4e is a good deal slower than 3.5 because everyone's trying to do one action after another action, and the more mechanics-based combat system takes a bit more thinking to work things through.

And with its simplifications of all the complex stuff like grappling from 3.5, I find pathfinder to be faster than 3.5. By logical relation, Pathfinder is faster than 4e.

That's my experience as well. I played in a Pathfinder Society scenairo yesterday, and with 4 combat encounters plus some good role playing, it took about 2 and a half hours to play through the whole scenario. That's pretty typical. I've played and ran a lot of LFR mods since spring of 2009, and even the ones with only two combat encounters (most have three) typically took five or more hours to complete. The ones with three combat encounters generally exceeded 6 hours to complete. Here's the kicker. Both Pathfinder Society scenarios and LFR modules are supposed to be completed in approximately 4 hours. The difference in combat speed between the two systems is staggering.