Ridiculous amount of buffs

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Its threads like this that make me glad none of my players are big on the buffing thing. The occasional contingency Heal, Mass Bear's Endurance etc. but nothing like what the OP cited. That would be annoying (and I'd let the players know how boring and cowardly they are )

So does it affect thier ability to overcome CR appropriate challanges?

 

[Piratecat]

When I ran RttToEE, I got sick of this particular tactic by the pcs: Wake up at 10am, buff to the gills, clear three or four rooms, and teleport back to town to rest for the day. Rinse repeat.

This is pretty easy to fix through operant conditioning. Simply make it not worth their while to retreat, by making the consequences of retreating worse than staying to fight.

 

[Hjorimir]

I'm with Kestrel. It's one of the reasons I shy away from your typical dungeon setting where the player characters can regularly anticipate the moment of attack. Instead, I try to hit them when they don't expect it. If they want to spend the first five rounds buffing while I'm beating on them I won't complain.

 

[S'mon]

I hate the bloody buffs.

 

[jollyninja]

Yeah, I agree with Piratecat on this one, the best way to get rid of that mentality is to adjust the pacing of an adventure so that it's not an option to spend only 20 minutes a day trying to prevent the apocalypse. It's easier to do with some adventures then others but with RttToEE for example if the players know that the BBEG is going to do his thing in a certian number of days, they need to rethink their strategy. My players rarely have more then one or two buff spells active at any given time in the whole party let alone all that crud on a single character. I don't run many adventures where taking a day off is an option.

 

[S'mon]

Ok, so what about the core game changes to a large degree if you get rid of the buffs? Will it stop one from running published adventures do you think?

The higher CR monsters seem to be statted & CR'd with the assumption that the PCs are buffed but the monsters aren't. Eliminate buffs, monsters CRs should be around +2 to +4. NPCs are unaffected but you might want to be more generous with "+" weapons and armour than standard 3e - I mean +1 to +5 enhancements, not flaming shock fortification etc. Maybe halve weapon costs & make same as armour, as C&C does.

 

[Rhun]

It is a big issue for me with the system as well. I'm not sure how it would work without the buffs since I haven't seen it played that way really, the players use all the time since they are in the books and so apparently vital. Higher level D&D isn't LOTR or Conan, it's Justice League.

The system works fine without buffing. My current group rarely buffs, and when they do it is never more than a couple of spells at a time. They are approx. 12th level on average. They also tear through encounters that I wouldn't expect them to easily survive. They do fight smart, and are extremely tactical with their decisions, though.


Also, toss a couple of Initiates of the Sevenfold Veil against them with Kaleidoscopic Doom, and that will make them double think having so many buffs!

 

[phindar]

This is pretty easy to fix through operant conditioning. Simply make it not worth their while to retreat, by making the consequences of retreating worse than staying to fight.

I agree. I think the problem is most dungeons are treated as static environments. The pcs clean out rooms 1-3 and leave, because they can come back tomorrow and pick it back up at room 4 and nothing will have changed, or they can camp in room 3 and pick it right back up tomorrow. The only real difference is the party will be completely refreshed. (I have likened this to breaking into someone's home, looting the living room and the den, sleeping in the kitchen, and then going upstairs to kill them on the next day.

As opposed to a dungeon where the pcs go in, kill the monsters in the first couple of rooms and leave, and when they show up the next day all the monsters are in one room, all expecting attack, perhaps even splitting their forces so that half the monsters come around behind the pcs to brutalize the casters and archers.

My dream dungeon crawl would be the one from 13th Warrior, iwth a good mix of stealth, speed and tactics.

 

[Drkfathr1]

I've been lucky with my players as well, they don't seem to worry about trying to buff everyone before combat. They try to save all their spells for healing.

But this makes me wonder how I would handle it if they started doing that....

Maybe create a house rule that only allows a single individual to have a limited number of "buffs" at a time? 1-3 at the most?

Perhaps the stacking rules need a little tweaking.

 

[Umbran]

This is pretty easy to fix through operant conditioning. Simply make it not worth their while to retreat, by making the consequences of retreating worse than staying to fight.

I have to agree there. As phindar mentions, the trick is only successful if the locations and creatures are static, don't take the existance of magic into account, and/or there's no negative repercussions for allowing the foe to stew while you rest.

My foes are dynamic. They won't sit still for this nonsense. If the party is of sufficient level to do it, the foes are going to be familiar with it, and will usually not be caught with their pants down.