jodyjohnson said:
My point in posting was:
- Subject my initial list of examples regarding fairness to scrutiny.
- Get input for other examples
- Find out if other groups observed genre conventions (self-imposed or ingrained through carrot-and-stick, deliberately or unspoken)
- Clarify my expectations for my group and hopefully generate a productive discussion of the fantasy genre
- Establish a habit of play which will be sustainable through the teens and into the Epic level of the game
Well, like you've pointed out, it's difficult to ignore the fact that the system is set up to encourage optimum use of buffing spells and to reward the use of overwhelming force. Especially since you and your group have years and years of D&D experience, where the lesson "Take 'em down fast and don't let 'em get a hit in if you can avoid it" has been taught over and over again.
And, yeah, the problem's just going to get worse as the characters get even more powerful. If your game has a lot of fighting in it, then the things the PCs will be fighting are soon going to have excellent saving throws and high spell resistances, which will push your spellcasters even further in the direction of buffing/debuffing, indirect damage, and ultimate spell combos. Fighter types will begin to rely on good buffs to allow them to survive against their opponents' huge attack bonuses (which will likely be combined with insta-death or immediately incapacitating abilities, making it even more important to put them down quickly and efficiently).
That's just how vanilla D&D goes: there isn't a lot in the monster manual in the high CRs that isn't capable of grinding an unprepared or tactically-impaired party into hamburger.
The most elegant way I can think of to deal with that problem is to sidestep it. If everyone's looking for an action-movie, adventure-novel feel, then maybe you might start
removing rules and restrictions instead of adding more. Try just summarizing the nonessential, uninteresting combat scenes. Or giving bonuses for trying interesting and genre-appropriate moves rather than penalties. Throw out the tactical map, and don't pay attention to the hit points or saving throws of mooks (just have 'em all go down in one or two hits). Ask the players to stop obsessing over buffing and assure them that you are not running a standard D&D gameworld where insufficient buffing or poor spell selection leads directly to a total party kill. And, as I've suggested before, make combat no longer a rewarding pursuit in and of itself by only giving out story XP awards.
In other words, break the tyranny of brutal efficiency in D&D combat by
breaking D&D combat. The cycle of endless buffing and use of nigh-unbeatable spell combos is practically demanded by the way the system is set up, so stop letting the system matter. Push the focus of the game onto the interesting decisions that the PCs have to make and away from how they're going to kill the things that are trying to kill them first; more strategy, less tactics.
Needless to say, this might not work. Part of the allure of D&D is, you must admit, the joy of winning a fight through superior (merciless, efficient, and optimal) tactics, and finding new and interesting ways to apply all those cool items and spells. It might even be one of the reasons why your game "
must be DnD" instead of playing a bunch of different games, in which case any attempt to subvert the standard D&D combat system is destined to end in failure. But you don't seem all that happy with the way things are going right now and you don't sound particularly enthusiastic about how the list of "fairness" prohibitions has worked out, so maybe one or more of these suggestions will be worth trying.
If nothing else, they're easier to implement than trying to find the magic revision of the "fairness" code that will suddenly convert the PCs into the very models of genre heroes, or laboriously scouring the D&D core books to remove all the spells and monsters that cause the most "brutal efficiency" problems.
--
though in fact, our group just doesn't use d&d for that style of game
