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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5679046" data-attributes="member: 3820">This is where inspiration is doubly important. From what I've seen, the best GMs for Pathfinder or D&D 3.0/3.5 are those who are inspired by the system -- who enjoy spending time on enemy-crafting and group composition. If that's as much fun as world-building or whatever else you enjoy best, you're golden. But if you don't enjoy the process as much, that'll drag your enthusiasm down. It's a noble thing to run a game your players are all excited about, but if you don't get excited to rummage around in its guts, be aware that can affect campaign longevity as well.When I was running 3.5, I admit I never went all the way up to 15th level, but what I would do was create reusable stat blocks. Put most things except bosses and on 3x5" index cards, and reused them. This made it easier for me to "deal" out encounters as I went along; the up-front prep of putting a troll's stats on a card meant I saved a lot of prep every time I used a troll. It also meant that I was using simpler monsters overall; if it didn't fit on an index card, it was too complicated to use on a regular basis. I do it now that my game's shifted to 4e, and if anything it works even better than before, since I can reskin the stat block on a card to be whatever I need with a couple of cosmetic changes. It makes ad-libbing very simple.That said, that approach may not work for 15th level, as the escalation gets to the point of counter measures and counter-counter measures; anything that fit in 3x5" may not have what it takes to challenge the party. One thought is that you can prepare some combat encounters that are outside of the character's normal reach  as "default challenges" -- say, an encounter that'd make a 17th-level party work for victory. This might encourage the players to pick and choose their combats when they can, and spend a greater portion of play time out of combat plotting. Big complicated fights are less of a problem if the players need only one every session or two, and spend their time on lesser challenges, planning and roleplay the rest of the time.</blockquote>

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