Pathfinder 1E This is why pathfinder has been successful.

[Remus Lupin]

Well, in fairness, I play with a lot of players who are more than capable of exploiting the rules for maximum effect at the slightest provocation, to the degree that I often find it difficult to actually ROLE PLAY, since we spend far too much time RULE playing (this ability lets you do this, so let's do that before your character does the other thing, his personality, motivation, and objectives be damned!).

That said, while part of D&D may be to play smart, "playing smart" doesn't necessarily mean finding exploits in the rules, but rather playing in a way that consistent with the aims of the game system, vis., allowing you to create and realize a dynamic and compelling character and tell a ripping good yarn for the entertainment of yourself and your friends. For my part, I find too much time figuring out what the rules will allow me to do can get in the way of that, if it's my primary purpose in playing the game. If I want to play a half-elf bard, dammit, I'm playing a half-elf bard, because I've got a story I want to tell with that character!

 

[gamerprinter]

Here I'm going to ask what you mean. Playing at optimal levels is min-maxing as I understand it.

There are plenty of suboptimal decisions that don't involve min/maxing - like poorly chosen spells, bloodlines, feats, or a combination of abilities that don't synergize well.

My players put their highest stat roll on whatever stat is best for their characters goals, but we roll all our stats, we don't use point-buy. Then add racial modifiers (most play human). We don't let players lower stats to increase others - min/maxing can't occur the way we roll up characters.

One of the abilities PCs have is that any time they control the pacing they can use a full loadout of spells. Apparently either you don't ever allow them to do this (IIRC you've said you always sling at least 3 encounters/day) or they don't use it when they have the chance.

I don't need to enforce the pacing, as said, when a new player joins who tries to go 'nova' with his spells. He learns not to do this, as it usually results in dead wizards. Do it once, and the point is made, no ongoing pace enforcement is required. While I do sling 3-4 encounters per day is typical for our game, it's not locked in stone. Every once in a while a huge battle makes for a single encounter in one session, but this happens only once in a while, nothing that the players can rely upon to determine a different pace of play.

Part of D&D as intended is for the PCs to play it smart.

The 15 minute adventuring day is a necessary consequence of daily recharge cycles, the PCs playing things smart, and handing control of pacing over to the PCs. If you're going to risk life and limb there is very little reason not to go in fully loaded if you have control of the pacing.

The Kingmaker AP is one where the pacing is largely down to the PCs. That's part of the point of a sandbox. Which means that if the PCs aren't doing it they arent using the tools they have available.

Despite not min/maxing, nor using up all their resources in single encounters, my players do play smart, otherwise TPK may be the result, and the group has encountered a TPK, once in the last 10 years of play. Characters do die from time to time, but TPK almost never happens in our game.

As said, above, except for instances of curing a given caster's need to nova their spells, and the subsequent death that follows - I never purposely govern the pace. This is always in the players hands and they choose not to do the 15 minute adventure psychosis.

And my comment on the

Spoiler

trolls

is that they probably didn't hard enough. The more you use the fewer you lose - and if they were purposely holding back, that will have contributed to their defeat.

Of course the whole problem vanishes if no one is playing a full caster. Or the cleric's playing healbot.

And yet, with no TPKs, the party made through Kingmaker no problem (a few PC deaths is all, in one encounter or another.)

Our current group character list includes a sorcerer, a magus and a witch (all being casters), a cleric who keeps about half her spells as heal, while the rest are buff/debuff, a fighter, and a ranger. More casters in one group than we have normally - and they still don't nova their spells...

 

[Neonchameleon]

And obviously, from NeonChameleon's reply of my post, we've had this 'discussion' before on RPG.net, where I must be playing D&D/PF atypically since I encounter none of the issues that he believes exists - so I must be doing it 'wrong' or something.

Because the rules work fine without such issues for my group, I have to guess, that those encountering such issues are doing something different. I don't want to say they are playing it 'wrong', but I have no other explanation.

I had only one player playing a wizard five years ago that insisted on 'nova-ing' his spells in one encounter. When the party chose not to rest to let him regain is spent resources, and his character consequently died later that adventure, no wizard character since has gone 'nova' with his spells. That single encounter corrected all conceptions of a possible 15 minute adventuring day - an easy fix, without changing the rules.

Of course, if you let your players determine the method of play without GM influence - they might very well wreck the game and cause multiple 'issues' to occur.

Again, no issues here - I guess playing atypically must the best way... so there's your solution, NC.

No. You've explained what you have. An entire table not willing to experiment with the idea of going nova and an unwritten social contract in place saying you shouldn't. And saying that the other players will do this to the point of letting a PC that does this die - which is why no one tries going nova however much it will save the rest of the party.

And it did not correct "all conceptions of a possible 15 minute adventuring day". What it did was say that your group was quite prepared to drag a wizard to its death if they attempted one whether or not they arranged this in advance. I'd sure as hell not try anything risky if I knew the rest of the group was quite happy to drag my character to his death.

 

[Neonchameleon]

There are plenty of suboptimal decisions that don't involve min/maxing - like poorly chosen spells, bloodlines, feats, or a combination of abilities that don't synergize well.

My players put their highest stat roll on whatever stat is best for their characters goals, but we roll all our stats, we don't use point-buy. Then add racial modifiers (most play human). We don't let players lower stats to increase others - min/maxing can't occur the way we roll up characters.

I'm curious about where you got your definition of min/maxing from. Min/Max is Minimising your Weaknesses and Maximising your Strengths. And doing it under the rules. What you've described is a ruleset that in no way prohibits min/maxing, especially because for a spellcaster the biggest thing to min/max isn't their stat line. It's their spell list.

From what you've said, your players are min/maxers who simply have to deal with a random element.

As said, above, except for instances of curing a given caster's need to nova their spells, and the subsequent death that follows - I never purposely govern the pace.

Translation: "If a PC novas then the DM will, gleefully aided by the other players, demonstrate that he is a DM by something equivalent to dropping a metiorite on that PC". Well, yes. You have a social contract of "No novaing" enforced quite openly by DM fiat and PCs dragging the poor wizard to his death. And you wonder why you don't see it.

More casters in one group than we have normally - and they still don't nova their spells...

Well no. If you know that the DM is going to metagame to kill the PC for novaing (and that's what "curing a given caster's need to nova their spells, and the subsequent death that follows" translates to, especially mixed with your example) you don't do it. In the same way that you don't wear metal armour if you know that every time you put metal armour on the DM creates rust monsters for you.

 

[gamerprinter]

No. You've explained what you have. An entire table not willing to experiment with the idea of going nova and an unwritten social contract in place saying you shouldn't. And saying that the other players will do this to the point of letting a PC that does this die - which is why no one tries going nova however much it will save the rest of the party.

And it did not correct "all conceptions of a possible 15 minute adventuring day". What it did was say that your group was quite prepared to drag a wizard to its death if they attempted one whether or not they arranged this in advance. I'd sure as hell not try anything risky if I knew the rest of the group was quite happy to drag my character to his death.

It's only happened twice in 30+ years, and with different groups. The PCs in both incidents did their best to protect the wizard, but circumstances in at least the last time it happened made it so camping where they were was simply an impossibility. The party managed to resurrect that last wizard. So they didn't just drag the wizard to his death, circumstances and bad decisions (after using up his spells) by the wizard did that.

I can't nor won't judge my players decisions. They don't deliberate kill off other members of the party, but they also don't cater to one players desire to control the pace with his own style of play. None of our players like control freaks.



Again, I had no idea of the existence of the '15 minute adventure day' so my inclusions of more than one encounter a day, has nothing to do with forcing the pace, or to fix any other 'issue' - it's how we have always paced the game since we first started playing 1e.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Again, I had no idea of the existence of the '15 minute adventure day' so my inclusions of more than one encounter a day, has nothing to do with forcing the pace, or to fix any other 'issue' - it's how we have always paced the game since we first started playing 1e.

And to me that's actually a huge point. 1e had deeply embedded within it reasons not to nova (primarily the Wandering Monster table - that was one of the major purposes of it). 2e pulled most of these out and 3.X removed almost all the remainder.

What this means is that when the group learned under 1e they normally don't nova - it's seriously bad strategy and they learned this the hard way. When players were new with 3.X they played 3.X as written without the metagame that carried over. And it's players and groups new to 3.X that nova because the hard metagame checks have almost all gone and they didn't learn from people who'd learned not to the hard way (which is no longer as hard as it was).

 

[gamerprinter]

I'm curious about where you got your definition of min/maxing from. Min/Max is Minimising your Weaknesses and Maximising your Strengths. And doing it under the rules. What you've described is a ruleset that in no way prohibits min/maxing, especially because for a spellcaster the biggest thing to min/max isn't their stat line. It's their spell list.

From what you've said, your players are min/maxers who simply have to deal with a random element.

I didn't say I prevented min/maxing - I just said the players don't do it.

Translation: "If a PC novas then the DM will, gleefully aided by the other players, demonstrate that he is a DM by something equivalent to dropping a metiorite on that PC". Well, yes. You have a social contract of "No novaing" enforced quite openly by DM fiat and PCs dragging the poor wizard to his death. And you wonder why you don't see it.

I don't think DM Fiat is an absolutely 'no no', unless it's over-used. One DM Fiat in 5 years and 2 in 30, isn't bad if it makes for a better game. I've got happy players who rarely TPK, and share the GM chair with some of those players. We all get along and have a good time. I don't think I've done anything particularly wrong, nor do my players. Why is that a problem for you?

Well no. If you know that the DM is going to metagame to kill the PC for novaing (and that's what "curing a given caster's need to nova their spells, and the subsequent death that follows" translates to, especially mixed with your example) you don't do it. In the same way that you don't wear metal armour if you know that every time you put metal armour on the DM creates rust monsters for you.

I've only seen rust monsters in a premade adventure. I don't think I've used a rust monster ever in game.

What I'm saying it isn't something I am enforcing, nor gleefully take advantage of my players weakness. When I create an adventure, I don't invent new tortures in the middle of an encounter to take advantage of moment of poor decision making. I let the cards play as they lay. Sometimes they suffer for it, but usually we have fun just the same.

If it were a problem, I might change my approach. Being that it has only created years of problem free gaming, I have to guess I made the right decision on the few fiats I have imposed. I can't promise it would work for your players. I know my group, I don't know yours.

 

[gamerprinter]

No. You've explained what you have. An entire table not willing to experiment with the idea of going nova and an unwritten social contract in place saying you shouldn't. And saying that the other players will do this to the point of letting a PC that does this die - which is why no one tries going nova however much it will save the rest of the party.

And it did not correct "all conceptions of a possible 15 minute adventuring day". What it did was say that your group was quite prepared to drag a wizard to its death if they attempted one whether or not they arranged this in advance. I'd sure as hell not try anything risky if I knew the rest of the group was quite happy to drag my character to his death.

The 3 or 4 encounters per day, has absolutely nothing to do with trying to control what players choose to do or not do, it's only to get the adventure moving along, so we can finish a campaign in a reasonable time, and not years and years to drag because every encounter comes with a rest...

I've never tried to stop the '15 minute per adventuring day' deliberately or not, it's simply our style of play. Perhaps it somewhat prevents it, but this is just a random consequence, not a deliberate act. Really, the concept of the '15 minute adventure' is something I read here or RPG.net, in the last 3 years - not something I've tried to avoid with my players, since I didn't know that it existed to be prevented.

Running more than one encounter has nothing to do with wizards and their spells, it's about campaign pace only. Consequences might occur with anything.

 

[Twowolves]

And to me that's actually a huge point. 1e had deeply embedded within it reasons not to nova (primarily the Wandering Monster table - that was one of the major purposes of it). 2e pulled most of these out and 3.X removed almost all the remainder.

I bought an entire boxed set of Forgotten Realms wandering monster tables... for 2nd ed.

I bought an entire hardbound book of wandering monster tables... for 3rd ed.

Playstyles may have strayed from using them (encouraging the 15 minute nova-and-go-home workday), but the rules sure didn't.

 

[gamerprinter]

I bought an entire boxed set of Forgotten Realms wandering monster tables... for 2nd ed.

I bought an entire hardbound book of wandering monster tables... for 3rd ed.

Playstyles may have strayed from using them (encouraging the 15 minute nova-and-go-home workday), but the rules sure didn't.

You got to consider that most of the premade adventures I'd played was during 1e when wandering monsters were the norm. And because since that time, we hardly ever use published adventures, rather home brew everything, almost exclusively - I didn't realize 2e/3x published adventures removed them or otherwise lessened them.

We use Wandering Monsters Chart (each created as part of game prep) on every single session of play in any edition.

Also in my published Kaidan intro campaign, Curse of the Golden Spear, there are random monster charts in those adventures made for PF. Again, I didn't realize I was not supposed to include it!