Wrong facts about D&D3 combat?

[Hussar]

Oh, sure, an all caster party at those levels could be a possibility too. I just find that it's not a likely one.

As far as class optimization goes, I'm afraid that it mostly takes a back seat to the big ones of higher point buy value and humanoid opponents. Going 35 point buy value boosts your character a full level in every meaningful way - hit points, attack bonuses, damage bonuses, bonus spells etc. And humanoid opponents are usually very weak compared to similar CR'd monsters. Anywhere from the weak end of the CR to one or even two CR's lower.

That's where I'd lay my money.

 

[Celebrim]

Going 35 point buy value boosts your character a full level in every meaningful way - hit points, attack bonuses, damage bonuses, bonus spells etc. And humanoid opponents are usually very weak compared to similar CR'd monsters. Anywhere from the weak end of the CR to one or even two CR's lower.

That's where I'd lay my money.

That's all true, but in my experience its mainly true at the low to medium character levels. At higher levels, what I tend to see is abusing +EL templates and races (for non-casters) and prestige classes (for all classes). At lower levels, neither of these is that bad, but at higher levels because +EL is a flat penalty and often adds a non-linear advantage its often the equivalent of being a level or two higher as well as adding relevant advantages stock non-caster classes wouldn't have. But the biggest problem I've seen is PrC's, and in particular dabbling in multiple PrC's. Most PrC's that I've seen which are in practice taken are clearly stronger than an equivalent non-PrC build, and alot of PrC's (like alot of classes) are heavily front loaded. So what I see alot of from people that say CR and EL's are way off is alot of dabbling in either full BAB progression PrC's, or else dabbling in full caster level progression PrC's. The result of this at higher levels is generally equivalent to being a level or two higher than a non PrC build.

End result, if you start at 35 point buy, have alot of supplements, dabble in alot of unbalanced broken PrC's, start your characters off at 10th level (or higher) so as to open up some of the more broken +EL races and templates, then your higher level characters are going to find equivalent CR level challenges to be cake walks. Your 18th level party isn't even going to start being challenged by an encounter until the CR hits about 22. Plus, parties that do this tend to tactically optimize as well, so that alot of their adventuring tends to be of the scry-port-go nova variaty where they expend all of their resources very quickly and then retreat to recover.

In my opinion, that put them in a death spiral of CR escalation where DMs had to throw bigger and bigger challenges at the characters to keep up. If the party was fighting primarily humanoids, then this tended to mean an excessive amount of magic items (which were easily liquidable) so that in practice the party also tended to have higher than the suggested wealth per level guidelines.

I've been there. I've been in this exact situation in a campaign in first edition where the party was composed of characters that had used a very lenient attribute generation method, had access to alot of variant classes, used alot of optional perks rules, and had excessive wealth and played a humanoid centered campaign. They ginsu knived through just about everything. It's fun for a while to play in that high heroic style, but its extremely challenging on the DM to present something that actually represents a challenge that isn't just over the top lethal.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Well, if by even fight you mean that the party has a 50% chance of dying, then I'm right with you on that. EL+4 encounters are doable but the chances of fatalities are very, very high.

Wow! At the end of my 3.5 game, I had to throw insane things at the party to challenge them. An arcanaloth summoning advanced cornugons and pit fiends. A death giant lich with a death giant entourage (who could beat the PCs to death with his staff). A 20th level cleric in full form wielding two artifacts and with divine salient abilities who can rip a hole to the Far Realm causing insanity and tentacled monstrosities to come forth to destroy his enemies.

Mostly that was due to two things: supplements increasing the power of the PCs to ungodly levels and higher magic items. Spell Compendium made the cleric unto a god, for example. But, I was throwing down CR+1 per PC just to challenge them. Of course at level 20, with in combat resurrection flying rampant (plus that spell that cast heal when you died), it was pretty much a TPK or everyone made it through.

 

[Dausuul]

Oh, sure, an all caster party at those levels could be a possibility too. I just find that it's not a likely one.

As far as class optimization goes, I'm afraid that it mostly takes a back seat to the big ones of higher point buy value and humanoid opponents.

Uh... hardly. My group wrapped up 3.X with a 16th-level mini-campaign whose final battle was against a tarrasque (CR 20).

Now, we were 32 point buy, so that made us effectively 17th level, which should have made it a tough but doable fight. It was nothing of the kind. We blew through the tarrasque like (to quote OotS) a crossbow bolt through a wet character sheet. And we didn't pull any of the usual tricks you use on the tarrasque - we didn't fight it from the air, we didn't trap it in a pit and drown it. We just went head to head, mano a mano, beating its hit points down exactly the way you're supposed to.

It wasn't even an all-caster party. We had a psion, a mystic theurge (me), a swordsage, and a paladin. Not only that, my mystic theurge was a favored soul/sorceror. Hardly the ideal combination... but optimizing our builds and using clever synergies let us dish out crazy amounts of damage, while severely limiting the tarrasque's ability to counterattack. None of us was ever in serious danger.

In an earlier campaign, we had a 20th-level party (21st if you count point buy) battling it out with a CR 27 templated dragon. The party consisted of a warblade, a sorceror, a ranger/scout, a knight, and the sorceror's favored soul cohort. CR 25 or 26 should have been an even fight for us. CR 27 should have been a potential TPK, right?

Wrong. We crushed the dragon even faster than the other party did the tarrasque. There was no contest whatsoever.

Now, we probably wouldn't have been able to squeeze out that much extra performance at 10th level. Nevertheless, in 3.X, build and optimization can let a party perform several levels higher than expected. Higher point buy certainly counts for something, but it's small compared to what you can get by tweaking your character design.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Your two primary examples suggest that the fault might also lie in the "action ecomony" - one monster with one set of actions vs. 4 PCs with each his own set of actions. Do you think that made a big difference?

(I think it would - being able to use a massive attack or a save or die effect 4 times per round on the same target is bound to be deadly!)

 

[Dausuul]

Your two primary examples suggest that the fault might also lie in the "action ecomony" - one monster with one set of actions vs. 4 PCs with each his own set of actions. Do you think that made a big difference?

(I think it would - being able to use a massive attack or a save or die effect 4 times per round on the same target is bound to be deadly!)

Oh, absolutely. The dragon fight in particular suffered from this - the warblade hit with the 8th-level maneuver that inflicts a 1-round stun with no save, then proceeded to tear that poor beast a new one.

Nevertheless, a +4 CR encounter ought to pose a major threat. And those were far from the only encounters where we were hitting above our "weight class."

 

[Celebrim]

Oh, absolutely. The dragon fight in particular suffered from this - the warblade hit with the 8th-level maneuver that inflicts a 1-round stun with no save, then proceeded to tear that poor beast a new one.

Most people from this example would conclude that Bo9S was broken, not that the CR/EL system was.

Nevertheless, a +4 CR encounter ought to pose a major threat.

Not to classes outside of the core books. WotC seemed to think power creep was a marketing strategy during the 3.X era.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Righteous Rage of Tempus, Battle awareness, Improved Inspiring Word, Guileful Switch, Quicksilver stance, reckless weapons, bloodclaw weapons, battlerager fighters, tempest fighters, double swords, quickshot crossbows, cunning weapons, etc say WotC's marketing strategy has not changed.

Not to classes outside of the core books. WotC seemed to think power creep was a marketing strategy during the 3.X era.

 

[Celebrim]

Righteous Rage of Tempus, Battle awareness, Improved Inspiring Word, Guileful Switch, Quicksilver stance, reckless weapons, bloodclaw weapons, battlerager fighters, tempest fighters, double swords, quickshot crossbows, cunning weapons, etc say WotC's marketing strategy has not changed.

I think if you went back to my posts from a year or two ago, that you'd find that I'm not at all surprised. Basically, if there is a market for it, then WotC is going to print it. Then of course, the same group that greedily consumed the material not despite the power creep but because of it, will end up complaing in 4 or 5 years that they hate 4e because the power creep has destroyed the balance and integrity of the game.

But the real irony for me is how much grief I get for 'not following the rules', when I say that I didn't allow magic items to be purchased, and how that this will screw up the game completely because the game was designed with this in mind, and yet, and yet, almost no one with that complaint bothers to notice that WotC's own books and supplements screw with their own designs far more than I ever did.

But, as long as it's just power creep, it's ok, right?

 

[Runestar]

Most people from this example would conclude that Bo9S was broken, not that the CR/EL system was.

Until they realize that casters can do a similar thing, except to all foes on the battlefield. And for longer than 1 round. And they don't even have to hit. And this was accessible at what...lv7?

It just reinforces the whole "Only casters are allowed nice things, while melee get flak just because it can deal pitiful AoE fire damage" stereotype.