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caith
2009-03-28, 05:21 PM
I'm curious here...my highest level experience has been like 12/13 maybe 14, it seems like alot of the spells get pretty crazy but what is it that makes 3.5 and 4e high level play so crappy? I hear alot of complaints about it on these forums but I haven't heard my play group complain about it too much...so what's the deal?

Oracle_Hunter
2009-03-28, 08:08 PM
Well, in 3E it is the fact that casters completely dominate... first the party, and then the world. A high-level caster can only be challenged by other high-level casters or excessive DM Fiat.

I'm playing a 15th level 4E campaign right now and I haven't seen any problems. Some folks say combat takes too long (and it does take a lot of time) but I, for one, have found it exciting - and I'm the support Cleric!

Starbuck_II
2009-03-28, 08:21 PM
What Oracle_Hunter said:
Think about it this way. Save or die spells mean there is a small chance enemy is instantly dead.

Sure, the enemy could buff (almost have to buff to survive higher levels) but those usually lasts a couple minutes meaning if you don't know you'll be vulnerable.
Exceptions like Mindblank and Heroe's Feast are great if available.

This is one reason high level has been on occasion refered to as Rocket Tag. Tag you're it!
(p.s. also dead).

Saph
2009-03-28, 08:36 PM
Well, in 3E it is the fact that casters completely dominate... first the party, and then the world. A high-level caster can only be challenged by other high-level casters or excessive DM Fiat.

I'm playing a 15th level 4E campaign right now and I haven't seen any problems. Some folks say combat takes too long (and it does take a lot of time) but I, for one, have found it exciting - and I'm the support Cleric!

Oracle, for the love of Bahamut, will you stop proclaiming 4e's superiority in every single post you write? You're like a broken record.

Anyway, the basic problem for both systems is that the game gets much more complex, thus slower - a high-level character has such a vast selection of abilities that it takes five minutes just to read through everything you can do. It's also harder to relate to them, as any character of 10th-level and up is frankly superhuman, and can't be challenged by normal threats.

Of course, some people like these features. But on the whole, this is why most D&D games start at lower levels and don't run to very high ones.

- Saph

Oracle_Hunter
2009-03-28, 09:02 PM
Oracle, for the love of Bahamut, will you stop proclaiming 4e's superiority in every single post you write? You're like a broken record.

I'm... sorry? :smallconfused:

The OP asked about both 3E and 4E - I talked about my experience in each. Was that wrong? I don't feel like I've ever needlessly brought up 4E, nor do I troll 3E threads saying "if you played 4E you wouldn't have this problem" or "3E sux." If I am mistaken, please point out where I have transgressed and I'll try not to do it again.

In any case, you can check out my posts over here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105160) if you'd like some variety, I suppose :smalltongue:

Capfalcon
2009-03-28, 09:18 PM
Pretty much gonna agree with Oracle Hunter here.

The name of the game of High level 3E tends to be Rockets and Forcefields. If you don't have the right anti-screw-you buffs, things get very bad, very fast.

Haven't quite got to High Level 4E, though, but it's been fun so far (right now at Mid Heroic).

Thajocoth
2009-03-28, 11:03 PM
Never played 3.5, but I'm in a few 4E games... My level 14 party takes no longer per round than my level 3 party. It actually seems faster to me... Granted, my level 14 party is only 4 people as opposed to 5-6. (Rogue (me), Ranger, Warlord and Fighter).

I've found that different PEOPLE will take longer than others. In the lvl 7 campaign I'm in, the Warlock's turn is as long as everyone else's combined. (Warlock, Wizard (me), Fighter, Rogue, Ranger)

Saph
2009-03-28, 11:11 PM
I've found that different PEOPLE will take longer than others. In the lvl 7 campaign I'm in, the Warlock's turn is as long as everyone else's combined. (Warlock, Wizard (me), Fighter, Rogue, Ranger)

Yeah, this is a good point. It's really more about the players than the system.

I've played with some guys who can take 15 minutes to decide what square to 5-foot step with, while other players will cast two spells, move, and use an item all in less than 60 seconds.

- Saph

its_all_ogre
2009-03-29, 06:58 AM
the 'some people take more time' is important.
one player in our group takes more time than anyone else.
in 3.5 he played a spell caster and had lots of options but only some of them were actually useful because he had a bad spell selection, despite me helping him as dm.
so in 4e he was not given the option of wizard and went with rogue.
now he takes ages deciding which option to use:smallmad: every other player at the table could play his character faster than he does!

but otherwise i have to say i never played higher than level 8 3.5 and my 4e group is at level 4 now so i cannot give my experience.
but from reading the boards here the 3.5 problem seems to revolve around 'if you're a caster you rule and if not you, largely, suck'

there will always be groups that don't have these problems, either because their caster players are RP players and cannot RP and be effective at the same time (see my wizard and rogue player above he is in this camp) or because they do not choose the best spells in terms of effectiveness.

mostlyharmful
2009-03-29, 07:15 AM
In 3.5 it's the homework.

The groups i usually run or game in can go through a turn fast enough that they can keep combat fun for all but the amount of paperwork and prep that even a melee high level takes is far too much, one of the things 4th got right was the streamlining the christmas tree PC as far as items go. it's logarithmically more to do a decent caster and another jump to optimized caster if you're working at a high level, high powered game which, as a DM, can get weirisome.

ChaosDefender24
2009-03-29, 08:24 AM
Never played 4e.


in 3.5, the primary spellcasters become rather unstoppable. I don't have the URL, but the Wizard vs. Psion thread way back in the day (on WotC) proves this quite nicely.

The wizard had shapechanged into an incorporeal undead and was hiding behind/in a "turtle" of a circular wall of stone, with a prismatic wall on top of it, and was gating in celestial great wyrms.

OH NO ITS A CR 20 MONSTER

im just going to put myself in a position where it can't even hope to get near me and send a CR 30 encounter at it

This was core, too, completely free of chronotyryn and similar shenanigans.

Tehnar
2009-03-29, 09:05 AM
I wouldn't agree that the christmas tree effect is not present in 4e. At level 8 my fighter has 7 different magic items equipped, 3 with daily powers, with 2 additional armors that he changes from encounter to encounter. And I imagine that it would get worse as time goes on.

The big slowdown in 4E is the massive amounts of hitpoints that monsters have. At one point in the encounter you know if the encounter is won or lost. After that point its all about resource conservation, or escaping alive. And due to high monster hp, this mop up time takes a long while, and is boring, at least in my opinion. Aside from DM houserule, reducing all hp by 50%, or saying "Ok you won the encounter, defenders deduct 1d4 healing surges others deduct 1d2, and move on" I dont think anything can be done to speed up combat.

High level in 3.5 is a bit different. As someone said, it takes a bit of homework, especially for those people not gifted in quick addition. However, the amount of homework is very little compared to the work the DM has to do to prepare a session (regardless of edition). In 3.X its more about the tactics before combat that take a lot of time, rather then combat itself, at least in my opinion.

Kurald Galain
2009-03-29, 09:23 AM
I wouldn't agree that the christmas tree effect is not present in 4e.
Indeed. One of the more ridiculous bits of advertising, was when WOTC announce in a preview that 4E would no longer have christmas trees because characters were restricted to using "only" twelve magical items, not counting wondrous items, spare weaponry, and consumables.

kjones
2009-03-29, 09:32 AM
It's my experience, and I don't think that I'm the only one, that the "sweet spot" runs from about level 5 to level 12. YMMV, of course, but above that point is where casters really start to dominate.

Oracle_Hunter
2009-03-29, 01:35 PM
I wouldn't agree that the christmas tree effect is not present in 4e. At level 8 my fighter has 7 different magic items equipped, 3 with daily powers, with 2 additional armors that he changes from encounter to encounter. And I imagine that it would get worse as time goes on.

How do you manage that? :smallconfused:

At LV 8 you get 1 Daily usage per day, plus 1 per milestone. Even if you just swapped armors for the potential to have the right Daily for each Encounter, eventually you'll use that Daily and be done with it.

Besides, wasn't the point of the Christmas Tree Effect that you were required to keep up an absurd number of magic items just to maintain your power level? In 4E all you need is a magic sword, a magic armor, and a magic cloak/amulet - as opposed to a magic sword, armor, shield, rings, stat-boosters and so on.

Out of curiosity, what are your 7 (or is it 9) magic items?

ericgrau
2009-03-29, 02:42 PM
Never played 4e.


in 3.5, the primary spellcasters become rather unstoppable. I don't have the URL, but the Wizard vs. Psion thread way back in the day (on WotC) proves this quite nicely.

The wizard had shapechanged into an incorporeal undead and was hiding behind/in a "turtle" of a circular wall of stone, with a prismatic wall on top of it, and was gating in celestial great wyrms.

OH NO ITS A CR 20 MONSTER

im just going to put myself in a position where it can't even hope to get near me and send a CR 30 encounter at it

This was core, too, completely free of chronotyryn and similar shenanigans.

Good thing that has a 1,000 xp cost and is limited to 1 such creature per gate, for only a single battle. Otherwise in real play (not duels), such a thing might be imbalanced. Instead the CR 20 wizard gets to substitute another CR 20 creature for himself. Or up to 4, making a CR 24 encounter, if he wants to blow everything on the BBEG (who is probably also CR 24, except he has that power in round 1). After all, when else would the wizard use 4,000 xp and 4 rounds (6 for the two shields mentioned)? When most fights only last that long anyway? At the same time any super high level BBEG smart enough to get to that level is likely to have banishment, greater dispel magic, spells to remove or prevent other status effects, etc. all ready from himself or an assisting caster.

The real problem is that in 3.5e there are 101 special effects, immunities and counters at high levels which makes fights one sided if you don't know what you're doing. It's way too complicated. 4e eliminates these, but then you gotta slowly whittle away at the increased HP they put in 4e. Which is intentional in the system, btw, to give you time to move about and use other such tactics. As far as I know extreme familiarity with the rules and the general tips to speed up combat (turn time limits, avoiding looking things up, etc.) are the only ways to help out either edition.

mostlyharmful
2009-03-29, 03:12 PM
Good thing that has a 1,000 xp cost and is limited to 1 such creature per gate, for only a single battle. Otherwise in real play (not duels), such a thing might be imbalanced. Instead the CR 20 wizard gets to substitute another CR 20 creature for himself. Or up to 4, making a CR 24 encounter, if he wants to blow everything on the BBEG (who is probably also CR 24, except he has that power in round 1). After all, when else would the wizard use 4,000 xp and 4 rounds (6 for the two shields mentioned)? When most fights only last that long anyway? At the same time any super high level BBEG smart enough to get to that level is likely to have banishment, greater dispel magic, spells to remove or prevent other status effects, etc. all ready from himself or an assisting caster.

I don't think it works like you think it does (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gate.htm), it's a strong contender for most borked spell in game, you can call up to twice your hit dice in creatures (note plural) and they obey you for 1round/level automatically or longer if you bargin. yes, you can call any level CR with that just as long as they come under the HD limit..... and they HAVE to do what you want no save. and you thin 1000xp is a good enough limiter? HA HAAH AHAHAHAHA AAHH HAH ha. if you want to call multiple minions you can have half a dozen Efreeti giving you wishes or a single minion is a Great wyrm prismatic dragon. By this level boosting your CL is a cakewalk.

and yes any BBEG is likely to pack tactics to fight it, the problem being that this is a single round action that 'in combat' adds a CR35 encounter to your abilities, an epic full caster under your control at level 17 .... woooooooo.... win button. And it only gets worse outside combat, with this you can putt the game engine over your knee and beat any number of uber minions, gate chains, wish chains and epic casting you want out of it.

Theodoriph
2009-03-29, 03:31 PM
Yeah at level 20 and using Gate...you could call and control for instance:

A 38-40 HD juvenile prismatic dragon - CR 30
A 40 HD young adult Force Dragon - CR 28
A 40 HD Great Wyrm Silver Dragon - CR 26


You can call and control various other wyrms, but they're not as powerful. Of course course, you can call anything. There are no restrcictions except that deities and unique beings may choose not to heed the call. So if you wanted to call a Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon (CR 66...neutral creatures unfortunately), you could...though you'd have to quickly negotiate to get it to help. Lots of other fun creatures you could call too. :smalltongue:

Tehnar
2009-03-29, 05:58 PM
How do you manage that?

At LV 8 you get 1 Daily usage per day, plus 1 per milestone. Even if you just swapped armors for the potential to have the right Daily for each Encounter, eventually you'll use that Daily and be done with it.

Besides, wasn't the point of the Christmas Tree Effect that you were required to keep up an absurd number of magic items just to maintain your power level? In 4E all you need is a magic sword, a magic armor, and a magic cloak/amulet - as opposed to a magic sword, armor, shield, rings, stat-boosters and so on.

Out of curiosity, what are your 7 (or is it 9) magic items?


Lets see, Ill denote D next to a item that has a daily:
equipped:
+2 frost bastard sword (D)
+1 broch of shielding (D)
+1 dwarven scale (D)
acrobat boots (has power but at will)
bracers of mighty striking
belt of vigor
circlet of authority

in inventory, sometimes switch with dwarven scale.
+1 bloodcut hide (warlock has this item and I personally feel its broken, so when we found a identical one we didn't sell it). Didnt use it yet, but last fight the warlock (level 7) held off our retreat for 5 rounds (by himself, no healing) against 3 level 10 creatures, 3 level 6, 2 lvl 4 and about 12 lvl 1 minions thanks to that item, and then made his escape.
+1 black iron scale

And these are all items gained through adventuring. Now if my character has as many items at level 8, I wonder how many items a level 20+ character has that contribute to his power level. From what I see on various boards most high level characters have 8+ items (with none of the extras like acrobat boots or circlet of authority).

Oracle_Hunter
2009-03-29, 11:35 PM
Lets see, Ill denote D next to a item that has a daily:
equipped:
+2 frost bastard sword (D)
+1 broch of shielding (D)
+1 dwarven scale (D)
acrobat boots (has power but at will)
bracers of mighty striking
belt of vigor
circlet of authority

in inventory, sometimes switch with dwarven scale.
+1 bloodcut hide (warlock has this item and I personally feel its broken, so when we found a identical one we didn't sell it). Didnt use it yet, but last fight the warlock (level 7) held off our retreat for 5 rounds (by himself, no healing) against 3 level 10 creatures, 3 level 6, 2 lvl 4 and about 12 lvl 1 minions thanks to that item, and then made his escape.
+1 black iron scale

And these are all items gained through adventuring. Now if my character has as many items at level 8, I wonder how many items a level 20+ character has that contribute to his power level. From what I see on various boards most high level characters have 8+ items (with none of the extras like acrobat boots or circlet of authority).

Hmm... I see. Well, most high level characters melt down their spare armors to provide residuum for their Ritual Caster, or to assist in making certain useful magical items. There are certainly items that remain helpful (like Catstep Boots), but most get overshadowed by other items that fill that same slot.

But even so, the amount of magic items you're carrying around is nothing compared to the wealth of potions, scrolls and wands - not to mention stat boosters and the like - that you used to have. Aside from the reduced number of slots, the Daily Usage Cap limits the effectiveness of stocking up on the most powerful magic items.

Out of curiosity, how is Bloodcut Hide broken? This is all it does:

Power (Healing Surge): Minor Action. While you are bloodied, use this armor to gain resist 10 to all damage until the end of your next turn.

The Healing Surge price is pretty steep, unless you have very short adventuring days.

AslanCross
2009-03-30, 05:48 AM
I had my first high-level game last Friday night (Prisoner of the Castle Perilous, a sequel of Tomb of Horrors where the PCs fight a simulacrum of Acererak), and it wasn't the caster (my Wizard 5/Cleric 1/Fatespinner 4/Geometer 3/Silver Flame Pyromancer 5) who dominated. It was the Swordsage who used the homebrew ToB discipline Black Rain (gunslinger discipline). He had an auto hit, auto-threatened critical maneuver that dealt +25d6 damage on a confirmed critical. :P

Admittedly, my character did do enough damage to Acererak to one-shot him (though he wasn't at full HP), and also killed the Balor that Acererak gated in. (The Balor's death throes killed my Wizard, amusingly enough).

Honestly, the worst part of the adventure was the insane amount of time it took to roll all those dice. As far as I can tell, however, it wasn't so much that we were dealing too much damage--It was because the DM beefed up the faceless mooks too much. <_<

Kaiyanwang
2009-03-30, 06:15 AM
Well, my experience of high level game is limited to 3.5, we went to 40th level epic.

The real mess was the buffing up phase of players (if the DM allowed them to buff, in game I mean). They had to prepare a pre-made buffing sheet because if a Wizard, a Sorcerer, a Psion, a Druid, a Shaman and a Cleric start to buff up the party, you have a launrdy list of powers. Luckily, my players were failry organized and signed on their sheets with different colors the common "buffs builds".

To the other hand, if the Gm is watchful, high level game can be enjoyable (is beautiful see a druid summoning a primal elemental or a monk defleting infinite disintegrate and orb spell with his feet on a cloud).
Simply, you have to remember that, at least IMHO, at hih level PC life changes, they spend a lot of time planning and scheming against important NPCs, travelling toward impossible places, raising up armies and studying great mysteries.

The battles can be, speaking of playing time, long, speaking of in game time, short and maybe brutal, great attention must be payed on buffs, defenses, focusing offenses, planning counterpsells and bracing for every thing that you cannot foresee. I had great rememberings of my epic campaign, anyway. :smallsmile:

BlueWizard
2009-03-30, 06:42 AM
Yeah, this is a good point. It's really more about the players than the system.

I've played with some guys who can take 15 minutes to decide what square to 5-foot step with, while other players will cast two spells, move, and use an item all in less than 60 seconds.

- Saph

As a tabletop DM I make everyone decide what they're going to do before their turn. They have a long time as everyone is performing their own actions, and when people decide at the last minute when it is there turn, I threaten a DM action or just to skip them. Delays can cause everyone boredom.

Ninetail
2009-03-30, 05:39 PM
What Oracle_Hunter said:
Think about it this way. Save or die spells mean there is a small chance enemy is instantly dead.

That was more the case in Basic/1e/2e, actually.

In 3e, save or die spells mean there's a LARGE chance the enemy is instantly dead. Or paralyzed, petrified, turned into a goldfish, zapped to another plane, energy-drained or attribute-drained into uselessness, etc. It's just that easy for a high-level caster to push his save DCs up.

(And also to bring his metamagic increased-spell-level costs down.)

theMycon
2009-03-30, 09:25 PM
in 3.5, the primary spellcasters become rather unstoppable. I don't have the URL, but the Wizard vs. Psion thread way back in the day (on WotC) proves this quite nicely.

The wizard had shapechanged into an incorporeal undead and was hiding behind/in a "turtle" of a circular wall of stone, with a prismatic wall on top of it, and was gating in celestial great wyrms.


The real kicker (maybe third post down) was that, when and if the Psion manages to get through all of these (the wizard's promoter gave him a good chance of dropping the first CR30 dragon), it's not actually the wizard in there. It's his astral projection's clone's (more stuff...). You have to do it all over again, against someone who's in a plane of their choosing and had all that time to prepare, watched you fight, and (if he prepared well enough) is still at full strength himself.