Anyone else have problems with high-level games and accounting?

[Domigorgon]

If you've ever played higher-level games, I'm sure you know what I mean by 'accounting'. It's when the game slows to a crawl during battles due to multiple attacks, summoned critters, a multitude of temporary buffs and modifiers, looking up of rules and spells descriptions, etc.

I'm leading a campaign in which the players' characters are all around level 10, and upwardly mobile. I am allowing a multitude of non-core material, but am sticking to official 3.5 rulebooks (BoVD, BoED, Frostburn, Sandstorm, Stormwrack, Draconomicon, Planar Handbook, Complete and Races books, etc.)... and we're playing Planescape, so I'm also allowing non-core races as well.

The thing is, players' characters are very powerful (some munchkinisation included), but no help there. It's all according to rules, and isn't even broken by itself. Except that there are few challenges left when most of the party can fly and teleport their way around (well, at least outside of Sigil they can).

I'm finding that Challenge Rating is useless. Anything I throw at them is either too powerful or too weak. And battle encounters may last five or six turns (and up to an hour in real-time), when it is evident from the outset that the enemy is not really that much a threat.

In our previous campaign we played E6 (with a level cap at 6th), and it worked wonderfully. Low-level campaigns are much faster, and so much less like accounting. My players agree; even though they all like being closer to 'epic' heroes with a lot of magical items and powerful spells, the low-level campaign was a lot faster and more enjoyable. We shudder to think how much it would break down around level 15 or higher.

So we're thinking, high-level D&D is best played on computers (Throne of Bhaal, Hordes of the Underdark, Mask of the Betrayer... if you catch my drift), and we'll return to E6 in our next campaign...

But for now - have you any suggestions to help me with the current campaign? Specifically, how do you address some of these issues?

How do you organise your battle grid? We don't use miniatures, but a simple squared notebook, with pencils and erasers. I usually draw walls and other immobile objects with a pen, so they don't erase. It's worked fine since always... except when the characters start flying. The battlegrid is a 2D representation of a 3D space... I thought I'd make them draw little arrows or numbers to specify how high they are flying... but it still poses a bit of a problem when trying to figure out how many squares one can move in 3-dimensional space.

As for battle encounters, I'm interested to know how other people mark down initiative rolls, hit point loss, and general progress of a battle encounter. How do you deal with Delay and Summoned creatures? (I hate those, they mess up everything :D). In short, what exactly do you do while you're DM'ing?

I am also seriously considering taking a little one-minute hourglass to force my players to act quickly or lose their turn. I occasionally get a player who can't decide what to do on his turn for five minutes, especially when he keeps changing his mind or is made to change it by other players' suggestions and advice.

Well, this is all just a loose rant without any specific goal to reach... I just want to smooth out the game, make it run faster, make people enjoy playing again, not struggling with numbers (which is ironic, since I went to a math-oriented high school, one player is studying math, another economics, so we're not exactly light-weights in this regard). So share your experiences, make your own rants, bash me and pronounce me incompetent, or don't, and tell me if it's just me or is it the way D&D was meant to be (and I don't want to believe that). :D

Play on. :)

[Geigan]

I am also seriously considering taking a little one-minute hourglass to force my players to act quickly or lose their turn. I occasionally get a player who can't decide what to do on his turn for five minutes, especially when he keeps changing his mind or is made to change it by other players' suggestions and advice.
This is a pet peeve of mine. I don't care how complicated your character is, if you spent all this time making sure you could do this put some more time into making sure you can do it in game as fast as your normal actions. I tend to urge combat along myself, and can't stand it when another player can't come to a decision fast enough. Combat is supposed to be exciting not feel like waiting in line at the DMV. This comes from my own problems as I tend to make things with a lot of attacks, or a wizard with lots of choices, and I try to get through my turn as fast as any other player. the hourglass is fortunately not required in my own games, but if you feel it's necessary go ahead. /endrant

[Eldariel]

First, yeah, CR is awfully useless for any characters whatsoever and should never be used for anything in anything but a comedy game. That's unfortunately a design flaw in the game; at most, it can be used to assign XP but even there, eyeballing how hard the encounter was tends to be more accurate.


As for keeping the game smooth, we outsource.
- One player writes up the initiative order as they are announced, with the NP Creatures present added (these tasks are assigned beforehand of course). DM has enough trouble positioning all creatures and running all the non-player members of the combat.
- Every player has stats with all the expected buffs listed on a separate character sheet.
- All summons and allies must be prestatted.
- The next player in the initiative order is required to plan his (and his possible underlings') actions during the previous player's turn.
- If someone takes too long on their turn (20 seconds or so to decide what they do is the maximum), DM states they are delaying their initiative, and their turn is skipped until they take it at some point between other players' turn (before the next turn).

All this works exceedingly well with a bunch of experienced players used to their characters and the game's rule set. Less so with rookies and perfectionists; but frankly, who makes perfect decisions 24/7 in combat anyways?

3D movement is tracked either simply without grid, or placed in the square they are in and the player/DM is responsible with remembering/writing up the height they are at at the point. Since 3D movement is practically constant in normal high level games, this ironically has lead to us using grid less and less, mostly just winging it.


But it can't be overstated; the biggest thing to enhance the smoothness of the game is player and DM rules mastery, and character mastery. A player who knows his character well can make decisions extremely fast even out of the dozens he has while a player who doesn't have a comprehensive idea of what his character (and any possible underlings) can do will take a while. In general, unless creative actions are being considered based on unique environmental variables, players shouldn't need more than a dozen seconds to make each decision for each creature they control.

[Bob the DM]

I have a great solution for that that I've used many times. I point to the plyer who's turn it is and ask what they do if they hesitate, I hold up six fingers (as a round is 6 seconds nd start counting down). If I hit one and they don't have anything, they delay their action. We have a fighter, a swordsage a bard, a sorcerer and a cleric/crusader, so everyone sometimes has proplems deciding (except for the fighter) so it's pretty even and sometimes comical. As for initiative, I group my monsters up and have the ones who are "fighting together" act at one initiative, that tends to help it along.

[Taelas]

One solution to the Flying problem is to have two grids; one represents ground, while another represents height (as well as one of the two lengths of the original grid). (x,y) and (x,z), as it were.

[Aron Times]

I know of two ways of making high-level D&D work.

1. PbP - You have at least 24 hours to post your actions, which should mitigate the inherent complexity of high-level 3.5 characters.

2. Play 4e instead - 4e was designed to work all the way from level 1 to 30, and it works even better if you use power cards to keep track of your characters' abilities.

If you prefer 3.5 and are unwilling to play PbP, then start a new game once the party levels past the sweet spot of D&D 3.5 (somewhere around level 12 to 15, give or take a level or three).

This is similar to how epic-level play is handled in 4e. Basically, when you reach level 30, you go on one last quest, called your Destiny Quest, allowing you to "win the game." Afterwards, you start a new game, with new characters.

[navar100]

The DM uses a computer to keep things organized. He has a board with magnetic strips to keep track of initiative. Players know their own characters. Players write down notes when a buff comes into play, but sometimes we (usually me) just remind everyone when it applies. Every once in a while a player or DM forgets something. If it's character life critical we'll fix it. If to fix it won't alter things too much, it's fixed; otherwise, oopsy, remember next time. The party has benefit from this when the DM forgets, so it is equally applied. If anyone is flying, we put their firgure on a d6 or other little something to show them above the grid.

Previous campaign the wizard player wrote her own "spellbook" she can reference for what her spells do. I was playing a crusader/master of nine so used index cards for my maneuvers to shuffle and manipulate. For the current campaign I'm playing a sorcerer and use index cards for my spells.

It does take some effort to organize things, but it is worth it. Most of the effort you can do between game sessions. It's in the players' interest to do it because knowing what you can do makes all the difference in the world. I'm the DM-desired rules lawyer of the group, but the other players only really know what affects their characters. They know and understand what they can do and enjoy every moment of it.

[Curmudgeon]

How do you organise your battle grid? We don't use miniatures, but a simple squared notebook, with pencils and erasers.
Drawing and erasing slows things down. I like tokens better than miniatures, because you can't tip them over. (You can use quarters or poker chips with little pictures taped on them.) With a battle grid the DM can have terrain/walls already formed on paper, and it's just a matter of dropping the paper on the right part of the grid; a bit of tape holds it in place for the encounter.

As for battle encounters, I'm interested to know how other people mark down initiative rolls, hit point loss, and general progress of a battle encounter. How do you deal with Delay and Summoned creatures? (I hate those, they mess up everything :D). In short, what exactly do you do while you're DM'ing?
3x5 index cards, with every character's name and important stats on it. Keep one corner clear to pencil in the initiative for the session, and arrange the cards in order. Delay pulls a card out of the stack and drops it on the table; otherwise the cards stay in the DM's hands to get cycled through. All enemies have their own cards. Summoned monsters, animal companions, and mounts must have cards with all their stats on them as well. I use the smallest size sticky notes to keep track of hit point loss on each; other DMs pencil this in on the back. (Characters don't come with digital readouts, so I don't announce actual hit points done by their enemies (just "a flesh wound"/"that hurts a lot"/"you're in bad shape"), nor do I tell players how many HP the enemies have left. A Heal check or Status spell will give these details.)

I am also seriously considering taking a little one-minute hourglass to force my players to act quickly or lose their turn. Definitely keep a time limit. If the player doesn't finish within that time, their character tends to be either fighting defensively or (if they don't even get started) opting for total defense.

[Squiggles]

For tracking multiple short term buffs, Delayed spells, Initiative and anything else with a few round cooldown ala dragons breath I just made a numbered grid that lasts up to 20 rounds and I simply check off everything each round to ensure that nothing has been forgotten. Round 1 someone summoned a critter? Write it down and check it off after it has made its attack. Same goes for any buffs that are cast at the beginning of combat or even beforehand.

[Yahzi]

3x5 index cards, with every character's name and important stats on it... All enemies have their own cards. Summoned monsters, animal companions, and mounts must have cards with all their stats on them as well...Definitely keep a time limit.
Great ideas.

I think I'll add a new rule to my next game: no tactics discussions. Players can announce what they are doing, but they can't offer suggestions to others (other than in character - shouting "Heal me!" is fine). Of course this means that players that aren't good at tactics may make mistakes. Maybe I'll give them Intelligence saves - the smarter the character, the more often they can ask for advice (or take back an ill-concieved action when somebody else points out what it means).

To be fair the monsters have to make quick decisions too. But the DM already has to role-play the smart & dumb monsters, so that's not much of a change.

[navar100]

Great ideas.

I think I'll add a new rule to my next game: no tactics discussions. Players can announce what they are doing, but they can't offer suggestions to others (other than in character - shouting "Heal me!" is fine). Of course this means that players that aren't good at tactics may make mistakes. Maybe I'll give them Intelligence saves - the smarter the character, the more often they can ask for advice (or take back an ill-concieved action when somebody else points out what it means).

To be fair the monsters have to make quick decisions too. But the DM already has to role-play the smart & dumb monsters, so that's not much of a change.

That's not fair to the players. The DM can't help but coordinate the bad guys tactically efficient because he's just one person controlling them all. Also, except for random encounter, he has pre-planned the battle. He knows when and where the bad guys will attack. He knows their ability ahead of time taking into account PC abilities for appropriate challenge and letting a PC shine. He has to make special effort to run bad guys not so efficiently.

Except for the rare times the party gets to set up an ambush, the players don't know when a combat will happen until it happens. They don't know the bad guys' abilities. The players need to be able to communicate or else they are just distinct individuals who just happen to be attacking the same group of people who know how to fight together. They'll be slaughtered.

[Curmudgeon]

Any planned attack is supposed to be unfair to the surprised side. The attackers have had a chance to scout the location and figure out the best ways to deploy their forces, establish contingencies for reinforcements, and map out retreat paths if necessary. Allowing time for detailed tactical discussions among the players of those surprised PCs is just ridiculous, and as a DM would make me want to suddenly turn the ground under their feet into encumbering mud just out of spite.

If the PCs set up an ambush they should then get all the advantages of planning against unprepared foes. But on the other side? There's just no time.

[Gondram]

In the games I DM here's how I alleviate some of the issues you mentioned.

First off, I have a 30 second battle timer. Each person gets 30 seconds to decide what to do, or they pass their turn. When to start the timer takes some judgment on the part of the DM; you want to leave the players time to enjoy the game. But if you wait a few exrta moments for the jokes and laughing to die down and then start it works beautifully. Everyone feels the urgency of combat and it doesn't take four hours for one encounter.

For initiative I have 3x5 cards for each creature and player. The cards have pertient information for me (AC, saves, weapons, notes on bad guy tactics etc.) as well as the current HP of the subject. I order the cards according to initiative and that's all I need to run the encounter. Well, That, dice, and a pencil.

I used to use graph paper for the battle grid and I drew all the pertinent stuff on it, but at higher levels I ran into the same issues you did. I ended up buying a game grid mat, and using miniatures. Before I had expanded my miniature collection we just used random items, pennies, lego people, a guiness bottle cap. It still worked out very well. For flight we just use the clear dice boxes. I have several different sizes, and being clear I can just put it over a miniature if someone's flying overhead.

Hope that's helpful.

[jiriku]

A few rules in no particular order:

1. All of your pets act on your initiative count.
2. If you don't have stats for it, you can't summon it.
3. Initiative is tracked on a white board by a designated player. Altitude for each character is tracked right next to initiative.
4. If you don't know what you're doing on your turn, you delay your action.
5. If I ask you how your ability works and you neither know nor have the correct book open, you delay your action.
6. All active buffs, their remaining durations, and their caster levels are tracked in a Word document. I maintain it myself, but you could just as easily delegate the task to a player. At the start of each game day we review the sheet to make sure it's current. (Note: this sheet is extremely useful when someone gets hit with a targeted dispel magic.)
7. If your character "would have cast that buff on himself before combat" but it's not on the tracking sheet, too bad.
8. We use a magnetic white board as the gameplay surface, with labeled magnets to represent characters. Flying characters are placed on top of a silver arrow magnet, while burrowing characters are placed on top of a black arrow magnet.


Regarding challenging high-level characters: don't feel bad, many DMs struggle with this. Many DMs don't grasp that challenges like walls, doors, time limits, and large distances have a challenge rating. For example, a locked wooden door is a significant challenge to a 1st-level party, but is of negligible difficulty for a 5th-level party. 100 miles of monster-infested swamp will severely tax a 5th-level party, but a 10th-level party will simply teleport to their destination. Hiding in a remote planar fortress will protect the BBEG from a 10th-level party, but a 15th-level party will easily divine his location and travel there. You get the idea. You need to ensure that the challenging situations you're inflicting on the party are actually level-appropriate.

When developing monsters, be aware that the tier system of classes applies to monsters too. A couatl and a stone golem are both CR10, but the couatl is a caster and the stone golem is not, which means the couatl is a versatile opponent while the stone golem is easily outmaneuvered (it cannot respond to a flying archer, for example). Are you using simple, basic opponents who only have one trick and have a limited ability to change tactics if the players reshape the battlefield in some fashion?

If you find the problem is simply that the PCs pack tremendous punch and monsters seem frail by comparison, I strongly recommend using the monster advancement rules. These produce monsters with strong hit points, saves, and attack rolls for their CR (and you can give them Combat Expertise to convert some of that extra attack bonus into a CR-appropriate AC). For example, a stock 19-HD storm giant is CR 13, and an advanced 27-HD bulette is also CR 13, but against an optimized party, the advanced bulette has a lot more stamina.