Quote from: jadrax;679411It is weird.

I don't know anybody IRL that's reached level 20. the closest I got was 18 before the campaign ended... mainly because D&D is frankly does not really work at thous sort of levels.

So maybe the 2 editions should be called:

"Actual Play Edition"
 
and

"Internet Theory Edition"

Quote from: jadrax;679411It is weird.

I don't know anybody IRL that's reached level 20. the closest I got was 18 before the campaign ended... mainly because D&D frankly does not really work at those sort of levels.

It can work just fine. We played Basic D&D well into the 20's. After 14-15th level or so, the game became largely about domain management, leading armies, with the occasional "adventure" featuring the exploration/combat dynamic of lower levels.

If you just keep running dungeons at those levels, yeah it kind of falls apart. 3E didn't really provide much for domain style play. It was just bigger numbers and more of the same. The focus was still on personal abilities,and gear building instead of politics & larger world issues.

Quote from: TristramEvans;678658I personally find stat blocks to be the least useful part of a monster's description. I'd love it if WoTC took a cue from the recent Hacklopedia:



http://www.kenzerco.com/free_files/owlbeast.pdf

That's a 7 page document for one monster, with 1.5 pages devoted to stats, and 3.5 pages devoted to a short story involving the monster.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;679430It can work just fine. We played Basic D&D well into the 20's. After 14-15th level or so, the game became largely about domain management, leading armies, with the occasional "adventure" featuring the exploration/combat dynamic of lower levels.

If you just keep running dungeons at those levels, yeah it kind of falls apart. 3E didn't really provide much for domain style play. It was just bigger numbers and more of the same. The focus was still on personal abilities,and gear building instead of politics & larger world issues.

I got my Pathfinder campaign to 20th-21st level... and the amount of rule-bending, and custom house-ruling to make it work in context was pretty massive.

We had everything - Armies smashing into one another, Gods dying, interplanar travel, genocide (drow), tons of political intrigue, summoning Asmodeus, dirty sex with Glasya, raising a pantheon from the ashes, slaughtering Lich-queens, genocide(Gold dwarves), almost had a third genocide but the players were on the ball and saved these halflings (who secretly caused the first two genocides, ironically) - really really epic shit that just came about naturally.

It wasn't easy, but it was cool as hell.

I'll never use that ruleset for that level of play *AGAIN*. *EVER*.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;679430It can work just fine. We played Basic D&D well into the 20's. After 14-15th level or so, the game became largely about domain management, leading armies, with the occasional "adventure" featuring the exploration/combat dynamic of lower levels.

One of my big disappointments in 3+e was the removal of the "elder game".  Though I guess that goes hand-in-hand with the presumption of "campaign = these four characters" vs. "campaign = a whole bunch of characters run by a bunch of players within the same world".

Quote from: Mistwell;679439That's a 7 page document for one monster, with 1.5 pages devoted to stats, and 3.5 pages devoted to a short story involving the monster.

Yes, glorious isn't it? I could do without the short story, but the rest is wonderful. And the stats really take up .5 of one page, there are three variations of the monster presented

Latest Hacklopedia of Beasts is simply the best Monster Book ever made.

"Glorious" is dead-on, no hyperbole.

Quote from: TristramEvans;678658I personally find stat blocks to be the least useful part of a monster's description. I'd love it if WoTC took a cue from the recent Hacklopedia:



http://www.kenzerco.com/free_files/owlbeast.pdf

That's much the same as RuneQuest. Very good!

Sounds OK, except who the fuck wants to read a 3 page short story? Game fiction is almost always terrible.

Quote from: TristramEvans;679500Yes, glorious isn't it? I could do without the short story, but the rest is wonderful. And the stats really take up .5 of one page, there are three variations of the monster presented

Oh I like it! But, I am imagining how big that monster manual would have to be, and wondering if the binding, or my bookshelf, could take it.  I am willing to risk it though.

Quote from: jadrax;679411It is weird.

I don't know anybody IRL that's reached level 20. the closest I got was 18 before the campaign ended... mainly because D&D frankly does not really work at those sort of levels.

I've been in several 3.x campaigns that have gotten to 20th or beyond - trying to count it, I get three that I played in, and two I GMd. One of the ones I GM'd in 3.0 went to about level 27.
Most of those started with about level 5 characters, though; the epic level one I ran started with recycled characters from other campaigns of about 8th-11th level at the time, though most of those had started much lower.  One of the others I played in had a montage where the GM skipped the PCs from 10th to 15th or so, also. I get the impression a lot of people play 3E starting at higher levels.

Quote from: Bill;679313The statblocks in 3X slowly converted me from somone who liked 3X to someone who can't stand to gm it now. I can play it but all that useless extra crap statblock stuff made gming it a chore for me.

The piece that breaks it for me is the feats.  I can't just use published monsters to fix this problem, either, because they keep expanding the range of material from which feats and magic items are coming from.  They don't even give things like the value of magic items to make it easy to swap them around.  

As the number of sourcebooks increases, I can no longer keep what everything does in my head.  I have actually been a lot more successful with 3.5E core only because I am quite capable of memorizing the feats, common spells and common magic items from that book.  Pathfinder adds complexity, and it only increases as splat book material leaks into the adventure paths.

And I did the Serpent's Skull one from start to finish with a pretty patient group but it was getting tricky by book six. I did one and two of Rise of the Runelords but the 3.5E one has a likely TPK in book 2 if the opponent is intelligent and the players aren't forewarned.

Quote from: Haffrung;679328The thing I can't figure out about the success of Pathfinder is why DMs don't burn out and leave the game.

A wealth of quality support material. The same with GURPS and several other detailed RPGs (mechanics or settings).

Aside from the page count bloat I feel that 3.5/pathfinder style stat blocks works well as a playing aid. A compact method of conveying a complete set of statistics about a creature or NPCs. I don't think it necessary by any means but it works for its intended purpose.

My feeling on creating one however is a different story.