It’s time for a few small repairs she said…

Last article I posted my recently revealed dissatisfaction with our current game. I think I have the keys to tackle these things and bring them in line with our style.NUMBERS: With the exception of Wrath of the Righteous Adventure path I truly don’t see my future Pathfinder games going much past 11th level. Paizo already helps with this by primarily making adventures no higher than this to being with. Their own official Pathfinder Society Organized Play stops at 11th level because it’s Just. Too. Much. Some folks can argue that we’re cutting out some high-level aspects of the game and to that I simply say: “scrolls”. An 11th level caster can still cast a 9th level spell from a scroll with careful study and talent. Maybe that’s the way it should be. Those high level items can become more akin to artifacts and the truly world-altering magic can be reserved for myth and legend and make them all the more fantastic when they do appear. BLOAT, Part 1. I’m simply going to keep magic items manageable. A little rarer, or in the case of “+” items much more so, as well as the economics of them in general. By 3rd level everyone has a +1 weapon, armor, and ring/cloak etc. What if every 3 levels thereafter they just “grew” to another +? I mean, you take the countless little utility ‘novelty’ items and sell them off just so you can upgrade your gear like this anyway. Maybe the + items just grow with characters and I make it so selling them is not as easy to do. It’s those little ‘novelty’ items that become wondrous and, well, magical again. BLOAT, Part 2. I’m not going to spend my afternoons with a stack of rulebooks or the laptop beside me pouring over stat blocks of monsters and foes trying to figure out how they work. If I can’t ID an item, spell or feat, it simply doesn’t exist and I‘ll just replace it with something else. I also know that 75% of you don’t have the time or will to sit through endless feats and powers to build your characters so we both can keep track of what you can do. Time to reign in what sourcebooks will actually be allowed in play I think. This goes hand in hand with character creation paralysis where there are literally so many things to choose from you become fearful of making some wrong or suboptimal choice and not being as effective at the table as your buddy. This isn’t the marines, you don’t have to be the best of the best of the best. As a recent quote said: “The ‘character optimization board’ should be the piece of wood the DM smacks you in the head with when you try to create a statistical monstrosity.” TIME: This is where things get neat. With characters not levelling far past 11th to less magic items to sell to less rules to look up and try to figure out, this difficulty has already solved itself. BAM. STORY: Part of this solution is the way I (and as I now understand a majority of DM’s) have been doing things for about 10 years now: ditching experience points 100% in favor of just levelling you up when the story calls for it. This doesn’t solve the economic distress I had recently where a $20 module promising many nights of adventure was hacked down to a 3-hour session because of the rooms upon rooms where nothing was gained, no story was told, and nothing new was learned except fighting (in many cases) groups of the EXACT SAME monsters over and over again. Curiously, I’ve discovered because many other companies, particularly Frog God Games, doesn’t give a rat’s ass about experience progression their adventures simply don’t feature this kind of fat. That, kids, is how I intend to keep the game we love going.