Graph Paper Games

We finished up our Pathfinder campaign last Friday.  It wasn't a long session for a couple of reasons but the biggest being that we still had a couple of players who could dish out 60+ points of damage in a single blow. This actually illustrates for me my biggest gripe about the entire Pathfinder experience, namely that the effectiveness of PC's in combat is directly proportional to how well you understand the game, and it's a steep climb.  Many players just build fairly straightforward PC's without a lot of examination of the feats, etc. while others went online and spent quite some time figuring out the best combos.  The latter group ended up dominating combat over the others, almost to the point of being detrimental.  This was especially the case for younger players who really didn't understand the rules. I don't blame the guys who spent time researching their characters--their PC's were by-the-book and totally street-legal.  It's just the gaps that...

Okay, I'll give credit where it is due.  My son pressured me into running Pathfinder for him, and the rest of my gaming group went along.  As it turned out, we had a great time. The story was really straightforward: the PC's are trapped within a large building when a huge earthquake strikes the city.  The thrown-together survivors of the quake agree to accompany a small NPC girl back to her father, a wealthy alchemist in the city by moving through the city's sewer system and avoiding the chaos above. Along the way they battle a few denizens of the sewers and meet a small and very smelly group of cultists.  The father points them towards the home of a powerful wizard who might be able to ascertain the source of the (unnatural) earthquakes, and the PC's rescue said wizard from a demon the earthquake accidentally unleashed in his tower. A few thoughts about the game: I don't know if it was just changing the game system or what, but the group approached encounter...