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[LeoLeonardoIII]

Or those boss fights where you have a central boss and peripheral parts which you can also attack but which respawn some time later if the main creature is alive. Do you just go for the boss, or do you whack the hands first to reduce his damage output and resistances?

Another issue is planning. Make the dungeon like a heist movie. If you just blast your way in, you'll have a hard time. But if you investigate, scout, plan ahead, gather resources, you can execute your plan and maybe not even fight the boss.

For example, maybe the dungeon has some shortcuts that you can't use because they're sealed. If you find the magic required to break the seals you can sleaze your way through the dungeon. Maybe if you research the cult's passwords and secret handshakes you can disguise yourself and sneak past most of the trouble. The boss itself might just be a treasure guardian which you could bypass fighting if you snuck into the cult leader's quarters and stole his keys.

If your PC doesn't have the skills necessary, he could hire someone to come along, or learn them.

Bringing this back to the issue of spell variety, rather than specific spells to break the seals, each seal should have a code of spell effects that you need to cast in order to break it, like a combination lock. Maybe a landslide / cave-in requires a Dig spell plus Wall of Force to reinforce the passage. Or a hall choked by poisonous plants could require Protection from Gas to approach close enough to use Charm Plant to get them to move out of the way.

There are lots of ways to learn the cult passwords. Charm Person and interrogate. Mind Reading. Crystal Ball to see and hear from far away when the cultist uses them.

You could use all kinds of different tools to get into the cult leader's room and steal his keys.

///

Also, there are ways to make the status ailment spells less useful. In a lot of editions of D&D, for example, the low-level Sleep spell is great against most enemies but if the target is over 4th level it doesn't affect him. Hold Person is low level and affects a few people, but most monsters don't count as a "Person" and you need the higher-level Hold Monster.

Another restriction is that you typically don't get a lot of these spells at once. It's not like FF where you can cast your best magic throughout the fight and quaff an Ether or three and keep casting. Imagine a FF where your spell points are a resource that you can't recover during a fight and you have to leave the dungeon to rest or heal, and a Potion is something that a powerful character might have one or two of. In a standard JRPG and most western CRPGs, your resource management is very short-term, sometimes to the extent that you only need to worry about what happens in each fight independently because you'll get everything back at the end of the fight.

[Neonivek]

I played a game where you could status effect bosses, some were nearly impossible to apply, but that was actually the point of trying.

I once put a boss in stasis for 99 turns and that was a bit mistake (stasis is useful but... not for that long)

Mind you there was instant kill status effect and the only status effect that would really matter (Charm) has no real use against a single enemy.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

... what game was it?

[Neonivek]

... what game was it?

Saga Fronteer.

You didn't get any of the one hit kill status effects.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I hear that's what 4E D&D tried to do, remove the "save or die" style effects. That is, if you get turned to stone, there are several rolls involved and it's a slower process than instantaneous. But I'm talking out my butt here because I've never played it; maybe someone more knowledgeable will pop in.

You could easily set up an effect scheme where paralysis was really just Slow to the point where high-level Slow would effectively make you stop. Confusion would have a chance per action of causing some random action instead, higher chance based on the quality of the Confusion effect. That sort of thing.

[Neonivek]

Yeah but the problem with 4.e is that it is ultimately dungeons and dragons being reduced to a purely "Playing" format.

It is probably the most balanced roll-based dungeons and dragons.

It just doesn't have the same roleplaying umph the other ones have... I still like 4.e quite a bit though.

[sambojin]

On the 3.5 AD&D front, the spell levels, memorizing (or praying) and use of spells was a strange system. Plenty of useful clutter, depending on the situation and your DM. But very limited and somewhat cludgy in use. Plus, there was absolutely no reason that any character wouldn't choose a level of spell-user at some point. Not even any of the more OP'd prestige classes gave to a rogue/bard/fighter/barbarian/whatever-non-really-magic-class that a single level of sorceror, wizard or cleric didn't give better. For one level, you basically added combat++ to your fairly combaty class, plus some variable use as well. Hey, a few free cure light wounds potions a day or a few expedious retreats a day? Maybe some sphere effects (read: free feats) as well. Why not? That wasn't even with all the other options this gave you.

Then there was psionics, which was more of a mana based system. Which was cool, really cool, until you ended up with 100+ MP and could still use low level, unempowered spells. Those spells needed to do something at low levels, especially the status inducing ones. Or the stat boosters. Or the utilities. Basically you ended up as a walking tool-box of awesomeness. Big tools, little tools, a few hammers, and lots of them. Whether this was better or not than the "add a level of awesome" that multi-classing magic off combat classes was is hard to say.

But I have to admit, even without all the supplements for 3.5ed (which ended up way too bloated by the end), AD&D has the right sort of bloat. It just can't exist in computer games properly, they don't have the same sort of DM'ing or RP'ing skills a person does.

[Neonivek]

But very limited and somewhat cludgy in use

Well the biggest issue is actually the opposite. The mages got everything while the warriors essentially were a one trick pony.

Plus, there was absolutely no reason that any character wouldn't choose a level of spell-user at some point

Because they sucked at it and at a certain point unless your a dedicated spell caster, it didn't help.

Not even any of the more OP'd prestige classes gave to a rogue/bard/fighter/barbarian/whatever-non-really-magic-class that a single level of sorceror, wizard or cleric didn't give better

Conceptually the Priestige classes were basically classes that made certain builds viable as well as a few extra abilities.

For example did you want to play a Wizard/Cleric? Well there is the Heirophant (they still sucked). Did you want to play a intelligent fast fighter? Duelist is for you.