A'koss said:
Don't forget the "Death From Massive Damage" rule. It's somewhere in the 1e DMG...
A'koss said:
But there is in B/X D&D, and you did say older edition
s.
In AD&D, he could easily have been grappled/overborne (either by using the extra-crunchy rules provided in the 1e DMG, or the simpler ones from Dragon magazine, or the DM's own house rule equivalent).
Either way, no sane DM would have let a PC take on an army unless he was carrying some kind of artifact with suitable powers. High-level PCs may be very heroic, but they're still mortal.
A'koss said:
However, how many mythological and fantasy characters (that is,
the kind of characters D&D is supposed to model) run around in nothing but their non-magical clothes or a simple loincloth *cough*Conan*cough*?
D&D doesn't model any one single novel or genre. It's very much a pastiche, with lots of original stuff added on top. How does Conan fit into the same world as D'Artagnan, King Arthur, Gandalf, and Elric of Melnibonee? Even 3e, with its focus on intricate details, cannot do justice to all those characters at once. Either the character has to be changed to fit the game, or the game has to be changed to fit him. But because they all originate from different universes (which obey different laws), the characters are what must ultimately bend to the rules. In pastiche-land, the closest you'll get is an approximation, but that should be good enough to have fun, don't you think?
Besides, it's not hard to make a Conan character in old-school D&D. Take a fighter with very high STR/DEX/CON, dual-class him as a thief, and give him an innate effect equivalent to Bracers of Defense. If it's a PC instead of an NPC, you can give him an XP panalty to offset the BoD freebie. It might not be perfect, but it's workable, at least it works for me.
One thing you seem to not have grasped though, is that old-school D&D isn't really about the rules. They're there and they're useful to have, but they exist only as guidelines to help the DM manage his adventure/campaign. Ultimately, the ball is in his hands as to what is possible or not, and how it gets resolved. And that, my friend, is precisely why some of us continue to play old editions even though WotC's D&D remake is mechanically more consistent.