Blending the D&Ds

Garthanos said:

I consider the differing advancement a concession saying we did badly in the design and level does not mean power its almost meaningless.

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I don't know that I would go that far. Advancement rates is in theory a legitimate way of achieving balance that might otherwise be difficult because advancement rate is highly granular. It's very clear that the 1e classes are widely imbalanced and its less clear how to make them balanced and retain the 1e feels and simplistic mechanics.

The biggest problem with the 1e advancement rates is that while in theory they could help increase balance, in practice they just don't. The numbers are not carefully chosen to achieve important balancing effects. If you graph the classes against each other, at times the numbers chosen seem absolutely baffling. So while there could have been an interesting design, there just isn't.

Zardnaar said:

The numbers could be stretched a bit though and tweak the ACs at lower levels to account for it. By that I mean you could do the 4E +1/2 levels thing

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I would consider adding to 5e a general proficiency bonus that was +1 per 2 levels to many things to break open the higher level awesome sauce. (The bounded accuracy thing seems to defeat the flavor text of the various tiers by keeping mundane obstacles perhaps too challenging when you are high level)

Celebrim said:

I don't know that I would go that far. Advancement rates is in theory a legitimate way of achieving balance that might otherwise be difficult because advancement rate is highly granular. It's very clear that the 1e classes are widely imbalanced and its less clear how to make them balanced and retain the 1e feels and simplistic mechanics.

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The fighter getting a new attack is not very fine grained nor is the leap from not having a fireball to having one. Balancing them to me means making sure those bumps happen in synchronicity (I picked an example that I think might actually be concurrent and in one of the levels that might be starting to be more balanced than many didnt I).

I cannot look at character levels in 1e land and say this characters is more powerful than that and I think that undermines the games design including adventure design.

And as you said they didnt do a good job using it even if it could have had the desired effect.

Garthanos said:

The fighter getting a new attack is not very fine grained....

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1e attack progression is vastly more fine grained than it is in later editions - 4e and 5e in particular. The Fighter's first bump in attacks per round is 5/4, meaning that the get 1 extra attack every four rounds of combat. This is no advantage at all in combats that only last 3 rounds, and you could end up fighting for seven rounds and get only 1 extra attack. Fighters were reasonably balanced until Weapon Specialization came along and broke them completely.

The bump for 1e AD&D's M-Us when you first got your 1st 3rd level spell and suddenly got access to game changing direct damage like fireball or lightning bolt was pretty huge, and that is an example of how balancing 1e's very simple mechanics gets really difficult. Without completely reimagining the spell progression for 1e (which is a possibility IMO), it's not clear how you avoid that issue and even if you do its going to show up eventually. On the other hand, the relative potency of direct damage had a hidden advantage for the system, is it tended to keep magic less fiddly compared to 3e's nerfed direct damage and consequent reliance on buffs and debuffs, and a 5th level M-U getting 1 fireball a day to nova with didn't have that outsized of an effect provided you were using the assumed haven/delve format.

What is telling though with respect to the M-U leveling table, is you'd expect fairly easy XP progression through 4th level and then a big bump in XP required to level starting at 5th level, with increasingly large bumps as each new level of spell came online. But that logical progression is very much what you don't see in the M-U table. Still, aside from the wonky XP progression and fireball being relatively OP for its level given the low hit points of most opponents, the M-U in 1e AD&D is reasonably balanced provided you don't get to heavily into illusion abuse and follow all the rules for casting a spell.

I cannot look at character levels in 1e land and say this characters is more powerful than that and I think that undermines the games design including adventure design.

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It is a very different design philosophy compared to 3e and later editions, where you have all these assumptions about CR party level and encounters designed on some sort of theoretical budget. Honestly, I can't say that I am a fan of that design any way, so the biggest issue for me is not that it undermines the idea of encounters as balanced tactical skirmish challenges, but simply that I feel like a game should have as few unique tables as possible as part of the rules to avoid needing to flip through the book to look things up.

By and large, I still do encounter design very much like I did for 1e. I do pay some attention to CR and party level, but I pay a lot more attention to what the setting implies should be there and less to whether it makes an idealized challenge for the party.

Celebrim said:

1e attack progression is vastly more fine grained than it is in later editions - 4e and 5e in particular. The Fighter's first bump in attacks per round is 5/4, meaning that the get 1 extra attack every four rounds of combat

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Oh right smacks forehead been too long

4e doesn't use the same more attacks technique for increasing ability it is much more gradual in part because it starts at a higher point if you start your 1e at level 5 and going to level 10 was the same distance as level 10 in 4e its about that gradual ... note with dailies and encounters and the like providing spikey booms (which are a bit like instead of one every 4 rounds its once per encounter or once per day) and over all power spikes are more I hit paragon level and I hit Epic levels. (neither of which is doubling defensive or offensive power) and are something everyone gets. These are thematically at least along the lines of getting Name level capstone abilities.

5e does use the poof I am twice the attacker offensively I used to be when they hit level 5.

But in 1e when I hit level 2 I am twice the combatant (defensively) that I was one level ago and this is supposedly after having many years of being training. In 5e you probably don't double your defensive ability til level 3. And in 4e that is might be 6th level. OK 5 levels of advancement in 4e is probably only 3 levels in 5e or 1e but it is still significantly slower.

Zardnaar said:

5E is about the only D&D where skills could be integrated into combat better.

4E for example still had that problem of the +5 trained/untrained thing along with +5 off skill focus.
it.

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or actually +3 off focus and +2 race and +2 off of background and +2 maybe off of Theme... yes skill just went nutso.

Celebrim said:

1e attack progression is vastly more fine grained than it is in later editions - 4e and 5e in particular. The Fighter's first bump in attacks per round is 5/4, meaning that the get 1 extra attack every four rounds of combat. This is no advantage at all in combats that only last 3 rounds, and you could end up fighting for seven rounds and get only 1 extra attack. Fighters were reasonably balanced until Weapon Specialization came along and broke them completely.

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LOL how is a single class balanced in a game where other classes go from useless to overwhelming the statement is not meaningful. Balance is dependent on context ie balanced with regards to what? (Thief was useless even at high level it never got its shine in the sun without bizarro world adventure designs)

Celebrim said:

the M-U in 1e AD&D is reasonably balanced provided you don't get to heavily into illusion abuse and follow all the rules for casting a spell.

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Never saw a DM do it well once (including me) they were either dramatically overpowered or underpowered with a narrow window in the middle and sometimes the overpowered was at level 1 with a sleep spell. That is to me an in theory vs an in practice issue I am sure it is possible for my 9th level fighter to have not felt like a sidekick but pretending it actually worked out that way at most tables does not seem honest. Its wearing pink glasses about tradition.

Celebrim said:

1e attack progression is vastly more fine grained than it is in later editions - 4e and 5e in particular. The Fighter's first bump in attacks per round is 5/4, meaning that the get 1 extra attack every four rounds of combat.

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While I'm sure there's a set of rules used by people playing 1e that did this, the PHB and UA rules didn't - PHB has attacks of 1/1, 3/2, 2/1 (at 1/7/13 for fighters) and UA has specialist attacks at 3/2, 2/1, and 5/2 at those same breakpoints. (Missile weapons had different rates of fire, but none with 5/4).

From the AD&D DMG

"The testing grounds for novice adventurers must be kept to a difficulty factor which encourages rather than discourages players. If things are too easy, then there is no challenge, and boredom sets in after one or two games. Conversely, impossible difficulty and character deaths cause
instant loss of interest"

And later

"Creatures inhabiting the place must be of strength and in numbers not excessive compared to the adventurers' wherewithal to deal with them."

it really sounds like Gygax was recommending monsters and challenges be designed for the player characters. Not some purist simulation to me.