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Jon Peterson posts Mordenkainen in 1974
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<blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 7749722" data-attributes="member: 6688937"><p>...a little circular there.</p><p></p><p>I mean, I'm glad you've never seen those problems. I'm not sure I've ever played AD&D with a party that I believe was legitimately rolled, and its always...<u>always</u>...the guy who says he loves AD&D above all other editions who ends up with 18/% "naturally" rolled. And the lunacy of rolling methods...yeesh.</p><p></p><p> </p><p></p><p>AD&D doesn't have that <em>explicitly</em>, but its clear to me that the designers expected that either (A) You'd be cheating to get high stats anyway or (B) You'd be "weeding out" characters with low stats at high levels.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There are, to my knowledge, exactly zero editions of this game that don't factor your stats into the game design. Even if it adjusts your XP and nothing else...that's a factor into the game design itself. (I mean, otherwise, why bother having stats?)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>erm...okay....gonna have to disagree with you there.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And the difference between a 9 STR and a 18/00 STR is +4/+6. So, yeah like 4 levels <u>or more</u> worth of offensive power for the Fighter. Seems to me like that influences your ability to hit your enemy quite a bit. Its just all bunched up into the end of the scale. That gives fighter players a super-clear incentive to lie, cheat, and steal to get that 18 and roll the %.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>What % of an AD&D's STR 18/00 Ftr10's offensive capacity vs a STR 9 FTR10's offensive capacity is based on Stats? Its <u>at least</u> 40%, just due to the "to hit" bonus. I'm not sure how to factor in the +6 damage/hit, but I'm confident that it would end up being 50% or more. That is, assuming the Ftr10 hasn't girdled up or something by then.</p><p></p><p>I would say that its true that most of the other stat-class interactions are not so strong in AD&D (with the possible exception of thieves and Dex), at least once play has started. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'll give you the saving throws, but see you adventures written with absolute requirements like "a total Strength of 25 between two characters is necessary to open the door." Skills, may depend on where you draw the lines, the way proficiency checks worked in 2e actually incentivized players even more. I mean, each point was a straight-up 5% increase in success chances.</p><p></p><p>Also, wanna play a paladin, or ranger? or an elf? or anything other than a human thief or cleric?....good luck doing that without the appropriate stats. Oh, shoot, even a human thief or cleric is only qualified for by characters meeting certain requirements. I don't even think its mathematically possible to quantify the stat-dependence between a 10th level character with high stats and one <em>who didn't even qualify to play that class</em>.</p><p></p><p>Oh, wait,...does that qualify as stats factoring into the game design?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, the AD&D stat bonuses are just compressed at the end of the scales, not spread out. All that does is incentivize players to cheat them up. If your playgroups never caught on to that...well, cheers, I guess. I've played in multiple AD&D playgroups intermittently since the 80's and they all seem to exhibit the behaviors I've mentioned wrt to fighters, STR, and AD&D. I see much more diversity in primary stat values in later editions (some of which may be due to less class restrictions).</p><p></p><p>If you like AD&D, that's great, play it away. I just don't buy the "later editions are more stat-dependent" argument though, and you'd need at least a 19 Charisma to convince me otherwise. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>All that being said, I'd be happy, and have even suggested that D&D drop stats (or random stats, anyway) entirely and wrap all of that into your other character choices and perhaps a quirks system.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ratskinner, post: 7749722, member: 6688937"] ...a little circular there. I mean, I'm glad you've never seen those problems. I'm not sure I've ever played AD&D with a party that I believe was legitimately rolled, and its always...[U]always[/U]...the guy who says he loves AD&D above all other editions who ends up with 18/% "naturally" rolled. And the lunacy of rolling methods...yeesh. AD&D doesn't have that [I]explicitly[/I], but its clear to me that the designers expected that either (A) You'd be cheating to get high stats anyway or (B) You'd be "weeding out" characters with low stats at high levels. There are, to my knowledge, exactly zero editions of this game that don't factor your stats into the game design. Even if it adjusts your XP and nothing else...that's a factor into the game design itself. (I mean, otherwise, why bother having stats?) erm...okay....gonna have to disagree with you there. And the difference between a 9 STR and a 18/00 STR is +4/+6. So, yeah like 4 levels [U]or more[/U] worth of offensive power for the Fighter. Seems to me like that influences your ability to hit your enemy quite a bit. Its just all bunched up into the end of the scale. That gives fighter players a super-clear incentive to lie, cheat, and steal to get that 18 and roll the %. What % of an AD&D's STR 18/00 Ftr10's offensive capacity vs a STR 9 FTR10's offensive capacity is based on Stats? Its [U]at least[/U] 40%, just due to the "to hit" bonus. I'm not sure how to factor in the +6 damage/hit, but I'm confident that it would end up being 50% or more. That is, assuming the Ftr10 hasn't girdled up or something by then. I would say that its true that most of the other stat-class interactions are not so strong in AD&D (with the possible exception of thieves and Dex), at least once play has started. I'll give you the saving throws, but see you adventures written with absolute requirements like "a total Strength of 25 between two characters is necessary to open the door." Skills, may depend on where you draw the lines, the way proficiency checks worked in 2e actually incentivized players even more. I mean, each point was a straight-up 5% increase in success chances. Also, wanna play a paladin, or ranger? or an elf? or anything other than a human thief or cleric?....good luck doing that without the appropriate stats. Oh, shoot, even a human thief or cleric is only qualified for by characters meeting certain requirements. I don't even think its mathematically possible to quantify the stat-dependence between a 10th level character with high stats and one [I]who didn't even qualify to play that class[/I]. Oh, wait,...does that qualify as stats factoring into the game design? Again, the AD&D stat bonuses are just compressed at the end of the scales, not spread out. All that does is incentivize players to cheat them up. If your playgroups never caught on to that...well, cheers, I guess. I've played in multiple AD&D playgroups intermittently since the 80's and they all seem to exhibit the behaviors I've mentioned wrt to fighters, STR, and AD&D. I see much more diversity in primary stat values in later editions (some of which may be due to less class restrictions). If you like AD&D, that's great, play it away. I just don't buy the "later editions are more stat-dependent" argument though, and you'd need at least a 19 Charisma to convince me otherwise. :) All that being said, I'd be happy, and have even suggested that D&D drop stats (or random stats, anyway) entirely and wrap all of that into your other character choices and perhaps a quirks system. [/QUOTE]
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