J. Tweet's comments on Swords & Wizardry

[LostSoul]

So in other words it would be like you having a 15% chance to auto-kill a monster in the first round of combat... but even if you don't you have the same chance to battle the monster on the same terms as everyone else... in other words it's not an 85% chance to fail... it's a 15% chance to auto-succeed and then a regular chance to try and succeed.

I think it would be more like saying the Fighter has a 15% chance to hit AC 0... but if, instead of rolling the dice he describes his attack routine and lets the DM adjudicate the results, he has the same chance as anyone else.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I've always thought this was a very poor game rule. The player is already being rewarded by having the higher attribute. If anything if you can get your character to survive an adventure with LOW attributes you should be getting the bonus.

It's not there to reward the player, it's their to simulate how more agile, stronger, smarter, people generally excel at their careers. People with low dexterity have a harder time becoming olympic gymnists. It's not all that important, easy enough to disregard if you want to bow to the game balance gods, but it's not a poor rule, merely one of the simulationist effects of AD&D. Of course, if you have more generous stat generation methods than standard, this rule becomes obsolete.

 

[Treebore]

As I usually do, I bought the rules and played the game myself. Bottom line is we had a blast, it played very fast and fun.

Did we have complaints? Yes, primarily with spells, the level they were, and how crappy they were for their level.

Are the classes balanced? Pretty well, actually. Then again we don't think the thief is a fighter variant, and when fighters complain about us spell casters needing rest we don't heal them until after we rest, then they seem to like rest periods just fine.

Still, I think this "clone" is a vast improvement over the original, for one, I felt motivated to actually play it, which never happened with my little brown books.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I have never understood the concept of resting just because you're out of spells. Hell, that's when the fun starts. The fighter doesn't run to town when he runs out of arrows. Every group I ever played in, regardless of edition, pushed onwards until we were way down on hit points. Now, we'd generally try and rest up for an end fight we knew was coming, but if we're exploring the wilderness, or a dungeon, we pushed on, at some risk, to be sure, and occasionally we'd lose a character because of it, but stopping because the girly man in a dress is out of spells? Not gonna happen. Casters have weapon proficiencies, same as everyone else.

 

[Chainsaw]

So, maybe I just don't get it, but.. a guy publishes what he thinks is a polished, but intentionally very, very similar version of a game alot of people liked and many still like. Immediately all the old complaints pop up from people who prefer something else - but it's not as if the system in question hides its intention, right? In the most respectful possible way, I honestly wonder what's to be accomplished?

Like another guy said, one guy's wart is another's beauty mark.

 

[Vigilance]

Tweet touched on the one thing that I truly believe that OD&D, 1E and 2E do much better than 3.x or 4E and that's speed.

No minis = great speed of play.

I see this a lot and it constantly confuses me.

Older editions of D&D were clearly written with miniatures in mind. That's why movement and spell areas in AD&D is listed in inches for example, so you could measure it off like they did with wargames not played on a grid.

Sure, you could play it without minis, but I don't think that was really any harder or easier on play than later editions.

There was always that question of whether or not your party was in range of the fireball, or if your monk could cross the room in one round, and DMs usually handwaved that stuff.

But you can do that in 3e too, and in my experience, it causes about the same number of snafus in actual play.

 

[Vigilance]

At least now you have a choice of bugs. That's progress.

Oh heck yeah. I'm a big fan of more game systems, not less. Gives me a bigger playground

 

[Imaro]

I think it would be more like saying the Fighter has a 15% chance to hit AC 0... but if, instead of rolling the dice he describes his attack routine and lets the DM adjudicate the results, he has the same chance as anyone else.

No, I don't think so... if a thief succeeds on his disarm trap role that threat is totally neutralized... hitting AC 0 in no way guarantees a monster is neutralized, just hit that one time. Also, since I don't believe failing that roll implicitly caused the trap to trigger (I gotta check this one, so I'll state upfront that I am not certain) unless the DM ruled so... the thief could in fact try again like everyone else.

 

[Gentlegamer]

I think it would be more like saying the Fighter has a 15% chance to hit AC 0... but if, instead of rolling the dice he describes his attack routine and lets the DM adjudicate the results, he has the same chance as anyone else.

Yes, and that chance is zero. :cheeky:

 

[LostSoul]

No, I don't think so...

That's fair, my post was kinda lame.

My point is that the difference is between "freeform roleplay" or the thief rolling dice.

A better combat example might be a % chance to trip someone. Say a class has a 15% chance to trip an opponent (it's a homebrew class). He could use that, or you could describe a trip attempt and let the DM adjudicate it.