5th level characters vs a purple worm

[Sacrosanct]

Not only are you wrong again, you’re lying on top of it to boot. That’s certainly impressive. You couldn’t have used a term before the term was even coined. Sorry. Lots of people played 2e, used that term, and think they used it the whole time when they couldn’t have because it didn’t exist.

And they didn’t coexist any more than 1e and 4e coexisted. People kept playing 1e when it came out, but that doesn’t mean they were officially supported together for that whole time. Like I said, every time you post you display an ignorance of 1e. Now not only with rules, but with timelines as well.

And I find it laughable that you actually looked at those NPCs and think those are typical 1e PCs that anyone would have. Now I’m utterly convinced you never played 1e back in the day. Tournament modules were created for scoring purposes, to see how far each table progressed. The NPCs the players used were significantly more powerful than typical PCs not in a tournament for that reason. It was pretty common knowledge at the time. 5th level PCs didn’t have +3 suits or armor, and half their stats over 15 with an 18 in almost every single party member. Look at the star gen methods, and learn how math works. There’s your proof. And look at the adventures PCs took to get them up to level 5, and how many of them had +3 items strewn about? Or am I to assume by your most recent comment when you made your false claim to start this thread about how easy 1e was compared to 5e, you assumed the context was that everyone used the stat gen method in UA and played Monty haul? That’s not how how the vast majority of players played the game, and if you assume that, then you should have called it out right off the bat instead of making a blanket statement.

You aren’t citing actual rules. You’re making gross inaccurate assumptions, and massively shifting the goalposts when exposed. First it was “THAC0 was the exact same as the tables” and now it’s “well, anyone halfway intelligent knows...”

Give it a rest. I’m not buying it.

 

[Older Beholder]

It most certainly was on a random roll table in the original module. It isn't in the compilation version that you have, but that is a later version of the module which combined three single modules and made significant changes from the original.



Because people were sneering at me for stating that it was anything but an assured TPK in 1E, that the purple worm was an iconic big bad monster and that I probably hadn't actually ever played if I thought that a 1E party at the module's level could do anything but run away ASAP; one guy even bragged about how quickly his characters would flee from a purple worm. Running the 5e fight would be pointless since everyone agrees that fight is lopsided.



Good thing I explicitly said that it was a level 4-7 party from a module written for those levels, which is lower than what this module is rated for, and never stated that it was an average level 5 parry, isn't it? I wasn't interested enough in the scenario to spend the time to rework the characters, none of the character's extra level made a difference in the fight (5-6 has the same fighter THAC0 and saves, no one was up only by the difference in HP between 5 and 6, the level 6 caster had one useless third level spell), and boosting the ranger to 5 from 4 would have actually increased her effectiveness.

Also there is no level 8 character. 1e doesn't add multiclass levels like that, you split XP between the two classes. A 4/4 F/M has the XP to be a 5th level single classed character of either, so is normally regarded as a 5th level character in level comparisons.

Apologies for quoting the combined module references, I didn't realise it was a reissue/revised combined version, so really the 5E conversion was pretty accurate then by the sound of things.

Also apologies for the 8th level character thing, I've never played 1E.
And I'm not sure where I got the 5th level party average from, so sorry about that, for some reason I thought this was an important part of the argument.

It still seems like you ran an encounter designed for you to prove your point. I mean, you used suggestions people offered here to make the 5E encounter easier as a way to prove that the 1E version wasn't that hard.

 

[Older Beholder]

Good thing I explicitly said that it was a level 4-7 party from a module written for those levels, which is lower than what this module is rated for, and never stated that it was an average level 5 parry, isn't it?

I worked out why I thought you were talking about a 5th level party, the title of the thread is 5th level characters vs purple worm

 

[Stalker0]

Not only are you wrong again, you’re lying on top of it to boot. That’s certainly impressive. You couldn’t have used a term before the term was even coined. Sorry. Lots of people played 2e, used that term, and think they used it the whole time when they couldn’t have because it didn’t exist.

And they didn’t coexist any more than 1e and 4e coexisted. People kept playing 1e when it came out, but that doesn’t mean they were officially supported together for that whole time. Like I said, every time you post you display an ignorance of 1e. Now not only with rules, but with timelines as well.

And I find it laughable that you actually looked at those NPCs and think those are typical 1e PCs that anyone would have. Now I’m utterly convinced you never played 1e back in the day. Tournament modules were created for scoring purposes, to see how far each table progressed. The NPCs the players used were significantly more powerful than typical PCs not in a tournament for that reason. It was pretty common knowledge at the time. 5th level PCs didn’t have +3 suits or armor, and half their stats over 15 with an 18 in almost every single party member. Look at the star gen methods, and learn how math works. There’s your proof. And look at the adventures PCs took to get them up to level 5, and how many of them had +3 items strewn about? Or am I to assume by your most recent comment when you made your false claim to start this thread about how easy 1e was compared to 5e, you assumed the context was that everyone used the stat gen method in UA and played Monty haul? That’s not how how the vast majority of players played the game, and if you assume that, then you should have called it out right off the bat instead of making a blanket statement.

You aren’t citing actual rules. You’re making gross inaccurate assumptions, and massively shifting the goalposts when exposed. First it was “THAC0 was the exact same as the tables” and now it’s “well, anyone halfway intelligent knows...”

Give it a rest. I’m not buying it.

Get off your damn high horse already. While everyone is sitting here theorycrafting and armchair quarterbacking, OverlordOcelot actually made an attempt to collect real data about the situation. That is a hell of a lot more than anyone else in this thread can claim.

Now you want to argue some of the facts of the analysis, feel free, but lets turn off the damn sneer.

 

[Sadras]

Whether @OverlordOcelot collected real data or not appears to remain very much in dispute, but one thing we can all agree on is that his post was the final purple worm that broke the camel's back.


Aaaand with that I'm done.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I remember reading Pharaoh when it first came out, and feeling it was a lot more sophisticated than the modules I had seen previously. I'm pretty sure the Purple Worm had always been on the random encounter table. I'm also certain that the intention was never that the party engage it in a fight to the death. It would be inconsistent with the writing of the rest of the module to suddenly revert to a juvenile approach with random encounters.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Get off your damn high horse already. While everyone is sitting here theorycrafting and armchair quarterbacking, OverlordOcelot actually made an attempt to collect real data about the situation. That is a hell of a lot more than anyone else in this thread can claim.

Now you want to argue some of the facts of the analysis, feel free, but lets turn off the damn sneer.

He didn't make any such attempt. He made a claim about how 1e was much easier, and when several people pointed out actual factual evidence of how the rules work in 1e, his response was to be completely dismissive right out of the gate:

"I am pretty sure that the people saying it's easier in 5e than 1e haven't actually looked at the stats and are just going off of some '1e = hard, 5e = easy' idea. "

And then follow it up with more assumptions about 1e that were not accurate or true. There's a reason why more than one person outside of myself early on immediately got the impression that he wasn't looking for any discussion, but just wanted to argue, using wrong info as the basis of his arguments.

So maybe it's you who needs to get of your high horse and reread the thread again.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Stalker0]

I had to take a break from this, but I understand exactly where [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION] is coming from. Allow me to explain in several ways.

First, that whole 1e/2e thing. Sure, it seems small and petty. And in many ways, it is! But it makes a big difference in play and in an approach to the game. For lack of a better way of putting it, it's like someone making comments about ODD from a BECMI (not just B/X) perspective; yes, a lot of things are the same, or similar, and feel compatible- and most things are compatible! But those small differences, man. And if someone has played 1e almost exclusively, there's that subtle difference- and you know it. You don't make comments like the ones made by the OP. Now, don't get me wrong; ask 5 1e players about something, and you'll get 6 different views. But there's also a shared feel, a shared conversation. A conversation about 1e tends to go something along the lines of, "Man, coming back from the dead was hard." "Yeah, and we used the system shock and con rules." "Yeah, well we made sure that elves couldn't come back, because of spirits." "Well, what about the rod of resurrection?" "...oh yeah!" And then something something Gygax. It's a community of people shaped by obtuse rules, DIY, and differing play experiences, and aware of that. That's something completely missing from the OP. Did he play 1e? Maybe, maybe not. But it wasn't his thing ... maybe 2e was.

Anyway, that gets to the whole argumentative issue. Normally, when someone posts a question and gets a lot of helpful responses, the OP usually doesn't spend all of his time arguing with the people trying to help him! I mean, some might. But not people I'd like to chat with. As was noted, the OP just joined, I believe this is his first thread, and I wish him the best in the future because he has some good ideas- but man, that's not the way to come across, or pretty soon he'll be on everyone's ignore list. I thought this would be a fun thread (Desert of Desolation is one of my favorite series, I've probably run I3 more than any module other than, maybe Sinster Secret, and I've already run the conversion to 5e 4 times ... once for grognards and thee times for kids). Somehow, it isn't.

Now, moving to the exact example. There are multiple problems with it. As already noted, A3 is a tournament module, and those characters are not necessarily a great choice. Moreover, in order to properly compare it, you'd have to do the following- get eight (8!) characters that are roughly the same levels in 5e and run them, using approximately the same "to hit" rolls. I don't want to spoil the math behind large parties in 5e, but ... 8 characters of 5th level or higher, with magic items, is pretty formidable in 5e. And that's before you get to the whack-a-mole issue.

And that's where some of the grognards would see the real problem with the analysis. Because of variability (the white room theorycraft problem). It would be facile to say that there would be a difference between the party that has the proverbial "Arrow of Purple Worm Slaying" and the party of 4 5th level Druids. But the issue really is simple- how "hard" is the purple worm supposed to be in 1e terms? And the answer can be found, again, in the DMG.

It is a Type VIII/IX monster (for comparison, a very old red dragon is VIII, an ancient one is IX). While these are rough categories, it gives you an idea of, generally, how difficult an encounter it *can* be. How difficult it *will* be varies, with three big variables-
1. Party size. This should go without saying, but apparently I'm wrong on that. The difference between a four person party and an eight person party isn't just 2x. Think on that for a while. As party size increases, while you have a solo monster, it gets so much easier ... not as much as in 5e, but still.

2. Party composition. Much moreso than in 5e, again. If you have a Monty Haul campaign, with a lot of magic items (or a bunch of +3 items for 5th level characters) it will be easier.

3. Luck. This is the huge one, and needs to be explained more. And that's what, fundamentally, the OP is missing. The difference between 1e and 5e in an encounter like this would be variability. For example- what happens if, in the first round, the Worm stings the main fighter, who fails a saving throw (dead) and bites a magic user to death? We talk about "only" a certain number of hit points for the 1e PW, and that's true- if there are a lot of PCs, and they aren't failing saves, or they get lucky, then they can win!

But that's not how you would normally perform that type of calculus. Because ... there is a massive and fundamental difference about entering combat. Look back at the sample tournament party pulled by the OP. WHAT WAS THE HEALING? That's right. They had Cure light wounds (x4), and one scroll of cure serious, and one potion of healing.

Now, you're out in the desert. You don't have 5e's whack-a-mole combat. You don't have any method of raising the dead. You have very limited daily healing. And you don't have 5e's ability to heal with time (you get 1hp per day of rest, and you aren't resting in the desert).

So no sane party that actually played 1e and saw that would try on the encounter - not just because it COULD result in a TPK (depending on party composition) but because EVEN IF IT DIDN'T, IT WOULD LIKELY KILL ONE OR MORE PARTY MEMBERS AND DEVASTATE THEM FOR THE REST OF THE ADVENTURE. This is something so obvious it shouldn't need to be pointed out, which is why many of us were happy to suggest options for the OP if he wanted to avoid the encounter (because many of us had run this).

And yet, here we are. Anyway, just putting this out here. And OP- I truly hope you stop being so defensive and go back and read my very first response back to you. I truly love this module, and I love good conversations, and I hope you become a valued contributor here.

Lowkey, a wonderfully written response. Full of well thought out points, reasonable facts, and most importantly....not a single touch of anger or disdain. I applaud you, this is what has been missing from this debate.

Now let us have a debate ourselves shall we! In terms of my point above, I will stick with the recent conversation, most specifically about the example the OP provided. At one point Sancosanct calls the OP's use of 1e in question over the term THACO.

The OP's response: ..."As you pointed out, "To Hit A.C. 0" actually originated on P196 of the 1st edition DMG in Appendex E: "Alphabetical Recapitulation of Monsters (With Experience Point Values)", it was not created in 2nd edition."

Sancosanct's response: ..."Every time you post, you display how you really do not in fact, know the rules of the game you keep saying you do. No, people did not refer to "THAC0" in 1e. I wasn't even called that, but spelled out in the only place it appeared in 1e (the DMG appendix)."

The OP provided a fact....a fact that both parties seem to agree on. And yet the response amounts to...well yes that existed...but your party did not use that term (trust me I know), so therefore you clearly have little knowledge of the game. Now Sancosanct may ultimately be right....but there is no winning here with that kind of tone and statement. This is the "sneer" I was referring to earlier, and it is destroying what could be an interesting and reasonable debate.


Now let me look at one of your statements: "not just because it COULD result in a TPK (depending on party composition) but because EVEN IF IT DIDN'T, IT WOULD LIKELY KILL ONE OR MORE PARTY MEMBERS AND DEVASTATE THEM FOR THE REST OF THE ADVENTURE. This is something so obvious it shouldn't need to be pointed out, which is why many of us were happy to suggest options for the OP if he wanted to avoid the encounter (because many of us had run this)."

The bolded section is the point of argument. As you have stated earlier, 1e was an amalgamation of weird house rules, snippets of different books, etc. And unlike 3e and beyond, we did not have the internet to come to at least some understanding of what the "standard dnd game" looks like. So I don't think there is anything obvious here.

To the OP's combat analysis, the point of the analysis was to showcase that the purple worm was not the automatic TPK in 1e that people are asserting. The OP's example showcased how the PW could not only be beaten, but actually beaten pretty handily. Is the example typical? That's a key question, and it seems that its one that is hard to answer. The assertion is that the tournament characters are not typical examples. That may be true....how do we prove it? At least those characters are in a book, we can see there stats, its something tangible and something that we all can agree exists. Are there other character examples in any of the old 1e books that could give us a better example of what a typical 1e character looks like? Otherwise we only have the words of nostalgic 1e players to guide us into what the typical party would look like....and unfortunately that is not the strongest evidence of actual results.

Perhaps one way to "fake it", would be this question....generally how much variance was there in 1e characters? For example, would it be reasonable to adjust the tournament players by -1 hit, +1 saves (I think its +1) or something like to give a reasonable estimate of what "weaker characters" would look like? With your 1e experience, do you think rerunning the analysis with slightly weaker players would satisfy your concerns about trying a reasonable party against the PW?

 

[Sacrosanct]

For clarification, while I agreed that "To Hit A.C. 0" appeared in the back of the DMG, I stick by my assertion that that doesn't meant "THAC0". "THAC0" never appeared in that format. It was spelled out like "To Hit A.C. 0". And no one used the term "THAC0" in 1e because that phrase, and rule around it, didn't appear until 2e. Unlike the OP's claim, THAC0 did not do the exact same thing as the attack matrix's as I previously explained. A 1-5th level MU has to get a 20 to hit AC0, so people familiar with the THAC0 rule from 2e would assume they would need a 19 to hit AC1. That's how the THAC0 rule works. However in 1e, using the attack matrix table, the MU needs a 20 to hit AC1 as well.

So I can say that "To Hit A.C. 0" existed in 1e while at the same time saying that "THAC0" didn't. They aren't the same thing. The OP did what a lot of people do. They remember using THAC0 for so long, that they assume they've always been using it when they didn't. They couldn't have. It didn't exist as a rule until 2e. I don't have an issue with people making that mistake (it's a common one). I have an issue with someone making that mistake, being informed how it actually worked, and doubling down on it and refusing to acknowledge it. That's how this whole conversation has gone. It seems clear by the OP's comments that the OP hasn't played 1e back in the day, or if he did, played only Monty Haul and thinks that's how the game was played in general. Rules assumptions are wrong, timelines are wrong, there are many examples. That in itself isn't a big deal. But when you make a claim that 1e was much easier when you aren't familiar with how 1e played, and become combative and dismissive when people who are actually familiar with 1e point out your errors, this is what happens. It would be like me making a claim about how 4e played, and when 4e players call out my incorrect assumptions, I dismiss them and double down, telling them they don't actually know what it was like, and calling them "4e experts" in a mocking tone. I shouldn't be surprised if people get upset with me.