What is the essence of D&D

[Lanefan]

@Lanefan, something that gets left out though is that AD&D PC's were assumed to have more than 10 magic items each. Otherwise, the strictures on paladins don't make any sense. So, if we assume a 6-8 PC party, it's reasonable to think that most of the time, they would be lugging around 60-80 magic items. O.O

No argument there - though quite a few of those would often be minor magics e.g. scrolls and potions. (also, carrying a 3,000 g.p. item is far easier than hauling around 3,000 g.p. in coin)

And, if we look at the old 1e modules, that wasn't actually a hard limit to reach. There were a LOT of magic items in those old magic items. Sure, a lightning bolt save was hard to make, but, they also weren't all that common. Blue dragons and 5th level+ wizards were about the only things that shot lightning.

Along with one or two rather memorable traps in certain modules, also the electric version of Glyph of Warding and a few much less common effects.

The biggest hazard is your own 5th level+ wizards and their bad aim and-or geometry.

Sure, you might be running through magic items, but, the point is, you had a LOT of magic items to run through.

Like I said, easy come, easy go.

 

[Lanefan]

Your 1e fighter was level 9 when the mage as 11 this did not do what people thought it did.

Fair point - I'm so used to our houserules where we kept wizards on slow advancement throughout that I forget that by 1e RAW they had that speed-up between about levels 6 and 11.

 

[Lanefan]

Destroying magic items in stories usually seems a big deal... them volcanos and the like come in handy not so much incidental damage on a battlefield (important choices involved)

If magic items weren't relatively easy to destroy I'd have to give out far fewer of them, and if I did that you'd be able to hear my players' squawks no matter where in the world you are.

Really says who... (yes I know the gambler and its why you call it a big score and I call it a climactic - it is actually pretty telling)
Fluke die rolls honestly don't impress me as much as those based on choices remember the game was supposed to be about the player expressing their character through choices (such as what things seem important to the player and character)

Only partly.

If it was to be entirely this way then dice would not be part of the game. But they are, which emphatically states that luck is also an intentional and important component of the game.

AND on top of that the class most interested in fighting had the fewest functional tactical and strategic choices IMHO that sucks.

Mechanically, this is correct. But I've played 1e Fighters forever and provided I give 'em enough character and personality, they never get boring.

I'm happy to just keep swingin' this axe until the foe falls down.

TBH In the end I want having a really climatic effect to not be just because of resource management (it is part of it) but occurring because of a combination of that planning and team work and combining more than one characters abilities and exploiting features of the scene and so on to me that is way more interesting than just an ooh look the plastic said so. (or just the bald faced decision but even just the decision says something about the character and what the player considers important). To me things like the 4e slayer or champion in 5e lack expressiveness (and the 5e bm only seems a bit better with kill it fast dominating everything).

I dunno - when the party is (quite literally!) down to its last hit point and the only standing PC puts a critical into the arch-lich and destroys it, saving the party at the same time - yeah, it don't get better than that. Play of the Year!

(this actually happened in my game - fighting an arch-lich way above their pay grade, the whole party is down and out except one who is still fighting at 1 h.p.; and she max-crits the thing on what would have almost certainly been her last swing)

 

[TheCosmicKid]

@Tony Vargas Did you notice that you just put the words of a literal supervillain into the mouths of the people whose opinion you're supposedly describing?

That's the sort of stuff that makes me worry there's a little bit of motivated reasoning going on.

 

[Garthanos]

If magic items weren't relatively easy to destroy I'd have to give out far fewer of them, and if I did that you'd be able to hear my players' squawks no matter where in the world you are.

Not with the items I give out and gave out in 1e too they arent flotsam and easily broken trash.

If it was to be entirely this way then dice would not be part of the game. B

"Important" unless you perform the most difficult things in reality and get to have magic... then it can go flank itself. Sorry gambler man just not impressed

 

[Garthanos]

Fair point - I'm so used to our houserules where we kept wizards on slow advancement throughout that I forget that by 1e RAW they had that speed-up between about levels 6 and 11.

Gygax once said he figured anyone interested in playing the game long term would be "drawn" to being a caster... this wasnt accidental

 

[Garthanos]

I dunno - when the party is (quite literally!) down to its last hit point and the only standing PC puts a critical into the arch-lich and destroys it, saving the party at the same time - yeah, it don't get better than that. Play of the Year!

Funny how the awesome play is just a piece of plastic rolling a certain way coincidentally and mine are heroes working together and exploiting the situation and bring together their resources and deciding this is really important we need it.

 

[Lanefan]

Funny how the awesome play is just a piece of plastic rolling a certain way and mine are heroes working together and exploiting the situation and bring together their resources and deciding this is really important we need it.

I find that successes - even major ones - that come after lots of careful planning and scouting and management are always somewhat anti-climactic, in that unless something goes wrong somehow they're pretty much a foregone conclusion. You can see them coming, there's no surprise when they happen, and thus there's much less emotion involved.

Never mind that I'd have probably gotten bored with all the planning long since, and gone and done something rash.

 

[Garthanos]

A complete absence of dungeons wouldn't feel like D&D to me.

Underground tunnel delving required really? Not cities and mysterious forests with Temples to evil gods and castles with realistic one room tiny actual dungeons?

 

[Tony Vargas]

wizards by 1e RAW they had that speed-up between about levels 6 and 11.

And they weren't the only ones, either. Druids sped up from, maybe, 4-11, IIRC?

In retrospect I have to wonder /why?/ The sweet spot was something like 3-9, at the outside, why zip through part or even most of it?
And, then after name level, everyone just hit the wall.

Something 5e progression got very right, IMHO, savoring the sweet spot, then speeding back up.