What is the essence of D&D

[Garthanos]

I have had players as far back as the 70s who wanted to design their characters own weapons .to me the item creation mechanics are tools for myself and those players a system where the impact of money on character power is ignored seems like an obfuscation. (In 1e wealth expectations were buried it in the random treasure tables and DMs/games which ignored that became an insulted joke).

 

[billd91]

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

Definitely a personal bias on his part. But I seriously doubt there's any significant real evidence of it among the AD&D crowd.

 

[billd91]

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.

Maybe to give each class something of its own sweet spot feeling of improvement? Because, overall, with the possible exception of comparing a main class to a subclass with more benefits (and I think that really only applied to the comparison between fighters, paladins, and rangers), the leveling difference didn't really do much good. They just added mess, particularly for some classes like the thief who could level up long before they could afford to do so by training rules (and thus got stuck) and who never really achieved parity with the other classes despite the quicker leveling at the higher end.

 

[Garthanos]

Definitely a personal bias on his part.

Such affects the game design

 

[billd91]

Such affects the game design

Or is an outcome of his game design. Or is a mixture. Impossible to tell, really.

 

[Hussar]

I gotta admit, I never saw the "you can't afford to train" be even remotely an issue after about 3rd level. In AD&D, about 75% of your xp was from gold, which meant that you had SO much gold floating around that training costs were largely a formality.

Different strokes I guess.

But, I don't think that Gygax was such a terrible game designer that he would create a system where you would level up, but, then not be able to because of a lack of funds and thus would have to wait for everyone else to catch up. That's terrible game design. It would mean that the AD&D designers had absolutely no clue how the game was actually working.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[S'mon]

But, I don't think that Gygax was such a terrible game designer that he would create a system where you would level up, but, then not be able to because of a lack of funds and thus would have to wait for everyone else to catch up. That's terrible game design. It would mean that the AD&D designers had absolutely no clue how the game was actually working.

I think when he set level 2>3 minimum training cost at 3000gp he forgot that Thief XP 2>3 was 1,250. The 1e training rules seem pretty bodged, frankly.

 

[Guest 6801328]

@lowkey13 Well, it was a nice idea for a thread. Better luck next time.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Encounter design.

Absolutely no need for more work there. I never once took magic items into account when designing encounters in 4e.