D&D 2E On AD&D 2E

[DammitVictor]

Uh, wut?

I don't understand this. I can break out my WOG or old modules, and I can assure you that named NPCs have classes and abilities. Because of the simplified nature of things (that you don't have ability scores as saves), they might not bother with the abilities ... but they had them.

Am I missing something?

What I mean is, if you open your book to the stat blocks of the named NPCs, they were clearly not generated using the same rules PCs are expected to use-- their ability scores are ridiculous, and if your character needs to have a couple of 6s in something to be "believable" and "interesting", clearly nobody who has designed these characters for TSR or WotC gives a damn about whether their characters are believable or interesting.

25 point buy +1 to one ability per 4 class levels doesn't qualify you to be a crossing guard in the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

What I mean is, if you open your book to the stat blocks of the named NPCs, they were clearly not generated using the same rules PCs are expected to use-- their ability scores are ridiculous, and if your character needs to have a couple of 6s in something to be "believable" and "interesting", clearly nobody who has designed these characters for TSR or WotC gives a damn about whether their characters are believable or interesting.

25 point buy +1 to one ability per 4 class levels doesn't qualify you to be a crossing guard in the Forgotten Realms.

Well, I'm not sure that's the case with TSR-era D&D in general, certainly not the 70s and 80s D&D I'm familiar!

That said, I do think that there are two separate things to account for-

1. Forgotten Realms. I mean ... it's somewhat notorious for having a lot of overpowered characters, right? Can't throw a brick without Elminster showing up and saving the universe.

2. As a general rule, notable NPCs are those who have survived and triumphed and are likely more powerful and better than others. It's a sampling bias- it's like saying that you don't understand why, when you are looking at professional basketball players, they tend to be so tall.

 

[Mannahnin]

Something to remember about NPCs and ability scores is that... there's a commonality between AD&D and WotC D&D about the fact that named NPCs simply aren't running on the same rules as player characters and player characters aren't supposed to be anywhere near as powerful as the authors' precious pets.

Rock up to most any D&D table in any D&D edition with a 1st level Drizzt Do'Urden or even a Sturm Brightblade and the DM's going to tell you to roll your next character where everyone can see it.

I think there's a bit of a chicken or the egg thing going on here. Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels presumably exemplify the sorts of adventures players are expected to want to emulate, and the kind of heroes they want to play.

Do the stats of novel characters reflect that they are supposed to just be better than the ones we get to play? Or were they indeed meant to be for us to emulate? Or are they merely based on what the authors think the characters need to qualify as heroic and to do the things they do based on the ability score tables and other game rules?

I agree that if I show up to a new DM's table with a character with a crazy stat array (nevermind special extra critical hit rules like Drizzt got in the Hall of Heroes book) he'll likely ask me to roll in front of the group. But the more common situation IME was tables as a whole looking at the rulebooks and published characters and agreeing together "Ok, that's the kind of thing we want to play, so clearly we need some house rules for ability generation", so we could play characters more like Drizzt and less like Rath. Even if we agree that Drizzt is overpowered, and we don't want to go quite that far.

Does some special virtue attach to only playing a character with high stats, say, one out of every six characters you roll up?

Does a culture of expecting that to be the norm result in players scoffing or looking askance at a given player when he gets lucky and gets a Sturm-esque statline?

 

[cbwjm]

I actually quite like using Gygax's additional rule requiring at least two 15s, I think it's a good rule for those early editions and I'd definitely include it for a 2e game. I included it for a 5e game as well, it worked well.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Well, I'm not sure that's the case with TSR-era D&D in general, certainly not the 70s and 80s D&D I'm familiar!

A few months ago when something similar came up, I went back and looked at NPCs in TSR era. Both in the adventure, and pregens. And I'd say roughly 75% of them had superhero stats that never would have happened with any of the methods PCs use. It surprised me, actually, just how blatant it was.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A few months ago when something similar came up, I went back and looked at NPCs in TSR era. Both in the adventure, and pregens. And I'd say roughly 75% of them had superhero stats that never would have happened with any of the methods PCs use. It surprised me, actually, just how blatant it was.

Well, not never. Just very unlikely. I've certainly seen characters with those kind of stats rolled on 3d6 in order.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Well, not never. Just very unlikely. I've certainly seen characters with those kind of stats rolled on 3d6 in order.

I've been playing AD&D since 1981. Never saw character stats rolled legit that ended up like this. Mathematically it's pretty much impossible. And most NPCs in the back of modules were like this. I always figured these were elevated stats because most of those 1e modules were tournament modules first.

 

[James Gasik]

I've been playing AD&D since 1981. Never saw character stats rolled legit that ended up like this. Mathematically it's pretty much impossible. And most NPCs in the back of modules were like this. I always figured these were elevated stats because most of those 1e modules were tournament modules first.

View attachment 284709

With some of the tournament modules, I do remember that the characters with the better stats generally started out at lower level or had worse gear. I could be wrong, darned aging penalties.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

A few months ago when something similar came up, I went back and looked at NPCs in TSR era. Both in the adventure, and pregens. And I'd say roughly 75% of them had superhero stats that never would have happened with any of the methods PCs use. It surprised me, actually, just how blatant it was.

While I basically agree that stat lines like 18 18 17 14 15 18 are implausible and unnecessary especially for local-scale NPCs like some random 3rd level jackalwere bard, you can get some pretty impressive stats with the method "4d6k3, arrange to taste, play recklessly until you die. Repeat until you get amazing stats and then start being cautious."

 

[James Gasik]

While I basically agree that stat lines like 18 18 17 14 15 18 are implausible and unnecessary especially for local-scale NPCs like some random 3rd level jackalwere bard, you can get some pretty impressive stats with the method "4d6k3, arrange to taste, play recklessly until you die. Repeat until you get amazing stats and then start being cautious."

This is also a fair point. There aren't a lot of reasons to just stick it out with a mediocre character. Even if your DM forces you to start at level 1 with starting gear, that just means you're better off getting your bad character killed off quickly.

I never did this on purpose myself, but my group was infamous for making a lot of new characters, and I've always had way more ideas for characters than actual games to play them in. So most of the time, if a character wasn't working out, even if it was good, it wasn't a big deal to switch to another one.

And while the game has methods to bring weaker characters up to snuff, like Tomes, Gloves of Dexterity, Girdles of Giant Strength, Decks of Many Things (which can also turn great characters into soulless automatons hated by every Devil in the Nine Hells!), a lot of DM's seemed pretty stingy with these, lol.