D&D General Lethality, AD&D, and 5e: Looking Back at the Deadliest Edition

[CleverNickName]

That's how I remember it. Death wasn't even the worst thing that could happen in AD&D. Most players preferred death to falling victim to level drains or rust monsters.

The rust monster was, and remains, the best and most under-utilized monster in D&D. I love them so very much.

The melee Fighter would dominate every encounter over and over again, thumping his chest and kissing his biceps and bragging loudly about how easy every single battle was, while the Cleric was using every bit of her magic to keep him healed and the Wizard was cowering in the corner unable to survive a single hit. "HA HA YOU GUYS SHOULD GET IN HERE AND FIGHT WITH ME, IT'S REALLY FUN!" the Fighter would bellow, oblivious to everyone else at the table rolling their eyes in exasperation.

So the DM throws in a rust monster and lo, it's finally the Fighter's turn to cower in the corner, afraid to take a single hit, while the Cleric takes a break from healing and the wizard cocks his crossbow. "YOU'RE RIGHT, HUNKY McSTRONGJAW!" the wizard gets to say, finally, for the first time in six gaming sessions. "COMBAT REALLY IS FUN!"

 

[Thomas Shey]

The rust monster was, and remains, the best and most under-utilized monster in D&D. I love them so very much.

The melee Fighter would dominate every encounter over and over again, thumping his chest and kissing his biceps and bragging loudly about how easy every single battle was, while the Cleric was using every bit of her magic to keep him healed and the Wizard was cowering in the corner unable to survive a single hit. "HA HA YOU GUYS SHOULD GET IN HERE AND FIGHT WITH ME, IT'S REALLY FUN!" the Fighter would bellow, oblivious to everyone else at the table rolling their eyes in exasperation.

So the DM throws in a rust monster and lo, it's finally the Fighter's turn to cower in the corner, afraid to take a single hit, while the Cleric takes a break from healing and the wizard cocks his crossbow. "YOU'RE RIGHT, HUNKY McSTRONGJAW!" the wizard gets to say, finally, for the first time in six gaming sessions. "COMBAT REALLY IS FUN!"

And then gets killed by the first opponent with a bow because the fighter is no longer a factor.

 

[CleverNickName]

And then gets killed by the first opponent with a bow because the fighter is no longer a factor.

My rust monsters never used bows, but now I see that I missed a really great opportunity.

Seriously though, I remember how my brother (who always played the Fighter) honestly believed that the whole purpose of the adventuring party was to carry him around and keep him alive just so that they could watch him kill everything. It got pretty stale, so it was fun to turn the tables every now and then.

To @Snarf Zagyg 's point about AD&D, if there was ever a situation where "the fighter is no longer a factor," I would just...not run certain encounters. That room full of trolls? Nah, that's just a couple of skeletons until the fighter is back up. That death-trap on the floor? It's just an ordinary rug until the thief wakes up. Etc.

 

[Thomas Shey]

My rust monsters never used bows, but now I see that I missed a really great opportunity.

Its not like you can't have the selection of stone age tribesmen with their rust monster pet.

Seriously though, I remember how my brother (who always played the Fighter) honestly believed that the whole purpose of the adventuring party was to carry him around and keep him alive just so that they could watch him kill everything. It got pretty stale.

Well, that's just a case of what you sometimes see called "Main Character" disease these days. Its always been a kind of toxic behavior pattern in the hobby, in and out of the D&D-sphere.

 

[Malmuria]

The shift happened early, if anything I think TSR tried to resist it: a lot of people looked at DnD not as a way to expand their wargame or as a game about dungeon-crawling, but as a way to play out their favorite fantasy stories (novels, comics, etc.)

Totally agree. I think this is part of why it makes more sense to talk about "cultures of play" rather than going purely by edition math. Because you could work out the math for AD&D and figure out how deadly it was in terms how often a given AC would get hit and how many hits it would take to down them. But there's a lot of variability, even within the "player skill" culture, in terms of how that works out at the table. And once you have Dragonlance style adventures, well, then the characters can't die.

 

[Hussar]

Again, it's all about play experiences. Level drain was insanely powerful. Until someone actually managed to make a paladin, had a permanent 10 foot protection from evil up and level draining undead became a speed bump because they can't actually hit the paladin or anyone within 10 feet of him.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Again, it's all about play experiences. Level drain was insanely powerful. Until someone actually managed to make a paladin, had a permanent 10 foot protection from evil up and level draining undead became a speed bump because they can't actually hit the paladin or anyone within 10 feet of him.

Assuming all that was there was the level drainers, not something that could force the paladin out of position or just take them out. (Some of those, of course, were no longer relevant themselves once Holy Swords were in play).

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I think there is some conflation going on between the rules and designers pushing deadly play and DM's pushing deadly play.
Any version can be deadly if the DM decides to make it so.
But to argue that dnd 5e the dnd that literally has short rest and long rest to let the characters recover is more deadly than any version of DND is like arguing that Oranges are more sour than lemons. It's just not true.

You’re realize Clint wasn’t making that argument, correct? At least not in the text you quoted.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Yes, as per what's written in the OP, where Snarf mentions "I saw a comment in my favorite meta-thread a week or so ago that, roughly boiled down, was, "Yo. AD&D wasn't that difficult. Heck, combat was much less lethal than later editions like 5e. AD&D was practically easy mode. By fourth level, you really couldn't die in AD&D.""

I suppose you can engage in some semantic finagling about "more deadly than any later edition" versus what Snarf wrote (which is itself a paraphrasing of the original post that he's referring to (or at least, I think that's it)), but the basic idea that 5E is deadlier than AD&D 1E/2E is very much there, and it's not true.

But no one here was making that argument.

 

[Maxperson]

That's how I remember it. Death wasn't even the worst thing that could happen in AD&D. Most players preferred death to falling victim to level drains or rust monsters.

Level drains and missing body parts were what I hated. Rust monsters weren't so bad, because we could generally recover by looting the bodies of the next fight. Wizard kills something with a spell and the fighter grabs the weapon and shield. After the fight(not foot) more loot ensues. I just viewed like a trap that destroyed some gear, like getting hit by a fireball.