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

[Maxperson]

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.

2 more to effective AC at low levels was decent, but not some God button that made energy draining undead a speed bump. And God forbid there is a necromancer present with a fireball or lightning bolt prepped to be launched at the now very tightly packed group.

 

[Hussar]

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).

"Force out of position"? What rules were those? Unless you mean there was some other monster teamed up with level draining undead - that wasn't itself undead or anything else hedged out by the Protection from Evil.

Again, it's always down to play experience. For example those of us who came to AD&D from Moldvay Basic played with reroll Max HP at 1st level if you got a 1 or a 2 (which was a bigger benefit for wizards and thieves) because that's what Moldvay told us to do. We also kept the stat adjustment rules from Moldvay, so, every fighter always had an 18 strength. Between 4d6k1 and being able to trade 2:1 stats, you were guaranteed at least one 18.

And, if you played in large groups, like I did, then paladins were a pretty common thing. Sure, it was hard to roll up a paladin, but, when you've got eight or nine PC's, it's actually not all that rare. And, frankly, we were probably .... errr... being creative with our die rolling at chargen. But, even being straight up honest, it wasn't that hard to get a paladin. And, if you didn't like henchmen, there were always dogs - probably the absolute best NPC's in the game.

Like I said, if you're used to having eight or nine PC's, three or four NPC's troops (which we always made sure to take care of very well - it's spectacularly effective for loyalty when you have a paladin in the group and then heal a couple of them from time to time) and then eight or so attack dogs, it was closer to a small army assault.

 

[CleverNickName]

This thread is really, really making me crave a Blue-Box Rules run-through of "The Isle of Dread" again.

 

[Maxperson]

"Force out of position"? What rules were those? Unless you mean there was some other monster teamed up with level draining undead - that wasn't itself undead or anything else hedged out by the Protection from Evil.

Again, it's always down to play experience. For example those of us who came to AD&D from Moldvay Basic played with Max HP at 1st level because that's what Moldvay told us to do. We also kept the stat adjustment rules from Moldvay, so, every fighter always had an 18 strength. Between 4d6k1 and being able to trade 2:1 stats, you were guaranteed at least one 18.

And, if you played in large groups, like I did, then paladins were a pretty common thing. Sure, it was hard to roll up a paladin, but, when you've got eight or nine PC's, it's actually not all that rare. And, frankly, we were probably .... errr... being creative with our die rolling at chargen. But, even being straight up honest, it wasn't that hard to get a paladin. And, if you didn't like henchmen, there were always dogs - probably the absolute best NPC's in the game.

Like I said, if you're used to having eight or nine PC's, three or four NPC's troops (which we always made sure to take care of very well - it's spectacularly effective for loyalty when you have a paladin in the group and then heal a couple of them from time to time) and then eight or so attack dogs, it was closer to a small army assault.

The odds of fairly rolling a 1e paladin were one tenth of one percent. You'd need 500 PCs in the party to even have a 50% chance of getting a paladin for any given group. 50 PCs would lower that to 5%. Sounds like you were indeed being creative with the die rolling.

Our DM had a special rolls table that would sometimes get you bonus stats, and even with that and incredibly high PC turnover, paladins were very rare.

 

[Alzrius]

But no one here was making that argument.

Sure, but that's an observation that's at best pointless, and at worst counterintuitive, since someone making that argument somewhere else is the entire reason this thread exists.

 

[Hussar]

2 more to effective AC at low levels was decent, but not some God button that made energy draining undead a speed bump. And God forbid there is a necromancer present with a fireball or lightning bolt prepped to be launched at the now very tightly packed group.

Nope. Reread the spell. Level draining undead flat out could not approach within 10 feet.

 

[Hussar]

The odds of fairly rolling a 1e paladin were one tenth of one percent. You'd need 500 PCs in the party to even have a 50% chance of getting a paladin for any given group. 50 PCs would lower that to 5%. Sounds like you were indeed being creative with the die rolling.

Our DM had a special rolls table that would sometimes get you bonus stats, and even with that and incredibly high PC turnover, paladins were very rare.

One in a thousand? That was only true if you were using 3d6. That's not the presumed rolling method for AD&D. And, I DID say that we were using 4d6 drop 1 arrange to taste.

 

[Alzrius]

The odds of fairly rolling a 1e paladin were one tenth of one percent. You'd need 500 PCs in the party to even have a 50% chance of getting a paladin for any given group. 50 PCs would lower that to 5%. Sounds like you were indeed being creative with the die rolling.

That depends on the rolling method used. Check out this excellent bit of analysis over on Delta's D&D Hotspot:

Compleat Character Creation Catalog: AD&D

Math, history, and design of old-school D&D.

deltasdnd.blogspot.com

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Nope. Reread the spell. Level draining undead flat out could not approach within 10 feet.

Protection from evil does not prevent a level-draining undead from … level draining you.

From the 1e PHB-

When this spell is cast, it acts as if it were a magical armor upon the recipient. The protection encircles the recipient at a one foot distance, thus preventing bodily contact by creatures of an enchanted or conjured nature, such as aerial servants, demons, devils, djinn, efreet, elementals, imps, invisible stalkers, night hags, quasits, salamanders, water weirds, wind walkers and xorn. Summoned animals or monsters are similarly hedged from the protected creature. Furthermore, any and all attacks launched by evil creatures incur a penalty of -2 "to hit" the protected creature, and any saving throws caused by such attacks are made at +2 on the protected creature's dice. This spell can be reversed to become protection from good, although it still keeps out enchanted evil creatures as well. To complete this spell, the cleric must trace a 3' diameter circle upon the floor (or ground) with holy water for protection from evil, with blood for protection from good -- or in the air, using burning incense or smouldering dung with respect to evil/good.

 

[Oofta]

That depends on the rolling method used. Check out this excellent bit of analysis over on Delta's D&D Hotspot:

Compleat Character Creation Catalog: AD&D

Math, history, and design of old-school D&D.

deltasdnd.blogspot.com

Rumor has it that some unnamed groups just let people set their charisma to 17 if you wanted to play a paladin. We ... umm ... I mean those unnamed groups ... thought it was a dumb rule.