D&D General D&D Editions: Anybody Else Feel Like They Don't Fit In?

[Micah Sweet]

It's just a kitbashed mess. It started off as Microlite20 kinda, but it doesn't really resemble that much anymore. The pseudomage was probably most inspired by the character Massha from the old M.Y.T.H. Adventures books.

EDIT: You could probably get pretty close with a few minor houserules to Shadowdark, Knave 2e or Deathbringer. By sheer coincidence, it kinda looks sorta OSR in terms of mechanics, even though I don't play it like an OSR game. I never go into dungeons, for instance.

I love those book. Still have all the old ones.

 

[Pauln6]

So wizards were balanced because DMs would kill them before they got high level magic?

Basically yeah. Wizard and cleric spells were not bundles of status effects back in those days, they were spells that had appeared in fairy stories, legends, classic movies, and religious texts. I loved that you could point to the origin of a spell.

But because wizards in those stories were often antagonists or fighting armies, the spells were scaled to be as epic as the stories, which meant they were balanced really badly for standard conflicts.

They really needed to differentiate combat effects and narrative effects for storytelling purposes. 4e rituals covered this IMO. 5e has gone a bit too far the other way so that rituals are rolled into spells again so that all magic now feels mundane, common, and expected if you want to stay relevant.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I dunno. Its not like the game didn't have at least suggestions as to monsters per dungeon level, and this problem was going to apply to an awful lot of them. The truth was, as best I can tell, that brittleness was probably considered a virtue by Gygax.

Oh, by Gygax? Absolutely agree 100%. He and all the initial players of D&D were wargamers, so expectations of some units being cannon-fodder and easily removeable from the board was I'm sure second-nature to him and an expected part of the game.

 

[DEFCON 1]

One's not connected to the other. It's a fair tradeoff for the differences in power between them. The d4 wizard is a glass cannon. The d12 barbarian is a meat shield. Their HP is suited to their roles in combat. You send out whatever is reasonable for the situation and let the players sort it out. If the fragile wizard wants to face-tank some giants, that's on them. If the beefy barbarian is a coward and hides behind the wizard, that's on them. The HP balance between PCs, monsters, and monster damage sorts itself out real quick and has for about 50 years.

Don't disagree, but I do think how useful it is is going to end up depending on any one player's expectation overall and how much wiggle-room a particular DM wants in terms of how easy it is to knock particular types of characters unconscious.

I mean you're right that there's no established relationship that says d6 through d10 HD are a "good" range and d4 through d12 being "bad". That kind of feeling will come down to the individual. But just in terms of expectation... the closer PCs are in hit points the easier it is to guesstimate when any/all of them will hit 0.

But that isn't necessarily a good thing for a lot of players or a lot of tables, as predictability can become boring. So every table will need to work out their own sweet-spots on how much variance in HP between characters is good for them.

 

[overgeeked]

Don't disagree, but I do think how useful it is is going to end up depending on any one player's expectation overall and how much wiggle-room a particular DM wants in terms of how easy it is to knock particular types of characters unconscious.

I mean you're right that there's no established relationship that says d6 through d10 HD are a "good" range and d4 through d12 being "bad". That kind of feeling will come down to the individual. But just in terms of expectation... the closer PCs are in hit points the easier it is to guesstimate when any/all of them will hit 0.

But that isn't necessarily a good thing for a lot of players or a lot of tables, as predictability can become boring. So every table will need to work out their own sweet-spots on how much variance in HP between characters is good for them.

The other way to go to guess how quickly PCs will drop is scale monster damage to the PCs’ HP. Decide that the wizard should drop in X hits and that will, by default, determine how quickly veryone else drops. For example, 2-hit wizards. Wizards get 6 HP at 1st and an average of 4 HP thereafter. So monster damage is 3 at 1st and +2 per level. Compare that to the d12 barbarian with 12 at 1st and an average of 7 HP thereafter. The wizard needs two average hits to go down…and the barbarian about 3 1/2. Even stacking CON 20, HP feats, racial HP bonuses, etc only adds another hit or two before the toughest barbarian goes down. And that scales perfectly all the way up to 20 because it’s tied to PC HP.

But the great thing about averages is they’re tied to swingy dice. The underlying math works, but once you map that to the dice, all bets are off. Crits, hits, misses, minimum damage, middling damage, max damage, double damage, etc.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, by Gygax? Absolutely agree 100%. He and all the initial players of D&D were wargamers, so expectations of some units being cannon-fodder and easily removeable from the board was I'm sure second-nature to him and an expected part of the game.

And that legacy was just what a lot of people were going to deal with for a while. Some people read it as a virtue (you can see it in the hostility some people, especially in the OS zone, have to encounter building systems or even guidelines).

 

[Weiley31]

We're Enworlders. We don't fit in D&D. We change D&D so IT FITS US!

We either live long enough to become the villains or die/get banned by the mods.

Tis a bloody life indeed.

 

[Desdichado]

I love those book. Still have all the old ones.

Yeah they're great.

Point is, though, I'm totally with you: how magic works is hugely influential on how the game feels. And D&D magic is really pretty unique and esoteric. No matter what else you do with the setting, if you've got D&D magic, your game still feels quite a bit like every other D&D game.

When I wanted a different feel, changing magic was probably the most important thing to change. Looking at Lovecraft instead of Vance, and incorporating a Massha "mechanic" pseudomage archetype means my game feels pretty different. And it reinforces the tone and theme of the game fairly well too, which is the whole point.

 

[Quickleaf]

Have you looked into the Conan TTRPG by Modipheus?

Not the OP. But I'm curious! I have the Monolith Conan boardgame but I never got the Modiphius Conan TTRPG. I've heard good reviews online.

Have you played/run it? What did you think?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah they're great.

Point is, though, I'm totally with you: how magic works is hugely influential on how the game feels. And D&D magic is really pretty unique and esoteric. No matter what else you do with the setting, if you've got D&D magic, your game still feels quite a bit like every other D&D game.

When I wanted a different feel, changing magic was probably the most important thing to change. Looking at Lovecraft instead of Vance, and incorporating a Massha "mechanic" pseudomage archetype means my game feels pretty different. And it reinforces the tone and theme of the game fairly well too, which is the whole point.

Its hard with a single magic system to not get some elements of this, but as you say, D&D magic is extremely specific and doesn't particularly resemble any other magic system (even Vance's).