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

[SteveC]

I really do wonder how many people really demand full automation. Without expect the game to do all the bookkeeping for you, its not that hard to run most trad style games with just a decent set of die rollers and the capability to support maps and tokens.

A really good question. I play with Foundry and systems like Pathfinder2 and D&D are absolutely incredible with what they can automate. But that's by no means required. I think most people are wanting things like handling characters and die rolling, and having game materials available for pasting into chat. It's things like that. Now I'm sure some folks want it all but I don't know if that's something that many game designers have the ability to do.

 

[Lanefan]

Backstab required your enemy to my unaware of you, humanoid in body type with discernable vital organs and medium sized, and required successful sneak rolls. And this is where if the DM was on your side mattered. Because a generous DM would let you disengage from the battle, hide, and set up your strike again. A strict DM could read unaware as being lost once you attacked and you could not hide again in combat. (The enemy is aware you are there and won't drop their guard for such an attack again). I've seen DMs run it both ways.

For me it very much depends on whether the target is otherwise engaged in melee. If yes, it's pretty easy for a Thief to disengage, hide for a round, then strike again. And I've always had it that a caster is pretty much unaware of anything while in process of casting, meaning they're easy pickin's if the Thief can get close enough.

Sneak attack at least had finite rules for flank and surprise style strikes, guaranteeing you can do damage more consistently.

Which is fair, except then they broke it by allowing ranged sneak attacks.

(Further, the damage was nothing to write home about. Double dice, then add bonus. A thief with a longsword did at max 2d8+2 damage at low levels. With good rolls, to might take out a lone orc, but try it on an ogre and you're a dead thief. And scaling to 5d8 at level 14 basically is too low against anything of reasonable challenge.)

All through 1e and even in 3e we've played such things as "total then multiply", meaning any bonuses get multiplied as well; and while you don't often get a straight kill on a backstrike at higher levels you can sure soften something up.

Hence why I felt the rogue was a better designed class. Sneak attack is more reliable and consistent.

Too much so IMO, eventually leading to 4e where Rogues became the primary damage dealers (which should be the Fighters' job!) and Fighters became defensive tanks (which should also be their job).

Evasion and uncanny dodge gave access to defensive tools to help survive. The weapon finesse feat allowed for better melee ability. The thief when it wasn't sneaking was a half-level fighter with lock picks and unless your DM was good about letting him shine in stealth sequences (and was liberal with applying the rules to thief skills).

The Thief was almost always the party's scout and trap-finder and ideally the DM would reward such activities with some xp now and then. That said, I've always suspected the reason for Thieves needing fewer xp to advance is that the expectation was that they wouldn't get into combat unless they had to, and thus would get less xp than most other classes.

Hence why you were almost always better as a multiclass. You could do something useful when you weren't in the stealth sequences.

Fighter-Thief is a good one; you get access to all the nice Fightery tinker toys and then can use them to backstrike, though at cost of being restricted to very light or no armour in order to be able to sneak. I've seen some Thieves go the MU route for armour (bracers-ring of protection-dexterity) and it's worked out pretty well.

 

[Lanefan]

But thieves sucked at all levels.

And past level 6 or 7, if you didn't play favorites to fighters for loot, mages get way ahead.

And if you didn't get to level 7 or so, then you were supposed to play favorites for mages.

But none of this was told. It was all hidden in the loot tables.

You were supposed to hand out 2 magic swords before a magic mace and 3 magic swords before a good staff.

I've never used the 1e loot tables as written and have since redone them from top to bottom; they still favour warrior types some but the weapon and armour selection is vastly expanded, with the vaguest of nods to supply and demand. For example, every class (and a lot of non-adventurers) can use daggers thus there's likely to be more demand for artificers to make magic daggers than any other weapon, and so "dagger" is the most common weapon on my loot tables.

As for playing favourites - nah, I kill 'em all off equally*.

* - except Cavaliers, who for some reason tend to drop like flies regardless of level, player, campaign, or any other factor.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Nothing to do with the evilness of the DM; more to do with the way that everything in a typical 1e world really was out to kill you

Not really true. There was no requirement to put that stuff in your game. “Evil DM” was just one playstyle amongst many. It just happened to be the one Gary Gygax liked. Lots of people where playing the game differently, even before Dragonlance was published and gave the PCs Plot Armour of Invulnerability.

 

[Minigiant]

I've never used the 1e loot tables as written and have since redone them from top to bottom; they still favour warrior types some but the weapon and armour selection is vastly expanded, with the vaguest of nods to supply and demand. For example, every class (and a lot of non-adventurers) can use daggers thus there's likely to be more demand for artificers to make magic daggers than any other weapon, and so "dagger" is the most common weapon on my loot tables.

As for playing favourites - nah, I kill 'em all off equally*.

* - except Cavaliers, who for some reason tend to drop like flies regardless of level, player, campaign, or any other factor.

But that's my point.

1e & 2e quick building, low features classes were built around the biases of the loot tables and DMs adjudicating for weaker PCs (and against strong PCs).

That's why there were so many swords and axes. If a magic flaming sword dropped, only the fighter and elf could use it.

There is a true intent in the base design. But the mentality of back then was not to tell the customer to hide the fact that the true design style was niche.

 

[Azzy]

Okay, seriously -- I literally mentioned the wizard part of that in the text block you quoted.

Sorry, I missed that.

As for specialty priests, yeah I'm not sure why I considered the DL wizards close enough to count but not the DL priests (which honestly show more similarity to their 2e implementations). I'll edit my text.

 

[Thomas Shey]

A really good question. I play with Foundry and systems like Pathfinder2 and D&D are absolutely incredible with what they can automate. But that's by no means required. I think most people are wanting things like handling characters and die rolling, and having game materials available for pasting into chat. It's things like that. Now I'm sure some folks want it all but I don't know if that's something that many game designers have the ability to do.

A lot of it depends on what "handling characters" means here; as to "having game materials available for pasting into chat" anyone with access to the game in PDF can do that (yes, I'm aware WOTC has a fairly stupid policy here, but other games rarely do that).

But I do sometimes see people who seem to want the VTT to do all the lifting, and yet the same people, in some cases, talk about playing face to face where they're having to do the same things or more than they'd do with a limited VTT, so some of it just seems inconsistent at best.

 

[Voadam]

But that's my point.

1e & 2e quick building, low features classes were built around the biases of the loot tables and DMs adjudicating for weaker PCs (and against strong PCs).

That's why there were so many swords and axes. If a magic flaming sword dropped, only the fighter and elf could use it.

There is a true intent in the base design. But the mentality of back then was not to tell the customer to hide the fact that the true design style was niche.

There were lots of magic swords, not so many axes.

Thieves could use long swords just like fighters. That was part of the balancing, light armor thieves being able to use magic swords while armored clerics could not.

I don’t think it was enough, but it was there as a factor.

 

[Wolfpack48]

There were lots of magic swords, not so many axes.

Thieves could use long swords just like fighters. That was part of the balancing, light armor thieves being able to use magic swords while armored clerics could not.

I don’t think it was enough, but it was there as a factor.

I have never in my lifetime used a rulebook guideline on what magic items to give out. I do what I think makes sense for the adventure and for the party.

 

[Remathilis]

For me it very much depends on whether the target is otherwise engaged in melee. If yes, it's pretty easy for a Thief to disengage, hide for a round, then strike again. And I've always had it that a caster is pretty much unaware of anything while in process of casting, meaning they're easy pickin's if the Thief can get close enough..

All through 1e and even in 3e we've played such things as "total then multiply", meaning any bonuses get multiplied as well; and while you don't often get a straight kill on a backstrike at higher levels you can sure soften something up.

The Thief was almost always the party's scout and trap-finder and ideally the DM would reward such activities with some xp now and then. That said, I've always suspected the reason for Thieves needing fewer xp to advance is that the expectation was that they wouldn't get into combat unless they had to, and thus would get less xp than most other classes.

All of this is what I mean by "The DM has to have a soft spot for you". Allowing multiple backstabs was not RAW, nor was multiplying modifiers. Thems is one of those "rulings, not rules" things. Likewise, the idea that a character would be able to sit out combat was absolutely a table thing. A lot of tables would kick an adventurer who hid during a fight and did nothing.

Still, this kinda progress proves my point: thieves were not good per RAW and it took a conscience DM willing to rule in their favor to make them viable. If your DM was not willing to house rule and bend things in your favor, the class was hot garbage.