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

[Thomas Shey]

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. .

A lot of people did, though. After all, what was going to teach most people what was appropriate? To develop judgment, you have to have some kind of model to work from.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Especially when their out-of-combat contribution wasn't all that consistent either.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Allowing multiple backstabs was not RAW, nor was multiplying modifiers

It was never explicitly forbidden by the rules either . Which is what I was getting at by saying the rules where loose and based on DM fiat. It taught you that the rules were secondary to the fiction, and could be modified at will. If you played RAW, you were playing it wrong.

Oh, the staff of striking in Baldur’s Gate 1? Multiplies modifiers with backstab.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Perhaps, but if it makes the game more playable I'll rest my case.

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.

Keep in mind a typical 1e party was expected to be 6 or 8 or 10 characters, not the stripped-down parties of 4 that WotC expects; and with that many, one or two not getting involved doesn't make as much of a difference. In fact, IME it's often the case that back-line non-casters can't get involved in some close-quarters combats simply because there's no room for them.

It's when the thief avoids the fighting AND the trap-finding AND the scouting that the kicking starts.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Keep in mind a typical 1e party was expected to be 6 or 8 or 10 characters,

That was something I never saw in practice. I think the most players I ever had back then was four, usually two. I have more players for 5e.

 

[Zardnaar]

That was something I never saw in practice. I think the most players I ever had back then was four, usually two. I have more players for 5e.

We had 4 or so hard core, often 6 and up to 9.

These days I cap group size at 5 for 5E and 6 for Pre 3E/clones.

 

[Lanefan]

That was something I never saw in practice. I think the most players I ever had back then was four, usually two. I have more players for 5e.

Number of players =/= number of characters.

4 players, some running two PCs with one or two adventuring NPCs to fill gaps and some characters having henches - easy to get up to a party of 10. The characters were in general simpler to play than are today's, and massively easier to roll up.

And many of the modules assumed either big groups of lower-level characters or smaller groups of higher, often suggesting a rough range of total levels to aim for. For example, a module that suggested the party be of 30-35 total levels might mean 8 3rd-5th level characters or 5 6th-7th level characters

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Number of players =/= number of characters.

4 players, some running two PCs with one or two adventuring NPCs to fill gaps and some characters having henches - easy to get up to a party of 10. The characters were in general simpler to play than are today's, and massively easier to roll up.

And many of the modules assumed either big groups of lower-level characters or smaller groups of higher, often suggesting a rough range of total levels to aim for. For example, a module that suggested the party be of 30-35 total levels might mean 8 3rd-5th level characters or 5 6th-7th level characters

Henchmen survived slightly less long than an unnamed marine in a xenomorph attack.

No matter how many characters set out, it very quickly became equal to the number of players.

 

[Remathilis]

It was never explicitly forbidden by the rules either . Which is what I was getting at by saying the rules where loose and based on DM fiat. It taught you that the rules were secondary to the fiction, and could be modified at will. If you played RAW, you were playing it wrong.

Oh, the staff of striking in Baldur’s Gate 1? Multiplies modifiers with backstab.

It also meant that one DM could cut you some slack by making backstabbing easy, and another make your life hell by enforcing the letter of the law. And thief was one of the biggest classes to rely on those rulings. Fighter attacks were pretty consistent. Magic obeyed it's own laws. Thieves always relied on Mother May I to function.

 

[Mannahnin]

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.

These are house rules to make the Thief better. In 1E BtB you usually need to have Surprise (see Gary's notes on DMG p19 re: negating the attack form).

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

Eh. Sniping is very much in flavor for assassins (and for Thieves making this sort of attack). B/X always allowed that, going back to 1981 (it just has to be an attack while "unnoticed from behind", and Thieves, who can use all weapons and point-swap to increase Dex, frequently make heavy use of ranged weapons). 1E isn't explicit on it being a melee-only attack, but does imply it by calling it "back stabbing" and only calling out melee weapons as examples in the description on PH p27.

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).

"Should" being a matter of opinion. If you want characters to have clear jobs in a fight (which was part of 4E's intent, and indeed how other editions worked, 4E was just better at explaining it and more consciously designed to build on that), then making the "glass cannon" or "artillery" role a thing for rogues and rangers is a reasonable choice. Of course, the roles weren't straightjackets either, and you could build a fighter to be more focused on damage and less on tanking.

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.

By the book "All surviving characters who took part (no matter how insignificantly) in slaying the monsters" get an equal share of monster XP. Of course monster XP is generally a small fraction of treasure XP, which the players/PCs divide as they choose. DMG p85. I do like awarding individual xp for heroic/clever individual actions, but that's a house rule in 1E and an optional rule in 2E.

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.

Yeah, multi-classing Thieves was a popular option to make them better, although of course then your small faster advancement advantage goes out the window.

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. .

I think the vast majority of us did that! But one of the things text analysis in the OSR taught me is that the tables are set up in ways which are advantageous to certain classes, and that's part of the design. The way my groups played AD&D back in the day, for example, Clerics found usable magic weapons more often than was probably the intent, and Fighters DEFINITELY found badass intelligent magic swords less often than they were supposed to. And as a result Fighters were weaker in our games than they should have been and had fewer cool abilities.

Henchmen survived slightly less long than an unnamed marine in a xenomorph attack.

No matter how many characters set out, it very quickly became equal to the number of players.

Highly variable table to table. In my last (three year) old school campaign the two parties initially went through hirelings and retainers at a pretty high rate. And since those characters only get a half share of XP their advancement was slow. But once a couple of retainers survived longer and gained a level or two, their death rate dropped off a cliff. The players would use them more cautiously as they got more valuable and competent. For ease of play I capped my groups at having as many retainers & henchmen in the party as there were actual PCs. Or they'd have wound up with more.