D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[EzekielRaiden]

I always (mis)read this as the fighter getting up to one attack against each opponent in these cases, which put a limit on it based on how many foes the fighter could reach. Thus, a 10th-level fighter surrounded by 6 commoners would only get 6 attacks, one per foe.

Then again, this is one of those rules that rarely if ever saw the light of day mostly because we usually just forgot it existed, and we quietly scrapped it over the years.

Which is one of the things that makes discussions with conservative, long-entrenched D&D fans so tedious.

They turn off and on rules at their leisure, without really thinking about it much. They heed rules they like and reject rules they don't with a casualness that borders on whim.

And then they treat other systems as being absolute monoliths to be exactingly applied to the atom, every stitch picked over with a fine-toothed comb, without even just...applying the rules in a creative or adaptive way, to say nothing of evaluating whether or not one proceeds. They treat the fact that things get called out--so they can be seen and thought about in advance!--as though it were a binding straightjacket, because apparently ignorance about what the mechanics do, or what they were designed for, is somehow superior to knowledge.

It's part of why I continually check out of threads like this, as I have recently done. The double standard is so strong, it's impossible to have a meaningful discussion.

 

[Lanefan]

Which is one of the things that makes discussions with conservative, long-entrenched D&D fans so tedious.

They turn off and on rules at their leisure, without really thinking about it much. They heed rules they like and reject rules they don't with a casualness that borders on whim.

That's the old-school ethos for you, Gygax's best efforts notwithstanding: the rules as written are merely an adjustable framework and not necessarily even complete, that you then adjust (ideally, locking in your adjustments as you go!) to make the game your own. The rules designers are fallible. No two tables are the same, nor are they intended to be outside of organized play (the RPGA back then wasn't as relevant as AL has become now) or convention tournaments (which used to be a big deal but we just don't see them any more).

And then they treat other systems as being absolute monoliths to be exactingly applied to the atom, every stitch picked over with a fine-toothed comb, without even just...applying the rules in a creative or adaptive way, to say nothing of evaluating whether or not one proceeds.

That's the WotC ethos for you: the rules are inviolate, and not to be messed with. The rules designers are perfect (and if they're not, we'll fire them). Hardly a surprising take, perhaps, from the company whose roots lie in Magic the Gathering; but not a very useful one in the wild west that is the greater D&D community.

They treat the fact that things get called out--so they can be seen and thought about in advance!--as though it were a binding straightjacket, because apparently ignorance about what the mechanics do, or what they were designed for, is somehow superior to knowledge.

That's just it: the WotC editions - 3e and 4e in particular - want their rules to be binding straitjackets. As such, this leaves those rules more open to criticism because they've largely taken away the idea - and general acceptance - of "just fix it to suit yourself".

TSR general principle: you can do it unless a rule says you cannot.
WotC general principle: you cannot do it unless a rule says you can.

For my part, if someone calls out a crap rule in 1e (and hell knows, it sure has some!) I'll just say how I fixed it, and hope others do likewise so we can compare our solutions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's the old-school ethos for you, Gygax's best efforts notwithstanding: the rules as written are merely an adjustable framework and not necessarily even complete, that you then adjust (ideally, locking in your adjustments as you go!) to make the game your own. The rules designers are fallible. No two tables are the same, nor are they intended to be outside of organized play (the RPGA back then wasn't as relevant as AL has become now) or convention tournaments (which used to be a big deal but we just don't see them any more).

That's the WotC ethos for you: the rules are inviolate, and not to be messed with. The rules designers are perfect (and if they're not, we'll fire them). Hardly a surprising take, perhaps, from the company whose roots lie in Magic the Gathering; but not a very useful one in the wild west that is the greater D&D community.

That's just it: the WotC editions - 3e and 4e in particular - want their rules to be binding straitjackets. As such, this leaves those rules more open to criticism because they've largely taken away the idea - and general acceptance - of "just fix it to suit yourself".

TSR general principle: you can do it unless a rule says you cannot.
WotC general principle: you cannot do it unless a rule says you can.

For my part, if someone calls out a crap rule in 1e (and hell knows, it sure has some!) I'll just say how I fixed it, and hope others do likewise so we can compare our solutions.

I do the same with modern rules as well, but you're right that many people seem to treat them as something you're supposed to treat as gospel and follow to the letter. To me, no rule gets that treatment without being vetted for my table. Kinda like @EzekielRaiden and GMs: I don't place blind trust in rules just because they're in a book.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's just it: the WotC editions - 3e and 4e in particular - want their rules to be binding straitjackets.

No. Or at least not 4e.

And the fact that you hold systems you neither know well, nor play, to a different standard than the one you hold the systems you do, is precisely the issue.

As such, this leaves those rules more open to criticism because they've largely taken away the idea - and general acceptance - of "just fix it to suit yourself".

Except that there is a HUGE GAP between these two things!

There is a HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE gap between this--which is literally nothing more than "the rules are suggestions, make up whatever the hell you want whenever the hell you want to for however long you want to"--and "the rules are absolutely ironclad bars, if you even THINK about touching them, WotC will send the Pinkertons after you."

And that's what I don't get. Why one side is judged so goddamn harshly for an element that isn't even present, while the other is literally not just forgiven but actively CELEBRATED for being utterly riddled with things that ARE present and just...ignored, or reworked with a binder of house rules bigger than the gorram bame itself!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I do the same with modern rules as well, but you're right that many people seem to treat them as something you're supposed to treat as gospel and follow to the letter. To me, no rule gets that treatment without being vetted for my table. Kinda like @EzekielRaiden and GMs: I don't place blind trust in rules just because they're in a book.

While I take a little bit of umbrage with the presentation, the core concept--yeah. I don't trust a GM just because they sit on the other side of the GM screen. I don't trust a rule solely because it was written by somebody.

I do think that when one is exposed to a system one has not yet played, one should give it a reasonable space to show its rules. I've heard of more than a few people ripping the guts out of 4e without ever having played it, inventing replacement rules on the spot, and then decrying the whole game as fundamentally broken when their massive house-rules break down horrifically. (Sometimes 5e too, different people of course, but still.) Most hilarious example I ever heard was a GM outright deleting healing surges, making every surge-based heal usable whenever you like, and then decrying the system as a broken mess because characters were "unkillable". Of course they're unkillable, you MADE them unkillable!

And, now that I think about it, that's my stance on GMs too. If it's someone I don't know yet, they haven't earned my trust. But they do merit patience, the opportunity to earn trust--they must be allowed to present evidence through their behavior. Rules are the same. The creators worked pretty hard to make them; that warrants giving them a chance to show their nature.

Part of why I had such strong opinions on 5e at launch is because the public playtest had made very, very clear what the rules were going to look like more than eight months before publication. Which, of course, folks vociferously denied. I got the straight-up slippery slope of excuses. "You can't complain yet, you'll get the tactical combat module in the next packet." "Oh, you can't complain yet, they've said tactical stuff is hard, they're saving it for the final packet" (y'know, ignoring the fact that that means it only gets a single editing pass...) "Oh, you can't complain yet, they'll put the 4e-like rules in the finished DMG." "Oh, you can't complain until it's been out for a couple years first" (Yes, I was LITERALLY told that by a user on another forum, that I literally wasn't allowed to have a negative opinion of 5e until it had been out for at least two full years.)

5e, as "D&D Next", had already said loud and clear what kind of game it was. Folks just buried their heads in the sand about it so they could pretend they were being open and positive toward others' interests without ever lifting a finger to actually support the "big tent" claims the designers constantly made during the playtest.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

So just change the scenario to not have minions? I'm not following.

The scenario was simple. Ogre leader is threatening the town and blackmailing them. The DM wants the leader to have a bunch of followers without blowing out the XP budget. The characters through clever play, scouting and a bit of luck figure out how to set up an ambush. They get the commoner townsfolk helping.

This is where it falls apart. The townsfolk were just supposed to be a distraction, throw some rocks down at the ogres and run away causing confusion and maybe some of the ogres chasing the townsfolk. Except the commoners start throwing rocks and ogre minions are dropping like flies.

I suppose the DM could have ignored the fact that they were minions, could have just had the commoners always miss or something else. But that's just papering over the issue.

Like I said I don't remember if it was ogres, I just remember the discussion around the encounter afterwards.

And here is where I think a creative GM can step in and merge the fiction with the mechanics in a way that makes the players feel empowered.

As the GM creating a encounter along the lines of this idea is describe the ogre squad as having 7 memebers...one clearly the leader.

The party rouses the peasants to harass 3 of the ogres

Those three ogres are now treated like minions from a rule perspective...but the peasants are treated like environment. Their existence is what makes the "normal" ogre a minion. That state maybe exists as a timer.

If the PCs intervene in the peasant versus ogre battle the distraction serves to make it a cakewalk. The ogre has its back turned and is easy prey for the skilled attack.

If the GM wants to increase the pressure maybe the peasants are getting taken out or are ready to flee....thus turning the minions back into normal ogres mechanically. Give the heros a ticking clock to address that threat.

Minions having 1HP can certainly jar the bounds of credibility when used in a vacuum, but when you tie the status with in game fiction to make it obvious which targets are going to be easy pickings then it can be very satisfying.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

 

[Hussar]

Easy. An orc has 4d6-L wisdom score unless the DM uses another method of determining stats. We know this because monsters can have class levels and to be a class in AD&D requires being created like a PC, which means all 6 stats.

As for how much experience a dragon has, that only matters if the dragon has a character class. Experience is life is different from experience for class levels.

Now, for that 5 hit point ogre. The average ogre in 1e has 19 hit points. That's your standard, healthy ogre. If you come across one with 5 hit points, it's going to be a child or decrepit old ogre, not some "minion" ogre that Gygax had no concept of, because it doesn't show up anywhere in the AD&D game. The odds of encountering an ogre like that are pretty slim. Around 1 in 4000 slim. Kinda hard to throw bunches of those at the PCs.

Your 1st level AD&D fighter is almost surely going to be smooshed by any ogre he encounters.

Nope.

AD&D monsters most certainly CANNOT have classes. That wouldn't happen until Casle Ravenloft (the module) was released and a monster actually got class levels.

 

[Hussar]

As written, yes. But if you give said Ogre the Con bonus to its hit points that it should have, that 5 minimum suddenly becomes 25 minimum (Ogres having an average Con of about 18).

How are you arriving at 28 points from a F-1 in a single round? Its max on the die is 12, +3 for double-spec, which comes to 15. Where's the other 13 points coming from? (even maxed-out 18.00 Strength only gives 6 more points o' hurt)

Now a two-handed sword could get closer - max roll is 18, again +3 for double-spec, gets to 21 - but that still ain't 28.

That first level fighter has 3/2 attacks. I never said the FIRST round. I just said in one round. That means our fighter can deal 30 points of damage in a single round without any strength bonus. Give him an 18 strenght and now he's dealing at least 36 points in a round. All at 1st level.

 

[Hussar]

And this always bugged me, until not so long ago when I came up with a system* for decaying class abilities after an adventurer retires. Given that, geriatric Conan would have slowly lost his abilities long ago once he settled down and stopped adventuring.

* - finally; I'd been meaning to do this for decades but only got around to it a year or two back.

Oh, I'd forgotten about this one.

Conan at no point was EVER a weak fighter. He was never 1st level, nor did he get particularly better or stronger from day 1. He was a pulp hero - which means he was a superhero from the outset and stays that way in every story. He gets freaking crucified in the first story and lives - a feat no other human could perform.

D&D has never simulated pulp stories, like at all.