AD&D 1E Three Things that can't be Fixed in 1e AD&D

[Lanefan]

Yes, all of these are immanently fixable. We know because people played AD&D (and AD&D 1&2, for the ability scores) for decades, mostly by each group finding their own solutions.

I think that's part of the problem -- the kludginess of the system can sometimes be part of the experience. The only solution I've come up with that maintains the sense of the old thing but also regularly makes characters one would want to play is some kind of multiple attempt method. Maybe up to 'roll until you get something you are satisfied with' with some kind of constraint stopping someone from pressing until they have all-18s or the like.

We just use 5d6drop2 then rearrange the rolls to suit. It's worked fine for 45 years.

We've also found that starting stats aren't much - as in, on one side or the other of statistically irrelevant - of a predictor of a character's in-play adventuring lifespan or career length.

Generally in favor. The issue I have (actually an issue with stats 19-25 in general) is roll-under-attribute checks. Obviously not part of the system as it is in B/X (or with NWPs in 2e), I don't know many who did not use them. Not insurmountable, but an issue that would require attention.

Easy: just say a 20 always fails (or has something go wrong) no matter how high the stat is.

 

[Celebrim]

How many wishes are available in your setting/game? And how many of those are used to increase stats? IME the answers are, in sequence, not many and none.

sigh I knew when I posted that you'd obstinately miss the point. Yes, there aren't so many wishes and in general they aren't used for that. The more salient observation is the system is designed to produce that outcome. This is Gygax saying "no" while pretending to say "yes".

But the point wasn't whether this was a functional and well used means of increasing your stats.

If you spilt out percentile strength into integers then at least it becomes consistent: 10 wishes per point above 16. It also makes the Cavalier's percentile-increment system work consistently with itself and not have most Cavaliers hitting 18.00 by mid-high level, and also allows one to port that same system out to every class rather than just Cavaliers (a move we made instantly, once we saw how the percentile-increment system worked).

I know how it works. Part of my write up of the revised thief was to give them the Cavalier ability to raise attributes, in that case for DEX. I'm likely to do this with a revision of every class that needs an 18 to unlock its full abilities, and really the thief is the least concern there. (And again, this would actually be dragging the game in the direction of 3e regardless of my intention.)

But a more salient point would be that in the roughly 10 years we've been talking about 1st AD&D rules and design, you've never once been able to respond to me without referencing at least one house ruling, and often two or three. You are further diverged from 1e AD&D than I am in these revisions, and less like 1e AD&D in many respects than 2e AD&D is. You've got your own whole system going, and that's fine, I do love a good homebrew, but please seeing as you've wholesale changed almost the entire game over those 45 years you've been playing, don't make the claim then that it "just works for you". Because if it did, you'd be playing something closer to RAW and not something that is as big of a fork as "Chivalry & Sorcery" or other early fantasy heartbreakers. Yes, obviously your aesthetics are different than Ed Simbalist and you are fixing different "problems" to get things where you want them to be, but otherwise you are your own game system that is 1e AD&D only in the inspiration.

I have no idea how you're dealing with the surprise problem, but the very fact that you thought the problem I had with surprise was that it was too lethal is just so telling. As things like the 1988 Dragon article shows, I'm not making up any new post-WotC idea that the system has problems that can be resolved by a recourse to the published rules. This didn't come to me from my lack of experience of "old school" play. This understanding comes from actually having run 1e AD&D which, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure you have ever done.

 

[Celebrim]

We just use 5d6drop2 then rearrange the rolls to suit. It's worked fine for 45 years.

We've also found that starting stats aren't much - as in, on one side or the other of statistically irrelevant - of a predictor of a character's in-play adventuring lifespan or career length.

I can't help but find these two statements contradictions. You've invented as is usual your own method of ability score generation. But, also, your invented method of ability score generation has a higher baseline than anything but Method III, but more spikes (more 18's) than any official method except Method V, and has more flexibility in playing what you want rather than what you are given. You are obviously solving some problem, and it's hard not to think that the problem is at least tangentially related to adventuring lifespan and career length as whatever else that it does, it will tend to create more survivable and more desirable adventurers than any of 1e AD&D's original methods. Whatever your intention, you've been hard dragged by something in the same direction every other designer went. If that something isn't the problems in ability score generation and matching ability scores to character utility that I'm describing, then what is is?

 

[Lanefan]

What I mean is that at low levels, there's often little you can do about it. You can't 'explore level one-half dungeons' or the like. After that, you can choose to take on lesser challenges than you would otherwise attempt, not stick your neck out, and generally play it safe. This makes the game 'playable,' even if it limits the playstyle.

Getting extra attacks and magical weapon pluses (and, let's be honest, gauntlets and girdles) will eventually ameliorate low starting Str on a fighter. As you level, Constitution will also be... comingled with another concern -- hp rolls as you level, making a high or un-high Con not the only thing to worry about on that front.

And any death-revival cycles are going to knock that Con score down.

One thing we did, because the rules were never really clear either way and we had to make a choice, is to hard-lock hit point rolls based on the Con score at the time of rolling, thus any later changes to Con either up or down don't affect your hit point total.

If your Con was 15 from 1st to 4th level you'd get +1 hit point per level, but if during 4th level your Con somehow increased to 16 you don't get extra hit points for the first four rolls (they're locked in at what was rolled at the time) but your 5th-level hit point roll will be at +2.

It wasn't until 3e that it was clearly stated that hit points get changed if-when your Con bonus changes.

Caster % to learn spell rolls and % spell failure are indeed going to be a problem as you level up. Max level cast for M-Us is going to be super-weird in that it isn't a problem right up until it is, and then it's character defining. I can definitely see an entire party going on an epic quest for a fabled Manual of Int-boost to let the party mage cast the next level of spells.

This also depends on how high-level one's campaigns tend to reach. Most casters have Int (or Wis, if Cleric) 16 or better, meaning they don't break any spell limits until 12th level when trying to access 6th level spells (see next para.); and 12th is well into the name levels where characters are in theory retiring from the field in any case.

Side note: on checking both the PHB and DMG to verify/correct my by-memory numbers in the previous paragraph, I can't find that max spell level by Int rule or table anywhere. It came from somewhere - we have it in our games and we wouldn't have invented it ourselves - but where is it in the original rulebooks?

 

[Marc17]

Initiative and surprise are a thing, but although we did go through a multitude of different alternative systems, by far the most common among everybody playing AD&D in the 80's was to just keep using the B/X rules although we eventually went to a d10 initiate system in my group. Never heard of anybody ever trying to "fix" stats before, at least not unless venturing off into their fantasy heartbreaker territory (where they were no double probably trying to also make it a skill based system). Anyway, it's 1E AD&D, if something needs to be fixed, it will get fixed from table to table as needed, perhaps even differing from session to session. This is the way.

 

[cbwjm]

Side note: on checking both the PHB and DMG to verify/correct my by-memory numbers in the previous paragraph, I can't find that max spell level by Int rule or table anywhere. It came from somewhere - we have it in our games and we wouldn't have invented it ourselves - but where is it in the original rulebooks?

The intelligence and wisdom tables note the maximum.

 

[Lanefan]

I know how it works. Part of my write up of the revised thief was to give them the Cavalier ability to raise attributes, in that case for DEX.

Nice!

I'm likely to do this with a revision of every class that needs an 18 to unlock its full abilities, and really the thief is the least concern there. (And again, this would actually be dragging the game in the direction of 3e regardless of my intention.)

I think it might be the other way around: 3e looked at the percentile increment system and said "Hey, why can't all classes do that?".........and then completely overcooked it because, well, that's how 3e rolled.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Side note: on checking both the PHB and DMG to verify/correct my by-memory numbers in the previous paragraph, I can't find that max spell level by Int rule or table anywhere. It came from somewhere - we have it in our games and we wouldn't have invented it ourselves - but where is it in the original rulebooks?

PHB, page 10-11. They are in full-phrase format (rather than a column with just numbers) mixed in with the 'Minimum wisdom for a ranger character' and similar.

 

[Celebrim]

Initiative and surprise are a thing, but although we did go through a multitude of different alternative systems, by far the most common among everybody playing AD&D in the 80's was to just keep using the B/X rules...

This is the second time in the thread someone asserted that, and I have to ask, "How did that work?" What's the translation from 1e AD&D to B/X when the 1e AD&D creature says "Surprised only 1 time in 20" and the other creature has a "90% chance of achieving surprise"? How did you convert that situation into B/X?

 

[Mannahnin]

This is the second time in the thread someone asserted that, and I have to ask, "How did that work?" What's the translation from 1e AD&D to B/X when the 1e AD&D creature says "Surprised only 1 time in 20" and the other creature has a "90% chance of achieving surprise"? How did you convert that situation into B/X?

Sometimes folks unfortunately don't read or understand the question before they answer it.

But I suspect that they're answering sincerely, and I'm going to guess that they simply don't remember what kludges their DMs came up with for all those situations with Rangers and Unearthed Arcana races and various monsters. And that they're answering the more general question of how they dealt with the 1E initiative or surprise systems being difficult or impossible to understand or use as written. Just use the simpler B/X systems.