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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
2e, the most lethal edition?
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<blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 7636771" data-attributes="member: 15700"><p>I said there were no SoD and I was mistaken about that. But it doesn't change the fact that it was more lethal overall in 2e than 3e, as explained. saving throws in 2e were much harder until you got to high level. We know the overwhelming period of playing the game was before you got to high level. So in actual play, the game was much more lethal for 2e PCs than 3e in the context of saving throws for when it was being played. If 75% of game play was 2e being harder, then you can't really argue that 3e is more lethal just because it happened to be for 25% of the game play. The overall numbers still swing to 2e as being harder. Especially when the penalties for failing a save were much, much worse than in 3e.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not sure what you're misunderstanding here. Everything you have said that was hard in 3e, 2e was harder. Restoration spells were easier to get in 3e, and at lower levels. Penalties for missing saves were not as bad (instantly die is still worse than any death spiral or ability score damage because you <em>instantly died</em>.) You're literally making the argument that 3e is more lethal then 2e because you lived longer than 2e for the same scenarios. Do you even know what "lethal" means?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Not talking about optional rules. As has been pointed out repeatedly, I'm talking about core RAW. And if you're talking about 1e, then why are you even arguing with me, because I've said 2e is the most lethal edition. Are you arguing just to argue? (even if I was talking about 1e, it's still more lethal than 3e for the reasons already given).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A) you still havn't shown how the fighter gets clobbered in one round or two, and B) you can't discount all of the other party members. There is no guarantee that the hill giant would always attack the fighter. Did the rogue sneak attack? Did the caster shut down the giant? There are a million scenarios. You're arguing a disingenuous argument to take a CR7 creature (meant for a whole party of level 7 PCs) and only factoring in 1 PC in the equation.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As was pointed out in the other thread, this is not true either. An orc isn't an orc. As in that other thread, 5e took the orc and put it on steroids, making it tougher and designing it to fight higher level PCs. An orc in AD&D was slightly less powerful than a 1st level fighter. An orc in 5e was designed to be more like a 2nd or 3rd level fighter. Again, it's disingenuous to make the argument you're making, and you know this because just a couple days ago you responded to people explaining this to you. HD <em>is </em>a good metric to use because regardless of edition, it tells us what relative level the monster is in PC terms, where CR is based on a challenge for an entire party.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sacrosanct, post: 7636771, member: 15700"] I said there were no SoD and I was mistaken about that. But it doesn't change the fact that it was more lethal overall in 2e than 3e, as explained. saving throws in 2e were much harder until you got to high level. We know the overwhelming period of playing the game was before you got to high level. So in actual play, the game was much more lethal for 2e PCs than 3e in the context of saving throws for when it was being played. If 75% of game play was 2e being harder, then you can't really argue that 3e is more lethal just because it happened to be for 25% of the game play. The overall numbers still swing to 2e as being harder. Especially when the penalties for failing a save were much, much worse than in 3e. I'm not sure what you're misunderstanding here. Everything you have said that was hard in 3e, 2e was harder. Restoration spells were easier to get in 3e, and at lower levels. Penalties for missing saves were not as bad (instantly die is still worse than any death spiral or ability score damage because you [I]instantly died[/I].) You're literally making the argument that 3e is more lethal then 2e because you lived longer than 2e for the same scenarios. Do you even know what "lethal" means? Not talking about optional rules. As has been pointed out repeatedly, I'm talking about core RAW. And if you're talking about 1e, then why are you even arguing with me, because I've said 2e is the most lethal edition. Are you arguing just to argue? (even if I was talking about 1e, it's still more lethal than 3e for the reasons already given). A) you still havn't shown how the fighter gets clobbered in one round or two, and B) you can't discount all of the other party members. There is no guarantee that the hill giant would always attack the fighter. Did the rogue sneak attack? Did the caster shut down the giant? There are a million scenarios. You're arguing a disingenuous argument to take a CR7 creature (meant for a whole party of level 7 PCs) and only factoring in 1 PC in the equation. As was pointed out in the other thread, this is not true either. An orc isn't an orc. As in that other thread, 5e took the orc and put it on steroids, making it tougher and designing it to fight higher level PCs. An orc in AD&D was slightly less powerful than a 1st level fighter. An orc in 5e was designed to be more like a 2nd or 3rd level fighter. Again, it's disingenuous to make the argument you're making, and you know this because just a couple days ago you responded to people explaining this to you. HD [I]is [/I]a good metric to use because regardless of edition, it tells us what relative level the monster is in PC terms, where CR is based on a challenge for an entire party. [/QUOTE]
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