(2nd Edition) Seriously, why it was wise to go around naked, in 2nd Edition D&D

[Edena_of_Neith]

I played 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons for a long time, and 1st Edition for a long time before that. During all that time I had a chronic problem with item survivability, and quite often ended up with a naked character (that is, all his items were destroyed.)
I am saying that naked is better here: the reason I'm saying that is due to the collaterial damage that a character takes when his items are destroyed.
Obviously, a naked fighter cannot swing a sword he does not have. A naked cleric cannot turn undead (I suppose a naked female cleric could attract certain undead ...) and a naked wizard cannot cast spells. And since being naked is illegal in most places (it is legal in Waterdeep, by the way) this is problematic also. Nevermind the cold weather.
And yet, the problem is still there. Consider the following example, based on the experiences of my own characters.

I have a 5th/5th level elven fighter/mage, 2nd edition character.
This character, like many male elves, has long hair (and generally is handsome and imposing the way elves, little as they were in 2nd Edition, are.)
He is wearing a tunic, breeches, soft high boots, a backpack, a belt, a shoulder belt, a quiver with 10 arrows, a waterskin, 3 belt pouches with paper, pen, ink, and assorted spell components, 1 standard spellbook, and a silver holy symbol (an extra holy symbol is useful when the cleric loses his.)
My elf is also carrying a short bow + 2, long sword + 3, short sword, dagger + 2, a wand of fire, and a wand of frost.
The elf is not carrying food. His backpack is occupied by the spellbook. The food is with the pony elsewhere.

After much adventuring, our party runs into an enemy group with a cleric and a mage among their ranks. Initiative is rolled, and unfortunately our party loses.
The enemy fighters do not charge, but instead form a shieldwall. The enemy cleric and mage both fire spells. The cleric fires Hold Person (which, as we all know, was particularly nasty in 2nd Edition), but most of our party is unaffected due to good saves. The enemy mage then drops a Fireball on the entire lot of us.
I made my save for the elf against the Hold Person. I did not make it against the Fireball.
What were the elf's chances of making the save? Pretty good, actually. 50/50. (He needed a base 12 or higher on d20, and had a + 2 bonus for 17 dexterity.) The problem is, one's luck does fail eventually, after it's been tested enough, and it takes a lot of adventuring to gain those high levels (it took a lot of adventuring to get to 5th/5th level, even.)

Here is the result of failing that save against the (in this case) 6d6 Fireball thrown by the enemy mage:
Every item the elf possesses exposed to the Fireball must now save, and here is the number required (on d20) to make the save:
Tunic (cloth) 16, Breeches (cloth) 16, Backpack (cloth) 16, 3 Belt Pouches (leather) 6 each, Belt (leather) 6, Shoulder Belt (leather) 6, Quiver (wood, thick) 7, Waterskin (cloth) 16, Long Sword + 3 (hard metal + 3) only a 1 fails, Short Sword (hard metal) only a 1 fails, Dagger + 2 (hard metal + 2) only a 1 fails, Shortbow + 2 (thick wood + 2) 7, Wand of Fire (hard metal) 2, Wand of Frost (hard metal) 2
The odds are nearly certain something fails it's save. Let us say that in this case, the breeches, backpack, quiver, and waterskin failed. All are burning and considered destroyed.
The elf takes another 1d6 points from the fire damage, and he has a real problem now. He will take that damage every round until he douses the fire (which requires an entire round to do so.) And, all his items must save again this round, against normal fire, and they must save each round the fire is burning. Also, if my elf chooses to ignore the fire and attack, he cannot cast spells (one could not cast spells in 2nd edition when taking damage), and he's going to be at a penalty to attack (his breeches are burning, among other things!) if he goes in to melee.
Furthermore, my elf's spellbook tears out of the burning backpack and falls to the ground, now vulnerable to attack (and spellbooks, are precious commodities.) His arrows are now strewn all over the ground since his quiver is burned through - of course, he can pick up arrows and shoot them, if he wants. If the DM is nasty, my elf cannot move around very well, since his breeches are falling apart and entangling his legs as they burn.
Here are the saves that now must be made:
Tunic (cloth) 13, 3 Belt Pouches (leather) 4 each, Belt (leather) 4, Shoulder Belt (leather) 4, Quiver (wood, thick) 7, Waterskin (cloth) 13, Long Sword + 3 (hard metal + 3) only a 1 fails, Short Sword (hard metal) only a 1 fails, Dagger + 2 (hard metal + 2) only a 1 fails, Shortbow + 2 (thick wood + 2) 5, Wand of Fire (hard metal) 2, Wand of Frost (hard metal) 2
This time, the tunic, waterskin, and one of the belt pouches fail. They alight (and are considered destroyed.)

My elf was going to fireball the enemy, and so pull this ghastly stunt on the enemy group.
However, the party fighters decided to charge (as fighters like to do) and so the Fireball idea had to be given up.
Then, my elf decided to throw Magic Missile, and target the rather obvious enemy mage. A good idea, but since my elf took damage this round, the spell is wasted.
Nothing like Showdown at the OK Corral. Spellcasting, is sorta like that ...

Next round, my most annoyed elf decides to snatch out that wand of frost, and drop a nasty surprise on hot-head mage over there (he's standing behind the enemy fighters, so (evil grin) he's still vulnerable to an area attack effect.)
I win initiative, and my elf fires. He blasts the enemy mage, killing him, literally freezing him solid and leaving him attached to the ground as an ornament.
Unfortunately, my items must still save again, as per normal fire. All of them make it ... except my + 2 long bow. It alights, and it is considered destroyed. And THAT is bad. Also, my elf takes another 1d6 points of damage from the fire (those burning breeches are giving my elf serious problems in a most sensitive place. That nudity thing is starting to sound real good, and real cool, about now ...)
Then, the enemy cleric unleashes his Wand of Lightning at my elf.
I COULD have used some luck here. My elf needed only a 10 (12, - 2 for dexterity) to save. 50/50 chances. But luck wasn't with him, and he failed. He takes 8d6 points of lightning damage. He survives it, and will live to fight another day (if we win this battle), but maybe he will regret surviving ... his items must now save against Lightning:
Tunic (burning), Breeches (burning), Backpack (burning), Belt Pouch (burning), 2 Belt Pouches (leather) 13 each, Belt (leather) 13, Shoulder Belt (leather) 13, Quiver (burning), Waterskin (burning), Long Sword + 3 (hard metal + 3) 8, Short Sword (hard metal) 11, Dagger + 2 (hard metal + 2) 10, shortbow + 2 (burning), Wand of Fire (hard metal) 11, Wand of Frost (hard metal) 11, Elven Chain (hard metal) 11
Both the belt and the shoulder belt fail. Unfortunately, so does the long sword. FORTUNATELY, the elven chain makes it's save (otherwise, it would melt, and my character would sustain an additional 6d6 damage, at least, from the molten metal), but unfortunately, the Wand of Fire does not make it's save.
The Wand of Fire detonates, and my elf takes 2d6 damage (DM's ruling) from the blast. AND, everything must save again, against Crushing Blow (AND, all surviving items must save against Normal Fire this round also, remember.)
The Crushing Blow forces a 6 save for the Wand of Frost. It makes the save. Unfortunately, the elven chain (also a 6) does not, and it ruptures. Repairing elven chain is not an easy prospect, and cannot be done in the wild. Until it is repaired, it is of dubious value.

There is no chance of my character being able to act next round. He is entangled in his damaged armor, and burning and disintegrating clothing. (His long hair is sorta gone, and we have a bald elf now.) He cannot melee, cast spells, or do anything but try and put out the fire.
Which he does.
And then, next round, he takes off his damaged armor.

My now naked elf, can charge into melee with his short sword and dagger (they both survived!)
He even has his Wand of Frost still, to hit the enemy cleric with.
But he is really wondering if he shouldn't have started this battle naked to begin with, and had someone else hand him those wands? ...

 

[Remathilis]

aside from one of the funniest stories I've read, you've got a rough DM who might be bending the rules a bit much.

First rule of thumb, spare clothes in the saddlebags of the horse. Second, spare melee weapon, holy symbol, spell book, and lock picks.

 

[Epametheus]

If my DM actually wanted me to make a save for every single item in my character's possession whenever I failed a save, I'd a) have a dead character with no equipment in nothing flat and b) would be looking for a new, less anal-retentive DM.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

It was a general problem I had, in game after game under various DMs.
In some games, this sudden catastrophic loss of items was too much for the players when it occurred, and led to game trouble. As for me, I simply ended up with some high level characters without much in the way of magical equipment.

Obtaining a change of clothing and items was more problematic than it appeared. Yes, we brought spares, but the destruction of items was very frequent. Many monsters had innate area effect attacks that destroyed items. Most powerful foes had some form of area effect attack.
Sometimes, the items my characters wore were not destroyed per se, but were rather dinted. After 500 hit points (over time) of damage to a character, his magical plate armor is going to be a bit worse for the wear. Especially when large monsters dealt out much of that damage.

Ponies are great for carrying spare items, but they also make great eating for monsters. And ponies cannot enter dungeons, but must wait outside where sometimes they are inaccessible (especially with large modules like the Temple of Elemental Evil.)
Bags of Holding were excellent for holding spare clothing. However, in a few spectacularly unfortunate cases, we lost Bags of Holding (failed saves) with everything in them (think HUGE treasure, lost in the astral.)

Again, a problem with clothing is that it does burn. In 2E, when you were afire you could not cast spells. If you did anything but try and put out the fire, you kept burning (for typically 1d6 or 2d6 per round.) If you were carrying oil or greek fire, of course, you had a worse problem - and a lot of characters carried oil as a weapon in our games.
Any character whose armor failed it's save, if it was metal, was basically out of action. Melting, dissolving, frozen, or shattering armor did enormous amounts of damage to the character, and tended to destroy anything else worn or carried.

About spellbooks ... they were very hard, time consuming, and expensive to make. Protecting them was a real problem. Obviously, they had to be brought along, but if lost, the mage had no replacement spells typically. Chalk up another problem for the mage character ...

I hear that in 3E, area effect attacks rarely affect items. Aren't you glad you live in these modern times?

 

[Crothian]

If my DM actually wanted me to make a save for every single item in my character's possession whenever I failed a save, I'd a) have a dead character with no equipment in nothing flat and b) would be looking for a new, less anal-retentive DM.

Or c) waiting anxiously for my turn to DM him

 

[Staffan]

I hear that in 3E, area effect attacks rarely affect items. Aren't you glad you live in these modern times?

The 3e rules for item incidental damage only come into play on a natural 1 on a save (the only core "fumble" rule, I believe. Oh, that and Use Magic Device.). If you do, you go down a list of stuff likely to be affected, and select the four most likely items you have. Then you roll 1d4 to see which item is affected, and apply the damage of the attack to that item. The item list goes: Shield, Armor, Magic Helm/Hat/Headband, Item in hand, Magic Cloak, Stowed/Sheathed Weapon, Magic Bracers, Magic Clothing, Magic jewelry (including rings) and Other stuff.

In your character's case, I'd say the multiple stowed/sheathed weapons qualify as separate items, and thus the possibly affected items would be longsword +3, short bow +2, short sword, and dagger +2. The items have the following stats:
Longsword +3: Hardness 16, hp 35
Short bow +2: Hardness 9, hp 25
Short sword: Hardness 10, hp 2
Dagger +2: Hardness 14, hp 22

Let's say the 6d6 fireball does a bit more than average damage, say 26. This first gets halved, because it's fire damage against an object (fire, electricity and acid gets halved, sonic is full damage, and cold is quartered), so now it's 13 points. If it hits the longsword or dagger, nothing happens because the damage is absorbed by the hardness. If it hits the short sword, it melts because it's more than the item's hardness + hp. If it hits the shortbow, the bow takes a bit of damage (4 points, so it has 21 hp left) but it's still usable.

 

[William Ronald]

Edena,

Some of the saves in 1st and 2nd Edition were a bit weird. Fortunately, my group seldom had the problem you had of losing everything. I guess we were a bit ahead of our time. Either that, or the DM reallydid not want to think about the characters running around naked. Or the players.

On a more serious note, sometimes it is an interesting challenge for characters to run around with little equipment and have to use their ingenuity. (The classic module A4 in the slaver series had this theme -- and characters running around in very little clothing. Naturally, we had a few jokes when my group ran that one.)

Of course, a few people whinned about losing choice items from time to time-- and the use of a few Mordenkainen's Disjunction spells. I like to think that a character's abilities and wits are more important than his possessions. Few things last forever.

I think a good DM has to see the rules as guidelines, not always as absolutes. After all, the goal of gaming is to have a good time. Sometimes using Rule 0, or good judgement can help make a game more enjoyable.

Now, if we want to talk about rules that were a pain to work with, try either the 1st edition grappling/pummeling rules or the psionic attack rules. It took several minutes one time to resolve a single psionic combat. After that, we pretty much ignored psionics.

 

[Umbran]

But he is really wondering if he shouldn't have started this battle naked to begin with, and had someone else hand him those wands? ...

No, because hindsight is 20/20. You shouldn't analyze the value of a choice based upon things the character cannot have known - like what the next encounter would be.

The party "ran into" the spellcasters. Being naked might be better against them, as they aren't trying to hit in melee. So perhaps you'd be tempted to have your character say, "Hm, I guess since my stuff might get damaged, I shouldn't wear it". If the next encounter had been with non-spellcating giants, being naked would have been very sub-optimal, and the character would be kicking himself for being in the buff, if he survived with intact leg bones, anyway

Plus, those wizards and clerics have high intelligence and wisdom. If you stand there nekkid, and have someone else hand you stuff, they'll figure out that this other guy is your support man, and nuke him first. You, after all, are naked and can be safely ignored for a little while...

 

[Altalazar]

I didn't have that problem with item saves, but with the ole' "you've been captured and stripped naked" staple.

So after one too many games with that, I made up a wild elf character who was naked by default - he was multiclass - fighter/cleric/wildmage, I think it was (2nd ed) - oh, and he painted himself green.

So now he could NEVER be captured and stripped naked. Because he already WAS naked. All the time. Much to the chagrin of just about everyone. Finally, he ended up getting a robe of the arch-magi, because that is the ONLY thing he would EVER wear. It was a fun campaign that ended rather high-level in a rather big climax.

 

[jasper]

except for the secondary fire damage from things on fire, I have no problem with all your stuff making saves.
In 1/2 editions you still had great chances of maintaining stuff. It was very rare that things failed. Of course occasional a player would lose his shirt or magic item. The only thing that scared players worse that losing stuff to a fireball was someone's helm of brilliance cooking off. Half a party was destroyed when my brother's helm blew up. He had laughed at 13 pts of damage from the fireball even when he failed the roll.