Balanced encounters - yesterday vs. today

[jdrakeh]

I think the moathouse encounters assume the PCs will be accompanied by NPC allies that join them in Hommlet (e.g. Otis, Spugnoir, etc). Back in the day, the PCs in my games *always* had hirelings, dogs, henchmen, or other NPCs of some sort with them. A group of 4 PCs might have 4-6 NPCs along. I know that became much less common in 2E and especially in 3E.

I don't think I've ever seen a hireling in 3x. Rarely in 2e. That said, yeah, in the AD&D 1e games that I played in, there were always hirelings of some sort in tow -- pike men, deck hands (on ships), and torch bearers seemed especially common. Only the pike men and deck hands seemed to survive very long, though (they were usually low-level fighters).

 

[jdrakeh]

"The biggest thing I've noticed is the sense of danger" (to paraphrase). That's just the first quote. How liberal do I have to be? How do you get from "sense of danger" to knowing how the poster feels about the existence of specific rules?

Because this thread doesn't exist in a vacuum. MANY other threads exist on the topic. Possibly hundreds. I urge you to seek them out.

When you say "people say there were no balance rules in 1E" and none of the 4 quotes say that, I thought it worth pointing out. No sense in attributing an extreme attitude to people who haven't expressed it.

Again, this thread doesn't exist in a vacuum. The cited sentiment has been expressed ad nauseum at these forums and elsewhere. Often in the context of the hyperbolic "3x sucks because it requires balanced encounters and AD&D never had rules for this!"

What "monster levels" are you talking about? Wandering monster encounter tables for dungeons?

No. I'm talking about the list of monsters indexed by level in the MM2 (I think it's MM2, anyhow, memory fails me at the moment. That said, I know that they do exist). It's not a wandering monster table.

 

[Marshal Lucky]

Funny you should mention that. I was just discussing it in another thread:

*Which reminds me: One area of difference is the emphasis in 1E on henchmen and hirelings. They were not only extra muscle, but a source of spare PCs should the "starters" get killed. 2E and 3E don't emphasize henchmen and hirelings (to be fair, a lot of 1E players don't bother with them, either), so they make up for it by making PCs more powerful or using "storylines" and "balancing" to make things even -a poor choice as far as I'm concerned.

 

[jdrakeh]

Funny you should mention that. I was just discussing it in another thread:

*Which reminds me: One area of difference is the emphasis in 1E on henchmen and hirelings. They were not only extra muscle, but a source of spare PCs should the "starters" get killed. 2E and 3E don't emphasize henchmen and hirelings (to be fair, a lot of 1E players don't bother with them, either), so they make up for it by making PCs more powerful or using "storylines" and "balancing" to make things even -a poor choice as far as I'm concerned.

I really miss hirelings, now that I think about it.

 

[billd91]

I think the Moathouse in The Village Of Hommlet is an almost guaranteed TPK if the party is 4-6 1st level PCs. The bugbears (surprise) and ghouls (paralyzation) are the hardest part for 1st level characters. That said, the PCs have the option of running away if the you-know-what hits the fan.

Having played or run through that module at least 3 times with parties ranging from 6 to 10 first level characters, I can say that I've never seen a TPK in the moathouse. Bugbears are sneaky, but rangers used to be a pretty important part of a 1st edition party and they were hard to surprise.

 

[MerricB]

Could someone point me to where in the AD&D DMG, it defines what a balanced encounter is?

From my viewpoint, AD&D promoted the concept that the DM should provide a "balanced" campaign (that is, not a killer game, nor a Monty Haul game), but then left it up to the DM as to how that was achieved. An understanding of what balance was in AD&D came through experience.

Monsters were ranked according to difficulty (I-X), based on XP awards. This difficulty wasn't set against the PCs at all. What group makes a balanced encounter against 2 cockatrices? Instead, it was used to create the "megadungeon" of several levels that increased in difficulty as you progressed deeper into the dungeon. Thus, the players, by choosing what level of the dungeon they wanted to explore, could set the difficulty level of the expedition.

A DM attempting to create an adventure for "6th level PCs" was on his or her own!

However, a DM would gain experience with the system until they could design such adventures, because they'd learnt the relative difficulty of monsters against certain level PCs.

This was aided by the fact the PCs weren't gaining in power too much with each level - one of my pet peeves about 3e - and so being a level or two off wasn't so much of a problem. Even magic-users, who did gain power more quickly than other characters, had the drawback of most of their most potent spells being unusable in various conditions. (Fireball is not a reliable spell!)

Cheers!

 

[Melan]

For my answer to my question, I think a lot of people are remembering adventuring in dungeons designed by their fellow 13-year old DMs, who had no concept or understanding of "balanced encounters" despite the advice in the AD&D1 DMG. The official, published AD&D1 modules were designed with an eye on balanced encounters; unbalanced encounters were as unfun (on the whole, for the gaming hobby) yesterday as they are today.

Quasqueton

That's a good observation, and I have just written an accompanying post in the "perception of OD&D/AD&D as random deathtraps" thread.

As I see it, there were attempts to balance, but balance was achieved somewhat differently (balance by niche protection vs. balance by equal efficiency, balanced adventures vs. balanced encounters) and losses were accepted to be a fact of life.

 

[Melan]

Also, another, although non-TSR example for a totally cavalier attitude with balance and power levels: Judges Guild's Tegel Manor, a sprawling haunted house, has random encounters where you can meet all 100 members of the manor's former inhabitants, the Rumps. Almost all of the Rumps are undead, and range from skeletons and zombies to mighty vampires and liches. Rooms have encounters from a single giant shrew (which can neverthless be quite nasty) to one with a demon and another with a Norse god. Balance is achieved by running like hell in the wrong circumstances. Actually, it works quite well in practice as long as the players are on the same page as the DM.

 

[Glyfair]

Also, another, although non-TSR example for a totally cavalier attitude with balance and power levels: Judges Guild's Tegel Manor, a sprawling haunted house, has random encounters where you can meet all 100 members of the manor's former inhabitants, the Rumps. Almost all of the Rumps are undead, and range from skeletons and zombies to mighty vampires and liches. Rooms have encounters from a single giant shrew (which can neverthless be quite nasty) to one with a demon and another with a Norse god. Balance is achieved by running like hell in the wrong circumstances. Actually, it works quite well in practice as long as the players are on the same page as the DM.

Don't forget that the first encounter (assuming you go through the front door) is with the butler for the house, which is definitely out of the league of almost all the parties when they first encounter him.

For those not familiar with the adventure, and no chance of running in it:L
[Sblock]The butler is a balrog (yes, this was before TSR had to change such things in D&D thanks to the Tolkein estate and had them in the books).[/Sblock]

 

[Melan]

[Sblock]Yes, but it is a balrog ghost, and not a combat encounter: it just asks for the characters' coats and hats, and if attacked, it leaves indignantly through the wall. Full writeup:
A1 50' X 70' X 40' H Butler Bertalan, Balrog Ghost, politely asks to take wraps - indignantly leaves through wall if refused. Three mouldering corpses by outside door.
Now the text doesn't state Bertalan will not counterattack; however, the fact that no HTK (hits to kill) are listed points towards an interpretation that the designers were thinking along my lines.[/sblock]