TSR Blast from the Past- How to Go Full Monty Haul in AD&D

[Mannahnin]

Holy crud, 120hp? And his stats are stacked.

And at 6' 11" tall, he's 2" short of crossing over into taking damage as a Large-sized creature, per the size rules in the Monster Manual (and as affirmed by Gygax's and Moore's write-ups on Half Ogres in Dragon #29 and #73).

 

[Mannahnin]

Also, a ring of multiple wishes could get you up to eight wishes. If you didn't have the ability score rule (ten wishes per point over 16) you could easily see people walking around with max abilities if they got hold of one.

There seems to be a.... teensy-tiny earseeker-sized excluded middle here.

If increasing a single ability score from 16 to 18 requires twenty Wishes, that certainly says something about the availability of Wishes in that campaign. I think I saw one Wish used in all the years I played AD&D.

In his game it's quite possible some of the mages got to 18th level and thus able to hard-cast Wish, which makes wishes far more reliably available than having to rely on randomly-found devices or very good luck.

And at that point, he'd need to put some limits on what wishes could do in aggregate over time rather than just in one casting.

Possible, but what he actually documented in writing when he talked about it in the 70s was the highest level characters being mid-teens, not 18th. In a Q&A here on ENworld he said that when Mordenkainen hit 18th he was basically retired, and only occasionally pulled out for special one-shots.

And Gary put such restrictions on casting Wish that by themselves they strongly disincentivize using them for power gain. The PH specifies that the caster isn't debilitated if they use the spell to recover hit points, return the dead to life, or save the caster & party from a bad situation. But other sorts of wishes (like increasing ability scores) put the caster completely out of commission, requiring bed rest and unable to use magic for 2-8 days. That's a lot of time for an archmage to spend helpless and exposed to enemy action for a measly 10th of a point to an ability score.

 

[Lanefan]

There seems to be a.... teensy-tiny earseeker-sized excluded middle here.

If increasing a single ability score from 16 to 18 requires twenty Wishes, that certainly says something about the availability of Wishes in that campaign. I think I saw one Wish used in all the years I played AD&D.

I've seen six wishes come from a single run-in with a Deck of Many Things (and four of them were largely wasted!).

Possible, but what he actually documented in writing when he talked about it in the 70s was the highest level characters being mid-teens, not 18th. In a Q&A here on ENworld he said that when Mordenkainen hit 18th he was basically retired, and only occasionally pulled out for special one-shots.

And Gary put such restrictions on casting Wish that by themselves they strongly disincentivize using them for power gain. The PH specifies that the caster isn't debilitated if they use the spell to recover hit points, return the dead to life, or save the caster & party from a bad situation. But other sorts of wishes (like increasing ability scores) put the caster completely out of commission, requiring bed rest and unable to use magic for 2-8 days. That's a lot of time for an archmage to spend helpless and exposed to enemy action for a measly 10th of a point to an ability score.

Let's be pessimistic and say each Wish knocks the mage back for the full 8 days. Retire the mage for a year, i.e. 365 days assuming an Earth-like calendar, put him in a care home where he'll be well looked after while he's in bed-rest mode, and that's 45 (!) wishes coming online.

Which is why there needed to be some in-aggregate limits on what all those wishes could achieve.

 

[Staffan]

I've seen six wishes come from a single run-in with a Deck of Many Things (and four of them were largely wasted!).

Let's be pessimistic and say each Wish knocks the mage back for the full 8 days. Retire the mage for a year, i.e. 365 days assuming an Earth-like calendar, put him in a care home where he'll be well looked after while he's in bed-rest mode, and that's 45 (!) wishes coming online.

Which is why there needed to be some in-aggregate limits on what all those wishes could achieve.

I would have thought having wish age the caster 3 years, with the possible system shock roll needed for each casting, would have been enough of a limitation.

(My reading on whether system shock is needed is a bit unclear. It says that your system shock percentage is the chance you have of surviving a list of magical attacks that includes magical aging. But I'm not sure if that's intended to cover non-attack magical aging as well, such as that you get as a consequence for casting certain powerful spells.)

 

[Mannahnin]

I've seen six wishes come from a single run-in with a Deck of Many Things (and four of them were largely wasted!).

Let's be pessimistic and say each Wish knocks the mage back for the full 8 days. Retire the mage for a year, i.e. 365 days assuming an Earth-like calendar, put him in a care home where he'll be well looked after while he's in bed-rest mode, and that's 45 (!) wishes coming online.

Which is why there needed to be some in-aggregate limits on what all those wishes could achieve.

I don't think that dog will hunt.

A) We're talking about jealous and powerful archmages, who typically have rivals or archenemies (a la Jack Vance's Dying Earth) and don't want to spend any more time helpless than they can possibly avoid. Gary's writings about the Greyhawk archmages imply a similar attitude to Vance's - cautious to paranoid and always on guard against those rivals.
B) Given that the person who wrote the rules by his own admission never routinely ran for PCs of 18th+ level, any "need" we're talking about here is speculative and dubious.
C) In the scenario you describe we're talking about investing a year of helplessness into getting two ability scores up to 18; more like four ability scores with more average rolls for debilitation.
D) As Staffan pointed out, the 3 year aging and possible accompanying System Shock roll also makes casting huge numbers of Wishes a dubious prospect at best.

I can absolutely see a need to limit Wishes, so as not to upturn a campaign world. The particular limit Gary set re: ability scores on page 11 of the DMG is obviously unnecessary and silly unless one's campaign is practically overrun with Wishes.

 

[fuindordm]

Out of curiosity, how did you use both weapons? Fighting with two weapons was restricted to using either a dagger or a hand-axe as the second weapon (DMG), absent alternate or additional rules (Dragon Magazine, UA, etc.).

I'm assuming you're using post-DMG (1e) rules, because the short sword of speed is one of them fancy items that didn't exist back then.

Lareth in T1 uses a staff of striking in one hand and a mace in the other, and the room description specifically says he is using TWF so has -2 to the mace attack based on his Dex.

That's some serious NPCheese!

 

[James Gasik]

Lareth in T1 uses a staff of striking in one hand and a mace in the other, and the room description specifically says he is using TWF so has -2 to the mace attack based on his Dex.

That's some serious NPCheese!

Ah yes, Lareth the Beautiful, a human male and favored of Lolth (?!). What a pain in the butt with -1 AC and 5th level in an "introductory" adventure (not to mention his Phylactery of Action- basically a Ring of Freedom of Movement!). Thing is, at least in my copy of T1, it says he has a Staff of Striking and a mace, but it doesn't actually specify he dual wields.

(Though, Jesus Gary, what is up with those stats? If I showed up at a table with three 18's, a 17 and a 16, I think my DM would laugh at my brazen cheating, lol, even with the 9!).

 

[Mannahnin]

Ah yes, Lareth the Beautiful, a human male and favored of Lolth (?!). What a pain in the butt with -1 AC and 5th level in an "introductory" adventure (not to mention his Phylactery of Action- basically a Ring of Freedom of Movement!). Thing is, at least in my copy of T1, it says he has a Staff of Striking and a mace, but it doesn't actually specify he dual wields.

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(Though, Jesus Gary, what is up with those stats? If I showed up at a table with three 18's, a 17 and a 16, I think my DM would laugh at my brazen cheating, lol, even with the 9!).

IIRC a lot of sample NPCs in AD&D had monstrous stats.

I don't remember the module specifying for sure that he dual-wields, though some people infer it. The original cover art seems to depict him doing so.

 

[fuindordm]

Ah yes, Lareth the Beautiful, a human male and favored of Lolth (?!). What a pain in the butt with -1 AC and 5th level in an "introductory" adventure (not to mention his Phylactery of Action- basically a Ring of Freedom of Movement!). Thing is, at least in my copy of T1, it says he has a Staff of Striking and a mace, but it doesn't actually specify he dual wields.

Here's an excerpt from the room description in my version (the T1-4 compilation, product no. 9147):

 

[RealAlHazred]

It occurs to me, Gary had a character in the original campaign who was a fighter-type (Yrag?). I think he was also a dual-wielder? It seems to have been common back then, and not in combinations that would be allowed when they developed and published rules for TWF.