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

[Mannahnin]

It is interesting to see just how far the pendulum has swung in RPG fandom since the 70’s, with some grognards and OSR fans complaining about D&D 5E parties full of half-demon, half-dragon, three-quarter-badger multi-class alchemist/ninjas, and fantasy cities that resemble the Mos Eisley cantina scene from Star Wars. And then players who favor that style of RPG play respond by asking “Why would I want to play a regular human in a fantasy or science fiction game? I do that already in real life!”

TBF some grognards and OSR fans point at Arduin and elsewhere as evidence that Mos Eisley cantina is a way a lot of folks played going back to the 70s.

 

[James Gasik]

Speaking of the rule for raising ability scores with Wishes, I've always wanted to know how that came to be. Was there really such a preponderance of Wishes in Gary's game that required such a rule, or did he wake up from a nightmare in which Rob Kuntz figured out a way to get infinite Wishes?

 

[Lanefan]

The TSR-era contained multitudes, pretty much from the beginning (and certainly by '75-'76, once the supplements started coming out). It was a harsh, no-holds-barred game where death came quick and your character was destined to lie a forgotten corpse at the end of a pit-trap spike because they were reaching for that last pile of copper.

Just how I like it.

It was also the game with items of near limitless power, dragons you could turn into mounts, and spells which could rework realities.

This, too. High risk, high reward.

What I notice more than the charge cost is how it eliminates the rest requirement the spell normally has. Mister "You can not have a meaningful campaign if strict time records are not kept" is fine with the time-cost downside of a quality of the game being removed, so long as it is part of the limited and unpromised realm of found treasure. Extrapolating the logic of the rod bestowing the effect, I'm inclined to believe that using it also doesn't age the user 3 years, but perhaps telling which consequence is considered worth mentioning (admittedly this is already clarified in the unnatural aging rules).

That's another wrinkle, the text on DMG p. 13 is "Note: Reading one of the above spells from a scroll (or using the power from a ring or other device) does not cause unnatural aging, but placing such a spell upon the scroll in the first place will do so!" This only mentions scrolls, but the rules for crafting magic items includes "As DM, you now inform him or her that in order to contain and accept the spells he or she desires to store in the device, a scroll bearing the desired spells must be scribed, then a permanency spell cast upon the scroll... Wands and other chargeable items do not require permanency, and of course they are used up when all the charges are gone." Does that mean that the creator of a rod of resurrection had to create a scroll (accepting the aging hit) for each charge on the rod? Given that no demihumans can reach the level of cleric to craft such an item, we're looking at a human cleric with hopefully an 18 con (to survive the 50 system shock checks, even a 17 con/98%^50 puts us at 36%) and some kind of lifespan extension. With all that rigmarole, then seeing the party half-orc assassin need revival and 8 charges disappearing has got to be a gut punch.

Given that, the obvious people to have making these items are the intelligent undead e.g. Vampires, Liches, and so forth. Aging is utterly irrelevant to them, and if they're mage enough to make an item like this they're also mage enough to find a way around the system-shock roll.

All the more indication in my mind that the magic item creation rules were more to keep PCs from doing so than really encouraging it.

Preventing PCs from making magic items is a laudable goal unless you're willing to have the campaign grind to a halt for a few in-game years while the items are being made.

3e went the other way and made item creation quick and easy (at cost of some xp), and in hindsight that wasn't the answer.

 

[Lanefan]

To put 60 points of damage in 1e context, that kills most things in the monster manual in one round. Even most giants had fewer HP than that.

It took until 3e for monsters - by RAW - to finally get proper Con bonuses to their hit points just like characters get.

To me, it never made sense that they didn't - even more so given that in at least some cases they do get their strength bonuses to hit and damage and Dex bonuses to AC - and so I'd long since started giving such bonuses. Doing so made Giants truly fearsome foes again, as they should be.

 

[Lanefan]

Speaking of the rule for raising ability scores with Wishes, I've always wanted to know how that came to be. Was there really such a preponderance of Wishes in Gary's game that required such a rule, or did he wake up from a nightmare in which Rob Kuntz figured out a way to get infinite Wishes?

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.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

To put 60 points of damage in 1e context, that kills most things in the monster manual in one round. Even most giants had fewer HP than that.

So true. An Ancient Red Dragon in 1e was fearsome. Because it was Ancient, it received all 8 hit points per hit die. And it had 11 hit die.

Which means that it had 88 hit points.

In order to find anything that would survive through the second round in one-on-one combat with a Fighter with the Holy Trinity (and everything in the MM would be auto-hit), you'd have to start pulling the "Named Demons" and "Named Devils" -

Geyron (135 hp)
Baalzebull (166 hp)
Asmodeus (199 hp)
...and so on. But for any non-named planar entities, you could pretty much eliminate them in a single round. Even the worst of the worst.

A purple worm (??!!???) had 15 hit dice- one of the toughest beasts in the MM (four hit dice more than an ancient red dragon). But ... while it could max at 120 hp, it averaged 67.5. So maybe one round, or it might make it to the second.

On the other hand, there was lot more "A swing and a miss" in 1e, which is why having all those bonuses stack TO HIT was also insane.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

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.

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.

 

[James Gasik]

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.

Sure, but if magic items that grant Wishes have the potential to wreck one's game (imagine that!), you can just...not have them show up as treasure?

 

[Distracted DM]

Girdles were "cheaper" because (in theory) they were easier to destroy. A dragon breathes on you and all your exposed items were supposed to make saves against dragon fire (or whatever). Even with pluses, your girdle had a decent chance of vaporizing; whereas your gauntlets had a better chance of making their saves.

I started with AD&D, we never played with destroyable worn items.. I do sometimes think that magic items being less "permanent" would be a boon to mixing up PC "builds" in 5e. The only reason a PC is parted from a magic item now is if they've found something better, or if you can somehow convince the PC to sacrifice it for the greater good.

 

[fuindordm]

I went through a DMing phase where I wanted my world to be innovative and weird. I invented strange races and cultures, and had a blast statting out character options.
That phase ended when I started trying to run games in my weird world. The number of players willing to immerse themselves in the lore and avail themselves of the weird options was vanishingly small.
I should have listened to Gary. PCs don't need to be 90% human but players DO need familiar landmarks and hooks to inspire their PC concepts and jump into the game. It is so much easier if you can tell the group "The Sea Orcs are viking-like slavers and raiders" or "The country of Relain is dominated by a small number of scheming noble families, like Renaissance Venice".
So today I make the overall frame familiar and use the weird as spice.