[Castles and Crusades] Save or Die Madness

[Aus_Snow]

I'm a huge fan of AD&D; my main concern with them is that the books are currently out of print. I have copies (and spare PHBs for both 1E and 2E) but it's not an ideal situation.

I find it puzzling how often and how much the 'virtue' of games being in print is overrated. Hrm, or echoed in the first place.

I honestly don't get it. Books don't just suddenly become less usable (or hey, fun for that matter) the moment some publisher up and decides to stop spewing out further freshly minted copies. Not to mention how easy it is, these days, to pick up second hand books at reasonable prices, for the most part.

Oh, and IME, players generally don't give a toss when something was printed either, or whather the company involved is still making books at all, let alone the particular ones in question. But YMMV, natch.

But anyway, I'm *seriously* not going to try and persuade you one way or another, re: system choice. I. . . just felt I had to say something, given that you're 'a huge fan of AD&D'.

 

[Votan]

I find it puzzling how often and how much the 'virtue' of games being in print is overrated. Hrm, or echoed in the first place.

I honestly don't get it. Books don't just suddenly become less usable (or hey, fun for that matter) the moment some publisher up and decides to stop spewing out further freshly minted copies. Not to mention how easy it is, these days, to pick up second hand books at reasonable prices, for the most part.

Oh, and IME, players generally don't give a toss when something was printed either, or whather the company involved is still making books at all, let alone the particular ones in question. But YMMV, natch.

But anyway, I'm *seriously* not going to try and persuade you one way or another, re: system choice. I. . . just felt I had to say something, given that you're 'a huge fan of AD&D'.

I recently tracked down spare copies of the PHB for 1E and 2E. The main reason is that I have actually tried to convince people to play 1E and the availability of the books has been an actual barrier. No joke.

I agree that, if I were still in my midwest hometown playing with the old gang, this would not matter. We often had one PHB among 5 of us and learned to deal. But I have moved (for school and work) to six additonal cities (and I am about to move to a seventh). So I worry about these things.

But I agree that old groups that have gamed for so many years don;t much care and have a game that they are all comfortable with. It's getting new people involved (I've formed groups successfully and joined in with groups successfully) that the "in print" issue comes up.

That being said, I've been looking at C&C or OSRIC as options. I admit to liking the elegant and easy to tinker rules structure of 1E (am I te only one?).

 

[coyote6]

That being said, I've been looking at C&C or OSRIC as options. I admit to liking the elegant and easy to tinker rules structure of 1E (am I te only one?).

Hardly -- google for "old school renaissance" or "grognardia". A lot of those folks are focused on OD&D or some flavor of Basic D&D, but there's plenty of AD&D love to be found, too.

(Me, I'm not into it; I don't find AD&D's rules at all elegant, for example. But tastes vary!)

 

[jdrakeh]

I think it was less "incompetent" PCs than the idea of a character who had been lovingly gamed up (over say 13x4 sessions = 52 gaming sessions) being blasted out of existence (with a very high probability) with a single level appropriate spell (either disintegrate or finger of death).

Not for my players. The point that my players made was that the instantaneous death scenario you posit was more likely to happen than not, hence the "incompetent" reference. They wanted their players to have a better chance of surviving attack magic than not and the system didn't provide this as it was written.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Yes, its D&D, and happens all the time in the higher level games. In C&C you always worry about your saves, no matter what level you are.

In my experience, with 3e characters at high levels (with little/no multiclassing) characters would have an easy time making saves targeting the Good save, but very rarely make the save targeting the Poor saves.

Multiclassing well can either make saves abnormally better so that even poor saves aren't a drawback. Poorly planned multiclassing can makes saves abnormally bad so that poor saves are a near guaranteed fail at high levels.

 

[Treebore]

Not for my players. The point that my players made was that the instantaneous death scenario you posit was more likely to happen than not, hence the "incompetent" reference. They wanted their players to have a better chance of surviving attack magic than not and the system didn't provide this as it was written.

I guess I am just mean then, if they didn't have up Death Ward, or other spells that at least increased their saves instead of making them outright immune, I had no sympathy.

So if they cry because they have the means to make themselves immune, or at least make themselves have better saves, and didn't, I just say, "Wah!"

I guess Death Ward is worthwhile to not only pray for (its only a cleric spell in C&C), one should pay every last gold coin they have towards making an item enchanted with it as soon as they can.

Thats my thinking on it at least, the system gives them the means to survive, if they fail to utilize those resources, its their fault. No sympathy from me.

 

[Treebore]

In my experience, with 3e characters at high levels (with little/no multiclassing) characters would have an easy time making saves targeting the Good save, but very rarely make the save targeting the Poor saves.

Multiclassing well can either make saves abnormally better so that even poor saves aren't a drawback. Poorly planned multiclassing can makes saves abnormally bad so that poor saves are a near guaranteed fail at high levels.

In my experience the higher the level got, the more buffs were up to enhance attributes, the luck oriented buffs were up, the prayers, protection from evils were up, death wards were up, and all of these were often enchanted onto personal items ASAP, so even on their "weak" save, or saves, they rarely failed. By 20th level it was not uncommon for the PC's to have a typical +10 (and often much, much higher) to all of their saves due to all of these spell effects and stacking rules. Throw in immunities and save bonus' from many of the PrC's and it gets very disgusting.

It was bad in 1E and 2E in this regard, but 3E was much worse. Mostly, I think, due to the inherent magic item proliferation, followed closely by the stacking rules.

All of which does not exist in C&C, so C&C is definitely much more "challenging" since PC's can actually *GASP* fail and die. Granted, there are reasons people don't like that, but there are plenty of ways to avoid dying in C&C, you just have to work towards it, Globes of Invulnerability, Death Ward, the various "buff" spells, etc...

So again, if the players fail to properly prepare and defend, its their fault. Besides, unless its a TPK, you then have Raise Dead and the like to fix the mistakes. Or you can take the opportunity to create a new character, whatever.

Ask Coyote 6 above, my Druid had Death Ward up very often, and it definitely saved me several times. I was prepared for such things, and as a result I lived, and this was in 3E too. It really helped me live through "Bloody Jacks Gold".


*sigh*

Wish I was still able to play with you guys, Coyote.

 

[JeffB]

Re; AD&D book availability: They are all over Ebay, and Amazons used booksellers, and from what I understand many of the used book retailers (I don't have any locally). I bought a set (PHB/DMG/MM-all Wizard Logos) on Ebay in near mint condition for around $25 plus shipping, and the lot also included a WSG, a 2E DMG, and a couple of other D&D oddities. Then of course there are the retailers like Noble Knight, The Hit Pointe, Dragon's Trove etc.


As for C&C- I like the "lean-ness" of the mechanics, but the SIEGE mechanic is defintiely wonky in some ways ( e.g. the fact that a low ability score that is prime, grants an effective bonus twice that of a high ability score non-prime). I have a hard time just ignoring things like that- it makes no sense whatsoever (from a mechanics standpoint).

That said, I don't mind the fact that the game is pretty deadly through the levels compared to 3/4E-must be the Grog DM in me

 

[Votan]

Re; AD&D book availability: They are all over Ebay, and Amazons used booksellers, and from what I understand many of the used book retailers (I don't have any locally). I bought a set (PHB/DMG/MM-all Wizard Logos) on Ebay in near mint condition for around $25 plus shipping, and the lot also included a WSG, a 2E DMG, and a couple of other D&D oddities. Then of course there are the retailers like Noble Knight, The Hit Pointe, Dragon's Trove etc.

Yeah, it's true that internet sellers and rare bookm stores definitely help make the shortage less acute. I might try and advertise a 1E game and see what happens . . .

 

[BASHMAN]

A quick fix is to use a 15/10 split in place of the 18/12 split. That improves the chance of success by 15% for non-prime saves and 10% for prime saves.

Also, depending on their level, characters should have a ring of protection (I have them give a save bonus) of +1 through +5 value to help them out.

Yeah, this is what I do as well.