D&D Combat Time - Edition comparisons

[Wik]

Well, we just did a fight today, in our BECMI game, that took the better part of half an hour or so. It was long by BECMI standards, but still rather short around the table. Not exactly the most exciting combat, as it lead towards repetitive die rolls and me wanting to hand wave the whole thing, but it was still rather short.

Most BECMI fights were probably under the twenty minute mark.

 

[Wik]

It's amazing how many Old School things in 4e are decried as being "too new" by people who primarily if not only played 3e ;p

"What is this, I don't have a rope tying skill? How do I tie ropes?!"
"Same way you did in every edition before third, man."

While I get what you're saying, and I actually agree with you, I'm honor bound to point out:

Rope Use: This proficiency enables a character to accomplish amazing feats with rope. A character with Rope use proficiency is familiar with all sorts of knots and can tie knots that slip, hold tightly, slide slowly, or loosen with a quick tug. If the character's hands are bound and held with a knot, he can roll a proficiency check (with a -6 penalty) to escape the bonds.

The character gains a +2 bonus to all attacks with a lasso. The character also receives a +10 percent bonus to all climbing checks made while he is using a rope, including attempts to belay (secure the end of a climbing rope) companions.

Use Rope is a skill that goes back beyond 3e.

 

[Ranes]

I agree that anecdotal evidence is all we're likely to see here. In my experience, 1e combat could be quite long-winded, if all the rules were followed (which I rarely saw). 3e combat is a little more long-winded (until high level, where it varies between extremes). OD&D is pretty quick. 4e never stops.

"What is this, I don't have a rope tying skill? How do I tie ropes?!"

You do have rope-tying skill. You haven't spent any skill points improving it but you have it. What you so seem to need is an untwist my knickers skill.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The earlier editions also had this interesting thing where everyone rolled their hitpoints, even monsters. Combined with that was the fact that everyone's hitpoints were so much lower.

That meant that a significant proportion of monsters were effectively minions, but cost full encounter budget (not that there was such a thing). Just think how often the wizard pulled out fireball and an encounter was either outright ended or reduced to 1 or 2 monsters who took a single hit to dispatch.

Remember also that PCs were also minions

(but still award the correct minion xp - to simulate that slow levelling curve).

By the 1e RAW, that's a myth. If you were using the XP for GP rules rather than banning them through a houserule then 1e and 3e level at about the same rate.

See and this is one of the reasons I don't like 4e; minions. Yes, I realize I don't have to use them, but the rules say I should. Frankly a monster with 1 hp should be small, scaly and speaking in barking yips (kobolds). Anything else should make you go, hmmm can I take it or or we screwed?

I use them for rabble. People that are going to break and run. But you can sure field a lot of rabble.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

While I get what you're saying, and I actually agree with you, I'm honor bound to point out:

Use Rope is a skill that goes back beyond 3e.

NWPs were an optional rule

 

[Raven Crowking]

By the 1e RAW, that's a myth. If you were using the XP for GP rules rather than banning them through a houserule then 1e and 3e level at about the same rate.

That's actually a myth. Using the statements of Gygax and Cook to determine intended/actual levelling rates, source quotes about the amount of treasure expected to be found, etc., it is clear that 3e levels faster than 1e. As a point of fact, that was an intended feature of 3e, because most people never saw higher-level play in earlier editions, and is discussed in Dragon prior to the actual release.

The statistics that make some folks believe that they are the same contain many assumptions that are unwarranted, and have been repeatedly shown to be so.


RC

 

[NewJeffCT]

That's actually a myth. Using the statements of Gygax and Cook to determine intended/actual levelling rates, source quotes about the amount of treasure expected to be found, etc., it is clear that 3e levels faster than 1e. As a point of fact, that was an intended feature of 3e, because most people never saw higher-level play in earlier editions, and is discussed in Dragon prior to the actual release.

Agreed on that - even when using GP as XP rules in 1E, my games still seemed to level more slowly in 1E. And, we did away with GP for XP in 2E, so we really leveled slowly in 2E - at about half the rate we did in 3E/3.5.

 

[NewJeffCT]

While I get what you're saying, and I actually agree with you, I'm honor bound to point out:



Use Rope is a skill that goes back beyond 3e.

Good point, but almost nobody in 2E ever took Rope Use as an NWP.

It's use was far more limited than a lot of the other NWPs that were available to PCs. Tumble, Track, Armor/Weaponsmith, Healing, Survival and a few others were far more common from what I remember.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It's amazing how many Old School things in 4e are decried as being "too new" by people who primarily if not only played 3e ;p

"What is this, I don't have a rope tying skill? How do I tie ropes?!"
"Same way you did in every edition before third, man."

You are right; that is a puzzler. One would imagine that it relates to the general feeling that a character is more-or-less complete (as to be more of a skeleton in earlier editions), and that there may be some form of "balance" issues involved.

Other than that, "Okay Bob, you have a +4 bonus to making dragonfat candles" shouldn't be all that difficult for anyone to grok. Even with that, it shouldn't be that hard to grok.

I imagine that it comes down to expectations. There are a lot of things about 4e I don't like. It has become clear to me that, in a few cases at least, I don't like it because I don't "get it" -- a good DM could bypass those instances of dislike by making me "get it". I imagine that a great DM could do so fairly easily.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Funny, but there's no Use Rope skill in RCFG, either.....and the topic actually came up in play last week! One player asked, "Without a Use Rope skill, how do I tie up our prisoner?" I replied, "Unless you have Escape Artist, we just assume that you do the best job you can, and use the static DC."

Easy-peasy.