D&D 5E Do you miss attribute minimums/maximums?

[Helldritch]

Really? Perhaps my experience was abnormal.

Not necessarily, but as I said. I introduced over a hundred of players during 1e/2e era. And by the time you got to access legend and lore it was possible to access magical recepei on how to build magic items.

You think that the reality of 1ed AD&D was such coveted items were so readily available as to allow you to obtain high stats? That was nothing like the reality I experienced, was that perhaps one such desirable item might be found over the course of a parties adventuring career. A Manual of Gainful Exercise is as rare or rarer than wishes. Outside of a Monte Haul campaign where the DM purposefully placed such treasure in large quantities, running into ability score enhancing tomes would either not happen, or happen less frequently than character deaths and certainly too infrequently make a difference if your starting stats were poor. It's far more likely that your DM would simply reroll any result leading to a Girdle of Frost Giant strength as game breaking, than you'll actually get one.

Again, high level characters were able to obtain the knowledge needed to create their own. Why do you think that the rules for creating magic items were more and more limiting from edition to edition? The Dragon magazine was usually filled with new magical items created by living wizards and (to a certain degree) priests. The only + side of making your own magical items was the exp cost required to create one (yep that was in 1ed too). That was forcing the mage to go on adventure more and more.

Ho and don't forget that treasure tables were much more generous then than what they are today. With the gold you could convince an allied wizard/priest to make you an item you desired. You'd have to go on an adventure to get the materials components and all the yaddi yaddas that would come with such a quest. Remember that normaly, it could take years to level a character to level 20+ (It took me 3 years to level my dual 7th level fighter to wizard level 20). And we were gaming 2 times per week. So yep, we had time to find those magic items we wanted.

Legend lore to find either the receipe or the item itself. (contact other could do, but it was risky)
Take teleport to get to the item.
Slay the beast/evil character or whatever guards the items.
Rince and repeat.

So pretty much yes, you could get all these powerful items over time. If your DM was not cheating around and making the items unavailable for nothing. In 1e, magic was almost omnipresent, depending on the setting. Why do you think there was so much complain about the monty haul campaings? I never was a magic distribution machine type DM and yet, at a certain level, these items were becoming more and more available. Not because I was giving in, but simply because at these levels, the players were able to use their brain and ressources to obtain some.

My experience with Method V is that it was generally an excuse to cheat. The average scores it produces are not as high as you might think, but the math is not so easy that the scores it produces are intuitive. So you could use Method V and claim you rolled 4 18's, and people would generally know you cheated but not prove it (and have less reason to care that you cheated). Method V when done in front of the DM is generally not as impressive, as even 9d6 drop 6 lowest only produces an unintuitive ~18% chance of an 18, and has an almost equal chance of producing an undesirable 15 (leaving you potentially with a largely unplayable character of the class you choose). Now, if you do Method V, reroll the 1's, sure... but by that time you're practically just choosing the stats you want and giving yourself the color of not having done so.

In my opinion, the best all around method was Method III, which forced you to take what you got, but all but guaranteed both diversity and desirable characters. Sadly, I never discovered how well it worked until after I'd left 1e AD&D.

In any event, the ability to generate desirable characters with methods other than method I does not mean that my analysis isn't correct. Quite the contrary, the adoption of methodology like Method V was actually a response to the truth I just outlined, because Method V was designed to produce a desirable and playable character and actually did so about 70% of the time without the need to cheat (and 100% of the time if you did, while still at least looking plausible).

Fully agree with you on that one.

 

[cbwjm]

6 per hit die isn't much of a stretch when you consider that the average on a d10 is 5.5.

Oh, and I forgot to mention - we use something we call body points as well (the 'wound' in our equivalent of a wound-vitality system) which gives everyone about another 3 or 4 h.p. in total.

Lanefan

Yeah but it aint just every hit die having at least a 6, the warrior (who presumably had percentile strength) also had an 18 in constitution.

 

[Lylandra]

And I guess we can agree that "a majority" playing D&D as as chain-dungeon-crawler with disposable PCs is a thing of the past. Especially as PC games are now much better in this regard

So of course designers (and us players as well) kind of have to think about a much broader variety of possible playstyles. Nowadays, the whole "meta" about games, audiences, (adventure)design and the like is on a much higher, more refined, some would say "more scientific" level.

 

[Celebrim]

Assuming, of course, that pure combat ability is the be-all and end-all of why and how one creates a character.

No, on the contrary, it's assuming that whatever your aesthetic of play, it's best served by having your player character survive as long as possible. No matter how much you want to engage your thespian instincts, you can't have a fully satisfied dramatic/narrative aesthetic of play if your player character dies and is replaced so often that you can't develop a narrative arc. In other words, in a game that doesn't protect the protagonists with the power of plot, then every gamer that wants to play is best served by being a power gamer - even if challenge or self-validation aren't highly prioritized aesthetics of play.

And a party without a competent Thief is at quite a disadvantage. Scouting? Good luck with that, unless you're outdoors and the Ranger can take the slack. Traps? Sure; these can be overcome by summoned idiots, but that chews up the MU's spells. Locks? Again, the MU can take care of a certain number of these per day but after that she's done, and no other 2nd-level slots either. A Thief can just keep on picking 'em all day...

It depends. Personally, I think that the thief is mostly superfluous, but that the party can gain an advantage out of having one (mostly in spells saved) and the cost of having a minimally component thief is so low that someone ought to either multiclass or dual-class into or out of thief. It's single class thief that I don't recommend, because the advantage in spells saved is generally more than outweighed by the disadvantage in lost hit points, lost damage dealt per round, and lost utility compared to having another spell-caster or another fighter subclass. So, since your humanoid is likely harsh level capped, go ahead and multiclass into thief to give them at least some sort of end game - especially if you are going to be an M-U and you need any help with hit points you can get. If might be worth giving up 7 or so hit points, to have something to do with your dwarf after he level caps at 7th level, and you can make at least some of that back if you survive. Or, go for a Bard build if you qualify. Or consider going straight thief for a few levels, then back out into ranger or fighter to become an archer or specialized short sword wielder to gank things with your backstab. Or if you really want to play a thief in the long term, take a fighter up to 5th level or 7th level or so and then race through the thief class. Now you are thief with better weapon selection, better hit points, and much better damage capabilities. The dual class mechanics ensure you'll be out of the pain if you are leveling up in about the time it takes the rest of the party to gain a level or two.

The point is that having a thief is 'extra'. It stops you from having to open doors by knocking them down, and helps reduce the spells that you have to use to overcome some problems. But if it means that the cleric has to spend more healing keeping the character alive, and that combats on average go a round longer (and the cleric has to spend more healing now keeping everyone alive), and so forth - then it just isn't worth it. On the other hand, you can be a M-U that cast invisibility AND can Move Silently, and you can be a thief that can scout by casting Polymorph Self and turning into a sparrow, a rat, or a bat so that even if you fail your move silently rolls you are unlikely to attract attention or pursuit. You can be a thief that if you can't open that lock, can knock it, and if you can't climb the wall can levitate and if you fall off the wall you can feather fall. Thief/M-U is vastly better than straight thief at the small cost of being a level or so behind. You are also a thief that worst come to worse probably has a magic missile, fireball or cone of cold stashed away meaning you are never completely useless in a combat situation which is a frequent problem straight thieves face after 2nd or 3rd level.

Lan-"fair to say we ditched the 'two-class' rule for Humans about 1983 and replaced it with Elf-like multiclassing"-efan

It's difficult to say which is better. Dual-Class is more flexible but it allows for some heavily twinkish actions to abuse the rules and XP tables. On the other hand, if you aren't level capped, multi-classing would be utterly awesome. Multi-class is after all 'gestalt classing'. You get to avoid the pain of restarting a profession, and you get to wear armor as a M-U. You're a level behind but you have powers out the wazoo.

 

[Celebrim]

Not necessarily, but as I said. I introduced over a hundred of players during 1e/2e era. And by the time you got to access legend and lore it was possible to access magical recepei on how to build magic items.

I'm increasingly realizing you are primarily a 2e player whose ideas about what is normal are primarily set by 2e. I'm not familiar with the rules on creating magic items in 2e, but the rules in 1e for creating magic items are so harsh that generally speaking it does not happen. The only magic items in 1e you might be able to make are scrolls and potions, if your DM is a bit on the generous side, and you won't really be able to create any of them before about name level when you can invest in a stronghold.

Again, high level characters were able to obtain the knowledge needed to create their own.

A minor artifact like a 'Manual of Gainful Exercise'? In 1e they most certainly could not! Such mighty items as that could only be created by ancient NPCs with lore a PC could not hope to obtain themselves. It said so right in the DMG.

Why do you think that the rules for creating magic items were more and more limiting from edition to edition?

Wait... What?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!???!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Seriously, you think that say 3e had more limiting rules for creating magic items than 1e? Compare how difficult it is in 1e to create say a sword +1 compared to how difficult it is in 3e and then come back to me. In 1e you'd be like 13th level before you could even attempt it (compared to 5th), you'd need to specifically research a recipe for doing so, you'd need to have passed your checks for knowing the spells that were required (good luck with that if your INT is less than 18), etc. Third edition was the first edition that outright endorsed magic item creation as something PC's could reliably do without long games of 'mother may I?' and costs that were not usually higher than the benefit gained.

Ho and don't forget that treasure tables were much more generous then than what they are today.

8{

I'm beginning to think we weren't playing the same game. I'm trying to think what treasure table of the AD&D era you think is generous with magic items. If you played straight up by the tables, you'd end up with almost no magic items at all. I had rep as a 'killer DM', but even I would place more magic items than the rules strictly called for.

Remember that normaly, it could take years to level a character to level 20+ (It took me 3 years to level my dual 7th level fighter to wizard level 20). And we were gaming 2 times per week. So yep, we had time to find those magic items we wanted.

I've never seen a character in 1e AD&D hit 20th from 1st. I was in a game for 5 years and my highest level character hit like 12th. The only clue I have you are playing the same game as I'm familiar with is you've got a legitimate power gamer's build in a fighter 7/M-U 20. Double specialized in dart?

 

[Celebrim]

Actually, looking at the numbers. A warrior would have to roll, in average, 6 hit points per hit die and have an 18 constitution to end up with 94 hit points at level 9. That's some good rolling, stats and hit points.

I've seen the stats for Gygax's PC fighter, and his points at 12th level are in that range. Average hit points for a 9th level fighter with 18 Con at 9th level is 86, and you'll hit 90 a few levels after that. Basically, any fighter-subclass with good Con could expect to get to 90 eventually, especially post Unearthed Arcana when you could Cavalier your 16's into 17's and 17's into 18's. Throw on some Full Plate for some virtual hit points, and you could be very hard to kill indeed.

If you didn't have good Con, but you had good Dex, then you could build an archer build and avoid going toe to toe with the foe.

A barbarian with 18 Con could reliably hit ~130 hit points at 9th level. Granted, barbarian was a really slow class to level up, and by the time you got there you'd be levels behind your peers, and barbarian wasn't considered a real power gamers build because it was only really awesome at 1st level, but that was one way to get a ton of hit points.

Bards with say 16 Con can get a ton of hit points as well, because they are a dual-class (actually triple class!) that gains additional HD.

M-U's hit points sucked, and they were too squishy to reliably survive bad luck, but Helldritch points us to a common workaround - take 5-7 levels of fighter, then dual-class back into Wizard. You need great stats to pull it off - basically 17+ Int, 15+ Str, and 15+ Con, but if you have that through some method (ei, method III, method V, luck, wheedling the DM, cheating), then you have a M-U that does not have that problem everyone complains about playing a 1e AD&D M-U wrong (ei, "I only had 1 h.p., and 1 1st level spell, and nothing to do but throw an occasional dart.") By 5th level, your fighter could have more hit points than you'd ever have as a straight M-U. You could be specialized in dart (which was utterly broken to begin with), and you had a chance to pick up some wands and hopefully some bracers before attempting your run as a M-U. Once you hit 5th fighter/5th M-U, you had fireball and could throw darts like a boss, and enough hit points that you weren't going to die from one hit by a giant, or die even if you passed your saving throw on a breath weapon or lightning bolt.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah but it aint just every hit die having at least a 6,

Not every die at 6+, just the average. Rolls of 3-8-7-6-4-9-5-7-5 over 9 levels will get you there.

the warrior (who presumably had percentile strength) also had an 18 in constitution.

I'm assuming the 18 Con, but not the %-Strength - getting one 18 happens reasonably often but getting two is very rare; and for the %-Strength you have to have that 18 at initial roll-up rather than bump into it later.

And I guess we can agree that "a majority" playing D&D as as chain-dungeon-crawler with disposable PCs is a thing of the past.

Er, no; we most certainly cannot all agree on that.

So of course designers (and us players as well) kind of have to think about a much broader variety of possible playstyles. Nowadays, the whole "meta" about games, audiences, (adventure)design and the like is on a much higher, more refined, some would say "more scientific" level.

Which can quickly lead to sterility and blandness in both design and resulting play, if great care isn't taken to avoid such.

Lan-"the surgeon-general advises that chain-dungeon-crawling may be hazardous to your health"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

No, on the contrary, it's assuming that whatever your aesthetic of play, it's best served by having your player character survive as long as possible. No matter how much you want to engage your thespian instincts, you can't have a fully satisfied dramatic/narrative aesthetic of play if your player character dies and is replaced so often that you can't develop a narrative arc.

You're saying I can't get thespian with a one-hit wonder?

Were you and I at the same table when you said that, my next words would be "Just sit down in that chair right there and let me show you how it's done."

In other words, in a game that doesn't protect the protagonists with the power of plot, then every gamer that wants to play is best served by being a power gamer - even if challenge or self-validation aren't highly prioritized aesthetics of play.

There's so many assumptions baked into this statement that I'm not sure where to start.

First off, as a player I still get to see the story - the party's story (which is the one that matters) - play out even if my own role at the table is to, in effect, play a series of bit parts.

Second off, in a randomized system there's only so much powergaming one can do (yay!), and skill during play is more important than "build" during roll-up.

Third off, you're assuming the individual characters are the protagonists; I approach it from a slightly different view: the party as a whole is the protagonist, though its internal makeup may be in more or less constant flux.

It depends. Personally, I think that the thief is mostly superfluous, but that the party can gain an advantage out of having one (mostly in spells saved) and the cost of having a minimally component thief is so low that someone ought to either multiclass or dual-class into or out of thief. It's single class thief that I don't recommend, because the advantage in spells saved is generally more than outweighed by the disadvantage in lost hit points, lost damage dealt per round,

As soon as I see the words "damage per round" my first reaction is to want to just skip to the next post; as all they make me think of is 3e-style powergaming crap that's largely anathaemic to the way I prefer to play.

and lost utility compared to having another spell-caster or another fighter subclass. So, since your humanoid is likely harsh level capped,

We did away with most of those caps ages ago. Were they still a thing, I'd probably more or less agree with your assessment.

The point is that having a thief is 'extra'. It stops you from having to open doors by knocking them down, and helps reduce the spells that you have to use to overcome some problems. But if it means that the cleric has to spend more healing keeping the character alive, and that combats on average go a round longer (and the cleric has to spend more healing now keeping everyone alive), and so forth - then it just isn't worth it. On the other hand, you can be a M-U that cast invisibility AND can Move Silently, and you can be a thief that can scout by casting Polymorph Self and turning into a sparrow, a rat, or a bat so that even if you fail your move silently rolls you are unlikely to attract attention or pursuit. You can be a thief that if you can't open that lock, can knock it, and if you can't climb the wall can levitate and if you fall off the wall you can feather fall. Thief/M-U is vastly better than straight thief at the small cost of being a level or so behind. You are also a thief that worst come to worse probably has a magic missile, fireball or cone of cold stashed away meaning you are never completely useless in a combat situation which is a frequent problem straight thieves face after 2nd or 3rd level.

I've found straight Thieves aren't as bad at combat as you seem to think...provided they don't just wade into the front line and try going toe to toe:

Round 1 - sneak into position and hide
Round 2 - sneak in, two-weapon backstrike, back out when possible if foe not dead
Round 3 - move and hide
Round 4 - sneak in, two-weapon backstrike ... (etc.)

Now this doesn't work with all opponents, but it's a fine start.

It's difficult to say which is better. Dual-Class is more flexible but it allows for some heavily twinkish actions to abuse the rules and XP tables. On the other hand, if you aren't level capped, multi-classing would be utterly awesome. Multi-class is after all 'gestalt classing'. You get to avoid the pain of restarting a profession, and you get to wear armor as a M-U.

No you don't. The MU's no-armour restriction trumps the Fighter-side's ability to wear it, assuming you ever want to cast any spells.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

I'm increasingly realizing you are primarily a 2e player whose ideas about what is normal are primarily set by 2e. I'm not familiar with the rules on creating magic items in 2e, but the rules in 1e for creating magic items are so harsh that generally speaking it does not happen. The only magic items in 1e you might be able to make are scrolls and potions, if your DM is a bit on the generous side, and you won't really be able to create any of them before about name level when you can invest in a stronghold.

A minor artifact like a 'Manual of Gainful Exercise'? In 1e they most certainly could not! Such mighty items as that could only be created by ancient NPCs with lore a PC could not hope to obtain themselves. It said so right in the DMG.

Yeah, and from there the rules for item creation in 1e kind of...aren't.

There were a few Dragon articles back in the day with some ideas, but most DMs were left to dream this stuff up on their own. IME many allowed items to be built, but usually by non-adventuring NPCs at considerable cost and - most importantly - taking a considerable length of time.

Wait... What?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!???!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Seriously, you think that say 3e had more limiting rules for creating magic items than 1e? Compare how difficult it is in 1e to create say a sword +1 compared to how difficult it is in 3e and then come back to me. In 1e you'd be like 13th level before you could even attempt it (compared to 5th), you'd need to specifically research a recipe for doing so, you'd need to have passed your checks for knowing the spells that were required (good luck with that if your INT is less than 18), etc. Third edition was the first edition that outright endorsed magic item creation as something PC's could reliably do without long games of 'mother may I?' and costs that were not usually higher than the benefit gained.

3e swung the pendulum way too far the other way; in that a competent PC could build what she wanted in the few days break between adventures. Bleah!

I'm beginning to think we weren't playing the same game. I'm trying to think what treasure table of the AD&D era you think is generous with magic items. If you played straight up by the tables, you'd end up with almost no magic items at all. I had rep as a 'killer DM', but even I would place more magic items than the rules strictly called for.

The random treasure tables and the published modules are way out of synch on this one; the modules are much richer. Sounds like you used the tables as your guide for how much treasure to place while others (including me) used the published modules as a guide.

I've never seen a character in 1e AD&D hit 20th from 1st. I was in a game for 5 years and my highest level character hit like 12th.

In 35+ years and multiple 10+ year campaigns the highest level any PCs have hit in our games is 12th: so far three have made that lofty height out of well over 1000 played; with another one or two threatening to join them.

Lanefan

 

[Maxperson]

I'm increasingly realizing you are primarily a 2e player whose ideas about what is normal are primarily set by 2e. I'm not familiar with the rules on creating magic items in 2e, but the rules in 1e for creating magic items are so harsh that generally speaking it does not happen. The only magic items in 1e you might be able to make are scrolls and potions, if your DM is a bit on the generous side, and you won't really be able to create any of them before about name level when you can invest in a stronghold.

Enchant an item, permanency and some ingredients the DM comes up with, and a cost. Not onerous at all.

A minor artifact like a 'Manual of Gainful Exercise'? In 1e they most certainly could not! Such mighty items as that could only be created by ancient NPCs with lore a PC could not hope to obtain themselves. It said so right in the DMG.

It wasn't a minor artifact. It was simply a magic item like boots or cloaks, albeit a more valuable and powerful one. I just read the Book of Exalted Deeds and the Manual of Bodily Health. Neither of them says anything about ancient NPCs or PCs not being able to make them, nor does the magic item creation section.

I think your DM was just being cruel.

Wait... What?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!???!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Seriously, you think that say 3e had more limiting rules for creating magic items than 1e? Compare how difficult it is in 1e to create say a sword +1 compared to how difficult it is in 3e and then come back to me. In 1e you'd be like 13th level before you could even attempt it (compared to 5th), you'd need to specifically research a recipe for doing so, you'd need to have passed your checks for knowing the spells that were required (good luck with that if your INT is less than 18), etc. Third edition was the first edition that outright endorsed magic item creation as something PC's could reliably do without long games of 'mother may I?' and costs that were not usually higher than the benefit gained.

I agree with you here. 3e made it trivially easy to make items, if the PC was willing to sit out of the adventure long enough to make one.